Rook

warriors second, and people if there was ever some spare time scrambled to make normal conversation.
    What could we talk about, other than work? That one of Gestalt’s bodies had recently finished a yearlong leave of absence to America to get a certificate in administration while the other three simultaneously ran operations all over the British Isles? That Gubbins had been suffering from massive depression since he’d sent five men and seven women to their deaths in an apartment in Vatican City? As for me, there was always the fascinating topic of the impending death of my personality—as machinated by someone in this very room!
    I looked at these people and envied all of them, even the leaking baby. No, especially the leaking baby. Normal people were free to go about their daily lives, with their petty trials and tribulations, secure in the knowledge that the supernatural wouldn’t bother them. Christ, they didn’t even have to believe in the supernatural. That was for us to concern ourselves with. And the other members of the Court—the ones who sat there, drinking their beverages and eating their canapés—even they had more freedom than I did.So far as they knew, the future would be good—better even than the present. But I knew that my life would end soon, in the rain.
    The Checquy is not a family. Even in the most dysfunctional of families, you don’t send your brothers and sisters off to dangerous places and make them face atrocities, knowing that they’ll probably die in pain and fear. You don’t take the bodies of your older siblings and have them dissected—every piece cataloged and destroyed—and then leave them with no more memorial than a name in a file.
    No, we’re not a family.
    But we are supposed to be a team. We may not like one another, but we should respect and be loyal to one another. When you go to the Estate, that’s the only thing they promise you. That within the Checquy, you can trust those around you.
    Looking around at my comrades, I felt more betrayed than ever. I’d always known that gatherings like these were a pleasant fiction, but tonight’s pleasantries were an outright lie. As we smiled at one another and chatted about the weather, one of my colleagues was planning to destroy me.
    Who would it be? I wondered, as I watched them. Who had the power to take my memories?
    Farrier? Could she have me erased? Her ability to stroll into one’s mind and tinker as she pleased made her the most likely candidate, but she owed me. My research into her life had turned up some fascinating loose ends, which I’d pursued. She’d made dire enemies in the last British military conflict, and recently they had succeeded in tracking her down. In the past week, they had tried to have her family killed, and I had stopped them by unleashing the Barghests on them. Illegally. She’d acknowledged her debt to me, and since I’d so recently proven my loyalty to her, I didn’t see why the old bird would want to attack me.
    Alrich? No one knew exactly what his powers consisted of or what their limits were. We know vampires have strange mental capabilities, including mesmerizing their prey. But why would he bother with me? The files on him were enormous, and his fingers were delicately placed in any number of dirty little pies, but his actions had all been in the interests of the Checquy. There was never a hint that he was involved in anything treacherous.
    It was the same for all of them. Crimes might have been committed and subsequently well hidden, but I could not find any indication that they were motivated by anything other than the normal nastiness of humanity. For all my research, I’m not finding any answers.
    Love,
    Me
     

37
     
    M yfanwy didn’t even have the breath to scream, although she wanted to, very badly.
    It’s like being born, only in reverse,
she thought before panic began to set in. Around her, flesh and muscle pulsated, crushing her. Her skin burned, and her senses, not the ones everyone else had but the ones that came with being Myfanwy Thomas, were overwhelmed.
    The impulses of dozens of nervous systems screamed in her brain and fought against one another. It was reminiscent of the colony in Bath, but there the minds and bodies had been anesthetized so they were relatively willing. Here, they were being lashed, enslaved, forced together. And the cube was trying to do the same thing to her.
    Stay calm,
she thought.
Don’t panic.
She tried to remember what she had