Stiletto

by Daniel O'Malley

  At that moment, Marcel knew in his heart that his parents were dead. Whether they had been killed by the screaming woman or something else, they were gone. Walking into the house would only bring him pain. But he had to do it. The house was not only their home; it contained a myriad of samples and technology. His parents’ work. It couldn’t be left here to be found by anyone, least of all the occupying forces, who had been undertaking some extremely thorough investigations of people’s households.

  Holding both guns, Marcel checked each room. Outside, the growing storm battered against the windows. All through the house, there were signs that preparations had been made. The storage bins and cold containers of his parents’ laboratories did not contain samples, constructs, or strange animals. Their tools had been carefully sterilized. Many documents and books were missing, and, given the copious amount of ash and fragments in the fireplaces, they would never be found. Of his parents’ portfolios and journals, there was no trace. The house had been methodically stripped of any Broederschap materials. Oddly, much artwork was missing from the walls, and quite a few pieces of the more valuable furniture had gone. Marcel hoped this did not mean that the authorities had taken his parents and their work.

  But surely the Nazis would have emptied the house completely, he thought. And there would be soldiers or officials billeted here. He looked through the bedrooms and saw that all the beds had been stripped. He paused in his old room and retrieved a few mementos of his childhood. There was no sign, however, of his parents.

  He finally found them in the rooftop greenhouse, sitting together on a bench, surrounded by flowers that had clustered around them. Except for their white skin, they could have been asleep. Corruption did not touch them. Possibly it was a quirk of their genetics, but he suspected that his mother had arranged it that way. She would never have wanted to rot, and his father would have indulged her fancy. The air was lightly touched with the perfume of dried flowers, and when Marcel trailed his hands along the blossoms, they crumbled away, as if they had been dead and preserved for years.

  Marcel walked toward his parents, his eyes wet. He pressed his arm to his face, blotting away the tears, and then drank in the portrait of them both. When he reached out to touch his father’s shoulder, both Arjan and Hendrika fell away to powder, as if they were themselves dried flowers.

  He sat for a while and remembered his life in that place. Then he got up and opened the doors at either end of the greenhouse. The wind swept through. It picked up the dust and the flakes of all the plants and whipped them away, up into the skies of Paris.

  Good-bye.

  As he left the house, he noticed a troop of soldiers down the street. They were going from door to door and did not seem overly concerned with courtesy. He sighed and turned his back on them.

  Getting away from Paris proved even more difficult than getting there. Whereas before they had been three warriors well equipped for combat and stealth, they were now a party consisting of one warrior who had an unorthodox gun, three alchemists whose implants tended toward the scholarly, and four horribly crippled invalids. In addition, they were transporting various documents, equipment, and samples that could not be easily replaced or safely destroyed. Vans, trucks, and automobiles were still in short supply, and they again ended up in a wagon (this one stolen) pulled by a horse (this one legally purchased). Now they were moving against the flow of refugees, which made them stick out even more. As a result, they were obliged to travel on meandering back lanes and often went across the countryside—a strategy that kept them out of sight of soldiers but slowed them considerably.

  Partway through the journey, they discovered that the damage that the screaming woman’s voice had done to Henk’s, Hans’s, Siegbert’s, and Claudette’s insides had been far greater than anyone had realized. If Richard and the other two Grafters had not been with them to administer first aid, it was highly doubtful that any of them would have survived the first two days of the journey. The woman’s cry had attacked their Broederschap implants like a virus, shredding the patterns within, leaving them in a state of ongoing liquefaction.

  To Marcel’s despair, Siegbert was in especially bad shape. The double exposure to the woman’s scream had increased the effect, and Marcel could actually see his brother wasting away in front of him. Every hour melted flesh off his bones. His breath rasped painfully in his lungs and throat.

  “He’s dying,” Marcel said to his wife.

  “I’m afraid he’s not the only one, beertje,” she said, and she patted him weakly on the cheek. “Unless we do something, the four of us won’t make it to the border. But he won’t survive another twelve hours without help.”

