Fucking fantastic, really. If this is what happens when I take a sabbatical, I probably should avoid them altogether. I was supposed to be in a human safe-zone as well. But I suppose human safe-zones also tend to attract the most humans, so can be a tempting buffet to those who deal in human slavery for a living.
If I hadn’t chosen such an obscure area to try and experience normal life with, maybe I wouldn’t be in this situation now.
“What did you do with my bodyguard?” I ask, resisting the urge to strain against my bonds. “Decent bodyguards are very expensive to replace.” Beron’s a good man, and a good friend. But I can’t let them know he might mean something to me, because I’d rather not have additional leverage used against me.
My question gains no answer. I didn’t expect one, anyway, but it confirms my suspicions that Beron may not be on the side of the living. Father won’t be pleased with that. I won’t be pleased with that. I’d have to tell his parents, his siblings, his cousins, let alone tell myself.
“Let’s just kill him,” one of the idiots blurts, and I barely retain my eye roll.
“How about another solution?” I say, smiling thinly at them. “Are you auctioning or selling organs?”
More collective hissing and arguing. I add, after licking my dry, uncomfortable lips, “If it’s an auction, can I just buy back my bodyguard? Be a guest there instead, and we can overlook all this inconvenient kidnapping business?”
“You dare –” the bear shifter splutters, but before he finishes his speech, the door behind swings open, and I crane my neck to see an older, slender man walk in, resplendent in a black and grey three piece, clutching a mahogany cane in a spindly hand. He has an air of sophistication about him, and a heavy aura that’s reminiscent of powerful magic.
Also, he couldn’t look more evil if he tried.
“I’ll take over from here,” the man says.
His words are simple, but they clear out the room in seconds. Nobody here seems to want to talk back at him. The man watches them go with gimlet red eyes, and I smell the faint essence of brimstone upon his skin – a demon.
God, I hate demons. Always wanting to make deals with people, all in exchange for a simple little soul. There’s far too many ways those little deals can go wrong.
“Cato Dagen,” the man says, inclining his head in a respectful gesture. “I’m afraid you are quite the mistaken guest in our company here. We had no intentions of placing you in such an undesirable situation.”
“Really,” I say, lips curling in distaste, anger stirring in my veins. He speaks in a smooth, suave manner, as if he thinks himself my friend. A demon is nobody’s friend. “Because it seems I’m here regardless. And I just had to listen to those witless morons argue about whether or not I should be killed.”
“I apologize for that,” the man says, sighing as he taps towards me, and I wonder if he’s actually planning to free me. That might be a surprise. I don’t think he’ll kill me, anyway. It wouldn’t be a particularly smart move for someone trying to stay discreet, though then again, having me captured in the first place wasn’t exactly a smart move, either.
“I’ll accept it if you stand down with this whole business angle you’re working,” I respond, aware I might be aggravating the only reasonable sounding person here, but also not caring. I have an immense dislike for the criminals that operate in our city, hiding out of the law’s eyes, marring what could otherwise be a beautiful city. But there’s a dark heart in almost anywhere where people live.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he replies, almost sounding remorseful, and unease tickles my stomach. “I have a lot of people who would be unhappy, should I cut my business. And many more people willing to take over. Positions like mine don’t stay unoccupied for long.”
True. Worth a try, though.
“What would you like to do with me then? Whoever you are.”
“You can call me the Gentleman,” he says, and I bite back a laugh. He’s got the persona going on, but I can’t think of anyone less like a gentleman than someone who deals with the black market. A gentleman demon, hankering after souls, probably enticing them with a silver tongue out of the unfortunate and unwise. “It’s what everyone else refers to me as. Now, the situation is quite simple, Mr. Dagen. It would be inconvenient to ransom you, nor do I intend to kill you. But if you prove to be too much of a liability, then I will have no choice.”
I watch him linger almost within grabbing distance. “I imagine you’ve had to finish off quite a few people over the years.”
“Quite,” he says. “Now, I understand we have your bodyguard. We will return him. All in good faith. We will drop you off somewhere, without a word, and leave you in peace. But if you come sniffing around… if we catch even a hint that you’re attempting to hunt us down, it will not end well for you and your family.” Although his tone is just as amiable as before, there’s a cold steel in his expression that makes me think, yes, this guy could probably hire assassins by the dozen to slip past my family’s guards. I’d like to think that we could handle him, but it’s best not to make too many enemies. All it takes is one poisoned meal to finish off even a dragon.
Halberg’s a hotbed of political intrigue and journalistic investigations on a normal day. People arguing to let in human immigrants, to block them. Give humans magic, or never let them have the chance. Stop the slave trade, or don’t fuck up traditions and our sky given rights.
“What about the others in the bar?” I ask, eyes narrowed. “What happens to them?”
“None of your concern. Unless, of course, you wish to buy one of them,” Gentleman says with a kindly smile.
I sweat at the notion. The whole point of what I’m doing with my father is to stop slavery.
