“Everyone, please,” said someone by the door, presumably working for Blackwell. “If you’ll follow us into the reception hall, Mr. Blackwell would like to give his welcome.”
The reception hall was majestic with a high vaulted ceiling held in place by white marble columns. The tapestries stretching across the eggshell-white walls looked hundreds of years old. Some admired them, drinks in hand, while photographers snapped their photos. Busts of philosophers were perched atop dark oak tables, tucked into corners. That’s where the servants stayed with their trays of food and drinks. The man by the grand piano at the head of the room was also sitting idly, waiting for word to continue his performance.
The not-so-subtly intimidating men and women standing at attention by entrances and around corners—they must have been Blackwell’s security. They looked Sect-like in their shades and black suits, but they probably worked here full-time. Every once in a while, I saw them tilt their heads and open their mouths as if speaking to an invisible friend, so I knew they were probably communicating to each other through their inner earpieces. I guess with this many powerful people in one room, security had to be vigilant.
“Maia, you’re here.”
My heels halted against the marble floor. Brendan slipped out from the crowd and strode toward me in his finely cut Italian suit, his hair slicked into a preppy style, almost Rockwellian in its celebration of the cheesy fifties aesthetic.
“Hopefully not for long,” I mumbled, wrapping my naked arms around my chest. “Hi, by the way,” I added more loudly.
That, he heard. “Good to see you. Uh—are you okay?”
My neck was chafing from Dot’s neck-band. Lake had given me a white crochet band to wear around it, and it worked pretty well against the steel. But the back of my neck was still burning, and since I was too afraid to take the collar off, I tried to rub it against the skin. Hence, Brendan’s quizzical look.
“I’m okay,” I answered, wincing. “This place is really something, isn’t it?”
At the center of the room was a tall, white stone statue of a naked woman, her long hair wrapped around her body like robes, holding what looked like a white pearl high above her head. Blackwell certainly didn’t skimp on extravagance.
“Well, now that you’re here, there are a few people I want you to see—” Brendan started, but he was cut off by Blackwell’s booming baritone voice reverberating down the room through the sound system in the walls.
“Everyone. I want to welcome you and thank you for coming as my guests this evening.”
It was fitting for a man of Blackwell’s means and ego that he would be addressing us from above. Though there were a few patrons on the first steps of the spiraling, kingly staircase off to the side, only Blackwell stood on the second floor above us, casting his gaze down at us from behind the gilt bronze and wrought-iron railings. His long, thick black hair draped over his white suit in lavish curls, and a row of rings climbed several of his fingers, catching the light of the nineteenth-century chandelier dangling high above him.
Blackwell didn’t need a microphone, but he seemed to enjoy speaking into one. “This estate, as you may have read in your pamphlets, was purchased by my great-great-grandfather Bartholom?us Blackwell II more than a century ago. Since then, our doors have always been open for our colleagues in the Sect and our esteemed friends around the world. It has been our family pursuit to contribute our wealth, resources, and connections toward the higher purpose of ridding mankind of the mysterious demons plaguing us. And indeed, we have taken this duty seriously from the moment we were appointed to the high position of Council representative: a position of responsibility I, Bartholom?us Blackwell VI, take just as seriously as my predecessors did.”
As Blackwell continued with his speech, Brendan scoffed next to me. “That’s not what my father tells me.”
“What do you mean?” I asked in a whisper so none of Blackwell’s “esteemed friends” could hear us trash-talking him.
“Once the Sect got out from under the control of the British Crown and established itself as an independent agency, Blackwell II bribed and blackmailed his way into a prominent position—or at least as prominent a position as they were willing to give him.”
How had Director Prince put it? Ah yes, the “ceremonial crust on the Sect’s toe.” It was good to know his oldest son shared his naked disdain.
“That’s not part of the official canon, of course, but the relationship between the Blackwell family and the Sect certainly isn’t as harmonious as Blackwell’s trying to paint it. But the Sect benefits from his huge amount of wealth and resources. And I suppose he benefits from nepotism.”
“Like your dad helping you snag Sibyl’s job after the Council kicked her out?”
Brendan’s ears flushed red, but before he could stutter a coherent response, the room broke out into applause. I hadn’t even heard the rest of what Blackwell had to say, but it probably didn’t matter anyway. He was rich and powerful, and so were the people here. It was a language they understood even without words.
I wondered how it felt to inherit so much wealth and power. Blackwell looked foreboding, looming high above us, framed, perhaps fittingly, by the large, golden-rimmed acrylic painting on the wall behind him: a painting of a medieval knight standing atop a mountain of bodies, sword tipped against the head of a pleading skeleton. A man conquering death.
“There’s Director Prince with Senator Abrams of British Columbia,” Brendan said, pointing toward the other side of the room once the crowd had dispersed.
I guess his father was one of the people he’d wanted me to see. I hadn’t even known he was coming. One would think he’d have better things to do, but then this was all about optics. Arthur Prince looked much bigger in person, taller and brawnier in his gray suit than any of his sons. The other man, Senator Abrams, was practically dwarfed by his size, though his girth more than made up for it.
And next to them with a wineglass in hand . . .
“Is that Tracy Ryan? That crazy senator from Florida?”
Indeed it was, her pinched face unmistakable. She was tall too, but she looked like a scarecrow next to Prince. Her short brown hair bounced as she nodded good-bye to Senator Abrams after he answered his cell phone and left the two.
“Good, there are cameras,” I heard Brendan say before he put his hand on my shoulder. “Maia, I want you to meet Senator Ryan and Director Prince Senior.”
I blanched. “And say what?”