by Thea Devine
—as Wroth ...
Oh, God.
And tomorrow, they'd announce they'd apprehended Venable's murderer ...
Three months from Venable's death to a new leader with another corrupted vision of a new world order.
He had to get away; he had to bring down Wroth ...
And he felt the gun in his back, prodding him on.
They were taking him to the town house. Another shock— that he'd been living there for these few weeks and he'd had no idea—no idea in the years he'd spent time there—
... and—what? Cryder was ... one of them? A brethren or a Venable adherent?
Up to the bedroom floor, into Lujan's room, into the dressing room. And there, behind the closet stuffed full of clothes was a secret room.
"Lots of secrets and tricks, baby brother," Lujan said gently. "You'll be fine here. I promise, we want to keep you alive to stand trial, because it's the only way the public will be satisfied."
They nudged him into the space, which might have been five feet square, and stuffy as hell. No ventilation. No light. Bags of clothes everywhere, Lujan's discards. A gun pointed at his head, giving him no options. That close, as he had heard, Wroth was a dead shot.
And he'd be dead anyway if he was confined so closely.
"It will be a day—two at the most," Wroth said. "We expect the public outcry will precipitate a fast trial, and an even speedier verdict. I'd say get some sleep, but you'll have eternity for that."
They stood there, all four of them, like a wall, waiting for him to duck and crawl inside the space.
He gauged his chances. Not bloody good, worse because his hand was still in such rough shape.
But they wanted him to die. And he wanted to live, and taking
the chance on that was better than taking a chance he'd survive two days in the attic space.
"All right—in you go," Lujan said, reaching out to push him to his knees.
He went on instinct, still facing them, and jackknifed himself right into Wroth's genitals. Wroth pitched forward over him, howling. Lujan pulled at his left arm as he scrambled under Wroth's weight and between his spraddled legs.
Hackford reached for his right arm as Billington climbed over them to block him at the dressing room door. He wrenched his right arm away and pulled his brother with him as he hauled himself out from under Wroth's writhing body and launched himself into Billington exactly the same way.
It wasn't quite as effective—he didn't have the momentum with Lujan painfully pulling him back, but Billington was caught off balance and fell back awkwardly, and Lujgn was half caught under Wroth's hips, still holding on to Kyger's arm.
The pain was indescribable; he thought it was dislocated altogether, and he had about one second to make good an escape while Billington was picking himself up, and Hackford was helping Wroth.
He gave one last mighty wrench, and Lujan let go, and he scrambled over Billington, who latched on to his left leg and pulled him back. He flailed at him with his right leg, hammering Billington's knee hard with the toe of his boot as Billington wrestled to get him in control.
But the knee gave under the pressure of all that force, and he let go suddenly. Kyger crawled over him with Lujan at his heels and the shadow of Cryder hovering at the door of the bedroom.
He saw red again, blood red, so suffusing he knew nothing else but the primitive need to destroy these people. They were ciphers, symbols, sevens—
He launched himself at Cryder with a howl and Lujan right behind him. Cryder went down, Lujan leapt on top of him and the butler, and Kyger levered himself upward abruptly and, using that moment of surprise, rolled him onto the floor.
Up and over Cryder's struggling, prone body. Out in the hallway with Lujan right behind him, thundering down the steps
with Lujan grabbing at him, catching him and the both of them toppling down the final half dozen steps and rolling into the hallway in a heap.
Lujan was under him, struggling to get the advantage. Kyger reared back and punched him, in the nose, under the chin, in the throat, until he gagged. Then he hooked him one more time under the chin, and his head hit the floor, and he was out.
Now what? Now what? He had to excise the cancer—he had to stop them all long enough to rescue Angilee. How? How? He heard them coming.
He raced into the parlor. What? What? Gaslight... on the wall—flame—they were coming ... he took off the shade, grabbed a pillow from the sofa, lit it, threw it on the sofa, took another pillow, already aflame, and threw it at the curtains ...
