The Den of Shadows Quartet (37 page)

They were still waiting.

Turquoise finally slipped away from the hall, stretching as she shouldered open the door to the bright outside.

A stranger, a young woman no more than twenty-five years old, was waiting for her. She held up her hands to show she was unarmed. “Turquoise Draka?” she inquired. Her voice was polished, the accent vaguely English.

Turquoise nodded cautiously Her eyes had adjusted to the sunlight now, and she sized up this woman. She looked fairly harm less, with brown hair pulled back in an elegant twist, and wearing a cream business suit over a chocolate-colored blouse. A leather folio leaned against the wall beside her.

However, the woman’s heels made no sound on the stone walk as she approached, and even in the mid-June heat, her face showed no hint of sweat. Turquoise trusted her ability to recognize a vampire on sight, but just because this woman was not a bloodsucker did not mean she was human.

“Ah, and here is Ravyn Aniketos,” the woman called, as Ravyn slipped tiredly through the door. Though she must still have been sunblind, Ravyn drew a dagger instantly upon hearing her name.

Ravyn and Turquoise exchanged a look, and a mental shrug passed between them. Although they were enemies at times, rivals for power always, they were both intelligent enough to put their differences aside if
confronted by a threat. Vampire, witch, shape-shifter, or human, this woman didn’t stand a chance if her intentions were less than friendly.

“Something I can help you with?” Turquoise inquired warily.

“Yes. My name is Jillian Red.” The name had the sound of a pseudonym. Jillian extended her hand, but did not seem surprised when no one reached out to shake it. “I have been following your careers for about a year now. You both hold quite impressive ranks, and have shown a certain rancor toward a breed I am not too fond of myself.”

Bored already, Turquoise assumed the woman’s lengthy speech was just winding toward another job.

Ravyn had actually started to walk away. Turquoise debated doing the same, but was stopped by the woman’s next words.

“You both show a certain promise in your history, namely, some unpleasant experiences with the trade.”

Turquoise did not need to ask which trade. From the sudden tension that pulsed through Ravyn’s body as she turned back, she had understood the words just as well.

“And what do you know of our history?” Ravyn asked, voice silky as a black widow’s thread.

Jillian Red sighed. “You, Ravyn, first came to vampiric attention when you were fifteen, and were brought into the trade by a low-power mercenary named Jared. You were lucky enough to avoid the professional slave traders, but unlucky enough —”

Ravyn shook her head, sending silky cranberry hair shuddering about her shoulders. “This is unnecessary.”

“Unlucky enough,” Jillian continued, “to be in the midst of vampires who respected Jared’s claim of ownership and because of it would not come to your aid no matter how much they disapproved of his treatment of you.”

Ravyn was by this point visibly simmering, her frame so rigid Turquoise suspected bone and sinew would shatter if the hunter tried to move.

“Shortly after he acquired you, Jared was found dead,” Jillian finished, “and about a week after that, you entered Crimson.”

“What is the job?” Ravyn snapped.

“Shall we find someplace to sit and discuss the particulars?” Jillian suggested. “Even if you choose not to accept my offer, which I doubt, you will be well paid for your time.”

“Lead the way” Turquoise said, when Ravyn did not immediately speak. If this woman knew as much about Turquoise’s history as she did about Ravyn’s, that knowledge could make her inconvenient, if not dangerous. It would not hurt to learn what she wanted.

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER
, they were gathered around a small table in Jillian Red’s hotel room, looking at pictures the woman drew out of her briefcase.

“This is a copy of a painting made back in 1690,” their host explained as she placed the first print on the table. “I don’t suppose either of you recognizes it?”

The painting focused on an intimidating building, the outside walls of which were painted black with an abstract design in red. The grounds maintained the pattern with burgundy-leafed ground cover that had been carefully planted around black stone. A path of white slate wound sinuously up to the door, which was flanked by lushly growing roses. The blooms, which had been carefully depicted by the artist, were pure black.

The painting looked familiar, but Turquoise could not place it.

Jillian Red launched into a history lesson. “In the early sixteen hundreds two sisters, vampires both,
founded an empire they called Midnight. This building was the heart, the symbol so to speak, of their power. They were less than five hundred years old, young compared to most of their kind, but they both were ruthless, and more organized than their elders; their determination allowed them to take control swiftly.”

