“I simply answered.”
Tamara pushed aside her disgust just enough to produce a taunting smirk. “You are a Vapor, Oblis, nothing more. Without my father’s flesh, you’re chimney smoke with a rotten child’s temper. And you haven’t the tumescence, I’m afraid, to live up to your imaginings.”
Her father’s upper lip curled back and the demon fumed.
“Enjoy the party, Tamara. You’ll need me soon enough.”
This was the voice of Oblis, now, like a capricious child in timbre, but with a rough, graveled edge. It brought her up short as she was about to leave the room. Already, William would have grown impatient awaiting her. But there was something in those words, that tone. This wasn’t merely empty bluster.
Frowning, she turned to face him again. “Why would I ever need you?”
“You both shall, and soon,” Oblis sneered in that hellish voice. “You wanted to know how I spent my afternoon, once your whorish friends departed? My throat was ragged and parched. I paused for a breath. And then, rather than making all that noise, I decided that I would listen. ”
“Listen to what?” Tamara asked.
Oblis only smiled.
T HOUGH IT WAS only a few doors farther along St. James Street from White’s Club, the Algernon Club had little in common with its neighbor.
From its earliest years to the days when Beau Brummel sat by the vast bow window at the front of the building, holding court and casting judgment upon passersby, White’s had always been about being noticed. White’s Club was conspicuous.
The very nature of the Algernon Club was to be inconspicuous. To the unknowing public strolling past on the street, it was simply another address along St. James. There was no bow window, nor in fact any window at all that offered outsiders a view of what lay within. The gentlemen at the Algernon had no interest in putting the duke of Argyll on display, even if they had been willing to allow such a buffoon to darken their doorstep.
Otherwise, the differences between the Algernon and other gentlemen’s clubs were less evident. In the many rooms of the first floor, members gathered in small groups, some standing in darkened corners and others seated comfortably around low tables. The air was redolent with the smell of burning pipe tobacco, and the servants wore black knee breeches not unlike those worn by the employees of Boodle’s. The dining room was always in use, it seemed, with the kitchen acceding to all demands. Glasses clinked as gentlemen toasted one another’s health, or that of their families or fortunes.
There was a card room, but it wasn’t common for games of chance to be played at the Algernon Club. Where cards were employed, it was far more likely to be in an example of prestidigitation, a new pass that the amateur magicians of the club wished to teach or to learn. The professionals were another matter entirely. They shared nothing with the other members, unwilling as they were to reveal their techniques to anyone who might one day become a competitor.
Yet from time to time—ordinarily in the rooms upstairs where only the club’s directors were allowed—other sorts of magic were addressed.
Tonight, however, a more mundane task had presented itself. Each month the directors gathered in the Board Room to consider applications for membership. The room bespoke the wealth of the club’s early-eighteenth-century founders. The ceiling boasted a series of hand-painted and hand-carved medallions, and the intricacy of the crown molding and the woodwork that framed the hearth was stunningly artful. A grandfather clock stood at one end of the chamber, and at the other were two separate doors, one through which the directors had entered and the other for servants.
Both were presently locked.
A tablet stained with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics hung above the fireplace; an enormous portrait of the queen, only recently commissioned, had been placed beside the clock. Above each door was a long,
Tamara pushed aside her disgust just enough to produce a taunting smirk. “You are a Vapor, Oblis, nothing more. Without my father’s flesh, you’re chimney smoke with a rotten child’s temper. And you haven’t the tumescence, I’m afraid, to live up to your imaginings.”
Her father’s upper lip curled back and the demon fumed.
“Enjoy the party, Tamara. You’ll need me soon enough.”
This was the voice of Oblis, now, like a capricious child in timbre, but with a rough, graveled edge. It brought her up short as she was about to leave the room. Already, William would have grown impatient awaiting her. But there was something in those words, that tone. This wasn’t merely empty bluster.
Frowning, she turned to face him again. “Why would I ever need you?”
“You both shall, and soon,” Oblis sneered in that hellish voice. “You wanted to know how I spent my afternoon, once your whorish friends departed? My throat was ragged and parched. I paused for a breath. And then, rather than making all that noise, I decided that I would listen. ”
“Listen to what?” Tamara asked.
Oblis only smiled.
T HOUGH IT WAS only a few doors farther along St. James Street from White’s Club, the Algernon Club had little in common with its neighbor.
From its earliest years to the days when Beau Brummel sat by the vast bow window at the front of the building, holding court and casting judgment upon passersby, White’s had always been about being noticed. White’s Club was conspicuous.
The very nature of the Algernon Club was to be inconspicuous. To the unknowing public strolling past on the street, it was simply another address along St. James. There was no bow window, nor in fact any window at all that offered outsiders a view of what lay within. The gentlemen at the Algernon had no interest in putting the duke of Argyll on display, even if they had been willing to allow such a buffoon to darken their doorstep.
Otherwise, the differences between the Algernon and other gentlemen’s clubs were less evident. In the many rooms of the first floor, members gathered in small groups, some standing in darkened corners and others seated comfortably around low tables. The air was redolent with the smell of burning pipe tobacco, and the servants wore black knee breeches not unlike those worn by the employees of Boodle’s. The dining room was always in use, it seemed, with the kitchen acceding to all demands. Glasses clinked as gentlemen toasted one another’s health, or that of their families or fortunes.
There was a card room, but it wasn’t common for games of chance to be played at the Algernon Club. Where cards were employed, it was far more likely to be in an example of prestidigitation, a new pass that the amateur magicians of the club wished to teach or to learn. The professionals were another matter entirely. They shared nothing with the other members, unwilling as they were to reveal their techniques to anyone who might one day become a competitor.
Yet from time to time—ordinarily in the rooms upstairs where only the club’s directors were allowed—other sorts of magic were addressed.
Tonight, however, a more mundane task had presented itself. Each month the directors gathered in the Board Room to consider applications for membership. The room bespoke the wealth of the club’s early-eighteenth-century founders. The ceiling boasted a series of hand-painted and hand-carved medallions, and the intricacy of the crown molding and the woodwork that framed the hearth was stunningly artful. A grandfather clock stood at one end of the chamber, and at the other were two separate doors, one through which the directors had entered and the other for servants.
Both were presently locked.
A tablet stained with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics hung above the fireplace; an enormous portrait of the queen, only recently commissioned, had been placed beside the clock. Above each door was a long,
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