Stiletto (67 page)

“You’ll be able to take the bandages off your eyes in three days,” said Leliefeld, “and you’ll be able to see just fine, but you’ll have to keep taking the antirejection drugs for a year until the material is absorbed fully and becomes part of you.”

“Or what happens?”

“Rejection. Then death. Messy death. The one will follow the other inevitably.”

“So I’m going to be blind for three days?” asked Felicity weakly.

“About three days, yeah. They’re sending you to some Checquy hospital to recuperate until the bandages come off,” said Leliefeld. “I spoke with Rook Thomas to let her know that the surgery was successful. And so that she wouldn’t give the order for me to be killed.”

Again,
thought Felicity guiltily.

“Rook Thomas made it very clear that she wanted you back on duty as soon as possible.”

“Seriously?”

“I’ll make sure there are some parfaits waiting at the hotel.”

Despite herself, Felicity smiled.

“Okay, well, three days with no sight, I can cope,” said Felicity. “Plus, I assume the reception was canceled, so I dodged
that
bullet.”

“Oh, no, the Rook also said she wants you to attend the reception. Apparently it was just postponed.”

“Of course it was.” Felicity sighed. “If the Checquy went around canceling events because of disasters, we’d never have any parties.”

“All right, now, don’t flinch or anything, I just want to check your vital signs.” Felicity heard movement and then felt a cool hand on her brow, by her eyes, at her neck. There was a sound of satisfaction from the Grafter girl, and then the hand was gone. “You’re looking good. Are you thirsty?”

“Yes.” She felt a cup put into her hands and sat up a little to sip at the cool water.

“They’ll run scans and follow-up tests later,” said Leliefeld. “But there are a lot of people to look after first. In fact, I have to go help them. Someone will come along in a bit to check on you. You should rest.” Felicity heard the other woman moving away, and the door of the office open.

“Leliefeld?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for saving me,” said Felicity.

“Yeah, you too,” said Odette.

*

The door opened again and Felicity cocked her head.

“We really should stop meeting when one of us is lying injured,” said a man’s voice, deep and familiar. She didn’t even have to use her Sight to see who it was.

“Chopra,” said Felicity, smiling. “You look good.”

“Yes, you too.”

Felicity hoped that her skin was still raw enough to conceal the blush she felt rising up.

“So, you just happened to be passing by?” she asked.

“Actually, I was called in. I had been on recovery leave until the Rookery could assign me to a new team. Lots of talk therapy, and physical therapy, and combat therapy. But luckily I was at home when the attack hit.”

“The fog didn’t reach your place?”

“No, I live in Clapham,” said Chopra. “The latest reports are suggesting that each manifestation covered an area of only about two square miles, though that’s quite enough. It’s been bloody bedlam out there.”

“Each manifestation?” repeated Felicity. “There’s been more than one?” She listened in horror as Chopra explained about the attacks around the country.

“It’s the biggest story in the world right now,” he finished.

“Any — any idea what it is?” she asked hesitantly. That he had used the word
manifestation
was telling. It was the term the Checquy used to refer to supernatural events. No suggestion that this was seen as a Grafter action.

“No, but the fact that it happened only in major cities is pretty upsetting,” said Chopra. “It’s difficult to see it as anything but deliberate. The Liars are probably going out of their minds trying to come up with an explanation, and the press is already throwing the T-word around. God knows what the actual terrorists in the world are thinking. They’re probably asking each other what the hell happened and who was responsible.”

“Hmm,” said Felicity.

“Anyway, how are you feeling?” asked Chopra. “I heard that you got caught up in the manifestation and had to receive some rather, ahem, unorthodox surgery.”

“Oh God, so everyone knows?” she asked dismally.

“Word gets around,” he said, “even in secret organizations. So now you’re a Grafter?” he asked cheerfully.

“Don’t even joke,” said Felicity. “I asked her if I got any new abilities, and she asked if not getting my eyes eaten away in my skull wasn’t enough.”

“That’s not a bad ability,” said Chopra.

