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  The physician will take the liberty of calling upon le Comte in ten days ' time to examine the man Hercule and see that no infection has arisen, and to satisfy himself that recovery is progressing. If the physician finds it advisable, he will bleed the man Hercule at that time.

  If he can be of service to le Comte again, the physician assures him that he would be honored to serve le Comte's household at any time.

  Believe me to be yours to command,

  André Schoenbrun, physician

  la Rue de Ecoulè-Romain

  Chapter 6

  Lucienne Cressie regarded the darkening room through glazed, exhausted eyes. Nothing looked familiar, though she had slept in this room almost every night since her marriage to Achille. From the heavy draperies around her bed to the tall, gilt-wood chests against the far wall, it was all as foreign to her as the fittings of the private quarters of a Chinese emperor would be.

  Her husband had been with her some time ago. She was not clear in her mind how much time had passed since he had left, for the wine he had given her must surely have been drugged. She moved weakly, and felt a creeping sickness in her body.

  She grasped at the sheets as if she were drowning, wondering what would become of her. Each day she told herself that she could sustain her travesty of a marriage a little while longer, but at night, alone with nothing but dreams to possess her, she felt her courage eroding. At those moments, even prayer did not help her, and that, more than anything else, frightened her.

  Now her eyes filled with tears as she thought about the few moments Achille had given to her, his disdain for her suffering, his callous indifference to her pleadings. She had begged him tonight to let her enter a convent. She was even willing to disappear, perhaps to the New World, so that he would not be troubled with her in any way again. He had laughed, saying that if she wished to devote herself to religion, he would take care to give her the opportunity she wanted. He had locked her in the room, as he had the day before.

  She had played her new violoncello for a time, but found little consolation in its music, and her mind wandered as the drug took possession of her mind.

  Now she lay on the bed, and felt her resistance give way. Achille was planning something for tonight, she knew. The night before, she had listened well into the early hours while Achille and his cronies talked in the library below. There had been sounds like chanting, and, much later, cries and comments that told her the men were enacting what her husband called the Rites of Athens. She closed her eyes and tried to compose her thoughts for prayer.

  Dizziness overcame her, and she opened her eyes again in the vain hope that the images would come to rest. Her head ached abominably, and her ears rang.

  The room seemed much darker now, and she thought perhaps she had slept, or was still sleeping. When she could not bring the tassles of the canopy that hung at the foot of her bed into focus, she turned her head to the wall. As she stared at the thick folds of the bed hangings, she thought that the cloth moved. She tried to turn away, and found that she could not.

  His eyes were warm, very warm and hungry.

  It was the dream again, and this time she felt herself move toward the image, shameful joy in her heart. She recognized the guilt of her passion, and surrendered to it, to his warm, insistent mouth, now on her lips, now on her throat.

  His hands caressed her with a touch as light as gossamer, and full of fire. She could feel his weight beside her, and welcomed it, almost weeping as she drew him toward her.

  In some remote part of her mind, she wondered if Achille had sent him to her as a terrible jest, but she could not imagine how even Achille could send a dream.

  She felt herself warm and cold at once, and she strained to hold him nearer to her. His touch was gentle, expert, and drew her out of herself. There was a single sharp moment of pain, but it was followed so swiftly by ecstatic languor that it served only to punctuate her rapture. She was drifting, drifting, as insubstantial as music. The warm throb of her violoncello between her legs was nothing compared to this sweet, shining dream that fired her very veins with delight. This splendidly ravished sleep bore her as if on wings, or the wind. She felt her heart open as a flower opens, and slipped away into deep, silent slumber. There was no weight beside her, and the delicious thrumming of her blood subsided to that gentle tide of rest.

  It was cold in the room when she woke, and the tumbled bedclothes gave her no protection and little warmth. She was cold, and now that the effect of the drug had dissipated, she felt numb and exhausted.

  Guilt assaulted her as well. She knew that such dreams were as deep a sin as the act itself, for she who had committed adultery in her heart was an unfaithful wife in the eyes of Holy Church. Her Confessor had told her this was so, and without exception, for adultery was lust, and lust was one of the Seven Deadly Sins. She crossed herself, feeling hypocritical, and pulled the covers about her, shame coloring her face.

  The prayers would not come. In vain she tried to fix her thoughts on heavenly things, and each time, she was pulled back to the blissful dream, and the delirious sensuality that it brought, the dream where her body sang a sacrament all its own that the austere example of the saints and martyrs could not dispel.

  Her mind was still divided when die door opened and to her amazement, her husband came in. "Good morning, Madame. I trust I do not disturb you?" His mocking eyes saw her dishevelment as evidence of the drug's efficacy.

  "Achille?" she asked, feeling a cold of another kind rise in her. She gathered the bedclothes around her in response to the disgust she saw in his face.

  He walked toward her bed. "Come, Madame, come. We have guests belowstairs. It would be remiss of you not to put in an appearance to greet them." He held out his hand to her, and there was an implacability about him. This was not another one of his cruel jokes. This was another matter entirely. "Come, Madame," he repeated.

