Stiletto

by Daniel O'Malley

  Codman shrugged. “Just because something’s supernatural or ab-human doesn’t mean it doesn’t have contact with our society. I know there was a flesh-eating ghoul in South Kensington that had an account at Fortnum’s.”

  “Fortnum’s was delivering human flesh?” asked Odette in fascinated horror.

  “No, I think the ghoul got spices from them,” said the zoologist. “And some conserves.”

  “This is a riveting aside,” said Wharton, “but let’s focus on where we are.”

  “You know,” said Odette, “I don’t think the monster is actually doing anything now.”

  “What?” asked the marine biologist.

  “It’s too stable in here,” she said thoughtfully. “I mean, we can stand up without any difficulty. I don’t care what kind of suspension system this thing has, if the monster were moving around, if it had broken free, we would be flat on our backs.” She walked over to one of the ledges and pressed against it. “See how this gives? It’s cushioning, for when it’s moving.”

  “But all those tremors, and the opening of the tunnel? If it’s not doing something, why did those happen?”

  “Maybe it reacted to us coming in,” said Odette. “Like automatic doors, or an automatic security system. I doubt that we came in the front door. Maybe the monster was reactivating, waking up, and now it’s just idling.”

  “Waiting for instructions,” said Wharton.

  “Then maybe you should stop messing around with the dead pilot,” suggested Codman. “In case he gives a death spasm and accidentally orders the monster to make a break for it.”

  “Do we know for sure he’s dead?” asked the marine biologist. They both looked at Odette.

  “I’m fairly certain,” she said. “He’s cold, has no discernible pulse, and smells of rotting meat.”

  “I dated someone like that once,” remarked Codman. “A graduate student, a medieval historian.”

  “Do you think we should make sure he’s dead?” asked the marine biologist. “Like slit his throat? Or cut off his head?” He held up his little government-issue chain saw.

  “No!” exclaimed Odette. “Cutting off his head might send all sorts of insane signals to the beast.”

  “I suppose we couldn’t just cut through those linkage cords, then?” asked Wharton regretfully. Odette was beginning to suspect that he really wanted to use his chain saw.

  “Probably best not. But I have an idea. We don’t know how long the Checquy will take to get us out. Presumably there’s a way out of here that isn’t the way we came in. So let’s see if we can’t find it.” The men agreed, although Wharton looked a little disappointed. “We may have to cut the entrance open,” she added, and he brightened visibly.

  The search was not as easy as she’d hoped. The walls were not smooth but rather ridged and corrugated, like the folds of a brain. They were crisscrossed with seams and lines, any of which might indicate an exit or might simply be a quirk of some extremely quirky architecture. The anus through which they had entered had sealed into a tight little knot, and she noted there were several identical little knots around the room.

  The problem is that they might lead anywhere, she thought grimly. I don’t want to go into the tunnel that leads to the large intestine. Although it would lead out eventually, I suppose, but it wouldn’t be pleasant for anyone. There was, of course, always the possibility of Wharton just cutting their way out, but she wasn’t at all certain how the creature might react to having various large holes cut through it. And who knows where else the tunnels might lead us? A creature like this, we could end up opening a sac of biological acid or venom or something. Plus, this thing is so big that the chain saw would probably run out of juice long before we got all the way out. Still, she continued to search.

  She sat down gingerly on one of the ledges and felt it settle obligingly under her, as if it were the offspring of a water bed and a beanbag. She patted it absently. Think about this logically. Where would you put the entrance to a cockpit? At the far end from the pilot, she decided. That was how it was on airplanes. And since they were situated, as far as she could tell, in the lower back half of the creature, then the far side would be closest to the creature’s hindquarters. She swiveled to look at the rear.

  And then the world went insane.

  Or at least tipped forty-five degrees to the left.

  Odette felt somewhat vindicated, since the shelf-thing held on to her, building up a little ledge and tilting itself so that she wasn’t flung against the wall. The two Checquy men, however, let out startled squawks as they were sent flying across the chamber.

