The Hanged Man (34 page)

Their forward escort dropped behind and, apparently alone, they proceeded along South Audley Street. Alex's heart began to swiftly thump. If they kept going north she could be in her Baker Street home in a few minutes. With that monstrous creature dead, it must be safe enough to return. She abruptly wanted to be huddled in bed with a hot water bottle at her feet and a coal fire warming the air. Lord Richard and Colonel Mourne could infiltrate the Ætheric meeting instead. They wouldn't think less of her—well, actually they would—if she chose not to go. She wasn't a soldier who had to obey.

But I volunteered; it's my idea
.

And Brook would go in. She couldn't allow him to do that without herself along to protect him. He was capable, but too green.

They took the longer way, going anticlockwise around Grosvenor Square. Brook had an eye to the window and reported they'd just passed a Black Maria. “There seem to be a large number of men in the park. They're keeping behind the trees.”

Colonel Mourne's flying squad … in case of trouble. That was reassuring. Unless—

“You're sure they're ours?”

“No hooded cloaks, but plenty of balaclavas and truncheons. It's just as well it's too cold for an evening stroll. The residents here would find it alarming.”

“Indeed, mustn't have soldiers lurking in the shrubbery of the upper classes, however good the cause.”

“But a location such as this?”

“Those hooded thugs attacked the Service just steps from Downing Street and Scotland Yard. I doubt they would blench at holding battle in Buckingham Palace if it suited their purpose. We must be on our best guard. I just wish this was a less formal event. I could conceal several more firearms in my walking clothes.” At his look she added, “I don't expect they'll be called to use, I just prefer to be overwhelmingly prepared.”

The coach stopped before number 25 and the driver swung down to open the door. Brook emerged and handed her out. Two coaches ahead of them likewise disgorged well-dressed passengers. With much relief Alex noted the women wore veils or masks. At any normal evening gathering a lady was expected to show her face. She belatedly pulled her veil down, hampering her view with black netting.

The house had a redbrick front and was vast, seven floors at least, plus the cellars. Gaslight showed through four well-spaced windows on either side of the impressive entry, indicating two to three large rooms in the front. Their foray might take more than the hour Lord Richard had allowed.

No decorative stone head over the door—perhaps the absent Duchess of Denver was not a member of the Ætherics after all.

Alex and Brook merged with the crowd from the other coaches. A doorman large enough to be a prizefighter blocked the way, allowing guests to pass two at a time.

“What is the word?” he rumbled, his face as grim as an overdue bill. He'd demanded the same of those ahead of her, but she'd not heard their whispered replies.

She leaned forward and muttered,
“Masters impart.”

He nodded once and let them pass.

No servants stood by to take their outer clothes; she and Brook followed the others.

The entry hall held to simple lines but was sumptuous in décor. The duchess had fourteen generations of English ancestry to define and refine her taste. Crystal chandeliers sparkled, the woodwork shone, the air was made light by the pleasant scent of hothouse roses—even Aunt Honoria would have approved.

The guests, however, were another matter. Alex instantly picked up on the atmosphere, which had the crackling heaviness that presages a lightning strike. They were looking forward to something, but there was a taint to it. She instantly thought of naughty children bent on mischief despite dire consequences should they be caught.

Being adults, they had no fear of a nanny spoiling the fun, though.

Just myself and Mr. Brook
.

A music room seemed to be a gathering point. Chairs were set in close rows and someone in command of a podium lectured with much intensity about metaphysical matters. The audience appeared to be a motley of social stations. Psychical talent was no respecter of class and neither were those who preyed upon the curious. A shopgirl's halfpenny donation was just as welcome as a guinea from a noble, not that any crass collection bowl was in sight.

No one in that room was masked. Alex and Brook withdrew to the main entry and were accosted by another large specimen who, from his battered ears, broken nose, and scarring around his eyes, practiced the pugilist's art like his comrade at the door. He glared at them.

“That way,” he said, pointing at masked and veiled people milling toward the back of the house.

“This gathering began long before the stated time,” murmured Brook. “There's more than a hundred people here with more coming in.”

“The Ætheric meeting is the cover for something deeper. Did you recognize anyone of import back there? Neither did I. All the interesting ones will be incognito.”

The crowd around them kept their voices low as they continued slowly along a hall. The cause for the congestion was a stoppage at a staircase, which was a narrow one intended for servants. In ones and twos, people descended.

Ears sharp, eyes open, Alex focused on as many as possible. While a mask obscured the face, there were other ways to identify people. Beards, baubles, modes of dress, carelessly displayed monograms, unconscious mannerisms … she fixed them in her memory and looked for the familiar. While it was unlikely she knew anyone, there was a chance of it. Someone had recognized her father and taken action. She'd destroyed the executioner; this foray might make it possible to remove whoever had given the order.

She held the reticule with her Webley a little closer.

Brook took the lead going down the stairs. Not gentlemanly, but the correct action for a protector. She had to mind her skirts, one-handed, making sure no one behind tread on them. Why couldn't Andrina have gone in for trousers? All the Paris designers were making formal styles now. Many of the less avant-garde ladies of fashion were wearing them, even to the opera.

At the bottom landing she heard (and felt) the deep measured beating of a large drum. They were in a long hall with a tall ceiling, unusual for an area below street level. Through a door, and then down another set of stairs, the drumming sound resonated through her body, quickening her heart and step. The crowd responded to it, growing restive, eager to press forward. If she and Brook had to make a hasty exit, it would be impossible.

Lest they become separated, she seized his left arm. Her internal armor was solidly in place, so whatever feelings he had did not touch her, but she couldn't help but pick up on the rising excitement that flowed around them.

The next landing opened to a large dim chamber, lighted by candles and lanterns. The great weight of the house above was supported by dozens of squat pillars, and low benches had been built or placed around each. Cushions provided protection from the wood and brick, but those occupying the seating seemed too busy to notice.

