Not really his style. He could pay someone to do it, maybe. Although lately the people that he paid didn't seem to be worth their checks.

He had been downstairs a few times, but the pressure was too much. He could hear the party below him rumbling like a thunderhead, the occasional electrical charge of a dropped wine glass or shrill woman laughing.

He had been thinking of his various problems. The complexities of the present situation quickly multiplied, spinning out into future possibilities, likely and unlikely, each hypothetical action on his part creating a new branch, off which further options grew like little twigs. Until the entire thing was an entangled, unfathomable mess. He had been a chess champion as a child, and now sincerely wished that his parents had not put him through all that. Viola lessons or horseback riding would have been preferable to chess. Now his brain was hardwired for exhausting logic, thinking in terms of probability, thinking three moves out.

The White Sodality was concerned. The last meeting had not gone well. Members were upset. They were calling for heads to roll. They were calling for the blood of Ollister. His power was more clear, his art more blatant. There were pieces, in galleries now, that were quite clearly slaps to the face of the Sodality. Also, he suspected, Ollister had had some sort of relation with his wife. Isadora was fiercely loyal. She was calculating, calm and one of the favorite instruments of his will. She was like a hidden pistol, a thing of beauty. And she had always had a sexual appetite that had little to do with The Platypus. When they were younger, she desired him, occasionally. But she had particular tastes, which she now appeased at will. This had never bothered him in the slightest. He had his own appetites as well, appetites for which a wife would just not do. But he heard the way she talked about the boy. Saw her eyes shift when his name came up. And something was different. Her desire went beyond the sexual. And this he could not abide by.

Euphrates did not help matters much. The man was grossly incompetent, needing his hand held at every little step of the way. This, also, was a problem. Currently he was dispatched, along with all of the white-suited groundsmen, who had been called for duty whether they were scheduled or not, to watch the premises and provide security during the party. This was important, because of the persistent rumors of someone breaking into the mansion, sent by Ollister, perhaps to assassinate him. Even though it seemed preposterous, and he doubted the boy was ambitious in that particular way, one could never be too safe. He had underestimated before. There were standing orders to look for a suspicious youth and to keep a vigilant eye out for his chief, Ollister. His power, his wealth, his wife, this was one thing. His life, quite another.

To think, these parties used to be fun.

PART 1

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