“That brings me to the final inevitable bad news,” said Felicity. “At the heart of the row is something I couldn’t see. It’s approximately five meters by ten meters. One story high. I expect that’s where the target is, along with the latest missing person. Maybe all of them.”
“You can’t see it? What does that mean?”
Felicity shrugged helplessly.
“I couldn’t see it, and I couldn’t see through it. You know there are a few things my abilities don’t work on. Water. The wood of the cedar tree. Salmon. Air.”
“You think it’s a barrier made out of cedar?” said Odgers, frowning. “Or ice? Or salmon?”
“I don’t know what it is,” said Felicity. “It could be something new, something I’ve never encountered before.”
“Fair enough,” said Odgers, seemingly unperturbed by the prospect of an Oblong of Mystery. “So, you can take us through the warren?”
“Yes,” said Felicity confidently.
“Right.” The chief stared broodingly at the plans for several moments. “I don’t like it,” she said finally. “Even if you know your way through a maze, simply by entering, you put yourself in the power of the maze maker.” She pursed her lips. “We need to break the maze.” She looked over at one of the support staff. “Gilly, you trained as an architect, right?”
An intense conversation ensued. Various people drew on the plans and scribbled over one another’s drawings. Teeth were sucked. A new nomenclature emerged: everyone began referring to the enemy as “the Homeowner,” and the Oblong of Mystery became the OOM. Calls were placed to sundry Checquy experts to consult on the properties of certain building materials. Finally, a plan was agreed upon, with only two people no longer speaking to each other.
“Good,” said Odgers. “I’ll advise the Rookery of the situation and request permission to commence infiltration. I want everyone ready to depart in eight minutes.”
“Is this a rescue job, sir?” asked Jennings.
“That depends on what we find,” said Odgers grimly. “So move quickly, but move right.” The team snapped into action, everyone knowing what his or her role was. The support staff had backed up against the walls, opening a space in the middle of the kitchen for the soldiers to work. The team members began donning their dense black armor.
Felicity shucked off her filthy clothes and tossed them into the plastic rubbish bags that one of the support staff held open. Pawn Chopra flushed and lowered his gaze at the sight of Felicity in her underwear, but the others didn’t react, and Felicity told herself she wasn’t concerned. When you’ve seen someone cry and vomit and shower and shit, and they’ve seen you do the same, you don’t feel shy around them. There wasn’t a single person on the assault team that she hadn’t seen naked at one time or another, although never in a recreational setting.
Still, despite herself, she rather wished that the first impression Chopra had gotten of her didn’t involve her in her extremely sensible undies, her face smeared with essence des excréments.
“All right, on with the school uniform,” she said hurriedly. Across the room, one of her teammates put a boot against a plastic trunk with Felicity’s name stenciled on it and sent it skidding across the floor to her. “Ta.”
First was a bodysuit of thin stretchy material with a built-in sports bra. Then a set of the black coveralls. Felicity rubbed Vaseline over her feet before she pulled on some tactical-grade socks. She stepped into a pair of large boots and laced them up tightly. Then came the combat armor that had been cast for her when she graduated from the Estate. Dense plastic greaves, vambraces, and rerebraces that would protect her limbs. A breastplate, one that made no attempt to acknowledge her gender. She thoughtfully brushed her fingertips over the marks that scarred it. It was festooned with little chips and divots, and a splashy stain was etched into the surface.
“Gauntlets?” asked an attendant.
“Fingerless gloves,” said Felicity, pulling them out of her trunk. “I need to be able to initiate immediate skin contact.” It wasn’t unusual for Checquy soldiers to modify their outfits according to their individual requirements. Two of the other soldiers were also gauntlet-less. Gardiner’s armor was all white, while Jennings’s appeared to be made out of highly polished mahogany. Cordingley was wearing no helmet. Barnaby had a spiked flail Velcroed to her thigh and she had undone some zips and slid the entire right sleeve of her coveralls off, revealing a small but muscular arm. Buchanan was wearing only the coveralls and a pair of light canvas trainers.
A helmet with a transparent faceplate was squashed down over Felicity’s head, and she made a grim mental note to shampoo the helmet’s interior after the assault. She shifted through a few stretches to make certain that everything was fitted correctly.
“Will you need night vision?” asked the attendant.
“Uh, probably, yeah,” said Felicity. “There’s no electrical power in there.” He undid a couple of catches and slotted a new, bulkier face shield on. She knew that when she slid the visor down, she would be presented with a couple of little monitors.
A steel combat knife was sheathed on one thigh, a dense industrial-plastic blade on the other. Felicity holstered her nine-millimeter pistol on her hip.
Now all the team members were girded in their battle dress. They were a study in deadliness. As Jennings cracked his neck from side to side, the air above him wavered hot and green. Gardiner’s white armor suddenly shimmered like mother-of-pearl. Pawn Barnaby tested her flail, and it swung with a tearing sound that cut through the space. Sparks crawled briefly and crazily over Pawn Buchanan’s coveralls. With a swirl of air, Pawn Cheng condensed herself and appeared in the group. The others’ calm stillness simply hinted at their potential for supernatural violence.
The team stood ready for the call to action.
Which didn’t come.
And didn’t come.
And didn’t come.
Finally, one of the support staff poked his head through the door into the next room, listened a moment, and then looked back. He shook his head and held his hand up to his ear in the universal sign for She’s talking on the phone. He grimaced and waggled his other hand in the universal sign for Might be a while.
“For Christ’s sake,” said Jennings. “I suppose we’d better sit down while we’re waiting for the order.”
“Bloody bureaucracy,” grumbled Buchanan, settling down on his kit case. “They get us out here in the colon of London, all suited up, and then we have to wait while someone in an office finds the backbone to make an actual decision.”
“Maybe it won’t take that long,” said Chopra hopefully.
“Doubt it,” said Barnaby. She took out a cigarette and nodded thanks to Jennings when its end erupted in a small green flame. “Keep in mind, today’s the day that the Belgians are coming into the country. The entire Rookery is going to be running around, all atwitter. Everyone with any real authority will be taken up with the preparations.”
“Yeah, I’d much rather be doing an actual mission than standing guard duty for the fucking Grafters,” said Gardiner. There was a murmur of agreement.
The Grafters, thought Felicity, and she shuddered in her armor. Bloody hell. The Checquy faced monsters every day, but the Grafters held a special place of horror in their hearts and their memories.