by Thea Devine
Kyger crept farther up the steps. The seven had lined up precisely, the first of the robed figures holding the pole with the disc symbol.
The unbroken circle; the never broken vows. They marched into the room in a stately procession. Kyger followed, as close as he could, but he needed to get closer, to get inside that room, in fact, because for certain that door was going to close behind them, and he would learn nothing else.
He dove for the floor, and on his hands and knees he crept after the last acolyte, keeping carefully in line with his robed figure, as he slowly paced his way into the room, and then diving into the shadows when he got past the threshold a moment before the door slid closed behind him.
He was lying belly flat on the floor, half under a sofa, his nose rubbing into the thick Persian carpet. He held his breath, he didn't move. The silence thickened around him in an ominous way. For all he knew, the revered Ancestor had spotted him, and it would be but another moment before he was hauled out and persecuted. Killed perhaps, if this seven thing was as serious and deadly as it sounded.
But no ...
"Brethren, we have come to discharge our final duty to our beloved brother Venable." Venable...
Kyger rolled under the sofa and crawled forward so that he could see into the room. It was a luxuriously appointed room. Soft sofas everywhere, small tables, low lights, rich fabrics, doors leading to other rooms on two of the walls.
As Wyland had theorized, had believed, as he himself could never have conceived. The secret seraglio existed. Tony Venable was no saint. He was whoremaster, a procurer, a white slaver.
The seven acolytes were lined up before the robed figure they called the Ancestor, who stood at the foot of what looked like an altar. In front of him were lined up five naked women who were veiled and dressed in the leather necklace with the black leather rose. They all looked alike, the size of their breasts, their shaved mounds, and their identities, their beauty blurred by the veil.
The courtesans who had serviced them this whole evening— Venable's hand-trained sex slaves .. .
The Ancestor went on: "We are in Tony Venable's private apartments—"
... that explained it, explained everything.
"—where he selected, tried, trained and subjugated thralls to sell to a list of wealthy and avid clients. These cunts will be remanded to their owners after we thoroughly test them. The fees already paid for the privilege of purchasing one of these prize cunts is hereby donated to the coffers of Khudama to be used at my discretion."
The Ancestor looked around with an air of paternalism. "We all know how thorough our brother Venable could be—and was—in training these bodies to the proper nuances of submission. They earned the accolade of the black rose. They are the creme de la creme of those who apply to work at the manor. But our brother Venable has been gone now more than a month, and his buyers are impatient.
"However, in all that time, there has been no discipline, no controls, no punishment, even though we have put the cunts to good use for our own purposes. But a cunt can get lax, forget who is her master, forget what she owes to her overlord.
"I'm afraid we cannot yet relinquish them to their owners. For our brother Venable's sake and his sterling reputation, we must thoroughly test them. Fuck them until they scream for mercy, my brethren. Make certain they beg for more, or what use are they to their masters?
"Make them earn their coveted black rose one more time. Don't overlook any little thing you can think to do to them or demand of them. That's what they trained for; that's why their owners have paid such exorbitant prices to own them.
"Later, we will determine if it will profit us to continue Brother Venable's tradition of providing cunts for those who wish to indulge themselves by owning one, or whether to train them and keep them for our own private use. You will vote when you are satisfied you have thoroughly reamed them and you feel they are ready to be handed over to their new owners.
"Take your time. Make them work for the privilege of servicing the distinguished men to whom they've been sold. Make them earn the money that has been paid for them."
The gong sounded, loud in the aftermath of the Ancestor's exhortations.
"Make your choice, my brethren ... make sure you test every single one of them ..."
Chapter Fourteen
It had been the best night, beyond her every expectation. Angilee was still waltzing on a cloud when they returned to her flat. Still enchanted by the number of men who had danced with her, and begged permission of Mrs, Geddes to call.
"Surely one among them ... ?" Angilee mused as Mrs. Geddes expertly unhooked her and helped her undress.
"We have a long way to go, Miss Rosslyn. This was but the first salvo. There are negotiations going on behind closed doors even as we speak."
"Do not tell me it is the same here as in America. Like bonding with like, and no one new can get past the door."
"Something like that. But then you Americans have barged in with a flagrant and seductive display of your bank accounts. Of course an impecunious earl or baron is going to look your way." Angilee didn't like that response, but then she thought the better of it. A titled gentleman who needed money was exactly what she needed, so perhaps this was the very course to pursue. "Are there any impecunious barons among those I danced with last night?"
"There might have been."
"Good," she said. "Those are the ones I wish you would encourage to call."
"Hmph," Mrs. Geddes snorted as she lifted the dress over Angilee's head. "This is just the beginning, Miss Rosslyn.”
"It has to end soon," Angilee said pragmatically. "My purse is not bottomless, and I need to find a quick solution."
"You could always apply to your father. I daresay any interested party will be speaking with him in any event."
"What?"
"My dear girl, you are too green for words. Of course anyone interested in forming a connection with you would want to speak with your father. Settlements, my dear. Financial assurance."