  “What did you do?” Odette yelled at the marine biologist. She guessed that he had prodded at the white body and prompted some sort of response.

  “Nothing! What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything!” As one, they looked at Codman, who had gotten wedged upside down in a corner.

  “I don’t like this sort of thing!” shouted the zoologist. “This is why I studied evolution, so I could do all my work in the lab!” Odette had a tart response ready, but she didn’t get to use it because the creature suddenly shifted in the other direction and began a series of undulations that prevented any of them from standing up.

  “Should I try and kill the pilot?” shouted the marine biologist. He held up his chain saw.

  “No!” shouted Odette and Codman simultaneously. Having someone prancing around with an active chain saw while the ground shifted seemed spectacularly unwise.

  “Just hang on to something and try to lie still,” said Codman. “They’ll kill it soon—listen!”

  Even through many meters of living animal, they could hear sounds—extremely peculiar sounds that Odette assumed were the Checquy soldiers limbering up their powers and engaging in battle. There was a muffled explosion somewhere, and a moment later a wave of blinding yellow light swept through the place. It set the walls and floors sizzling and smoking. Odette’s own skin flared with a sudden flash of pain, and she realized that she was screaming along with the scientists. No! Stop it! The light died away. The three of them looked at one another in horror. Their skins glistened with burns.

  That must have been the Checquy, thought Odette weakly. I’ve no doubt they can kill this thing. At least, not much doubt. But can they kill it without killing us?

  Something was happening. Felicity had been mentally squatting in the darkness, composing her report to Rook Thomas and trying to ignore the little voice in her mind pointing out that she might never get to make it. Then she felt the shifting of the muscles that she was currently occupying. A great deal of movement was occurring.

  Be ready, she thought. Not only were the muscles shifting back and forth, but they periodically gave violent shudders. That’s got to be the Checquy. They’re attacking it. There was a tremendous jolt, and then the walls around her were gone.

  Now! Felicity burst away, down, out of the monster onto the concrete floor of the hangar. Free! She coursed to the spot where the observation platform had been set up.

  Get in my body.

  Get in my body.

  Get in my body.

  Where in the hell is my body? She didn’t find it. All she found was the shattered remnants of the pavilion. Cringing mentally, she gingerly scanned the area for any traces of her corpse.

  Nothing.

  What’s happened? she thought madly. For a ridiculous moment, she wondered if she’d been mistaken about the location. I’ve gotten lost. But, no, the torn plastic of the pavilion covered the crushed wreckage of the platform and that damn chair. It’s gone! They’ve gone! I’ve gone! she thought in horrified disbelief.

  They took my body. She set out to search the gigantic hangar.

  This really is a shitty day.

  Oh God, I can’t take any more.

  Again and again, that searing yellow light swept through the chamber. Again and again, the three of them shrieked and burned. Even the white corpse in the chair was charring, filling the room w
ith a smell that was even worse than the reek of the blackening walls. The miasma of burning rotten meat had prompted the marine biologist and the zoologist both to throw up everything they’d ever eaten in their lives, and it was only because Odette had sealed off her stomach that she didn’t join in the festivities.

  When smoke filled the chamber, they all yanked their masks on, only for Odette to find that her faceplate had completely shattered. Now the smoke was burning her lungs and eyes. If she tried to suspend her breathing, she would go into a deep sleep, but she knew that the continued tumbling of the chamber and the next burning wave of light would rouse her and her breathing would kick in again.

  I think I’m going to die, she thought faintly. Another wave of the light burned across them. But apparently not soon enough. She thought of the venom in her spurs and wondered if it would be wrong to kill herself now.

