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Chapter Twenty

A Sacrifice

Gregory slipped through the maze, footsteps sure, and Beatrice followed at a distance. As he wound around corner after corner, other men appeared and began to trail behind him.

What was going on? Beatrice thought. Where were they going?

The hedges opened up, and Beatrice realized that the maze spilled out at the front of the Rose Club.

The noise of the masquerade in the pleasure gardens drowned out the sounds of their footsteps.

A distraction.

Gregory took out a huge skeleton key and unlocked the gates. Another man was waiting just beyond the iron bars, holding some sort of fabric in his hands. Beatrice could see now that the fabric was a cape, and he held a mask fashioned to look like a moth, both identical to the costume Gregory wore.

As the other men following Gregory stepped through the gates, they each accepted a cloak and a mask.

A chill ran down Beatrice’s spine as she watched them slip the masks over their faces, concealing their identities from view.

She fell into line, putting a hand over her face, shaking slightly.

If anyone recognized her, she was done for.

But her Huxley costume held true, a testament to Lavinia’s talents. No one gave her a second look as she crossed beyond the gates and accepted a cape and mask of her own. She hastily tied the cape around her neck and slid the mask over her face, desperate for further disguise.

This was not what she had expected out of the evening—but she was not about to pass up the opportunity to infiltrate whatever was occurring.

She continued to follow the men, who stepped into the Rose.

Inside, the club was dark and silent. Beatrice fell into a single-file line of men walking down a long, narrow hallway. None of them spoke, and the swish of their cloaks sounded strangely like the flap of moth wings as they approached the end of the hallway.

Despite her heeled boots, Beatrice was too short to see where they were going. At first she thought the men were going into one of the club’s rooms—the study, perhaps?—but then, when she finally got closer, she saw that they were approaching a large mirror on the wall.

Gregory pushed on the mirror, and it swung open to reveal a dark passageway, with stone steps leading down. He descended, and the line of moth men followed.

Finally, she was getting somewhere, she thought as she trailed them. Beatrice normally loved a lair…but this one filled her with a deep sense of foreboding.

The staircase stretched down several flights, leading deeper into the club until the air turned cool and the stairs opened up into a large chamber.

Unlike Mr. O’Dowde’s artistic, hidden basement, this room was not inviting or decorative.

It was made of ancient stone, the walls jagged and windowless.

The men formed a circle around the perimeter of the room, and Beatrice followed suit.

They all turned to the center of the room, where the only furniture—if one could really call it furniture—was a stone slab.

On the slab was a glass jar. Beatrice leaned forward to make out the contents, and stifled a gasp.

There was a mummified hand inside. It still had some skin, but it was puckered and gray, peeling off in parts to reveal ivory bone. Men really had terrible taste in décor, Beatrice thought. A slab and a severed hand? That was sadistic and tacky.

As she stared at it, she noticed that around the hand’s pinkie was a ring, encrusted with blood-red garnets. It was a ring she had seen before.

Why was Diana Vane’s garnet ring on the finger of a severed hand?

The swishing sound of capes and footsteps stopped, and Beatrice looked away from the glass jar to see that the circle was complete. No more moth men descended the stairs, and the last to enter shut the door behind him, sealing them all in the underground chamber.

She felt a familiar spark in the pit of her stomach. It was the feeling she had experienced when solving her first crime, but until now, it had been dormant. It was excitement, the thrill of being just on the cusp of catching a criminal. It was the anticipation of justice about to be served.

That is, unless she was discovered.

She pressed her lips together, willing herself to stay calm, and focused her attention on Gregory.

“Thank you for coming,” he said solemnly.

“Your note said this would be unlike a normal NAGS meeting,” one of the masked men said.

“I thought you meant because Walter, Cecil, and Horace are all gone. Not that we’d be forced to wear weird costumes and relocate to some disgusting basement.

If we are to move our meetings down here, we should at least move the armchairs, as well. And where are our cigars and port?”

Some of the others murmured their assent. Beatrice, it seemed, was not the only one who disliked the room’s décor.

“There will be time to redecorate later,” Gregory said, raising his voice above the protests.

“Now, we must focus on the problem at hand: Our leaders were murdered! Percival Nash thought he could stop us, but he was wrong. We will remain, stronger than ever. I have taken it upon myself,” he went on, standing taller, “to ensure that Horace’s legacy will live on. ”

“We will keep meeting, yes,” another masked gentleman said, “but I do not understand what this is all about, Gregory. What is this place? Why are we dressed like insects?”

“We all know that Horace, Cecil, and Walter started the NAGS in order to protect Sweetbriar and uphold its traditional values,” Gregory explained.

“But they were even more dedicated than you all knew. This is where they met to discuss issues beyond what was raised at meetings. They were part of a brotherhood. A bond which went back to their schoolboy days.”

“So what, you followed them here and eavesdropped on their conversations?” sneered another gentleman.

“As if that would get you invited into the group,” another scoffed.

“And who is that?” someone asked, pointing at the hand. “I mean…who was that?”