“The Grafter materials will break down eventually, but it’s still creepy to think they’re in me.” She jumped a little when his hand slid into hers.

“No one will think any less of you, Felicity,” he said, and his grip tightened slightly. It really was a very nice hand.

*

The next three days passed agonizingly slowly.

Felicity was moved from the couch of the head of the Southeast Asia section, who very definitely needed his office back. A minibus transported her and several other Checquy patients through the subdued streets of London and then up the road to a large house in Oxfordshire.

The house, Bufo Hall, had been in the Checquy for several centuries and had previously been used as the official residence of one of the Chevaliers. During World War II, it had been a convalescent home for wounded soldiers, and it had served so well in that regard that it had simply been kept that way. Now, of course, all the occupants were members of the Checquy. Most of the patients were either soldiers who had been injured in the line of duty or operatives whose unique physiologies and abilities meant that they needed highly specialized care. There were three women and one man who were recuperating after giving birth (the Checquy had an excellent parental-leave policy), and a lad from the Estate whose tonsils had needed to come out and that now spent their time fluttering in the air around him and chirping cheerfully. A few retired operatives were pottering about the grounds, including one elderly lady who kept asking Felicity about the effects of the Blinding on the security of the Raj.

Felicity spent most of her time on the back lawn of the house, which swept down to the Thames. Sitting in a chair with a radio beside her, she listened to the news, most of which concerned the mysterious fog. All British armed forces and police had gone on emergency standby. The nation’s airports had shut down for a few hours, which had wreaked havoc on the rest of the globe. The stock market had reeled briefly. The normal world was reacting to the supernatural, even if it did not know it.

Late on the first day came the announcement that the fog did not appear to have any permanent effects, except in some very rare cases. The surgeon general, the four chief medical officers, and the Prime Minister (who seemed desperate to have
some
good news to deliver) sat together to address the nation. They assured people that the blindness and the rash were only temporary and that every hospital and medical practitioner had received instructions on how to alleviate the discomfort until the symptoms faded. Notably, there was no mention of the source of the phenomenon.

Reactions varied. The vast majority of the world had not experienced the Blinding, and the thrill of a pain they had not felt was fascinating, something they could tut over in the office kitchenette. It was comfortably distant. And yet the footage of the clouds washing over the cities was chilling. London, the capital of the world, where the rich could come to enjoy their money in a civilized and secure condition, had been wounded yet again, but this time there was no explanation. It was a mystery — something that people no longer seemed able to cope with.

Accustomed to having the Internet provide them with an answer to any question at the stroke of a key, many people simply could not come to terms with the fact that this time there was no answer for them. How could such a thing happen? It nagged at them. It struck at their assumptions about the world.

Theories ran rife. Pundits and experts speculated. People with opinions, both informed and decidedly not, published them online. Each new idea was pounced upon by the press, who were fueled by both the desire to have the answer and the fear of missing out on the latest trend and losing their audience. Everyone was willing to believe the least likely of possibilities.

Inevitably, the crazies came out. Felicity knew that some were actually Checquy-employed crazies, shouting loudly about corporate conspiracies, ley lines, and Mayan calendars so as to muddy the waters, but a depressingly overwhelming majority were genuine.

Then there was the man from Edinburgh who called in to a radio show to describe what he had seen. Felicity listened grimly as he told the obviously disbelieving radio hosts that he had seen a young homeless woman shambling about in the street with her head lifted as if sniffing the air. He claimed that she then began shuddering violently, threw her head back, and a torrent of fog poured from her mouth and eyes. Felicity scowled, certain that the homeless girl was another one of the sleepwalkers.

I suppose that she, along with that man Simon was holding hands with, were just a delivery system for the weapon.
She asked to make a call to the office of Rook Thomas and was eventually connected with a harried-sounding Mrs. Woodhouse, who promised to pass on the insight and then promptly hung up. From the hubbub in the background, it was apparent that the Rookery was an absolute madhouse.

