“I baptize thee, child of Asmodeus, son of blood…” A kick from Grey’s foot caught Dashwood under the chin and sent him reeling backward. A hard punch in the pit of the stomach knocked the breath from Grey and quieted him for the remainder of the brief ceremony.

Then they set him on his feet, bloodstained, and gave him drink from a jeweled cup. He tasted opium in the wine, and let as much as he dared dribble down his chin as he drank. Even so, he felt the dreamy tendrils of the drug steal through his mind, and his balance grew precarious, sending him lurching through the crowd, to the great hilarity of the robed onlookers.

Hands took him by the elbows and propelled him down a corridor, and another, and another. A draft of warm air, and he found himself thrust through a door, which closed behind him.

The chamber was small, furnished with nothing save a narrow couch against the far wall, and a table upon which stood a flagon, several glasses…and a knife. Grey staggered to the table, and braced himself with both hands to keep from falling.

There was a strange smell in the room. At first he thought he had vomited, sickened by blood and wine, but then he saw the pool of it, across the room by the bed. It was only then that he saw the girl.

She was young and naked and dead. Her body lay limp, sprawled white in the light, but her eyes were dull and her lips blue, the traces of sickness trailing down her face and across the bedclothes. Grey backed slowly away, shock washing the last remnants of the drug from his blood.

He rubbed both hands hard across his face, striving to think. What was this, why was he here, with the body of this young woman? He brought himself to come closer, to look. She was no one he had seen before; the calluses upon her hands and the state of her feet marked her as a servant or a country girl.

He turned sharply, went to the door. Locked, of course. But what was the point? He shook his head, his brain slowly clearing. Once clear, though, no answers came to mind. Blackmail, perhaps? It was true that Grey’s family had influence, though he himself possessed none. But how could his presence here be put to such use?

It seemed he had spent forever in that buried room, pacing to and fro across the stone floor, until at last the door opened and a robed figure slipped through.

“George!”

“Bloody hell!” Ignoring Grey’s turn toward him, Everett crossed the room and stood staring down at the girl, brows knit in consternation. “What’s happened?” he demanded, swinging toward Grey.

“You tell me. Or rather, let us leave this place, and then you tell me.”

Everett put out a quelling hand, urging silence. He thought for a moment, and then seemed to reach some conclusion. A slow smile grew across his face.

“Well enough,” he said softly, to himself. He turned and reached toward Grey’s waist, pulling loose the cord that bound the robe closed. Grey made no move to cover himself, though filled with astonishment at the gesture, given the circumstances.

This astonishment was intensified in the next instant, as Everett bent over the bed and wrapped the cord round the neck of the dead woman, tugging hard to draw it tight, so the rope bit deep into flesh. He stood, smiled at Grey, then crossed to the table, where he poured two glasses of wine from the flagon.

“Here.” He handed one to Grey. “Don’t worry, it’s not drugged. You aren’t drugged now, are you? No, I see not; I thought you hadn’t had enough.”

“Tell me what is happening.” Grey took the glass, but made no move to drink. “Tell me, for God’s sake!”

George smiled again, a queer look in his eyes, and picked up the knife. It was exotic in appearance; something Oriental, at least a foot long and wickedly sharp.

“It is the common initiation of the brotherhood,” he said. “The new candidate, once approved, is baptized—it was pig’s blood, by the way—and then brought to this room, where a woman is provided for his pleasure. Once his lust is slaked, an older brother comes to instruct him in the final rite of his acceptance—and to witness it.”

Grey raised a sleeve and wiped cold sweat and pig’s blood from his forehead.

“And the nature of this final rite is—”

“Sacrificial.” George nodded acknowledgment toward the blade. “The act not only completes the initiation, but also insures the initiate’s silence and his loyalty to the brotherhood.”

A great coldness was creeping through Grey’s limbs, making them stiff and heavy.

“And you have…have done this?”

“Yes.” Everett contemplated the form on the bed for a moment, one finger gently stroking the blade. At last he shook his head and sighed, murmuring to himself once more. “No, I think not.”

He raised his eyes to Grey’s, clear and shining in the lamplight. “I would have spared you, I think, were it not for Bob Gerald.”

The glass felt slick in Grey’s hand, but he forced himself to speak calmly.

“So you did know him. Was it you who killed him?”

Everett nodded slowly, not taking his gaze from Grey’s.

“It is ironic, is it not?” he said softly. “I desired membership in this brotherhood, whose watchword is vice, whose credo is wickedness—and yet had Bob Gerald told them what I am, they would have turned upon me like wolves. They hold all abomination dear—save one.”

“And Robert Gerald knew what you were? Yet he did not speak your name as he died.”

George shrugged, but his mouth twitched uneasily.

“He was a pretty lad, I thought—but I was wrong. No, he didn’t know my name, but we met here—at Medmenham. It would have made no difference, had they not chosen him to join us. Were he to come again, though, and see me here…”

“He would not have come again. He refused the invitation.”

George’s eyes narrowed, gauging his truth; then he shrugged.

“Perhaps if I had known that, he need not have died. And if he had not died, you would not have been chosen yourself—would not have come? No. Well, there’s irony again for you, I suppose. And still—I think I would have killed him under any circumstance; it was too dangerous.”

Grey had been keeping a watchful eye on the knife. He moved, unobtrusively, seeking to get the corner of the table betwixt himself and Everett.

“And the broadsheets? That was your doing?” He could, he thought, seize the table and throw it into Everett’s legs, then try to overpower him. Disarmed, they were well-matched in strength.

“No, Whitehead’s. He’s the poet, after all.” George smiled and stepped back, out of range. “They thought perhaps to take advantage of Gerald’s death to discomfit Sir Richard—and chose that method, knowing nothing of his killer or the motive for his death. The greatest irony of all, is it not?”

George had moved the flagon out of reach. Grey stood half naked, with no weapon to hand save a glass of wine.

“So you intend now to procure my silence by claiming I am the murderer of this poor young woman?” Grey demanded, jerking his head toward the still figure on the bed. “What happened to her?”

“Accident,” Everett said. “The women are drugged; she must have vomited in her sleep and choked to death. But blackmail? No, that isn’t what I mean to do.”

Everett squinted at the bed, then at Grey, measuring distance.

“You sought to use a noose for your sacrificial duty—some mislike blood—and though you succeeded, the girl managed to seize the knife and wound you, severely enough that you bled to death before I could return to aid you. Tragic accident; such a pity. Move a little closer to the bed, John.”

Never think a man is helpless, only because he’s fettered.Grey flung his wine into Everett’s face, then smashed his glass against the stones of the wall. He whirled on a heel and lunged upward, jabbing with all his might.

Everett grunted, one side of his handsome face laid open, spraying blood. He growled deep in his throat, baring bloody teeth, and ripped the blade across the air where Grey had stood a moment before. Half blinded by blood and snarling like a beast, he lunged and swung again. Grey ducked, was hit by a flying wrist, and fell across the woman’s body. He rolled sideways, but was trapped by the folds of his robe.