  She frowned. "I am not dressed, Achille. Do you seek to make a mockery of your wife?" She hoped fervently that was all he had planned. "Can you not leave me be?"

  "These are your guests, Madame. They are in your home. It would be rude of you not to join us when they have expressly asked for you." He reached for her negligee and tossed it to her. "This is appropriate enough, wife. Put it on and come with me."

  Even as she started to obey, some sense in her brought her attention into sharp focus. She knew that there was something terribly wrong, and that Achille was not here for her protection. At the least, humiliation awaited her; at the worst, she dared not guess.

  "Do not delay," he ordered her, his face becoming ugly as harsh lines set in it. "The hour is almost past."

  "No," she said, backing away from him. She did not know what the hour meant, but she knew now that there was danger and that her husband was leading her into it. "Go away, Achille. I am not well. Please excuse me to your guests."

  "They are our guests," he said with thinly disguised irritation. "You must come down. Saint Sebastien particularly wants to make your acquaintance." He pointed to the negligee. "Put it on, Madame. I will not wait any longer for you."

  She shook her head. "No."

  He stared across the room at her, his fists clenching at his sides. Then, with an effort, he walked toward her. "You are my wife. You will do as I say."

  Lucienne Cressie had been frightened by Achille before, but she had never felt terror of the sort that raced through her now. She pulled pillows from the bed and threw them as he came nearer, knowing that this was trivial in the face of his rage. There was a heavy glass perfume jar on the stand by her bed, and she threw that, too.

  Achille stumbled under the impact of the jar as it glanced off his brow, and swayed for a moment on his feet, his mouth working. Then he lunged at his wife.

  Without any hesitation, La Cressie pulled open the window behind her. It was a two-story drop to the garden, and she knew this. Before Achille could grab her, she threw herself out, feeling the night air cold on her body as she fell.

&n
bsp; She realized she had been stunned, because she could hear many voices in the house, now that her mind had cleared. She was not dead. She tested her arms, and found that one of her shoulders was dislocated. She had not felt the pain until she tried to move it, and then it struck her with a hammer blow. Inconsequently the thought came to her that she could not play the violencello with her shoulder thus. She would have to get help, and care.

  She heard voices grow nearer, and in the gloom there was a lantern shine. Now she cursed herself for failing in her attempt at death. She knew for her soul's sake she should repent. She was aware that she ought to thank God for sparing her so that she could make expiation for her sins, for the lust in her flesh, and for her attempted suicide. But the sound of the footsteps was growing louder, and she wished from her heart that she had died.

  "We have found her," said a voice she did not recognize, and she looked up to see a tall, thin man of perhaps sixty years, dressed in the height of fashion. His gray-green eyes were hooded, almost reptilian, and the smile he wore was more frightening than anger would have been.

  Behind him came another, older man whose outlandish clothes identified him as Baron Beauvrai, who addressed the man beside him. "Damme, but you get the luck, Clotaire. She's yours for the sacrifice, then."

  Clotaire de Saint Sebastien chuckled once, and Luci- enne's mouth grew dry at the sound of it. "She can be of use to me, at least, I suppose. We must be sure she is still a virgin. Have Achille and his friend bring her into the library." He knelt beside Lucienne, and ignoring her protests and shock, thrust his hand between her legs.

  "No, no, no," she whispered, and tightened her legs.

  "Madame," Saint Sebastien said coolly, "do not attempt to impede me. I warn you now that I will not tolerate that."

  She started to speak, and struggled against his probing hand. He sighed, and his fingers touched her painfully, intimately. Her head swam, and her legs closed again involuntarily. The pain he gave her this time welled up, cutting through the earlier, duller pain of her fall.

  Saint Sebastien stood up. "Good, she is intact. How many of the Circle will take her?" If he saw the horror in Lucienne Cressie's face, he paid no attention to it.

  Beauvrai looked hungrily at the woman on the ground.

  "A nice piece of flesh. It is a shame to have wasted her on one such as Achille."

  Saint Sebastien corrected him. "She will not be wasted. For our purposes, we must be glad that Achille prefers men."

  "No," Lucienne said, "No. No. No. No. No. No."

  Other men had joined them now, among them Achille Cressie. Lucienne saw that there was a red welt on his forehead, and felt some satisfaction in knowing that the perfume jar had hurt him.

  "... in the library. Immediately. We have less than an hour in which to finish the ceremony. It will be three months before we will have the same powerful influences for an Amatory Mass." He was already striding off toward the wide French doors leading into the house.

  The men with Achille were delighted to obey. As Achille grabbed her legs, de Vandonne pulled at her arms, ignoring her moan as her shoulder was wrenched again. As they lifted her into the air, she fainted once more.

  When she opened her eyes this time, she thought for a moment that her terror had been ill-founded, and that she had been taken to a physician for help. She was lying flat on a table, and there was a crucifix suspended over her head. Cowled figures stood around her. She was about to speak, to offer thanks for her rescue to these good Brothers, when she realized that she was still naked, and that the crucifix was inverted. Even as she saw this blasphemy, she looked at the corpus more clearly, seeing the obscenity that had been made of the Body of Christ. The erect phallus was as long as the torso of the figure, and a pentacle was engraved on the forehead. She turned away, crying openly now, knowing that she had not escaped at all.

