“Marie, do you want them captured or killed?” Bart asked the air. He heard a heavy sigh come back through his own mouth. It was a little disconcerting, acting as a speakerphone.
“I’ll need to consult with the graaf,” she said, and a perfect recreation of her voice came from Bart’s lips. “I’ll be recommending execution. I don’t think we can take any chances.” Was it his imagination, or did he hear a trace of regret in her voice? He shrugged. “But it will be up to him. If the order is to kill them, be sure to bring back their bodies. If you have time, I’d like all their possessions, but the priority is their corpses.”
The plan that they formulated called for exquisite coordination. Two snipers would cover the front of the building and two would cover the rear, in case any of the Antagonists elected to try to escape through a window. With eyes that contained both raptor and feline genes, the Chimerae would be able to pick out any movement, even in the dark.
A team of four would scale the building and station themselves on the roof. Two teams of four would position themselves at the front and back doors, and a team of two would enter via the basement. At a signal given by Bart, they would all tear through the place. With the speed the Chimerae could muster up, Bart knew it would sound like a barrage of thunderbolts blasting through the house. To say nothing of the gunfire. He almost pitied the neighbors who were going to be jolted out of their sleep. Every room would be checked. Any Antagonist was to be killed on sight.
It had been a very good plan, and Bart had been quite looking forward to seeing it play out, except that at 4:30 p.m., four Antagonists, two males and two females, had walked out of their front door, nearly giving the posted sentries heart attacks. There was no sign of the unnatural white skin the Chimerae had been warned about. They looked like normal people; they were dressed in normal clothes and had normal faces. They appeared to be in their early twenties, and while the four of them, two black boys, an Asian girl, and a white girl, did garner second glances from a few passersby, it was only because they were all beautiful.
They carried no weapons, but they did have a picnic basket with them, which was the subject of much frenzied debate and speculation among the Chimerae. The consensus was that it contained some sort of weapon of mass distraction, but then the Antagonists spread a blanket on the grass in Hyde Park, opened said basket (prompting some flinching on the part of the Chimera observers), and proceeded to extract an early dinner of cold chicken and various kinds of salad.
“Well, that’s fine,” said Amanda. “They’ll have their little picnic in the park, and then they’ll go back to their house, and the plan can still go ahead.” Bart said nothing.
Two Chimerae remained stationed by the house, and fresh soldiers were dispatched to the park to maintain a watch on the party of Antagonists, who seemed to be in no hurry to move on, even after they had finished their food and packed the plates back in the basket. Grafter soldiers jogged by the party in running suits and strolled by in business clothes. A pram was hastily procured and a shawl draped over it so that two Chimerae could sit on a nearby bench, absently rocking a pillow masquerading as a baby. Serious thought was given to acquiring a dog to blend in with the many dog walkers, but no one could agree on what would be done with it afterward. The two youngest Chimerae, who happened to absolutely loathe each other, consented, under duress, to lie down in the grass near the Antagonists and make out for a while. With the heavy foot traffic in the park, there was simply nothing to do but wait. The Chimerae could not so much as shout at one of the Antagonists without drawing the attention of witnesses.
“Patience,” said Franz after hours had passed and they received a report that the Antagonists had not only failed to move from their spot but had opened a bottle of champagne. They remained lounging on their blanket, chatting easily. There was much laughter. From what the Chimera observers could pick up and relay back to the hotel room, they did not appear to be talking about anything of relevance. No mention of the Broederschap, the Checquy, or any planned attacks. A good deal of the conversation appeared to revolve around a British reality-television show and who was the biggest bitch on it.
“You’re sure these are the Antagonists?” Amanda asked doubtfully.
“Sander and two other trackers confirmed it,” said Bart.
“Do we want to try entering the house in their absence?” asked Franz. Bart hesitated. It was tempting, but the possibility of raising an alarm was too great. If the Chimerae followed the plan, it wouldn’t matter if an alarm was raised. They would still be able to surround the Antagonists and kill them.
