Ceremony In Death

He considered this period to have embodied hedonism, self-indulgence, and a devotion to earthly pleasures.

Royalty had ruled and had done as it pleased. And hadn't art flourished? If peasants had starved outside the privileged walls, that was simply a societal mirror of nature's natural selection. The chosen few had lived life to the hilt.

And here, in midtown Manhattan, three hundred years later, he could enjoy the fruits of their indulgence.

But he wasn't enjoying them now. He paced, drinking unblended scotch in quick, jerky gulps. Terror was a dew on his brow that refused to be wiped away. His stomach roiled, his heart rabbitted in his chest.

He'd seen murder. He was nearly sure of it. It was all so hazy, all so surreal, like a virtual reality program with elements missing.

The secret room, the smoke, voices – his own among them – lifted in chant. The taste, lingering on the tongue, of warm, tainted wine.

Those were all so familiar, a part of his life now for three years. He'd joined the cult because he believed in its basic principles of pleasure, and he'd enjoyed the rituals: the robes, the masks, the words repeated and repeated while candles guttered into pools of black wax.

And the sex had been incredible.

But something was happening. He found himself obsessing about meetings, desperately craving that first deep gulp of ceremonial wine. And then there were the blackouts, holes in his memory. He'd be logy and slow to focus the morning after a rite.

Recently, he'd found blood dried under his nails and couldn't remember how it had gotten there.

But he was starting to. The crime scene photos Eve had shown him had clicked something open in his mind. And had filled that opening with shock and horror. Images swirled behind his eyes. Smoke swirling, voices chanting. Flesh gleaming from sex, the moans and grunts of vicious mating. Dank black hair swaying, bony hips pumping.

Then the spray of blood, the gush of it, spurting out like that final cry of sexual release.

Selina with her feral, feline smile, the knife dripping in her hand. Lobar – God it had been Lobar – sliding from the altar, his throat gaping wide like a screaming mouth.

Murder. Nervously, he twitched the heavy drapes open a fraction, let his frightened eyes search the street below. He'd seen a blood sacrifice, and not of a goat. Of a man.

Had he dipped his fingers into that open throat? Had he slipped them between his lips to taste the fresh blood? Had he done something so abhorrent?

My God, dear God, had there been others? Other nights, other sacrifices? Could he have witnessed and blanked it from his mind?

He was a civilized man, Louis told himself as he jerked the draperies back into place. He was a husband and a father. He was a respected attorney. He wasn't an accessory to murder. He couldn't be.

With his breath coming fast and short, he poured more scotch, stared at himself in one of the ornately framed mirrors. He saw a man who hadn't slept, hadn't eaten, hadn't seen his family in days.

He was afraid to sleep. The images might come more clearly in sleep. He was afraid to eat, sure the food would clog in his throat and kill him.

And he was mortally afraid for his family.

Wineburg had been at the ceremony. Wineburg had stood beside him and had seen what he had seen.

And Wineburg was dead.

Wineburg had had no wife, no children. But Louis did. If he was in danger and went home, would they come for him there? He had begun to understand during those long, sleepless nights, when liquor was his only company, that he was ashamed at the thought of his children discovering what he had participated in.

He had to protect them and himself. He was safe here, he assured himself. No one could get inside the suite unless he opened the door.

Possibly, he was overreacting. He mopped his sweating forehead with an already sodden handkerchief. Stress, overwork, too many late nights. Perhaps he was having a small breakdown. He should see a doctor.

He would. He would see a doctor. He would take his family and go away for a few weeks. A vacation, a time to relax, to reevaluate. He would break off from the cult. Obviously, it wasn't good for him. God knew it was costing him a small fortune in the bimonthly contributions. He'd gotten in too deeply somehow, forgotten he'd entered into the cult out of curiosity and a thirst for selfish sex.

He'd swallowed too deeply of wine and smoke, and it was making him imagine things.

But he'd had blood under his nails.

Louis covered his face, tried to catch his breath. It didn't matter, he thought. None of it mattered. He shouldn't have called Eve. He shouldn't have panicked. She would think him mad; or worse, an accessory.

Selina was his client. He owed his client his loyalty as well as his professional skill.

But he could see her, a knife gripped in her hand as she sliced it across exposed flesh.

Louis stumbled across the suite, into the master bath and, collapsing, vomited up scotch and terror. When the cramps passed, he pulled himself up. He leaned over the sink, croaked out a request for water, at forty degrees. It poured out of the curved gold faucet, splashed into the blindingly white sink and cooled his fevered skin.

He wept a moment, shoulders trembling, sobs echoing off the shining tiles. Then he lifted his head, forced himself to look in the mirror once more.

He had seen what he had seen. It was time to face it. He would tell Eve everything and shift his burden into her hands.

He felt a moment of relief, sweet in its intensity. He wanted to call his wife, hear his children's voices, see their faces.

A movement reflected in the glass had him whirling, had his heart bounding into his throat. "How did you get in here?"

"Housekeeping, sir." The dark woman in the trim black-and-white maid's uniform held a stack of fluffy towels. She smiled.

"I don't want housekeeping." He passed a shaking hand over his face. "I'm expecting someone shortly. Just leave the towels and…" His hand slid slowly to his side. "I know you. I know you."

Through the smoke, he thought through the cracked ice of fresh terror. One of the faces in the smoke.

"Of course you do, Louis." Her smile never wavered as she dropped the towels and revealed the athame she held. "We fucked just last week."

He had time to draw breath for a scream before she plunged the knife into his throat.

– =O=-***-=O=-

Eve strode out of the elevator, bristling with a

The fact that they'd both been aware he'd been apologizing to Roarke's wife rather than Eve Dallas had only irritated her.

She'd deal with him later, she promised herself. See how the Luxury Club would like a full-scale inspection by the Department of Health, maybe a visit from Vice to check out their LCs. She had strings she could pull to insure the management a couple of days of minor hell.

She turned toward 5-C, started to punch the buzzer under the peep screen. Her gaze flickered over the security light. It beeped green for disengaged.

She drew her weapon. "Peabody?"

"Here, sir." Though her voice was muffled against Eve's shirt pocket.

"The door's unlocked here. I'm going in."

"Do you want backup, Lieutenant?"

"Not yet. Stay on me."

She slipped inside, soundlessly, shut the door at her back. She kept to her defensive crouch, sweeping her weapon and her gaze through the room.

Fancy furniture, ugly and overdone in her mind, a rumpled suit jacket, a half-empty bottle. Drapes drawn. Quiet.