by Thea Devine
Venable had been one of them. They had to have known what he was about. They had to have tacitly approved his message, even after death ... or had they?
What did he really know about any of this? Whispers. Insinuations. All those symbols, sevens everywhere. A subtle message? A warning?
Who were the Seven? What did he really know?
One of them was called the Ancestor. They followed something called the Disciplines of Khudama. Their symbol was the eternal circle which they swore loyalty to till death. They did not remove their robes even to fuck.
They lived in the shadows, in secret, in obscurity, within the private and privileged sanctuary of the most public place in all of England wielding a nebulous power that everybody knows, nobody tells.
Brazen. Bold. Like smoke. It was there, a scent, a shape, a visible cloud ... take a breath, blow, and it was gone.
Goddamn.
He was missing something; he didn't know what. He felt it in his gut, his craw, and his fury at the likes of Tony Venable who could get away with abusing women like this.
But did it matter? He'd uncovered Tony Venable's secrets; he had found the thing that would destroy the idol and save the country.
Wasn't that enough?
He looked around the heinous room that was a testament to one man's self-indulgent, greedy, godless, sadistic nature.
Not a man. A corpse.
A missing corpse.
Jesus. And no, it wasn't enough.
There was nothing here; the cabinet was padlocked, so unless he wished to break it and perhaps endanger himself, he could take nothing from this awful room.
And he really had to find a way out of there, now—... wait—
This he hadn't initially noticed in his first appalled survey of the room. In the cabinet, among all the cuffs, scourging whips, clips, clamps, ankle bracelets, creams, potions and paraphernalia, there was a little pile of black leather strips—no, he moved in closer to see exactly—they were leather body enhancements: thrall collars, belts, straps for the crotch and bosom, and the leather necklaces he was now familiar with.
And in the midst of all that black leather that looked like a pile of coiled snakes, someone—Venable?—had placed one pristine white leather rose.
Angilee was not happy. Mrs. Geddes was going to make her conform and find a reasonable marriage partner. Well, fine. She could work around that. She could pretend, just as Mrs. Geddes had pretended to get the job, that she had reconsidered, due to everything Mrs. Geddes had made her aware of, and she had come to believe the course Mrs. Geddes suggested was best.
And then, she would just go her own way, using Mrs. Geddes's resources and protection.
And the rest she'd think about later.
It was a plan.
So accordingly, she and Mrs. Geddes went through the cards and invitations that had been left in the days after the ball, some of which honored Mrs. Geddes' connections, as she was not loath to point out to Angilee, and they determined which of the invitations they would accept, and which of the callers Angilee should welcome.
And which of them, Angilee decided, she would privately pursue, as she coyly extracted all the information about each of the gentlemen to see who was in precarious financial straits and might welcome a short-term marriage and some long-term payment to accomplish it.
The next major upcoming event was a dinner and cards at the home of the Duke and Duchess of Beddingford for a select hundred of the most interesting people in Town for the Season.
"You may be certain your father will be among those attending," Mrs. Geddes said. "They generally invite an even number of
intriguing newcomers interspersed with old friends, important connections, and social lions."
"That sounds perfect," Angilee said brightly.
Mrs. Geddes looked at her skeptically. "I know you are not above subterfuge, Miss Rosslyn, but rest assured, I will have my eye on you at every moment."
"I truly don't know what you mean," Angilee murmured. Damn it. She couldn't be that transparent. She had to work on that.
But meantime, she would play by Mrs. Geddes' rules for the moment. And if a situation, if an advantage, came to hand, she'd make use of it without hesitation and without consulting her chaperone.
After all, Mrs. Geddes was absolutely right—that was what she was paying her for. Advice and connections. And everything else could come later.
The silence was killing. The door wall was smooth as ice with no discernible way to open it. He was as trapped as a man could be, and by his own devices. Unless someone came, he could die in that horror chamber of a secret apartment.
There were no windows, no other egress. Venable had meant this to be his sequestered chamber of initiation into his sordid rites of bondage and slavery. His secret world. The one the outside world that revered him was never meant to know.
He had to get out. He had to tell them, tell Wyland, get them there, let them find what he had found.
It wasn't possible. This apartment was as tight as a drum, with no exit anywhere.
Unless someone came.
Which could be a lifetime from now.
Or—perhaps the Ancestor . .. ?
All right. He had to keep calm. This was not a life or death situation. There could be other women who wanted testing. Or a new batch who needed tutoring. Someone would come eventually, so the question was how could he increase his chances of getting out the door when that happened without being seen.
He turned and surveyed the room.
The sofa under which he had concealed himself was not that far from the door, but it was still far enough away that he wasn't able to take advantage of the moment the door was open.
So his best chance was to angle it closer, hope no one noticed, and conceal himself until...
Jesus—he was going crazy if he thought Tony Venable's acolytes would have noticed the precise placement of the furniture and if something were out of line. Hellfire.
