House of Dark Delights (13 page)

Charlotte, her eyes wild with frustration and outrage, strained against her bindings as she watched him rummage in his pocket for the key to the door.

“I told you the lesson would sting,” he said.

She shook her head frantically, desperately, until the makeshift gag loosened and she could spit it out. “Don't leave! Oh, God, Darius,
please.
You can't leave me like—”

He slapped her face so hard her head whipped to the side. “Don't tell me what I can't do!”

She stared at him, her cheek reddening.

A distant, diminishing part of him, the part that was still the Darius of old, was appalled that he'd struck a woman in anger—but the new Darius, Charlotte's pet monster, reveled in her shock and her pain. God, how he loathed what he'd become, what she'd made him, but most of all he loathed her for doing this to him.

“Darius,” she said. “Don't go. Darius, please…”

He turned and left.

Six

T
O THE
powers of darkness,” Francis Dashwood toasted as he raised his horn-shaped glass of brandy.

“To the powers of darkness,” echoed Lili, along with the others who'd gathered in the great hall for the traditional post-mass banquet: the superior Hellfires in their white silk monks' robes, the rank-and-file members in their ordinary garb, and the women, all now identically attired, local virgins and imported adventuresses alike, in black nuns' habits.

All save Lili, who stood next to Dashwood with her hair still loose, and wearing the voluminous veil she'd worn during the mass, sans cape and body ornaments. The Bona Dea always retained the veil during the banquet, but rather than draping it over her entire body head to foot, as was customary, Lili had chosen to wrap it about herself, knotting it on one shoulder like the
lubushu
of her homeland. This way, although her body was still visible through the gossamer folds to those who stared hard enough—which seemed to be every man in the room, and some of the women—there would be something left to the imagination. And imagination, in Lili's view, fueled the passions ever so much more effectively than crude displays of flesh.

“Archer, old chap!” Dashwood called out. “You've joined us after all.”

All eyes turned toward the main doorway, which framed the earnest young Lord Henry, their mysterious hostess's major-domo.

“I, er, shan't be lingering,” Archer said. “Just dropped by to, you know, make certain you've got what you need, see that the hall has been readied per your instructions.” He surveyed the majestic hall with its lofty, oak-trussed ceiling, polished wainscoting, and tall windows, blinking as he took in the various playthings set up among the settees and fainting couches: a spanking horse, a whipping frame in the shape of a St. Andrew's cross, a set of stocks, a pyramidal ladder fitted out with restraints, a rack of assorted shackles and ropes, and of course the rampant black swan that served more or less as the Hellfires' mascot. He stared at Lili's translucent attire for a fleeting moment, met her eyes, and quickly looked away.

Lili followed his gaze to an easel near a window open to the night sky, where Mr. Hogarth sat painting a canvas based upon one of his earlier sketches, his oils, brushes, and solvents arranged on a table beside him. Hanging on the wall nearby was the slate on which the Hellfires' steward, Paul Whitehead, would keep score of the members' amorous accomplishments during the festivities to come.

On the dais at the far end of the hall, servants put the finishing touches on a row of candlelit, damask-draped banquet tables laden with a quintessential Hellfire Club feast. Most of the victuals had been chosen for their stimulating qualities and flavored with such aphrodisiacal spices as gingerroot, saffron, aniseed, and chili peppers. Platters of silver and cut glass were heaped with exotic game, roast beef carved to resemble female buttocks, breastlike pairs of squabs adorned with cherries, deer penises
Suédois,
snails, sardines, hard-boiled eggs, avocado pears, pomegranates, asparagus, artichokes, leeks, truffles, chestnuts, orchid bulbs, a dozen varieties of oysters, gallons of wine, gin, and treacherously potent “Hellfire Punch,” and most seductive of all, from Lili's viewpoint, a cluster of little copper pots on braziers filled with luscious, fragrant chocolate.

Dashwood was assuring Lord Henry that they had everything they needed and telling him how reluctant they would be to leave on the morrow. “Most sporting of Madame des Ombres to have invited us, sight unseen,” he said. “Must be a damned fine lady—
damned
fine.”

“Er, yes, I daresay she is,” Archer said as he backed out through the door, stealing another furtive glance at Lili as he did so. “Good. Jolly good. Well, then. I shan't detain you any longer.”

Once Archer had closed the door behind him, Dashwood announced that, in keeping with Hellfire tradition, the Abbot of the Day would have first choice of the ladies, after which the others could pair up as they saw fit. He waved a hand, whereupon the “nuns” formed a line to either side of Lili.