In normal circumstances, I could agree, buy them, instantly free them. But this isn’t normal. Gentleman’s a demon. And slaves enter special demonic contracts that can’t be broken without extreme pain on the cards, and most likely death. It’s how the system gets perpetrated so easily. Once the contract is signed, the soul’s bound to the contract. If the demon can’t get the soul physically, they can still ensnare it through paper. “You could just release them?”
“That’s not how this works, and you know it.” Gentleman shakes his head, wearing an almost sympathetic smile. “I’ve a business to run. But if you wish to purchase any of our new wares, then perhaps we can extend you an invitation. Masked, of course. No identities divulged. We don’t want the law sniffing around. And of course, you’d have to sign the contracts. Just to make sure you don’t try anything funny.”
This sly huckster. I’d have to let a worm like him continue thriving in the underground, but I’m not much use dead to anyone.
But those women I met in the bar, before everything went wrong – they don’t deserve this. Three friends, there just because one of them got kicked out of medical school, and didn’t know what they wanted to do with their lives. If their first experience of a shifter city was getting kidnapped and sold at a flesh auction… that’d be a very poor experience indeed. People on the fringes of society, without fingerprints and identification vanish all the time. But not people like them. People with hopes, jobs, families, insurances and an active presence in the world. They don’t take drugs, they’re not at the bottom of the rung. But to someone like Gentleman, they’re just meat. Their souls are for the grinder.
As is mine.
It’s odd. Now I realize I have knowledge I can help them, and the power to do so, I feel responsible for it. Like I’m the last line of defense before a life of misery awaits.
I can’t just leave them behind, to be sold god knows where. And I still have to keep that promise I made to Roze – that I’d show her around the city, introduce her to all the beauty it has to offer. Father’s always thinking about making our city more popular to the humans. Stamping out the corruption, letting them breathe in the magical air that shapes us. Creating safe zones where they can’t be taken. We have multiple munici
palities in Halberg, so each district has its own flavor and set of rules. Humans see us as one big city, but truthfully, we’re many different areas stitched together in a patchwork metropolitan blanket.
“I do have some interest in your wares,” I say, knowing that my father would call me a fool. Although he wanted to promote the positive image of this place to humans, that didn’t mean he would appreciate me forking out a few hundred thousand to save some, and then bind them to contract, so even if I did want to free them, I couldn’t.
The sheer audacity of it, though, with these people accidentally capturing me, then telling me that if I want to see the others free, then I’d have to pay for them.
I know that slaves aren’t illegal in all the districts, but it is becoming more of an issue to keep them. It’s the ugliest part of our society, and I’m working hard to stop it. It’s more or less banished from the upper levels now, and we are in the process of attempting to push through a bill to make it illegal in our district, but even if it was, this wouldn’t be all of Halberg, or other shifter cities. There’d still be networks to stamp out, and press gangs roaming human and shifter territories, trying to seize more into service, or to fuel the entirely too bustling organ trade.
If I fudge my signature as well, he’ll know. Because the contract won’t take hold, and demons are very particular about their contracts.
I also know because my grandfather keeps slaves, and is against my father’s viewpoint. I know way too much about all of it.
“Now we’ve come to an agreement, we’ll look into releasing you, and then you coming into our masquerade auction to gain whatever it is you wish.”
“Fantastic,” I say, attempting my toothiest smile yet. “Now why don’t you get me out of these chains?”
I hope that somehow, I might be able to find a way to wriggle out of the contract. If I can free the women without resorting to damning their immortal souls to searing agony the moment they attempt freedom.
Maybe then we can catch up on the conversation that was started. Since before we were so rudely interrupted, I think Roze was showing great interest in me.
But possibly not as much interest as I was showing her. Of course, if I can’t afford to buy her, then she’ll likely be sold off to some cruel or dispassionate master. And if I do, I’ll have a hell of a time trying to explain that I didn’t intentionally sign her up for that contract, but it happened anyway.
She’d still be in invisible chains, but those chains are attached instead to her soul.
Chapter 3
Roze
I’m in line behind three men, and my friends are nowhere to be seen. I think maybe they’ve been sold already, or something else has happened. I can’t know for sure, and I don’t want to think about them being… sold to someone.
But that’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m in handcuffs, with a big-ass stitch down my front like I was some kind of freak science experiment. And that’s why they sat me next to someone earlier while categorizing me, to see what “power” I now had.
The magic energy thrums in my veins in a way that’s hard to ignore. It’s like white noise in the back of my head, fizzling there and whispering for me to seize it, to use it, when it’s never been there before.
I’ve heard about the high death rate. A victim or volunteer has about a sixty percent chance of survival. It’s more than half, but it’s still a risky procedure, and I wouldn’t trust the people responsible for placing the bone within someone.
Along with the men and women keeping me prisoner, a strange, fairy-like woman had leaned over me, sniffing at my skin, before informing the others that I had the healing touch. It caused a stir of excitement, and questions about how I had the touch.
