Stiletto

by Daniel O'Malley

  “I think so,” said Ernst. “How odd. They already know our soldier is immune to—oh.”

  The remaining Gruwel general had just put the gun against his own head and pulled the trigger. Perry collapsed instantly. There was silence—everyone was still—and then the massive figure of the Grafter general slowly keeled over to land with a heavy thud on the turf.

  “Did—did that just happen?” asked Ernst faintly.

  “I think it did,” said Gerd.

  Ernst zoomed in more closely on the body of Perry. There was absolutely no doubt that he was dead. Anything with that much brain sprayed across the grass had to be. “What did he do?”

  “I have no idea. But now we have a new problem,” said Gerd.

  “Oh?”

  “The surviving Gruwels have, in fact, noticed our presence.”

  “Ah.”

  “And they are coming toward us.”

  “Indeed,” said Ernst. “I think we should vacate the premises.”

  And so the graafs mounted their huge steeds and fled, breaking through the enemy lines. They were pursued by several dozen Gruwels who witnessed as, without hesitation, the two noblemen spurred their horses off a cliff and plunged into the ocean.

  Nine days later, Ernst and Gerd, still on their horses, emerged wearily from the surf onto a twilit beach by the village of Zeebrugge. It was the first opportunity they had had to exchange words, but they were too exhausted. With the water streaming off them, they grimly set off for home, intent on some bowls of cream-based soup, a few beers, and then bed.

  The Broederschap held several estates dotted around the country. All of them were discreet, with high walls to conceal what was going on in them, and with outstanding security. They were the ideal places for the noblemen to rest and recover and plan how they were going to explain the situation to the governor-general. Gerd and Ernst proceeded wearily to the nearest facility, a country manor outside Bruges, only to find that the British had already arrived there. Even worse, they had sent a force more terrifying than the Gruwels: diplomats.

  Emissaries of Charles II* of England had arrived in Brussels five days before and presented themselves to the governor-general. Although they were not accompanied by an army, or even a single bodyguard, they strode in as if they held all the power in the world. It was not clear if any of them were Gruwels themselves, but they presented Carlos de Aragón de Gurrea with an ornate box of polished English oak. Under their unwavering gaze, he opened it and found it contained the head of the Grafter general. It was incontrovertible evidence that the Broederschap invasion had failed. He looked up at them hopelessly, and they made known their demands.

  It was all very carefully worded in appropriate diplomatic and legal language with no mention of matters supernatural. The governor-general would be permitted to keep his life and his position. News of the debacle need never reach the court of Spain. (Carlos II might be an inbred idiot, but his wrath could be terrible.) But Carlos de Aragón de Gurrea’s state-sponsored foray into alchemy would be destroyed. The possibility of empire that had hung appetizingly before him would be cut away.

  He rolled over immediately.

  That afternoon, a swarm of British clerks and troops arrived in the country, divided themselves into brigades, and set about the systematic and complete dismantling of the Wetenschappelijk Broederschap van Natuurkundigen. The governor-general told them everything he knew, but there would have been no point dissembling about the extent or distribution of the brotherhood’s resources anyway—the British seemed to possess an encyclopedic knowledge of their affairs.

  Belgian observers were attached to the brigades, primarily, it was suspected, to keep the governor-general aware of the implacable and meticulous ruthlessness shown by the British. The forces descended upon the estates, and startled scientists were rousted out of their laboratories to have guns, fingers, and legal documents pointed at them threateningly. A few put up a fight, even activating their implants, but they were subdued and executed on the spot. Every member of the Broederschap the British could find, right down to the most junior apprentice, was arrested and held in the most secure facility in the country. There, they were guarded by silent Englishmen, not all of whom carried guns.

  Meanwhile, work proceeded on the orderly sacking of assets. Chattels were seized and coffers emptied as reparation for the destruction visited upon the Isle of Wight. In the laboratories, greenhouses, sties, kennels, aviaries, apiaries, stables, orangeries, and mews, all Grafter creations were killed and their carcasses destroyed. The local populace had learned not to pay too much attention to the doings of their reclusive neighbors, and that carefully cultivated disinterest, combined with the fortified nature of the facilities, meant that most of the destruction could be done in relative secrecy.

  Ownership of the land was to be transferred to the English church as soon as every structure had been demolished, every animal put down, every plant uprooted, and all of it burned, regardless of whether or not there were obvious signs of “tampering.”

  As for the members of the brotherhood, they were to be put down as well. When Ernst and Gerd arrived at their own front door, they were taken into custody; their names were dutifully removed from the list of the dead and added to the list of those who would soon be dead. The two noblemen were imprisoned separately from their cohorts, although the conditions were no better.

  For the cousins, the most astonishing fact was that the Gruwels were apparently in league with the British throne. Indeed, the monsters were actually a part of the government! That a Christian nation—even one that had schismed away from the Church in Rome—would knowingly ally itself to the creatures of the devil was almost incomprehensible.

