Pawn Steele

Pawn Steele is a Checquy Pawn distinguished by his heightened sense of smell and his willingness to confront a dangerous site directly. During the Reading flesh cube crisis, he recognizes the chemical-and-fungal odor from the Bath incident, offers to cut trapped people free, and then attacks the creature with a chainsaw. The tentacle he severs regenerates, captures him, and carries him into the cube; after the creature is destroyed, his death is confirmed among the losses it has consumed.

Identity and Background

Myfanwy remembers Steele from Bath, where he entered the basement with chainsaws and cut people out of pods. He is described as a gigantic man, with ancestors who came to England aboard boats bearing dragons on their prows. The account connects that ancestry to a former family trade of pillaging, which modern society frowned upon; the Checquy instead recruited him for his potential for directed mayhem. His size, chainsaws, and appetite for force make him a conspicuous fit for that role, while his keen sense of smell gives him a less obvious but crucial investigative skill.

Recognizing the Connection to Bath

At the Reading site, Steele tells Myfanwy that the place smells like the Bath incident. She had not noticed the smell herself. He explains that his sense of smell is heightened, and Myfanwy asks to touch his hand so she can access his perception. Through his senses, she detects chemicals and fungus: the same odor associated with Bath, but now like a gigantic porcino mushroom doused in formaldehyde. The encounter turns Steele’s sensory gift into evidence linking the two incidents, and Myfanwy asks him to keep that information confidential.

Attempt to Enter the Site

Steele offers to armor up and go inside to hack the trapped people out. His enthusiasm rises with the prospect, and Myfanwy can feel his heartbeat quicken. She recognizes what he is proposing and firmly tells him not to do it. His response suggests that he has misunderstood or failed to register the refusal: he announces that he is going in, then reacts with confusion. The exchange establishes both his eagerness to act and the danger of directing that instinct toward a threat whose nature is not yet understood.

The Flesh Cube and Steele’s Death

Later, the trailer that Myfanwy is inspecting has been dragged near the police station and is rocking violently, caught by two flesh tentacles. When she asks what is holding it, a soldier identifies concrete bollards. Amid the crashes, Myfanwy hears a mechanical drone and sees Steele in plastic armor, perched precariously on the trailer roof and attacking a tentacle with one of his chainsaws. He severs it in a forceful sweep; the trailer stops banging, and he howls triumphantly.

The apparent victory lasts only a moment. Rather than collapsing, the cut tentacle shudders and sprouts writhing tendrils. They slam Steele onto the roof and knock away his chainsaw, then seize Myfanwy and a bodyguard as the cube reels them toward the police station. Myfanwy is pulled into the creature amid crushing pressure and heat. After she survives and asks what happened to the other Checquy members who were dragged in, Ingrid tells her that they did not make it. Myfanwy recalls the horribly bleached bodies in the remains and understands that they were eaten. Steele’s death therefore follows directly from the cube’s regeneration: the weapon that seemed to have stopped it leaves him exposed to the creature’s multiplying grasp.

Role in the Crisis

Steele’s part in the Reading crisis joins two forms of service: he first supplies a sensory clue that connects the attack to Bath, then brings the Checquy’s destructive force to bear on the threat. The same practical boldness that makes him useful also places him within reach of a creature that can turn an apparently successful strike into a trap. His death marks the cost of the cube’s attack on the Checquy team, while the contrast between his chainsaw and the tentacle’s rapid regeneration underscores how little ordinary force can guarantee against the flesh weapon.