“One of the bones resonated with her. Looked to be part of the cranium. I’d never seen such a strong connection. All it took was a small push of my magic, and the bond between them was complete,” said a stubby man with huge dark eyes. They reminded me of how bush babies looked, caught in the glare of a flashlight when an explorer shone it upon them.
“Cranium?” the fairy had replied. “I thought we didn’t have any bones like that. It’s all ribs, legs and arms, isn’t it?”
“Came with the delivery man. New guy, come to think of it. Never seen him before. Plopped a pile of bones down, including that cranium.”
They had debated it a fierce while, leading me to the impression that this cranium they talked about was one of a kind in the pile they had to work with. I shudder to think about the notion of a great heap of bones, all plucked from the dead, assembled for the sole purpose of infecting humans with magic via the hated art of necromancy. Shortly afterwards, a man with a walking cane had entered the room to examine me. His eyes were a burning red, and he watched me with such hunger that my skin crawled all over. The first thing he did when he discovered that I had a cranium bone implanted in me was to leave the room for a moment. When he came back, he said something about it being fine, his prize was still in its rightful place.
She will be our flagship sell tonight, he’d said. People will pay through the roof to have her kind of power. Though I am going to find out who was responsible for delivering that implant, because healing bones are expensive.
He had seemed puzzled for a moment, before leaving, and all the other attendees had fussed around me afterwards like I was a particularly attractive piece of stuffed pig.
I’m monumentally pissed off that I’ve had my freedom stripped from me. I’m livid that they performed an unauthorized vivisection on me to give me an implant, happily risking my death. I’m scared, nervous, and more than petrified for the fate of my friends. What if they went through the same process I did? What if they’re now hurt?
Despite all of this, there’s a part of me delighted to have magic. Even with the way I’ve gained it, and the way I’m treated, like some market commodity, rather than an actual human being.
I have magic. Actual, stinkin’ magic.
It pulses from the implant, mingling with the mental white noise. Spreading through my veins and leaving through my fingertips. It sends a kind of perverse thrill, almost arousal through me, to stumble upon that power: a magic that draws me to touch someone, to knit their flesh together, to repair them. To fix anyone. Like myself? I turn this suggestive power upon the stitches, letting it flow out, funneling into the delicate flesh. It’s a peculiar feeling, to say the least, when each stitch pops itself out of me one by one. Glad I don’t look like some messed up experiment anymore.
Well, at least I know now they’re going to market and sell me as a healer, though I could have aided others before all this. I know how to treat injuries, to do a kidney transplant, and to identify most common symptoms a human body endures. There’s immense pressure on those training to be surgeons, like I was. One fatal mistake, and it makes you liable for your patient’s family to press charges. No hospital wants that stain upon their reputation. My throat is dry, and I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment to block everything out.
It’s not enough we work sixteen hour shifts and deal with death, trauma, and patients. We have to make it that much harder on ourselves by being cruel as well, because other people were cruel before them.
The line shifts. I’m one behind being sold, and watch the next victim be taken through a door, lost from sight forever. Anxiety pounds under my ribcage, next to the strange lump, that foreign invader inside me fueling my newfound magic. My thoughts drift from my predicament to my friends.
They just wanted to cheer me up. We thought – surely no one would be so foolish to take us. We were traveling together. We were never alone. Only isolated, vulnerable people get picked off. Not an entire establishment. The fuck is up with that? We should have been safe.
We should have been safe.
God, mother must be going crazy, not hearing a word from me. Or maybe she thinks I’m just on one of my party weekends, not paying attention to my phone and focusing instead on the pleasures of Halberg city, with its wintry clima
te and picturesque scenery. Not stuck in a dingy little room with other prisoners, waiting for someone to scoop us up, perhaps praying silently for an eleventh hour rescue.
No rescue comes. I’m standing next to a demonic guard, who says, in a rather bored voice, “When you go on stage, you will be quiet, meek, and obey any instructions given. Should you disobey any of them, or cause a spectacle, it will result in you being terminated.”
He’s said this to every slave that’s stood next to him, and this is the first time I’ve heard the whole thing. I’m eventually shuffled on stage, still dancing through emotions, a sick churning in my stomach when I see potentially hundreds of masked figures scanning me, devouring me, wondering what potential I have to offer to them. All of them here clearly support the slave trade, and I’ll just vanish into one of their houses, imprisoned, and any attempt to escape will burn my soul.
Yes – I know about the slave contracts. Why it’s so difficult to unmake a slave in a magical city once they’re bound to one. It places a gilded cage around the soul, and it’s there for as long as a contract abides.
Seeing all of these people in front of me locks up my limbs. All of them are wearing masks, and all of them are here to buy someone. I wonder how many will be interested in me.
I wonder how they can all sit there, so calmly, treating someone else’s life like a commodity.
A demon paces the stage, announcing that I’m a crowning glory of this particular night. The magical implant inside me has delivered the gift of healing, to mend injury and disease with a touch, and it could be yours, all for the special starting price of one million.
Bought By The Masters Page 3