“Six months?” said Odette, and she mentally kicked herself for asking more questions.
“Generally, we have found that if something is incubating inside a human being, be it a disease, an organism, or a psychosis, signs will begin to appear within six months. Of course, the people will also be flagged in the government computer systems so that if they are hospitalized or die, or if they are arrested or abruptly change careers, we will be notified.”
With this cheerful assurance ringing in her ears, Odette continued on with the rest of the group. The entrance to the staircase was sealed off with a plastic curtain that Gadenne unzipped to reveal a narrow and steep flight of stairs. They squeezed up and had another curtain unzipped before them; it was closed as soon as they’d passed through into the dining room.
The scene was not pleasant.
As a woman of science, Odette had seen human bodies before. And as an apprentice of the Grafters and a frequent attendee of Parisian nightclubs, she’d witnessed her fair share of the unexpected and the disturbing. But what she saw in that room was unlike anything she had encountered before.
Do not show weakness, she told herself. Not in front of the Checquy. Do not bring shame upon your family and your brotherhood. You must be strong and you must—
“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Rook Thomas in horror. She turned her head away for a moment, and her shudder could be seen even through the coverall. She pressed the back of her wrist against her mask and breathed hard.
Odette thought she had been prepared for this. Gadenne hadn’t pulled any punches in his description, but this was gruesome. Corpses everywhere. And these were not corpses laid out tidily on examination tables. Some of them were slumped over on the ground, their bodies curled up tight, but others looked as if they had been turned to stone in mid–death throe. The people were frozen. All their features were caught in a moment of torment. She could play out in her mind exactly how it had happened.
People had been eating and chatting, and then suddenly they had all been struck by the most dreadful pain. A few must have expired almost instantly. They were still seated in their chairs, clutching at their stomachs or their heads. One man was slumped over, facedown in his meal. The ladies on either side of him had their heads thrown back, mouths gaping, teeth bared, fingers curled into claws. Their eyes were still open, staring blankly.
Other people had taken longer to die.
One woman had crawled across the table, dragging herself over the plates and food. She was now half hanging over the edge, spaghetti and sauce dripping down her hair.
There was a man on his knees; his body was upright, his hands pressed against his head. It appeared that he had been tearing at his own face, although there was no blood coming from the ragged skin.
Another man had clawed his way across the floor to the stairs and then arched his head and spine back as he died. His face was twisted in agony, and his mouth was petrified in midscream.
Gadenne said that no one had made any sound, a clinical part of Odette’s mind thought. So this man must have been screaming silently. The nonclinical parts of her mind were doing a little silent screaming of their own.
There can only have been a few seconds of pain, she told herself. Even from the farthest table, for him to get this far would have taken fifteen seconds at most. Judging from the expressions of the dead, however, fifteen seconds must have seemed like a very long time.
What on earth could have done this? she thought helplessly. Was this place built on an ancient Pictish burial ground or something? And how many more things like this are happening every day? She realized that her hands were shaking. The restaurant was so mundane, so commonplace. She could have eaten there herself. And yet, in this normal place, something unfathomable had taken the lives of sixteen people.
For much of her life, Odette had loved living in a secret world. It was delicious, knowing things no one else knew. And while there had been the distant, theoretical awareness of the Checquy, the monsters from her childhood, they had been tucked away in history, on a little island.
Then, in the past few months, another secret world, that of the supernatural, had begun to impinge forcefully upon her life. Now it was right in front of her, and it was horrendous.
“We pulled everyone out so that you could see the bodies in situ, Rook Thomas,” Pawn Gadenne said.
“Thank you, Roland,” said the Rook absently. She appeared to have gotten over her initial horror, although her fists were still clenched tight. Her eyes had gone distant, and her brow was a little furrowed. Then she blinked and focused on him. “Well, they’re all dead,” she said definitely. “You can bring the team back in now, unless—Ernst? Anything?”
“I don’t think I can add anything,” said the graaf. “This sort of tableau is outside my experience. But Odette is more the scholar than I.” He turned to her. “Do you wish to examine them?”
I’d rather take a cheesegrater to myself, Odette didn’t say. Really, there was little on earth that Odette wished to do less than get closer to those bodies. Diseases and poisons caused no fear in her, but this was something else entirely. The Grafters’ knowledge and abilities were based on science. Unorthodox science, admittedly, but at least they had an explanation for how everything worked. Odette was painfully aware that there might be no scientific explanation at all for what she was looking at.
If I point out that their fixed postures indicate a paralytic agent that locked their muscles and ligaments, the Checquy might open them and find that their bones have turned to obsidian or something. If I speculate on why they couldn’t make any sounds, all my scientific theories will look ridiculous when it turns out the room was temporarily transported to the moon by the dreams of a five-year-old, and in an Italian restaurant in space, no one can hear you scream. I don’t have any answers—I don’t even know where to start.
And if these negotiations go through, she thought, I’ll be doing this sort of thing for the rest of my life. Nothing will make sense.
“I, uh, I don’t have any of my tools,” she said finally.
