Conflagration (30 page)

The focus of the entire chamber was the vast and conveniently circular bed, where, beneath a rearing dragon headboard of dark and ancient wood, supported by a pair of carved gargoyles, Madam Anastasia de Wynter held her most closed and intimate court, surrounded by satin covers and silken sheets, an infinity of pillows and cushions, a litter of books, newspapers, and loose notes and documents, as well as a half-dozen young men and women who had all the obeisance and deference of attendant acolytes. Although she affected a wide-brimmed hat with a veil that almost totally concealed her face, her white and surprisingly youthful-looking body was an exhibition of near nakedness in flowing and carelessly open peignoir, stockings, garters, and lace gloves. A young woman was massaging Madame de Wynter’s shoulders, a young man held her wineglass, another lay at her feet simply staring in glazed admiration. Beside the bed was quite the most elaborate pipe that Argo had ever seen. A small brazier heated whatever the smoking mixture might be, and then a series of tubes conveyed the resulting smoke through cooling devices, that included a water-filled chamber in which small fish played cross-eyed in the bubble streams, to finally distribute it through multiple hoses and carved bone mouthpieces that enabled a number of smokers to partake of the pleasure at the same time. As the girls brought Raphael and Argo to the bed, Madame de Wynter was smoking, with her veil slightly raised. As she exhaled and placed the hose and mouthpiece to one side, the raven in the rafters coughed. She dropped her veil, but Argo could make out that she was smiling as she spoke.

“Majors Vega and Weaver, I presume.”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s us.”

“I am Anastasia de Wynter.”

“Yes, ma’am. We are very pleased to meet you.”

Raphael bowed slightly. “We have heard a lot about you. You have an amazing home.”

“And now you’ve come to my Turret Room?”

Argo indicated the three girls. “The ladies were very insistent.”

“They were only obeying my orders.”

Nell giggled. “We always obey Madame’s orders.”

Daphne grinned. “If we know what’s good for us.”

De Wynter looked Argo and Raphael up and down with a directness that was akin to a military inspection. “You are both very handsome in your uniforms.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“But now it is time to remove them.”

Argo was momentarily taken aback. He glanced at Raphael. Had he heard de Wynter correctly? Did she really expect the two of them to strip on her orders? Raphael seemed only able to shrug, and his hands went to the top button of his dress tunic. Behind them was a huge man with a perfectly shaved head, slanted eyes, and broad cheekbones, who had to be Madame de Wynter’s bodyguard. His general demeanor left Argo in no doubt he could very easily and very swiftly refute any argument. Thus Argo also started to unbutton his tunic, but de Wynter had already noticed the hesitation. “Don’t be shy, Major Weaver. The Turret Room is where all secrets are revealed.”

The raven croaked in apparent agreement, and Argo and Raphael began removing their uniforms. The hunchback at the Hamilton key didn’t even look up as they stripped. He really did have total detachment. De Wynter, on the other hand, was watching closely, and did not seem to think they were undressing quickly enough. “Daphne, Nell, help them divest. The boys still seem a little bashful.”

While Estelle poured glasses of wine, Daphne and Nell made short work of the boys’ remaining buckles and buttons, pulling their tunics and undershirts over their shoulders and then easing down their tight breeches. Once their boots were off, the floor was cold underfoot as he and Raphael stood naked, unsure of what was expected of them. De Wynter sensed this and beckoned. “Come to me now, lads. Without your grand Albany uniforms, you really have no ceremonies on which to stand.”

Propelled forward by Daphne and Nell, Argo irrationally felt like a small child being invited to the bed of his mother, back in those so much simpler, happier days, long before the Mosul had come and when his father had still been alive, but he also had a sense of absurdity as he climbed onto the circular mattress and crawled across the covers. At a gesture from de Wynter, the girl who had been massaging her shoulders and the adoring young man withdrew to the outer shadows of the room. De Wynter patted the bed. “I want one of you on each side of me.” She looked up at Nell and Daphne. “And you girls will be ready to attend us.”

The girls needed no further urging. Their party dresses came over their heads and they were down to brief lingerie. Loaded as he was, Argo knew that this was hardly a usual situation, even by London standards, and he might as well relax and enjoy whatever happened. And the first thing that happened was that de Wynter offered him a mouthpiece to the pipe.

