Stiletto

by Daniel O'Malley

  “What about the young man?” asked the Chev, nodding at Alessio.

  “All the Broederschap stands ready to do service,” said Ernst, and he laid his hand on Alessio’s shoulder. Alessio looked a trifle startled at this volunteering of his help, but he nodded weakly. “We will bend all our strength to help you track down and kill this person,” Ernst declared. Everyone cringed at this heartfelt but unpalatable sentiment and looked around to make sure no race-goer had heard.

  “That’s very kind of you, Ernst,” said Rook Thomas finally, “but we generally try not to kill people unless we absolutely have to. At which point, we kill them absolutely. Our first priority right now is identifying this murderer.”

  “What are our leads?” asked Sir Henry.

  “Damn few,” said the Rook. “There doesn’t appear to be much of a pattern, except that all the previous murders took place in London or Northamptonshire.”

  “Security should have lists of everyone who has entered the enclosure,” said Chev Whibley. “I’ll see about obtaining them and transmitting them to the Rookery. Perhaps they can do an analysis and identify any correlations, such as a home or business address in Northamptonshire.”

  The Rook explained to him how to reach Major Llewelyn, and Chevalier Whibley hurried off toward the grandstand. Ernst looked over at Odette thoughtfully. “I have an idea that may be of help. Odette, was there any trackable scent in the toilet?”

  “Not really,” said Odette. “The crystals didn’t smell of anything in particular, so there was just feces and the faintest smell of blood.”

  “You can smell blood?” asked Thomas. “Interesting. Do all of you have super-smell?”

  “It’s not super-smell,” said Marcel. “It’s a heightened olfactory capacity keyed to specific biological compounds.”

  “Right,” said the Rook. “Super-smell.”

  “It’s not super,” insisted Marcel. “It’s equivalent to the best sense of smell possessed by a normal human being, but only for certain substances that we encounter in our work. It helps to diagnose some conditions.”

  “But there was no trail?” said the Rook. Odette shook her head.

  “Perhaps one could pick up the smell of blood if the person walked by,” mused Ernst.

  “It depends,” said Marcel dubiously. “But I suppose it is possible.”

  “My thought is this,” said Ernst. “Marcel, Odette, and I stand at three of the Royal Enclosure exits, and we keep a nose out for anyone smelling of blood.”

  We’re going to be sniffing every race-goer? thought Odette.

  “It’s ridiculous, but we’re in a ridiculous situation,” said the Rook. “And it might at least give us a chance. Also, I’d like Pawn Clements to go back to the murder scene and read its history. If she can get a look at the murderer, it could be our biggest break.”

  “And how long will that take?” asked Sir Henry. Clements straightened slightly under his gaze.

  “It depends, sir,” said the Pawn cautiously. “We don’t know how much time elapsed before the body was found. But not too long, I should think.”

  “I’ll go with her,” said Rook Thomas. “Sir Henry, I think you ought to accompany Miss Leliefeld. She has only minimal weaponry, and if the murderer detects any of you at the exits, he might decide to attack.” Clements opened her mouth and then shut it again. Apparently, if she couldn’t act as bodyguard, then a man who had once sunk a Russian submarine to the depths of the abyssal plain whilst sitting inside it drinking schnapps was an acceptable substitute.

  “From what I know of you gentlemen,” said the Rook drily to Marcel and Ernst, “I expect you can handle yourselves.”

  “That sounds like a decent plan, Myfanwy,” said Sir Henry. He put out his hand, and, looking startled, the Rook shook it. “You and Pawn Clements go on. We shall work out which exits we will cover.”

  Myfanwy watched Clements go into the handicapped bathroom and shut the door behind her. The guards outside were under the impression that the Pawn would be engaged in some sort of forensic work, which, technically, she was. Myfanwy sat herself down in a nearby chair, and her phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Rook Thomas, this is Pawn Ball at the Rookery watch office.”

  “What’s the status?” asked Myfanwy.

