J. Robb - Ceremony In Death

"It's not a matter of that." He fumbled and knew it when she furrowed her brow.

"You're embarrassed." Her brow cleared in surprise and amusement. "You're never embarrassed. By anything. This is weird. And kind of sweet."

"I'm not embarrassed." Mortified, he decided, but not embarrassed. "I'm simply… not entirely comfortable explaining myself. I love you," he said and stilled her muffled chuckle. "You risk your life, a life that's essential to me, just by being who you are. This…" He brushed his thumb over her wedding band. "Is a small and very personal shield."

"That's lovely, Roarke. Really. But you don't really believe all that magic nonsense."

His gaze lifted, and as twilight turned to night, his eyes glinted in the dark. Like a wolf's, she thought.

And it was a wolf, she remembered, she was to trust.

"Your world is relatively small, Eve. You couldn't call it sheltered, but it's limited. You haven't seen a giant's dance, or felt the power of the ancient stones. You haven't run your hand over the Ogham carving in the trunk of a tree petrified by time or heard the sounds that whisper through the mist that coats sacred ground."

Baffled, she shook her head. "It's, what, an Irish thing?"

"If you like, though it's certainly not limited to a single race or culture. You are grounded." He ran his hands up her arms to her shoulders. "Almost brutal in your focus and your honesty. And I've lived, let's say, a flexible life. I need you, and I'll use whatever comes to hand to keep you safe." He lifted the ring to his lips. "Let's just call it covering the bases."

"Okay." This was a new aspect of him it would take time to explore. "But you don't have, like, a secret room where you dance around naked and chant?"

He tucked his tongue in his cheek. "I did, but I turned it into a den. More versatile."

"Good thinking. Okay, let's eat."

"Thank God." He took her hand and tugged her toward the house.

The Athame slicked a high-gloss sheen over depravity, like the baby-kissing smile on a corrupt politician. One scan convinced Eve she'd have preferred to spend an evening in a low-level dive, smelling stale liquor and staler sweat.

Dives didn't bother with disguises.

Revolving balconies of smoky glass and chrome trim ringed the main level in two tiers so that those who preferred a loftier view could circle slowly and check out the action. The central bar speared out in five points, and each was crowded with patrons perched on high stools fashioned to resemble optimistically exaggerated body parts.

A couple of women decked out in micro skirts sat spread-legged on a pair of bulging, flesh-toned cocks and laughed uproariously. A skinheaded bar surfer checked them out by prying his hand down their snug blouses.

All the walls were mirrored, and they pulsed with cloudy red lights. Some of the tables flanking the dance floor were tubed for privacy, some were smoked so that silhouettes of couples in various states of fornication wavered against the glass to entertain the crowd, and all were coated with a shiny black lacquer that made them resemble small, dark pools.

On a raised platform, the band pumped out harsh and clever rock. Eve wondered what Mavis would think of their wildly painted faces, tattooed chests, and black leather codpieces studded with silver spikes. She decided her friend would probably have dubbed them mag.

"Do we sit?" Roarke murmured in her ear, "or case the joint?"

"We go up," she decided. "For the overview. What's that smell?"

He stepped onto the auto-stairs with her. "Cannabis, incense. Sweat."

She shook her head. There was something under that mix, something metallic. "Blood. Fresh blood."

He'd caught it as well. That broody underlayer. "In a place like this, they put it in the air vents for mood enhancement."

"Charming."

They stepped off onto the second level. Here, rather than tables and chairs, there were floor pillows and thick rugs where patrons could lounge as they sipped their brew of choice. Those on the prowl leaned on the ornate chrome rail, scoping, Eve imagined, for a likely partner to lure into one of the privacy rooms.

There were a dozen such rooms on this level, all with heavy black doors bearing chrome plaques with such names as Perdition, Leviathan, and – more direct, in Eve's opinion – Hell and Damnation.

She could too easily imagine the personality type who would find such invitations seductive.

As she watched, a man whose eyes were glazed with liquor began to slurp his way up his companion's legs. His hand snuck under her crotch-skimming skirt as she giggled. Technically, she could have busted them both for engaging in a sexual act in public.

"What would be the point?" Roarke commented, reading her perfectly. His voice was mild. Anyone taking a casual glance would have seen a man faintly bored with the ambiance. But he was braced to attack or defend, whichever became necessary. "You've got more interesting things to do than toss a horny couple from Queens in lockup."

That wasn't really the point, Eve thought as the man tugged apart the self-stick fly on his baggy blue trousers. "How do you know they're from Queens?"

Before he could answer, a young, attractive man with a flowing mane of blond hair and bare, gleaming shoulders, hunkered down beside the busy couple. Whatever he said had the woman giggling again then grabbing him into a sloppy kiss.

"Why don't you come, too?" she demanded in an unmistakable accent. "We could have ourselves a manage and twas."

Eve lifted a brow at the borough massacre of the French term, and at the easy skill with which the bouncer disengaged himself and led the staggering couple off.

"Queens," Roarke said, smug. "Definitely. And that was smoothly done." He inclined his head as the couple was taken through a narrow door. "They'd add the price of the privacy room to the tab, and no harm done." There was a scream of female laughter as the bouncer came back out and secured the door. "Everyone's happy."

"Queens might not be in the morning. The cost of a privacy room in a place like this has to hurt. Then again…" She scanned the crowd. Ages varied from the very young – many of whom she was sure had gained entrance with forged ID – to the very mature. But from the wardrobe and jewelry, the tone of faces and bodies that slyly hinted at salon enhancements, the clientele was solidly upper middle-class.

"Money doesn't look to be a problem here. I've spotted at least five high-credit licensed companions."

"My count was more like ten."

She quirked a brow. "Twelve bouncers with low-grade palm zappers."

"On that count, we agree." He slipped an arm around her waist and walked to the rail. Below, the dance floor was packed, bodies rubbing suggestively against bodies. Wild laughter bounced off the mirrored walls and shot upward.

The band was into their performance mode. The two female vocalists were being bound to dangling silver chains with leather straps. The music pounded, heavy on the drums. The dancers surged forward, closing in, as eager as a mob at a lynching. Audience participation was realized as a man was brought forward and accepted the invitation to strip the women out of their flimsy robes. Beneath, they were naked but for glittery stars over nipples and pubes.

The crowd began to chant and howl as he coated them with thick oil, and they writhed and screamed and begged for mercy.

"That's skirting the line," Eve muttered.

"Performance art." Roarke watched the man scourge the first vocalist with a velvet cat 'o nine tails. "Still within the law."

"A simulation of debasement encourages the real thing." She set her teeth as a band member began to lightly slap the second vocalist as their voices soared in fervent duet. "We're supposed to be beyond this kind of female exploitation. But we're not. We never are. What are they looking for?"