The chosen representative was a Bishop, a former slave named Shadrach. His appearance in George Washington’s home was suitably inexplicable and would have made a great impression on the president had he been there. Unfortunately, Washington had elected to spend the day inspecting some troops. Fortunately, Shadrach’s entrance out of a cloud of moths and his impeccable manners bemused Martha Washington enough that she agreed to let him stay until her husband came home. For several hours, the first First Lady and the ex-slave sat in the parlor and Shadrach explained all about the Croatoan and their mission. Martha was a remarkably open-minded person and was sensible enough to appreciate that having the Croatoan would be a good thing for the fledgling nation.
Over a cup of untaxed tea, Martha and Shadrach hammered out the details of the Croatoan’s absorption into the government. The negotiations were terrifying in their complexity, and the supernatural community still disputes who was the shrewder negotiator. Regardless, when George Washington arrived home, he found himself in possession of a covert supernatural agency.
Historians have noted that George Washington was quite the spymaster and spent a large portion of his budget on intelligence. Well, I can tell you that a sizable cut of that was spent on the activities of the Croatoan. In many ways, the Croatoan’s organization mirrored that of the Checquy. It, too, received a ridiculously oversize budget and retained a hierarchical structure, despite protestations by Martha that it was not in keeping with the new ideals of the nation to have a ruling Court. Shadrach, however, had been very firm. But unlike the Checquy, the Croatoan was denied the right to forcibly extract powered children from their families. Martha, in fact, had been all for it, but the president was adamant on that point. Instead, the Croatoan members were obliged to lure their operatives with exuberant references to duty and responsibility, which worked almost as well as force and had the advantage of not being a flagrant mockery of the Constitution.
Finally, and crucially, it was agreed that the Croatoan, like the Checquy, would not interfere in nonsupernatural affairs. Its remit was strictly confined to the realm of the unnatural.
As the nation grew, so too did the Croatoan. However, they did not grow proportionally. For some reason, far fewer powered children were born in the continental United States than in the United Kingdom. This would have been cause for concern had it not been for the fact that there were also far fewer supernatural threats. This is not to say that there were no problems. It was in America that the mathematically created Irregularities arose, warping the very material of time and space while secretly manipulating the silent-film industry. The Cult of the Estrangement. The Horseman of Famine. The Rattling God. All of them were dire, but in terms of sheer number, supernatural threats did not seem to be too much of a problem in the United States.
Richard Swansea, before he died of repeated decapitation by a spurned (and increasingly bewildered) civilian lover, had noticed this trend, and a possible explanation was found in his diaries. Swansea’s close friendship with the Native Americans had allowed him to observe their rites and practices. He postulated that a series of protections had been laid in place, woven into the very fabric of the land. Even as the tribes diminished, their work endured, and the continent remained relatively free of paranormal manifestations.
Despite the state-mandated separation of the two organizations, the Croatoan and the Checquy continued to maintain excellent relations. Formal arrangements were avoided initially, but they communicated regularly. Scarcely a decade went by without a member of one Court visiting the Court across the ocean. In 1850, a formal agreement—the Sororitas Pact—was entered into, codifying the many bonds of friendship between the two groups. Among the features of this agreement were the establishment of the List, the commitment to the extradition of transgressors, and the solemn and binding promise that neither organization would consent to be part of a war against the other’s country. The List was a catalog of threats each group regarded as most dire. Any developments that involved a threat on the List were to be shared immediately.
There were even a few collaborative efforts. During the American Civil War, the Croatoan called in reinforcements when the gigantic mollusks, excited by the violence, rose again and stalked the land. In 1903, the Checquy appealed to their American siblings when a portal opened in Hong Kong and demons began infiltrating the community. In 1989, the two groups coordinated the suppression of the animated dead on Hawaii—a state that did not enjoy the mystic immunity of its continental brethren. The success of these campaigns served to strengthen the bonds of friendship.
