Stiletto

by Daniel O'Malley

  It was all comfortingly familiar. She knew these people as well as she knew herself—better, really. She’d been working with them for two years now, since she’d graduated from combat training, all innocent-eyed and nervous-shouldered and hesitant-voiced. They’d helped her gestate into a real soldier. Pawn Gardiner had held Felicity’s hand while she pulled herself together after shooting her first eel-man hybrid, and she in turn had held Pawn Moore’s head and left foot while he pulled himself together after confronting a man made out of scythes. With them, she had battled bunyips in the Barbican, hunted horrors on Hampstead Heath, been air-dropped into Acton, sloshed through the sewers under Soho, and served as sentry at Sandringham House.

  They had all seen one another at their best and their worst. She’d seen them covered in spilled blood (mainly other people’s) and spilled beer (mainly their own), and she’d stood as honor guard at Barnaby’s wedding and as godmother to Jennings’s daughter. They weren’t just colleagues; they were her brothers and sisters in arms.

  Odgers entered the room and the noise died away as everyone stood to attention. The chief was followed by someone Felicity did not know, a tall, strapping Indian man about her own age or perhaps a year or two younger. He looked vaguely familiar. I suppose I might have seen him at the Estate, she mused.

  “Welcome back, Clements. Was your reconnaissance successful?”

  “For the most part,” said Felicity.

  “That sounds half promising,” said Odgers. “Oh, before you report, this is Pawn Chopra.” She gestured to the Indian man.

  He’s rather more-ish, thought Felicity appreciatively.

  “Sanjay,” he said, stepping forward. Felicity shook his hand. Although he had long eyelashes and smooth elegant features, his grip was strong and his hands had a fighter’s calluses on them.

  “Chopra’s been added to the team as of today,” said Odgers. “This is his first mission; he’s just graduated from combat training. Now, Clements, what did you find?”

  “I went through the whole place, and of course there’s the bad news, but there’s also actually some good news. It turns out that we don’t need to worry about witnesses, at least not inside. The whole row has been completely stripped. There’s no furniture, no carpets, no lighting fixtures, no people in any of the houses.”

  “This is not license for us to cut loose with guns and gifts,” said Odgers severely, and there were some disappointed noises from the team. “Not unless it’s appropriate. Clements, the inevitable bad news?”

  “Well, sir, the preliminary inevitable bad news is there have been some substantial modifications. Hallways have been blocked off, doorways have been cut between the houses, there’s a few places where rough holes have been made through the floors and ceilings. It looks like something has created a little warren for itself in there.” She moved over to the maps on the walls. “There’s only one entrance that hasn’t been walled up. The whole thing is a labyrinth with booby traps scattered throughout. I found trip wires hooked up to boxes containing mechanisms and vials of chemicals that I didn’t recognize.” She quickly marked up the floor plans, showing where the changes had been made and the traps laid.

  “Little boxes of stuff . . .” murmured Odgers. “Chopra, what does that suggest to you?” she asked suddenly in a schoolmarmish tone that perfectly matched her schoolmarmish face and figure.

  “Um, well, it implies that the source of this malignancy is probably an actual entity rather than some sort of geographical phenomenon,” said Chopra.

  “So what is the source of these booby traps?” mused Odgers. She turned to Felicity. “What did you see?”

  “That brings me to the final inevitable bad news,” said Felicity. “At the heart of the row is something I couldn’t see. It’s approximately five meters by ten meters. One story high. I expect that’s where the target is, along with the latest missing person. Maybe all of them.”

  “You can’t see it? What does that mean?”

  Felicity shrugged helplessly.

  “I couldn’t see it, and I couldn’t see through it. You know there are a few things my abilities don’t work on. Water. The wood of the cedar tree. Salmon. Air.”

  “You think it’s a barrier made out of cedar?” said Odgers, frowning. “Or ice? Or salmon?”

  “I don’t know what it is,” said Felicity. “It could be something new, something I’ve never encountered before.”

  “Fair enough,” said Odgers, seemingly unperturbed by the prospect of an Oblong of Mystery. “So, you can take us through the warren?”

