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I do not understand it nor trust it, but I want to see what happens next. And that, more than anything, may prove dangerous because killing is easy. Torture is familiar. But this?
This is new. This has teeth I did not sharpen and this could ruin me. I smile with Alcott’s mouth while no one is watching.
Good. I welcome it to sink into my flesh.
28. Monsters Discuss Monsters - Olive
Careful What You Wish For
Lazarus Graves’s library is far too beautiful for the things discussed inside it.
The room rises two stories high, its walls swallowed by shelves of dark wood and leather-bound books. A rolling ladder rests against the far wall. Emerald shaded lamps cast pools of gold over the long table at the center, where maps, notes, ledgers, and folded invitations have been spread like the bones of something enormous and dead.
Outside, rain taps against the windows, while inside, us monsters discuss monsters. Lazarus stands at the head of the table with his sleeves rolled to his forearms, rings flashing as he pins a map beneath one palm. Edward sits to my left, pale and silent, his hand resting too close to mine to be accidental. Alcott is across from us, a pen between his fingers, eyes bright with the awful pleasure of a mind given something dreadful enough to deserve its full attention. And I stand because sitting makes me feel too much like prey.
“This is not one party,” Lazarus says, his voice quieter than usual.
That alone frightens me.
“It is a circuit. A pilgrimage of wealth and rot. Caribbean estates. Spanish villas. Private islands in the Philippines. Hunting lodges in America. Manors in England. Ships that change names before they change ports.”
He places small black markers across the maps as he speaks. Each one lands with a soft, final sound.
Click.
Click.
Click.
“There are gatherings for lesser men,” he continues. “Men who want to pretend they have tasted evil because they purchased a girl’s fear for an evening. Men with more money than imagination and those who think cruelty makes them powerful.”
Lazarus’s jaw tightens. “Then there are the true gatherings.”
The room seems to grow colder as Alcott’s pen stills and Edward’s face loses the last of its color. I look at the markers, and there are too many.
“What happens there?” I ask.
Lazarus does not answer at once. When he does, the words come carefully.
As though each one has teeth. “People are sold, from children, women and men. Debts exchanged for bodies. Blood collected for rituals they claim are ancient but are likely nothing more than rich men dressing their sickness in theater. They drink it, bathe in it. Worship money as if gold can absolve them of being beasts.”
His mouth twists.
“No, beasts is too kind. Beasts kill to eat. These men kill because boredom has made them imaginative.”
A pressure begins forming beneath my ribs, tight and unkind.
Lazarus continues. “I have heard stories from women who escaped and servants who vanished after speaking. Dockworkers who found crates breathing. Girls who were invited to sing and returned unable to speak at all.”
The room blurs at the edges, so I blink hard. Edward’s hand moves over mine, giving me reassurance. Warm and steady.
“They worship no god,” Lazarus says. “They worship ownership, the ability to take a life and face no consequence. They worship a world built to kneel before coin.”
He looks up from the map, eyes dark, “If Hell casts out demons for being too wretched, they would gather in rooms like these and call themselves gentlemen.”
Horrified silence stretches across the room. I have killed terrible men, married them. Smiled across dinner tables while they boasted of fortunes built on hunger, labor, fear, and women with nowhere else to go.
I thought I understood depravity, thought I had seen the shape of it, but this— This is not one man. Not one marriage, not a single blade placed carefully between ribs. This is a kingdom beneath the kingdom, a hidden empire of silk, blood, ports, ledgers, judges, governors, lords, merchants, and smiling men with clean gloves. The pressure in my chest tightens.