Lord, he was exhausted. From being awake all night, from his juices drained to his soles, from his shock at what he'd discovered, and from his frustration at his inability to act. And his every muscle felt as if it were strained to the breaking point when he thought about Hackford prowling through the mansion looking for him, and him nowhere to be found ... How the hell could he explain that?
Maybe he'd never need to—he'd just crawl under the sofa, and they'd find his skeleton there .. .
He felt the skin melting off his bones as he slept. He was certain hundreds of years had gone by, eons had gone by, heaven had gone by when he heard the loud thumping noise that sounded like thunder.
He awakened to find himself whole, alive, and hearing his name, fuzzy, from afar: "... Galliard—you in there? Do you hear me? Are you there? Galliard . .. !!"
Hackford!
He shook himself awake, girded himself for the next moment, whatever that would be—Hackford entering, Hackford discovering him under the sofa, Hackford with a weapon sent to kill him ...
Holy shit. Hackford—or had he expected this? And then the sound of the door sliding open . .. Hellfire—
He braced himself. . . whatever happened, it would be close . . .
Hackford stepping into the room, "Galliard—are you fucking here? Where the hell are you? Jesus Christ, man—"
Opening the locked door—Venable's bedroom? Kyger could
see very little from that angle. A massive bed. An oriental rug. Mirrors.
"Shit, man, where the hell have you got to?" Into the training room. "Galliard, you son of a bitch—" Out again before Kyger could react.
Looking around the altar room, seemingly at a loss. And then he made for the door and Kyger moved, sliding out from under the sofa and diving for the door with his hand before it integrated perfectly with the wall.
It closed into his hand. It crushed into his hand. He hoped to hell Hackford was down the steps because he was dead if he wasn't.
The da
mned thing was as heavy as a stone, and he crawled to it and, with his other hand, pushed hard against the edge. It almost didn't move. There was something in the mechanism that propelled it forward hard and heavy.
It felt like a lead weight had been incorporated into the structure of the door. He needed every ounce of strength, every dead muscle, to push that door back far enough so he could wriggle out from that room.
It took time. More time than he had. Someone else could be coming even as he was pushing his way out of the room. Hackford could return. The seven brethren. The Ancestor. Lord almighty—-
He gave one last shove, and the door moved back on its track perhaps a foot, enough so he pushed himself through the narrow opening and rolled clear of it not a minute before it rolled toward him again and slammed shut.
Holy shit. Now what?
There were too many walls without doors in this place. He crept down the stairs to the next level, to the wall where the seven brethren had entered the anteroom to the apartment.
Blank walls. Another symbol. Of the reach and influence of Tony Venable—just when you thought you had something to grab on to, there was nothing but a slippery surface, no catch-plate, nothing on which to hinge anything.
He hadn't been paying attention.
He sat down on the lowest step and braced his throbbing arm
on his knee. Trapped again. His hand in fiery pain. His body sapped and depleted. His mind blurry from lack of sleep.
And nowhere to go in this hell of one man's making.
They had entered through the wall. Another moving wall— not a door ... it had moved inward; the whole panel moved inward.
All right. That was encouraging. No heavy doors to slam back on him. More like the moving walls that had trapped him and Angilee that night, like the one that had given into another anteroom with another staircase leading to another secret ritual room.
Damn and hell. What was this place anyway? A house of fog and illusion?
Maybe. .. maybe—maybe he was groggy as all hell, but it suddenly seemed to him that the point of the Bullhead was not to accommodate well-to-do oversexed men looking for obscene and anonymous couplings.
No...
No, what? The thought slipped from his mind. He felt as slick and slippery as the walls that surrounded him. He couldn't catch the thought. Didn't want to. Wanted desperately to find a way out.
Stand up, then. Look over your surroundings. You came in behind the brethren through that wall.
... it sounded insane. I crawled through that wall... No signs and symbols on that wall tonight. Every man for himself tonight. And so they had, all those brethren, all for themselves over those faceless, well-trained, naked bodies ... Forget that...
He forced himself to stand up and, holding his injured arm against his body, he began feeling up and down that wall. Like a man feels a woman's body ...
Shit and damn—they were getting to him. He was thinking like them. Or he was just woozy from exhaustion; he couldn't even tell which was which at this point.
Wait a minute—there, in the wall, the telltale incised seam. He ought to just push it and let the whole thing collapse—everything would collapse if he pushed—his life, the illusions, the secrets, the lies.. .
Stupid . .. had to protect himself. Had to get out of there in one piece, get to Wyland, get the officials in on it...
Had to—
He moved his hand cautiously to the corner of the wall.
Pushed.
A little give there?
Pushed again cautiously. Warily. Anything could be beyond that wall. Death could be beyond the wall. But he had known he might be playing with fire when he started this quest.
He pushed again, and the wall started to separate at the angle.
Holy shit.
He was dreaming. Nothing from this point on could be real.
Another push. And another. Inch by inch he pushed like a blind man until there was an opening just wide enough for him to squeeze through.
And hope no one noticed because there was no way to pull that wall back in place.
Dead man for certain now.