  “Yes,” said Felicity confidently.

  “Right.” The chief stared broodingly at the plans for several moments. “I don’t like it,” she said finally. “Even if you know your way through a maze, simply by entering, you put yourself in the power of the maze maker.” She pursed her lips. “We need to break the maze.” She looked over at one of the support staff. “Gilly, you trained as an architect, right?”

  An intense conversation ensued. Various people drew on the plans and scribbled over one another’s drawings. Teeth were sucked. A new nomenclature emerged: everyone began referring to the enemy as “the Homeowner,” and the Oblong of Mystery became the OOM. Calls were placed to sundry Checquy experts to consult on the properties of certain building materials. Finally, a plan was agreed upon, with only two people no longer speaking to each other.

  “Good,” said Odgers. “I’ll advise the Rookery of the situation and request permission to commence infiltration. I want everyone ready to depart in eight minutes.”

  “Is this a rescue job, sir?” asked Jennings.

  “That depends on what we find,” said Odgers grimly. “So move quickly, but move right.” The team snapped into action, everyone knowing what his or her role was. The support staff had backed up against the walls, opening a space in the middle of the kitchen for the soldiers to work. The team members began donning their dense black armor.

  Felicity shucked off her filthy clothes and tossed them into the plastic rubbish bags that one of the support staff held open. Pawn Chopra flushed and lowered his gaze at the sight of Felicity in her underwear, but the others didn’t react, and Felicity told herself she wasn’t concerned. When you’ve seen someone cry and vomit and shower and shit, and they’ve seen you do the same, you don’t feel shy around them. There wasn’t a single person on the assault team that she hadn’t seen naked at one time or another, although never in a recreational setting.

  Still, despite herself, she rather wished that the first impression Chopra had gotten of her didn’t involve her in her extremely sensible undies, her face smeared with essence des excréments.

  “All right, on with the school uniform,” she said hurriedly. Across the room, one of her teammates put a boot against a plastic trunk with Felicity’s name stenciled on it and sent it skidding across the floor to her. “Ta.”

  First was a bodysuit of thin stretchy material with a built-in sports bra. Then a set of the black coveralls. Felicity rubbed Vaseline over her feet before she pulled on some tactical-grade socks. She stepped into a pair of large boots and laced them up tightly. Then came the combat armor that had been cast for her when she graduated from the Estate. Dense plastic greaves, vambraces, and rerebraces that would protect her limbs. A breastplate, one that made no attempt to acknowledge her gender. She thoughtfully brushed her fingertips over the marks that scarred it. It was festooned with little chips and divots, and a splashy stain was etched into the surface.

  “Gauntlets?” asked an attendant.

  “Fingerless gloves,” said Felicity, pulling them out of her trunk. “I need to be able to initiate immediate skin contact.” It wasn’t unusual for Checquy soldiers to modify their outfits according to their individual requirements. Two of the other soldiers were also gauntlet-less. Gardiner’s armor was all white, while Jennings’s appeared to be made out of highly polished mahogany. Cordingley was wearing no helmet. Barnaby had a spiked flail Velcroed to her thigh and she had undo
ne some zips and slid the entire right sleeve of her coveralls off, revealing a small but muscular arm. Buchanan was wearing only the coveralls and a pair of light canvas trainers.

  A helmet with a transparent faceplate was squashed down over Felicity’s head, and she made a grim mental note to shampoo the helmet’s interior after the assault. She shifted through a few stretches to make certain that everything was fitted correctly.

  “Will you need night vision?” asked the attendant.

  “Uh, probably, yeah,” said Felicity. “There’s no electrical power in there.” He undid a couple of catches and slotted a new, bulkier face shield on. She knew that when she slid the visor down, she would be presented with a couple of little monitors.

  A steel combat knife was sheathed on one thigh, a dense industrial-plastic blade on the other. Felicity holstered her nine-millimeter pistol on her hip.

