Stiletto

by Daniel O'Malley

  It was apparent that, in the eyes of the Checquy, Odette Leliefeld had come to represent a tremendous liability. They did not trust her to walk in the hallways of a Checquy facility without threatening the negotiations. They did not trust her to cross the street without getting harmed. They barely trusted her to dress herself. And so Clements would be accompanying her everywhere for the foreseeable future.

  “I will escort you from this hotel to the various places they are sending you,” Clements had explained. “If you go to Apex House, or the Rookery, or the little field office in Lancaster, I will be standing right with you. When you go to the various social occasions and junkets that they have organized for you, I’ll be frocked up and rolling my eyes right behind you.

  “Now, all this responsibility doesn’t fall just on me. It’s going to require a new way of thinking on your part. From now on, before you leave a room, you make certain that I’m with you. If you need to go to the toilet, you let me know, because I’ll be outside the stall door, making sure no one comes in to bother you. If you decide that you want to go out to Harvey Nichols and get some new shoes and a spot of lunch, you run it by me, and you book a table for two, because I’ll be there, not carrying your bags for you.

  “You do not try to ditch me. You do not absentmindedly get lost in a crowd. You do not ever, ever, fail to have your mobile phone with you and turned on. If I call you, you take that call. And if I give you an order, you follow it.

  “All of this is not just because your safety is at risk. It’s because if anything happens to you, it will affect my career. And I like my career.

  “In short, if you even leave this floor of the hotel without me, I will make certain that you regret it.”

  It was patronizing, humiliating, and frightening. Alessio had listened, wide-eyed, presumably deciding that he didn’t really want a bodyguard like Clements, even if she was a hot woman. At the end, Odette had nodded weakly and then gotten permission to attend the Broederschap planning meeting. Clements had grudgingly allowed her to walk down the hallway by herself, but only because there were guards stationed at every corridor junction.

  Now, as she walked angrily down the hallway, she was aware that her choice of footwear and the elaborate caution it required in order for her to stomp effectively meant that she looked somewhat like a dressage pony, or possibly a dressage praying mantis. She was too pissed off to care.

  It was bad enough that they dragged me here to interact with these horrible people. These horrible Gruwels! But now I’m supposed to have one of them trailing around after me like Frankenstein’s bossier monster?

  Well, forget it! she thought, and her fists clenched. I’m going to tell them I don’t need or want this bodyguard! I don’t care what the Checquy says. I am not having that woman stalking around after me, holding a leash!

  Odette ignored the wary looks that the guards in the halls gave her and marched into the graaf’s suite, where people were already gathered. Filled with righteous indignation, she looked around for Marie in order to deliver her edict and saw that she was reading through a stack of fax paper. Judging from her furrowed brow and the flat blackness of her hair, Marie was not getting good news. Odette hesitated. Righteous indignation was all very well, but dealing with Marie in a bad mood was an even more dire prospect than having Clements looming over her.

  Maybe I’ll talk to her afterward.

  Great-Uncle Marcel smiled good morning at her, and she smiled back weakly and sat next to him.

  “About this Clements woman,” she began.

  “I think it’s a splendid development, don’t you?” he said.

  “What?”

  “It will give you a very good opportunity to get insight into the Checquy, and it may provide you with some excellent contacts.”

  “But I hate her,” protested Odette.

  “Oh, I’m sure you think you do,” said Marcel cheerfully, “but you’re still young. It takes decades to really hate someone.” Odette sighed heavily. “I’ll tell you what, if, after fifteen years, you still think you hate her, we’ll do something about it.”

  “She’s not going to be my bodyguard for fifteen years,” Odette objected.

  “Then quit your complaining,” said Marcel. “And stand up.”

  They all stood as Grootvader Ernst entered the room accompanied by his secretary Anabella.

  “Sit,” he said. They sat. “Before we move on to the bad news, let’s just review the good news. Yesterday went well, for the most part,” he said, looking only briefly in Odette’s direction. “Our meetings were productive, and the transcripts are in the folders in front of you. We will be reviewing these before we depart for Apex House. Please indicate if there are any amendments that you feel need to be made.

  “I was particularly pleased with the excellent presentation that Reinier gave on our latest developments in ergonomic office furniture. Rook Thomas has advised me that, in the end, only two of the sick bags provided were used.” Reinier smiled hesitantly. “And now, Marie will share the current situation on the Continent,” Ernst said. “Marie?”

  “It’s extremely bad,” she said, looking up from her faxes. Odette was shocked to see that she had been crying. “The . . . the Antagonists killed another house. The Vienna house.”

  “No!” exclaimed one of the lawyers in shock. All around the table, people looked stricken.

  “Are the residents all right?” asked Marcel.

  “They’re fine,” said Marie. “Everyone got out okay, but the house is . . . it’s gone. They lobotomized it before burning the place down.” The lawyer who had cried out before was now sobbing quietly in his seat. Marie looked to Graaf Ernst. “Sir, we have to move up our schedule. These attacks are escalating.”

  “And they will continue to escalate,” rasped an unfamiliar voice.

