C
HAPTER
20
F
our people could not simply disappear into thin air. Jacob circled the small room for the third time, but saw no other point of egress other than the door he’d come through. Not even an open window. He made his way back to the main entrance and retrieved the candle. As he returned to make another circuit of the room, the candle guttered when he passed by the bookcase. A current of air wafted from behind it.
He felt around the edges of the case until his fingers found the mechanism to open a secret passage. He dove through the entrance and made his way along the low-ceilinged underground corridor, careful not to betray his presence with the slightest noise.
When he came to an anteroom, he slipped on one of the black robes hanging there, figuring it was standard issue for initiates to the Order. Though he had no domino, the robe had a hood that effectively shadowed his face. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do.
It was also less than ideal that he was unarmed. One of the worst things about his sensitivity to metals was that Jacob had been never become proficient with firearms. It was a damned shame, because a loaded Beaumont-Adams in his pocket would have eased his mind considerably.
He wished he could have brought his walking stick with its slim foil hidden inside. He’d have felt better knowing he had a blade he could wield close to hand.
But the platinum head on the walking stick was too unique, too well known. Someone within the Order might recognize it.
And him.
A low hum of rhythmic chanting rose from the next room. He tried the door. Panic rising, he realized it was locked from the inside.
And no one was likely to let him in.
The robed group swayed in time with the chanting as the room filled with ever more potent incense. Julianne’s skin prickled. Each time her skirts brushed her legs, it was like a lover’s touch. She could feel the tickling threads of the lace at the top of her all-in-one. A low ache started between her legs, empty and needy. She wished for Jacob as she shifted her weight, rubbed her thighs together and stifled the urge to touch herself.
Then as suddenly as it began, the chanting stopped and the group stood like statues. A bead of perspiration tickled hotly down Julianne’s spine and slipped into the crevice of her buttocks.
A man emerged from one of the arched openings and the group turned as one to face him, parting to make way for his approach. He was dressed in red, from the crimson hood of his robe to the scarlet of his boots. His face was hidden by a golden domino. A shimmering torc, an emblem of obvious power, adorned his neck. He bore a gilded whip in his red-gloved hand.
Julianne couldn’t tear her eyes from him as he mounted the central dais and lifted the censer skyward as if in offering to some unnamed deity. Shrouded in incense smoke, he was magnificent and terrible all at once.
“Welcome, Sons and Daughters of the Wood. May you find the power you seek. But know this. Real power is not for those the world deems high and mighty.” His voice reverberated around the hall, deep and otherworldly. “It is for those strong enough to claim it. You are the power, my friends. You bear it in your bodies. Release your power. Revel in your strength. I free you to do as you will.”
A wall of sound rose from the group at this proclamation, a feral cry. From somewhere a drum started beating and several people began dancing to the primitive rhythm, shedding their robes to reveal they wore nothing beneath them. By common consent, only their black dominoes hid their identities. These were obviously regular members of the Order within the Order since they were so well prepared to fling themselves into the wanton rite. Male and female, they writhed to the ancient cadence, touching, stroking and groping each other with complete abandon.
One of the men who’d ridden in the brougham with Julianne threw off his robe and began shucking out of his street clothes, baring his fish-belly white shanks.
“Now this is more like it,” she heard him say.
She inched backward till her spine pressed against the curved outer wall. Part of her wanted to join in the carnival, to throw off her restrictive clothing and let her pores revel in the intoxication of the incense. But she still had enough presence of mind to realize the sweet fumes were dulling her inhibitions. The drink in the cow’s horn was probably another aphrodisiac. A powerful one, judging from the way her lips still prickled.
Much as her body clamored for release, she wasn’t there to join an orgy. Her mind was hazy as a foggy day at sea, but she knew she hadn’t come here for sexual congress. She was looking for ... something else. No matter how her body ached and urged her to embrace her own needs, she was almost sure of it.
She eased along the outer wall till she came to the arched opening from which the man in red had appeared. She ducked through it and found herself in another narrow tunnel like the one that had brought her here. The incense fumes hadn’t penetrated this corridor. The air was cold and damp and musty smelling.
It cleared her head in a few breaths. Then she remembered. She was looking for the other half of the manuscript and though this tunnel wasn’t well lit, there was a faint glow in the distance. Hands outstretched before her, she started walking forward.
Jacob wasted several precious minutes working on the metal doorknob. All it earned him was the iron claw of a headache. Then he realized he’d have more luck knocking the pins out of the hinges. Fortunately, the chanting coming from the next room was so loud, no one would hear him striking the pin heads with a stone.
He was forced to stop when silence descended on the company behind the door for a bit, but then a massive shout went up and a drum began sounding. Jacob timed his strikes to match the drumbeats.
When the last pin came free, he wedged the door open enough for him to slip through.
He’d been concerned that someone might notice his invasion. He needn’t have worried. There was a full-scale orgy in progress and no one seemed aware of anything but the abundance of sweaty, naked, willing flesh in every direction.
Jaw clenched, Jacob scanned the room, looking for Julianne. To his relief, she wasn’t involved in any of the multiple couplings around the chamber, some standing and balancing precariously, some writhing on the floor amid piles of discarded robes.
Thank God.
He might have committed murder if he’d caught some fellow swiving her. Yet part of him would have sympathized with the poor blighter. Between the drum and the hazy smoke and the flashes of bare bodies, no man could remain unaffected. Still, he tried to tamp down his body’s reaction to what he was seeing and feeling. He had to find Julianne.