  “We sent out the text messages to all members of the Checquy. The nearest office is in Reading, and, given the traffic, that’s over an hour away, if we use cars without lights and sirens.” Myfanwy sighed. “Now, there is a party of three Checquy employees at Ascot today. They are attending in the public areas of the racecourse, but . . .” He trailed off uncomfortably.

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s their day off, and they’re at the races,” said Pawn Ball. “They’re somewhat intoxicated.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” said Myfanwy. “How intoxicated are we talking about?”

  “Intoxicated enough that they wouldn’t legally be able to drive. And one of them was giggling when I spoke to him over the phone.”

  “Great.”

  “Plus they e-mailed me photos of what they’re wearing, and none of them would pass the dress code for the Royal Enclosure. They couldn’t even pass as security guards or waitstaff, especially the ladies.”

  “All right, well, I suppose we’ll hold them in reserve. None of them have any abilities that might help us identify a murderer, do they?”

  “I’m afraid not. Two of them are Pawns. One has fireproof skin and the other has the ability to disrupt the part of the human brain that deals with language comprehension.”

  “No, I suppose that wouldn’t be of much use. Look, dispatch the team from Reading. We’ll need forensic investigators and a combat team, just in case.”

  “Understood.” And he rang off. Myfanwy sat back in her chair and brooded. She had an idea but was not certain how practicable it was. Earlier, while moving through the crowds, she’d brushed against a person who’d grated on her supernatural ability. Normally, she kept her additional senses firmly closed down to avoid getting distracted by the minutiae of other people’s nervous systems. But this person’s presence had flickered in the corner of her mind’s eye like a cigarette lighter.

  At the time, she’d dismissed it. Because of her amnesia, she didn’t have nearly the level of understanding of her abilities that the old Myfanwy had possessed. Her previous self had undergone years of training and experimentation with her powers and could do things that were completely beyond the new Myfanwy. For all she knew, that brief flash might have meant that someone was having a stroke, or a seizure, or just an involuntary shudder. She’d dismissed it. But now she wondered if she’d come in contact with the murderer. It was an unpleasant thought, but it opened up a very interesting possibility.

  Myfanwy had several secrets in addition to that of working for a covert supernatural government organization. The main secret, of course, was the amnesia. Only a few people were aware that her memories had been stolen from her and that she was masquerading as herself. With the loss of her memories, however, had come a startling development. For all the expertise her old self had possessed, she had always needed to establish physical contact to use her powers. The current Myfanwy could use them at a distance, extending them from her mind out to anyone within a radius of about twenty meters. She looked across at the security guards and knew that, with a thought, she could bring them both to their knees. By shifting the focus of her perceptions, she could view the electricity in their brains, the signals in their spines and muscles, the chemistry in their guts.

  So could I track down the murderer with my powers? she wondered. It was a tenuous possibility, very tenuous, but no less likely than the Grafters sniffing out the murderer at the exits. Privately, she doubted that they’d manage it. Expecting the Grafters to pick out the smell of a few drops of blood from hundreds of food- and alcohol-filled passersby on a windy day was not realistic.

  She stood up, having made the decision. “When my colleague emerge
s from her examination, could you please tell her I’ve just stepped away?” she asked the security guards. “She can ring me on my mobile.” They nodded obediently, and she moved toward the escalators, resolute despite the flaws in her plan, of which there were several. For one thing, there were plenty of areas she wouldn’t be able to access: the private boxes, the service areas. I’ll have to go wandering through the crowds, she thought. And hope I’m lucky enough to bump into a serial killer. A methodical approach was clearly needed, so she began at the top. Using her powers to examine people required a good deal of concentration, and so she was obliged to walk very slowly while she did it. She ambled along each of the seating levels, scanning the crowds, trying to pick out that strange flash she recalled.

  Nothing. Damn it.

  The most crowded areas were around the bars and restaurants, so she headed there next. There were hordes of people waiting patiently (if a little raucously) for drinks. She stood off to the side of the first bar, her eyes narrowed. Her intense focus was disrupted, however, when half a bourbon and Coke was spilled onto her feet by a red-faced young Hooray Henry who was busy drinking his winnings.

