by I. T. Lucas
Arwel leaned forward and whispered. “There are only four of us.”
That was a problem. Nine girls were about to be auctioned, and the customers were expected to enjoy them on the premises and not take them home with them.
Turner smoothed his hand over the back of his head. “Each of us will have to bid for several girls. Once the bidding is done, we will have to take them to the rooms with us. After the losers leave, we will do what we came here to do.”
“That means putting on a show,” Anandur said.
Arwel shrugged.
Onegus smiled. “Should be fun. Let’s go.”
Turner lifted a hand. “Wait until the bidding is almost over before you put in yours. I’ll go first. When they call me up to collect my prize, I’ll say that I want more than one. Just don’t bid against me.”
Onegus rolled his eyes. “Duh.”
“You’re next,” Turner told him. “Anandur, you go third. Arwel, you go last. Then we start again in the same order until we have all the girls.”
Anandur scratched his beard. “We don’t have to bid on all of them. We can have the others bid and win, and then when the losers leave, we take them out with the rest.”
His suggestion made sense tactically, but Turner liked things compartmentalized. They were on a rescue mission, which meant no girl was going to get victimized tonight. In the time it would take for the crowd to disperse, the other bid winners could do all kind of nasty things to their prizes.
Not on his watch. “It will complicate things. The fewer people remaining on the premises, the better.”
“What about the other women?” Arwel asked. “Are all of them being auctioned tonight? What about the regulars?”
“They are being auctioned as well. Not all of them are unwilling. Some are professional.”
“So why waste resources on them?”
Turner shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe it will be a wakeup call for them? A chance to get out? You can later thrall those who don’t want to be rescued and make them believe it was a police raid or something to that effect.”
Arwel nodded.
They had discussed the possibility before heading out, but it seemed Arwel hadn’t been paying attention. The guy wasn’t a good fit for an operation like that, but they needed him. Apparently, he was the only one with a strong enough telepathic ability to sense concealed threats as well as hidden victims.
A psychic radar instead of an electromagnetic one.
Working with immortals was interesting. Turner could’ve used someone like Arwel in his operation, provided the guy could be trained. Except, if the Guardian program hadn’t succeeded in doing so, the guy was probably untrainable.
A puzzle to ponder later. Arwel’s indispensable ability had a flip side of severe disability. Did it make him an asset or a liability?
Hey, that rhymed. It reminded him of Roni's slam poetry.
Back in the stable, the bidding had started on the first girl. Either willing or high on something, she was an enthusiastic participant and was encouraging the bidding. Sauntering up and down the stage in her birthday suit, she was flaunting her assets shamelessly.
Turner had a feeling she was going to be one of those they would have to thrall and send home.
“Do I hear a thousand?” the auctioneer asked.
“Here!” someone called.
“Do I hear eleven hundred? Tracy is worth it, gentlemen.”
Tracy shook her butt.
A few men whistled and made lewd remarks, but no one raised his hand.
Turner waited for a few more moments before raising his hand. “Here! Eleven hundred!”
“Do I hear twelve hundred?”
There were a few murmurs, but no one challenged Turner’s bid.
“And the winner is the bald gentlemen in the back. Come claim your prize for tonight.”
“I’m not done,” Turner called out. “I’m in the mood for a threesome. What else you got?”
A few guys responded with hollers and encouragements, some going as far as offering combining of resources.
“Sorry, guys. I’m not sharing.”
The next girl to go up wasn’t as bold as Tracy. Josephine, probably not her real name, looked dazed. No doubt drugged out of her mind. When the auctioneer removed her robe, leaving her nude and trembling on the stage, Turner heard Anandur growl next to him.
The last thing he needed was for the immortal to flash a pair of fangs. “Calm down, man. Do you need to get some fresh air?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine to me.”
Anandur took in a deep breath, released it on a hiss, and took in another one. “I’m good.”
That was a complication Turner hadn’t taken into consideration. The Guardians were supposed to have excellent self-control, but it seemed that Anandur had a weak spot for females in distress. Perhaps he wasn’t the right guy for the job.
Onegus, on the other hand, was excellent. He played the part of the leering male to perfection. A good-looking guy, he even managed to get a small smile from Josephine. Compared to the rest of the riffraff, he must’ve looked like a prince to her.
When the bidding was over, the four of them had bought all nine girls, for the impressive amount of thirteen thousand two hundred dollars. Kian would not be happy about this. Especially since at least four of them seemed to be willing participants.
As Turner collected his two prizes, Tracy and Michele, he wondered what he was going to do with them until the coast was clear.
“I would like a massage,” he said as he closed the door behind him. “Which one of you ladies wants to do my feet?”
31
Bridget
Bridget tried to make herself comfortable on one of the chairs surrounding the conference table in Kian’s office. Before tonight, she’d thought they were quite plush, but after sitting in one for hours, she had changed her opinion.
“Why don’t you go home?” Kian asked. “You can be debriefed tomorrow morning.”