The incense smoke curled around him. The drummer shifted to a set of triple beats. “Ju-li-anne, Ju-li-anne,” it repeated in Jacob’s brain. His cock rose in an iron-hard stand and no amount of willing it away could ease the throbbing ache.
A man dressed in red was tying a naked woman, spread eagle, to a pair of stakes driven into one curved wall. She struggled and kicked at him, but he subdued and gagged her. Then he brought out his whip.
Jacob looked away, suppressing the urge to help her. He had no way to know if the woman’s protests weren’t part of some sexual theatre being acted out before the assembly. Besides, he was there to find Julianne. The bound woman’s hair was pale blond, not Julianne’s rich dark hue. If she wasn’t in the vaulted chamber, she must have gone through one of the three arched doorways. He slipped through the nearest one.
There were no doors leading off to side rooms, but there was a dim light in the distance. He pressed toward it, ducking to keep from bashing his forehead on the low beams.
When he reached the end of the tunnel, light filtered through a grill near the packed dirt floor. There was obviously a room on the other side of the wall, but he could find no door. He knelt down to peer through the man-sized grate and saw ... Lord Nelson’s sarcophagus.
“I’ll be damned,” he whispered. “The crypt of St. Paul.”
The resting place of one of his nation’s best-loved heroes was on the other side of the grill. Jacob grasped the iron bars and gave them a hard yank. Shards of pain lanced his brain from the cold metal, but the grate moved. Another good tug and he’d have it out.
But it didn’t seem likely Julianne had come that way. She was seeking the other half of her codex. There was nothing in the crypt but old bones. The vibrant drumbeat of the living called to him. So he turned to retrace his steps back to the vaulted chamber.
The light at the end of Julianne’s tunnel emanated from behind a partially closed door. She peered around it and found the floor was decorated with another ancient mosaic, this time with a male figure wearing a two-horned headdress and a female bent over at the waist, prepared to receive his third “horn.” An oil lamp sat on the edge of a well-appointed desk, stocked with all the necessary writing equipment. Despite the salacious mosaic, it was a surprisingly cozy room. A bookshelf was crammed along the back wall, full to bursting with leather-bound volumes.
The source of the musty smell. Old books.
She lifted the lamp so she could read some of the titles from the spines.
Wizards of the Wonder Years
,
Shadows of Power or Relics and their Uses
,
Standing Stones and other Ancient Marvels
—each book celebrated a topic more arcane than the next, but she didn’t find the other half of her manuscript on the shelves.
“Well, of course not,” she said, shaking her head. The incense was obviously still affecting her ability to think clearly. She had no doubt now that Sir Malcolm was the man in red and this private enclave was his. Even if he hadn’t deciphered the clues to the location of the last dagger, he’d appreciate how valuable the manuscript was and would keep it under lock and key.
She made a thorough search of the desk and came up empty, though there was one locked drawer she was unable to jimmy.
She plopped into the desk chair, wondering what she could use to pry open the final drawer. Even if she managed it, there was every chance she might find nothing but mouse droppings and shredded parchment. In despair, she laid her head on the desk and let herself weep.
“The incense affects some people like that, Lady Cambourne.” The masculine voice made her jerk upright. The man in red filled the doorway. “It releases whatever we normally repress. Let your tears flow. Undoubtedly, you have earned them.”
“Sir Malcolm, I presume,” she said, wiping her eyes. Even under the influence of drugging smoke, she was not going to let the man watch her cry.
He threw back his hood and removed his gold domino, revealing that she was right. “Usually I keep on my mask for our solemnities, but that’s for the masses. The time for subterfuge between you and me is past, I think.”
“Solemnities? Is that what you call the debauch in the next room?” Julianne said, rising from the chair, but still keeping the desk between them. She curled her lip with disdain. He was not a man who’d be moved by weakness. “I’d expect more class from an evening in a brothel.”
A wicked smile lifted his mouth. “I give my followers what they want. And they give me what I want.”
His gaze seared over her, leaving no doubt in her mind what he wanted from her. She fancied he could see through the black robe and her layers of clothing and sense her body was still aching and needy from the effects of that aphrodisiac incense. No matter how badly she’d been drugged, she bloody well didn’t need him.
“I came expecting mysteries. I thought you were seeking knowledge,” she said when he took a step toward her.
“Knowledge is only a stepping-stone. Power is the goal.” He parted his robes, revealing that unlike his followers, he was not naked beneath them. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key on a slender ribbon. “You didn’t come for mysteries. You came to find something to unravel them with. And you are in dire need of this.”
Before she thought better of it, she glanced at the unopened desk drawer. When her gaze darted back to him, his pale brow arched in triumph.
“It’s in there,” he said, dangling the key before her.
How did he know what she was looking for?
“All you have to do is remove your clothing and give yourself to me freely. Without reservation.” He pulled a length of red silk from his other pocket. “Of course, I will require you to be bound. It is necessary in order to make you a worthy vessel, but I won’t insist it be in the temple with the others this time. You can make your offering to me right here on the desk.”
“Like hell she will.” Jacob burst through the door behind him.
Sir Malcolm whirled on him, but wasn’t quick enough to dodge Jacob’s fist. It connected with his jaw and sent him reeling. Sir Malcolm punched back, splitting Jacob’s lip with a solid jab. Jacob feinted left, then followed with a hard right to Malcolm’s temple. The Grand Master Druid dropped like a felled oak.
Julianne skittered around the desk and into Jacob’s arms, nearly knocking him over.