Stiletto (47 page)

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 passers-by on a windy day was not realistic.

She stood up, having made the decision. “When my colleague emerges 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. Awkward.”

“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.

“Oh! Goodness, hello!” she exclaimed in surprise. “I didn’t realize someone was there.”

“You are following me,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?” she said, and she gave the sort of incredulous laugh that someone who hadn’t been doing just that would give.

“If you want to tail someone, I recommend that you don’t wear a hat that looks like it belongs to the pope of the jungle. Now, why are you following me?”

“This is dreadfully embarrassing,” said Myfanwy, doing her best to look dreadfully embarrassed. “I... the truth is, I thought you were attractive and I wanted to introduce myself.”
There is no way he is going to buy this. But play it cool. You don’t even know that this man is the murderer.
“My name is Nicola.” She smiled, but he did not smile back. “Perhaps we could exchange telephone numbers?” She held up her phone, ostensibly to get his number but really to get a picture of him, and a sharp pain cut through her hand.
“Ow!”
she exclaimed, and dropped her phone. She looked down to see that a crystal had erupted out of the casing of the phone and sliced into the palm of her hand. Blood was quite enthusiastically coming out of a cut there.

She glanced up and saw that the man was breathing heavily. His pupils were dilated, and his teeth were bared. It was not a very wholesome look.

“Well, that settles that question,” Myfanwy said flatly. He seemed startled, and at that moment she clenched her powers around his nervous system so that the expression froze on his face. “You’ve probably figured out that I was lying. I actually don’t find you attractive at all. Especially because of what you do. You see, it’s déclassé to murder people, but it’s a particular faux pas to do it at Royal Ascot.” He couldn’t answer, of course, but the reaction in his eyes was as horrified as she could have asked for. “Let’s have a little sit-down on this convenient bench.”

Her hand was throbbing, but she ignored it while she twisted his muscles with her mind. He jerkily stepped over and sat down. She bent down to retrieve her phone and then sat next to him, looking through her purse for a handkerchief or something to stanch the bleeding. No one around them appeared to have noticed anything amiss.

“Well, you’ve successfully murdered my phone,” she said sourly. “Congratulations. What did you think would happen when you did that?” Of course, he still didn’t say anything, because she had a firm grasp on his vocal cords. She unearthed a half-empty packet of tissues from her purse and clutched it in her hand. “Now we’ll just have to wait here for a while. I don’t want to try to marionette you through this crowd.” His fixed look was peculiar enough to garner some glances from passersby, but she didn’t have any experience with manipulating facial expressions.
If I try to give him a smile, I might accidentally break his face. Which I suppose would be a bad thing.
Then she frowned. He might be sitting rigidly, but his brain was a hive of activity. Myfanwy hesitated; she’d never tried turning off someone’s thoughts before.
I’m not even certain whether it’s pos —