  Now all the team members were girded in their battle dress. They were a study in deadliness. As Jennings cracked his neck from side to side, the air above him wavered hot and green. Gardiner’s white armor suddenly shimmered like mother-of-pearl. Pawn Barnaby tested her flail, and it swung with a tearing sound that cut through the space. Sparks crawled briefly and crazily over Pawn Buchanan’s coveralls. With a swirl of air, Pawn Cheng condensed herself and appeared in the group. The others’ calm stillness simply hinted at their potential for supernatural violence.

  The team stood ready for the call to action.

  Which didn’t come.

  And didn’t come.

  And didn’t come.

  Finally, one of the support staff poked his head through the door into the next room, listened a moment, and then looked back. He shook his head and held his hand up to his ear in the universal sign for She’s talking on the phone. He grimaced and waggled his other hand in the universal sign for Might be a while.

  “For Christ’s sake,” said Jennings. “I suppose we’d better sit down while we’re waiting for the order.”

  “Bloody bureaucracy,” grumbled Buchanan, settling down on his kit case. “They get us out here in the colon of London, all suited up, and then we have to wait while someone in an office finds the backbone to make an actual decision.”

  “Maybe it won’t take that long,” said Chopra hopefully.

  “Doubt it,” said Barnaby. She took out a cigarette and nodded thanks to Jennings when its end erupted in a small green flame. “Keep in mind, today’s the day that the Belgians are coming into the country. The entire Rookery is going to be running around, all atwitter. Everyone with any real authority will be taken up with the preparations.”

  “Yeah, I’d much rather be doing an actual mission than standing guard duty for the fucking Grafters,” said Gardiner. There was a murmur of agreement.

  The Grafters, thought Felicity, and she shuddered in her armor. Bloody hell. The Checquy faced monsters every day, but the Grafters held a special place of horror in their hearts and their memories.

  Begun around 1474 as the Wetenschappelijk Broederschap van Natuurkundigen,* the Grafters were Belgian alchemists. Rather than following the traditional alchemical pursuit of failing to turn lead into gold, however, they had directed their attention to the mysteries of the mortal clay. Somehow, working in primitive conditions, they had gained radical insights into biological science, developing techniques that still remained far beyond modern medical understanding. With their knowledge and capabilities, they possessed the ability to twist and warp living flesh to suit their purposes.

  Apparently, the Grafters’ original purpose had been simple research, but then, in the seventeenth century, they’d turned their brains to military applications. On the orders of the government of the time, they created monstrous soldiers and then mounted an invasion of the Isle of Wight with an eye to conquering the rest of the British Isles. It had taken the full supernatural might of the Checquy, and the losses had been horrific, but finally the Grafters had been subdued.

  The British had not allowed the matter to rest there. Instead, they pressed their advantage, mustered up the shattered remnants of the Checquy, and dispatched emissaries to deliver some fairly pointed and undiplomatic messages to the Continent. Faced with the unimaginable forces that the British could apparently bring to bear, the ruling government had briskly given in, and the Wetenschappelijk Broederschap van Natuurkundigen was dismantled.

  The Checquy had never forgotten, though, and over the centuries the Grafters had remained something of a bogeyman to new recruits. This was no mean feat, given that many of the new recruits themselves could be considered eligible for the title of bogeyman. But every Pawn was brought up to loathe and fear the memory of the Grafters.

  As a result, it had been a matter of significant outrage and consternation when, a few months ago, it was announced by the executives of the Checquy that the Grafters, far from being utterly destroyed and consigned to the secret-history books, had been operating clandestinely for the previous few centuries. Even more outrageous was that the Checquy would not be mustering its power to smash them into oblivion once and for all. Rather, the Grafters were going to become part of the Checquy Group, pledging their loyalty and service to the nation that had once been their worst enemy. It was to be a new era, one of collaboration and camaraderie.

  “It’ll never work,” said Pawn Buchanan.

  “The Checquy and the Grafters?” Barnaby snorted. “Course not. I’m betting that VIP cocktail do tonight will erupt in magma and blood before they bring out the first tray of canapés.”

  “But how can the Court believe the Grafters could ever be trusted?” wondered Buchanan. “How can they even think about giving them the benefit of the doubt?”

