I found it difficult to believe he had in the first place. “No.”
“The night we went to the warehouse and encountered the Guardian.”
“I remember.” As if I’d forget my first encounter with otherworldly forces beyond anything I’d ever imagined. “What of it?”
He chuckled softly against my mouth. “You were so damned brave. Anyone else would have run screaming when confronted with such a thing, but you stayed and fought. And after, you were so certain, no matter what we had seen in the warehouse, or what secrets the Arcanorum revealed, it could all be explained by some rational system, even if we didn’t yet understand it.” He kissed me again. “And I sat here in this very room and fell completely and utterly and irrevocably in love with you.”
I didn’t understand. What was lovable about the simple application of logic to a system? “I’m not brave,” I protested against his lips.
“Ival?”
“Yes?”
“Stop arguing, accept what I say, and let me drag you to bed and make you scream my name.”
Chapter 6
It was an order I had no wish to refuse. His hands folded over mine, pulling me to my feet and after him to the bedroom. My heart galloped in my chest, and I felt as though all the air had left the room. As soon as he let go of my hands, I slid my arms around him, burying my fingers in his chestnut curls.
He kissed me hungrily, before shoving my coat from my shoulders. As I shook it the rest of the way off, he undid the buttons of my vest, then seized my tie again to drag me closer.
“Tell me what you want,” I gasped, pressing tight against him. My member ached, and I ground against his hip, shuddering with pleasure.
“Mmm.” He drew back, licking his lips. “Suck me.”
I dropped to my knees immediately, fumbling at the buttons of his trousers. His shirt and vest hit the floor beside me, and I pulled his trousers down over his narrow hips, leaning in to kiss the skin of his belly, the fine trail of hair leading down from his navel. He tasted of sweat and salt when I traced the line with my tongue. His erect cock strained against his drawers, and I mouthed it through the cloth, receiving a soft hiss of anticipation in response.
“Yes.” His fingers curled in my hair, tightening when I peeled away his underclothes.
I caught his length in my mouth when it sprang free. The velvety skin felt hot against my lips, and his musky flavor spread over my tongue. I gripped the base of his shaft with one hand and sucked teasingly on the tip. He whimpered slightly, and I took pity, sliding my lips further down, savoring the taste and feel of him.
He groaned and shivered, breaths growing faster and more heated. I closed my eyes and concentrated on giving him pleasure, using tongue and teeth and lips. Nothing mattered but this, but him.
After a few minutes, he gasped and pushed me away. “Not yet. Take off your clothes.”
I stood up and divested myself quickly while he watched, green eyes dark with lust, his hand stroking his length idly. “I love to have you look at me so,” I confessed.
“And I love to look at you.”
I lay down on the bed, wondering eagerly what he wanted from me. I would give anything, do anything, and enjoy every moment of it. He crawled on top of me, kissing his way from belly to nipples to mouth, until I writhed under him. He was heat and home and every good thing, and the thought of anyone hurting him made me want to weep.
He distracted me from such thoughts by straddling my hips and bringing our lengths into contact. I gasped and arched against him, loving the feel of his cock against mine, hard and wanting. “Hold us together,” he ordered, and I hastily wrapped a hand around our members.
He leaned over me, bracing his hands on my shoulders. His eyes were intent, but a wicked grin played around his mouth. “Do you want me to move?” he teased.
“Please!”
“Tell me what you want me to do to you.”
He loved making me say such things as to make me blush. “R-rub yourself against me,” I stammered. “Until you come all over my stomach.”
He murmured wordlessly, rocking his hips against me. I gathered the dew at our slits, using it to slick our organs. He gasped and shuddered at my touch and thrust harder.
I watched him, his face, needing to know he found this good, that he wanted it. His gaze met mine, stripped raw and vulnerable in this moment of intimacy.
“Say you enjoy this,” I begged.
His parted lips curved into a grin. “I love this,” he growled. I ran my free hand up his arms, feeling the tension in the muscles braced against me. “I love rubbing against you, and sucking you, and fucking you, and I love it when you suck and fuck me. I cannot get enough of you.”