  The second most astonishing fact was that the British seemed to have no care for the possibilities the Broederschap’s work held. It was only natural that the British would demand retribution for the invasion. The pillaging of the Belgian estates, the humbling of their ruler—such were the vagaries of war and the price one paid for losing. The two noblemen could even face the prospect of their own execution with a certain amount of equanimity. But the Gruwels were not destroying only the warriors and weapons of the brotherhood.

  Gerd and Ernst looked out of their cells into the courtyard of their prison and saw their scholars and scientists being put to the sword. The most brilliant minds the world had known were beheaded like common murderers. Books containing centuries of insights were thrown contemptuously onto heaps and burned. Apprentices were swiftly executed, even the very youngest ones who had received no modifications, the children who had barely learned to read.

  To the Grafters, wiping out such a priceless body of knowledge represented the grossest of superstition. The Gruwels were even killing some of the servants—men and women who’d had nothing to do with the Broederschap’s work beyond occasionally cleaning up the laboratories or taking delivery of a consignment of sheep.

  Finally, after their people had been killed and their life’s work obliterated, Ernst, Duke of Suchtlen, and Gerd, Count of Leeuwen, were escorted at blunderbuss-point from their cells to the scaffold. Black ashes from the bonfires of books still blew about, settling on the wigs and hats of the great and the good of the land. All the significant nobility of the country had been gathered to witness the execution of their convicted peers.

  The crimes of the two men were unspecified but clearly involved an outrage against Charles II, by the grace of God King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc., since His Majesty the King had traveled to Brussels to observe the proceedings. He sat close by the scaffold, next to the governor-general, and the two noblemen were marched before him in shackles. The condemned evinced no fear; indeed, they gave no sign of knowing where they were or what was happening.

  Was it terror? wondered the watching nobles. Or perhaps they had bribed the guards and drowned their fears in strong drink? There was some unsteadiness in their steps, and they both looked around blankly at the crowd.
A priest offered to administer last rites, but the two men acted as if they did not hear a word. It took a soldier’s firm hand to get them to their knees.

  Chains were passed around the men’s shoulders and secured to heavy iron rings on the floor of the scaffold in front of them and behind them, holding them upright. The massive executioner drew out a long sword and held it in both his hands. He looked to the King, who nodded assent.

  The blade swept out and passed through Ernst’s neck without pausing. Blood jetted messily in the air, but the blade was clean.

  Again, the executioner raised the sword, and again it came down to behead a Grafter lord.

  The heads fell from the bodies, and the crowd let out a breath. They were uncertain how to react. It was a time when executions were entertainment, but the presence of the kings and the status of the condemned made cheering inappropriate. It was meant to be a solemn occasion, but in fact the whole thing had an air of the absurd about it, with the chains still holding the bodies upright on their knees. And then the executioner raised his massive sword again and cut the left arm off the corpse of Graaf van Suchtlen.

  This time there were gasps from the crowd, but he continued along like a workman, methodically chopping off the bodies’ remaining arms. As the blade whipped up between strikes, blood flicked onto the crowd, and there were shrieks and cries of outrage. There were no true screams, however, until he swung the blade back over his shoulder and brought it down with unbelievable force to slice the duke’s body in half with one inexorable blow.

  Blood burst forth in a torrent; bits of torso thumped onto the platform. The same was done to the body of the count. And that was the indisputable end of the Wetenschappelijk Broederschap van Natuurkundigen.

  Except, of course, that it wasn’t.

  Everyone stood and swarmed ingratiatingly around the King and the governor-general as they were ushered away to the carriages. Everyone except two gorgeously dressed men standing off to one side. They each held a flask of something alcoholic, and as they watched the dismembered corpses being gathered up into baskets, they both took a swig.

  “Well, that was thorough,” remarked one of the men. To anyone looking at him, it was abundantly clear that he wasn’t Gerd de Leeuwen.

  “Yes,” said the other, who looked nothing at all like Ernst van Suchtlen even before he had been cut up into little pieces. “Although not really thorough enough.”

  They had been stripped of their estates and their wealth, and even of their bodies, but as Ernst had remarked, “You don’t live as long as I have without learning that there’s always someone who slashes your throat or your budget at the least convenient time possible.”

  Since the creation of the Broederschap, Ernst had been under no illusion that they would always be permitted to operate. The Belgian lowlands were strategically valuable, and different powers had claimed the territory over the years. When the brotherhood had begun, they’d actually been working for the Burgundian Netherlands, but power had shifted and the territory had become the Spanish Netherlands, and it looked as if it would become the Austrian Netherlands pretty soon. Admittedly, Ernst had not anticipated that the force to bring them down would be monstrous English bureaucrats, but the end result was much the same.

  Accordingly, they had been prepared. Though they’d lost the bulk of their assets, there were resources and hidden monies that had never gone down in the books. Backup libraries of texts and of genetic stock had been established in facilities hidden in other cities, in other countries. And if one planned to kill a Grafter, one had better make truly certain that the body one was executing held the right brain. The majority of their scholars had been killed, but not all. Some had been working at secret remote facilities. A couple had escaped the British through luck or cunning.

  The Broederschap regrouped and retreated, moving back even farther into the shadows. It would take decades for them to rebuild, but they had learned several vital lessons that would define their future.

