“Yes, Marcel?” said van Suchtlen.
“I have been reviewing the portfolios of our runaways. Simon de Wilde’s is especially relevant. Owing to his experiments with his own modifications, he requires certain exotic compounds to be applied to his body on a regular basis. These compounds are not common, and they are not cheap, so perhaps this will help us find him. I will pass on the details to Marie and Mr. Clovis.”
“Well, that’s something,” said Chevalier Eckhart.
“Not much,” said Rook Thomas. She looked at her watch. “All right, if you’d like dessert, feel free. Clovis, you can put all this on your corporate card and I’ll sign off on it. I have some things to get done.”
“Yes, you and I have to go talk to the Court,” said Chevalier Eckhart grimly.
“Yeah, but first we have to inform the head chef at Apex House that a lot more people are coming to the reception tonight.”
“Oh, well, that you can do by yourself,” said the Chevalier.
“Are you serious?” asked the Rook. “It was your idea. You have to come tell him.”
“Absolutely not. That man terrifies me.”
“What’s his power?” asked Ernst curiously.
“He doesn’t have any power,” said Rook Thomas. “He just shouts a lot.”
37
“Do you have a dress for the reception?” Odette asked Felicity in the car after lunch. “Or do you have to wear a uniform of some sort?”
“I think if a woman showed up to a Checquy reception in a uniform, Lady Farrier would have her assassinated,” said Felicity. “The quartermaster has my measurements; they sent over a gown while we were out.”
“You haven’t even seen it?”
“I’ll see it in ten minutes,” said the Pawn, “when we get to the hotel.”
“I’d put it closer to twenty,” said Odette. “The traffic is terrible.” Their car was progressing in fits and starts, like an opera singer who had been hit with a hockey stick right in the middle of an aria but who was determined that the show would go on.
“Rush hour.” Clements shrugged. “Just be glad you’re not out in it.” Hordes of pedestrians washed by the car, and the Pawn averted her gaze as if they were all naked.
“You’re not a fan of crowds, are you?” asked Odette. The Pawn looked at her and seemed to be weighing something.
“I’m not a fan of the public, really,” she said finally. “You know, normal people. They make me nervous. They always have, ever since I moved here from the Estate.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s so many of them. And they just wander through life, completely unaware of everything that’s going on around them. It’s like they’re cattle. And we’re watching over them.”
“Cattle,” repeated Odette.
“Or sheep. Sheep that could rise up and burn us all at the stake if they found out about us. We’re always told at school how important it is to keep ourselves secret. And mostly it’s because of what the knowledge would do to the British people if they found out. But we all know it’s also because of what they would do to us.” She looked out the window. “So many of them,” she mused. “So few of us.” Then she frowned. “Huh.”
“What is it?” asked Odette.
“I think I know that guy,” Clements said, squinting through the glass.
“Yeah? Which one?”
“The homeless gay guy.”
“What?” said Odette. “How can you even tell he’s gay? Or homeless, for that matter?” she added self-righteously.
“Don’t give me that look. He’s holding hands with another man,” said the Pawn. “And he’s dressed like he has no home. Or at least no wardrobe.” Odette peered out at the crowd and identified the man in question. She had to admit, Felicity had a point. The man was middle-aged and dressed in sweatpants and a rumpled and heavily stained T-shirt. He had the sort of hesitant, patchy beard that looks decidedly unplanned and the blank stare of one who has been partaking of substances of dubious legality. In contrast, the dark-haired man whose hand he held appeared to be in his midtwenties and was dressed in a beautifully cut blue suit and designer sunglasses.
What an odd couple, Odette thought. “And how do you know him?” she asked as the two men walked away down the street. It was a sign of the slowness of the traffic that the peculiar pair were proceeding far more swiftly than the cars.
“I’m not sure,” said Felicity. “I realize this sounds dreadful, but he doesn’t look like anyone I would know.” She shrugged. “Maybe I don’t know him after all.”
They settled back as the car made absolutely no progress whatsoever.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Odette after several long minutes.
“Sorry, Miss Leliefeld,” said the driver. “It’s the worst time of day, and there was an accident on the A4, so traffic’s a nightmare everywhere. I thought this route would be quicker.”
“It’s not your fault, Tom,” said Odette. “It’s just, I rather need to go to the bathroom.” The traffic ahead showed no sign of dissipating and, indeed, appeared to be hunkering down for a long hibernation.
“Tom, I think we’ll walk the rest of the way,” said the Pawn.
“Are you sure?” asked the driver.
“Yes, it’s fine. It’s just a few blocks to Park Lane.”
The world outside the car was much brighter, warmer, and noisier. Shoppers, tourists, and commuters were all bustling up and down Oxford Street. Felicity seemed to sway against the roar of the city, but then she braced herself and gestured for Odette to follow. They weaved their way through the populace, all of whom seemed to be going in the opposite direction purely out of spite.
“Wait a minute,” said Clements. She grabbed Odette’s sleeve. “Wait a minute.” Her eyes were narrowed in frantic calculation.
“What?”
“I think I know how I recognize that man.”
“The homeless guy who might be gay or might just be unbound by the traditional strictures of heterosexual male friendship?”
“I — what?” asked the Pawn, coming out of her thoughts for a moment to cope with this new observation.
“I’m just saying.”
“Shut up. I know who that guy was.” Her free hand slid inside her coat.
“Who was it?” asked Odette, bewildered by the Pawn’s intensity.
“Where are they? Did we pass them?” Clements was scanning the pavement, but the crowd prevented her from seeing very far. “Shit. What should we do?” she wondered, almost to herself. She hadn’t let go of Odette’s sleeve. “I need a discreet place to call the Rook. Damn it, where’s the car?”
“Felicity, who was that man?” Finally, the Pawn looked at her.
“One of the sleepwalkers,” she said. “One of the people abducted by your friends.”
And then the screams began.
Blocks ahead of them, there was a huge, impossible plume of... smoke? Mist? Odette couldn’t tell. It was boiling up into the sky, already as tall as the buildings around them. Is it a volcano? she thought ridiculously. The column was thick, yellow-green, and impenetrable, and it roiled gently, its whorls and tendrils reaching out.
As she gazed at it, Odette realized that the cloud was expanding, filling the street and washing down toward them. Its size in the sky had made it seem slow, but it was cascading between buildings, surging forward. There were gasps and cries of panic from the crowd, but very distantly, from inside the cloud, came screams of a different kind. It wasn’t the sound of people panicking; it was the sound of people in agony.
What did you do? thought Odette, frozen in horror. Oh, Pim, what did you do?
Beside her, Clements was not frozen in horror. She pulled Odette back and pushed her against the wall of a shop. The crowds were rapidly coming to the realization that they should flee. People turned and pressed and shoved against the two women, scrabbling to get away. They spilled off the walk and out of the buildings into the streets. Motorists abandoned their cars and joined in the exodus.
“Clements, we have to go!”