Old Testament: Margarita, Age Fifteen (2)

"I hardly think it necessary, but the implementation rules for special measures do require a short briefing. I'll be brief."

From the passenger seat of the moving van, Giacomo Marchisio turned over a few sheets of the sheaf in his hands and spoke.

"In view of the present risk that Scenario H and Scenario B may occur, the Flute-class measureMonsieur de Paris has been issued."

Scenario H, Herodes: a state-led mass slaughter of its own citizens. And Scenario B, Barabbas: the appearance of an anomaly, past a set threshold of danger, that denied the Catholic faith. They were called scenarios because that was what the word had always meant—and yet either one, the instant it came to pass, was the sort of event that could deal a grievous blow to the order of the world.

"This measure has three trumpets. Apostle Thomas. Apostle Bartholomew. The Vampire Slayer and his disciple. In addition, support from certain Holy Knights of China and Korea is scheduled."

"With that personnel, we will carry out a decapitation strike against Yu Yan, President of the People's Republic of China, who is reaching for a Second Cultural Revolution."

Giacomo turned another page of the printout as he spoke. Han Jihan, in the driver's seat, listened without a word and turned the wheel. Yu Hyena had the back seat to herself and still only just fit, crumpled into it, and was somehow keeping a running memo going in a tiny notebook.

"The best outcome is a successful assassination. The moment our movements are noticed must be the very moment the President is killed. In that case the affair will be released to the public as the crime of a patient with schizophrenia and paranoia—a lone-wolf offense, an outrageous stacking of coincidences, and a demonstration of supreme incompetence by the security detail."

Hoping for that much was, honestly, closer to greed. The odds of success were not vanishingly small in themselves, and they were making what effort they could, traveling by vehicle even if it cost them time. Even so, there were simply too many variables this side had no way to control. What they actually had to prepare for began with the step after that.

"However covertly we try to move, if luck does not favor us the operation is impossible. There is a considerable chance we will be detected before we ever reach the killing itself. In that case we commit at full strength at once and kill President Yu Yan."

Collateral damage, the Secrecy Protocol included, would not be weighed. However the thing turned out, it would still be better than a monotheistic divinity bursting into the world, forcibly parasitizing more than a billion Chinese and drinking their faith dry. A Scenario B that took every person in China for its host was dreadful even to imagine. If they could seal the crisis at the level of an annoying cleanup in the surface world, they would be getting off cheap.

"Even if we scramble to answer it, a human sacrifice isn't the sort of rite that begins the instant someone presses a button, is it? After our plan is exposed, we will still have a little time."

The problem was the case that went further than that—the case in which they were discovered so early that the enemy was given time to spare. The case, in other words, in which the human sacrifice began first.

"If it comes to that, President Yu Yan's apotheosis succeeds. A divinity made out of nationalism: patriotism becomes faith on the spot, and every act of performing a citizen's duty is counted as worship, so he gains enormous power in a single stroke. The whole of the people becomes his congregation whether they wish it or ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠not."

This was, of course, a kind of misreading of the system, and the faith harvested through it would in itself be trivial. Trivial or not, the story changed when the backdrop was China. One billion three hundred million people—take a single dollar from each and the sum had already cleared a billion. Faith worked the same way.

He would hardly reach the level of some cartoon demon king set on conquering the world, but it would be more than enough to stand before the Church and the other great powers and treat them as nothing beneath him. Managed well, it meant mutual annihilation. Managed poorly, he could still force a Pyrrhic victory on his opponent. Ever since von Neumann had devised mutually assured destruction, don't like it, then we all die together had been one of the finest cards in any negotiation between groups. Set it in the surface world, and it was North Korea completing a nuclear weapon that could strike the American mainland. From that moment it was a collapse of grand strategy—something very near a defeat for the Vatican.

"We, however, have Seoyeon."

By rights, that alone would have been the Church's strategic defeat. Now they had one more policy of insurance. Giacomo privately recalled the name a few of the Church's Holy Knights had for her—Tactical Elijah—and went on.

"We raise the offerings from the dead and cancel President Yu Yan's ascension. That is our insurance."

And who was Han Seoyeon? A singularity who, merely by living and breathing in the world, turned ninety-eight percent of every contract touching the soul into scrap paper. A girl who was the natural enemy of every sacrificial rite. The enemy's choice to attempt a mass human sacrifice while she happened to be inside China's borders had itself been a mistake.

"Even so, not even Seoyeon can resurrect an entire province in one stroke. And even if the range allowed it, there is no knowing what injuries the victims will suffer in the course of the offering, so bringing them back at once is impossible."

Put breath back into someone who had died cut in half at the waist, and within a minute that breath would go out again. The body had to be restored at least far enough that it would not simply die a second time. The resurrection of Jiangxi Province would therefore take this form: the physicians and clergy of the hidden world, deployed across the whole region, would repair the corpses, and Han Seoyeon would make a circuit, raising the dead as she went. Reduced to its core, it meant the work would take a fair amount of time.

"Holding the god down through that interval. In this case, what ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠we have to do can be summed up as that."

Call it insurance, and it was still anything but easy.

"And if we assume the worst—a situation in which even that has been answered—then the extermination measure will be carried out."

"The Backfire Protocol."

What came from Han Jihan's mouth was the byname of a genocide operation, a measure born of a simple and appalling notion: if no human being is left alive, a vampire infection cannot occur.

