Rook

that brightened as the walls of meat peeled away.
    The cube was dissolving around her, breaking down into fluid with a sizzle like shaken-up Coke. The smell of acid burned her nose and slapped her back into full consciousness. There was a clatter as a framework of bones fell to the floor. She saw a mass of gray tissue that she recognized as brain just before it dissolved away into slime. She heard a sound behind her, and, dazed, she looked over her shoulder.
    “Rook Thomas,” said her large bodyguard, the one who had not been yanked into the cube. He was standing in the doorway of the police station and behind him were some wide-eyed members of the Checquy team, including Ingrid and Li’l Pawn Alan.
    “Rook Thomas, take my coat,” the bodyguard said.
    “Hmm?” she said, before realizing that she was naked and covered in body fluids.
Thank God I didn’t turn around,
she thought as the bodyguard splashed toward her and draped his coat around her shoulders.
    “Rook Thomas, I think I should carry you out before my shoes dissolve,” he said gently. Myfanwy looked down and saw that she was standing barefoot on a little islet of muscle mass. All around her, there was a broad pool of caustic fluid that was wrinkling the leather of the bodyguard’s boots. Clumps of skin and bones were scattered about the room, along with a few bleached corpses. She nodded and he scooped her up like a baby, cradling her. He walked hurriedly, and after they emerged from the building and went down the steps, someone else took her while the bodyguard shucked off his boots. A trickle of fluid was coming down the stairs, but the image that stayed in Myfanwy’s mind was the tiny little island that had kept her free of the acid, perfectly placed under her feet.
    T hings were a blur for a little time after that. A new incident trailer was on the way, but the emergency room of a local hospital had been commandeered, and Myfanwy received a gentle but thorough shower and resisted the suggestion that they shave her head bare. Instead, the Checquy doctors washed her hair with strange chemicals and warned that it could lose its color and might need to be dyed. Any other day, Myfanwy might have balked at being showered in the presence of several interested people, but the medical tests of the morning had kind of inured her to being looked at. She had then been installed in yet another backless paper gown—her fourth of the day. She pulled it down to her waist while a Checquy nurse very gently swabbed her skin, which was itchy and peeling.
    “Rook Thomas, we’ve still got the area cordoned off and are in the process of contacting the families of the civilians,” said Pawn Watson. Cyrus was still at the site, overseeing the release of a massive cloud of black smoke. By the time the forensic team finished withthe scene, Cyrus would have created a very controlled, intense fire that would cover up a multitude of sins. It would also explain why the civilians’ bodies could not be provided to their relatives. At the moment, Checquy scientists were wandering around with various pieces of equipment, changing their waders at regular intervals when the rubber began to melt.
    “That’s great,” said Myfanwy dreamily. She looked down and saw that the nurse was carefully rubbing off the dead skin and putting it away in test tubes.
    “The Rookery is saying the fire will probably need to be explained as the work of some sort of lunatic arsonist,” said Watson. “But they will make it very clear that he was unaffiliated with any group and that he had a long history of mental illness. No mention of anything that is unmentionable.” The dour Scottish Pawn did not smile exactly but managed to look at Myfanwy in a way that suggested she was amused by the cover story.
    “Marvelous,” said Myfanwy. “Oh, and don’t forget to get this coat back to my large bodyguard.” She looked around for him, but it turned out he was outside the door with Li’l Pawn Alan so as to give her some privacy. Which left her with just Ingrid and Pawns Watson and Motha, a new female bodyguard who was plump and in her sixties, and the Checquy nurse.
    “He’s not going to want it back,” said Ingrid.
    “Why?”
    “Um, it seems that the acids you were covered in were exceptionally corrosive,” said Watson. “They ate large portions of the leather.”
    “They ate the coat, but they didn’t eat me?” asked Myfanwy.
    “Yeah, that’s why they’re collecting all the