  “Sorry, miss,” he said, but the sincerity of his apology was somewhat marred by his sniggering and that of his equally intoxicated friends. His laughter cut off into a startled howl as, unaccountably, his wrist jerked and he dashed the rest of his beverage onto his own crotch. Myfanwy rolled her eyes and walked away. It was probably a gross violation of some Checquy code of conduct to use her abilities this way, but since she had no memory of ever reading such a code, she felt no guilt.

  Myfanwy made her way down through the grandstand, passing by the various bars and food venders, zigzagging along the concourses, and going back down the escalators. She paused to get a glass of orange juice and then walked over to the lawn by the racecourse. Could a person really just saunter around casually right after he killed someone? she wondered.

  “Myfanwy!” She jerked around at her name and did a double take that set her hat wobbling. In front of her was one of the few people she knew who had nothing to do with either the Checquy or the Grafters.

  “Jonathan!” she exclaimed. “Hi!” Jonathan was her brother—well, the brother of the body she’d inherited. Two years older, some inches taller, but with the same unremarkable brown hair and facial features. Technically, she was not supposed to know him. The Checquy had taken Myfanwy Thomas away from her family at the age of nine, when her powers first manifested. Jonathan had grown up thinking his sister was dead, and it was only when their parents were killed in a car accident and he gained access to their papers that he learned she was still alive. Even then, he had known only the cover story, that she had been struck down by a rare, incurable malady and taken to a secretive research facility where she could at least be made comfortable.

  Jonathan and Bronwyn (the youngest Thomas sibling) had spent several months tracking down their long-lost sister. Bronwyn had finally introduced herself to a startled Myfanwy—an amnesiac Myfanwy who had no fond, wistful memories of her siblings but was prepared to fake them, just as she was faking being a Rook of the Checquy. Both Bronwyn and Jonathan remained unaware of Myfanwy’s real job and her supernatural abilities. They were under the impression that she was a highly paid administrative consultant who had spent many years in a coma and who now suffered from agoraphobia. It was not the best cover story, but it was the only scenario Myfanwy had been able to come up with that fit all the facts.

  “I didn’t know you were going to be here,” said Jonathan. “That’s a great hat.” They cheek-kissed awkwardly, partly because theirs was an odd, still-gestating relationship and partly because their respective hats projected in unfamiliar ways and required some careful maneuvering.

  “Thank you. You look very handsome. I’m here with people from work.”

  “Oh, me too,” said Jonathan. “The bank has a box, and they asked me along. Apparently, they liked what I did in Hong Kong.” He looked around. “Where are your colleagues? I’d love to meet them.”

  “I appear to have lost them,” said Myfanwy. Which is the only break I’ve managed to catch today. If she and Jonathan had run into each other when she wasn’t alone, the situation would have gotten very awkward very quickly. Operatives of the Checquy who had been taken from their families were not supposed to reconnect with them. She looked up at the royal box, worried Lady Farrier might be gazing down at her with a pair of opera glasses, then glanced around anxiously, checking to make sure that none of the others were trying to find her. Then she stiffened.

  Fifteen meters away, a middle-aged man in a black morning coat was chuckling at a joke his female companion had made and flaring in Thomas’s supernatural senses like a blowtorch.

  What is wrong with the universe that it would screw me around like this?

  She realized that Jonathan was still talking to her.

  “What?”

  “Would you like to come up to the box? I’d love to introduce you to some of my colleagues and my boss.”

  “Oh, that’s so kind,” said Myfanwy distractedly. She squinted beyond her brother at the man with the flickering aura. He was irritatingly average. A forty-something white male with brown hair and no convenient facial hair or eye patch to help her describe him to the others. She tried desperately to read his name tag but couldn’t make it out. “Could we do it in a little bit? I really need to find my work people. There are some foreign visitors—clients—and I’m slightly worried about them.”

  “Of course, I understand. Can’t you call them?”

  “I could, yes . . .” said Myfanwy. “That’s a very good and sane point.” Damn it. “But they don’t speak English. And I don’t speak Dutch!” she said in a moment of inspiration. “Wait, you don’t speak Dutch, do you?” she asked fearfully.

  “No, just Mandarin.”

  Thank God.