“My dear Argo, it’s a blend of recreational opium and other herbal delicacies, most gathered deep in enemy territory and one, I was led to believe, actually purloined from the personal reserve of no less than Jeakqual-Ahrach.”

After hearing such a provenance, Argo was not going to refuse. He took the mouthpiece and inhaled deep, but almost coughed the smoke back out of his lungs when he heard Raphael’s blunt comment. “I don’t believe you.”

Argo looked away, not wanting to be a part of whatever happened next. Madame de Wynter was plainly unaccustomed to being disbelieved, and she initially froze, and Garth the bodyguard stiffened, but then she smiled from behind the veil. “You think I exaggerate, Major Vega?”

“How could anyone get close enough to Jeakqual-Ahrach to steal her drugs?”

“There are not many with the courage to question me like that, right here in my own bed.”

Argo grinned. The effects of the smoke had him reeling. “I think she might be telling the truth, brother.”

“It seems like Raphael here has inherited a laudable Hispanian scepticism.” She made an odd sign to Nell. Nell slid her way up the bed and began fondling Raphael. He gasped, but de Wynter continued the conversation as though nothing was happening. “In answer to your question, there are very few who have ever stolen from Jeakqual-Ahrach, and lived to enjoy the theft.”

“I can…” Raphael suppressed a groan. “… believe that.”

“But Morgana’s Web is almost without limits.”

Daphne was now tracing unreadable symbols on Argo’s stomach and her breast was against his leg, but he felt he was required to maintain his end of the conversation. “We’d never heard of it until we came here.”

“And yet you were in contact with it, Major Weaver.”

“I was?”

“Almost immediately after you left your home in Thakenham.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The sadly deceased Bonnie Appleford was one of the Web’s associates.”

“What?” Argo’s surprise at the unexpected mention of the name from the past was almost matched by his confusion at seeing that Nell had now taken Raphael in her mouth and Raphael had fallen on his side. The raven stared down at him, and he knew de Wynter was putting the two of them through some kind of test.

“Bonnie Appleford was an associate of Morgana’s Web?”

Bonnie had helped him escape the Mosul, but had been killed in a firefight while the two of them had been running with Slide and the Rangers, before The Four had even found each other. He knew that de Wynter couldn’t be lying. No way existed that she could know of Bonnie Appleford, let alone make up such a story. “It hardly seems possible.”

“Believe me, it is possible. With the Web nearly everything is possible.”

Daphne was now kissing Argo’s thighs and rubbing him with her cheek. De Wynter observed his confusion and tousled his hair, then she patted Daphne’s bobbing head. “You’d be mistaken to assume that all you have seen here, and all that is happening now, is merely empty decadence and hollow hedonism.”

Argo could not stop himself groaning, and de Wynter seemed amused. “All Four of you are moving to a new stage.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

“We will?”

“It is happening already. You two are here with me. Jesamine is with Jack Kennedy.” She again pointed to one of the curved images on the wall. “And if you look closely, you see Cordelia in the arms of Harriet Lime. You are all cross-connected to powerful energy sources.”

Daphne took her mouth from Argo and began kissing de Wynter’s stomach. De Wynter sighed. “There is, of course, one more hurdle that you to have to surmount.”

“What’s that?”

“I want the two of you boys to take hold of each other.”

CORDELIA

“You Americans are not quite as straitlaced as you seem on the outside.”

Cordelia whipped her tongue over Harriet Lime’s parted lips. “Full of surprises, darling, when our corsets are off.”

And soon her metaphoric corsets would be off. Harriet Lime was unfastening the remaining buttons of her Ranger’s dress tunic. Cordelia did not actually resist, but traces of doubt had managed to find their way into her mind. “Does this qualify as an orgy?”

Lime smiled. “I believe so.”

It certainly seemed like an orgy, maybe with some of the properties of a ritual. The music was rhythmic and insistent, and a light projector had commenced to beam swirling patterns over the draped walls, and even across the disorder of prone and supine guests. The beating of the bodhran was relentless in its demand that all remaining reservations be abandoned. An old and basic power was unbound and would not be denied. Clothes fell away and bodies alternately tensed and relaxed.

“I’m very drunk, but I don’t know if I want to do it in the middle of all these people.”

“Do what my, darling?”

Harriet was kissing Cordelia’s right breast, and Cordelia was enjoying the sensation immensely. She raised her arms to give Harriet Lime easier access. “You know very well what we are about to do. We are practically doing it right now.”