And then he dove out the window as a wall of flame erupted as Lujan and Wroth came racing in.
She was naked but for a braided leather rose necklace, chained to the wall, and surrounded by men in hooded robes who were walking around, assessing her.
"She'll do, brethren," the one who seemed to be in charge said. "Quite nice. She'll sell high, once we suppress all that fire and independence. And won't we enjoy doing it. She must learn that gentlemen don't prize that kind of self-assurance."
She knew the coward was speaking as much to her as to his brethren, and she hated him, she hated them, she hated the moment still when she'd realized that Lujan was not her friend and that she had been as gullible as a goose.
It was the worst thing, not to have seen what was coming. Just like with her father. Just like with ...
She felt like an utter fool. Like she had walked right into it, her eyes wide open with genuine admiration for the man who was Kyger's big strong brother.
How stupid could a woman be? That stupid.
Well, it was too late for any of that now. They had her, they had Kyger, if anything Lujan had explained to her was anywhere near the truth, and neither of them were going to survive this.
No, she was going to survive this. She understood it all hinged
on how compliant she became. It couldn't be too sudden or too fast. It had to be gradual until they trusted that their methods were working and that she saw the wisdom of their way.
The problem was their methods. She already didn't like their methods, even without being able to look into their eyes. Their stripping her, chaining her, claiming her with the leather rose—all of that was part of the method. They wanted to break her of her antiquated thinking about her role and raise up to the new philosophy of obedience and to yearn for the honor of servicing the needs, the whim, the sexual proclivities of one man, one master who was to pay for the privilege of owning such a creature.
All right. She could pretend. She would do whatever it took to keep herself alive. She wondered, as they paced around her, how long it took to break and remake a reasonable woman.
Maybe never.
She couldn't stand this; she didn't have the patience for this. These ghouls were imitations of men, hiding behind their hoods and their rituals. They were children. They were ...
She pulled back on her fury. That would get her to a certain point that could sustain her, but any show of it would kill her chances of surviving and maybe get her killed.
Compliance, that was the key. What was her body after all but a shell, a vessel. That was what they thought. That was how they were going to treat her—like an object for their use, their pleasure.
Fine, she could be an object. Just remove herself from the equation and wait for the moment... whatever moment that would be ...
The town house burned. The flames soared high as Kyger raced toward the boulevard. He heard the clanging of bells; he saw people racing toward the square as he ran the opposite direction, cradling his injured arm and feeling a desperation he had never known, both at the loss of the town house and the loss of Angilee...
Angilee...
Where would they have taken her? Where? They had totally abandoned the Bullhead. What would Wroth have done with her if she and Lujan both had been at Waybury earlier today?
... or was it Wroth who had taken her ... ?
Holy shit...
He had no other solu
tion. And besides—there was Jancie ... oh, Jesus, Jancie ... at the very least he could—
What could he do? Tell Jancie that Lujan was a traitor, a liar, a killer ... he didn't even know what Lujan was anymore—
But he was thinking as he ran—they wouldn't kill Angilee. They'd toy with her first, they'd humiliate her, they'd shame her, they'd use her, and maybe in the end, they might think they could sell her. But they wouldn't kill her—not right away.
So he could take the chance of going to Waybury. At the least, he could assure himself that Jancie—oh, God—and the boy ... Gaunt—God—he had to go—it was the first best thing to do, and if all was reasonably to hand there, then the Bullhead on the way back to London . ..
Which would all shoot him into the evening and the night, obliterating any possibility of answers.. .
Shit, shit, shit, shit...
He grabbed a passerby on horseback who was gunning toward the square. "I need your mount. I'll pay you."
The man hesitated because he saw a wild-eyed madman with a limp arm. "What kind of money?" -;
Kyger dug in his pockets and pulled out a handful of silver and a thick wad of pound notes. "Here you go."
The rider gaped as Kyger thrust the money into his hands. "Yes?"
