He had the feeling that he was being used as a way to dispose of girls who had become difficult—girls who refused to cooperate without punishments even most Chinese would consider extreme—at least, if one intended to be able to sell the girl afterwards. Such girls were useless in the cribs and brothels, since few customers anticipated bruises and bites upon their person when they paid for an hour of pleasure. Most customers even preferred that their whores at least pretend to be pliant and cooperative. There had been some girls that du Mond himself, when he was acting as a "breaker," had been unable to sufficiently tame without inflicting damage the owners objected to. He had never asked what happened to those particular slaves; he had always assumed that, like the whores too diseased or drug-raddled to serve anymore, they were disposed of.
The slave-owners had an interesting custom for getting rid of useless merchandise; the slave was locked into a closet-like room containing a pallet and a single cup of water. Then they were locked in, without light or fresh air, for about a week. That usually took care of the matter, and if it didn't, well, the slave was in no condition to fight those who came to dispose of the body.
He had assumed something of the sort happened to the ones that continued to fight, but now he realized that there was a market for them, as well. Certainly he was not the only buyer for such slaves. Those fighters were the kind he got now; since he was paying for them, their purveyors did not care what he did with them, so long as the police were not moved to make inquiries afterwards.
Smith made sure that the police were not inclined to make inquiries. Paul was not certain what he did with the bodies, but evidently they never resurfaced in any condition to be awkward. Smith had remarked once that the police were amazed by the number of Chinese girls who killed themselves by jumping into the Bay with heavy objects tied about their necks, and thought it must be a form of suicide peculiar to the Orient.
When the man was not needed, he either tended Paul's horse, or spent the rest of his time in his room, injecting himself with vast amounts of cocaine. Paul was utterly astonished at the quantities Smith required to satisfy him—half the dose Smith used would kill an ordinary man. The other two servants that Beltaire sent him—a maid and a cook—paid no attention whatsoever to Smith or his habits. Aside from being amazed at the man's tolerance for drugs, Paul didn't, either. Smith did his job, and he did it well, and that was all that du Mond cared about.
Beltaire had told him the history of each of his new servants, and Paul had found it fascinating that Beltaire had managed to locate three such amazing felons and see to it that they had employment that would satisfy their cravings and the needs of their employer without drawing the attention of the law. Smith was a former jockey and a horse-owner—the horse Paul used now had been one of his own racehorses. Both had been banned from the track for drug use, and Paul suspected that Smith was still doping the horse as well as himself. Those were the sins that Smith had been caught at; according to Beltaire, he had also made a habit of sabotaging other horses and jockeys—one or two with fatal results, though he had never been charged with the fatalities.
The maid was a pretty case—she had gotten pregnant by a married man, given birth to and smothered the baby, and left it on its father's doorstep in that condition—with a note, made public, naming him as the parent. This had had the desired effect of not only destroying the man's reputation and ruining his business as a consequence, but of driving his wife into the divorce court. Then, with his life in tatters, the man mysteriously died. Some said it was because of the burden of his sins, and some even claimed he might have killed himself—but other women sometimes came to visit the maid, and men in their lives had a high mortality rate as well...
And as for the cook—Beltaire had cautioned Paul always to specify the kind of meat he wanted, and never, ever to share what the cook made for himself. And du Mond had noted that when Smith disposed of one of the used-up slaves, he always paid a visit first to the cook...
Still, they were all perfectly satisfactory servants in every way that involved du Mond, and that was all that mattered.
Du Mond mounted his horse, with its peculiarly glassy eyes, and guided it on its way towards Beltaire's home. The visible portion was modest by the standards of Cameron's mansion—but that was only what could be seen by passers-by. The building was much, much longer than it was wide; what appeared to be a small, two-storied building was an enormous, narrow, two-storied building, with the greater part of it concealed by trees and the angle of the hills among which it was nestled. Beltaire, unlike Cameron, saw no reason to advertise his prosperity. Then again, what transpired behind those doors was not something Beltaire would want anyone interested in.
The city of Oakland was hardly imposing on the surface, but in its way it held just as much to intrigue du Mond as San Francisco. Here was where Chinese slave-merchants brought merchandise in danger of being liberated by overzealous Christian missionaries. Here was where many imports difficult to pass by the eyes of the Customs agents in the harbors of San Francisco were brought. This place suited du Mond; beneath the middle-class respectability sheltered an entire culture that the law-abiding inhabitants of the town never dreamed of. And Simon Beltaire was the monarch of that community.
He had been as good as his word about initiating du Mond into a new Magickal path; Paul felt he had made enormous progress, and his personal feelings were confirmed by his new Master. In fact, he had at this point learned everything there was to know about every aspect of Sex Magick, delving right down into the darkest depths where Sex Magick met Blood and Death Magick. Tonight he would take another enormous step forward, he would begin exploring the avenues offered by the ingestion of potent drugs, and combinations of drugs. Then, under Beltaire's tutelage, he would combine the two, forging a potent weapon that would enable him to master not only his own Element of Fire, but Air, and perhaps Earth as well. The possibilities were astounding....
And he had Cameron to thank for it all!
Of course, he thought cheerfully, as he guided his horse up Simon Beltaire's driveway, by the time Simon finishes with him, there won't be a great deal left to thank. But I can certainly arrange for an impressive flower-arrangement to be sent to the funeral!
December had given way to January; the short days of January had slipped through Rose's fingers like the beads of a rosary in the hands of a particularly fervent nun. Now they were halfway through February, and she had begun to feel as if she and Cameron had always been working together. She felt more completely comfortable around him than she ever had around any of her fellow graduate students at the University.
Now that she had a working knowledge of Fire Magick through his journals, she joined him in searching through his personal library for more clues. Thus far, their attempts to find the Unicorn manuscript anywhere in San Francisco had been fruitless. There was nothing matching the little they knew in any of the collections of occult or esoteric writings in any of the collections, public or private, to which Jason had access. And the Unicorn had said that it was in the hands of a man that Jason himself knew. She had even made a foray into San Francisco to consult with Master Pao, and he had not been able to uncover any clues concerning it either. Pao had been somewhat distracted by trouble of his own, concerned with the "temper of the Dragons." He did not go into any great detail, but he had said rather abstractly that the Dragons were restless lately, and were growing more restless by the the moment. "They may dance," he had muttered, as if to himself, "they may yet dance."