My fingers tightened on his shoulder, and my hips jerked instinctively, although his weight held me in place. He looked so handsome above me, his curls tumbled over his forehead, his muscles tight across his broad shoulders, his lips parted with passion. Every stroke of his member against mine generated a new wave of pleasure, each building on the next, my balls tightening and drawing up. “Griffin,” I gasped.
“Yes, Ival,” he growled, “let go, let me take you there, come with me, come—”
I didn’t hear what he said after, words lost beneath the raw cry dragged from my throat, my body arching like a bow under his. Heat and pleasure built in my cock until I could stand it no longer, tumbling over into ecstasy, my spend hot on the skin of my belly.
Griffin followed close after, his body shaking, grinding frantically against me until our sensitized skin forced him to stop. He collapsed against me, face pressed into my neck as his breath slowly evened out. “God,” he mumbled in my ear. “You amaze me, my dear.”
He drew back and kissed the tip of my nose. I framed his face with my hands and drew him down for a more sensual kiss. “I love you,” I whispered. “Nothing will ever change my feelings for you.”
He smiled, but it had a pensive air. “Perhaps we should sleep apart tonight,” he said, regret lacing the words. “I’m almost certain to have a fit, and there’s no reason for you to suffer.”
I wrapped my arms tightly around him. “You’re reason enough.”
~ * ~
I lay on the ocean floor, starfish crawling across my face, their tube-like feet sucking my skin and tangling in my hair. Opening my eyes, I beheld the blackness of the abyss above me. Unnamable detritus sifted down like foul snow, slowly covering me.
I sat up, peeling off some of the starfish. They covered the vast plain of the great plaza in a crawling, undulating blanket. A fish swam past, its face a nest of jagged, misshapen teeth so long its mouth wouldn’t close. Its flat, insensate eye stared at me, as if wondering at my intrusion.
The song I’d heard before slithered through my brain, whispering to me of warmth and comfort and home, even in this terrible place. My mother was here—or perhaps Griffin? The thing which had hunted me had caught her—him—and now kept them prisoner within the massive temple.
I had to go inside.
Choking on fear, I stumbled to my feet. I tried not to step on the heaving mass of starfish as I crossed the plaza, but there were too many to avoid. It seemed to take hours, days, to cross the vast square, but at last I stood between the barnacle-covered statues flanking the door. Were their faces more distinct, the mass of growth over them less? I looked away quickly, certain I didn’t want to see.
The door to the temple swung slowly open, dislodging a great drift of sediment. Something gelatinous squirmed out of the way, blundering into the starfish, which wrapped their arms about it before I could clearly make out its form. Whatever it was twitched beneath the marauding starfish as they tore it to pieces and devoured it still alive.
I stepped into the tremendous antechamber. A figure stood across from me, shrouded in shadow. Was it masculine? Feminine? I couldn’t tell.
“Hello?” I asked, my voice breaking. How I spoke within the depths of the ocean I questioned no more than how I mysteriously breathed. “Who
’s there?”
I thought it spoke—or perhaps it sang? Either way, I couldn’t make out the words. “I can’t hear you,” I said.
I moved hesitantly closer, yet its form became no more distinct. My heart beat in my throat as I reached out to touch its face.
My fingers encountered nothing but a drift of black ink.
~ * ~
The next morning, after an uncomfortable night’s sleep, we went to view the murder scene.
Griffin wished Christine and I to accompany him, in the hopes one of us might shed some light on the artifact, which had disappeared so mysteriously the night of Victor Bixby’s death. Christine excused us from work by telling the director we needed to examine some items which might be of interest to our collection.
Ernest Tambling met us at the door to his uncle’s house, which had been shut up since the night of the murder. He looked even more careworn than when I’d last seen him.
“You spoke to Allan?” he asked, as he led us into the foyer. The house was a newer one, the Bixbys and Tamblings having only been residents of Widdershins for a generation or two, and lacking both the money and the ancestry to secure a place amongst the old families. Having been closed up for a few days, it had taken on a musty odor, and I wondered if Ernest would object to my opening some of the windows. “How is he holding up?”