“Right, then.” Dashwood made a come-forward gesture to Elic, who looked remarkably like his charming sister. They had the same radiant gaze beneath those dark, slashing eyebrows, the same fine bones and burnished gold hair, which Elic wore in a ribbon-tied queue that trailed halfway down his back. He was lean and rangy, with squared-off shoulders and the kind of controlled grace that Lili found irresistible in a man. Something else she found irresistible was compassion, a quality sadly lacking in many of his sex. But the heartening little smile Elic had graced her with at the beginning of the mass, the way he'd flinched when Dashwood had entered her so roughly, the way he'd looked at her, touched her…

His touch had both thrilled and comforted her, a heady combination, and a novel one. The life Lili led, the life she was forced to lead, afforded her ample opportunity to ease her relentless lust, but none to ease her sense of isolation. The Hellfires and their ilk—for they weren't the only such voluptuaries with whom Lili had thrown in her lot over the years—seemed fixated on sexual gratification to the virtual exclusion of other forms of personal communion. When they conversed, it was about sex; when they touched, it was to fuck or suck, or to ready themselves for such sport. And it was always sport with them, never, ever lovemaking.

For the most part, Lili was content enough with this state of affairs. After all, it would only complicate matters to have to cultivate an actual relationship every time she felt the need for sexual release, which was almost constantly. Yet there were times, even when she was surrounded by others, as now, that she felt utterly, crushingly alone.

“Well, Elic?” Dashwood said. “Which of these delectable creatures will favor you with her company this evening?”

Elic looked directly at Lili, didn't even pretend to consider the others.

She might have looked away coyly, but instead she held his gaze, wordlessly acknowledging the invisible ribbon binding the two of them together.

He walked up to her and bowed.
“Mademoiselle.”

She smiled up at him. “Your servant,
monsieur.
”

No sooner had Lili put her hand in Elic's than the rest of their company launched into the debaucheries that were the highlight of most Hellfire gatherings. In groups of two, three, and four, they laid claim to the various furnishings and devices scattered throughout the hall, stripped off their clothes, and had at it.

“Let me take you to my chamber.” Elic had a deep, raspy, Gallic-seasoned voice that sent a giddy little tickle up and down Lili's spine.

She shook her head. “We must remain here, among the others—at least in the beginning, while those who matter among the Hellfires are still sober enough to notice our presence.”

“Those who matter?” Elic looked around, shaking his head. “They're bad actors in silly costumes. None of them matter.”

Lowering her voice as she glanced about, Lili said, “Perhaps not, but they have their way of doing things, and if I don't comply, I shall find myself dismissed from their company in short order.”

“If they don't matter,” he asked, “why should that trouble you?”

She turned to watch Winnie Aldridge being gamahuched by George Walpole whilst the Duke of Kingston lashed her to the ladder. A few yards away, several bodies writhed in unison on two pushed-together couches, a fleshy tangle of torsos and limbs.

“There are few venues where a lady with certain appetites may satisfy them without restraint,” she said. “The Hellfire Club may be absurd in many respects, but it is a godsend for one such as I.”

Elic looked around, his gaze lighting on the minstrels' gallery over the screens passage. “I don't think anyone's up there. We'd still be in the hall, more or less.”

Bemused but gratified by Elic's desire to be alone with her, or as alone as could be managed, Lili allowed him to guide her toward a narrow stairwell. Just before she ducked into it, she turned and saw Anton Turek standing still as death in the midst of all that carnal bedlam, watching her with an intensity that made her shiver. Had Archer not prevailed upon Dashwood, at Madame des Ombres' request, to name Elic Abbot of the Day, it would be Turek escorting her to a trysting place right now instead of Elic. Thank God for meddling hostesses.

The gallery was small, with a single curtainless window and no comfortable furnishings—just a semicircle of hard-backed chairs paired with music stands. Elic's hopeless expression as he looked around touched something in Lili's chest that made her smile.

“Come,” she said, drawing him by the hand to a dark corner as far as possible from the railing overlooking the hall proper. With her back to the wall, she tugged him closer.
Mamitu,
but he was tall; the top of her head didn't even reach his shoulders. “Here,” she said as she set about unhooking his robe. “Take me here.”

Bracing his hands against the wall, Elic bent his head to touch his lips to Lili's, an unexpected gesture that drew a little huff of surprise from her. The Hellfires rarely kissed during their orgies; when they did, it was with much mashing of lips and thrashing of tongue. Elic's kiss was warm, lingering…filled with sensual promise, but with an underlying tenderness.

Perfect.