"Oh." Angilee felt as deflated as a balloon. "Damn."
"Miss Rosslyn ..."
"But I've told you, he cannot know. I would provide the funds
to the gentleman..."
"Then he wouldn't be a gentleman if he accepted them," Mrs. Geddes said tartly. "This is not how things work."
"Why didn't you say that in our interview?"
"Because I do wish to help you. You don't want your father to be able to break this marriage apart in any way. But we need to do this properly, Miss Rosslyn. Nothing less will suffice."
"But it's a temporary measure, Mrs. Geddes. I thought I made
that clear to you."
"My dear Miss Rosslyn—no marriage is a temporary measure. You cannot go ahead solely with that in mind. You must think of it as a long-term proposition—it could very well turn out to be—where you would be fully fixed for the future, with the proper husband and a very nice situation in the country."
Because there was some hope for that, given Angilee's beauty, pedigree and her father's wealth, Mrs. Geddes had made certain of that as she conversed with all and sundry during the ball. Zabel Rosslyn was not, perhaps, as well known as a Vanderbilt, but he had very quickly built up a network of acquaintances who would vouch for him. That said something about his character, and Mrs. Geddes' ability to bring Angilee's desire to be married
to fruition.
Of course, Angilee's naive plan to thwart her father had to be
scotched. Mrs. Geddes's own reputation depended on it. She'd tread carefully around that particular point during the interview, thinking that when they were launched into the Season, Angilee would come to see reason. But obviously she had picked the wrong moment to broach it.
"No, I will not think of it like that. I want my freedom, and I want not to have to marry the repulsive viscount, nor do I want to be married myself any longer than it takes for my father to desist his unreasonable demand that I marry the cand
idate of his choice. Is that clear? Can we proceed on the assumption that somewhere in the vast numbers of gentlemen seeking to marry, there is one in dire straits enough who would be willing to accept those terms?"
And now, she thought morosely, the bull, with his fortune in diamonds and house in Belgrave Square not to be sneezed at had to be wholly eliminated from consideration. And he would have been so perfect. No one she could meet subsequent to this would be more perfect.
"You will run out of money before you find him," Mrs. Geddes said. "It is a consideration."
"But it's my money and my risk," Angilee pointed out.
Mrs. Geddes forebore to say that it wasn't, really. "And if you aren't successful?"
"I have another plan," Angilee said instantly. She had no plan. The bull didn't need her money. There was no other plan.
"I hope so," Mrs. Geddes said, as she hung the dress and began unpinning Angilee's hair. "The window of opportunity will not be open that long, Miss Rossfyn. Your father—who by the way was at the ball—"
"What?" No, he hadn't been, Angilee would have seen him, sensed him, smelled him.
"—was at the ball," Mrs. Geddes repeated emphatically. "I know you didn't see him—I think he made certain you didn't see him ... just be aware that your father will probably be present at most functions you will attend this Season. You're walking a very fine line here. He is known. And now you are known. You can't be at odds with him like this. It will surface, you'll become the subject of gossip and speculation, you'll be considered fast, and it will be very unpleasant in the end. And if you had to elope .. .
well—let's put it this way—you hired rne to advise you and help you. And I hate to see you just throw your money away."
Hours. The testing, the naked unfettered-every-which-way coupling, the multiple partner, multiple position orgy went on for hours. His mind could not comprehend what further Tony Venable would have required of these whores that the brethren of the Sacred Seven did not try with them or invent on the spot.
It dulled the senses; it palled like the thickest fog. The room steamed up with the overwhelming stench of sex and semen. They sprayed their scent everywhere, they sucked and fucked and licked and bit at every naked part viciously; they rammed, jammed and crammed themselves into every opening, one and two at a time; and withal, they never removed their robes or hoods, and they just enveloped the whores as they invaded and inundated them.
God almighty. Kyger couldn't even envision it, how Venable seduced these willing whores, when he even found the time to teach, to fine down his impossible sexual standards on a half dozen of them at a time; and how and where he found his buyers and what kind of money changed hands.
Who were his clients? Who was so fabulously, obscenely wealthy that he could pay the price for his own well-trained, personally tutored submissive mistress?
It was so wearing, watching the brethren expel their seed, take a new position and begin pumping all over again. They were all over the floor and the sofas, sometimes not three feet away from where Kyger lay, giving him a full intimate view, an education in sucking and fucking he would rather not have had.
Their endurance was exhausting. They might rest for five minutes, and then they were mounted again, riding to a lather, while two others poked and prodded the thrall from behind.
He was exhausted watching. It was like a bad pornographic novel, with pages and pages of unending repetitious fucking that dulled the senses and made the whole process so unappetizing he never wanted to have sex again.
No point. No emotion. No feeling. No pleasure.
Get it over with .. .
Who decided when a thrall had been tested enough? What
was enough? Maybe there was never enough when it came to sex-ing a Tony Venable-trained submissive.
God, he wanted it over with. He was so tired. He felt cramped, utterly drained and dry as a bone. He thought he must be delirious, as two dozen different thoughts assaulted him—puzzle pieces of all the differently shaped clues.