Poor Mr. Brook stopped in his tracks, mouth open with shock.

Couples, trios, foursomes, and more were engaged in the sort of activities better confined to the privacy of a bedroom—or a Roman bacchanal, as enough spirits and wine were being consumed for the latter.

The old Hellfire Club had returned with a whoop, whistle and
hey, nonny-nonny
to a fresh generation.

“It's just an orgy,” she said, though she blushed at having to use such a word. She'd read a lot. She'd also seen one firsthand in India when she and a group of friends sneaked away to look in on the activities of a local temple they'd been forbidden to tour. The revelries in that temple were nothing to what was going on under the Denver roof, though in comparison, these crude proceedings, though energetic, lacked imagination and grace. “Let's keep moving.”

He bent toward her ear. “I'm getting you out of here.”

“I'm perfectly fine. Ignore them and think of England.”

“Oh, God.”

A woman braced against a pillar with one man's head and shoulders concealed under her skirts and another ardently kissing her throat echoed Brook's words, but with more feeling. Alex tugged his arm, pulling him to one side.

She'd spied people leaving the main room via a door in a near corner. They appeared uninterested in the antics of others. No women were in the group, and their masks covered the whole of their faces. While they could be attending an exclusive party for men who preferred the company of other men, Alex thought otherwise. She perceived enough about their clothes to know they patronized the best tailors and shoemakers and employed the most careful of valets to keep things in order. Their carriage and swagger spoke of confidence married to an equal measure of contempt for lesser beings. She recognized the genus: men of power who were in power.

But more importantly, shuffling along with them were a dozen other men in distinctive hooded cloaks.

“After that lot,” she said in Brook's ear.

No need to tell him twice. He was all for removing them from the fleshy inferno. The doorway took them to a brick-lined hall, its arched ceiling blackened by the soot of decades. Many openings led off from it, and drunken celebrants tottered from one to the other at random, hooting and singing.

Another rough-looking guardian blocked the way to a sizable candlelit room where the hooded men were gathering. Again, she used the password and they continued through, being almost the last ones in. The door closed and the booming of the drum diminished. With that row going on there would be no eavesdropping from outside.

They filed toward a long table with more than a dozen chairs, some of which were occupied. The men did not interact with one another, holding themselves still and alert like faceless judges. It gave Alex a chill akin to the grave. Any of them could have ordered her father's death, perhaps all if they voted on it. With masks to hide human expression, there was no need to bother with human responsibility. One could make decisions for good or ill with the ease of a machine, free of conscience and morality.

She was the only woman present, and was noticed. A cloaked man wearing a half mask approached and addressed her, leaning close to her ear.

“My apologies, madam, but females are not permitted at this meeting. This way, if you would allow me.”

It was pointless to fall into a fit of blood-boiling resentment. The Equal Franchise Bill had given women the vote, not access to private clubs, of which this must be the most private in the whole of the empire. Disagreement would bring discovery, and besides, he had been polite. Brook took his cue from her and they left. The man escorted them back to the hall, gave a little bow, and departed.

“That had the look of a staff meeting,” said Brook. “While it might have been instructive, they're almost always dreadfully boring.”

She nodded and moved forward past rooms hosting a variety of prurient activities, each louder than the last. Candles were only for the rooms, not the hall. She resisted the urge to brush her veil away to see better.

From the look of the bricks this subcellarage must have been dug out a century earlier. The planning and execution would be a prohibitively enormous expense, and how could it be kept a secret? But she recalled the fanaticism of the captured rider. If those in the Order of the Black Dawn had a tenth of that dedication a secret was safe enough, and if they pooled their money …

The drumming, somewhat mitigated by the wall between, bore into her head. Its insistent purpose was ancient: disrupt thought and awake the body, as effective at a sybaritic debauch as it was in war to work soldiers up for battle.

Clusters of amorous revelers slowed them, but no one stopped them from looking into the various rooms. Drink flowed freely, though in one strangely calm chamber Alex recognized the heaviness of opium and hemp.

Harried men slipped to and fro, carrying wine bottles in and bringing back the empty husks at an astonishing rate. This might be the largest den of iniquity since Caligula took power, but servants still had to run the place. Where did they find them and how were they kept quiet? Anyone desperate enough for this sort of work would be glad to sell his story to the first newspaper brave enough to print it.

But who would believe this?

“Over there,” said Brook. “Something isn't right—”

The unholy entirety of place wasn't right;
what
had caught his attention?

Damned veil. She lifted it, trusting that her identity was safe in the murk, and instantly fixed on a trio ahead of them. A man and his shorter, burly companion had a woman between them and the three staggered erratically forward. They were in evening clothes and masked, of course, but the woman appeared to be in a desperate state compared to the other females present. Her hair trailed raggedly down her back, and her head drooped as though overcome by drink. Her wrinkled and ripped dress was stained, its once lush trims torn.

“Miss Pendlebury, that poor lady … whatever brought her to this, she should not be subject to whatever those two have in mind.”

Alex had no doubt of what was in store. “We must be discreet. Use your stick to clout the man on the left, I'll deal with the other.” She reversed her grip on the hidden Webley so she could deliver a sharp thump behind the ear of her target. Once he was down, she could disable him with knuckle strikes to his nerve points. With any luck others would assume he'd passed out.

She and Brook separated and rushed forward.

But before they could set to it, someone behind yelled a sharp warning. The men dropped their burden and turned as one, each with a pistol in hand. Alex stopped short and lashed an arm toward Brook. He froze, his cane halted in midswing.

The men likewise hesitated. Alex fought off a swoop of disgust as she recognized the one she'd been prepared to remove. That jaw, chin, his mouth …