“Marrying you was the last resort if the abduction did not succeed. Of course, we would have disposed of you after we’d used you for our needs, but you escaped. So I went back to the original plan. Marry you and inherit The Iris.But today you destroyed that plan, too, so I must destroy you.”
“You are mad. You cannot hope to get away with this!” Tilly said, horrified. “It is daylight outside, and my club is full of women who will miss me if I do not return. You have little hope of succeeding with whatever nefarious plans you have.”
“You have forced my hand, so we will get this done with before anyone misses you. I assure you, I excel at disposing of people without a trace, Miss Wilson.”
The words sent a chill down her spine.
“If Malvern had not died and his wife found that he was still paying the lease on an empty building, I would not have had to resort to such drastic measures. Then you took up the lease, and one of our entrances was shut. When we realized that door we’d just entered was locked, we knew we had to act, as someone was on to us.”
She was nudged into the room and found herself facing four cloaked men. All wore masks, so Tilly could not identify them.
“You are the person behind The Iris Club, so with you gone, we shall have no problem getting the others to leave, Miss Wilson. Then your club will once again be ours.”
“Surely there are other places you could have gone?”
The cloaked men were unmoving, just standing there silently, eyes forward, almost as if they were in a trance. Evil, Tilly thought. It was all around her.
“This is where Fraternitas Sanguinis Crucis was formed. It is where we belong.”
“Under a pair of men’s and women’s clubs?”
“It is our sacred home, and no woman will change that,” he snapped, no longer the man she’d known, which she now knew had been a facade the whole time.
“Hierophant, Magnus, Adeptus, Philosophus, and Zelator, I presume,” Tilly said, looking at the men. Her knees wereshaking so hard, she had to clench them together to stay upright.
“You read our grimoire entries, Miss Wilson. I’m disappointed, as no woman has ever done so. We do not allow the weaker sex to taint what we are or what we have.”
“Weaker sex,” she rasped, as fear choked her. “You are not serious?”
He gripped the back of her neck and squeezed. The pain was instant and dropped her to her knees.
“Who else has been down here? Think very carefully before you lie to me, as you will pay with pain,” Mr. Howard said.
“Many,” she whispered when he released the pressure. “Plus, a detective who is looking into your order. Even now they could be in The Iris Club, about to descend upon you.”
“You lie!” He pushed her sideways so she fell to the hard floor. “No one is coming.”
Tilly was getting sick of men abusing and abducting her. She may be scared, and not have the upper hand, but she wouldn’t stay silent while this man did what he wished to her. She pushed herself back to her feet and turned to glare at Howard as anger gave her strength.
“Am I to be some kind of sacrifice to your weak and pathetic gods? There’s no doubt that you and your four little friends can harm me, but I will always be stronger of mind and a great deal more intelligent.”
Think, Tilly, she told herself. Ruby knew she was out walking with Mr. Howard. She would find her—or alert someone who could do so.
The men in robes remained perfectly still at her words.
“The gods will punish you for your blasphemy this day, Miss Wilson,” Howard hissed.
“You have no gods,” she scoffed. “You have only costumes and candlelight and a great deal of self-importance. You are all pathetic to hide behind your robes and cult.”
Howard’s jaw tightened. He crossed to a low table she had not noticed before—it was draped in dark cloth, and upon it lay some objects. A curved blade, a clay bowl, and a length of cord, knotted at intervals.
“You will be silent now,” Howard said. “The time for conversation has passed.”
“Has it? I find I am rather warming to the subject. Do none of you fit into society, so you needed to create your own? Weak-kneed, small men with nothing to recommend themselves to women, so you resorted to taking them against their will?”
The tallest of the robed men spoke then, his tone low and deliberate. “She is afraid and covering it with bravado. Do not let her provoke you, Hierophant.” It was possible that voice belonged to someone who had frequented the society gatherings she had over the years, Tilly realized.
So, Howard was the Hierophant. She filed that away, although she could not imagine what use it would be to her here in this room. The door was locked, and Tilly knew her chances of survival were not good.