He slid down from the saddle. No use arguing, there was hard, hot desperation here, and a lot of money. "Take it."
Kyger vaulted on, straining his left arm badly all over again as he took hold of the reins and spurred the horse on.
The growing crowd flowing toward the square blocked the streets. He worked his way toward the back streets, out of the way, out of the line of the fire in more ways than one, as the noxious scent of smoke followed him until he was over the bridge.
Waybury had its secrets. A hidden fortune in diamonds, a murder buried for years, a father seeking vengeance, and an ocean of tears.
But none of that accounted for the thing that Jancie had seen today: Lujan, leaving Waybury with Angilee that morning for his usual business in London, and skulking back not two hours later in a way that was furtive and suspicious.
At the moment, every feeling of dread and dissonance washed over her, everything she had intuited, that she had felt, that she had ignored, everything she had not wanted to believe because she wanted to believe that Lujan had changed, was happy, really loved her.
He loved her. She had no doubt of that. But this—? Lujan sneaking back into his house . . . with Angilee?
Dear heaven. She waited, because for certain they had had an accident or something had happened that made him turn around and come back home. Hadn't it—?
Not a sound. Not a step. He had disappeared somewhere behind the house, and somehow the house had just swallowed him and Angilee up, and everything went silent. Strange. Eerie.
Emily appeared as she was looking out the window for the hundredth time. Mrrroww. Not there.
She whirled. "How do you know?" Her voice was shaking. This just wasn't like Lujan.
It wasn't. But something about it scared her. Really scared her. And as usual, Emily was there. "Mama ..."
She jumped. Gaunt! Oh, God . .. Gaunt. She ran toward him, grabbed him up, hugged him.
Mrs. Ancrum appeared to announce that lunch was ready. "Would you kindly feed Gaunt, and I'll be taking him out for a little ride this afternoon." She thought she sounded normal; she didn't think the tension was audible. Qowtv. Calm down.
Mrs. Ancrum didn't indicate she noticed anything untoward. "Very good." Off they went, as usual, although normally she accompanied them. But now—she had to plan .. . because if something was going on, she wanted Gaunt out of the house. Away from the house.
Ooowww. Wise move. What did Emily know?
She paced around the house, upstairs and down, with Emily following her, waiting for Lujan to appear.
Nothing. No sound. No footstep. Her heart started beating erratically. Emily rubbed against her leg. Mrrrow. Get Gaunt
away.
"You're right." She felt cold, breathless, helpless.
Mrs. Ancrum reappeared. "The darling ate well this afternoon, Miss Jancie."
"Excellent. Now, I wonder—would you be kind enough to take him to the vicarage—? I promised Mrs. Elsberry we'd visit for an hour or so, but I'm not feeling up to it."
"I'd be happy to, ma'am."
She wondered if her face was as flushed as it felt. She waited, containing her impatience, until Mrs. Ancrum and Gaunt went trotting down the drive in the donkey cart.
And then ... there was still no sign of Lujan.
"What now?" she whispered.
Mrrreuwww. Where else?
Jancie felt frozen. "The basements. The wine room. Why would he secretly go down there?"
Oww. Let's find out.
Jancie couldn't move. She had to move. She didn't want to know.
She had to know.
"You're right," she whispered finally, "let's find out."
Down in the bowels of the house, there were storerooms and root cellars, canning shelves, and the wine cellar.
Hugo Galliard had embraced the life of a gentleman full force for a man who had spent most of his life scavenging in diamond mines. But when he and Jancie's father found their major strike, it was the beginning of a long string of events that had led to his abandoning his partner, marrying a woman of means, and taking on the guise of a man who had always enjoyed the finer things in life while he kept secrets almost to the grave.
The end result was a well-stocked cellar which had become Mrs. Ancrum's and Lujan's purview.
Jancie never went down there. It was filthy down there. It was dark down there, and mysterious and evil.
