But Jonathan just laughed bitterly and walked slowly back toward the studio. “Bastards, all of them,” he said.
Charlie stepped aside so Jonathan could drag himself back into his studio. He followed with a sad smile, trailing Jonathan through the studio and into the kitchen.
“Well,” Jonathan sighed at last, shrugging in a helpless gesture. “I supposed we’d better tidy up here, then consider delivering Brutus’s photographs to that club of his.”
Charlie nodded.
Then, in a gesture Jonathan didn’t expect, he stepped over and rested a hand on Jonathan’s arm.
As soon as their eyes met, Jonathan felt naked. Boys whom he’d picked up off the street for pornographic purposes should not have made him feel like he was the one stripped bare. They were not supposed to be clever enough to see past his amiability either.
“It will be alright,” he said, speaking the words he wished Charlie would say to him.
Charlie’s soft mouth spread into a smile, and he nodded.
If only Jonathan believed what that smile promised.
Chapter Six
Jonathan’s father was terrifying. He was like the vicar and Mr. Bayswater, the overbearing solicitor in whose office he’d been employed, rolled into one. While he and Jonathan had been exchanging words, Charlie had tried to make himself as small as possible and hide behind whatever he could.
Until Jonathan attempted to use him as a shield.
Then Charlie had been filled with a sense of purpose and more courage than he’d ever dreamed he would have. He was a poor barrier, but if he could stand between his savior and someone who wanted to cause him harm, then Charlie would stand strong.
He continued to feel that way as he and Jonathan made their way through London to the address printed on the card Brutus had given Jonathan to deliver the bundled-up photographs of Phoebus. He would never be much of an advocate or champion for anyone, but at least Charlie had an inkling of the sort of situation he and Jonathan were about to step into.
As soon as they reached the stately house in Tyburnia, Charlie’s confidence waned.
“It looks like an ordinary house,” Jonathan spoke his thoughts aloud as they mounted the front steps and Jonathan knocked on the door.
The house was as plain and ordinary as they came. It had none of the Georgian splendor of Mayfair or even the more recent elegance of Marylebone. The building was tall and brick, with little embellishment. All of the windows that faced the street had their curtains drawn, despite it being midday.
“Can I help you?” the stout butler who answered the door asked, looking down his nose at both Jonathan and Charlie, despite being a servant addressing a gentleman.
“I’ve come to deliver photographs to Brutus,” Jonathan said, sounding a little baffled.
The butler’s harsh expression immediately eased. “You are expected,” he said with a polite smile, stepping aside and gesturing for Jonathan and Charlie to enter.
Had Charlie thought the house was ordinary? From the moment they entered the lamp-lit front hall, he knew it would be one of the most extraordinary places he’d ever been admitted to.
Unlike the plain brick of the outside, the front hall was done up in white marble. The decorations all reflected the Ancient World, which included columns and plinths in a style Charlie had only ever seen when walking past London’s museums, and paintings depicting Greek gods and their playthings.
There was a subtle luridness to the artwork that fit with the assumptions Charlie had made about the sort of club Brutus and his brother operated. The gods on the walls cavorted with nubile young men in explicit detail.
And that was only the front hall.
“Luncheon is just about to be served,” the butler explained as he escorted Jonathan, Charlie trailing behind, down a long hallway.
Music and talking wafted up from that end of the house. As they walked, Charlie realized the house was much larger and deeper than its outward appearance would have led anyone to believe. In fact, although the building looked small and narrow from the street, Charlie would have wagered it actually encompassed most of the houses adjacent to it, and perhaps some on the opposite street as well.
“Does Brutus often host strangers for luncheon?” Jonathan asked, his manner easy with the butler, as if he didn’t care about class or position.
“Very frequently,” the butler answered with an indulgent smile. “The Zagreus Den is always a hive of activity.”
Zagreus. As luck would have it, Charlie had encountered the name in his studies. He’d become enamored with Greek Mythology a few years ago, when he still had leisure time and liked to fill it with reading anything and everything he could get his hands on. Zagreus was one of the most ancient gods. He was the earliest incarnation of Dionysus, son of Zeus and Persephone, goddess of the underworld. As Charlie remembered it, Zagreus was beautiful and sensual and good. Zeus wanted to make him the heir to the throne of the gods. But Hera, in her jealousy, had ordered the Titans to kill the young man by tearing him limb from limb.
A shiver passed down Charlie’s spine, sending quivery feelings of fear and desire through him as he and Jonathan were shown into a large room that could only be described as a banquet hall or a ballroom at the back of the house. Right there, on the wall opposite the entrance, was a vast mural depicting exactly the story that he remembered. Except instead of a depiction of blood and gore, the four Titans in the mural all had their hands on a stunningly beautiful Zagreus, and it was clear they were about to do more than simply kill the ecstatic young man.
