Rook

supernatural war began on British soil. In response, the Checquy unleashed the Pawns under the direct command of the Rooks. For three weeks, battles raged and hundreds of civilians died. We slowly sliced away at the invaders, each Grafter creation brought down at the cost of dozens of Checquy soldiers.
    Twelve of our troops—the last anthropophagi in the British Isles—banded together and slaughtered seventeen monsters. During that battle, an entire village was leveled and the surrounding fields rendered toxic. Pawn HamishMcNeil, a leper, released a virulent and abnormal disease upon the Grafter troops, causing their bodies simply to fall apart under their own shuddering exertions.
    Finally, all that remained of the invaders was their general, a massive warrior who proved invulnerable to all forms of attack the Checquy could muster. Eventually, one of my—our—predecessors was driven to extremes. Crimson Rook John Perry, the only surviving Rook, linked his mind to that of the Grafter general and then shot himself in the head, killing them both.
    And that was the end of the Grafter incursion into England. From what I gather, the English ruler of the time, Charles II, would have liked nothing better than to invade Belgium (I know it was called something else then, but it’s all in Belgium now, and it’s less confusing if I just call it Belgium), the Checquy forces having (it seemed) proven their superiority. The Lords and Ladies of the Checquy, however, pointed out tactfully that not only were our forces decimated but our most competent generals were dead. Remarkably, the King saw reason, and negotiations with the Belgian ruler were entered into. All efforts were made to prevent the Grafters from learning of our precarious status, and a treaty was brokered in our favor.
    Under the terms of the treaty, the Belgian ruler agreed to dissolve the Grafters. All funds were withdrawn, all experiments put to death, and all estates and chattels confiscated. If these seem like massive concessions, they were. But for all the Belgians knew, the might of the Checquy forces was poised to descend upon them and wreak unknowable horrors. So they agreed.
    As far as the Checquy (or anyone) could tell, the Grafters were no longer a threat. Under the rigorous supervision of the Checquy Chevaliers, the entire project was dismantled. There are detailed records of how the leaders were executed before dozens of highly placed witnesses, and their remains obliterated. The scientists were killed discreetly by Checquy soldiers, their remains were fed to pigs, and then the pigs were killed and burned. The facilities and barracks were burned and the estates redistributed to the church. All entities that had been altered, even the humans, were put to death—a process that took months, not because of the number (although there were many of them), but because of the tenacity of the creatures. All servants and bureaucrats involved were strongly encouraged to forget everything they knew and find new occupations.
    There were no mysterious disappearances (besides those the Checquy engineered), no member unaccounted for. There was no reason to suspect the Grafters were not finished. They were an interesting chapter in the history of the supernatural, and some regretted the loss of their revolutionary knowledge, but most agreed that it was better that they were gone.
    Most of the Checquy believe that that’s where the story of the Grafters ends. They were obliterated, at a horrendous cost, and the entire incident stands as an example of how important the Checquy is and what it can accomplish. World without end.
    Amen.
    Except.
    Except that the elite know better. During the Great War, our agents routinely collected bodies from the no-man’s-land between the trenches. It was a dark time, the country was desperate, and secret endeavors were undertaken by both sides. Among the darker echelons of the Checquy, a project was under way; cadavers were needed, and fewer questions were asked if the corpses were acquired from the battlefields rather than from England. The project was a dismal failure in the end, and it was ordered forgotten. Only through the most diligent research did I learn about it.
    However, in the process of their work with the corpses, the scientists found some disquieting phenomena. They knew that these anomalies could only be the work of the Grafters. Not only did the Grafters still exist, but their skills were now far greater than they