“All right, then, I’ll fetch the team,” said Gadenne briskly. The white-clad investigators filed in and spread out. For the most part, they appeared to be engaged in a fairly standard crime-scene investigation. Cameras were flashing, and lots of things were being done with swabs and test tubes. Of course, there was also the boy carrying the forked hazel-wood wand, the woman holding a scrimshawed elephant tusk, and the man who’d stripped naked in the center of the room and was now levitating a few inches off the floor, an expression of profound thought on his face. Odette was somewhat pleased to note that even the other investigators seemed uncomfortable with that particular forensic approach. But apart from those, everything was reassuringly scientific.
“Pawn Gadenne, it looks like you have everything under control, so I think we’ll shuffle along,” said Rook Thomas. “I’ll have your preliminary report on my desk in the morning?” He nodded obediently. “And do you need me to sign off on any special acquisitions or requisitions for tonight?”
“No, I don’t think so. Thank you, Rook Thomas,” said Gadenne. “Oh, I tried to call in Pawn Clements. I thought her perspective might be useful, but she’s not answering. I realize it’s well below your responsibility, but you don’t happen to know if she’s on leave or something, do you?”
“Pawn Clements,” said the Rook uncertainly. “I know the name, but, um, remind me?”
“Felicity Clements,” said Gadenne. “Young, just a few years out of the Estate. She has touch-based abilities—she reads the environment and can look into the past. She’s posted with an assault team, I believe, but she often gets seconded to us for the on-site portions of our investigations.”
“Oh, I know why I recall her name,” said the Rook. “I just saw it written down today somewhere.” Her shoulders slumped abruptly, and her voice was solemn as she said through the filter mask, “Ah, hell, I’m afraid she was in the team that got caught in the fire this
afternoon.”
“No,” said Gadenne. “The one in the row houses? With the disappearing sleepwalkers?”
“Yes,” said the Rook. “I’m sorry to say the whole team was killed.” Odette and the graaf remained respectfully silent.
“Damn,” said Gadenne. “Do we know what the story is there?”
“Not yet,” said Thomas. “One of the other forensic teams is picking through the wreckage, trying to get a handle on it.”
“Well, I don’t envy them. At least with this lot”—and he looked around the room—“it’s not our own people.”
“Quite,” said the Rook. “And Gadenne, our London investigation resources are going to be spread a little thin for a while because of that fire. The labs have a billion samples, the historians in the Rookery and the Apex have already started researching the location, and the meteorologists are putting together a climatic portrait. You’ll be able to send a few samples to our labs in other cities, but for the rest, I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait your turn.”
“I understand,” said Gadenne. “We’ll have our hands full here for a while anyway.” He nodded to some team members who were preparing to check under a corpse that was sprawled faceup on the floor, its arms rigid above it.
“And lift and turn on three,” one of the investigators ordered. “One . . . two . . . three.” The team lifted, and Odette couldn’t help but flinch as the body, utterly stiff, was moved. It looked like a mannequin being shifted. Then there was a collective gasp from the room as, under the force of its own weight, the skin of the face tore like wet cardboard.
“Fucking hell, put him down, put him down!” the investigator ordered. As they did, however, the rip grew larger, jagging down into the body’s collar. Before everyone’s aghast eyes, the head ripped away and hung from a shred at the nape of its neck. A torrent of black liquid poured out of the corpse. Everyone jumped back as the stuff spilled out and spread across the floor. Odette was not the only one to squeal in horror. Even the security guards scurried away. One of the investigators threw up inside her mask, which made for a brief but complex sideshow.
Despite herself, Odette crouched down, staring at the body. It was clear that everything inside the man had liquefied, turned into whatever that fluid was. All that was left was the husk of his skin crumpling into itself.
My God, what kind of business are we getting ourselves into? she thought weakly. Then she caught a wave of smell, strong enough to wash past her mask. There were minerals, strange compounds, and a trace of rot, but most of all, there was a strong presence of citrus. It hit her memory like a hammer, and she was suddenly terribly afraid.
“Does anyone else smell oranges?” said the Rook, sounding very perplexed.
No, Odette thought in horror. Oh God, no. She looked to the graaf, who shook his head at her, commanding her to be silent.
They’ve followed us here.
7
Odette’s brain woke her up on schedule. She grimaced, and then, as memories of the previous evening presented themselves for inspection, she grimaced even more. The trip back from the crime scene to the hotel had been extremely uncomfortable, although Mrs. Woodhouse had managed to rustle up a slightly more reasonable vehicle. The three who had entered the crime scene had been obliged to discard their shoes after that horrible black liquid had engulfed their baggied feet and seeped through.
As a result, they had sat awkwardly in the back of a town car in their stockinged feet; their shoes had been shipped off to a special facility to be professionally destroyed. Odette and the graaf had been pointedly silent while the Rook spent most of the time on the phone, giving orders to hapless flunkies. After the Grafters were dropped off at the hotel, Odette had opened her mouth to say something, but the graaf had shaken his head.