  And so that night, in a field near Amiens, the hale Grafters were driven to crack open their comrades’ bodies and set about some frantic jury-rigging. They dealt with the comparatively easy ones first. Henk and Hans submitted to their operations with stoic silence. Claudette provided testy instructions even as they opened up her chest. All three of them seemed a trifle better after their procedures, although none of them could yet sit up.

  Then Siegbert was laid down on a bed of dingy straw. Richard confided to Marcel that his twin was too weak to receive any form of painkillers, but it hardly mattered. Siegbert had passed into a delirium and had no idea where he was. His fingers trembled, and his breath was shallow, but other than that, he lay still.

  “I don’t know what I can do for him,” Richard confessed.

  “Just try,” said Marcel. “Please.”

  Several desperate hours ensued. They were hardly the best conditions in which to undertake emergency surgery. The cows whose field the Grafters were occupying had moved off to a distant corner, but a fox watched the operation from the hedge. Marcel held his twin’s hand and prayed that the animal hadn’t been drawn by the smell of carrion. Rain fell, trickling into the incision in the patient’s belly. Pauline, the apprentice, hurried to the containers they had brought with them and fetched new organs that dripped with preservatives and oils. Clipped instructions passed back and forth between the two master Grafters, and their hands and tools moved frantically.

  Finally, despite their best efforts, Siegbert’s hand went limp in Marcel’s and a last, labored breath eased from his mouth. They were all silent, and Richard drew his hands out of the abdomen.

  “We can’t leave his body here,” said Richard finally.

  “I know,” said Marcel softly as he closed his twin’s eyes and then closed his own.

  I’m sorry,” said Felicity, and Marcel opened his eyes.

  “Thank you,” he said. “It was very difficult at the time.”

  “What did you do after that?” she asked.

  Siegbert’s body was wrapped in a coat and placed in the wagon along with the three surviving invalids and the thermos containing his son. The rest of the journey was punctuated by more abrupt surgeries as the patients variously went into seizures or cardiac arrest. In addition, the party were continually obliged to evade troops, refugees, and the inhabitants of the countryside they were traveling through. Along the roads there were smoldering vacant villages, and violence was always imminent. To cross the border meant going miles across rough country and through forests to avoid sentries.

  By the time they made it back to Belgium, Henk, Hans, and Claudette were all three hanging on the edge of death, as the implants in their brains and spines had broken down completely into a foul-smelling syrup. Upon arrival at a Broederschap chapter house in the city of Roeselare, they were immediately taken into surgery and then spent several months in therapeutic comas as their bodies were carefully repaired by some of the Grafters’ most capable fleshwrights.

  I would have liked to go into a therapeutic coma myself,” said Marcel, “or at least take a nap, but there were important things happening.”

  “What things?” asked Felicity.

  “The Second World War. The brotherhood sent me on various missions. There were family members scattered around Europe, many of whom n
eeded help escaping the violence. There was much running around. A great deal of derring-do. Nazis were fought and dissolved.” He shrugged. “It was an exciting time.”

  After the war, Marcel and Claudette decanted their nephew from his thermos and raised him as their own. A bright and cheerful boy, young Arjan would go on to be the father of Odette and Alessio and a respected paleontologist, though not in that order. For Marcel and Claudette, four other children followed in their own time, although only the youngest would become a member of the Broederschap.

  Marcel resumed his studies with the Grafters, partly as a way to honor his parents and partly because he felt he needed to make up for the loss of Siegbert. In the Leliefeld home at Roeselare, grandchildren played with a reclaimed (and un-aged) Chloe. It turned out that Marcel’s parents had heeded their estranged son’s warnings and placed the dog in a stasis of her own in a bank vault in Switzerland, along with all their notes and artwork. Marcel and Claudette continued their work until Claudette passed away. “Only three years ago,” Marcel said.

