And I've got my hunting permit right here." He increased the pressure with his knuckle. Dragon shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "Why should I care what you white dudes do to each other?" he asked. "Good attitude," Brennan said, and faded into the crowd. Cross Dragon off the list, Brennan thought when he hit the street. It was time to visit the Magic Kingdom again.
"Blaise," Jay said in an urgent stage whisper.
The boy's eyes were closed, but Jay could see the tension in his muscles. He was conscious, Jay was convinced of it; groggy maybe, terrified almost certainly, but conscious.
In the next room, Charm was singing. That was what the others called the Siamese quint; Jay had a sick feeling he knew what that was short for. Sascha had left twenty minutes ago, after saying something about needing to get a new boy. From the conversation, Jay gathered that he had popped away the old boy last night in the park. He wasn't quite clear what they needed a boy for, but it seemed to have something to do with the master's travel plans.
Sascha's telepathy would have made any attempt at escape futile. If they were going to make a move, they had to do it now. As near as Jay could determine, there were only five people left in the other room-six if you counted the grotesque infant nursing at its mother's breast. He figured he could discount the mother and child. Ezili and the joker who looked like a sack of blood pudding shouldn't be too dangerous either. That left only Charm and the centipede man. The centipede sat beneath a window in the other room, a whetstone in one of his left hands, a half-dozen knives in his rights, the arms on the right side of his body moving with a strange rhythmic grace as he sharpened the blades. The sound of steel against stone lent an eerie counterpoint to Charm's singing.
"Blaise," he whispered again. "C'mon, dammit. Wake up."
The boy opened his eyes. All the arrogance was gone from them now. Even in the darkness, Jay could see how scared they were. The contemptuous junior mentat had turned back into a little boy on him.
"We got to get out of here," Jay said, trying to keep his voice low. "This is the best chance we're going to get."
"They hurt me!" Blaise said. His voice cracked with pain. He spoke much too loud. For a moment Jay stiffened, but the singing went on in the next room.
"I know," Jay whispered. "Blaise, you have to keep your voice down. If they hear us, we're fucked."
"I'm scared," Blaise said. His voice was softer, but not soft enough. "I want to go home."
"Pull yourself together," Jay said. "I need you. You have to mind-control one of them."
"I tried," Blaise said. "Last night ... I had Sascha, but they didn't listen to him, and then that thing... that joker . . . too many minds, I wasn't even sure how many, and some of them ... it was like an animal mind, only smarter, and it kept sliding away from me, I couldn't get a grip ... they hurt me." He was crying now. A line of red ran down one cheek, where his tears mingled with the dried blood that had closed his eye.
"They're going to hurt you a lot worse if we don't get out of here," Jay said. "You don't need to mess with the big ugly one. Just grab the guy who looks like a centipede. Make him stand up and say, I'm going to go check on the prisoners. You got that?"
"I'm going to go check on the prisoners," Blaise repeated numbly through swollen, cracked lips.
"Casual," Jay stressed. "Make it real casual. Then get the fucker back here with one of his knives and have him cut me loose. Once my hands are loose, we're home free. I'll pop you back to the Marriott and you can bring the cavalry. Okay?"
" I don't know," Blaise said.
" I thought you were part Takisian," Jay whispered with all the scorn he had in him. "You guys good for anything but crying?"
Blaise blinked back tears, then nodded slowly. "I'll try." The boy's battered face twisted in concentration. Jay held his breath. The singing went on for what seemed like an eternity. Then a chair pushed back and he heard a thin voice announce, much too formally, "I'm going to go check on the prisoners."
The singing stopped. Jay heard footsteps. Too many footsteps.
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