That any of several dreadful scenarios might have played out before he got to her.
He couldn't stand to visualize them in detail. What he would do if he didn't find her in time...
He reached out and without the slightest effort gripped the sweetshop man around the throat, lifting him off the floor.
"We need to have a little chat,"he said, turning the ful force of his menacing dark eyes on the bulging ones of his prey.
"About just how she got confiscated. Don't struggle. If you haven't hurt the girl, you've got nothing to fear. If you have..."
He pul ed the terrified man completely across the counter and said very softly, "If you have, then, by al means struggle.
It won't make any difference in the end - if you know what I mean?"
The girls were put into the largest carriages Bonnie had yet seen in the Dark Dimension, three slim girls to a seat and two sets of seats in a carriage. She got a nasty jolt, though, when instead of going forward like a carriage, the whole thing was lifted straight up by sweaty male slaves straining at poles. It was a giant litter and Bonnie immediately snatched off her freesia garland and buried her nose in it. It had the added function of hiding her tears.
"Do you have any idea of how many homes and dancing rooms and hal s and theaters there are where girls are being sold tonight?"The golden-haired Guardian looked at him sardonical y.
"If I knew that,"Damon said with a cold and ominous smile, "I wouldn't be here asking you."
The Guardian shrugged. "Our job is real y only to try to keep the peace here - and you can see how well we succeed. It's a matter of too few of us; we're insanely understaffed. But I can give you a list of the venues where girls are being sold.
Still, as I said, I doubt you'l be able to find your runaway before morning. And by the way, we'l have an eye on you, because of your little query. If your runaway wasn't a slave, she's Imperial property - no humans are free here. If she was, and you freed her, as reported by the baker across the street - "
"Sweet-sel er."
"Whatever. Then he had a right to use a stun gun when she ran. Better for her, real y, than being Imperial property; they tend to char, if you get my drift. That level's a long way down."
"But if she was a slave - my slave..."
"Then you can have her. But there's a certain mandatory punishment set before you can have her. We want to discourage this kind of thing."
Damon looked at her with eyes that made her shrink and look away, abruptly losing her authority. "Why?"he demanded. "I thought you claimed to be from the other Court.
You know. The Celestial one?"
"We want to discourage runaways because there've been so many since some girl named Alianna came around,"the Guardian said, her frightened pulse visible in her temple.
"And then they get caught and have even more reason to try it again...and it wears out the girl, eventual y."
There was no one in the Great Hal when Bonnie and the others were hustled off the giant litter and into the building.
"It's a new one, so it's not on the lists,"Mouse said, unexpectedly at her shoulder. "Not that many people wil know about it, so it doesn't fil up til late, when the music gets loud."
Mouse seemed to be clinging to her for comfort. That was fine, but Bonnie needed some comfort of her own. The next minute she saw Eren and, dragging Mouse behind her, headed for the blond girl.
Eren was standing with her back against the wal . "Well, we can stand around like wal flowers,"she said, as a few men came in, "or we can look like we're having the best time of any of them right here by ourselves. Who knows a story?"
"Oh, I do,"Bonnie said absently, thinking of the star bal with its Five Hundred Stories for Young Ones.
Instantly there was a clamor. "Tel it!""Yes, please tel !"
Bonnie tried to think of the fairy tales that she had experienced.
Of course. The one about the kitsune treasure.
Chapter 16
"Once upon a time,"began Bonnie, "there were a young girl and boy..."
She was immediately interrupted. "What were their names?""Were they slaves?""Where did they live?""Were they vampires?"
Bonnie almost forgot her misery and laughed. "Their names were...Jack and...Jil . They were kitsune, and they lived way up north