Stiletto (7 page)

The ceiling was still ablaze, and the smell of cooking meat had given way to an acrid black smoke. Peering through the smoke as best she could, Felicity could see that part of the flesh had been completely burned through, and now the structure of the house was ablaze. The wall with the valve-door was covered in those lapping green tongues of fire, and the flesh seemed to have melted.

We’re not going to get out of this,
she realized. The flames were climbing the walls. Jennings fell to his knees, and though his clothes began to smolder, the fire did not touch his skin or hair. His screaming tapered off, and now he made a weak, moaning sound that was almost lost in the crackling of the flames.

What do I do?
Should — should I shoot him?
wondered Felicity. It was far too late to stop the fire, but it might be a mercy of sorts for her comrade. The pool of fire had almost reached her feet. The heat was unbelievable; it burned in her lungs, and her armor seemed impossibly heavy.

The metal of her gun scorched her fingers, and her control over her Sight splintered for a moment. Sensation and memory washed into her mind, and, despite herself, she briefly saw the gun’s inner workings.

And then she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and Chopra was dashing in her direction from the far side of the room. He ran through the fire, past Jennings, and she could see that his clothes were alight. Flames splashed around his boots, and he was yelling from pain and determination.

Chopra flung himself the last few meters toward her. He reached out his hand and she automatically grasped it. Even though he was aflame, she pulled him closer. She knew that her own clothes and hair were catching fire, but she wouldn’t let go. She did not want to die like this. Not alone.

“I’m right here,” she whispered. “I’ve got you.”

“It’ll be all right,” said Chopra into her ear.

Around them, burning fat and flesh fell like glowing rain. Chopra’s arms tightened and the room wavered before her. Darkness rose up on the edges of her sight, and she felt her knees buckling.

The last thing she saw was Jennings slumped in the middle of the fire. His armor and shirt had burned away while his skin remained untouched. Flickering green light still poured out of his wounds.
I’m so, so sorry, Richard.

The last thing she heard was the naked man musing to himself, “If I were to cut his head off, would that make things better or worse?”

And then the darkness took her.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived a nice normal life. She liked to read and she liked to run and she liked stories about monsters. Her parents, who were university professors, were sometimes away doing research or giving lectures, but she was never lonely because she was part of a big family, with cousins and uncles and aunts and cousins once removed and great-uncles and great-aunts and cousins twice removed and great-great-uncles and great-great-aunts and a grandfather with so many greats that she lost track of them, and so she just called him Grootvader, which is Dutch for “Grandfather.”

And she was very happy.

Then, one day, Grootvader sat her down in the garden and explained that their family was not like other families. There were members of the family who were very, very clever, and knew all sorts of secrets, and made all sorts of discoveries, and created beautiful things. And because she was a member of the family, and a clever girl, she could, if she wanted, learn all the secrets, and make her own discoveries, and see and do and think things that no regular person ever would.

If she wanted.

It wouldn’t be easy, he warned her. She would have to study hard, very hard, and sometimes what she learned might be scary. And he would not love her any less if she decided that she didn’t want to do this. Her father had decided he did not want to learn the secrets, and instead he had learned all about fossils and married her mother, and he was perfectly happy.

And if she decided that it was what she wanted, she would never be able to tell any outsiders about her studies or her discoveries or the family, because there were bad people in the world who would try to steal their knowledge, or take advantage of them, or make them into slaves.

And if she decided that it was what she wanted, she would make enemies. There were monsters, real ones, that hated the family. The monsters had once tried to destroy the family utterly, and it was only by living in secret that the family could survive.

And finally, if she decided that it was what she wanted, they would have to cut her open and make some changes inside her. And it wouldn’t hurt, or at least not very much, but it might be frightening.

And she decided, after a bit of thought, that it was what she wanted.

*

Twelve years later, the wisdom of that decision seemed somewhat questionable.

I could literally be incinerated and devoured at this cocktail party,
Odette thought.
It could actually happen. I could get torn to pieces or turned into a starfish or smeared across the ceiling. All it would take is one of these Checquy monsters to have a little too much to drink and start thinking about how much he hates the Grafters, and I’m suddenly an echinoderm.

