Stiletto (86 page)

He scrambled forward off the patio, his feet slipping on the wet grass as he fled. Over the hammering of his heartbeat, he could hear footsteps. The woman called something to him but he ignored it. There was a whirling sound behind him, and something clipped one of his legs. His knee crumpled, and he tumbled sideways, landing in a fishpond.

Blowing and gasping, he sat up and saw the silver figure approaching him. The sledgehammer that she’d thrown at him was lying on the grass to his side.

“God, I love this country,” said the woman, and he looked up at her. She was beautiful and horrible and impossible. “Every time I come here, I get to kick some ass. At home, it’s all paperwork and meetings.”

“I — I...” He couldn’t seem to make words.

“You know, Myfanwy actually spoke up for you,” she said. “And that was
after
you stabbed her. She thought you should be imprisoned, maybe rehabilitated, but the Court outvoted her, and I think they’re right. So here we are.” She lifted her hand and he saw that she was holding some sort of black-and-yellow weapon. A stun gun. “Now, I’m not entirely certain what will happen when I use this on someone sitting in a pond, but we’ll play it by ear, shall we?” She pointed it at him and he found himself screaming and slashing up his arm to shield himself. A fan of crystal spun up out of the ground and knocked her arm aside. The Taser flew into the shrubbery.

“Aw, crap!” she exclaimed. “I really should have seen that coming. It’s my own fault for talk —” She was cut off as a crystal column erupted from the grass and sent her flying. There was a distant crash as she landed in the hedge. Groaning, he levered himself out of the water. His knee grated under him and he was shivering, but he was also exhilarated.

I can’t kill this woman,
he thought.
And I can’t outrun her either. But maybe, maybe I can stop her.

The silver woman stumbled out of the bushes. She was still perfect, there were no scratches on her metal, but her shirt had a few tears, and her silver hair was tangled. With a scraping sound that set his teeth on edge, she combed her fingers through it and picked out a twig. She did not look best pleased.

“Let’s do it the hard way, then,” she said. “That’s always much more fun anyway.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he fanned his fingers out over the ground and concentrated.
Go!

From under his palms, four rivers of crystal snaked through the grass toward her and then burst up into glittering eight-sided pillars two feet across. They weren’t there to cut but to smash at her, to fling her out, away. She sidestepped two of them, spun around the third, and then continued her spin to slam her forearm into the fourth column and break it. She caught it as it fell and flung it directly at him.

You can do this,
he thought. He stepped forward,
toward
the hurtling shaft, and put out his hands. As the missile touched his fingertips, it exploded silently into a cloud of powder.
Yes!
Coughing, he stepped back and heard thudding. Through the cloud, he caught a flash as she shot toward him.

Now!

Jagged spikes slid out of the grass in her way. Barely breaking stride, she ducked and dodged around them.

More!

Talons of glass curled out of the ground and down from the tree branches above them. They clutched at her, scraped her skin and caught her shirt, but she tore free.

Stop her!

A faceted wall of mineral rose up before her, and she lowered her shoulder and plowed through it with a hideous cracking sound. Fragments scattered across the lawn.

And now I’ll... I’ll...
he had no more ideas. As she came toward him, violence in quicksilver, he hesitated.

And he was lost.

*

“Hello, Ingrid? It’s Shantay Petoskey. Is our girl there?”

“Just a moment, please, Bishop Petoskey.” The American woman took up her cup of tea, which was still warm, and drank. She’d given up smoking years ago, and she was in someone else’s house, but if there’d been a cigarette handy, she’d have snatched it up without hesitation.

“Shan? What’s happened?” The Rook’s voice was anxious.

“Hey, I’m fine. He did come to your house, though.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Yeah,” said Shantay. “He had your purse from the racecourse. Did you cancel all your cards?”

“Is he dead?”

“I’m sorry, Myfanwy. He was rabid; I had to put him down.”

The Rook sighed. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Shan.”

“Don’t thank me too soon,” said Shantay. “It’s a good thing you got all your stuff out of the house, because your couch is ruined, and you’ll need to get your kitchen redone.”

“Great, well, the Checquy can pick up the tab for that,” said Myfanwy sourly.

“Fortunes of war,” said Shantay. “But I actually kind of like what’s happened to your backyard. You might want to think about keeping that. Very alternative-ice-sculpture chic.”

“I dread to think,” said the Rook. “Anyway, I’ll send a cleanup team around immediately. Do you want to go to a hotel tonight? I can have a car come and pick you up.”

“Nah, I’m fine. The guest room’s untouched, and it’s a bit late,” said the Bishop.

“Then I’ll see you at Balmoral tomorrow.”

*

“It’s a lovely day,” said Odette. “I didn’t think it would be. The weather reports all agreed that it would storm.”

“There was supposed to be a thunderstorm today,” said Felicity, “but Celia from the Finance section can control the weather in a mile radius around her. They brought her up from London so we could have a nice day here and take advantage of the Balmoral gardens for your grandfather to kiss hands.”

“Kiss hands?” repeated Odette.

“It’s what they call it when a government minister formally takes office. Now it’s just a term — they don’t actually kiss the monarch’s hand.”

“Someone better tell Grootvader Ernst that,” said Odette. “Because they did it in his time and — oh! Too late.” They watched as Ernst rose from his knees.
Once again, he is a warrior and a general,
she thought, happy for her
grootvader
.

