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sudden urge to laugh, and bit his lip to stop it.
    The solemn procession wound its way deeper and he smelt damp rock; were they in a cave? Evidently; as the passage widened, he saw light ahead, and entered eventually into a large chamber, set with candles, whose rough-hewn walls indicated that they were indeed in a catacomb of sorts. The impression was heightened by the presence of a number of human skulls, set grinning atop their crossed thigh-bones, like so many Jolly Rogers.
    Grey found himself pressed into a place near the wall. One figure, robed in a cardinal's red, came forward, and Sir Francis Dashwood's voice intoned the beginning of the rite. The rite itself was a parody of the Mass, enacted with great solemnity, invocations made to the Master of Darkness, the chalice formed of a upturned skull.
    In all truth, Grey found the proceedings tedious in the extreme, enlivened only by the appearance of a large Barbary ape, attired in Bishop's cope and miter, who appeared at the Consecration. The animal sprang upon the altar, where it gobbled and slobbered over the bread provided, and spilt wine upon the floor. It would have been less entertaining, Grey thought, had the beast's ginger whiskers and seamed countenance not reminded him so strongly of the Bishop of Ely, an old friend of his mother's.
    At the conclusion of this rite, the men went out, with considerably less solemnity than when they had come in. A good deal had been drunk in the course of the rite, and their behavior was less restrained than that of the ape.
    Two men near the end of the line seized Grey by the arms, and compelled him into a small alcove, around which the others had gathered. He found himself bent backward over a marble basin, the robe pushed down from his shoulders. Dashwood intoned a prayer in reverse Latin, and something warm and sticky cascaded over Grey's head, blinding him and causing him to struggle and curse in the grip of his captors.
    "I baptize thee, child of Asmodeus, son of blood..." A kick caught Dashwood under the chin and sent him reeling backward. A hard punch in the pit of the stomach knocked the breath from Grey and quieted him for the remainder of the brief ceremony.
    Then they set him on his feet, bloodstained, and gave him drink from a jeweled cup. He tasted opium in the wine, and let as much as he dared dribble down his chin as he drank. Even so, he felt the dreamy tendrils of the drug steal through his mind, and his balance grew precarious, sending him lurching through the crowd, to the great hilarity of the robed onlookers.
    Hands took him by the elbows and propelled him down a corridor, and another, and another. A draft of warm air, and he found himself thrust through a door, which closed behind him.
    The chamber was small, furnished with nothing save a narrow couch against the far wall, and a table upon which stood a flagon, several glasses... and a knife. Grey staggered to it, and braced himself with both hands, to keep from falling.
    There was a strange smell in the room. At first he thought he had vomited, sickened by blood and wine, but then he saw the pool of it, across the room by the bed. It was only then that he saw the girl.
    She was young and naked and dead. Her body lay limp, sprawled white in the light, but her eyes were dull and her lips blue, the traces of sickness trailing down her face and across the bedclothes. Grey backed slowly away, shock washing the last remnants of the drug from his blood.
    He rubbed both hands hard across his face, striving to think. What was this, why was he here, with the body of this young woman? He brought himself to come closer, to look. She was no one he had seen before; the calluses upon her hands and the state of her feet marked her as a servant or a country girl.
    He turned sharply, went to the door. Locked, of course. But what was the point? He shook his head, his brain slowly clearing. Once clear, though, no answers came to mind. Blackmail, perhaps? It was true that Grey's