Hawk and Fisher looked at each other, and Buchan’s heart sank as he took in their expressions. “We don’t sneak in through the back door,” said Hawk firmly. “We’re Captains in the city Guard. We go in through the front door. Always. Right, Isobel?”
“Right, Hawk.” Fisher smiled slowly. “And anyone who tries to slam the door in my face will regret it.”
The two Guards headed determinedly for the front door, their hands resting on the weapons at their sides. Buchan wished briefly but vehemently that he was somewhere else, anywhere else, and followed them.
Hawk pulled the bell rope and knocked firmly on the front door. Fisher kicked it a few times for good measure. After a discreet pause, the massive oak door swung open, revealing a tall and very dignified butler dressed, as tradition demanded, in slightly out-of-date formal wear. He had a thick mane of carefully groomed grey hair, and a pair of impressively bushy eyebrows that descended slowly into an even more impressive scowl as he took in the two Guards standing before him. ,
“Yes?” he said, disdainfully, his mouth tucking in at the corners as though he’d just bitten into an especially sour lemon.
“We’re here for the party,” said Hawk easily. “Show him the invites, Buchan.”
Buchan quickly held them forward. The butler didn’t even bother to look at them. “There must be some mistake ... sir. This gathering is exclusively for the young gentlemen and ladies of the Quality. You have no business here ... sir.”
“My partner and I are Captains in the city Guard,” said Hawk. “We’re here on official business.”
The butler gestured sharply, and two men-at-arms appeared behind him, swords in hand. The butler smiled slightly, his eyes cold and contemptuous.
“You forget your place, Captain. Your petty rules and regulations have no bearing here, among your betters; your lords and masters. Now kindly remove yourselves from these premises. At once.”
“You’re not going to be reasonable about this, are you?” said Hawk.
“Leave now,” said the butler, “Or I’ll have my men set the dogs on you.”
Hawk hit him briskly, well below the belt, waited a moment as the butler folded forward, and then punched him out. By the time the two men-at-arms had reacted, Hawk had drawn his axe and Fisher had drawn her sword, and the two Guards had walked over the butler’s unconscious body and into the hallway. The men-at-arms looked at them, and then at Charles Buchan, the most famous duellist in Haven, and quickly sheathed their swords.
“I’m not getting paid enough for this,” said one flatly, and the other nodded. “The party’s that way.”
Hawk and Fisher smiled politely, and strolled unhurriedly in the direction the man-at-arms had indicated. Buchan stepped over the butler and went after them.
“You promised me you’d behave,” he said urgently.
“We haven’t killed anyone yet,” said Fisher.
Buchan had a horrible suspicion she wasn’t joking.
A footman in a rather garish frock coat appeared from nowhere, and apparently assuming they were official guests, led them to the main ballroom. Servants, laden with trays of food and wine, swarmed back and forth through the wide corridors. Hawk gradually became aware of a growing clamour up ahead, the sound of hundreds of voices raised in talk and laughter and argument. It grew steadily louder as the footman led them to a pair of huge double doors, and then the sound burst over them like a wave as the footman pushed open the doors. Hawk and Fisher and Buchan stood together in the doorway a moment, taking in the sight and sound of the Quality at their play.
Hundreds of bright young things were packed into the huge ballroom, dressed in their finest. There were all sorts of fashions and costumes, ranging from the ridiculous to the grotesque. Hawk wasn’t surprised. The younger aristocracy always had a taste for the garish. The whole point of elite fashion was to choose clothes that no one but they would be seen dead in. And yet the crowd wasn’t composed of only young people. There were a significant number of older men and women, suggesting that the attractions of the Hellfire Club spread across a larger proportion of the Quality than Hawk had expected. His scowl deepened as he took in some of the more sinister costumes: jaggedly cut leathers and bizarrely dyed furs, metal-studded bracelets and spiked chokers. One striking woman dressed in black rags and tatters carried a live snake wrapped around her bare shoulders.