“I know you're not permitted to refuse the Abbot of the Day,” he whispered as their mouths parted. “But if this isn't what you want—”

“If you hadn't chosen me, I'd have wept,” she said, astounded that she meant it. Parting his robe, she stroked her hands downward over his sinewy chest and abdomen to the straining shaft between his legs.

Elic groaned as she caressed him. He yanked her
lubushu
up to her waist and lifted her against the wall. But as she guided him to the mouth of her sex, or tried to, the flesh that had felt like a rod of steel just moments ago grew limp in her hand.

He looked not just surprised, but astounded. Muttering something in a language that sounded vaguely Nordic, he rubbed against her, his fingers digging into her hips as he ground her against the wall.

“Elic,” she said, but he just thrust harder, almost violently, though to little effect. “Stop,” she said gently. “Elic, please. It's all right.”

“No, it's not.” He set her down, looking truly confounded. “I can't…I…It makes no sense.”

“It happens,” she said as she pulled her
lubushu
back down.

“Not to me.”

Reaching up to stroke his face, she said, “'Tis the
azulla,
I think.”

“The what?”

“The incense they burn during the mass. My people called it—call it
azulla.
You probably know it by its Arabic name, hashish. It makes the mind spin. Be patient,
khababu.
Give the
azulla
time to wear off, and soon you will be—”

“No,” he said as he refastened his robe. “You don't understand. This doesn't happen to me. It
can't
happen to me,
azulla
or no
azulla.
”

“Forsooth,” she said with a gently mocking smile. “Are you so very different, then, from other men?”

“I'm not—” He bit off his words and looked away, his jaw rigid.

“You're not what?” she asked, scalp prickling.

With a flurry of laughter, the Marquis of Granby burst forth from the stairwell with one hand wrapped around a bottle of wine and the other around the naked waist of Emily Lawrence. “Bugger me, someone's beat us up here,” Granby slurred. “Say, you don't mind if we join you?” he asked as he tripped over a music stand and tumbled to the floor, along with a merrily shrieking Emily.

Bowing to Lili, Elic said, “Forgive me,
mademoiselle,
for having taken so much of your time,” and left.

Seven

L
ILI STOOD
in the entrance of the bathhouse watching Elic float facedown in the pool. The skylight overhead framed a mere sliver of moon, not enough to alleviate the darkness—unless, like Lili, one had eyes that could capture any faint hint of illumination, however thin, and magnify it several times over.

Had she not been blessed with this gift, she wouldn't even have known Elic was here. After he left the musician's gallery, she'd looked through the window and seen him striding away from the chateau toward the bathhouse. Anyone else would have seen little more than the blackness of night.

She'd gone downstairs and sipped a cup of chocolate while contemplating what had just transpired, meanwhile fending off carnal invitations from any number of half-naked, whip-wielding men—but not from Turek. The gloomy Bohemian sat leaning on his elbows in a darkened corner, a pair of steel wrist cuffs dangling absently from one hand, legs irons from the other, both prettily embossed and of dainty proportions. Lili recognized them as one of half a dozen sets commissioned by Dashwood for the express purpose of restraining females.

Turek's hood was pushed down, and he'd removed his wig for the mass, as required, exposing an unruly thatch of straw-colored hair. He glanced up and, upon spying Lili looking his way, his hang-gallows look gave way to a glint of interest. He rose and started toward her.

She gulped down the rest of her chocolate and slipped away through the crowd. Twice, as she'd traced Elic's path to the bathhouse, she'd paused and turned, probing the night with her keen eyes to make sure Turek hadn't followed her; there'd been no sign of him.

Lili approached the bathhouse with guarded, silent steps, the only sound a faint gurgling from the cave stream that fed the pool. Mist rose like smoke from the surface of the water; viewed with her nighttime vision, it looked like a sheet of that black volcanic glass that covered the altar in the chapel. Elic's prone, naked body might have been carved from alabaster, with every muscle painstakingly sculpted and polished. His hair, now unbound, flowed like streams of honey over the surface of the water.

Lili watched Elic's inert form float slowly in her direction on a current from the stream, until his feet touched the edge nearest her. When they did, he lazily stretched out his arms and scooped the water, pushing himself forward until his head nearly touched the far end. It took several long minutes for him to drift back down to her end of the pool, which was about fifteen feet square. Again, as soon as his feet brushed marble, he propelled himself back to his starting position.

At no time did he lift his face from the water.

Slowly, warily—for Lili had bathed in this pool and knew of its conductive powers—she crouched down and dipped a hand into the balmy water. A terrible yearning swept over her—not just a sexual yearning, though that was part of it. She felt, in her very soul, a sudden, excruciating loneliness.

