Lash laughed again, the booming voice circling the chamber. “Listen to him go on! But you won’t get your five minutes, sir. In fact, your clock is fast ticking down.”

“Matthew!” Nack called. “Please … I’m beggin’ … get me out of this.”

“Kill ’em all and be done with it!” said Merda. “I’m wanting some desert to go with my dinner.”

“Yes,” Victor added, as he sat back down on his bench. “Finish them all.”

“Patience,” Lash said. “We will wait for the Owl to return. Hold your place, Lizzie, I doubt your dance is done for the night.”

Julian sat down and stretched his legs out over the bench below him. “You do understand, Lash, that Matthew and I brought you what you wanted. Doesn’t that mean we win the auction?”

“You were not invited,” said the vice admiral. “You brought what the Prussians offered. I’ll take it, with my thanks. Otherwise, I will continue to consider who wins the book and the services of Doctor Firebaugh. The end,” he added.

“Of both of you,” said Black.

In the space of a few minutes, as Nack continued to struggle weakly and Lizzie clutched to him like a leech, the Owl returned. “I sent some men out into the park,” he told Lash, while his head slowly turned nearly over his shoulder to take in Matthew and Julian. “The first report is that there are no footprints in the snow. If there’s a raiding party out there, they are hiding up in the trees.”

“An invisible raiding party, I presume,” said Lash. He stroked his flame-streaked beard. “So much for a delay to our entertainment. Musicians, begin. Lizzie, continue.”

As the drum and the whistle started up once more, RakeHell Lizzie’s claws went to work again on Nack’s chest. Nack screamed out Matthew’s name … once more … and a third time, his voice rising to heights of utter terror … until the blades slashed his throat and the blood filled his mouth and spilled over in a torrent.

Matthew looked down. Cardinal Black seized his jaw and twisted his head toward the unholy spectacle of Dippen Nack’s body being opened by the gore-clotted blades.

At last, as Nack’s insides tumbled down from the steaming cavity to the dirt, the bloodied RakeHell Lizzie fell off him and sat on her knees a distance away, her head bent forward and sweat shining on her back. Nack was already dead, but his body trembled on in spasms of muscle making the chains rattle their own weird tune. To add to the horror, Matthew realized the final sound from Nack’s mouth was the cry of his name, begging for help that would not be given.