“But you feel inhibited by the crowd?”

“Not exactly inhibited.”

The benodex and absinthe had placed Cordelia at some detachment from the activities of her body. From a narcotized middistance she could watch herself moan and squirm obscenely, and very much enjoy the spectacle. She just wasn’t sure that she wanted a whole lot of strangers enjoying it along with her. Cordelia was reasonably accustomed to a variety of erotic permutations. The various coupling and multiples employed by The Four to achieve a sex-energy trigger to push them into the Other Place had more than prepared her for what was now taking place, and she was also evolving a theory, in so far as mental evolution was possible in her condition, that an orgy had to be, by definition, more than just a lot of couples having sex, one on one, in the same room. Like the shark must swim to survive, the movement forward of the orgy had to be to extreme and challenging, numerically unconventional, creatively depraved, and physically innovative.

“So exactly what?”

Cordelia reached out and stroked the English girl’s hair. “I don’t know.” But she did know. The increased sensitivity that had come with her training told Cordelia, even in her current insobriety, that a massive sexual energy was being generated right there in the room, enough to knock over a house, perhaps, if it could ever be channeled, and she was more than a little apprehensive that it might be channeled through her. Then Cordelia’s back arched. As Harriet’s lips moved down her body and her hand slid between Cordelia’s legs, she qualified her first statement. “But I don’t think I actually care.”

Harriet was unbuttoning Cordelia’s breeches, and Cordelia wrapped a languid leg around her. Tiny bright flashes danced in front of her eyes, and temporarily hid the identity of the figure who was suddenly standing and looking down at them. Cordelia assumed it was an interloping male looking to join their girl-play, but then he spoke. “I came to see if you wanted to leave, but you seem to be otherwise engaged.”

She instantly recognized the voice. “Gideon!”

Gideon Windermere, the previous objective of her entire evening, was staring down at her as she lay sprawled and wanton, half out of the uniform, legs spread for Harriet Lime and loving it.

“When I told you to be nice to Miss Lime, I didn’t have anything so extreme in mind.”

For once, Cordelia was at a loss for words. “Gideon, I…”

“You’re busy and I have to go. Doubtless we’ll catch up with each other tomorrow.”

Cordelia started to protest, but Windermere was already walking away. “Gideon, no…”

She began to hurriedly disengage herself from Harriet Lime and, at the same time, pull on her uniform. Harriet immediately began to take offense. “You’re leaving me to run after
him
?”

“I’m sorry. I have to.”

As Cordelia stood up, Harriet Lime rolled onto all fours. “You really are a bitch.”

Cordelia couldn’t worry about Harriet Lime’s feelings. She was on her feet and lurching through Deerpark, trying to fix her clothing. As she emerged from the front door, Windermere was already staring the engine of his Armstrong roadster. She ran towards the car, stumbling on the gravel. “Gideon, wait! Please wait!”

But he either didn’t hear her or was ignoring her. He put the car in gear and started down the drive. Cordelia halted and let out a forlorn cry. “Oh shit!”

Her distress was so great that she did not notice the figure moving up behind her until the hand holding the stinking, chemical-soaked rag was over her face, and she was already plunging into black unconscious oblivion.

SIX

ARGO

Argo sat in the café in the Asquith Hotel and stared dismally at his plate. It was occupied by a very large English breakfast: two sausages, two fried eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, baked beans, fried potatoes, and something called black pudding, plus toast and black-currant jam, and the two fried eggs seemed to be staring back at him in mute reproach that he had ordered so much food and was now not eating it. He had hardly slept, but was hungover to the point of mutilation. Earlier, he had sworn an oath that he would never drink or take benodex again, but he had lately relented sufficiently to order a gin and orange juice along with his coffee, and, had anyone offered him one of the capsules of yellow powder, he probably would have taken it and asked for another, justifying his oath-breaking by claiming it was a matter of survival. He had managed to shave and dress for the day’s parade, and make it down to the café for a late breakfast, but, after those efforts, he had flagged. He took a sip of gin and orange and decided he should force himself to eat. He liberally poured catsup over the eggs, and then tore off a piece of toast and stabbed the yolks with it. He ate the piece of toast with its coating of egg and tomato sauce, but felt queasy before he had even swallowed.