Free Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley

get some rest and not to leave the hotel. The cocktail party would be held at six thirty, and she was to attend the strategy meeting beforehand. Any time she or Alessio had opened the hotel room’s door, those grim Checquy operatives were standing guard in the hallway, and so she’d elected to stay in the suite and have a long nap in the bathtub.
    “Yes,” said Odette. “They’ve taken very good care of us.”
    “Good to hear,” said Alrich. “I hope you’re looking forward to working with us.”
    “Oh, I hope so too,” said Odette. It took her a couple of moments to realize that what she’d just said made no sense. Mercifully, he didn’t comment, just smiled a little smile, bowed his head, and excused himself.
    That didn’t go too badly, she thought. She relaxed a little and watched as the vampire moved smoothly through the crowd. She couldn’t help but appreciate the fact that his hair stopped strategically right at his waist.
    “It’s enough to make you wish he were an incubus, isn’t it?” said an amused voice next to her. Odette turned and saw a short woman in her thirties. She was a rather unremarkable-looking person, but she was wearing an astounding cocktail dress of ebony cloth and leather. Judging from the unorthodox cut and fit, it had to have been made specifically for her. Indeed, it seemed to have been sculpted around her. Tight curves swept up her body to sharp points that spread just beyond her shoulders and elbows. She looked as if she were wrapped in elegant black flames. The sleeves were connected to the dress at the middle of the rib cage, which made for an arresting silhouette, although it was not terribly practical — the woman had trouble lifting her glass to her lips.
    It was, in short, the dress to which Odette’s own gown was the ugly stepsister who had taken vows of chastity and poverty.
    Beyond the dress, though, there was something about the woman that set her apart despite her plainness. She had an air of command, but she also gave the odd impression that she did not quite belong, even among the Checquy. Then Odette recognized her and felt genuine fear — even more than she had with the vampire.
    Rook Myfanwy Thomas. My God.
    Rook Thomas was the reason they were all there that evening. One night, months earlier, Graaf van Suchtlen had presented himself in her office in the Rookery, having strolled easily past every security measure in the place. He introduced himself to the Rook, his habitual courtly manner unhampered by the fact that he was completely naked, and then made the astonishing proposal that their organizations should put aside their centuries of enmity and join together.
    Rather than responding as any other Checquy soldier would and doing her utmost to destroy the intruder, Thomas had offered him a cup of coffee and a bathrobe and listened to his proposal. Given the legendary hatred between the two organizations, it was an extraordinary reaction, but then, it was somewhat in keeping with Rook Thomas’s apparently unpredictable nature. Odette had pored over the Grafters’ dossiers on the woman and found herself utterly confused.
    The records described an almost pathologically shy woman who, despite her timidity, had somehow risen to a high rank. But Thomas had overcome her shyness, as well as her inculcated loathing of the Grafters, to become the driving force of this merger. She had argued strenuously for peace and faced down the protestations of the highest in the land. If not for her, the Checquy and the Grafters would, at that very moment, have been at war.
    From what Odette had read, Rook Thomas had traditionally been unwilling to use her powers, but then again, she had also recently single-handedly subdued not one but two biological weapons of mass destruction.
    Thomas’s unpredictability, however, was not the reason that Odette was afraid of her. Or at least, it was not the main reason. Alone among the Checquy, Rook Thomas possessed the supernatural