Griffin’s mouth had set into a taut line. We’d agreed not to alarm Ernest unduly, since he could do nothing about Allan’s situation. I’d told Christine only the barest of facts, of course, and hinted nothing about Zeiler’s possible role in Griffin’s confinement.
“As well as can be expected.” Griffin said neutrally. “It is of the utmost importance to secure his freedom as soon as we may, however.”
The study lay at the back of the house. All was silent, save for our steps and the buzzing of flies; with the servants gone, the clocks had all wound down. The acrid, rusty smell of old blood drifted even into the corridor, overwhelming the mustiness I’d noticed earlier. Griffin entered the room ahead of us, pausing just inside the door, and I followed his example.
The carpet near the desk bore a dark stain. It was here the flies had gathered, drawn by the repulsive scent. If one could overlook the bloodstained carpet, the rest of the study was quite impressive. The blank eyes of various idols stared at me, cast in bronze or hewn from marble. A curio cabinet proudly displayed a human skull topped with a hank of blank hair. With it I saw a fragment of a marble Grecian frieze, an Egyptian necklace dripping with gold and lapis-lazuli, and a mounted monkey. A mummy case stood in one corner, accompanied by fragments of bas-relief, and a delicate gold cosmetics pot had been turned into an inkwell on the desk.
Christine’s eyes narrowed, and she glared at the mummy case. “That case is from the Nineteenth Dynasty! A priceless artifact—or it would have been, had some wretched tomb robber not stolen it from God knows where, no doubt destroying half the site in the process. All so it could sit here, collect dust, and be of no use but to awe simple-minded fools!”
Ernest looked shocked, which well he might, considered she slandered his murdered loved one. “Er, what Dr. Putnam means,” I said hastily, “is to ask if you’ve thought about honoring your uncle’s memory by donating any pieces to the museum?”
“Bah!” Christine said.
“I-I haven’t thought of it,” Ernest replied, eyeing Christine as if he feared she might attack him at any moment.
Griffin cleared his throat. “What can you tell us about the stolen piece?” he asked our host.
Tambling pointed to an open cabinet on one wall. It contained ivory miniatures from China, a medieval censor, and a row of stone spear points. The largest compartment was conspicuously empty. “It was a large ceremonial bowl of some sort. I don’t know anything about it, other than it was…well, hideous, in my opinion. Uncle kept an inventory where he described all his pieces—would you care to see it?”
“Please,” I said.
He went around the desk and removed a ledger from a drawer. As I took it, Griffin said, “You understand I will have to search the entire room—perhaps the house—if we’re to discover who wanted the artifact badly enough to kill for it. This includes his private papers.”
“Whatever it takes to free Allan.” Ernest handed Griffin the key to the desk. “If you’ll excuse me. I’ll wait for you in the fresh air outside.”
He fled the room, no doubt fearing Christine would begin to harangue him again. “Well, I suppose he’s out of our way, at least,” Griffin observed.
I hefted the book in my hand. “Do you wish me to look through this now?”
“Yes. Find another room, if you would; it’s a bit tight in here already.”
I’d happily get away from the smell of blood and sound of buzzing flies. “Very well.”
“In the meantime, I’ll examine the room, and Christine can answer any questions about the remaining artifacts, in case they shed some light on the matter. And determine which pieces to steal for the museum, of course.”
Christine snorted. “Not that it will do much good. Without provenance, half the knowledge is lost already. Blast Bixby and his ilk; if they didn’t pay outrageous sums for antiquities, there would be no incentive for tomb robbers to loot and destroy everything they come across.”
I departed; as I walked down the hall, Christine moved on to cursing other archaeologists, most of whom, in her opinion, were little better than the grave robbers. I hoped Griffin was prepared for a long lecture.
I went down the hall, far enough for Christine’s voice to be muffled, until I came to the parlor. It was also stuffed with curio cabinets and antiquities, and I made a mental note to mention it to Christine later. Possibly much later.
