Rook

the game just the right way, who is made head of house (yes, they had houses back then. Thank God they disbanded them a couple decades back), gets grades that are good enough to keep him out of the bottom set but not so good as to mark him as a swot, and sucks up to the headmaster so hard that he leaves the man a desiccated husk. Such a youth was Goblet. His ability to kick ass was matched only by his ability to kiss ass. Naturally overbearing and pompous, he would be an ideal Court member. So it came as no surprise when he was appointed school captain and earmarked for greatness in the Checquy.
    It was a matter of no small satisfaction to his peers when he failed to live up to the promise he’d shown. After some unremarkable performances at the Annexe, he was moved to Bath, which was then the highest action site in the Isles. I gather this was based on the recommendation of his old headmaster, who was keen to see the golden boy thrive. But thrive he did not, remaining in Bath even as the number of supernatural occurrences waned. Eventually he was made head of the region, partly out of the Checquy’s sheer embarrassment and partly because it was clear that there wouldn’t be a great deal for him to mess up.
    I meet with Goblet biannually, once at the yearly review session when all the region heads come to the Rookery and again at the executive Christmas party. To be perfectly honest, he doesn’t strike me as particularly noteworthy. Kind of bitter, but I can understand that. He’d been as much as promised a seat on the Court, and it never materialized. Which was good for the nation, but not so great for Goblet.
     
    “Ingrid, are all of Gestalt’s bodies coming to the reception tonight?” Myfanwy asked, holding the mobile phone with her chin as she paged through the purple binder. She and Shantay were flying back to London, and she was trying to find the section that described the penalties for treason. She’d browsed through the section at one point and vaguely recalled a long list of punishments culminating with the guilty party being ritually trampled to death by the population of the village of Avebury, which seemed unlikely, or at least somewhat difficult to arrange.
    Back in the mold house, she’d spent several minutes figuring out how to make Goblet’s spines retract into his body. Then she’d draped his coat over his head and led him by the hand out of the building and into the trailer, taking great care not to let anyone see who he was. Myfanwy was not keen to have everyone know that a high-ranking member of the Checquy had been responsible for the whole thing. She’d arranged for Goblet to be transported to the Rookery and put somewhere where he wouldn’t be inconvenient. As it was, it looked likely that the incident was going to enter the realm of Pawn legend. Supposedly there hadn’t been any threat in the past four decades that the Barghests couldn’t overcome. And now that scrawny Rook—you know, Thomas, the skinny little girl who threw up in the Estate swimming pool that one time? Yeah, she went in after the strike team was eaten and then walked out complaining she needed a shower and a box of chocolates.
    When Myfanwy had reached the incident trailer, she’d found her team looking very alert, eager, and keen to follow orders. A contingent of Checquy scientists, who had been standing by in a sterile compartment of the trailer with eagerly poised scalpels, had entered the house cautiously, after she’d assured them that they were no longer in danger of being swallowed up. A Pawn armed with chain saws had gone into the basement and spent a messy half hour slicing open the pods she’d told him would be there. Inside had been the Barghests, all of whom were in justifiably bad tempers. The cultists were being carefully removed from their dead, graying little cocoons and documented, in an effort to figure out who the hell they were. The whole house had been curtained off from the public with big sheets of plastic that were inscribed with dire warnings about asbestos, and samples of everything inside were being collected to be studied under a microscope.
    “Yes, Rook Thomas,” said Ingrid calmly over the phone. “The Lord and Lady like the effect of all four bodies, and they are quite keen to impress the Americans. They’ll expect you to be wearing something formal. Might I suggest the crimson dress? The one that Greek woman made you buy?” There was a long, awkward silence,since