Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
The thought made him smile and spurred him forward toward the celebration beyond.
He’d told Evan and Noelle how he’d spent his life collecting clues about people. It’d helped him survive once. Then it’d allowed him to provide insightful therapy to his patients and interesting lessons to his students and even to help the police solve crimes. He’d thought of himself not just as a collector, but the Collector. A persona. Because it’d allowed him to separate himself from the helpless boy he’d once been, the one who’d been used and victimized. The one who’d watched his mother bleed out on the floor as his sister was hacked to death. Yes, he’d gone by several names, in his own mind and on the lips of others. But tonight . . . tonight he was Caspar again. But this time, he was not helpless. He was not the broken boy who’d barely escaped with his life, and his pockets filled with the gems he’d stolen over the years. The ones that, later, Baudelaire had helped him sell. The ones that had made him rich.
He stepped into the room. Bach’s Fugue in G Minor swelled, laughter rose, and the splashing sound of the champagne fountain at the center tinkled pleasantly. Despite the plain walls and concrete floor, there were riches here, the unequalled luxury men like these enjoyed surrounding themselves with, from all corners of the earth. French and Irish crystal, German dinnerware, silk tablecloths from Myanmar, English roses, and Japanese orchids. The world was their playground, and for them, nothing was unavailable. He knew these men well enough to know they’d destroy it all with gusto by the end of the evening. What spoke of your own power even more strongly than possession?
Destruction. True kings not only invaded. They pillaged too.
He could see by their coloring that the six women in cages hanging above the party were from places both near and distant as well. The king and his court had learned, after all. Abducting people from one singular geographical location eventually became problematic.
They’d destroy them as well. Tradition and all.
Caspar glanced up to see a young girl with tangled black hair. She peered down at him with half-open, drugged eyes. She was naked, her hands bound and a gag in her mouth. The jewels she was draped in sparkled in the reflected light.
Ah, a nod to where it’d all begun. How nostalgic these beasts could be.
The combination of beauty and violence. It was their ambrosia, and they devoured it. It was what gluttons did.
They’d done so for decades, gathering in numbers, making it more unlikely that they’d ever be stopped. And each act of depravity made them more and more desensitized. And so they created a bloody game where the outcome was never quite certain, and it added to the thrill because it hinged on the wills of their victims, one of the only things they could not control, in a world where everything else was predictably theirs for the taking.
He glanced away from the girl. Hold tight, he thought. If I’ve played my cards right, you might have a savior. Of course, it would be up to her too. No one could save you if you weren’t brave enough to save yourself. He’d learned that well.
He was here to avenge it.
Speaking of vengeance, there was old Dedryck, the king. The one who’d started it all. My, but he had aged, and quite poorly, despite his vast wealth. He looked like a withered corpse in a wheelchair, his tuxedo hanging on his bony frame and a blanket draped over his lap. His back was hunched, but his sparsely haired head was raised, and he was staring at Caspar, his beady eyes trained directly on him. Could the old man even see him from that far away? It seemed so.
A server approached with a tray of flutes filled with pale-golden champagne. He bowed slightly, extending the tray. His disguise was impeccable; even Caspar barely recognized him. Caspar noted that he had done an impressive job covering his birthmark as well. It was undetectable. “Sir?” the server asked, his pinkie finger making the most minute movement toward one of the glasses. Caspar picked up the flute. How lovely. Baccarat, if he wasn’t mistaken. The server moved away.
“Mr. Vitucci.” Caspar turned, responding effortlessly to the moniker. He’d been living under it for longer than he had not, after all.
A man approached him, clapping him on the back as he let out a deep laugh. “Nice touch,” he said, nodding to the tissue paper poppy pinned to Caspar’s jacket. “Ironic.” The man grinned, and so did Caspar.
“Indeed,” Caspar agreed.
A woman in a cage near the back of the room screamed through her gag, the sound muted, her weak plea only met with laughter from the men below.