Jillian glanced at the white stucco ceiling, and continued, “Jeshickah, the younger of the two sisters, was the absolute ruler of Midnight. For a few hundred years, she controlled nearly all the vampires, the shape-shifters, and the witches. As for the humans … they were little more than cattle. If a human was sold into Midnight, that was the end.”

“You keep saying Midnight
was,”
Turquoise thought aloud, anxious to get to the present and learn what the job was. She was not a fan of history, and she already knew more about the vampiric slave trade than she cared to. “What is it now?”

“I’ll get there,” Jillian chastised. “In the early eighteen hundreds, Midnight was destroyed by a group of older, stronger vampires. The building was leveled, and every living creature caught inside was killed. Of course the vampires survived, but with the property and slaves lost, the empire lost its heart, and the rival power was able to take control.

“The new leaders banned the slave trade — they did not approve of caged meat — but as you two have witnessed, the laws have slackened over time. The original vampires of Midnight were able to pick up the trade again.” Jillian sighed. “That might have been bad enough, but …” She reached into her briefcase again, and this time pulled out a glossy eight-by-ten photograph.

“This was sent to me a few days ago.”

The photo did not need to be explained. Someone had rebuilt Midnight.

“The trade has been pulled together by a new master, one of the trainers from the original Midnight. My employer, who wishes to remain anonymous, was unconcerned about Midnight’s revival until recently, when the original founder returned. With the groundwork already in place, Jeshickah is expressing an interest in taking charge again. My employer would like that threat eliminated.

“The offer for Jeshickah’s death is a half million to each of you, with that much again to split as you wish if the job is done within the next week. I am only the agent, and have only been contacted via writing, so I can offer little more information than I have given you. Are you interested?”

“Why hire two Bruja to go after one leech? It’s a waste of money” Ravyn asked, the question both practical and suspicious. An anonymous employer could mean many things. It could be he had no intention of paying, or more likely it meant that he feared his target.

“My employer has a wish to have this job over quickly,” Jillian answered. “Hiring two of you is insurance. If one of you does not succeed, the other might.”

In other words, they were expendable, and Jillian’s anonymous employer wanted to have a backup in case one of them got killed. Someone either didn’t have much faith in Bruja abilities, or had more information than Turquoise and Ravyn were receiving.

“Sounds fun,” Ravyn acknowledged, scraping away a speck of blood she had just noticed on one of her
burgundy nails. “With luck, we won’t have to worry about the rematch, either,” she added to Turquoise.

Turquoise shrugged. This job was worth too much to turn her back on. Besides, she had never met a vampire she couldn’t beat. “You say get inside,” she inquired, tacitly accepting Jillian’s terms. “How?”

“That’s one of the reasons the job isn’t cheap,” Jillian said, a slight smile on her face. “You’re on your own to get into Midnight. You’ll have to use any means necessary, Turquoise.”

Turquoise knew what Jillian was hinting at. “I need to make a call.”

An hour later, Turquoise found herself in yet another hotel room, this time with a fairly attractive, dark-skinned gentleman three or four hundred years old. It was hard to tell exactly, since in appearance he was twenty-five at the most. As broaching the topic of any vampire’s past could be dangerous at best, Turquoise had never asked.

“Milady Turquoise,” he greeted.

“Nathaniel, always nice to see you,” she responded sincerely. Nathaniel was a vampire, true, and that was not his only flaw; he was also a mercenary and an assassin, as necessity dictated. However, since Turquoise also fit most of those descriptions, she did not hold Nathaniel’s profession against him.

Luckily, Nathaniel’s line thirsted more for money than for blood. If anyone thought it strange that a vampire and a human had a close business relationship, no one had spoken of it. Nathaniel had taught Turquoise most of what she knew. He had taught her what a
mercenary was, the value of her talents — among them hunting — and most importantly, where to find buyers for the skills she was willing to sell. He had also once saved her life, not to mention her sanity.

“I don’t suppose this is a social call,” Nathaniel stated. “You on a job?”

She nodded, debating how much she needed to tell him. Though he would offer her a chance to buy his silence, Nathaniel would be willing and able to sell any information she gave him.

“I need to get myself and another woman into Midnight.” The slight widening of Nathaniel’s eyes was the only sign that she had surprised him. “And I need to do it without getting tied up or beaten bloody.”