Elic bolted to his feet and whipped around to face her, water sluicing off him as he stood hip-deep in the pool; he was fully erect, every muscle tensed in readiness.
“Que se produit?”
he demanded, clawing strands of wet hair out of his eyes.
“Qui est là?”

“C'est moi—Lili.”

Elic searched the mist until his gaze met Lili's. He lowered himself onto the benchlike top step with a weighty sigh.

“Shall I leave?” she asked.

“No, stay.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “Please.”

She untied her
lubushu,
dropped it on the marble floor, and stepped down into the water.

“My God, you're beautiful,” he said in a low, earnest voice. “Perfect.” She was about to thank him when he asked, “What are you?”

Lili ducked beneath the surface of the water and covered the distance between them with one fluid underwater glide. Standing before him, she twisted the water out of her hair. “‘What,' not ‘who,'” she mused. “That means you already know.”

“I've been thinking about it. 'Tis only with other follets that I am unable to act upon my desires.”

“With
all
follets, or…?”

“With most of them. No matter how aroused I am, how much I want her, I wilt the moment I try to enter her. There are reputed to be exceptions, but I've yet to encounter one. I've been sheltered here for years, so I've met very few of my kind—our kind.”

“I must say, it always strikes me as odd to hear another follet refer to follets in general as ‘our kind,' given our variety, all the different races.” She took a seat next to him, submerging herself with a sigh of contentment. “There must be scores the world over, each with its own sub-races—and within those races, untold variations among individuals. When I happen across another follet, and am able to identify him as such, he's usually so different from me that I wouldn't begin to think of him as ‘my kind.'”

“Yet, every race of follet is descended, in one way or another, from Frøya,” he said. “That makes us all cousins, however distant or removed.”

“They don't call her Frøya where I come from. They call her Ishtar.”

“Darius calls her that, too,” he said. “Inigo calls her Hecate. Where
are
you from?”

“Babylonia—or what
was
Babylonia. And you?”

“The coast of Norvegr, what you call Norway. But I've lived here, at Grotte Cachée, for centuries.”

“How many?” Rarely did Lili pry into the lives of others, follet or human, but there was something about being here with Elic—the womblike warmth of the water, the mist and darkness, and their remarkable affinity—that emboldened her.

“How many centuries?” He looked away with an engagingly sheepish grin, skimming the hair off his face. “Eighteen.”

“Eighteen?”
She sat up, laughing incredulously. “You've been tucked away here, in this remote little valley, for eighteen hundred years?”

“I do venture out into the greater world from time to time,” he said. “In fact, I enjoy traveling. But I couldn't hope for a better home than Grotte Cachée. This is a haven for our kind. Our needs are seen to without our having to keep our true identities a secret every minute of every day. We have—”

“We?”

“There are two others,” Elic said. “Darius and Inigo. Darius was already here when I came, though it was some time before I met him, because he's something of a recluse. He lives in a chamber deep in that cave,” Elic said, cocking his head toward the mossy entrance to the grotto behind him, from which emanated an almost imperceptible glow. “Has ever since I've known him.”

“That must be why Lord Henry asked us to stay within a quarter mile of the entrance, where the torches are, if we decided to go exploring in there,” she said.

“That, and humans tend to experience a certain…derange-ment of the senses if they venture much farther than that. So did you?” he asked. “Go exploring?”

“God, no, I've had my fill of caves,” she said with a shiver. “I've had to live in them, or rather, hide in them, once too often. So cold and dank, even in the summer.”

“Our Grotte Cachée is actually quite cozy, year-round, even with the stream running through it. Not that I'd care to make my own home there, and God knows Inigo wouldn't. He's far too enamored of his creature comforts—the quintessential sybarite, lives entirely for pleasure. He arrived with the Romans when they occupied this valley after the Gallic Wars.”

“How came
you
to settle here?” she asked as she skimmed her hands across the glassy surface of the water to watch the trails and ripples.

“Desperation.” Elic settled back with his head against the lip of the pool, gazing up through the skylight.

“If you'd rather not talk about it…”

“'Tisn't a very pretty tale,” he said.

Lili found Elic's hand underwater and threaded her fingers through his, a gesture that felt as natural as if she'd done it a thousand times. “Tell me.”

Turning his head to look at her, he said, “I was forced to flee my native land when the farmers came. The hunters and fishermen who'd been there before, they had understood me and my ways. They called me an
álfr,
which means
elfe
in my present tongue. 'Tis much the same in English, I think.”

“It is,” said Lili, thinking,
Of course.
Elvenfolk—tall, stalwart, and fair-haired—were regarded as the most beautiful follets in existence.