He made his way slowly and carefully down the hallway, turned to the right, met no one, which was either scary or pure luck, even assuming he was back on his room floor.
Which he didn't assume at all given his fuzzy state of mind.
Which room? Was it this hallway? Or had walls shifted and moved and he was totally lost...
Hellfire. His head felt like a lead weight.
Wait-Here?
The doors all looked the same. Why the hell hadn't he counted the doors when he'd first arrived? Some investigator he was ...
This one looked right.
No—this one?
Fog drifted into his head. He so desperately needed sleep.
Choose one.
Nothing to lose. Either right or wrong, and then he'd bluff it out from there. He reached out to the ring catch on the door in front of him. Pulled. Entered.
Yes? He didn't know for sure. It was empty anyway, and maybe that was all he needed. A nice empty room with a nice empty soft bed.
No—wait... there, his shirt, his boots ... oh, God ... he shimmied out of his trousers and fell on the bed and into a black void where nothing existed but sleep.
And a massive pounding on the door.
"Galliard, goddamnit—are you goddamned in there? Where the fuck are you?" The door slid open. Or maybe he was dreaming it.
Hackford's voice, laced with fury, came at him like a slap: "Son of a bitch—where the hell have you been? I've been searching the whole fucking mansion..." He sounded enraged; he sounded just on the edge of terrified.
Kyger was so groggy, he thought he was imagining it; he could hardly understand what Hackford had said anyway, and he didn't know half of what he himself was saying. He knew he raised his good hand dismissively. He thought he said, with convincing indignation, "What the hell do you mean? I've been in this fucking hellhole the whole night, for Christ's sake."
And he was certain he remembered nothing after that because he sank right back into that deep, welcoming, slumberous void.
Chapter fifteen
The last thing, then, that he needed was to find an invitation to the Beddington dinner in his mail.
He'd been as certain as stones he wouldn't get out of the Bullhead alive; Hackford was on to him, even if he couldn't prove he hadn't been in his room the whole night, and that knowledge wound him as tight as a Swiss watch. Obviously, Hackford knew everything about the secret world of the Bullhead, but there still was a fine thread of desperation in him when he burst into Kyger's room and began questioning him.
There was nothing to do but bluff it out. And Hackford knew he was doing it and couldn't do a thing about it. But there was something about his questions that made Kyger's nerves tighten up like a bow string.
The danger was real. Hackford was one of them, whoever them were.
But he knew something about them now. The them who operated in secret rooms behind moving walls in the most exclusive brothel in the country. The them with their rituals and their signs, symbols and sevens. The them who trafficked in white slavery.
The them about whom everybody knew, nobody told.
Them. Always them . ..
He had to get away from them. And he had virtually no way to affect an escape. Hackford was right outside his door, a merciless sentinel, waiting for Billington, and he had made it ominously clear they all were going to leave the Bullhead together.
Hackford was taking no chances. Hackford was just a little distracted. Hackford hadn't even noticed he was injured, because how would he explain that? Some whore bit him? Maybe that was as good an explanation as any. But he couldn't talk his way out of Hackford's determination to pin him to the post.
And it wasn't over either, so from now on, his tack had to be to deny everything with the same unflappable equanimity with which he dealt with Hackford's initial question
s, and they couldn't prove a thing.
... maybe they didn't need proof... Maybe it was fait accompli. He was a dead man already. He had that much time—the time between uncertainty and decision—to get away from them. Split seconds. Eternity. Hellfire,
"GALLIARD ..." Hackford's bellow. "Let's go, man." Kyger opened the door.
The two of them were there, like a wall between him and the outside world, and the only place he could wedge himself was between them, as close as a Siamese twin.
They were his guards, escorting him to the gallows. Where did they execute traitors at the Bullhead? In some mysterious secret room in the bowels of the lower level where he'd be swallowed up whole forever?
Mordant thought. And he didn't think he was being facetious.
No. It wasn't going to happen.
They paced down tbe hallway, Hackford looking grim as a griffon. No conversation, no trying to dig for details or expose the lie. The verdict had been.
Perhaps by them.
That them.
The ones to whom Hackford owed his allegiance.
He had to get away. His hand felt like a piece of meat. The pain was like a deep, dark hum in his body underpinning his supreme sense of pulsating menace. Of life and death.
The hallway was empty. No one around. And again, in this
world of illusion and movement, he had no idea where he was. It didn't matter.
He waited. He watched. For that one moment when their attention was diverted, for that moment when one might speak to the other, or a door would open somewhere, or they might hear a noise ...
Just one split second was all he needed—and he'd attack them, he'd kill them, he'd break down the walls if he had to. Again.
But the leeway he needed was provided by the mundane sound of a door opening somewhere far behind them.
In that split second, he acted: he rammed Billington's ribs with his elbow, and almost simultaneously he wheeled and thrust his foot in front of Hackford as he moved to restrain him, and Hackford pitched forward off balance.
Another jot of a second to turn and run toward that sound, with Hackford bellowing behind him: "STOP THAT MAN ...!"