  “Not our job to worry about it,” said Felicity. “That’s a problem for the wonks swanning around Apex House.” And they’re welcome to it, she thought with feeling. The world of policy and diplomacy held no attraction for her. Never had. Ever since she was a little girl, she’d wanted to be a soldier. Give me an enemy I can fight, not one I’ve got to smile at politely over dinner.

  “Yeah?” said Moore. “Tomorrow the Grafters will be walking in the corridors of the Rookery and the Apex. Just you wait until they’re adding some Flemish Frankenstein to our team. Then it’ll be our turn to worry about it.”

  “It will never get that far,” said Buchanan confidently. “The Grafters are the opposite of everything we are. They may be negotiating today, but within six months, our little team here will be part of an army taking a trip across to the Continent to do a bit of smiting and pick up some tax-free wine.”

  “Enough chitchat,” said Gardiner firmly. “At the moment, you need to be thinking about the mission. After we’ve reduced this wee beastie to ashes, written up the report, and had a pint, then we’ll have a team meeting and you can bother Pawn Odgers with your concerns.” There was an exchange of looks and a little bit of eye-rolling, but they all were guiltily silent. Then the door to the other room banged open, and everyone jumped.

  “All right, children, time to move out!” shouted Odgers as she swept into the room.

  4

  We’ve got the order, so stir yourselves! Transport’s out the back,” Odgers barked.

  The soldiers hurried out, leaving the support staff to tidy up. As they went through the door, they were each handed a short-barreled submachine gun by a waiting attendant. In front of them was what appeared to be a very unhealthy moving van. They all hustled up the ramp and sat on the benches that ran along the walls. Chopra sat next to Felicity. Odgers came in last, and the door was rolled down behind her. The truck began moving.

  Time to get into character, Felicity told herself. She turned her attention to the gun in her hands and automatically checked that the safety was on. Then she ran her Sight through it, confirming that it was full of bullets and that all the components were in good shape. Part of her training at the Estate had involved the laborious memorization of the specifications for (among other things) several dozen kinds of guns. “What good i
s it if you look at something and don’t know what you’re seeing?” one of her instructors had said reasonably when she’d balked at learning the structure of an internal combustion engine.

  Around her, the rest of the team was getting ready. Chopra was breathing the slow, deep breaths of someone who was doing his utter best not to get unprofessionally excited. His armor caught her eye. The same basic model as Felicity’s own, but much glossier; aside from a couple of scuffs, it had no real damage.

  Not yet, anyway, thought Felicity. Maybe today it’ll get some scars.

  Felicity herself was beginning to feel the familiar creeping of nerves and excitement spreading out from her stomach. Still, the memory of that strange void at the end of the maze left her feeling uneasy. Focus, she told herself. Calm.

  “Barnaby will open the door,” said Odgers, “and I’ll enter first.” Felicity noticed Chopra looking skeptically at the older woman in her ill-fitting armor even as she laid out the strategy for them. She couldn’t blame him. In the Checquy, they were taught not to judge by appearances, but with her multiple chins wobbling heavily, Pawn Odgers was not a sight to inspire confidence in a combat setting.

  “Remember,” continued Odgers, “we have to assume that the Homeowner will be aware of us as soon as we enter. So we move quickly.” Felicity, who had the best knowledge of the layout, would lead the way, accompanied by Barnaby and by Cheng in her gaseous form. The rest of the troops would follow closely, ready to kill anything that appeared to be a threat.

  “So if something eats Barnaby and me, at least it won’t have time to digest us,” Felicity remarked.

  “Exactly,” said Odgers.

  “One minute, Pawn Odgers,” the driver called back.

  “Right,” said the leader. “Children, be prepped.” Beside Felicity, Pawn Susie Cordingley began quietly singing scales, limbering up her voice. The hairs on the back of Felicity’s neck trembled as her comrade emitted tones that she couldn’t hear but that she felt. To Felicity’s surprise, Cordingley’s voice caused her lip balm to evaporate off her mouth—she could actually see the mist curling away from her lips.