  Everyone’s eyes turned to Anabella, the graaf’s secretary. A plump woman with a hairstyle that could probably resist a blow from a hatchet, she was always calm and composed. Now, however, she was slumped over and trembling in her chair next to the graaf.

  “Anabella?” said Ernst cautiously. A curious choking sound, as if she were trying to cough up a tarantula, came from the secretary’s mouth. And then the entire delegation jumped in their chairs as she abruptly lurched upright.

  The woman’s lips had peeled back from her teeth, and her eyes were staring straight ahead. She was breathing rapidly and Odette could see sweat pouring from her skin.

  Is she sick? thought Odette. Is she having a seizure? Shouldn’t someone do something?

  Then, before Odette could move, Anabella caught her breath and made a pained straining noise. Her hands, gripping the edge of the table, suddenly spasmed, making the table shake and sending cups toppling. Documents were engulfed by beverages, but no one noticed as their drinks waterfalled into their laps.

  And then Anabella’s features changed. Before the horrified gaze of the delegation, the muscles of her face rippled, shifted, and rearranged themselves, pushing certain areas out, hardening the soft curves of her face into a longer, more angular visage. Her arms gave little jerks as they came up to cross her chest and she looked around the room.

  “Anabella,” said Ernst again, and he reached out a hand toward her.

  “Keep away!” she barked, and her voice was not Anabella’s but rather that of a young male. “The sow is mine.” She smiled, baring her teeth. For a moment, her eyes met Odette’s, and then Odette looked away. “Nobody? No reaction?” Anabella’s body gave a labored shrug. “Anyway, you are correct. The attacks are escalating and we will continue to strike until this is finished. Until you are finished.”

  My God, thought Odette. It’s them. Aghast, she stood up, knocking over her chair. Everyone else around the table also stood and stared incredulously at Anabella.

  “You have brought this upon yourselves. When one beholds an atrocity, one cannot stand by and allow it to continue,” said the voice. “You are become atrocities. You must be ended.”


  “It is not your place, or anyone’s, to judge us,” said Grootvader Ernst. Rage boiled in his eyes, and his hands were curled into fists, but he kept his voice calm. “You must cease these activities immediately.”

  “You do not give us orders,” said the voice, sounding amused. “You saw our work the night of your little party? The restaurant?”

  “We saw. Your stupidity in coming to these islands is unfathomable,” said Ernst flatly. “Is it possible that you do not understand the forces that dwell here? The Checquy exists to destroy your kind.”

  “Oh, we know. But it exists to destroy your kind too. You need to be more afraid than we do.”

  “This conflict between us is not necessary,” said Marcel soothingly. “Surely you understand that we want only peace?”

  “There cannot be peace,” hissed the voice. “You delude yourselves if you think it is possible. This proposed alliance between you and the Checquy: the ridiculous marrying the profane. You despise each other. Sooner or later, one of you will turn on the other, and the conflict will consume you both. But we are not willing to wait. We are going to make it happen sooner than you can believe.”

  “If you do not cease these hostilities,” said Ernst, “you will know pain and sorrow unlike anything you can imagine.”

  “We know what your threats are worth,” said the voice in a tone thick with contempt. It paused, and Anabella’s body shuddered for a moment. Her hands clenched the arms of her chair, and then she vomited violently down the length of the conference table. Her head came up, and there was a look of triumph in her eyes. “It is you who should be afraid. It is going to get so much worse for you, and you will not be safe anywhere. Not even in your own skins.”

  The face smirked, and then the features sank back into the shape of Anabella’s familiar ones. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she crumpled to the floor.

  21

  What in the hell happened to you?” asked Felicity as Odette entered the hotel room. Odette looked at her blankly.

  That’s right, she thought, dazed. She’s staying here with us. In the frenzy of what she had just witnessed, Odette had completely forgotten about the Pawn’s presence.

  “I—what?” she asked.

  “Why are you wearing a too-large bathrobe over your clothes?”

  “I was cold?” hazarded Odette. The Pawn gave her a long, level look. She got up from the couch, walked over until she was uncomfortably close to Odette, and abruptly reached out and opened the robe.

  “Bloody hell!”

  Odette looked down at her suit. In the course of forty-five minutes, it had gone from being her third-best suit to her third-worst suit. Not only had it picked up some mingled coffee, tea, orange juice, cranberry juice, splashes of Anabella’s projectile vomit, and a torrent of Odette’s terrified sweat, but there was also blood splashed liberally up the sleeves and some arterial spray across the lapels.

  “I was cold and we had to do a bit of emergency surgery,” amended Odette.

  After Anabella collapsed, the entire delegation had stood frozen for a few long seconds. Then everyone had proceeded to freak out completely. However, with the Checquy guards outside the door, ready to overreact, the freak-out had been necessarily hushed. Ernst barked orders that no one listened to, Marie called her superior in the Netherlands, and the lawyers and the accountants fluttered around like agitated flamingos.

  Since Odette and Marcel were the only actual medical practitioners in the party, it had fallen to them to provide first aid to the unpossessed secretary. However, they had to elbow their way through a confusion of milling and squawking professionals in order to reach her.

