Rook

putting all your eggs in one basket; it’s a matter of keeping your valuables in a safe. All the genetic potential of the British Isles is there, a vast resource of wealth and power. And by putting them all in the same place, we ensure that they mesh. The Pawns of the Checquy work together so well because they all receive the same education in the same place.
    One time I watched a documentary about guns. The thing that really struck me was how big a deal it was when gun parts started being interchangeable. You could take the hammer out of one gun and put it inanother, and it would work. It meant that no gun was unique, and that they all could be repaired easily. It’s the same with the Pawns. Most of them, despite their gigantic variety in terms of supernatural ability, can be slotted easily into a new team.
    Ironically, it’s generally the misfits who rise to the Court. None of us is standard Checquy. Even among the unusual, we’re strange.
    Anyway, the secret estate needed further investigation, and I wasn’t about to trust anyone else, so I was going to have to check it out. The kids assured me that guards would periodically come along on these “mega-cool four-wheeler things with lights,” but you could easily see them coming and hide. I wasn’t terribly impressed with the security arrangements of this school. On the real Estate, hiding in the woods wouldn’t protect you from the guards. For that matter, there wouldn’t be a quaint little village nearby either. Still, this place was on a budget (I should know), and its main protection was its secrecy.
    So that night, I put on the infiltration clothes I’d brought with me. Black everything, and a ski mask to boot, under which I was sweating like a goldfish in a wok. Most important were the gloves. I’d cut holes just big enough to reveal the very tips of my fingers.
    Stepping into those woods, I was petrified. I’d felt so calm camping the night before. Now, every little sound was enough to freak me out. There was hardly any light and I could easily imagine some great beast from the dawn of time burbling out of the forest and dragging me off to its secluded glen. It’s not that I have that great an imagination, it’s just that I know what’s out there. Thank God there was the gully to follow, or I would have gotten lost immediately. As it was, I had my eyes fixed on the gully so firmly that I actually walked into the fence. Luckily, this little enterprise lacked the funds for razor wire, or I’d be there still.
    My heart was pounding as I slid under the fence, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. When I was little, and my teachers rousted us out of bed for those midnight games, I hated it. I was fit enough, but I couldn’t bear the knowledge that people I lived and studied with were going to reach out of the darkness and snatch me. I loathed the sudden shock when they swung out of a tree or leaped out of a pile of leaves and pinned me gleefully to the ground. I knew they weren’t spiteful. It was just part of the game. Still, inevitably I would be caught first. I simply couldn’t take the offensive.
    On the other side of the fence, the trees were fewer and farther apart. I saw no sign of the guards, so I made my way to the edge of the woods. I wanted to see what kind of facility I was dealing with.
    To begin with, it was ugly. Whoever set up this place had picked some prime real estate. But the site was so beautiful that it seemed a dreadful shame to have some no-account architect crap out the blocky structures that squatted on the lawns. One thing that caught my eye was the utter lack of windows in the buildings.
    Also, it was small. There were only three or four buildings, and their facilities were pitiful. There wasn’t even a cricket pitch. There were, however, several outdoor shooting ranges on this side of the installation.
    I waited for a long time at the edge of the trees and shrank back into the shrubbery when one of those guards came zooming by. I thought back to my Estate training and the teacher who’d instructed us in subtle outdoor movement. He’d been in the SAS and had crawled through every kind of terrain known to man. I’d always been a disappointment to him, but he’d concealed his contempt well. If he’d seen the way these guards checked their fence lines, he’d have had them flogged. Maybe they’d grown complacent, secure in their secrecy. Or maybe this place couldn’t afford the best.
    After the