"I've read the reports," I said. "They say that the Venatori Umbrorum and the Fellowship of St. Giles have really pitched in."
"It's more than that. If they hadn't started up an offensive to slow the vamps down, the Red Court would have destroyed the Council months ago."
I blinked. "They're doing that much?"
The Venatori Umbrorum and the Fellowship of St. Giles were the White Council's primary allies in the war with the Red Court. The Venatori were an ancient, secret brotherhood, joined together to fight supernatural darkness wherever they could. Sort of like the Masons, only with more flamethrowers. By and large, they were academic sorts, and though several of the Venatori had various forms of military experience, their true strength lay in utilizing human legal systems and analyzing information brought together from widely dispersed sources.
The Fellowship, though, was a somewhat different story. Not as many of them as there were of the Venatori, but not many of them were merely human. Most of them, so I took it, were those who had been half turned by the vampires. They'd been infested with the dark powers that made the Red Court such a threat, but until they willingly drank another's lifeblood, they never quite stopped being human. It could make them stronger and faster and better able to withstand injury than regular folks, and it granted them a drastically increased life span. Assuming they didn't fall prey to their constant, base desire for blood, or weren't slain in operations against their enemies in the Red Court.
A woman I'd once cared for very much had been taken by a Red Court vampire. In point of fact, I'd kicked off the war when I went and took her back by the most violent means at my disposal. I brought her back, but I didn't save her. She'd been touched by that darkness, and now her life was a battle-partly against the vampires who had done it to her, and partly against the blood-thirst they'd imposed upon her. Now she was a part of the Fellowship, whose members included those like her and, I'd heard, many other people and part-people with no home anywhere else. St. Giles, patron of lepers and outcasts. His Fellowship, while not a mil-blown powerhouse like the Council or one of the Vampire Courts, was nonetheless proving to be a surprisingly formidable ally.
"Our allies can't challenge the vampires in face-to-face confrontations," Ebenezar said, nodding. "But they're wreaking havoc on the Red Court's supply chains, intelligence, and support, attacking from the mortal end of things. Red Court infiltrators within human society are unmasked. Humans controlled by the Red Court have been arrested, framed, or killed-or else abducted to be forcibly freed of their addiction. The Fellowship and the Venatori continue to do all in their power to provide information to the Council, which has enabled us to make a number of successful raids against the vampires. The Venatori and the Fellowship haven't appreciably weakened the vampires, but the Red Court has been slowed down. Perhaps enough to give us a fighting chance to recover."
"How's the boot camp coming?" I asked.
"Luccio is confident of her eventual success in replacing our losses," Ebenezar replied.
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