Page 589 of Flirting with Darkness

Then his eyes scanned the rest of the terrace.

His father was right.

Servants were distributing drinks to all the guests as they walked through the glass doors to the terrace. More servants emerged from around the side of the house, carrying identical black trays. Each one held a spiral pattern of small wine glasses with etched, Christmas-like patterns.

The white-gloved servants handed one of the small, bell-like glasses to each of the guests. No one refused. Every one of them took their proffered glass with a delighted smile. A thick-looking red liquid filled half of each glass, what might have been sherry, might have been port… or might have been something else.

Within minutes, everyone seemed to hold one of the etched glasses.

“A toast!” his father roared out, holding up a glass of his own.

Ghost looked at it, frowning, still trying to decide what it was.

“…To Christmas! And to the return of my son and heir!”

“Here! Here!” the crowd shouted.

Turning with a smile, the Count held up his glass to Ghost, toasting him.

The crowd shouted and called out again in appreciation, toasting Ghost along with the Count, toasting Christmas and free alcohol, caviar and champagne, toasting revealing clothes, sex, stolen kisses, and winter dances.

Toasting yet another year of being at the top of the wealth-soaked class.

Toasting the Tsar.

Toasting the Kings and Queens of Europe.

Toasting the wealth of the modern age.

Perhaps without knowing, toasting the Count’s magick, too.

Everyone raised their glasses to drink.

Ghost watched, a little startled when he saw his father drink with the rest of them. The Count drained his glass entirely, and every one of his guests did the same.

Uniformly, it seemed, they lowered their glasses.

Ghost watched his father use a dark sleeve to wipe off the side of his mouth. He couldn’t help but notice that the liquid had stained his tongue a very dark, berry red.

It looked like blood.

The first explosion went off above the back yard, illuminating the snow.

Ghost’s eyes rose with the rest of them.

He soon understood what he was seeing.

Fireworks, they called them. Colorful explosions like what Ghost had seen over the Thames one year, when the Queen procured a supply from China or elsewhere in the Far East. The royals had put them on display for the whole city to watch.

The booming sound made him flinch in reflex, sounding like a gunshot or a cannon overhead, but then the green and purple sparks bloomed outward like an enormous flower. The trails of light and fire filled the night sky, obliterating the stars.

The audienceOooohed,moving further from the tall glass doors.

A second boom echoed over the half-frozen lake.

That one shone orange and red.

Trails of bright firelight rained down on the top of the snow-dusted water.

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