  The yellow light came again, and she could feel her skin scorching. Is this enough pain? And then it passed. No one could blame me, surely. A little scratch or jab with the octopus venom and I could slip away. No more hurt, no more sorrow, no more fear. But then she looked at the two men across the room. She realized, to her dull surprise, that she couldn’t desert them by dying and taking the easy way out. And she couldn’t kill them. Even if I did it with their permission, if the Checquy found my venom had killed them, it would destroy the negotiations.

  There’s nothing I can do.

  The light flared through again, and she closed her eyes and burned.

  24

  All Odette knew was the hurt. She was burning inside and out, and she could only lie there, absorb the pain, and wait to die. She didn’t think except to wearily acknowledge when something new burned her. She didn’t know if the two men were still alive. The room had stopped moving, but still the occasional wave of yellow light washed through or a concussion throbbed in the floor.

  A tremendous report shuddered through the chamber inside the monster, and with an effort, Odette opened her eyes. She saw the walls flex down and down and down. They crumpled and then they tore with a sound that turned her stomach. Fluids leaked in, but then so did a distant flash of daylight. There was the wet, crackling sound of burned meat tearing apart, and then loops of rope poured into the chamber through a tear from above. A man abseiled down and wrinkled his nose.

  “Hullo, the three of you! Sorry about the delay, took us quite a bit of work to kill the beastie. We had to call in some naval backup. This whole thing has been rather tedious, really.” He looked at the three of them. They stared up at him, dazed. Their suits were smoking, and their exposed faces were burned and crimson. “Been through the wars a bit, eh? I expect you could all do with a draft of something alcoholic.” He spoke into his headset. “I have our people, all looking very bad indeed.”

  I’m sorry, but you can’t co—ow! Ow!” Odette opened her eyes just in time to see Pawn Clements grab the doctor by his tie and his belt and swing him smoothly out the door and into the hallway while at the same time relieving him of his clipboard. She kicked the door shut behind her and advanced on the bed. At no time had the Pawn taken her horrified eyes off Odette.

  “Sweet bloody hell!” Clements breathed. She sounded utterly distraught. “Oh Christ, look at your face!” Since this maneuver was not possible, Odette settled for staring wide-eyed at the deeply upset Pawn. The other woman was distinctly disheveled and for some reason was dressed in a peculiarly sheer set of coveralls through which her underwear could be seen. Her hair had come partially out of its braid, her face was red, and she was breathing heavily. It was clear that she had just sprinted to the medical facility from somewhere.

  “Look at your poor hands!” moaned the Pawn. Odette brought them up with difficulty. She had to concede that they did not look good. They were red, raw, and weeping and had been slathered in antiseptic cream. “Are you in a lot of pain?” Odette opened her mouth to say something, but the Pawn was flipping through her chart.

  “‘Burns, smoke inhalation, possible toxic exposure’!” Clements read aloud. “Jesus, they unleashed Pawn Mnookin on that thing. With that radiation of hers, this could actually be classified as a war crime.” The Pawn looked up, aghast. “Are you all right? How do you feel?” Odette felt the rush of happiness that comes when someone is concerned for you.

  “I don’t know what the hell you could possibly have been thinking,” Clements continued without waiting for an answer. “Do you have any idea how much trouble I’m going to get into for this?” Odette’s rush of happiness departed abruptly, replaced by the rush of distress that comes when someone is about to tear into you. “I can’t believe your selfishness! I’m responsible for your safety, my career is on the line, and the first time I turn my back, you go crawling into a fucking monster? Are you mad? Or is this just a case of suicidal stupidity?”

  “I thought that since the other scientists were going in—” Odette started.

  “The other scientists were doing it, so you thought you would? What are you, thirteen?” shouted Clements. “The other scientists are expendable. The other scientists aren’t diplomatic envoys. The other scientists aren’t supposed to go to the country with their senior delegates as guests of the Lord and Lady this weekend. Now look at you! You’re going to be in hospital for days—maybe weeks!”

  “Well, actually—” began Odette.