“For the same reason you’re still here. I’m waiting for them to come back and report. I won’t be able to sleep anyway.”
Thankfully, Turner had called to let her know he was okay. Otherwise, she would’ve had a hard time keeping her cool. As much as she tried not to dwell on Victor’s illness and the impending danger of transition, it was always there, weighing down every waking moment and haunting her sleep. Adding to that a potentially dangerous situation was more than she could handle.
Kian got up and started pacing. “I don’t know about that. Personally, I hate waiting in an office while sending others into danger. I’m used to leading from the front of the line, not from behind it. It makes me feel impotent.”
Bridget sighed. “It wasn’t all that dangerous. Both of us are overreacting.” Turner had been the only one in any danger. The Guardians had nothing to fear from a bunch of human males.
Kian walked over to the buffet and lifted the thermal coffee carafe. “Do you want a refill?”
“Sure.” Getting up, she lifted her lukewarm coffee and walked over to the bar sink, rinsed it out, and handed it to Kian.
The sound of the elevator stopping on their level got both of them raising their heads and looking at the glass doors.
“They are back,” Bridget said.
“Sounds like it.”
The low murmurs of male voices were getting louder as the four got closer.
Bridget opened the door. “Hi, guys, everything went okay?”
Anandur clapped Turner’s back. “Aye, and your guy even got a foot massage. From two girls.” He waggled his brows.
Behind them, Onegus snickered.
“A foot massage?”
Turner shrugged. “What else was I supposed to do while waiting for the crowd to disperse? They probably thought I had a foot fetish.”
Bridget was less concerned with Turner getting his feet caressed than by the lack of bulletproof vest under his shirt.
“Wh
at happened to the vest? Don’t tell me you went in without it.”
Turner grimaced. “I couldn’t go into a room with two call girls wearing a bulletproof vest under my clothes. I excused myself and left it in the car.”
She had a few things to say about this, but they had an audience, and Bridget didn’t want to embarrass him.
“Do you have any whiskey in here?” Arwel asked Kian.
“I sure do. Want me to pour you some?”
“Nah, I’ll just grab the bottle.”
Bridget followed the Guardian with her eyes. “That bad?”
“No, it was okay. But I’ve been sober for too long.”
“Take a seat, gentlemen.” Kian pointed to the conference table.
“Can I get you guys anything?” Bridget asked.
“If there is another bottle of whiskey, I wouldn’t mind a shot. Vodka is fine too,” Onegus said.
“How about you, Victor?”
“I prefer coffee if you have it.”
“I do.” She walked over to the buffet while Kian checked the bar.
“You’re in luck. Okidu must’ve restocked.” He pulled out a bottle of Grey Goose and poured two shot glasses, one for Onegus and one for Anandur even though the guy hadn’t asked.
“Tell me how it went,” Kian said once everyone was seated.
Onegus took a short sip and put the glass down on the table. “You want the good news first, or the bad?”
“Start with the bad.”
“The auction drew too large of a crowd for Arwel to handle and we had to participate. We bought the girls. But since it was only for one night, and there were nine of them, we ended spending only thirteen thousand and a couple of hundreds.”
“If that’s all the bad news, I can live with that.”
Onegus let out a breath. “Good, I was worried. I know finances are tight. The other bad news is that not all the girls were victims. Two out of the nine were pros who were actually helping the pimps train the new girls.”
“What did you do with them?”
Cradling his whiskey bottle to his chest as if it was his baby, Arwel looked up. “Originally, I thralled them to think it was a police raid, and that we were letting them go, but then Turner came up with a better idea.”
Victor nodded. “We wanted to send a message, right?”
“Go on,” Kian said.
“I told them we were stealing the girls for a client abroad. One of the pros had a kid and begged us to let her go so I used this as an excuse to release her. The other one I told she was not what our client was looking for.”
“I thralled them to obscure our features,” Arwel said. “They won’t be able to recognize any of us.”
“What about the other girls?” Bridget asked.
Anandur crossed his arms over his chest. “Kri drove them to the temporary shelter. Vanessa was there waiting for them.”
Up until now, Bridget had been so happy to see Victor back and unarmed that she hadn’t realized that they were missing one of the team members. “Where is Kri?”
Turner put his coffee cup down. “She decided to stay and help Vanessa. The girls were clinging to her as if she was their mother hen.”
Anandur snorted. “A hen with barbs instead of feathers, but Kri did well. You know how she can spread calm when she wants to.”
Bridget had forgotten about it. Kri hardly ever used her ability, mainly because of lack of opportunity. As a Guardian, she dealt mainly with immortals, not humans.
“It’s a good talent to have in situations like that,” she said. “We should use her as the van driver on all our missions.”
Anandur shook his head. “She is not going to like it. The girl wants to participate in the action.”
That was because Kri didn’t understand the importance of what she could do for the traumatized victims. “I’ll have a talk with her.”
“Good luck with that,” Anandur said.