  First, they now knew that despite all their abilities and knowledge, they were not the ultimate force they had believed themselves to be. The world contained creatures of unfathomable and inexplicable power, creatures outside God’s pattern that could destroy them easily. The British Isles possessed such monsters, but the Grafters could not be certain that similar demons did not dwell on the Continent. From then on, the brotherhood would operate under the strictest secrecy. No public profile, no seizing of power, nothing that might draw the attention of the Gruwels or something like them.

  Second, Ernst and Gerd were determined that they would never again be subject to the authority of an earthly government. The invasion of the Isle of Wight had been done at the command of a man with no understanding of the brotherhood’s value. Far from being a worthy leader, he was a greedy coward who had tossed them to the dogs when they became inconvenient. It was clear that if normal people learned of their abilities, they would try to use the Grafters as tools or weapons.

  The Broederschap now had a new purpose, a mission that would burn within them and push them to far greater works: revenge upon the abominations that were the Gruwels.

  They began to rebuild, establishing houses in various cities across Europe. Over the years they grew quietly in wealth, numbers, and knowledge. The wealth came from sensible investments augmented by substantial fees for discreetly curing wealthy individuals of incurable ailments. If they had revealed and marketed even a fraction of their abilities, they would have become stupendously rich, but there were several things that stood in the way of that. The most pressing deterrent, of course, was that if medical technology several centuries ahead of its time was suddenly to emerge, it would serve as a beacon to the Gruwels. There was also the fact that Grafter art was incredibly difficult to implement, expensive to fund, and labor-intensive. Besides, after watching themselves be executed without anyone raising any objections, they were not feeling particularly well-disposed toward mankind.

  Their numbers swelled, but in a strictly controlled manner. It was understood that if the brotherhood grew too much, they would draw attention. Some new members came from the Grafters’ own families, their potential identified while they were children. Outsiders were also enlisted, with talented scholars and scientists lured in by the promise of knowledge and (once sworn to secrecy) demonstrations of what was possible. Even as new Grafters were instructed in the science of the Broederschap, they were taught to hate and fear the monsters that lived in the British Isles.

  Their work progressed. The Broederschap scholars believed in research and exploration, and while many devoted themselves to martial applications, there were just as many whose efforts were guided solely by their curiosity. Some sought to duplicate the abilities that the Gruwels had exhibited, and others simply worked to take their knowledge as far as it could go.

  But even as Ernst and Gerd oversaw the rejuvenation of their brotherhood (and sisterhood; any thoughts of gender discrimination had been thrown out the window in 1554 after their greatest scholar had asserted there was no relevant difference between the male and female brains and had produced two brains as proof, offering to walk any doubters through the pertinent features—an offer hastily declined), they were carefully laying the groundwork for vengeance.

  It would be more than two centuries before the Broederschap learned the true name of their enemy. Agents and money finally did their work and revealed the Brotherhood of the Checquy, an organization that coiled its way through the British government like a parasite. Another century and a half passed before the Grafters could place even a single agent in the enemy organization, and she was obliged to commit suicide just before she was discovered. The next agent took decades to penetrate the myriad of security checks surrounding the Checquy, but slowly, slowly, they gained more knowledge of their nemesis.

  For Ernst and Gerd, it was simply a matter of patience. It might take centuries, but their revenge was inevitable, and their rage burned. For many of the other Grafters, however, those w
ho did not seek or expect immortality, their hatred of the Checquy was abstract—still very real, but unconnected to their daily lives. That was how it was for Odette. She had known that one day, perhaps long after her death, the Broederschap would move against the Checquy. But she was not a soldier. Her purpose was to learn, to innovate. To create. She loathed the idea of the Gruwels, but they seemed very distant.

  Distant, that is, up until a sunny morning a few months ago when Ernst had announced to the brotherhood that there had been a change of plans. Rather than wreaking their dire revenge upon the hated demons called the Checquy, the Grafters would be joining them as colleagues and allies.

  Which brought Odette to the here and now, in the bottom of a hotel bathtub full of slime.

  8

  Trouble behind us. Trouble in front of us, Odette thought grimly. Staying at the bottom of the bathtub seems like much the best option.

  Nonetheless, it didn’t seem a realistic course of action, not least because room service was unlikely to deliver breakfast to the bottom of a tub of muck. Odette pulled herself out of the mire and began to get ready for her day.

  Forty-five minutes and a cosmetic pupil-dilation later, Odette was flatly wished good morning by the Checquy guard at the elevator as she and Alessio passed by.

  “Oh, uh, good morning,” said Odette. Alessio walked a little faster until they had gone around a corner. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I’m just creeped out. They’re everywhere.”

  “Alessio, they’re security guards.”

  “The difference between a security guard and a prison guard is one order from the boss,” said Alessio darkly. They came to the door of the royal suite. Two men were standing sentry outside. One was their cousin Frank, the other was a Checquy operative.

  “You can go ahead,” said Frank. “The rest of the delegation is sort of trickling in.” Odette and Alessio exchanged raised eyebrows as they walked into a sitting room much larger and more opulent than the already impressive one they shared. I wonder how big the bathtub in this suite is, thought Odette idly.