Vessel, Book I: The Advent Read online

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  Also on that day, Stella Rosin was entering what could have been any Luna Latum facility on the planet, flanked at all times by two silent escorts, who were touching her elbows lightly. She was being guided this way because she could see nothing.

  She had seen nothing, in fact, since she'd left her flat in Zurich six hours prior, not even the escorts who had rang her doorbell. Over her eyes and the crown of her head she wore a smoothly carved mask of black ebony. The eyes of the mask were timeless and empty, neither inattentive nor concerned, the eyes of a Renaissance sculpture. Their contours shielded comfortably over her own closed eyelids, keeping her in total darkness.

  The mask had been worn since the moment the escorts had arrived for her, had been worn down to the waiting car, through the private air terminal, on the chartered flight and during the ride to the sprawling bunker, where she now walked steadily and observantly despite the handicap, her well-carried bones tingling.

  Stella Rosin was used to this sort of thing.

  She was also used to the slight hiccups in bystander conversation as she passed through the corridors. This did not irritate her, nor did it arouse in her any secret pleasure or sense of smug occupational specialness. Had there been a time when such feelings rose up in her? Had she been young and a little bit zealous once; had all the hush-hush ever made her just slightly giddy? Just slightly? Maybe?

  I doubt it very much.

  If Stella Rosin ever derived any excitement from her unique duties, then she expressed it only amongst her colleagues. Stella Rosin was a hunter, and I'm not talking about your typical gap-tooth, trigger-happy buck hunter, either. I'm talking about Luna Latum hunters. They're a whole different breed: precise, alert, unpredictable, and in my opinion, chilly as Otter-Pops.

  And the thing they hunt? You're not ready for that yet.

  Moving on.

  The Luna Latum, in its purest definition, is merely a collection of secrets. Secrets that are handled carefully among its delicate web of members, and handled most carefully among its hunters. Strict limits have always been in place regarding what and whom hunters are allowed to know. Or hear. Or see.

  Hence, the fancy ebony blindfold. Affectionately referred to as blinders, these ornaments symbolically shield the hunters from classified information and important faces. The blinders' primary and informal purpose, however, is something else entirely. Something far more imperative to the life span of a hunter than mere decorum or organizational security. And what might that something be?

  You're not ready for that yet, either.

  My point is that there was no mistaking what Stella Rosin was, not in those lush, stuffy corridors. And so it's only natural that as she was guided along, blinded and thus distinctly marked, people watched with intense curiosity. They continued watching even as the stealthy tread of her shoes against marble hushed further still on carpet. And when two enormous steel doors closed behind her and they could no longer watch, their eyes shifted, their toes lingered, and their ears strained from out in the wings. Some of these people knew nothing about what was going on beyond those doors, while others may have had a faint clue of the details. Secrets, within more secrets. Such is the nature of the Luna Latum.

  One thing was clear to them all, however, one thing which would have been obvious to any Luna Latum employee present, down to the lowliest janitor.

  Allow me to summarize in universal terms:

  When a hunter is personally admitted to a meeting of the Consulate, it means that the shit is moving dangerously close to the fan.