Kian looked at Onegus. “What about the establishment? What did you do with the owners?”
“We tied everyone to a tree and torched the house, including the stables. Then Arwel thralled them to forget what we looked like.”
Kian glanced at Arwel who had got through half of his bottle. “I assume you checked there was no one in the house before torching it.”
“There was no one left inside. The six men and one woman who ran the place were all tied to the tree.”
Kian leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest. “So other than the money you had to spend, everything else went as planned. Any take-home lessons?”
“Not to go in on an auction night unless all we want to do is buy,” Turner said. “I didn’t like pretending to be some pervert with a foot fetish while waiting for the rest of the buyers to leave.”
Anandur chuckled. “I was not as inventive as you. My excuse was that I wanted them to take a long shower because I’m a hygiene freak.”
Onegus arched a brow. “That didn’t require any acting. You are a clean freak.”
“I never claimed to have a great imagination. What about you, pretty boy? What did you do?”
Onegus’s conceited smile was replaced by a sheepish one. “I told them I need to watch porn to get a hard-on. So I gave them a choice of either performing for me or putting on porn.”
“And?” Anandur asked.
“We watched a lot of porn.”
32
Losham
“You wanted to see me, your highness.” Losham bowed before his father.
“Yes, let’s go into my office.”
Navuh got to his feet without the usual fanfare, gathering his robe and pulling it up as he took the stairs down to the room’s level so it wouldn’t impede his speed.
He seemed rushed, perturbed.
Expecting more bad news, Losham’s gut twisted uncomfortably. Navuh was very old, and there was little that rattled him. Had they lost another big client?
Navuh waved a hand motioning for Losham to close the door, casting a shroud to block any sound escaping the office at the same time.
“I changed my mind,” he said as he sat down on one of the overstuffed armchairs.
“About what, my lord?”
“The clan. We can’t leave them alone.”
That was a one-eighty departure from their previous conversation. “But what about the resources?”
Navuh waved an impatient hand. “That’s exactly why I changed my mind. As long as they perceive us as a direct threat, they have no choice but to fortify their defenses. That costs money and bleeds their resources. If they feel secure, they will divert all that money they are making from their technologies into more and more technologies. If we want to catch up to them, we need to slow their progress.”
Losham was duly impressed. “It’s similar to what the Americans did to the Russians with the space program and the arms race. Not wanting to fall behind, the Russians bled money on those and bankrupted their country in the process because they couldn’t afford it.”
“Precisely.”
Lifting the lid off the box of cigars he kept on the side table, Navuh pulled out two, cut the ends and handed one to Losham.
It was the most fatherly gesture Navuh had ever bestowed on him.
Actually cutting the cigar for him, with his own hands?
“Thank you, my lord.” Losham jumped to snatch the lighter and lit Navuh’s cigar.
“How do you want to go about it?”
Navuh puffed on his cigar for a few moments before answering. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t expect results. All I want is for them to feel the pressure. You can have warriors visiting clubs in Los Angeles, where we suspect the clan headquarters are. If they catch a civilian, they can try to interrogate him, but I don’t care if they learn anything. Kill the worthless shit and send a message that we are out there.”
“What about the allocation of resources?”
Navuh smiled and waved with his cigar, the smoke trailing behind his hand. “We h
ave thousands of soldiers with nothing to do other than train. I say we send them out to make money distributing and selling drugs, and spend their so-called free time in clubs. You can arrange cheap housing for them, four to a room for all I care. And if they want spending money, they will have to work for it in the drug trade.”
“Are you suggesting we offer them a cut?”
“Why not? Figure something out that will motivate them to work hard and fill our coffers with money.”
“How many soldiers are we talking about?”
“As many as you deem necessary. Put them on a rotation schedule so they don’t get too comfortable in their new roles and try to venture out on their own.”
Losham was having a hard time hiding his excitement. Navuh’s idea might be his ticket out of the island and back to Los Angeles. After tasting freedom, being cooped up on the resort was starting to feel like island fever.
“Of course, my lord. Would you want me to set up the operation?”
For the longest time, Navuh didn’t answer, puffing on his fat cigar as if Losham wasn’t even there. Then he sighed. “I wish I had someone else I could send. I like having you here by my side.”
Losham’s heart sank. “You honor me, my lord.”
“But I want this thing up and running as soon as possible, and you’re the one who can set it up the fastest. After the operations are set up and running smoothly, I want you back here.”
Losham dipped his head to hide his smile. “Yes, my lord.”
The hand with the cigar went waving again. “Don’t get too comfortable there. I want you to fly back here every other week and give me updates in person.”
“As you wish, my lord.” Losham dipped his head again and waited for his dismissal.
“As long as you are there, you can head the program we talked about before. Recruiting whores for the clubs.”
Well, technically they weren’t whores before getting recruited, as Navuh had called it, but he wasn’t going to correct his father.
“Yes, my lord. With so many different responsibilities I will need capable assistants.”