| |
––––––––
“OUR MASTERS WILL BE here soon,” one of the captives said. “They’ll be able to sense us again now that the necromancer no longer has control of us.”
“Lady Galantine asked us to find her fledglings,” Ruen said. “We’re to take you back to her now.”
The blonde and redhead from upstairs stepped forward, along with a brunette. “Did you bring some of our clothes with you?” the brunette asked.
“We didn’t know you’d be naked,” I said apologetically. “Your clothes must be in here somewhere,” I pointed out. It was doubtful that the necromancer would have made them strip off before he brought them to his lair.
The ten women scattered and one of them found a closet full of their clothing upstairs.
“I can hear several vehicles approaching,” Ruen said fifteen minutes later. They must have driven like the wind to get here so fast.
He knew I was pissed about the plight of the fledglings and that I wasn’t going to be able to hold my rage inside. I opened my mouth to make a comment about the girls’ ill-treatment and he slapped his hand over my mouth.
“Meet us at my car!” Ruen ordered the three women we’d come to find, then he picked me up and took off running.
We were already back at his vehicle by the time I managed to pry his hand off my mouth. “You knew master vampires were creating sex slaves, didn’t you?” I asked accusingly.
“Of course,” he admitted in annoyance. “My kind has existed for thousands of years in this dimension and even longer in the underworld. The ones who aren’t born as vampires sire more of our kind by turning humans in our world. It’s only natural they would choose young, attractive men and women to be their fledglings.”
My disgust was so profound that I couldn’t put it into words. The trio of fledglings caught up to us a few seconds later. They were now wearing pretty dresses. “Can we please leave?” the redhead asked plaintively. “I can feel Lady Galantine’s anger. We don’t want to be punished for keeping her waiting.”
I clenched my hands into fists, but decided to shelve my anger for now. They’d already been through enough and they didn’t need to suffer through a heated argument. Ruen unlocked his car and we climbed inside. Our drive back to the sprawling estate was mostly silent.
“Wait here,” Ruen ordered me after he parked near the mansion. I gave him a sour look and remained in the car as he escorted the females to the house. They turned to wave at me in thanks before stepping inside. I waved back, figuring that was the only acknowledgement I would receive from the part I’d played in this mission.
Ruen returned a few minutes later. “Lady Galantine asked me to thank you for rescuing her fledglings,” he said after he’d driven away from the mansion.
“Really?” I asked skeptically. “Or are you just making that up?”
“I’m not making it up,” he said with an eyeroll. “Apparently, the masters all assumed a rival had stolen their young vampires from them. They had no idea a necromancer was responsible. As I said, this hasn’t happened before.”
“How do you know what the other masters assumed?” I asked.
“Lady Galantine received a phone call from an enemy while we were on our mission. He accused her of stealing two of his fledglings. She told him the same thing had happened to her. They called a few of their allies and learned two more masters had also lost some coven members. One of the masters called Lady Galantine to tell her about the necromancer when they retrieved their girls from his house.”
“Does Drake know what’s going on in the vampire covens?” I asked. He gave me a look that said I was being naïve again. “Of course he does,” I said bitterly. “He’s supposed to rule Nexus, but he lets innocent young men and women be abused by their masters.”
“You heard what the fledglings said,” he reminded me. “They agreed to become vampires of their own free will.”
“They didn’t know what they were really signing up for!” I retorted, anger flaring again. “If they knew they’d be passed around like party favors, they wouldn’t have agreed to be turned!”
He couldn’t argue with that, so we subsided into silence again. It came as no surprise when he bypassed the skyscraper and took me home. I wouldn’t be able to keep my mouth shut if I saw Drake right now and we both knew it. I climbed out and slammed the door shut, then stalked into my building.
A witch and wizard were waiting for the elevator to arrive. I knew them by sight, if not by name. Picking up on my anger, they pressed themselves against the wall as far from me as they could get when we stepped into the metal box. They fled as soon as the door opened, casting frightened looks at me over their shoulders.
Aurora was home, since mom and Kye were having a date night. “I heard you slam the car door,” she said when I shoved the door open. “I take it the mission didn’t go well?”
“It went fine,” I said as I tossed my kill-bag back onto the trunk.
“Then why are you so angry?” she asked with a frown, getting up to pour us both coffee.
Ruen hadn’t told her any of the details when he’d texted her that we were on our way home. We sat down on the couch and I told her about the job. “I knew vampires could be evil, but I had no idea they were that bad,” I confessed morosely when I was done.
Aurora wasn’t at all surprised by my tale. “That kind of thing is standard practice in the underworld,” she said with a grimace. “It isn’t just demons who are either owners, or owned. A lot of species have a hierarchy similar to that.”
“It sucks,” I said, sinking down deeper into my seat and scooping ice cream into my mouth. She’d gotten up to get us a snack halfway through my report. “Humans are being drawn into the supernatural world without knowing what they’re getting into. There should be a law against it.”
“Maybe you could ask Lord Gilden to ban tricking humans into becoming vampires in Nexus,” she suggested.
“They’ll just get their victims from other cities,” I pointed out dourly.
My bestie leaned over to spoon ice cream from the tub I was holding. “No one should be subjected to being slaves,” she said darkly, no doubt thinking about her own three centuries of captivity.
“If you’d been given a choice between being turned into a bird, or being used like the fledglings we saved, which fate would you choose?” I asked.
Aurora pulled her sleeve up to examine her tattoo. “I’d choose this every time,” she said. “I might have been imprisoned in the body of a bird, but at least my former owner never abused me sexually.”
“I’m still going to kill him if we run into him,” I vowed. I’d made her a promise that I’d end his life if we ever met and I intended to stick to it.
“I know you will,” she said. She gave me a worshipful smile, then stole more ice cream from my tub.
We gamed for a couple of hours before turning in, but I had trouble falling asleep. The more I learned about the supernatural world, the more complicated it became. Politics weren’t my concern as a bounty hunter. I just took down the bad guys and cashed in my bounties. Drake was the leader of the supernatural community in our city. It was his job to ensure the laws were followed. He hired a team to punish the wicked, but mostly just the ones who’d murdered humans.
From what I’d learned tonight, murder was just the tip of the iceberg of the bad deeds being performed all around me. It made me wonder what else was going on right beneath my nose that I didn’t know about.
