Rook

Bishop Morales and I made arrangements to come here.”
And all this happened two hours ago,
marveled Myfanwy.
It’s probably best I don’t ask.
“The Grafters represent a credible danger to both our countries,” continued Shantay. “The appearance of one was cause enough for concern, but two in such a short period of time… well, that’s a bit more disturbing.”
    “Is the subject still alive?” Myfanwy asked.
    “Yeah, although it wasn’t easy subduing her,” said Shantay darkly. “She managed to kill thirteen people in the airport.”
    “Not civilians?”
    “Four civilians, nine Pawns.”
    “Oh God. I’m so sorry,” Myfanwy said. “Is the public aware?”
    “It’s impossible to conceal something like this when it happens in an airport. The only things we managed to hide were some of the more bizarre aspects. Fortunately, none of our Pawns activated their powers in view of the public.”
    “Then how—” wondered Myfanwy.
    “Sharpshooters” came the terse answer.
    “Really? Our guy turned out to be bulletproof.”
    “We didn’t use bullets.”
    “Ah. Please accept my deepest sympathies, and those of the entire Checquy, for this tragedy.”
    Shantay nodded her acceptance. “Your Chevaliers will be officially informed within the hour, but we wanted to be here for the inevitable conference.”
    “Right. Forgive me, but you said that the subject is still alive. Have you begun to interrogate?”
    “We’ve had no luck. We’ve secured her in our place in Nevada, but she’s put herself into some sort of coma state, and so far none of our folks can rouse her.”
    “One of our Pawns had some success waking Van Syoc,” said Myfanwy, thinking back to the careful ministrations of Dr. Crisp. “I’m sure we could work out some sort of arrangement. Dr. Crisp is our chief information extractor. He’s a palm reader and haruspex, so he can read a person inside and out. He’s currently up to his elbows in Grafter, but he must be able to get more information out of a living person than a dead one.”
    “If he can’t, we have a woman who’s pretty good with the dead,” said Shantay. “And I don’t mean to be rude, but didn’t Dr. Crisp kill the last person he interrogated?”
    Myfanwy paused. “No, Dr. Crisp didn’t kill Van Syoc. The Grafters did.” She explained everything Dr. Crisp had told her.
    “Christ!” said Shantay. “So the woman we have in custody… they could order her to self-destruct?”
    “No one has to order anything,” said Myfanwy. “They can do it themselves.”
    “Even worse,” said Shantay. “I’ll get on the phone and see if they can put her somewhere that’s signal-proof.”
    “Good idea. But don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t work out. We had Van Syoc stored five stories beneath street level. I’ll ask Dr. Crisp to talk to them; he may have some ideas.” For a few moments the two women ignored each other as Shantay spoke urgently into her cell phone and Myfanwy explained the situation to Ingrid. When they had both given instructions, they turned back to each other.
    “Lunch?” asked Myfanwy.
    “I’d love to,” said Shantay.
    Dear You,
    I find research, even research to find out who wants to kill me, rather soothing. After all, dealing with vast amounts of information is what I doanyway. Most of the information is available through our in-house computer system. It’s a closed network, so no computer that contains any reference to Checquy material is connected to the World Wide Web. E-mails from one Checquy office to another go through one of our satellites, so there’s no chance some obnoxious American teen with too much time on his hands can hack into our system. There are no crossovers, and if you think setting up that sort of thing is expensive, you have no idea.
    Anyway, I can pull up most of the stuff on my computer, and my position as Rook gives me access privileges to practically everything. So I scan through files and files and files. Every once in a while, I need something that hasn’t been put into the computers. If the material is available in the Rookery, I walk down to the archives, which are a very handsome part of the building. Dark green carpets, large oaken bookcases, quiet scholars—I like it there. I like following a trail of information, moving from shelf to shelf, passing by glass cases that hold dignified dead things, and then moving through the metal door to the vaults.
    In the vaults, there are aisles and aisles