  “The woman who killed your brother, and your relations . . .” began Felicity.

  “Yes?”

  “Did you ever find out about her? Where she came from? Why she wanted to kill your people?”

  “Actually, yes,” said Marcel. “After the war was over, I returned to Paris and spent some time tracking down her history. It wasn’t easy, but I was very curious.”

  “I imagine so,” said Felicity.

  “I found where she had been living,” said Marcel. “No one had entered the place in years. It contained various upsetting things: A sort of mangle that was stained with blood. Human bones. Large containers of blood and other fluids. But nothing was as upsetting as the journals I found.”

  Her name was Béatrice Mermier. Born to farmers in the northwestern part of France, she had apparently enjoyed a relatively ordinary childhood. The only thing that stood out about her, the only odd thing her neighbors could remember, was that she did not like to eat anything except meat. No fruit, no vegetables—she simply couldn’t stand them. But her life continued normally enough, even when her parents passed away and she sold the farm and moved into town.

  At the age of twenty-four, however, she had woken up one morning possessed by a ravenous hunger and tortured by the scent of something unutterably delicious. Her body was shaking, and she was actually drooling. She emptied the larder and devoured a haunch of lamb, but nothing would satiate the gnawing emptiness inside her. All the while, there was that smell, driving her frantic, leading her out of her house to the door of the slightly startled neighbors.

  They welcomed her in, and she apologized for disturbing them, it was just that . . . she didn’t quite know. She couldn’t explain it. She was so hungry. The wife, knowing her tastes, brought her some sausage and watched as she ate it. Béatrice thanked her, still looking around for the source of that tantalizing smell. Then she kissed her neighbor’s cheek and tasted her sweat.

  “She wrote that it was like lightning in her mouth,” said Marcel. “The most delicious thing in the world. She couldn’t stop herself from tearing the woman apart.” Suddenly, she had a strength that she’d never known, a strength so great that she tore the neighbor to pieces with her hands. The husband came at her with a knife and she screamed, instinctively. He reeled back, clutching at his head.

  “I know the feeling,” remarked Marcel. “She wrote that most people just felt the pain. But her voice had a terrible effect on members of the Broederschap—something she discovered later. It seemed to liquefy some of the crucial components in our augmentations.”

  After Béatrice murdered her neighbors, she fled to Paris, thinking it would be easier to hunt and avoid notice in a large city. A lifetime’s upbringing in the Catholic faith had been swiftly jettisoned, replaced by the glorious high that came from other people’s fluids, that lightning in the mouth. She was completely untroubled by what she had become, and it was not clear if her lack of concern was a result of her physiology or just plain wickedness. Regardless, she stalked the arrondissements of Paris, taking people when she hungered. After the first murder, that terrible hunger had ebbed a little—she could go weeks without feasting. But then she encountered a Grafter in a café and was entranced by the unique savor of his perspiration.

  “It seems we were addictive to her,” said Marcel. Some elements of the Grafter technology made them absolutely irresistible to Béatrice’s already monstrous palate. “She tracked Cousin Jean-Baptiste from the café back to his house and bled him out in his bathtub. After that, she tracked down the other Parisian members of the Broederschap by scent. Well, scent and the contents of their address books. I gather that once she’d drained all Siegbert’s blood, she was going to tap his spine, brain, bones, and bladder for everything they contained, and then, after a couple of days of bingeing on Siegbert-extract, she’d be on to the next one of us.”

  “Charming,” remarked Felicity.

  “She was terrifying,” confessed Marcel. “But my point is this, Pawn Clements. I have no doubt that if Béatrice Mermier had been born in this country, she’d have been recruited into the Checquy.”

  “Or killed by us,” pointed out Felicity defensively. In her secret heart, she felt a stab of pity for the long-dead woman with the uncontrollable hunger and no one to help her. The thought of coming into your powers and being enslaved by them was very frightening to her. Thank God the Checquy found me.