It was also apparent that the Liars of the Checquy still had not come up with an explanation that everyone could agree on. The government had yet to make a formal announcement. At first glance, it seemed as if the Antagonists’ latest attack had done little to further their cause, but there was a tension in the air that seeped through to even the calm riverside gardens of Bufo Hall. Felicity caught snatches of the staff’s conversations as they discussed the fog eruptions. No answers or explanations had come down from the Court. The members of the Checquy were even less accustomed to having no answers than the general populace, and the entire organization was on edge.

Leliefeld did not come to visit her, but she did send a bouquet of sweet-smelling flowers along with a bouquet of prescriptions. The suggested ointments and unguents were diligently applied by the nurses, and Felicity spent two hours in an enormous Victorian bathtub stewing in a mixture of chemicals and herbs. She emerged feeling like she’d been made into a ragout but was advised that her skin looked a thousand times better and that the cuts on her feet were vastly improved.

All the time, she thought she could feel Leliefeld’s vitreous humor floating inside her eyes.

*

“Home again, home again, jiggity-jig,” said Marie as the elevator doors opened on their floor.

“You know, coming back to this hotel after two days away actually does feel like coming home,” said Odette. She paused. “God, that’s depressing.”

“I’m just looking forward to not sleeping on a cot in a warehouse,” said Alessio, yawning. “I am so tired.” It was ten at night, and they’d just been about to bed down in the Checquy’s contingency facility when word came down that the hotel had reopened and that the Grafter delegation would be transported back to their accommodations immediately.

Odette followed Alessio down the hall to their suite and did her best to ignore the clomping of the two hulking guards behind her. For the past two days, everywhere she went, she’d been shadowed by a selection of Checquy guards. There had been men guards and women guards, guards of every race known to man, but all of them had, without exception, been hulking. It was like having hippopotamuses provide one’s personal security.

“Are you coming into the suite?” she asked the current hulking guards, and they shook their heads. “Good night, then,” she said and shut the door in their faces. She watched tiredly as Alessio kicked off his shoes, went into his room, and launched himself onto his bed. She couldn’t be certain, but she was fairly sure he’d fallen asleep in midair.

“I need a drink,” said Odette to herself. She wandered over to the suite’s minibar and found that it had been completely emptied of alcohol.
Well,
thank you, Marcel.
At least he hadn’t left a pointed note reminding her that she wasn’t supposed to be drinking. “I don’t care, I am having a drink.”

She opened the hotel-room door and found that the two hulking guards were stationed just outside it.

“Hi,” she said.

“Miss Leliefeld,” said the one on the right. “Is everything okay?”

“I want a drink. An alcoholic one.”

“You’re not supposed to drink alcohol,” objected the one on the left.

“Yes, I know,” said Odette.

“It was in our briefing notes,” said the one on the right. “Because of your throat surgery.”

“I don’t care. You are here to... I’m not actually sure what your real purpose is, and I don’t really
want
to know, but I’m one hundred percent certain that it is not to protect me from the dangerous effects of alcohol. I am going down to the bar on the ground floor, and I am going to order one single drink, and you can come and watch me drink it. And then I will return to this room. I promise.” The two guards exchanged glances, and she could almost hear the grinding of their mental cogs.

“Yeah, okay,” said the one on the right finally.

The Checquy guard posted in the lift looked surprised when they got in but said nothing. They alighted in the lobby and proceeded to the hotel’s ground-floor bar, where a few patrons were sitting about. Most were members of the public, but Odette recognized a few Checquy operatives, who were obviously praying that she would not come over and sit with them. Instead, she sat at the bar, the guards hovering obtrusively nearby. She ordered a stinger and took a substantial swallow when it arrived. The alcohol
did
burn uncomfortably in her throat, but it was completely worth it.

“Pawn Fletcher, Pawn Macdonald, you can go sit over there,” said a voice behind her. “You look like you’re here to abduct the poor girl.” Odette looked around and saw Pawn Sophie Jelfs. The Pawns looked uncertain, but Jelfs spoke with the kind of authority that brooked no resistance. “Odette, you look completely knackered.”