  “And this could do unbelievable harm to the negotiations,” continued Clements. “Do you think something like this sends a good message? ‘Yes, we have a member of your family under government protection and she has just been burned, crushed, and poisoned inside a gigantic porpoise.’” She paused, apparently overcome by Odette’s idiocy. “Well, I can tell you that that Fielding woman is going to regret ever meeting you.”

  “You can’t punish her! It was my idea to go in there!” protested Odette.

  “Yes, and now we’ve established that you can’t be trusted to keep yourself safe. Your decision-making privileges have been revoked. You will be transferred to the Apex hospital, and I will sit in a corner of your room, reading fashion magazines and making sure you don’t accidentally stab yourself in the eye with your plastic hospital spork.”

  Right, that does it!

  “You know what?” said Odette, incensed. “You can just shut the fuck up.”

  “I beg your pardon?” said Clements in a dangerous voice.

  “Shut. Up. You are not my boss, and you are not my mother. Yes, if I ever get into the Checquy, it is possible that you will outrank me in some bullshit chess-related pecking order. Although I doubt it, because I can sew a man’s head back on and he will live if I get to him in time, while your main qualification is apparently that you can be a real bitch!”

  “Do you think I won’t beat the shit out of someone just because I’m responsible for her safety and she is suffering from serious burns and”—Clements looked down at the clipboard—“possible internal cookage?”

  “I think you won’t. Because at the moment, I am the VIP, and you are . . . my entourage.”

  “Your entourage?” repeated Clements. Odette could practically feel the heat of her outrage. “Your entourage?”

  I may have made a tremendous error here, Odette thought, but I’ll get my hits in before she destroys me. She pushed on recklessly.

  “Yes,” said Odette. “My entourage. And you don’t have to worry about the burns. All I need is a night or two in a bath full of some chemicals I have back at the hotel, and I’ll come out looking like I’ve just had some sunburn. So you’ll have to give up on your hospital scenario. Sorry about the fashion mags,” she added tartly.

  “I am not your servant,” said Clements through gritted teeth. “I’m here to protect you. And apparently I need to be protecting you from your own moronitude. Let me explain something to you: You don’t need to seek out danger. Thanks to your inspired activities at the Apex, people—people with supernatural abilities—already hate you. Before, they hated the idea of you, and now you go and—” She took a deep b
reath. “If you do anything like this ever again and I manage to keep you alive, I will proceed to break your ankles.” She paused for a moment. “And if you have some sort of weird ankle-based abilities that preclude that, I will simply put a collar and a leash on you.”

  Ah, Odette, come in,” said Grootvader Ernst without looking up. He was seated at the conference table in his suite, a mass of papers laid out before him. A new executive assistant—a replacement for the unfortunate Anabella—was seated a little farther down, looking distinctly nervous at her new responsibilities. I wonder if she heard what happened to her predecessor, thought Odette. “You’re back earlier than I anticipated.”

  “They helicoptered us in from Portsmouth,” said Odette sourly.

  “That’s nice. Ria, once you’ve purchased the train tickets, you can e-mail them to the Chimerae’s phones.” From memory, he wrote out a list of numbers with a fountain pen. “And they will need accommodations in London.”

  “Separate rooms?” asked the EA. “Separate locations?”

  “No, get them a single hotel room, as central as possible,” said Ernst. “One bed. They each only need two or three hours of sleep in a twenty-four-hour period, so they can sleep in shifts. The rest of the time, I want them out in the city, tracking down the targets.” He slid a piece of paper covered in his distinctive copperplate handwriting across to Ria. “Here are the details of the accounts to use and the identity for which the booking should be made.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the woman, who appeared to be about the age of Odette’s mother. She opened her laptop and began typing away.

  “Grootvader, I need to talk to you.”

  “Of course, sit down,” said Ernst. “Give me a moment, we’re just about to activate the Chimerae.”

  “That’s one of the things I need to talk to you about, you see—” She was cut off by Marie, who entered the room with a large bottle of water tucked under each arm and one in each hand.