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“Ruby,” Viola called again.
But Ruby showed no signs of hearing her. She continued to stare, and her pupils were so dilated that they nearly overwhelmed the green. The knife dropped, clanging to the floor.
Without another word, Ruby turned and left them there, even as Viola called to her.
They were alone. Trapped in the dark, where no one would think to look for them.
Somewhere in the distance, a thunderous crack echoed, and the building began to quake.
CONSECRATION
Harte stood next to Esta at the edge of the crowded rooftop, waiting for Jianyu and Viola amid the crush of robed men. He knew their types. He’d met men like them in St. Louis and San Francisco, and he’d heard about Esta’s brushes with their brothers in Colorado. He knew what each of them was capable of, but he paid them little attention. Jack was the true danger that night.
Jack, however, didn’t seem to be in any hurry. He’d been careful to keep himself in the middle of the crowd, where it was impossible to get him alone and corner him with the sigils. He also didn’t seem to be planning or plotting anything.
“Why is he just sitting there?” Esta whispered, pulling her cloak low over her forehead to keep from being seen. “Shouldn’t he be doing something by now? Preparing or… something?”
“I don’t know,” Harte said. He didn’t particularly want Jack to do anything, but the lack of action didn’t make him feel any safer.
She frowned. “So far he looks as bored as we are.”
“Maybe that’s the point?” Harte studied Jack. He looked far too relaxed, too confident. Like he was already sure that he would succeed.
Harte looked around the rooftop again, but other than the strange alchemical torches and flickering cauldrons, nothing seemed capable of causing the kind of destruction Jack had to have been planning.
“I’d feel better if Viola and Jianyu were here,” Esta whispered. “What do you think is keeping them?”
“They had to wait for Ruby,” he reminded her. “It’s likely she couldn’t slip away as quickly as she’d planned. She knew how important it was not to call attention to her departure.”
“Well, they’d better hurry.”
Suddenly, a drumroll interrupted the softly murmured conversations. The robed men who were still standing and milling about began to shuffle quickly toward their seats, while those already sitting straightened a little taller to see what was happening as the lights around the rooftop flickered and dimmed.
“It’s starting,” Esta whispered.
And Jack still hadn’t made any move. He was still just sitting there in the middle of the row, just to the left of the stage, shoulder to shoulder with the men next to him. It would have been impossible for him to do anything without drawing attention to himself.
The drumroll continued, swelling in volume and intensity, until the crack of a rim shot ended in a flash of light that revealed a line of barely clad women at the back of the seating.
“Figures,” Esta muttered, sounding annoyed with the whole scene.
Harte knew it had been nothing more than simple stage magic. There was no burst of hot or cold energy, but the illusion was effective enough to have the crowd gasping and murmuring with excitement. Or perhaps that was caused by the lack of clothing on the women. They were dressed in nothing more than glimmering silk sarongs, and their bodies had been painted the same gold as the Diana that balanced above them. Around their necks hung cut crystals, each to symbolize a digit of the Philosopher’s Hand: the key, the crown, the lantern, the star, and the moon.
Another drumroll began, and the women parted to reveal five robed men.
“That must be the Inner Circle,” Esta whispered.
The group followed the women who were silently processing down the middle aisle, toward the stage that had been erected on the side of the roof facing the park and the Flatiron Building. Slowly they walked, with every eye on the roof watching the sway of their hips as they continued up to the stage and then began to climb.
On the stage, an iron tree glimmered with a hundred lights. It was large enough for the women to sit within its branches, Harte realized. Like gilded birds, they took their places, lounging in positions to best display their impressive… assets. And the crystals that hung around their necks.
The Inner Circle mounted the stage not far behind them. Unlike the dark robes worn by the other Brotherhoods, the old men of the Inner Circle were dressed in ceremonial robes made of golden silk. The High Princept was easily recognizable in silk so white it seemed almost to reflect the light of the moon. Harte supposed that the outfit was meant to give him a regal appearance, but the winter wind made the fabric of his robe billow and made the old man look small and almost shriveled in comparison.
The Princept raised his arms, and the crowd grew silent.
“We welcome to our city our fellow brothers of the occult sciences. To the steadfast men of the Veiled Prophet Society, we bid welcome. As above…”
An entire section that could only have been the delegates from St. Louis responded, droning, “So below.”