  “Well, yeah, there you are. I’ll go find them and make sure they’re taken care of. And then I’ll give you a call, and we’ll meet your people.” She bit her lip anxiously. The man who might be the murderer was shaking hands with his companion. Is he leaving?

  “Myfanwy?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Myfanwy.” The tone in Jonathan’s voice caught her by surprise, and she tore her gaze away from the suspect. Her brother was looking at her with a very serious expression. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you? You’re distracted, you’re fidgeting, and you won’t look me in the eye. Do I need to be worried about you?” Myfanwy’s eyebrows knit in confusion. Then she realized what he was talking about.

  Part of the cover story she had concocted for her family was that she had spent many years in a drugged state as part of the treatment for her unspecified condition. At the time, she’d thought it was a good lie. It had gone some way toward explaining why, once she’d been “cured,” she’d never tried to contact her brother and sister. But then, in a regrettable fit of creativity, she’d embroidered on the lie and implied to Bronwyn that she still had some residual addiction issues. Bronwyn had dutifully passed this on to their brother, and now he was apparently afraid she was relapsing.

  “Oh, no, Jonathan. I’m fine, I swear to you.” Despite the ridiculousness of the situation, despite the danger, she couldn’t help but be a little pleased. It was a nice feeling, having a protective older brother. He still seemed dubious. “It’s the, um, crowds and the noise.” You know, my fictional agoraphobia? “I thought I’d be all right, but it’s all a little overwhelming.”

  “Of course!” he said anxiously. “Would you like to sit down? We could go inside, see if there’s somewhere quiet.” He started to lead her into the stadium, taking her right by the glowing man, and she caught Jonathan’s hand.

  “Yes, I’ll go to the ladies’ in a second.” She drew him closer to speak quietly. “There’s a man behind you—he is the husband of a client of mine. And the woman he is with is not my client.”

  “Ah. Aw
kward.”

  “Yes, that’s why I was a bit distracted.”

  “Are you going to say anything?” he asked.

  “Probably not. I’d prefer just to feel really uncomfortable every time I see her,” said Myfanwy. He smiled. Behind him, the suspect was turning to go. “Anyway, I might just head to the bathroom and splash some water on my face. I shall call you once I’ve found my people.”

  “Jolly good,” said Jonathan. “You don’t have any tips for the horses, do you?”

  “Totes Pferd in the fifth, I heard.”

  “Interesting. Maybe I’ll go place a bet.”

  “Go! Bet! And I shall talk to you soon.” She patted him on the arm and then took off after the suspect, who was marching up the steps into the grandstand.

  It turned out to be quite the worst place in the world to try and tail a man. The dress code meant that they all looked roughly the same. There was some variation, of course, with black morning suits and gray morning suits and gray top hats and black top hats (although colored ribbons on the hats were strictly forbidden). But for a shortish woman trotting along in high heels and a dress whose designer had prioritized looking great over swift movement, maintaining a bead on one specific male was not easy.

  To make matters more difficult, the suspect was not sauntering along easily but appeared to be in something of a hurry himself. He had passed through the stadium and was now briskly trotting down the stairs toward the gardens, where even more men in morning suits were clotting together. Myfanwy pulled out her phone and dialed.

  “Myfanwy, what is it?”

  “Ernst, I have him. I’m on his tail,” she said.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m passing the big statue of the horse head, and he’s moving toward the marquees.” She gave the best description she could, even though her quarry was as nondescript as it seemed possible for a person to be.

  “Right, I’m coming to you,” said Ernst. “Be careful, Myfanwy. Keep your distance from him until I get there.”

  “I just want one photo of him, and I—bugger. Where is he?” Myfanwy stopped, bewildered. She could have sworn she had not taken her eyes off him, but now he was nowhere to be seen. “Ernst, I need to concentrate. Come find me.” She hung up and looked around intently. Where did he go? She shifted her perception, suddenly becoming aware of the crowd’s physiologies, but there was no sign of that peculiar flickering from before. She turned around to find that her quarry was right behind her, looking at her intently. It was like realizing you were standing next to a person made of neon tubes.