  "Excellent, excellent," Saint Sebastien said, very near at hand. "She is conscious. So much the better." He addressed the hooded men around him. "You may use her as you will until three of the clock, once I have done with her, I will take her maidenhead, and will use her again just as the hour strikes. Keep that in mind. First and last, she is mine. Employ your lusts on her and on each other, but her virginity is mine."

  De Vandonne spoke, his voice shaky with excitement. "Will she submit, no matter what we do?"

  "She will submit," Saint Sebastien said with such utter certainty that Lucienne despaired. "If she does not, complain to me, and I will remedy that." He nodded to the hooded men. "I think perhaps you had best tie her down. The ropes aie fixed in the altar. And put the Devil's Member near at hand. I will need it at three o'clock. Be sure it is hot enough."

  "When you are done, who will taste her first?" asked one of the men in a coarse voice Lucienne did not know.

  "You must ask our host. It is for her husband to dispose of her. If he does not want her himself." This last was said with an unpleasant laugh.

  Achille grinned hugely, and there was genuine amusement in his tone as he said, "Le Grâce is so eager, and we of the aristocracy so rarely have the chance to do something for our lesser citizens..."

  "Achille!" Lucienne cried out with all her soul.

  Her husband's words stopped her cry. "Silence her, Le Grâce."

  She felt the rough hand cross over her mouth, and the inexpressible horror as her legs were tied, and her arms. She heard the hated voice of Saint Sebastien above her. "Dark Lord, this is for Power."

  At the first touch of his intruding flesh, she screamed, writhing in her bonds. Where was her dream now, the gentle hands, the sharp delight of kisses that were as the breath of life? Fierce, hating eyes looked down on her face as Saint Sebastien violated her. She bit her lip to stop the scream in her throat, wanting to keep this satisfaction from her rapist.

  Later they tore other sounds from her, and used her in their cruel delights. By the time Saint Sebastien donned the Devil's Member, Lucienne Cressie was only half-conscious, so that this monstrous invasion took only a sigh from her as she passed into unconsciousness again. Some of the Circle watched this moment with gloating faces, but Achille Cressie was not among them. He was deliciously, doubly impaled, and had not the slightest interest in what had happened to his wife.

  Text of a letter from the manservant Roger, to his master, le Comte de Saint-Germain, written in Latin, undated:

  To my master:

  I have continued my observation of Saint Sebastien, as you commanded me to do. It is as you suspected: he is gathering a new Circle around him. Already they have met, at the home of Achille Cressie, who has given them his wife. She was alive when I left at dawn, but I fear she is distracted from the use to which they put her. Saint Sebastien deflowered her, and after the others were through, raped her in the Satanic manner.

  You wished to know who among those attending the circle I recognized. They are as follows:

  de Vandonne

  Châteaurose

  Jueneport

  de la Sept-Nuit

  Le Grâce

  If you desire it, my master, I will continue to follow

  Saint Sebastien. He is vile, master. I pray you will destroy him.

  I have taken the liberty of summoning a priest to La Cressie, but the household has refused to admit him. Perhaps you will succeed where I have failed.

  This by special messenger, at matins. From my own hand,

  Roger

  Chapter 7

  Hôtel Transylvania glowed like a box of jewels for some colossal goddess. Every passage was lighted with fine beeswax candles, each chandelier glowed so brightly it seemed to be alive. The Great Hall had been expanded in the latest mode, and a gallery had been added for those who wished to promenade. The only thing that was missing, which would have made the Hôtel a complete success, was the mirror-lined wall in the Great Hall. Since the founding of Versailles, every large building was expected to have mirrors. But in Hôtel Transylvania, the mirrors had been replaced by gigantic paintings of rare beauty. T
wo were allegorical, showing Zeus at various of his exploits, and one, a somber painting of the death of Socrates, was an authentic Velâzquez. Smaller paintings adorned the wall, and all drew exclamations and admiration from the glamorous crowd that flocked there.

  The gambling rooms were set aside in the north wing of the gigantic three-story building. They were opulent as the rest of the Hôtel, but their grandeur was secondary to the risks taken in them; fortunes changed hands under the crystal shine.

  In the rest of Hôtel Transylvania, it was festival time. Several tubs with full-grown orange trees had been arranged down one side of the grand ballroom, and the musicians' bower was filled with flowers. Everyone commented on the extravagance, and secretly envied the wealth displayed in those perishable flowers, for in October, flowers were hard to come by in Paris, and those that were available were terribly dear.

  Lackeys and waiters in salmon-colored livery moved through the bustle, performing their services swiftly and unobtrusively. Every man employed by the Hôtel was well- mannered and spoke acceptable French, treating all patrons of the Hôtel with the most becoming deference. The wine was served in the best crystal, the cognac was the finest The china set out at three luxurious buffets was wonderfully translucent, the silver service a superb example of the most elaborate Italian craft. The food was haute cuisine, prepared by a small army of chefs and scullions in the cavernous kitchen at the back of the Hôtel.