The light was good, so I cracked one of the windows and took a seat. Finding the description of the ceremonial bowl proved no easy task; Bixby had apparently recorded each item as he received it, without any sort of index or regard to classification. But I was accustomed to such tedious work, having poured over many ancient tomes equally disorganized. There was nothing to do but begin on the first page and hope not to nod off before finding the entry I needed.
The breeze didn’t stir the curtains beside me, but the scent of the ocean suddenly grew strong. At least it was preferable to mildew.
Bixby had apparently done quite a bit of collecting over time, buying objects and selling them when he tired of them, or wanted something new. He’d had atrocious handwriting, and it took me some puzzling to read. I had only gotten four or five pages into the ledger when a footstep sounded in the hall outside the room.
“Finished already?” I asked, not looking up from my work.
There came no reply. I lifted my gaze to see who stood there, and discovered the doorway empty.
I would have sworn I’d heard the scuff of a shoe…but perhaps I’d been mistaken. Houses did have a way of creaking oddly, after all, even ones not more than a decade or two old.
Banishing my unease, I turned my attention back to the ledger.
The entry for the stolen artifact lay on the sixth page. “Ceremonial bowl(?),” it read. “Approx. 24 inches diameter. Restored from fragments. Sumerian? Depiction of an unknown sea god, surrounded by shark-men worshippers.”
Well. That was entirely unhelpful.
If only there had been a sketch, or a photograph, or some way of knowing what it looked like. The description certainly didn’t sound like something worth committing murder over, not when there were items like the gold cosmetics-pot-cum-inkwell, which a thief could more easily pocket and sell. Either it was more impressive than it sounded, or someone wanted it for a very specific purpose.
A shiver ran down my back. The Brotherhood was gone, broken, so it couldn’t be anyone with an occult goal in mind.
Could it?
The smell of ocean grew even stronger, and for an instant I heard the deep roar of the waves and the sucking of the tide on the strand. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed someone standing in the door
way, silhouetted against the light. An irrational certainty gripped me that if I looked, I’d see the figure from my dream…
Feeling as if I fought against some strange compulsion, I forced my neck to unbend, my lips to move. “Who—?”
I saw no one. Moreover, there was no sound of tide, no scent of sea, beyond the usual fishy smell which hung over Widdershins.
Griffin and Christine’s voices came from the back of the house, drawing nearer. A moment later, they appeared in the doorway. “Any luck?” Griffin asked.
I must have fallen asleep in the chair and dreamed the figure, the smell, the sound. Between the case itself, our visit to Stormhaven, Griffin’s nightmares and my own, no wonder I should have odd visions upon slipping into a doze.
“Very little,” I said, showing him the entry. “It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing for which anyone would commit murder, I have to say.”
“Agreed,” Christine said, peering over Griffin’s shoulder. “Gold and jewels is the usual sort of thing, not bits of broken clay. Perhaps if it had depicted a particularly attractive woman, or two men…never mind,” she finished hastily, her cheeks going pink.
I pretended not to notice, but Griffin had no shame whatsoever. “Two men what?”
“Hmph. Don’t try that look of wide-eyed innocence on me, Griffin Flaherty. There is a market for such objects, and given the, er, nature of the art, I can imagine purveyors turning even more cutthroat than the usual, as any buyers would have to be especially discreet.” She frowned at the ledger. “But unless these ‘shark-men’ were disporting themselves in a manner not mentioned here, I can’t imagine such would be the case.”
“Thank heavens,” I muttered.
She snorted. “Honestly, Whyborne, I assure you I am quite accustomed to such sights from many a tomb, and am capable of viewing them with perfect detachment. You have no need to dither about my embarrassment.”
“It isn’t your embarrassment I’m concerned for.”
Griffin gently cleared his throat; I rather suspected, having stirred up trouble, he now tried not to laugh at us. “Perhaps we should concern ourselves with the case we actually have, and not some hypothetical one?”
Whyborne and Griffin, Books 1-3 Page 53