Chapter 163 Lady Cecilia Harborough
POV: Countess Isolde von Nachts | Crimson Parliament Chambers
The emergency session had been called at eleven at night, which was not unusual for a body whose membership had no biological need for sleep but which still observed the convention of daytime sessions out of habit accumulated over centuries. An eleven o'clock emergency session meant something had happened that couldn't wait until morning, and the quality of urgency in the chamber when Isolde arrived told her it was real urgency rather than the performed kind.
She took her seat and listened to the briefing.
Callum Brennan's crew had breached the perimeter of the Hermetic Order facility beneath St. Thomas Hospital. Twenty-three supernatural signatures confirmed at the north entrance. The facility's alarm system had activated. The Hermetic Order's on-site security team was responding. Parliament's liaison to the Order had sent the alert twelve minutes ago.
Around the table, twelve vampires processed this information and began doing what twelve vampires with competing interests always did, which was talking simultaneously about what it meant for their specific position.
Mordaunt let them talk for four minutes, which was the exact amount of time required to let the room feel like it was deliberating before he spoke.
"This is an attack on a facility operating under Parliamentary liaison status," he said. "We have an obligation to our allies. Send Parliament guards. Reinforce the Order's security team. Apprehend the attackers."
Isolde had been waiting for this.
"The facility," she said, "is holding twelve supernatural children without Parliamentary authorization, as established by the investigation vote three days ago." She kept her voice at the same level Mordaunt used, because matching register was more effective than raising it. "The children include werewolf-vampire hybrids, all minors, all detained without due process. The crew currently entering that facility are attempting to retrieve them."
"The investigation vote authorized inquiry," Mordaunt said. "Not unilateral action by a Rookeries crew."
"The investigation recess you called authorized delay," Isolde said. "Seventy-two hours of procedural delay while children continued to be experimented on." She looked around the table. "I want to be precise about what we are discussing. We are discussing whether to send Parliament's authority to defend a human organization's right to imprison supernatural children."
The room was not as unanimous as Mordaunt wanted it to be. She could see it in the lateral conversations beginning around the table, in the expressions of the three members who were not Mordaunt's reliable votes and who were doing the calculation that the question required.
"Let the wolves rescue the children," she said. "Then we shut down the facilities legally, with Parliamentary authority, in a way that is on record and defensible to the Ancient Council in Geneva, who have already sent one letter of inquiry and will send another when they learn of this session." She set her hands flat on the table. "Or we send guards to defend the Hermetic Order tonight, and we explain that decision to Geneva, to the European Covenant observers who arrived in London this week, and to every supernatural community watching how this Parliament handles human mages imprisoning supernatural children."
The vote, when it came, was seven to five for sending Parliament guards. Mordaunt's faction held.
Isolde absorbed the result without visible reaction and gathered her notes.
In the corridor outside, she stopped her aide with one hand on his arm before he could move toward the communications room.
"The guards," she said quietly. "Their deployment orders. There will be a processing step, a confirmation requirement, a routing protocol." She looked at him steadily. "Find the slowest version of each one."
Her aide understood.
"Twenty minutes," he said.
"Twenty minutes," she confirmed. "Give the wolves a chance."