The Missing Years

Previous entries into this war journal were halted because I misplaced the USB memory stick that held these files. I found it by luck and was surprised the device still worked after almost a decade of abandonment in a drawer somewhere.

I was even more surprised when I found this journal on the memory stick. According to the access logs, the last time I updated this was in the late 00s. It has been about a decade, and those intervening years have been filled with triumph and tragedy.

Therefore, it is necessary to fill in certain events to keep this record current. After our lakeside conversation, I called Lukas Holt and joined his small tactical unit, the Cabal. I have learned a great deal from both Lukas and the various members of his team, whom I now call, somewhat affectionately, my family.

The years have been a mix of calm and quiet that explodes with manic levels of action and intensity. The Darkness has not been content to sit quietly. Plague Cults in Zurich. The capture and subsequent execution of the "Butcher" in Paris, France. Denmark was the setting of a three-stage purge operation that led to the termination of a dozen heretic cells.

Too many investigations have terminated in dead ends or inconclusive, hinting at something worse on the horizon. Whatever it may be, I fear it is beyond The Legion or humanity's understanding.

A significant development of note is the increasing occurrence of stable genetic mutations in humans. While the Legion has had numerous individuals with psychic potential, there continues to be a marked increase in their events.

While most are low-level Alpha or Beta, there has been an increase in both Gamma and Delta. Fortunately, Epsilon and Zeta level psychics continue to remain in low numbers. These last two classes can manifest portals and summon things should their latent abilities become active without proper control or training.

These abilities varied wildly. Some were pyromancers who could manipulate fire with a thought. Others were empaths or precognitive. Those with such talents are becoming more common. Still, those who can manifest their powers in a controlled and valuable fashion remain rare – averaging one individual per million.

I have focused on my personal experiences in this war. Still, it is necessary to clarify that the diffused nature of our enemy means that our battle is fought on a global scale but in secret from the eyes of the general public.

The Legion is a distributed semi-autonomous network. The Operations Centers know the number of active Cabals in their respective geographic areas but not their activities. Secrecy from each other protects us all.

Some Cabals number a handful of Legionnaires, Initiates, and support specialists - like this one. In sharp contrast, "Cabal Hemsworth. " That Australian Cabal boasts 500 active specialists in the field, with thousands in its support cadres scattered across the country. Arguably, Cabal Hemsworth is the entire Legion presence in Australia.

Our fragmentation keeps us isolated and safe from the kinds of coordinated strikes that have wiped out the Legion's presence in a single city. The Legion's history has proven the strategy's validity since time immemorial. Keeping the Darkness from knowing just how many of us are running around persecuting them is always in our best interest.

Most large cities boast at least one Operations Center. These centres clean up the aftermath and keep the war secret from spilling over into the everyday lives of the deliberately kept ignorant masses. These centres are hubs with on-site resources or connections to bring in anyone and almost anything, from professional mercenaries to Subject Matter Experts on even the most esoteric of topics.

If I'm honest with myself, Tamara was the only reason I joined Lukas's Cabal. She was one of his handpicked Initiates who had survived and flourished. She'd done well and opted to work solo for a few years, which is how she ran into me on a cold night in Sainf all those years ago.

Lukas was a rather paternal figure in his way - firm, disciplined, and somewhat distant. But he was always watching out for his people. He took a lost feral feline shifter into his Cabal, primarily because of my association with Tamra.

I confess that I would like clarification on the extent of their relationship. I haven't asked and will never get to ask. That is what this long-winded entry is about: How Cabal Holt would become Cabal Whitlocke.

I joined Cabal Holt, saw combat, killed numerous cultists, heretics, mutants, possessed, and the damned, and earned my wings. I developed investigative skills and did a lot of first undercover and then several short periods of deep-cover work.

I learned much about the stupidity of the young, especially when they started dabbling in the occult. These fools are ultimately more of a threat to themselves than anyone else. I spent time in conclaves, conferences, and councils, learning and discussing the mystical, supernatural, and Darkness. I'll get to more detail on these things as and when appropriate.

Cabal Holt operated out of a single building on the outskirts of Sainf. If you were to walk around that area of Lausanne, you wouldn't find it, because we don't advertise. Suffice it to say that the Cabal owns the building that lines one side of the Route de Bourg, and we rent out the shop lots at street level and the first floor for a tidy profit.

Most of us live in one of the apartments surrounding Cabal's headquarters. We have everything from an entire medical facility to a firing range, armoury, a CSI-like crime lab, workshops, and a garage.

Cabal Holt's membership has changed over the decade that I served. Certain personnel rotated due to being Subject Matter Experts for a few days or weeks. Others supported a single investigation. Sadly, quite a number are now just a name and three dates, occupying a stone pillar in a field somewhere in the world.

When I joined, Lukas described the Cabal's membership as "the best and the brightest that quite possibly came from the bottom of the barrel." When I asked him where he came from, he answered, "Somewhere underneath the barrel."

Despite his lack of reassurance, I fit in quite nicely. In the first few months, we successfully captured and interrogated a band of cultists based at the University of Lausanne posing as a Death Metal band. Only three actual cultists had the most basic of misunderstandings, messing around with rituals, summoning circles, and blood offerings.

The running street fight through the Tunnel District ended up with two Vampyres ashed on the Municipal Police Barracks' doorstep. It took some effort to cover up and have the digital reports misrouted and rewritten. Fortunately, nobody wanted to believe the quartet of police officers who claimed that "someone or something flew up the side of the building with wings." Information abhors a vacuum, after all.

In March 2009, the pace picked up after one of those periods of quiet inactivity. Cabal intelligence operations, under the supervision of Kirsten Ammer, spat out something interesting. Upon a careful review, we believed it to be actionable intelligence.

We mobilized to intercept and capture.