Night fell. The other visitors to the park started to depart but the Antagonists made no move to leave; they continued to lounge on the blanket. A park official bustled up to them and pointed out that the park was now closing. One of the females stood up to talk to him, putting her hand on his shoulder and leaning close. He nodded several times and wandered away. The Antagonists toasted one another and settled back down.
To the outrage of the observing Chimerae, the park official then bustled up to them and advised them that the park was now closing. Rather than raise a fuss and thus possibly draw attention, the soldiers meekly withdrew.
Of course, they didn’t entirely withdraw, because they were elite warriors on a mission of vital importance who would not be thwarted by a minor functionary, and so the two of them with the best eyesight hid in some nearby shrubbery.
For several hours.
“They have opened another bottle of champagne,” said one of the observers over the network in their heads. Back in the room, Bart swore loudly in Dutch.
“It is now two in the morning,” said Franz. “Surely they cannot stay in the park forever.”
“Screw the plan! Even if they were not the Antagonists, these creatures need to die,” said Bart. “Staying in the park after closing time—it is disgusting behavior. The park is closed for a reason. Everyone, we are moving out. We’ll kill them in the park, collect the bodies, take the house to check if there are any others or any clues, and then come back here and get room service.”
The gathered Chimerae who had been standing around the room, many of them asleep, all snapped to attention. The night concierge of the hotel was a trifle startled to receive a request for four taxicabs, but he arranged it with all the aplomb one would expect from an employee of that establishment. He said nothing as twelve people filed by silently, all wearing long coats, and got into the waiting cabs. The last person in a long coat, a sober-looking man with a Dutch accent, slipped him an envelope that contained an insanely large tip.
The cabs deposited the long-coated people at various points around the boundary of Hyde Park. The Chimerae removed their coats to reveal tight black clothing and submachine guns. Four of them had sniper rifles, which they briskly assembled in the shadows.
Upon a whispered instruction over the network from Bart, they all vaulted over the walls of the park and silently converged near the area the Antagonists were occupying. They took up positions a judicious distance from the party, close enough to shoot them but far enough away that their whispered communications could not be heard by even the keenest of ears. Concealed by trees, bushes, and the darkness, they formed a ring around the picnickers, waiting for an order to be given. Everyone had been fully briefed; muscles were limbered up, talons unsheathed, hair retracted, glands primed, tongues armed, and safeties released.
Only Bart remained outside the park while his soldiers surrounded their quarry.
“Marie, it’s almost time,” he said quietly to the air. “I need confirmation of the kill order.”
“I’ve conferred with the graaf, and we’ve agreed,” she said, her voice vibrating in his ear bones. “Execute them. Be sure to bring back their bodies.”
“Understood,” he said. “Chimerae,” he said into the darkness, “this will be a terminal interaction. I repeat, they will be luggage, not guests.” He leapt liquidly over the wall, moved through the trees and the bushes, and wriggled through the grass until
he reached his designated position with his team.
It was a job that would call for versatility and improvisation. No one knew what powers the Antagonists could bring to bear. The Chimerae would begin by shooting their prey from a distance, but there was no certainty that these four could be killed by bullets—even the specialized ammunition the Chimerae carried.
No, I expect this will be mainly knife work in the end, thought Bart grimly. And fist, fang, talon, and venom work. He gazed at them for a moment, the lenses of his eyes obediently zooming in, the hand-tooled rods in his retinas cutting through the darkness. He could see their faces as they laughed and drank. They were lovely. They looked like beautiful young people. That’s not what they really look like, he told himself. Those aren’t their real faces. As he watched, they seemed to glow faintly in the night.
“Chimerae, every second soldier, identify your proposed target,” he whispered. In the event that the Antagonists were not brought down by gunfire, eight soldiers would go in all at once, two to a target. The others would remain as a fallback perimeter, ready to move in as support or pursue any Antagonists who made a break for it. The troops reported which Antagonists they would target.
“On my mark, open fire.”
“Three.”
“Two.”