"Strictly speaking, it differs a little in purpose... but from the standpoint of the death toll, there will be little difference."

Giacomo nodded. The simplest and clearest way to kill a god was starvation. The Bowl-class measureDamnatio ad Bestias was the cutting off of faith to that end. Put more nakedly, it was the slaughter of the faithful.

"We ought, at least, to pray it never comes to that."

He said it with a brief smile, as if to clear the air.

A low buzz. The terminals issued to the operation's personnel began to flash red and vibrate.

The faces of the three people in the vehicle went hard all at once. ...No. Han Jihan's face had been like that from the start.

Someone worked the device, and what came through was Han Seoyeon's voice, threaded with a little noise.

No one needed it spelled out. There was no chance Seoyeon would cry out that urgently over a mere string of fires; the situation must have looked plainly unnatural even at a glance, and that was why the call had come. And under the present circumstances, there was only one artificial mass loss of life that could be happening in Jiangxi.

"It would seem," Giacomo murmured, holding hard to his composure, "that the human sacrifice has already begun."

As he spoke, Han Jihan took one hand from the wheel and addressed the terminal.

"Medical unit?"

"Confirmed. Contact the Church as well. Request the Fall of Jericho and the Fall of Apsinthos. Apostolic authority."

"Yes. Please put the request through at once in my name. First, so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that the Secrecy Protocol holds, we cut communications. ...After that, I leave your side of things to you, Seoyeon."

"You take care of yourself as well, Seoyeon."

With that, Giacomo cut the line. That his worst instinct had proved true made him bite down on his lip.

"Jihan."

"No need to say it. I'm already flooring it."

"Yes. As you heard, this is where we stand. I'll open the road, so give everything to speed. The trouble is the transport vehicles coming up behind us..."

Han Jihan fought with several kinds of firearms, and the bulk of that equipment was considerable. Most of the weapons had been loaded into a separate vehicle, to be brought on by other Holy Knights. A look in the side mirror showed it still inside the glass, but the gap had opened wide. Racing ahead and leaving the weapons behind would turn means and ends upside down. They were already short of hands. If Han Jihan lost his arms on top of that and dropped out of the fight, they would be in serious trouble.

"If that's the problem, I'll carry them and run, so don't worry—just think about getting yourselves where you're going!"

A solution came relatively quickly. Bartholomew—Yu Hyena—left the words behind her, flung the rear door open, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠leapt.

A heavy thud sounded from behind the van. Checked again in the side mirror, Yu Hyena had come down in the so-called superhero landing, one knee to the ground. The black hem of Bartholomew's shroud, token of succession to the Apostolic Seat, streamed on the wind.

Then she tore back up the road the wrong way, hard enough that the impacts thundered—Yu Hyena was human, and yet what she was doing was nothing other than driving. She heaved the car packed with Han Jihan's weapons high over her head and broke into a run back toward them.

"Jihan, into that wall!"

"Understood."

There was no leisure to admire it. Giacomo crossed himself in a swift motion and jabbed a finger at the wall ahead.

Crash. Han Jihan drove straight into the spot without a heartbeat of hesitation.

The wall burst apart with an ease that was almost satisfying. From the fragments spraying in every direction rose a thick smell of cookies baked golden-brown.

"Initiation of the offering confirmed. We will treat the Church's attempt to intervene as detected. Any objection?"

"None. If we hadn't been made, this timing would be wrong."

Even if it cost time, covert action in a civilian vehicle came first. For that operation to hold, it required the premise that they had time to spare. And by the information they held, at least at the moment of departure there had been no sign the rite was about to begin. For the offering to have started already meant the enemy had caught wind of the assassination and scrambled into preparations for the sacrifice. Then this side no longer needed to come in quietly.

"Then, as of this moment, we shift to Plan Two. Distance to the nearest transfer point?"

"About five kilometers. Push it to one-twenty and we're there inside three minutes."

Fortunately, it was no great distance. Giacomo nodded. On the scale of the Chinese mainland, five kilometers was the sort of discrepancy one could call merely that.

Plan Two—Plan B—had a simple heart. Drop the priority on stealth, take up the priority on speed, and fly straight for Zhongnanhai. Not as a figure of speech. Fly, in the literal sense. Hundreds of points had been prepared so they could lift off the moment they arrived. Toward the nearest of those transfer points, they ran.

The sky was blue.

It may have been prejudice, but China called up an image thick with fine dust. For as long as Han Seoyeon had been staying here, at least, the sky had been mostly clear. Now that sky was full of black smoke. Flames burned in every direction, bright enough to hurt the eyes, and the smoke they poured out fouled the air. The air itself, hot and heavy with ash, was unpleasant enough that merely breathing it was a trial.

Under that sky, a single motorcycle was tearing down the road at tremendous speed. The rider wore no helmet. Her figure was laid bare.

A girl who still looked underage. Han Seoyeon, of course.

It was a speed at which anything darting from an alley would have been a disaster, and she did not seem to be minding that in the least. No wonder. Even in the middle of a fire this vast, not a single person was running about in a panic. Aside from Seoyeon, everything here fell cleanly into two kinds: corpses already dead, and the medical personnel repairing them.

She did nothing but race the road, murmuring verses of Scripture without end, until her lips were raw.