“You’re wanted at the Hammerstrom Building,” he said. “No detours.”
“Dressed like this?” she asked incredulously. He shrugged and then proceeded not to say a single word for the entire drive. To make matters worse, traffic between Ashford and London had been held up by an accident on the M20. Apparently, a truckload of carbonated beverages had overturned, and the subsequent chaos had resulted in miles of backed-up cars. The driver kept sighing heavily in a way that suggested he blamed Felicity for the whole thing, and it took her some effort to resist the urge to apologize.
Much to her surprise, she fell asleep. She woke up forty-five minutes later with a jerk and a gasp only to find that they had moved approximately twenty-five meters and that her face was welded to the shoulder strap of her seat belt by the copious amounts of drool that had seeped out of her mouth. Peeling her face away from the belt made a mortifyingly loud noise, and the driver’s mouth twisted in disgust.
Then, in the middle of Essential Classics on BBC Radio 3, it suddenly hit her. Perhaps she’d been unconsciously avoiding it, or perhaps the journey in Chopra’s arms through that strange place had done something to her thoughts, or perhaps she’d simply been too exhausted to think about it. But now it filled her mind.
They’re dead.
Her comrades Odgers and Jennings. Even Andrea Cheng, who, with her powers and her sharp mind, had always been able to escape any situation, was unlikely to have escaped the inferno. They’d been murdered in front of her. Now when she closed her eyes, Felicity saw Odgers lying on that floor, her blood pouring from her throat. Or else she saw Jennings, silhouetted in flames that boiled out of his own body.
I’ll have to face their families, she thought helplessly. Odgers’s husband. Jennings’s and Andrea’s partners. It was the thought of Jennings’s little daughter, Louise — her own goddaughter — that really broke her. The knowledge that she would have to answer questions about Louise’s father’s death, and that she would have to lie. That girl would never know the truth.
“Nooooo...” She realized that she had actually made a sound, moaning softly despite herself.
Oh God, please make it not be true. Please, God.
To her horror and confusion, she started crying. Felicity was not a crier. If you wanted someday to be a Barghest commando, you did not cry. She had made a very deliberate decision never to cry again in her last year at school. She hadn’t cried when her class graduated from the Estate, and everyone cried then. She hadn’t cried last year when her boyfriend broke up with her because her schedule got in the way of their life. She hadn’t even cried when one of the team died on a mission in Wapping — not at the funeral, and not when they all went out afterward and got completely drunk and told stories.
But now it wouldn’t stop. Gasping sobs continued to bubble out of her. She tried to marshal her thoughts, to calm herself down, but she couldn’t focus. Her mind kept presenting her with images of her comrades — mental snapshots — and at each new picture, another wave of grief would flood through her head, prompting more sobs.
The driver eyed her sidelong and handed her a handkerchief from his breast pocket. It was not clear whether this was an act of gentlemanly compassion or simply his fear of her getting more fluids on the upholstery. He didn’t say anything at all, for which Felicity was grateful. They kept driving, and as they finally came to the outskirts of London, she managed to stop crying. Maybe my body has just run out of water, she thought weakly, and she sat, slumped in her seat, not looking at anything.
*
Pawn George Korybut watched, disbelieving, as the group of men and women in suits were guided down the hallway past his office. They looked normal but he knew what they were. It didn’t seem real. He’d known this day was coming, but he’d always secretly believed in his heart of hearts that the Court members would change their minds at the last minute and declare war on those abominations. They hadn’t. Instead, the Grafters were walking about in Apex House, treated like honored guests. For a moment, he felt like a frightened child back at the Estate.
As a rule, Checquy children didn’t scare easily. When your parents willingly give you to the government because you are inhuman, and your roommate has been known to inadvertently turn into a poplar during the night, and your mathematics teacher sometimes absentmindedly projects holograms of angry leopards during class, you become a trifle blasé. Horror stories tend to lose their impact when you are a horror. This effect was only amplified by the fact that much of the curriculum at the Estate was taken up with lectures on the various supernatural abominations they would be called upon to deal with when they graduated.
But the stories about the Grafters were different.
Those stories were a litany, passed down through generations of Checquy youth. They were history. They dated back to before the creation of the Estate, to a time when Checquy education had been based not on schools but on the tradition of master and apprentice. The stories told of the events of 1677, the year that the entire Checquy had been called to the Isle of Wight to defend Britain against invaders.
So dire was the Grafter threat then that the Rooks (at that time the military leaders of the Checquy) had rallied the entire organization. Not only the soldiers but the scribes and scientists, the craftsmen, the statesmen, and the men of the church — all of them had come to throw themselves at the invaders. Only the very youngest, the infants and the smallest children, remained on the mainland, guarded by unpowered Retainers. But there were child soldiers, apprentices still learning how to use their powers. They had marched alongside their masters, ready to do good toward their country. What they experienced would change them forever — those who survived.
There was never any question of quarter being given. The unannounced invasion, the inhuman army, and the atrocities committed upon the general populace had established that the rules of civilized warfare no longer applied. And so, unrestrained supernatural war commenced.
Events from the ensuing combat entered Checquy history. Pawn William Goode, after being disemboweled by a Grafter, haughtily re-emboweled himself and then backhanded his opponent, sending him flying nine miles. Pawn Morag Campbell ripped all the moisture from her foe, leaving behind nothing but dust, fractured bones, and a rather gaudy uniform. Bishop Rosemary Chuzeville summoned gouts of steam out of the turf and boiled Grafter soldiers in their shells like lobsters.
The child soldiers reached moments of glory as well. Twelve-year-old Sarah Jessup managed to hurl three hulking soldiers into the atmosphere. Henry Wright trapped one of the Grafter commanding officers in a pond — if one goes there and stands in the right place, one can still see his reflection, screaming to be released. Little Robert Savory, whose only power was the ability to increase the nutritional value of root vegetables, lured an enemy off a cliff through a combination of foot speed and sheer wits.