  They discovered that the possession had left more lasting results than a dismayed delegation, a soiled table, and several beverage-stained designer suits. Patches of blood were spreading rapidly on Anabella’s white blouse. Marcel tore open her shirt to reveal lacerations all over Anabella’s body. Jagged lines spelled out obscenities and threats, and blood flowed out at an alarming rate.

  “Apply pressure!” Marcel barked to Odette. She swept up some coffee-stained but mercifully vomit-free linen napkins from the table and bent over Anabella. The secretary was still unconscious, and Marcel brushed one of his fingers lightly over her carotid artery.

  “Chemical glands in my fingertips,” he explained to Odette. “To keep her asleep. You know, they’re far more discreet than spurs.”

  “Is now really the time to critique my implants?” asked Odette tightly. “Implants that you know were a gift.”

  “Fine,” said Marcel. “We’ll need to disinfect and suture.” He looked around and caught the eye of the least panicked functionary. “You! We need surgical needles, disinfectant, antimicrobial thread, and tissue adhesive, statim!”

  “Where am I going to get all those?” asked the functionary in bewilderment.

  “They’re in my handbag by my seat,” said Odette. They pressed into service the two largest accountants, who carried Anabella into Ernst’s gigantic and luxurious bedroom. Marcel laid some gigantic and luxurious towels on the bed. It was a relatively routine procedure, but the necessity for speed and the lack of facilities meant that there was no time to use Grafter techniques or for Odette to activate her operating musculature.

  “These are going to be the worst scars ever,” remarked Odette.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” said Marcel. “You’re doing a very nice stitch.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” said Odette. “I was talking about the word monster on her belly.”

  “We’ll take care of that later,” said Marcel dismissively. “The main thing is to ensure she doesn’t bleed to death.”

  In the end, she didn’t bleed to death, but it wasn’t tidy, and afterward, Odette and Marcel looked exactly as if they had conducted emergency surgery in a hotel room.

  In order to leave the suite without sending the Checquy guards bursting in as soon as they got one look at her, Odette had washed her hands and face thoroughly and wrapped herself in Ernst’s gigantic and luxurious robe. It had trailed behind her as she walked down the corridor, which had garnered some startled looks, but the hallway guards seemed to put it down to Grafter-style eccentricity on her part.

  Unfortunately, Clements did not seem to be so asinine.

  “You performed surgery?” exclaimed Felicity. “At a staff meeting?”

  “Um, yes,” said Odette, trying desperately to behave as if this were a perfectly normal occurrence. “One of the assistants had some problems with her implants. She was sick all over the table, so we opened her up in the bathroom,” she added in a fit of inspiration. There was really no way to prevent news of the vomiting from getting out.

  “I see,” said Felicity. She looked appalled at the idea, but to Odette’s relief she seemed to buy it. Apparently, she was willing to believe anything of the Grafters—a thought that depressed Odette a little. “Well,” said the Pawn, “I had a meeting too.” She did not add that her meeting had not resulted in her getting covered in bodily fluids, but both of them were thinking it. “I got a call to go down to Portsmouth. They want me to take a look at something.”

  “Oh!” said Odette. “So does that mean that I won’t . . .” have to endure your presence for the rest of the day? she mentally finished.

  “No, it means you’re coming down to Portsmouth with me,” said the Pawn. She sounded as deeply unenthusiastic about the prospect as Odette felt. “They checked with your grandfather, and he thought it was a good idea.”

  “I see.”

  “He said to be sure to wear your coat, as it gets cold down by the seaside,” said Clements.

  “Right,” said Odette absently. She’s not going to be following me around, she realized with a sinking feeling. I’m going to be following her around. Because she is more important than I am.

  “We’re taking the train down, so you’ll need to get changed. Quickly.”

  Odette nodded unhappily and hurried into her and Alessio’s room, w
here she put on her fourth-best suit. Clements chivvied her out of the suite and down to the lobby. Apparently, there was a car waiting to whip them to Waterloo Station. They were just heading out the hotel’s main door when Felicity’s mobile rang.

  “Clements,” the Pawn answered briskly. “Yes? Yes, sir, we’ll wait.” She snapped the phone shut. “They’re sending someone down with a briefing folder; more material came over the secure line. I’ll meet them at the lifts. You sit on that couch, and don’t go anywhere. I’ll be watching you.”

  Odette sat, reluctantly obedient, and looked on without much interest as a swarm of businessmen were checked in. She glanced over to the bank of lifts and saw that Clements was indeed watching her. She looked down hastily. There was a bowl of apples on the coffee table in front of her, and she took one while she waited.

  “Delicious, aren’t they?” said a voice beside her, and she turned, startled. A blond woman was sitting on the arm of the couch, also eating an apple. She was stunningly beautiful and had the best-looking skin Odette had ever seen on a non-Grafter. She smiled at Odette and rolled her eyes at the harried-looking hotel receptionists. “I expect they put the fruit out just to cover up for the long waiting times, but what can you do?” Her accent was British and, from what Odette could tell, very upper-class.

  “Just have an apple and bide your time, I suppose,” said Odette.

  “Not a bad motto for life in general,” remarked the woman with a smile, and Odette smiled back. “Have you got a busy day coming up?”