“I…am not really sure,” Gregory said, his confidence faltering. “I never overheard that bit….”

Another man piped up. “Did they murder someone? I can’t kill anyone!”

“Exactly!” another echoed. “We are gentlemen! If we want someone killed, or anyone’s limbs chopped off, we will get our valet to do it for us.”

“We don’t need to kill anyone,” another chimed in. “We have already won! Percival Nash has been arrested.”

“But what is to stop another artist from taking up his mission to murder all the NAGS?” Gregory cried.

At this, a hush fell over the gentlemen.

“This is what I am trying to tell you,” Gregory said, slowly regaining his self-assuredness as the men became attentive once more.

“Banning the artists is not enough. We must have revenge! We must have order! Who do you think set the fires at the galleries to ensure any inappropriate portraits and landscapes were done away with? Who do you think sent mimes packing for Paris when their routines became too provocative? Who do you think disposed of manuscripts written by women? We all have been talking about what needs to be done…while Walter, Cecil, and Horace took action .”

There were shocked whispers among the group. Gregory seemed satisfied; clearly the men had not known the extent of their leaders’ efforts. But from the tone of their whispers, Beatrice deduced with dread, they approved.

“They had tattoos upon their wrists of the moth—a protector, cloaked in shadow. Now we are literally cloaked. As moths,” Gregory went on.

“We will take up the mantle the others left behind.” He snapped his fingers, and the door opened once more.

With horror, Beatrice saw two more men in cloaks and masks, leading Percival Nash to the stone slab in the center of the room.

The actor was pale, his eyes wide, his bare head wigless and exposed. He tried to fight back as the men pushed him onto the stone slab, but it was two against one. Percival was a performer, not a fighter—and he was outnumbered and easily restrained.

Surely these men did not meanto—

“Horace deserves justice,” Gregory said loudly. “And we must send a message. We are in control. The consequences of dissent will be severe and final!”

Shockingly, Beatrice heard murmurs of agreement around the circle. They stepped closer in, and Beatrice felt panic ripple through her body.

There was one door that led out of the horrid chamber. What was Beatrice to do? This was the worst bind she had gotten herself into, and she had once gotten stuck in too-small stays.

“This sacrifice shall join us together in our common goal,” Gregory said loudly. “It will be a secret we all share. And I will never be excluded again,” he added under his breath, though his voice carried easily in the echoey room.

He took the torch off the wall and raised it high. Its flicker cast shadows across the men, their masks grotesque as gargoyles.

The rest of the men moved as one, and to Beatrice’s horror, she could see that they all had taken knives from their pockets. They raised them in the air, toward Percival.

She had no gentleman’s knife, no weapon, no way to save Percival. She had expected to eavesdrop, not witness some bizarre, ritualistic sacrifice. Why must everything in this city be so extreme ?

The chamber was lit only by the light of that one small torch, Beatrice realized. A plan came to her in an instant, and she had no time to second-guess.

“Percival!” she shouted, tearing off her mask. “Use the power of breath support!”

Percival’s eyes went wide, but he was a professional. He knew how to take a cue. He drew in a huge breath and blew toward Gregory’s hand, extinguishing the light.

They were instantly plunged into darkness. There were shouts of confusion, the sounds of a scuffle, but Beatrice worked quickly. She knew she had only seconds.

She felt for the severed hand atop the stone slab, snatching it up. Then she lunged toward Percival and clasped her hand around his wrist, pulling him roughly toward where she knew the door was.

Someone reached for her cloak, and she felt it strain against her neck. She unclasped the fastener at the neck and slipped free, still dragging Percival, and shoved the door open.

But as the light of the stairwell beyond illuminated her, someone else grabbed at her hair. The blond Sir Huxley wig came off in his hands.

“Imposter!” he yelled. Beatrice kept moving forward, but another man grabbed her ankle, and she tripped.

“Go!” she yelled at Percival, shoving him to the stairs.

“Not without you!” He held out a hand, but Beatrice was being pulled back, back into the depths of the moths’ lair. A moth man brandished his knife and slashed at her face, cutting her across one cheek. Another raised his own knife, aiming for her heart.

For the second instance in two days, time seemed to stand still.

In the weapon’s reflection of the light of the hall, Beatrice thought she could see the faces of everyone she loved: Her sister, Louisa, her red curls like flames.

Her brother-in-law, Frank, with his crooked, flirtatious grin.

Her niece, baby Bee Bee, with her wispy hair and round cheeks.

Mr. and Mrs. Steele. A wolf, for some reason.

Miss Bolton was there, of course, with dog Bee Bee—and—

Inspector Drake. Would Beatrice die without ever having the chance to tell him how she truly felt? If she even knew how she truly felt?

But Drake was not here. She was on her own. And one should never underestimate the power of an independent woman.

With this thought in her mind, Beatrice took Miss Bolton’s brooch from her lapel and shoved it into the eye of her closest attacker. He screamed, and she withdrew the brooch—she could not lose such a precious gift, after all—then she ran.