  “Yes,” he said grimly. “It seems that the line can be very thin between the monsters and the ones that protect us from the monsters.”

  “And monsters killed Miss Leliefeld’s friends?” asked Felicity hesitantly. He nodded slightly.

  “They were murdered in front of her,” he said. “In broad daylight. They were all staying at a beach house in Marseille, and a thing came in the back door and tore them apart. Odette only just escaped with her life.” Felicity’s eyes opened wide. “She was able to summon help, and when our people arrived, all they found was the scent of oranges and a series of bloody footprints going out the back door and across the sand into the ocean. No explanation of who did it or why.”

  “You’re sure the attackers were supernatural?” asked Felicity.

  He nodded. “We are not talking about defenseless victims,” said Marcel. “All of them had augmentations that provided them with inhuman strength and agility as well as concealed weaponry.” Felicity nodded, thinking of Leliefeld’s deadly little spurs. “One of them was my youngest son, Dieter.”

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” said Felicity, horrified.

  “Thank you. It has been difficult for all of us, but Odette was left significantly scarred, both emotionally and physically. The loss of her dearest friends has been extremely painful for her, but most especially the death of her lover. Alessio knows to avoid talking about them to her, and I would ask you to do the same.”

  “I won’t bring it up,” said Felicity. But I will tell Rook Thomas about this.

  “Thank you. It was difficult for Odette to come to this country. I think that she is haunted by the idea that we are tying ourselves to the same sort of beings who killed those she loved best.”

  19

  Security Vetting Form

  Duplicates of the personal documents requested must be certified by a justice of the peace to be true and accurate copies.

  1.Surname:

  2.Christian names (Please note any family members after whom you were named or, if known, any other factors that prompted the selection of these names):

  3.Gender (at birth, and current):

  4.Date of conception (in Gregorian calendar):

  5.Date of birth (in Gregorian calendar):

  6.Time (in Greenwich Mean Time) at which the umbilical cord was cut:

  7.Location (if known) of placenta:

  8.Western zodiac sign:

  9.Eastern zodiac sign:

  10.Location of birth (including latitude and longitude and, if born aboveground, feet above s
ea level). Affix copy of birth certificate:

  11.Country (or countries) of citizenship; provide current passport number(s). Affix duplicates of every page from every passport ever possessed, regardless of whether stamped or not:

  12.Mother (if applicable):

  a.Full name (include maiden name in parentheses):

  b.Birth date:

  c.Citizenship(s):

  d.Date of death (if applicable). Affix copy of death certificate and location (in latitude and longitude) of interment. If cremated, provide receipt of cremation and, if possible, sample of ashes:

  13.Father (if applicable):

  a.Full name:

  b.Birth date:

  c.Citizenship(s):

  d.Date of death (if applicable). Affix copy of death certificate and location (in latitude and longitude) of interment. If cremated, provide receipt of cremation and, if possible, sample of ashes:

  14.Siblings (if applicable). Provide names and gender of any and all full, half, step-, or foster siblings. Include current addresses. Please list in order of birth and note, with a red asterisk, where you appear in the birth order:

  a.

  b.

  c.

  15.Sexual partners (if applicable):

  a.Current. Provide name, gender, contact details:

  b.List all previous partners, including name, gender, contact details, and the estimated level of acrimony (on a scale of 1 to 14) that they currently feel toward you.

  (Page 1 of 168)

  20

  Odette stomped angrily but carefully through the hallways of the hotel. In an effort to muster every shred of authority when interacting with Pawn Clements, she had put on her tallest, most expensive stiletto heels and her third-best suit (the best and the second-best no longer constituting appropriate business wear except in abattoirs, séances, or, possibly, highly specific erotica). That morning, she had sailed out of the bathroom armored in her elegance, intending to show that she was not cowed. Her confidence had lasted for approximately thirty seconds, at which point Clements had sat her down and given her a half-hour soul-withering lecture on how this whole bodyguarding arrangement would work.