“Mr. Thiroux requested this,” Madame said with a wink. “He’s in a strange mood tonight, honey, drunk already, and asked to watch you in play with his gentleman friend.”

That gave her pause. John had never made such a request before, but then again, she did recall him mentioning that he enjoyed the fact that she’d known so many men, that she had her choice of protectors, and yet preferred his body to others. He often talked at length about how she would one day tire of him and seek another, which she knew beyond a doubt she never would. Her heart, her soul, belonged to him, and she craved him, ached for his approval, burned for his body, longed for his love.

She stood indecisively. Decisions were not her strong suit. She’d made a significant number of poor ones, the succession of which had led her to the unfortunate lifestyle she had found herself in prior to meeting John. Yet none so important as this decision now, because she could not jeopardize her position with him. “I don’t know . . . that doesn’t seem . . .”

“Would you want to anger him?” Madame demanded. “Ruin a good thing for you and me? You don’t have a choice. This man is an artist, like Mr. Thiroux. He’ll be gentle, and he’ll be here in two minutes. Remove your gown and save some time.”

Though it still seemed as though this could be a mistake, Anne hastened to obey as the door closed. She would do anything John wanted. Anything. She would die for him.

Gabriel St. John knew that he was fallen. From angel to demon, favorite to disdained, he embraced the change, welcomed the passion, wallowed in the ecstasy he found day after day in the bottom of the bottle, and night after night in the arms of his favorite whore. In the two years of his tenure walking the earth as a Watcher, he had absorbed the stench and pain of human misery surrounding him until he could no longer suffer the helplessness and hopelessness they brought upon him. Their sad, desperate, begging eyes were a much easier burden to bear when his over-heightened angelic senses were dulled from vast quantities of whiskey, opium, and the beautiful green fairy of absinthe he had come to adore. It was a drink he had come to worship, to crave with every ounce of his preternatural essence. His absinthe was his clarity, his respite, his one true love.

“Good evenin’, Mr. Thiroux,” a stout woman in full-blown scarlet silk said to him.