Today, the Croatoan members are our staunchest allies. They know secrets that not even our countrymen know. They are fewer than we are, yet they police a territory many times larger than ours. Personally, I have nothing but the greatest respect for them.
Well, that’s all very nice, thought Myfanwy. But did you ever actually meet any of them? Am I going to need to acknowledge any private jokes? Do I need to be asking after their kids? Myfanwy flipped helplessly through the binder, but nothing caught her eye. She looked at her watch and realized how little time she had to get changed. Fortunately, the one thing she was not lacking was a whole bunch of appropriately businesslike suits. By the time Ingrid came to announce the Americans, she had pillaged the wardrobe, scurried back down to the office, and was looking sufficiently formal.
16
Rook Myfanwy Thomas of the Checquy, I present Bishop Shantay Petoskey of the Croatoan,” announced Ingrid in ringing tones. What did she do, take elocution lessons? thought Myfanwy, blushing furiously. The echoes were still bouncing noisily around the room when Bishop Petoskey walked in and Myfanwy opened the eyes she’d closed tight in embarrassment. She looked at Petoskey and felt her eyes widen. Whatever she’d expected, Shantay Petoskey was not it.
The woman was maybe five years older than her, and lovely. She was black, slim, and tall tall tall. She was dressed in something that might have been either horrendously expensive or distressingly cheap, and it looked absolutely glorious on her.
Please let her have slept her way to the top, thought Myfanwy. No one deserves to be this beautiful and clever too.
Petoskey had an expression on her face that implied she was trying not to burst into laughter.
“Yes, thank you for that lovely introduction, Ingrid,” said Myfanwy.
“It’s tradition,” said Ingrid calmly.
“Yes, of course it is,” said Myfanwy. “Bishop Petoskey,” she said, nodding her head in a bizarre gesture that was intended to be formal and gracious but probably looked ridiculous.
“Rook Thomas, it’s lovely to meet you,” said Petoskey. “And please, call me Shantay.”
“And I’m Myfanwy,” she replied. Oh, thank God, we’ve never met! she thought. She looked carefully beyond Shantay, but all she saw was Ingrid going back to her desk. “I’m sorry, I thought Ingrid said both Bishops were coming.”
“Bishop Morales wasn’t feeling well, so she stayed at the hotel.”
“Oh, I hope it’s nothing serious,” said Myfanwy.
“It’s the traveling. It exhausts her,” explained Shantay. “We knew she wouldn’t be coming to this meeting.”
“Never mind. Three-quarters of an hour ago I didn’t know that there was going to be a meeting, so really it’s no big deal.”
I can’t believe I just said that.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” said Shantay. There was a brief moment of terrible tension, during which Myfanwy braced herself for a declaration of war. Then Shantay smiled broadly. “You’re much funnier than they led me to believe.” She winked, and Myfanwy smiled back, liking this woman very much.
It dawned on her that they were both still standing. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “Let’s sit down. Not there!” She stopped Shantay from sitting in the deliberately uncomfortable chair. “Let’s sit on the couches. Would you like a steaming beverage of some sort?” Soon, they were ensconced in the depths of the couch and Ingrid had
furnished them both with cups of coffee.
“So, Shantay!” said Myfanwy, settling back comfortably and letting the cushions absorb her.
“Yes, Myfanwy?” asked Shantay with equal comfort and amusement.
“What brings you so abruptly to England? Not that we’re not ecstatic to see you.”
“Oh, naturally. To begin with, our entire Court was very impressed with the report you penned,” said the Bishop, carefully arranging her dress around her. “And it proved remarkably timely.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Four hours ago, a team of our Pawns acquired an individual who entered the country through LAX. She was examined thoroughly and proved to have some very specific implants.” Shantay paused meaningfully. “They weren’t silicone.”
“Let me guess,” said Myfanwy dryly. “Grafter enhancements?” Shantay nodded grimly. “Crap,” she sighed. “Was it the dogs that brought her to your attention?”