“O—”
“All right,” one of the picnickers called. “We surrender!”
Bart froze.
“Wait,” said Marie’s voice in the head of every Chimera, warning them to keep weapons trained on the targets.
“We know you’re out there,” said one of the male Antagonists. They were all standing except for the white female, who was still lounging on the blanket. “You’ve got us surrounded. It’s over. We give up.”
“Thoughts?” asked Marie, this time only in Bart’s ear.
“I don’t like it,” said Bart. “I’ll go forward, but at the first sign of anything, I’m opening fire.”
“Understood,” said Marie.
“If anything happens to me, command shifts to Amanda.”
“Understood,” said Amanda. “And my first order will be to kill them.”
Bart stood up and walked forward out of the gloom, his gun at the ready. The Antagonists turned to watch him.
“Congratulations, you tracked us down,” the taller man said. Bart wondered if he was the one who had killed the people in the restaurant and then spent all that time standing outside the delegation’s hotel. Sander could probably have told him, but the tracker was out there in the darkness, watching, waiting for the signal.
“Obey every order,” said Bart. “You will receive no second chances. Now lie down on the ground and put your hands on your heads.”
“Yes, well, we’ve changed our minds,” said the Asian woman. She was dressed in boots and a red velvet minidress that looked as if it had come from the 1960s. “We’re not surrendering at all.”
“Kill them now!” shouted Bart. But none of the Chimerae, not even him, could move a muscle. It was as if their bodies had been encased in steel. Bart could not even blink. They were like statues.
“Predictable,” sniffed the girl in the minidress. “Predictable and pathetic.” She looked at him out of a movie-star face and wrinkled her nose. “Why on earth would we surrender to you? You disgust us.”
“And I have a special message for that bitch who’s peering out through your eyes,” said the male who had spoken before. All the Chimerae heard Marie’s sharp breath. “What is coming will smash any possibility of an alliance between you and the Checquy. You have brought this upon yourselves.” He held up his hand tauntingly, and all the Chimerae tensed, but his hand was empty. “You can do nothing against us.” His black skin rippled and became shiny porcelain white.
He snapped his fingers, and all the Chimerae died.
31
Thank you so much for inviting us,” said Odette. “I’ve had a wonderful time here.” It was almost the truth. The long weekend at Hill Hall really would have been terrifically relaxing had it not been for two things.
The first was the formal dinners they’d all been obliged to attend each night. These had taken place in a beautiful room with soft light and lovely paintings. The food had been delicious, the conversation had been polite and uncontroversial, everyone had been extremely pleasant, and the horror of it all had nearly driven Clements to self-harm. Making polite chitchat amongst the elite was such obvious agony for the Pawn that Odette had actually felt sorry for her.
The second thing that unrelaxed the weekend was the phone call Ernst had received from Marie sometime in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Odette hadn’t dared ask what he’d been told, but it sent him into a cold rage that lasted the rest of the weekend. He’d been withdrawn, sitting silently at meals and spending the rest of the time in his room or the library talking on his mobile phone. Odette and Marcel had apologized discreetly, and Marcel had explained to their hosts that they’d received bad news from home.
“Have we received bad news from home?” Odette had asked when they were alone in the gardens. Marcel explained what had happened to the Chimerae.
“And so Marie had to activate their discretion functions,” said Marcel. “Otherwise, the Checquy would have found sixteen armed corpses in Hyde Park and two outside a nearby house, all unmistakably of Broederschap origin. With the discretion protocols, all their DNA unzipped itself, and they liquefied.”
“So instead of eighteen corpses in a public park and on the footpath, there will be eighteen sets of uniforms and weaponry, all heavily stained with miscellaneous organic fluids,” said Odette. “How do we explain that?”
“We don’t have to.” Marcel shrugged. “I expect the Checquy will hear about it, but they’ve no reason to link it to us.”
“So what happens now?”