But today—today. .. she was scared to death of what she would find down there, and she didn't think it would be buried
bodies. She armed herself with one of Lujan's hunting rifles, even though she'd never fired one in her life.
The heft of it was reassuring. Comforting. She felt as if she had some power. But she wouldn't find anything there; she was almost sure of it.
She took a kerosene lamp with her, and she had Emily beside her.
It was just—opening the door. Forcing herself to walk down the steps. Holding the lamp up high so that she could see.
There wasn't much to see. A narrow passageway, doors to the left and right, and straight ahead the storage area and the wine room.
And wasn't there a door out to the garden? Was that how Lujan... ? But why—what? Why hadn't he come up and told her he was home? And where was Angilee?
Her stomach knotted. This wasn't good. She wasn't hallucinating. She had seen them, clear as day.
She heard something, a low thrumming sound. Her heart stopped. A hum transforming into words she could just understand, just hear.
Devotion. Persuasion. Progression. Preservation. Dissemination. Propagation. Retribution.
Oh, God—someone was in the wine room. Someone? Many ones .. . voices repeating the litany over and over. Lujan?
Mew. A peep from Emily right beside her. No. She crept closer to the wine room. She had only been down there a half dozen times, but she remembered it being a large room with the storage areas tucked into the walls. But what on earth were voices doing in there? The voices became more distinct.
Jancie eased to the door, her whole body boneless with fear. She cocked the rifle, her hands shaking so badly, she was certain she'd done it incorrectly. And then she turned the knob and pushed the door open a crack.
From this awkward angle, she saw several things. Disturbing things. Things she didn't want to know about but were there,
right in her own home: robed men kneeling and chanting. And a woman, naked and writhing, and chained to the wall.
Angilee ...!
But nowhere did she see Lujan, which was the worst thing of all.
She didn't know what to do ... Angilee, naked and humiliated like this. These strange anonymous men reciting some ritual chant before—before what?
Whate
ver it was, she had to stop them. As long as Lujan was not among them, she didn't care.
But the angle was awful. She'd have to aim low to avoid hitting Angilee, and even then, given her inexperience with firearms, there was no guarantee.
Her hands iced up. Nausea attacked her. But the robes were moving, rising up, in preparation for .. .
Euw ... Emily—Be brave...
She aimed, following the movement of the bodies—maybe one shot, maybe if she scared them ... if she just got them out of the wine room, out of the house, away from Angilee, from Lujan, from her life, her love, her heart—if ...
She squeezed the trigger blindly, and she heard a scream above the booming sound of the shot:
"DON'T SHOOT—ONE OF THEM IS MY FATHER ..."
Kyger couldn't get to Waybury fast enough, and as fast as he pushed the horse, it wasn't enough. As hard as he rode the poor burdened horse, he could not go any faster, and he had the feeling everything was sliding out of his grasp and in the end there would be nothing there and he'd never know anything for sure.
He spurred the horse on. He was close now, closer than he thought, within distance now, within the boundaries moments later, within sight of the gate ... the house—
He wheeled the horse tight into the gateway turn and drove him up the drive, dismounted before the poor animal came to a halt and raced into the house.
Into a flat dead silence, and the scent of acrid smoke permeating the air.
Oh, God, was Waybury on fire, too?
Where?
He followed the scent—this was crazy—where was Jancie, the servants .,. Mrs. Ancrum—the tot?
The smoke—he sniffed . .. gunpowder ... Holy hell-He ran down the hallway toward the kitchen. Stronger here. Recently fired, too ...
.. . where the fuck was Jancie? Where was the damned smoke coming from? Wait—the basement—stronger here ,.. He pulled open the door, and it hit him in the nose. And the sound of anguished sobs. OOWWW. He looked down. Emily was sitting there, and he had stepped on her tail.
She turned up her nose. About time.
She turned and stalked down the steps, and he followed slowly. God—it smelled of smoke and blood; it smelled like a massacre.