A band of musicians was playing loudly in the gallery, but no one was dancing. That wasn’t what they’d come for. Hawk tore his gaze away from the Quality and looked around the great ballroom. He’d known smaller parade grounds, and the ceiling was uncomfortably high overhead, much of it lost in shadow. Three huge chandeliers of polished brass and cut glass lit the scene below with hundreds of candles. Hawk looked at them uneasily. They had to weigh half a ton each, and the thick ropes used for lifting and positioning them looked almost fragile by comparison. Hawk decided he’d keep an eye on them. He didn’t trust chandeliers. They always looked unsafe to him.
He noticed that the footman was still with them, waiting to be dismissed. Hawk nodded briskly, at which the footman bowed and left. Buchan watched this thoughtfully. Hawk and Fisher had surprised him with how comfortable they were with servants. As a rule, it was a knack most people didn’t have unless they were born into it. Most people found servants intimidating. Hawk and Fisher didn’t. Of course, there was a simple explanation; Hawk and Fisher weren’t impressed by servants because they weren’t impressed by anything.
Buchan looked out over the ballroom. It was a long time since he’d been welcome here. Almost despite himself, his mind drifted back to his last visit to Hightower Hall. Lord Roderik Hightower had been away on one of his werewolf hunts, and Louis was still in the army then. But Lady Hightower was there, to speak on behalf of the Family. The Hightowers and the Buchans had been friends for generations, but that hadn’t prevented the Lady Hightower from informing him in cool, passionless tones that unless he agreed to end his relationship with the Sisters of Joy, he should consider himself banned from High Society from that moment on. Buchan had said nothing. There was nothing he could say.
You’re a
fool,
Lady Hightower had said.
You have good friends, position and wealth, a promising future in politics, and all
the
advantages your Family have given you. And you’ve thrown it all away for the sake of those women. You disgust me. Get out.
He had stood there and taken it all in silence, and when she was finished he nodded once, politely, and left. He’d stayed away from High Tory ever since. Now he was back, among familiar sights and sounds once again. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed it all. He emerged from his reverie, suddenly aware that Hawk was speaking to him.
“We’d better split up,” said Hawk. “We can cover more ground that way, and hopefully we’ll be less conspicuous on our own.”
“Suits me,” said Fisher. “What exactly are we looking for?”
“Beats me,” said Hawk. “Some connection between the Hellfire Club and the God murders. It could be anything. A person, a place, a belief... anything.”
Fisher frowned thoughtfully. “These people, Buchan ... they worship the Darkness, right?”
“Essentially, yes,” said Buchan.
“They try to make deals with it. Offer it things, in return for power.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Would they go as far as sacrificing people to the Dark?”
Buchan hesitated. “I don’t know. Some might, if they thought they could get away with it.”
“And it’s only a step from killing people to killing Beings,” said Hawk. “If they have already made a deal with the Darkness, and it’s given them enough power to kill Beings ...”
“Then we could be in a lot of trouble here,” said Fisher.
“Nothing changes,” said Hawk. “All right, let’s make a start. Each of you choose a direction, and start walking. Be discreet, but don’t be afraid to ask pointed questions. I’m not leaving here without some answers. Oh, and Isobel; let’s try and avoid Lord Hightower. Right?”
She nodded, and Hawk slipped into the milling crowd, letting the ebb and flow of people take him where it would. Everywhere he looked there were flushed faces and over-bright eyes and strained, brittle laughter. The sense of anticipation was almost overwhelming. And yet without Hawk’s foreknowledge of what the Hellfire Club was about, it would have been easy to see this as just another party. Most of the Quality here were young, half of them barely out of their teens. Partying desperately, squeezing what joy they could out of their lives before the inevitable time when they would have to take on their duties as part of the Families. There were only a few options open to the Quality: For the men it was either politics or the army, for women it was marriage and children. Perhaps that was why they’d formed the Hellfire Club, in search of pleasure and power with no price to pay. Or at least, no price they believed in.