“At that time,” Elic continued, “before the rise of the
Æsir,
which is to say the principal gods and goddesses,
álfafólk
were considered deities, and treated as such. The humans offered me
blóts,
which were sacrifices of meat and mead—and beautiful young women. It was their way of ensuring that there would always be enough elk and seals and salmon to feed them.”

“Did they…you don't mean to say they killed these women.”

Chuckling, Elic said, “They would hardly have been much use to me dead. Nay, they were very much alive, and not at all reluctant. They always told me they considered it an honor to give themselves to me.”

An honor, Lili thought, and a thrill. What young woman in her right mind wouldn't have leapt at the chance to perform her sacrificial duty with the likes of Elic?

“'Twasn't a bad life for one such as I,” Elic said. “But gradually, the wild places along the coast were plowed under by newcomers and turned into farms. One year, a terrible blight destroyed most of their crops. Having no one else to blame, they decided I must be a
dökkálfr
in disguise. They're pure evil, the
dökkálfr.
They bring nothing but disease and misery. The farmers thought if they destroyed me, it would protect them from future misfortune. I retreated into the forest, scrounging for food—and making occasional forays into the villages at night in the hope of finding a female.”

“Wasn't that risky?”

“Insanely so, but I need carnal release the way humans need to breathe. 'Twouldn't be such a problem if I could achieve that release on my own, but I'm not made that way.”

“Nor I, more's the pity,” Lili said. “If I could pleasure myself, I wouldn't have taken up with the likes of the Hellfires, I can tell you that. Unrelenting lust, which roars back the moment we satisfy it—'tis the price some of us must pay for immortality.”

“Or near immortality,” he said. “Surely you're susceptible to fire, like the rest of us—well, most of the rest of us. Darius is a djinni. Fire doesn't harm him, but he can drown. And of course the various bloodsuckers each have their own particular Achilles' heel—decapitation, sunlight, staking…”

“No, I'm rather drearily typical in that regard. Fire will make short work of me. I rue the day humanfolk discovered how vulnerable we are to it.”

Elic said, “I'm not sure how the farmers knew, but they did. They sent out search parties that winter, and one night they found me sleeping in a little stone hut deep in the woods. It was the home of an old hermit named Ingvarr, a human who'd been my friend for decades. He'd taken pity on me and insisted I share his roof until the spring. I should have refused his hospitality, but I was so cold and so exhausted, and…” Elic looked away, his expression grim. “They wrapped me in chains and beat my old friend to death while I watched—'twas his punishment for harboring me. They built a crude pyre in front of the hut and threw Ingvarr onto it, and then me next to him, still in chains. And then they lit it.”

“Mamitu,”
Lili breathed, staring at him in shock and horror.

“My clothes and hair burned first. When my skin began to blister and char, the farmers decided there was no point in waiting 'round in the bitter cold, when they could return to their warm homes. As soon as they were gone, I gathered my strength and rolled myself off the pyre and into the snow.”

Squeezing his hand, she said, “My God, Elic. It must have been agonizing.”

“I've forgotten the pain, but I'll never forget the utter despair that gripped me. 'Twas the first, and only, time in my life when I've pined for the comfort of death.”

“I'm surprised you lived through it,” she said.

“Evidently, it takes a somewhat more thorough roasting to do in the likes of me. Once I realized I was going to live, I managed to creep, inch by inch, into the hut. I lay there for days, half-delirious in my chains, while the burns healed.”

“It took
days
for them to heal?” So powerful were the recuperative abilities of most follets that wounds, even the most grievous, generally repaired themselves within hours—a day or two, at the most.

“The burns covered most of my body. I had to not only mend, but grow a great deal of new skin, all the while bound in chains. One morning, Ingvarr's granddaughter, Sigrún, came looking for him. I knew her well, but at first she didn't even recognize me, with all that fresh, pink skin and no hair or eyebrows. Sigrún's husband, Valdís, was a blacksmith, and he freed me from the chains. They offered to shelter me in their home, but that was unthinkable, after what had happened to Ingvarr. I decided to leave Norvegr and look for another place to make my home. Valdís gave me some clothes and a hunting knife, and Sigrún packed me some food. I spent the next few years journeying in a southwesterly path, through Germania and into Gaul.”

“Posing as a human, I assume.”

“Aye, but I've always found it difficult to hide my true nature over an extended period of time. The longer I go without a woman, the more irrepressible my mating drive becomes. It makes me wild, rash. I tried to keep my contact with the Gallic tribes to a minimum, but eventually I was always found out and exposed, usually by the local druid.”

“The druids, they were the priests, yes?”