He had some of the answers now. He had found the rooms at the Bullhead where Venable was last seen. He'd stumbled onto what he needed to undermine the canonization of Tony Venable by his followers.
He'd uncovered the truth; Wyland could find the proof.
And he was a witness to the thing everybody knew, nobody told—the existence of the Sacred Seven.
That was enough. More than enough for him. Enough to get him killed if any of them even had an inkling he was there.
He wriggled his body a little farther back under the sofa. Now he was cramped and crowded, and for certain he couldn't move if he didn't want to be murdered where he lay.
It was too fatiguing, all of it. And right now, he didn't care about any of it, except how he was going to get out of there.
And the daunting thing was, there was a good possibility that maybe he wouldn't.
It had to have been early morning when the brethren finally were done, and it was only because each of them was completely pumped out and as dry as the desert.
The thralls lay limp, and sound asleep, wherever in the room they had been abandoned.
And the robed Ancestor sat on the altar, nodding approvingly, lord of them all.
"You have done well," he said at length. "They are primed. They have perfect obedience. They are ready to fulfill their duties. We can deliver them with the pride of knowing that our Brother Venable's high standards have been maintained."
Holy hell... Kyger shook himself awake. Something was happening—movement beyond the sofa ... the women being nudged and prodded to their feet, sleepily falling into line before the Ancestor.
The Ancestor rose from his seat and paced slowly around
them, nodding, touching, thumbing the retracted nipples of the first thrall to make them hard and pointed, slipping a hand between the legs of the second to feel her wet, pinching the bottom of the third, poking his fingers hard up into the cunt of the fourth, whereupon she immediately spread her legs and sank onto the hard thrust of them. He pulled the fifth thrall forward to suck her nipples while he fucked the fourth with his fingers until she came in a writhing frenzy.
Or pretended to, Kyger thought cynically.
"Very good," the Ancestor pronounced. "Luscious, in fact. These nipples are as succulent as any I've tasted. I wish these cunts were ours exclusively, but they have been paid for, and we will honor the contract. My brethren—"
The robed figures came to attention and lined up beside the thralls.
"Their masters are waiting."
The gong sounded.
The first of the brethren picked up the onyx disc and slowly paced his way to the door which automatically slid open.
Each of the brethren, but one, escorted one of the five thralls out of the room, and the last of them accompanied the Ancestor as they made a stately, almost ceremonial exit from Tony Venable's rooms.
The door slid shut before Kyger could wriggle himself out from under the sofa and dive out to freedom.
Hellfire. Sunk in the swamp and sex-and-semen perfumed backwash of a night of pure selfish debauchery.
He'd have just as soon gone to sleep just where he was, but the scent was overpowering and time was spinning by and he had the spunk-soaked luck to be stuck in Venable's secret aerie with the golden opportunity to search to his heart's content.
How fortunate could a man get?
But—shit—what if Hackford was looking for him? Son of a bitch—he really had to get out of there. He had to ...
He had to take ten minutes and search the place, he did. It would probably be fruitless—Venable hadn't been the sort to leave concrete evidence of anything visible, not even in a place where he felt safe as houses. No one was that safe. Not even Venable.
Or he'd still be alive. Still—he was here . ..
A quick hand search in and under each of the sofas, the tables, underneath in case something had been plastered there, around the altar, which was really a dais with a chair as wi
de as a throne, and a shelf with some icons on it.
One door was locked, the other gave into what had to be Venable's training room. A mirrored room of racks, benches, chains, locks, whips and an. ornate glass-encased cabinet full of sadistic accoutrements that a decent man would never wish to see all in one place and at the hand of one man.
A man who was a devil. Who wanted to be a saint. Not now. Not ever.
He needed to have seen this. He needed to tell Wyland, and Wyland needed to raid this place and find these things and bear witness to everything he had seen.
He felt sick looking at all of it. His mind recoiled as his imagination ran rampant picturing it, envisioning Tony Venable, in this room with those women one by one, blackmailing them somehow, dominating them, humiliating them, bringing them to a place where they willingly spread themselves naked and open with no protest, no complaint, where to them it was a privilege and duty to abase themselves for the pleasure of the powerful men—any men—who demanded it of them.
What kind of women were these who would allow themselves to willingly come to this place, in their minds and with their bodies?
It was incomprehensible. What could Venable have offered them that was so seductive they would offer themselves up for that kind of sacrifice?
It was inconceivable. And yet, it was. And Venable had done this in secret, ongoingly, while he preached his brand of tyrannical paternal freedom, maintained a scrupulously blameless public life, and aroused his followers to such a frenzy they would enshrine him and embraced his message from beyond the grave.
I live.
I will return.
Prayerlike cards of exhortation, all over London, in concert
with that ungodly seance. He remembered precisely what had been printed on them: hope faith wait return ...
Who? Who had the reach, the power, the knowledge, the money to perpetrate those cards?
The Sacred Seven?