There was a definite tension in the air as the party of Grafters emerged from the lift and looked around warily. The designer of the hotel had apparently liked the idea of people making an entrance via a staircase, because even though the elevator had just lifted them to the top floor of the building, they were looking down to the skyline bar on the twenty-eighth floor.

It was a sophisticated space, with dark polished wood and elegant antique mirrors. At the far end, a massive curtain of glass looked out onto the city. It was an ideal place for the young and wealthy to stand around and eye one another over kumquatinis. Currently, however, it was closed to the public, and the patrons consisted entirely of Checquy executives.

Some rather reluctant applause floated up the stairs once the Checquy noticed the arrival of the Grafters.
This is so awkward,
thought Odette.
We’re having drinks with the very monsters that Grootvader warned me about.
She could almost smell the hate radiating through the room. The new arrivals made their way down the stairs with all eyes upon them. When she reached the bottom, however, rather than following the rest of her delegation into the fray, Odette edged around the gathering until she reached the window.
If I just stand here with my back to everything and look like I’m admiring the view, no one will bother me,
she thought.

Although her plan had been to pretend to marvel at the panorama, she found herself actually marveling at the panorama. The city spread before her to the horizon.
I cannot believe I am in England,
she thought.
In London. I never in my life thought I would be in this country, in this city. It just wasn’t possible.

She gazed at the skyline, at buildings she’d only ever seen in films or books. There was the London Eye. There was the jag of the Shard glittering in the last of the light. That top-heavy building whose nickname she couldn’t recall. The Cheesegrater. The gigantic Fabergé egg that they called the Gherkin. The BT Tower. Her eyes tracked back across the landscape, cutting through the dusk, picking out the dome of St. Paul’s. Big Ben. Westminster Abbey. And hundreds and hundreds of rooftops.

Amazing.

Then her focus shifted so that she was not looking through the glass but rather examining the reflections. In the foreground, of course, was herself, an image she regarded without any particular enthusiasm. Her dress bugged her. It was not a cocktail dress. An uncharitable (but accurate) observer would have described it as more of a cocktail shroud.

It was certainly not a dress Odette would have picked under normal circumstances, but it was politic. It hid her scars. Unfortunately, that meant covering most of her. As a result, she gave the impression of being someone’s disapproving maiden aunt.

Behind her reflection was the movement of the cocktail party. She studied the guests critically. Men in suits and women in nicer dresses than hers. Some of the women wore business suits, but even those were exquisitely cut and tailored. Waiters passed through the party carrying trays of drinks and food. At first glance, it seemed quite a normal affair. But every once in a while, a shimmer of light would erupt from someone’s head, or a figure would vanish abruptly, or a guest would turn and reveal a set of stegosaurus-type plates emerging from the back of a tailored suit. She shuddered.

And then, approaching her in the reflection, came a tall, handsome man.

“Odette,” said a voice behind her. She felt a light hand on her shoulder and turned to look up into stern blue eyes.

This was Ernst, formerly the Duke of Suchtlen and the undisputed lord and master of the Wetenschappelijk Broederschap van Natuurkundigen. His body, which looked only about five years older than Odette’s, represented the most cutting-edge biotechnology on the planet. His mind held centuries of statecraft, espionage, and military insights. His hand held an hors d’oeuvre that had apparently suffered a catastrophic loss of structural integrity, leaving him awkwardly clutching the shattered remnants of a piece of toasted pita and some ground-up tuna and onions sprinkled with expensive herbs.

“A beautiful view,” he said appreciatively, and for a moment they both looked out over the city. “I have waited centuries to look upon it.” He turned to her. “I can see how you could lose yourself in the vista, but” — he paused, and she tensed, knowing what was coming — “you are not being polite to our hosts.” She sighed. “Now, I realize you are nervous. I understand your concerns.”

Odette looked at him. “You do?”

