Rook

later, the number of killings doubled. Despite the increased security, every night two Checquy corpses were found. People began sleeping in groups and rules were instituted, obliging Checquy members never to be alone. Every morning, there was a frantic head count, and every morning, two people were found to be missing. Sometimes their bodies were found together, sometimes in different rooms, sometimes in entirely different buildings. Corpses were found in hallways, in offices, and in the most secure chambers of the Checquy. The unpredictability only increased the fear.
    Seventeen days after Eleanor Thurow witnessed the birth of Pitt, the death rate went up again. Three deaths every night, and this time the deaths were different, more calculated. People would wake up to find that the person they had been sleeping beside was staring at them with dead eyes. Guards would turn to ask their partners a question, and find them lying on the ground with their throats torn out. One woman was drowned in the blood of her secretary.
    Then one morning, the head count revealed that no one in any London facility had died. It was checked and double-checked. The relief must have been overwhelming—there were spontaneous celebrations in the hallways. But over the course of the day, panicked messages came from the Checquy offices in Cardiff and Cheltenham, and from an inn in St. Bees where a Checquy researcher was on holiday.
    For the next week, Checquy operatives all over the country were killed.
    Finally, after thirty-three days and seventy-two deaths, the Lord and Lady of the Checquy woke up in their heavily fortified bunker to find their bodyguards mesmerized into comas and a vampire looking down at them. Heller, the parent vampire, introduced himself and stated that over the previous few weeks, his younger spawn had become quite impressed with the scope of the Checquy. In the course of acquainting himself with the reach and purpose of the organization (and, although Heller didn’t say it, killing its members), his younger spawn, Alrich, had become somewhat enamored. Would the Lord and Lady be willing to accept him into their service for a time?
    Are you startled by this abrupt change in direction?
    So were the Lord and Lady.
    But you don’t rise to the head of the Checquy if you can’t adjust your thinking fast.
    Alrich entered into the Checquy as a Pawn amid a labyrinthine mass of agreements and arrangements. Of course, the killing of Checquy operatives ceased, and the other two vampires vanished without a trace. Alrich’s sleeping place was unknown to the Checquy, and each evening he would present himself at Francis House for his assignment. Initially, it was awkward, partly because no one knew exactly what his capabilities were and he was not obliged to submit to any sort of testing, and partly because no one knew how many Checquy colleagues he had killed. There was also the not unreasonable fear that he might suddenly decide to resume chomping down on people and draining them of blood. By that time, there wasn’t anyone in the organization who hadn’t lost an acquaintance to the predations of the vampires. There was a fair amount of hostility toward the new recruit as a result of this, although no one was stupid enough to try to take revenge.
    For the first few months, Alrich worked alone, mostly in combat situations. Some assassinations, handed out by a recently elevated and extremely nervous Rook. A few outbreaks in which he was sent in to quell monsters. He was a weapon—one that people were afraid to use. And then he was assigned a partner, a man named Rupert Campbell who bled fire and who had recently lost his wife (to childbirth, not to vampires—even the Checquy isn’t that tactless). Campbell had been a very good operative, but now he was lost, almost suicidal, and a drunk. Two embarrassing agents, together. I’ve no doubt the Court rather hoped they would destroy each other. Instead, Alrich found a friend and mentor, and Campbell found something to distract him from his despair. Together they accomplished outstanding things.
    If you want the details, you can read Alrich’s official file, but I feel it is enough to say that, as a result of their exploits, both of them rose to the rank of Bishop. And Alrich has stayed there, while Campbell died in 1929.
    Alrich possesses a deep and detailed knowledge of the Checquy and the nation—after all, he’s been working for us for well over a hundred years. He is a