“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.”
“Perhaps we could bring in some Chimerae from the Continent,” suggested Marcel. Odette looked at him, surprised.
The Chimerae were the elite of the Grafters’ soldiers — humans who had been completely transformed into weapons. They were rare, not only because they were recruited from the best but because they were fabulously expensive to create. Rigorously trained in combat, each one represented months of work by the Broederschap’s most skilled artisans. Each had multiple offensive enhancements drawn from across the biological kingdoms. No two were alike, but they all, as a baseline, could easily break every human record for speed and strength.
In the olden days (which meant up until a few months ago, when Ernst had made his announcement), they had been stockpiled in preparation for the moment the Grafters brought their revenge against the Checquy. Until then, for the most part, they had served as guards of the brotherhood’s most valuable holdings. In hidden vaults and strong rooms dotted across Europe, they stood vigil over hoards of wealth and precious biological specimens — though each of them was as much a treasure as the riches he protected.
On those rare occasions when they were unleashed, they solved problems.
For instance, in the eighteenth century, a brilliant young student from the University of Ingolstadt caught the eye of members of the Broederschap. His work with galvanism and chemistry was deemed to have tremendous potential, and they recruited him. He was given a thorough grounding in the core principles of the brotherhood’s techniques, but he chafed at their restrictions and eventually went rogue, disappearing to pursue his own research. Agents scoured the known world for him, but it was years before five Chimerae were dispatched to the Arctic, where he had constructed and animated a monstrous being using cadavers and lightning. Four of the five troops were killed, but the rogue doctor and his creation also died out there on the ice.
In the late nineteenth century, a Grafter research facility stood on Noble’s Isle, a remote island in the Pacific. The head of the facility designed and oversaw a private project in which more than one hundred animals were surgically altered and augmented with heightened strength, rudimentary intelligence, and opposable digits. In a development of outstanding predictability, the subjects rose up, briskly slaughtered the Broederschap staff, and began constructing crude vessels with an eye toward escaping. Seven Chimerae were sent to address the problem. None of the experiments left the island.
In the early 1990s, when a Colombian drug lord decided not to pay the Broederschap the agreed-upon price for a significantly extended life span (one unencumbered by cancer, male-pattern baldness, or impotence), he retired to a fortified estate and surrounded himself with a private army. After several increasingly emphatic invoices went unpaid, ten Chimerae descended on the fortress in the dead of night and systematically slaughtered almost everyone. (Graaf Ernst had felt that it would be inappropriate to punish the domestic staff, and so their memories were instead forcibly readjusted.) The Broederschap had then pillaged the drug lord’s private zoo for some rare specimens, leaving only his hippopotamuses to gambol about freely in the jungle and terrify the local fishermen.
Despite the Chimerae’s effectiveness, the Grafters’ paranoia about the Checquy (and any other possible Continental equivalents) was such that their soldiers were deployed for only the most serious situations, and even then measures were taken to ensure that they left no trace. Odette assumed that substantial safeguards had been built into the Chimerae’s very frames to guarantee that no incriminating skin cell or drop of blood would ever be left behind for examination.
“Deploying the Chimerae here is a terrible idea,” Nikolina, the communications liaison, said flatly. “If the Checquy found even one Chimera trying to enter the country, they’d take it as a declaration of war.” Odette nodded in agreement. The Chimerae were unmistakably the creation of the Broederschap; some of the Chimerae’s organs would literally have Grafter fingerprints all over them, and the nature of their enhancements would leave no doubt as to their purpose.
“There are eighteen Chimerae in Cardiff,” said the graaf. “They are in hibernation in an apartment there.” The entire table was silent for a moment in horrified awe. If he had declared that he had a couple of nuclear weapons tucked away in Wales, they couldn’t have been more startled.
Another one of his arrangements, thought Odette, impressed. The canny bastard.
Looking at him, one could easily forget that Ernst van Suchtlen was centuries old, with all the cunning and foresight these years had taught him. His strategies were hugely complex, spanning decades, and very few others in the Broederschap were privy to his plans. When he had announced that, as the culmination of years of work, the Grafters would be entering into negotiations with the Checquy, Marcel had been the only person she knew who was unsurprised.
It was only when she was told that she would be joining the delegation that Odette learned about the extensive preparations Graaf van Suchtlen had made before he presented himself to Myfanwy Thomas with his proposal. He had not been interested in simply throwing himself and his brotherhood on the dubious mercy of the Checquy, and so, while he had extended the open hand of peace, his other hand had been holding a selection of weapons — just to make peace as appetizing a prospect as possible. To that end, he had put in place two weapons of mass destruction in British urban centers. He had suborned Checquy operatives. He had even purchased the loyalty of two members of the Checquy Court.
None of his measures proved very successful — Myfanwy Thomas had smashed them all before he could even enter her office. But now it appeared that there had been other preparations, other contingencies.
Always planning ahead, mused Odette. But he wasn’t prepared for the enemy behind us. He never foresaw the possibility of the Antagonists, and now they are threatening our future. She wondered what other schemes he had put in place. He might very well have more facilities and operatives dotted around the country. In the back of every Grafter’s mind was the knowledge that, should the negotiations fail, they would need to fall back from the wrath of the Checquy.
“All right, then,” said Marie, and for the first time that Odette could recall, she sounded uncertain. “So we’ll activate the Chimerae and bring them here. But I’m still not convinced of the wisdom of this. Even with the soldiers, how will we find the Antagonists in London? This city is huge!”
“But it’s a great deal smaller than Europe,” said the graaf in a very reasonable tone. “I have utter confidence in you. This problem must be taken care of without letting the Checquy know that it ever existed.” There were murmurs of subdued agreement around the table. “And if we are finished with this subject, then Alessio can come in, and we will go over the schedule for today.”
Anabella scurried to open the door, revealing Odette’s brother waiting in his Estate uniform. It was, if anything, even more ghastly when placed on a human being. He walked in stiffly, as if trying to make as little contact with his clothing as possible. Odette kept her face carefully blank.