Nathaniel sighed and leaned back against the wall. “You don’t ask for much, do you, Turquoise?” he said with heavy sarcasm. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

She frowned at the tone of his voice. It was unlike Nathaniel to object to anything someone else was doing, especially if he was likely to get paid for it.

“Will you get us in?”

“I could sell you in,” Nathaniel responded bluntly. His gaze flickered down and up her body, a critical sizing up. “You would fetch a high number, I’m sure. Attractive, healthy, strong, intelligent … or I thought you were. Are you really so anxious to sell yourself back into slavery, Turquoise?”

No. She had been in once; she had no desire to return. However, to return with a knife, as an experienced hunter, was a great deal different than returning unarmed, as the innocent she had once been.

“Is there any other way?”

Nathaniel shook his head, and inventoried her price in a cool tone that sent shivers down her spine. “The scars on your arms will lessen your value by a couple hundred. Unless you would like me to offer you to Daryl? He would pay dearly.”

She recoiled as Nathaniel said her once-master’s name.

Gathering her pride, she stated, “If he’s involved in Midnight, I’m definitely going in. He’s deserved a knife for a long time.”

“You weren’t always so tough, Turquoise,” Nathaniel said softly. He had been the one who had given her the name Turquoise Draka, a new identity to replace the one Lord Daryl had destroyed. He had provided her with contacts to Bruja, and had taught her about fighting back instead of cowering. He had never told her why, and she had never asked. “I’ve seen you pull stunts that left me wondering if you had a death wish. You push yourself hard enough to kill a weaker human, and accept jobs that should be suicide missions just to prove you can handle them.”

She shrugged, and found that her shoulders were painfully tight. “I’ve never lost,” she pointed out. “And I’ve never known you to argue with me before.”

Nathaniel just sighed. “It’s your life,” he finally relented. “You know the slave trade better than most freeblood humans will ever imagine it.”

He paused, and then named his price. “Forty thousand, in advance. And I’ll take whatever I can get for selling the two of you. I haven’t dealt in flesh since the old Midnight was destroyed, but I’ve had enough pressure
to return to it that my selling a couple of humans for a profit won’t surprise anyone. Deal, milady?” Nathaniel had returned to his usual cool composure, and the familiar tone helped soothe her jangled nerves.

She nodded. “Deal.”

“Shall we find your companion?”

Again she nodded. They walked down the hall to the room where Ravyn and Jillian were waiting.

A few paces from the doorway to Jillian Red’s hotel room, she asked, “Why does Midnight scare you so much?” It was not a polite question. Asking any vampire about his fear was like asking a parent why his child was diseased.

She half-expected him to clam up, but instead he leveled a dark gaze in her direction.

Then he looked away, flashing a handsome smile at some memory as he stepped toward the doorway. “Because I was part of it once,” he answered. “I know Midnight and the woman who once ran it better than you could ever imagine; I understand what went on inside. And while I’m not nearly so mad as the people I surround myself with, I seem to have a rather unprofessional desire not to see you kill yourself.”

Turquoise was still trying to decide whether that last bit was an insult or a compliment when Nathaniel knocked on Jillian Red’s door.

R
AVYN HAD SEEMED
to be thoroughly amused when she learned of the masquerade she would have to play in order to earn her money but as they went over the finer points of slavery at a Chinese restaurant along the way she became decidedly less delighted.

Nathaniel spoke between sips of tea and polite bites of sesame chicken. Turquoise wondered whether he liked the taste, or was just willing to eat so they would look normal, as the vampire certainly did not need the human food.

He explained calmly, “If you don’t want to be bound and thrown into a cell, you’re going to need to pass for a tamed slave. No trainer will believe you are broken, but if you’re careful, he might be satisfied that you’re smart enough to be obedient. I’ve heard that Midnight isn’t as brutal to its slaves as it once was, so a bit of servility should buy you enough time for your job.” For Ravyn’s benefit, he elaborated. “Your master is more than your owner — he is your life, the only thing that
matters. Nothing comes before his wishes. What he says, you do, without hesitation. Until you’re sold, that master is me. When we get to Midnight, keep your eyes on me. If someone tells you to do something, look to me. If someone asks you a question, look to me. Once you’re sold, the same applies to whoever your new owner is. A slave isn’t supposed to think; she just obeys.