Hawk knew better. No one encounters the Darkness and comes away unscathed. The scars on his face throbbed briefly with remembered pain.
He moved deeper into the crowd. Hundreds of people filled the huge ballroom from wall to wall, but Hawk wasn’t impressed. He’d seen grander gatherings in his time. And the more he looked, the more he became aware of the nervous undercurrent in the party’s mood. The laughter was too sudden and too loud, and the general brittle good cheer wasn’t fooling anyone but themselves. Many of the Quality were drinking like fish, but no one seemed to be drunk. Hawk frowned slightly. It was as though the Quality were trying to nerve themselves up to something. Something frightening ... and dangerous.
Buchan wandered aimlessly through the crowd, looking for familiar faces. Most of them here were too young to remember him, and his shame, but clearly there were some who did. They looked the other way, or turned their backs on him. None of them wanted to talk to him. It wouldn’t be safe. Some of his shame might rub off on them. Buchan grabbed a glass of wine from a passing servant’s tray and drank deeply. Not a bad vintage. A damn sight better than the cheap muck he usually drank.
He hadn’t been aware of how lonely he’d been until he came back here, and realised how much he’d had to give up. All the food and wine and comforts. The security of belonging. Hawk and Fisher might be contemptuous of High Society, but they couldn’t know what it meant, to be a part of it. The Quality were Family and friends and lovers, and more than that. They shared your life from the cradle on. On good days and bad days and empty days, they were always there. They seduced and protected you, loved you and hated you, and kept you safe from the outside world; made you feel part of a greater whole. It was comforting and reassuring to have the same faces always around you, people who understood you sometimes better than you knew yourself. He hadn’t realised how much he missed it all, and how much there was to miss.
The God Squad was his family now, but they were no substitute for what he’d given up. Tomb was a friendly enough sort, but he had no interest in anything save his magics and his books, and he was too sober by far. The sorcerer meant well, but the God Squad was his life, and nothing else really mattered to him. And Rowan was a pain in the posterior. Spent all her time poring over ancient books and papers, and fllling the house with chemical stinks. He’d tried to talk to her about her theories and beliefs, but most of the time she just answered his questions with grunts and monosyllables. On the few occasions when she condescended to explain something to him, he was damned if he could follow it, for all his expensive education. All he could grasp was that Rowan didn’t believe in anything much but desperately wanted to believe in something. So desperately that there was no room in her life for anything but the search.
Buchan looked slowly around him. It was a long time since he’d considered how much he’d given up for his darling Annette. And though he loved her more than anything else in his life, there were times he hated her too, for what that love had cost him. He pushed the thought firmly aside, and moved on through the crowd of turned backs and averted faces.
Hawk finally spotted a familiar face, and strolled nonchalantly over to join him. Lord Arthur Sinclair was well on his way to being drunk, as usual. The last time Hawk had seen Lord Sinclair, he and Fisher had been clearing up after the Haven elections. Sinclair had stood as a candidate, on the No Tax On Alcohol Party. Also known as the Who’s For A Party Party. He never even looked like winning, but he didn’t let a little thing like that dissuade him from holding a celebration party long before the results came in. It was two days before he sobered up long enough to ask who’d won.
Sinclair was a short, round little man in his mid-thirties, with thinning yellow hair and uncertain blue eyes. He smiled a lot, at nothing in particular, and was rarely without a glass of something in his hand. He was a third son, who’d never expected or been intended to inherit the Family estates. He had no talents, no gifts, no aptitudes, and no interest in anything but parties. His friends thought him a pleasant, harmless little chap. Always ready for a song or a joke or another drink. His Family treated him like dirt for the most part, and tried to pretend he didn’t exist. He had no sense of self-esteem, and no chance to build any. And then his father and both his brothers died in the same battle, and the title and estates fell to him, along with the not inconsiderable Family fortune. His mother died soon after, from a broken heart some said, and he was left all alone. He’d been Lord Sinclair for almost five years, and had spent most of that time trying to drink himself to death, for want of anything better to do.