“And now he’s kissing the King on both cheeks,” said Felicity, sounding very cheerful. “Splendid!” The startled-looking monarch was smiling broadly. “Royalty is always rather fond of tradition.”

Tradition was certainly the flavor of the day. The delegation of Grafters had come to Aberdeenshire to officially join themselves to the Checquy, committing themselves and their people back in Europe to the service of the British Isles. Dressed in their best, they had knelt on red carpets laid out on the lawn and taken an oath of citizenship and then an oath of fealty, and, when they had risen, they had been embraced by cheering Pawns and Retainers. Several of the embraces had been stiff and perfunctory, but most had been genuine.

“Your ancestor looks very pleased,” said Felicity. “I hope he’s not disappointed that he wasn’t made a member of the Court.”

“No,” said Odette. “I think he’s quite satisfied with the fact that they’re making him a duke.”

And once again a nobleman,
she remembered. For all her life, and the lives of her family going back generations, Grootvader Ernst had been their leader, respected for his power, his age, and his foresight. But his lost noble status, his fiefdom long since stripped from him in the horrible aftermath of the Isle of Wight, had been abstract knowledge to the Grafters, less real than their fear and hatred for the Checquy.

“Once, we were nobles,” a Grafter mother might say, knowing that it was a nice thought but nothing to compare to being a member of the Broederschap.

But that wasn’t true for Grootvader Ernst, I’d bet,
thought Odette.
It’s so easy to know that he’s old without realizing, really understanding, that he was alive in those days. That the man who sits at the head of the table with a however-many-greats-grandchild on his knee and a beer in his hand was the man who rode horses to war, sat with his dogs in a great hall, bargained with kings, and invaded a nation.

And for him, noblesse oblige, the obligations and responsibilities of nobility, would be real, and eternal. Is
that
why he did what he did? Is that why he joined us to the Checquy? Not so that he could become a duke again, but so that he and his people could
be of genuine service?
She watched him talking with the King, and her heart was filled with love, not just for her liege lord and leader, but for her great-grandfather, who had taught her so much about honor and duty. Then she frowned.

“Felicity, that guy over there, the one who’s right up by the front. He’s not in the Checquy, is he? I mean, he’s wearing a dress military uniform.”

“No,” said Felicity, biting her lip slightly to keep back a laugh. “He’s not in the Checquy.”

“It’s just that he was at the reception,” said Odette. “He was one of the men I danced with.”

“Yeah, he’s one of the VIPs.”

“Oh? I suppose that would make sense,” said Odette thoughtfully. “He’s cute, isn’t he? We danced quite a few times. Chatted a bit. It was very nice.”

“You hit it off?”

“Oh, well, I don’t know,” said Odette, blushing a little. “He said we should go shooting sometime.”

“Really?” said Felicity.

“Yeah. I said I had some really nice shotguns but that I’d only ever shot clay pigeons, and he said he’d be happy to teach me.”

“Odette?”

“Hmm?”

“He’s third in line to the throne.”

“Oh.
Really
.”

We hope you enjoyed this book!

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This book took longer to write than I’d expected, but it would have taken much, much longer if not for the support of a multitude of people. There are too many to thank each one individually, but I am supremely grateful to all of them.

Whenever I require inspiration to write about public servants who do extraordinary things, I need only look at my colleagues at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. Especial gratitude to Brett Leyshon and Dave Grambauer, who blithely shared harrowing insights from their days in medicine, which I promptly stole. Also, many thanks to my colleagues in the operational search for MH370.

The Internet really is an extremely handy little thing. Periodically I will throw out a question on Facebook or Twitter, and an answer will come winging its way back. My thanks to all the people who gave me advice and encouragement, whether we’ve met or not.

Liesbeth van Alphen and Frank de Jong had me to stay with them during my time in the Netherlands and ferried me about without a word of complaint. They, along with Eva Lemaier, were also the recipients of frantic messages asking for Dutch vocabulary (obscene and otherwise) and guidance on pronunciation. (I also shamelessly pillaged their lists of Facebook friends for cool names.)

Nikki Keene kindly answered all my questions about Royal Ascot, even the inane ones. (Any differences between my descriptions of the racecourse and reality are entirely the fault of reality.) Her and Boyd Allen’s hospitality means all the more since they had never met me before in their lives.

Kimberley Stewart-Mole fed me and watered me and squired me around Cardiff.

Erik and Katy Davis let me stay with them in London, and in return I stole their home and stored three Checquy agents in it. My discussions with Erik about the nature and impact of terrorism greatly informed my thoughts about the Antagonists, and his guidance on how to storm a room with armed troops was invaluable.

Hillary Noyes furnished me with some ghastly symptoms to inflict upon innocents, and her Pomeranian, Wallace, was the inspiration for Grenadier.

Stuart and Fiona Anderson Wheeler also dared to have me in their home. My friend since high school, Stuart advised me on shooting and showed me some stunning examples of shotguns, which I promptly gifted to Odette.

The staff of Foundry Literary + Media, Little, Brown and Company, and HarperCollins Australia continue to be incredibly kind, incredibly patient, and incredibly incredible.

Finally, of course, I must thank my parents, Jeanne and Bill O’Malley, for absolutely everything.

D
ANIEL
O’M
ALLEY
graduated from Michigan State University and earned a master’s degree in medieval history from Ohio State University. He then returned to his childhood home, Australia, where he works for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, writing press releases for government investigations of plane crashes and runaway boats. He is the author of
The Rook
.

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