Stiletto (14 page)

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.

*1
Charles II of England was not Carlos II of Spain. Confusing one for the other would probably have earned you a backhanding from Charles and a bewildered stare from Carlos.

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.

A conference table was off to one side. Several members of the delegation were already seated there, reviewing documents. All of them were wearing suits and harried expressions. At the head of the table sat Graaf van Suchtlen, dipping a toast soldier into a soft-boiled egg and chortling over the latest edition of
Private Eye
. Odette walked over to him, Alessio trailing silently behind her. They stood wordlessly by the patriarch’s side until he acknowledged them.

“Ah, Odette and Alessio! Good morning,” he said cheerfully.

“Good morning, Grootvader,” they said, almost in unison.

“I trust you slept well, surrounded by the guards of our allies?” he said.

“Absolutely,” said Odette. Alessio smiled weakly.

“Alessio, you look very smart in your suit, but you won’t be needing it today.”

“Oh?” said Alessio warily.

“No, the Checquy have kindly made arrangements for you to be entertained. A group of students from their training facility —”

“The Estate,” added Odette helpfully.

“Yes, a group of students from the Estate are in London for a field trip to visit various musea and landmarks. You will be joining them.” Odette did not dare look at her brother, but she couldn’t hear him breathing, which was not a good sign since he needed to do that in order to live.

There was a fraught pause.

“Oh, Alessio, you’ll get to see London,” she said encouragingly. “That sounds like fun.” She nudged him.

“Yes. Such fun,” he said woodenly.

“However, in order to fit in with them, you will have to be wearing the school uniform. Frau Blümen, the headmistress of the Estate, has thoughtfully sent one in your size.” Van Suchtlen did not make any gesture, but his secretary Anabella, a plump older woman, immediately came over carrying a uniform on a hanger.

A blazer of lurid orange, lime green, and purple stripes burned Odette’s dilated pupils. There was a tie in the same horrendous colors, which was apparently worn over a white shirt. A pair of gray trousers appeared to be trying to hide themselves so as not to be associated with the blazer and tie.

“And, of course, the hat,” said Anabella, presenting a straw chapeau of the sort that Odette vaguely remembered was called a boater. It was adorned with a broad ribbon in the school colors.

“Well, that all looks very impressive,” said van Suchtlen in the cheerful tones of a man who did not have to wear it. Alessio reached out and took the suit as if it were made out of the scrota of war criminals. “Go and put it on so that we can all see how it looks.” Alessio tottered out of the suite, beaten down by the knowledge that he would be spending the day with the traditional enemies of his family while wearing a suit that might induce epilepsy in passersby.

“Grootvader, forgive me for asking, but will he be all right on this excursion?” Odette said.

“He’ll be fine. It will do him good to get out and spend more time with children his own age.”

“I meant, will he be safe with those people? Those children are already trained warriors. Are they going to know who he is?”

“They’ll know,” said van Suchtlen. “Their teachers will have advised them. Alessio is part of the negotiations. His presence is a sign of good faith on our side.”

So my baby brother will be a hostage,
thought Odette.
Terrific.
But she knew better than to voice any complaint. Really, they were all hostages, but the Checquy, for all its unnaturalness, was a government agency and could be trusted to keep visiting dignitaries safe.
Probably.

Odette sat down at the other side of the table and woke up her tablet computer. She reached for a cup of coffee, but one of the aides moved the tray out of her reach with a disapproving look. As she reread the files on the Checquy’s hierarchy, other members of the delegation entered the room. Almost all of them stopped to pay their respects to van Suchtlen, standing patiently until they were acknowledged. Her great-uncle Marcel, however, merely traded a nod with the head of the Grafters before walking directly to Odette. He pecked her on the cheek and sat down beside her.

He was still wearing his original body, so although he was several centuries younger than Grootvader Ernst, Marcel Leliefeld looked as though he could be the graaf’s grandfather. He was a dapper little man with old-fashioned side-whiskers and a suit that had last been in style during World War II. The nature of his enhancements was a matter of much speculation among the younger generation, but it was known that, in his prime, he had torn open a bank vault with his bare hands, and just last year he had broken the neck of a Komodo dragon that had escaped from its pen in his atelier.

“Good morning, my dear,” he said. “Your eyes look lovely.” Odette could feel herself blushing, and stopped it. “Did you have any coffee?”

“No.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “Don’t have any more,” said Marcel. “Your throat needs to heal.”

“Fine,” said Odette.

“Doing some last-minute reading up on the key players?”

“There are still two spots in their Court that haven’t been permanently filled,” said Odette. “I don’t understand why Rook Kelleher and Chevalier Whibley are only temporary. Especially since they replaced Bishop Conrad Grantchester right away. Clearly they can move quickly when they need to, and I would have thought his position would be harder to fill than the other two.”

“Well, there’s some speculation that they are deliberately leaving those spots open,” said Marcel. “Perhaps a newcomer will be granted a role.”

“One of us?” asked Odette, startled. The Court was the executive branch of the Checquy and possessed authority over enough supernatural individuals to destroy a nation with ease. Any nation.