“No,” said Shantay. “We hadn’t set up the dog thing yet.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, we followed her because she was from Belgium,” said Shantay bluntly.
“Interesting,” said Myfanwy weakly. “I don’t know if that’s going to work here. And she just went nuts in the airport?”
“Well, she might have been freaked out by the three albinos who were following her” came the answer. “But they were pretty discreet. Seriously, she just popped without any provocation.”
“That’s alarming.”
“Extremely. As soon as we were informed, Bishop Morales and I made arrangements to come here.” And all this happened two hours ago, marveled Myfanwy. It’s probably best I don’t ask. “The Grafters represent a credible danger to both our countries,” continued Shantay. “The appearance of one was cause enough for concern, but two in such a short period of time… well, that’s a bit more disturbing.”
“Is the subject still alive?” Myfanwy asked.
“Yeah, although it wasn’t easy subduing her,” said Shantay darkly. “She managed to kill thirteen people in the airport.”
“Not civilians?”
“Four civilians, nine Pawns.”
“Oh God. I’m so sorry,” Myfanwy said. “Is the public aware?”
“It’s impossible to conceal something like this when it happens in an airport. The only things we managed to hide were some of the more bizarre aspects. Fortunately, none of our Pawns activated their powers in view of the public.”
“Then how—” wondered Myfanwy.
“Sharpshooters” came the terse answer.
“Really? Our guy turned out to be bulletproof.”
“We didn’t use bullets.”
“Ah. Please accept my deepest sympathies, and those of the entire Checquy, for this tragedy.”
Shantay nodded her acceptance. “Your Chevaliers will be officially informed within the hour, but we wanted to be here for the inevitable conference.”
“Right. Forgive me, but you said that the subject is still alive. Have you begun to interrogate?”
“We’ve had no luck. We’ve secured her in our place in Nevada, but she’s put herself into some sort of coma state, and so far none of our folks can rouse her.”
“One of our Pawns had some success waking Van Syoc,” said Myfanwy, thinking back to the careful ministrations of Dr. Crisp. “I’m sure we could work out some sort of arrangement. Dr. Crisp is our chief information extractor. He’s a palm reader and haruspex, so he can read a person inside and out. He’s currently up to his elbows in Grafter, but he must be able to get more information out of a living person than a dead one.”
“If he can’t, we have a woman who’s pretty good with the dead,” said Shantay. “And I don’t mean to be rude, but didn’t Dr. Crisp kill the last person he interrogated?”
Myfanwy paused. “No, Dr. Crisp didn’t kill Van Syoc. The Grafters did.” She explained everything Dr. Crisp had told her.
“Christ!” said Shantay. “So the woman we have in custody… they could order her to self-destruct?”
“No one has to order anything,” said Myfanwy. “They can do it themselves.”
“Even worse,” said Shantay. “I’ll get on the phone and see if they can put her somewhere that’s signal-proof.”
“Good idea. But don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t work out. We had Van Syoc stored five stories beneath street level. I’ll ask Dr. Crisp to talk to them; he may have some ideas.” For a few moments the two women ignored each other as Shantay spoke urgently into her cell phone and Myfanwy explained the situation to Ingrid. When they had both given instructions, they turned back to each other.
“Lunch?” asked Myfanwy.
“I’d love to,” said Shantay.
Dear You,
I find research, even research to find out who wants to kill me, rather soothing. After all, dealing with vast amounts of information is what I do anyway. Most of the information is available through our in-house computer system. It’s a closed network, so no computer that contains any reference to Checquy material is connected to the World Wide Web. E-mails from one Checquy office to another go through one of our satellites, so there’s no chance some obnoxious American teen with too much time on his hands can hack into our system. There are no crossovers, and if you think setting up that sort of thing is expensive, you have no idea.