“We’ll discuss it tomorrow,” he said, and they had gone to their rooms. Odette had drawn herself a bath, added various compounds, and watched as the water turned cloudily purple and gelatinous. Then she eased herself in, sank to the bottom, and fretted. Sleep hadn’t come easily, and now that she was awake, the problems didn’t seem any better. She curled up, hugged her knees, and brooded on how she’d come to be there.
Really, it was all the fault of that greedy bastard Carlos de Aragón de Gurrea, duke of Villahermosa.
In 1677, there was no Belgium. The lands that would eventually become Belgium were part of the Spanish Netherlands and were technically under the rule of Carlos II of Spain. Carlos the Deuce, however, delegated the responsibility of ruling them to a governor-general who lived in Brussels and tried not to lose any of the king’s territory to that canny buck Louis XIV of France.
At that time, the Wetenschappelijk Broederschap van Natuurkundigen was effectively a government agency in the Spanish Netherlands. The brotherhood had begun a couple of centuries earlier when two noblemen, Grootvader Ernst and his business partner and cousin Gerd, Count of Leeuwen, funded the efforts of some shabby alchemists. Said shabby alchemists had been unexpectedly, mind-blowingly successful in their efforts. The two noblemen had put money in, and unfathomably advanced biotechnology had come out.
In the beginning, the mission of the Broederschap had been simple research—pushing the boundaries of human knowledge, gaining a greater understanding of the glory of God’s creation (with an initial emphasis on replacing the leg Ernst had lost in a riding accident), and extending everybody’s life span to ensure there was enough time to get a really good understanding. Ernst and Gerd, being responsible members of the nobility, had informed the government of the brotherhood’s work. The government had responded with the bureaucratic equivalent of some pocket money, an encouraging pat on the head, and an absentminded suggestion to run along and play, do.
Thus unencumbered by interference from the authorities, the Broederschap pursued their activities with an enthusiasm and focus almost as astounding as the results they produced. In a time without flush toilets, they unraveled the genome. In laboratories lined with hand-painted Delft tiles, men who bathed at most once a week cracked the secrets of immortality and developed surgical procedures that allowed them to twist the human form (and various other forms) into whatever shapes they pleased. Their work was based firmly on scientific principles and human intellect, but the results were nothing short of miraculous.
At which point, Ernst and Gerd decided all this could make them look very, very good to the government, and they finally wrote that status report they’d been putting off for decades.
The report raised a few skeptical eyebrows in Antwerp, but after the government scoured the books and realized that, yes, they actually had funded a scientific brotherhood of scientists a while back, a minor bureaucrat was dispatched to check in on this obscure little group. Upon presenting himself at the gate of the nearest Broederschap facility, he was cheerfully welcomed, given a beverage, and shown around the place. His hosts assured him that they were not sorcerers and that everything he was seeing was the result of natural philosophy and thus perfectly aligned with God’s will. He returned to his office with his acne all cleaned up, his piles a mere memory, and a troublesome allergy to gluten scrubbed from his system. The brotherhood’s executives had sensibly kept the existence of the immortality project to themselves, but the military potential of their work was apparent to even the least visionary of quill-pushers.
Once he’d overcome his astonishment and nausea, the bureaucrat wrote up a detailed report and submitted it to his superior. His superior reviewed the report, asked his subordinate if he was feeling quite well in the head, and then passed the report to his superior, who took it immediately to the governor-general, one Carlos de Aragón de Gurrea, duke of Villahermosa.
The governor-general was delicately informed that, tucked away in a forgotten corner of his government, there appeared to be the ultimate weapon. The Most Excellent Lord (the honorific to which the duke was entitled as a grandee of Spain) reviewed the paperwork, looked incredulously at the drawings he’d been provided, poured himself a glass o
f Malaga sack, and had a think.
He could report these developments to his lord and master, the king. That would be the proper thing to do, bureaucratically speaking. But His Majesty Carlos II, king of Spain; duke of Milan, Lothier, Brabant, Limburg, and Luxembourg; count of Flanders, Hainaut, and Namur; and count palatine of Burgundy, the anointed sovereign to whom the governor-general owed his sworn allegiance, was, not to put too fine a point on it, completely fucking useless. Indeed, he was so inbred that he could barely function as a human being, let alone as a king.
Carlos II’s ancestors had been marrying their close relations for so many generations that the scion of the line suffered from uncountable intellectual and physical disabilities and indeed was technically his own cousin, his own cousin once removed, and his own second cousin. All of his eight great-grandparents were descendants of the same couple, and his mother had been his father’s niece, making his grandmother also his aunt.
For all that he was really qualified only to sit quietly, blink, and then expire, Carlos II did happen to possess a rather extensive kingdom, including a huge overseas empire. It was the kind of empire a governor-general might seize if he possessed drive, clarity of vision, faith in himself, and access to an unstoppable army.
So the governor-general very carefully did not pass word back to Spain about what had been unearthed and instead drafted a memo to Ernst and Gerd. In a time of verbosity and poetry, it was quite to the point. The memo stated that it was the will of the government (by which he meant himself) that the existence of the Broederschap remain a secret from the general public and that they turn their attention to creating a military force capable of conquering any nation on earth. If they accomplished this, the rewards for their work would be suitably and unbelievably lavish.