“Or perhaps they just want us to think that it is a possibility.” Marcel shrugged. “We are coming to them as supplicants, but we are not a power to be treated lightly. If this merger is to work, then both parties will be forced to change.” Odette opened her mouth to say something, but at that moment the entire room fell silent as, at the end of the table, van Suchtlen shut his magazine and handed it to one of the hovering aides.

“There is one thing I would like to cover before Alessio returns,” he said. “But first, we shall take some precautions. Lars, please check the room.” One of the assistants bowed from the waist and opened a bulky plastic suitcase. Nestled in the foam were small black appliances that were handed out to several of the other aides. They immediately began passing them over the walls and fixtures, checking for electronic surveillance devices.

“Didn’t they check for these last night?” Odette muttered to Marcel.

“Of course,” said Marcel, “but the Checquy are extremely talented, and we are on their home turf. It is always best to be cautious.” Van Suchtlen gestured to Harold, one of their financial executives. Harold removed his tinted glasses to reveal his extraordinary eyes. Irises lay within irises, green circling brown circling blue circling gold circling purple. Odette squinted to watch the circles in his eyes rotate around each other. She knew that some of their craftsmen had labored for months to construct them.

“No listening devices, Excellency,” said one of the aides finally.

“And I don’t see anything unexpected in the spectrum from gamma through microwave,” said Harold.

“Thank you,” said van Suchtlen. “That’s very encouraging. I like to think that they respect us as a diplomatic party. Well, then, let’s get started. To begin with, I understand there have been more attacks on the Continent?”

Odette braced herself. The attacks had started a couple of months ago, shocking the Broederschap with their randomness, their complexity, and their spite. Ever since the battle with the Checquy, the members of the brotherhood hadn’t considered themselves truly safe; from then on, they had operated at a level of extreme paranoia and had a policy of keeping to themselves that had helped them avoid any significant conflicts. That had all changed as their facilities and personnel were suddenly subjected to a series of hit-and-run attacks engineered by a body they had come to call “the Antagonists.”

The Antagonists were not a government organization intent on subjugating the Grafters. Nor were they a mindless group of supernatural monsters that wanted merely to kill. They were motivated by hatred and anger; their attacks were designed to cripple, to wound, to
mutilate
. They not only caused horrendous damage but also served to keep the Broederschap completely off balance. There was no pattern to their malice. One day, it was an elaborate act of vandalism at a private gallery of historic Grafter masterpieces; the next day, a strike on a lab that left people injured and equipment destroyed. And then for weeks nothing would happen, and dread grew in the ranks. With no idea where the Antagonists were based, the brotherhood could not strike back. And now there had been more attacks.

Marie, the (currently) short-haired (currently) blond head of security for the delegation, raised her hand.

“They are escalating their strikes against us. There have been three more attacks in the past six days. Several vats in Ixelles have been found befouled — irreparably. Their contents are being destroyed. One of the labs at Seraing has melted. And the head groundskeeper at the Madrid house... well, his arms and legs fell off yesterday evening without any warning. We’re not entirely certain that the Antagonists are responsible for that, however. He may have been veering from his prescribed diet.”

“And no progress in tracking them down?” asked van Suchtlen, looking grim.

“We have a few leads, extrapolating from where they’ve been striking at us.” Marie did not sound hopeful. “You know, I think that the Checquy could probably assist us with this sort of thing,” she said tentatively. “Their connections are much more extensive than ours.”

“Absolutely not,” said van Suchtlen sharply. “We are trying to court these people; we don’t need to air our dirty laundry in front of them. When you’re pursuing a woman, you don’t tell her that you have the pox at that moment. You keep bringing her the flowers, and you dance the minuet, and the whole time, you are getting the treatment with the mercury.”

A bemused silence ensued.

“They will not want to merge with us if we come bringing enemies,” said van Suchtlen, apparently oblivious to the nonplussed expressions of his staff. “If we arrive at the negotiating table admitting this problem, then we are already weakened.”

Oh, this is a great start to an honest relationship,
thought Odette.

“And matters have grown even more complex as of last night,” continued the graaf. “Odette and I were invited to visit a Checquy occurrence site, and there were unmistakable signs. The Antagonists have followed us to London, and they have killed at least sixteen people.”

Reactions around the table varied. There were some gasps, and one of the assistants gave a little screamlet. Marcel simply closed his eyes. Marie’s hair went from blond to white. Harold spilled his orange juice across the table.

“Why would they do that?” he asked. “Why would they come here? With the Checquy acting as the supernatural police, this is the most dangerous place on earth for their kind.”

“They hate us,” said the graaf. “They hate what we are, they hate our work, and they will not leave us alone.”

“So what is our next move?” said Marcel.

“We can endure the strikes on the Continent,” said van Suchtlen. “For a little while longer, anyway. Security must be increased at all the houses and facilities — Marie, inform your mentor.” She nodded. “Their presence in London, however, needs to be addressed immediately. If the Checquy discover the truth about this, it will mean the end of everything we have worked for.”

“I can’t cover a city with what we have here now,” said Marie. “This delegation is all lawyers and financiers.” Some hurt expressions blossomed around the table, which Marie ignored. “They all have enhancements, but they don’t have the training, and they don’t have the time. All we have in terms of military is ten bodyguards. The only fleshwrights we have are Marcel and Odette. And all of us will be constantly under the eyes of the Checquy.”