Anyway, I can pull up most of the stuff on my computer, and my position as Rook gives me access privileges to practically everything. So I scan through files and files and files. Every once in a while, I need something that hasn’t been put into the computers. If the material is available in the Rookery, I walk down to the archives, which are a very handsome part of the building. Dark green carpets, large oaken bookcases, quiet scholars—I like it there. I like following a trail of information, moving from shelf to shelf, passing by glass cases that hold dignified dead things, and then moving through the metal door to the vaults.
In the vaults, there are aisles and aisles of secrets. Tall cabinets with shining wood drawers. Folders sealed with wax. Boxes of orderly papers. And then I go past those rooms, put on a coat, and walk into the cold-storage area, where heavy steel cabinets guard the details.
It’s always there in the details.
Some things, however, aren’t available online or in the Rookery, and if they’re in one of our other London facilities, I go over on the weekend and prowl through the stacks of the Annexe or Apex House. If the records are somewhere else, I have them shipped over, and battered folders that Ingrid has to sign for show up on my desk, shrink-wrapped in plastic, with various seals stuck all over them. I always like looking at the names of the places they’ve come from. Bath, Stirling, the Orkneys, the Isle of Man, Manchester, Portsmouth, Edinburgh, Whitby, Exeter. We’re all over the place.
And now I am trawling through the financial figures, which are not hundreds but thousands of pages long. The old Checquy financial methods and systems were nightmarishly convoluted, and even the new arrangements are as complex as you would expect of any gigantic quasi-independent government agency that operates all over the world in secret. Numbers writhe in front of my eyes—account numbers, transaction numbers, staff ID numbers, authorization numbers, destination numbers. I have gotten my feet wet in slush funds, been dubious about trust funds, and asked discerning questions about discretionary funds.
Why am I trawling through the financial records? Well, it’s because I have found in the course of my career that even in this secret world of power and mysticism and hidden wonders, it still usually comes down to the money. And I wonder if my abilities with figures and finances combined with my access to the records of the Checquy are the reason that someone in the Court will destroy me. Perhaps they fear that I will catch them out in some financial wrongdoing.
Which, as it turns out, I may have done. It’s not huge, but it looks as if Sir Henry’s and Gestalt’s finances are both a little… unorthodox. Now, it may simply be the result of both of them having very peculiar lives. S
ir Henry enjoys an extended life span and has operated under a couple of different names and identities, so there are issues there. Money has gotten lost. Meanwhile, Gestalt receives the salary of four people, but it’s not clear how many people’s worth of tax he pays.
The thing is, this is not concrete. I don’t know for certain that any fraud has been committed by either of them. To confirm any wrongdoing—to go through their finances—would take more time than I have. What I have found would be enough, however, to warrant a massive investigation. Which is why it forms part of my blackmail contingency plan.
But I don’t think either one’s financial impropriety is enough to warrant my destruction. It’s got to be something else that leads to my betrayal. Thus, every evening, every morning, every car ride, and every lunch hour (on the rare occasions that I get one), when I’m not scrutinizing the details of the Court’s personnel records, I’m going through financial records. Of course, the Checquy’s assets are vast and varied, and I can’t account for everything. But in my role as Rook, I’ve ordered double audits of the major vaults and had them done by rival sections in an effort to ensure that there’s no collaboration. In the meantime, I’m personally reviewing the finances of the bigger projects in the Checquy portfolio. These are quite complex, which makes it easy for financial jiggery-pokery to take place.
It also makes them a complete bitch to review.
At the moment, I am mired hip-deep in the funding that is allocated to the Estate every year, and make no mistake—it’s a lot of money. It would have to be. Every person who comes out of there at the age of nineteen has the equivalent of a thorough education through university, rigorous military training, and as complete a mastery of his or her powers as possible. The budget has to include the facilities of the best public school in the country, the equipment for diagnosing and testing a wide variety of superhuman abilities, the accommodations for a student population of genetically unstable people, the wages for the best-qualified and most open-minded teachers in the world, and security to keep all this a secret. Not to mention therapy for everyone concerned.