“We don’t know,” said Marcel. “We aren’t sure how they were able to deal with the Chimerae so easily. This is one of the reasons that Ernst is so perturbed. We appear to have run out of options, and the Antagonists seemed to be very confident that their next move would turn the Checquy against us. We cannot flee, we cannot fight, and telling the truth has become increasingly dangerous, since we have been actively lying about a serious threat that has already killed several British civilians. If you think of anything, do let us know.”
“You seem very calm,” said Odette accusingly.
“I’m very good at not panicking,” Marcel said. “But if it makes you feel any better, I am extremely worried about this.”
For the rest of the weekend, Odette had fretted and brooded and come up with exactly nothing. Neither, apparently, had any of the other Grafters. And now, after an early supper on Sunday evening, the guests were getting ready to be driven back to London.
“We look forward to seeing you here again soon, Miss Leliefeld,” said Pawn Dunkeld. “It’s been a pleasure having you all visit.” He shook her hand, and she climbed into the back of the car. She sighed. The limo contained her, Clements, Rook Thomas, and Mrs. Woodhouse. Theirs was the last car to depart, and they’d been held up by the Rook’s having some final words with Pawn Dunkeld and then making everyone wait while she took a long confidential call from London.
As they moved out of the gates of Hill Hall, Odette looked at her traveling companions. Rook Thomas had her eyes closed, Mrs. Woodhouse was doing something with a tablet computer, and Clements was messing about with her phone. Apparently, there would be no conversation for a while. Shrugging, Odette turned to the window. It was dark outside the car, far darker than she would have expected. The road to Hill Hall was old—someone had told her it dated back to Roman times—and it seemed to have sunk over the centuries. High banks of earth rose on either side, with trees joining above them. It was like driving through a tunnel.
“Rook Thomas, according to Dr. Leliefeld’s schedule, it’s time for you to have some cranberry juice,” said Mrs. Woodhouse. She held out a bottle, and the Rook accepted it.
“Thank you, Ingrid,” said the Rook. ?
??There’s nothing like having one’s every beverage sched—what the hell?” The car had veered violently for a moment, almost swerving into one of the banks flanking the road. The modesty panel slid down.
“Sorry, Rook Thomas,” said the driver. “I think something flew into my eye.”
“It’s fine,” said Thomas sourly. She’d spilled the juice down the front of her suit. She took off her seat belt and was in the process of taking off her jacket when the car swerved again. “All right, look, just stop the car,” she said in irritation. “If there’s an insect, we’ll let it out.”
The driver didn’t reply. Instead, an agonized scream filled the car. Everyone’s gaze flew to the front, where, to universal horror, they saw that the driver was clawing frantically at his own face.
Which meant that he had taken both hands off the steering wheel.
“Rook Thomas, seat belt,” said Mrs. Woodhouse flatly. The Rook struggled to get her arms out of her jacket as the car began to careen back and forth, slamming against the banks. “Quickly.”
“What is wrong with him?” asked Odette.
“No idea,” said Rook Thomas tightly.
“He’s got blood on his hands,” exclaimed Clements, craning her neck to peer into the front seat. “I think he’s tearing out his own eyes!”
“Rook Thomas, can’t you take control of him or something?” asked Odette, clutching at her seat belt. Before the Rook could answer, the car bounced off a bank, and Rook Thomas banged her head against the door of the car. She clutched at her head, her eyes squeezed shut. The car veered off across the road and scraped against the embankment on the other side.
There was a long, bubbling howl from the driver and then two wet bursting sounds, like someone dropping two waxed-paper bags full of water onto the floor. He slumped against the window, and Odette saw, to her astonishment, that a torrent of acrid yellow smoke was flowing out of his face. Unthinking, she gasped, and the cloud seemed to reach out and crawl down her throat.
It was as if molasses had been poured into her brain. Her thoughts grew thick and heavy, and it felt like weights had been attached to her eyelids and wrists. She could feel the car bucking beneath her, but it all seemed very distant and unimportant. The other women were coughing and gasping, but they were somehow still concerned with who was driving the car. Odette managed to muster up enough focus to admire their determination.