“Come, now, over the course of my centuries, I think I have come to comprehend the minds of women a little bit. This gathering is many things, serving many purposes, but it is, in the end, a party. And so you are worried about your dress and the thing with your hair.”

“The thing with my hair? What’s wrong with my hair?” asked Odette.

“But,” he carried on blithely, “our hosts have organized this soiree as a way for us all to meet informally before tomorrow’s work begins, and so it is important that we take this opportunity to be diplomatic.”

Odette nodded reluctantly. “Yes, I understand,” she said. “I’ve just been mustering up my enthusiasm and reviewing appropriate conversational topics.”

“Very sensible,” he said. “Are you ready, then?”

“Sure,” she said. She briefly envied her little brother, who was still in their hotel suite, one floor down.

“I am not entirely certain what to do with this, though,” he said, holding up the remains of the inadvertently deconstructed canapé. “There is no way to eat it with any sort of dignity, and this is my handshaking hand.”

“Just dump it in that plant pot,” suggested Odette, gesturing to a nearby palm.

“Excellent thinking.” Graaf van Suchtlen looked around and then gingerly dropped the remnants into the pot. “Now, come. It is your duty to mingle.” He offered her an arm, and she took it, allowing him to lead her to a little group of Checquy.

Just calm down,
she told herself.
These people may be monsters, but they’re professionals and they’re upper-class and British, so they’ll be polite.

“Ladies, gentlemen,” van Suchtlen said easily. “Allow me to present Odette Leliefeld.” There was a chorus of greetings, and she smiled to each person as she was introduced. She was so nervous that she failed to remember any of their names. None of them were in the Court of the Checquy, and so she assumed they were simply high-ranking managers of the covert government organization.

They were certainly not your standard-issue humans, even if they were all dressed in expensive clothes. One of the men had a birthmark on his face that oozed around slowly, like the contents of a lava lamp. There was a woman who seemed to waver like the air over a hot highway. When one older man moved, light and color shifted briefly behind him, as if he were sporting a holographic peacock tail. Another man’s breath steamed, even though the room was, according to Odette’s skin, exactly 20 degrees centigrade.

You do not need to be afraid of them,
Odette told herself.
You are here under a truce. And while these people may have abilities that defy all the laws of physics, biology, common sense, and good taste, you are a scion of the Broederschap. You have training beyond any surgeon in the world. Your body is an exquisitely crafted tool. You have repaired limbs and delivered babies and saved lives. You have climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower and touched the deepest bottom of the Mediterranean Sea and danced on the underside of the Bridge of Sighs.
With an effort, she dragged herself back to the conversation.

“You two have the same eyes!” one of the women was saying. “Graaf van Suchtlen, is she your sister?”

“No,” said Odette, smiling despite herself at the thought.

“Not your daughter, surely?” said the woman, looking uncertainly at the two of them.

“No,” said Odette. “I’m his descendant.”
By, what, six generations?

“And my protégée,” said Graaf van Suchtlen. Odette looked at him and kept her face deliberately blank.

“So, Miss Leliefeld is the first in line, then?” one of the Checquy men asked.

“No, there is no line,” said the graaf matter-of-factly. The Checquy people exchanged confused glances.

“Grootvader — I’m sorry — Graaf van Suchtlen has no intention of dying,” explained Odette. “Ever.” She expected to see a raised eyebrow or two, but they nodded sagely.

“We have a Bishop like that,” said one of the women. “In fact, he’s right there. Bishop Alrich! Yoo-hoo!” Odette’s stomach flipped over.
Bishop Alrich
. That was definitely a name she’d managed to remember.

Bishop Alrich wasn’t a church bishop. The Court — the leaders of the Checquy Group — had a hierarchy based on chess pieces. It was ridiculous, probably one of those archaic British traditions that made no sense to anyone else. The two Rooks were responsible for domestic operations. The Chevaliers oversaw international affairs. At the top of the tree were the Lord and Lady (they weren’t called the King and Queen, as it would have made the real British monarchy a little antsy). And just below the Lord and Lady were the Bishops, who, from what Odette could gather, oversaw everything.