She pointed to the hearth. “I did that for you. You owe me.”
“No, four nights ago, your brother stole two hundred seventy-six thousand, four hundred fifty-seven dollars from me, and as is my right, I claimed his physical form as payment for the debt. You”—he pointed to her—“came to me when you could not find him. You asked how you could get your kin back. I told you to kill him”—that finger moved to the severed head—“and you did. What you failed to understand when you agreed to terms was that that murder settled the debt Rollie had with me. It didn’t do anything with regard to your brother, so you and I still have a negotiation to get through—assuming you do not want me to torture him to death. Over a period of nights. And send you pieces of the body up in Caldwell.”
“Fuck you,” she breathed.
Two more guards emerged from the shadows.
Glaring at them, Ahmare crossed her arms over her chest so she didn’t do something stupid.
“Such language from a gentle female.” Chalen shifted in his throne like his bones hurt. “And all things considered, you are lucky you have something you can do for me. I find it very easy to dispose of people who are not useful.”
“You don’t need me. You’ve got this place full of males prepared to do whatever you want. If you have another bright idea, let them carry it out.”
“But perhaps that is the problem.” Chalen smiled coldly. “I have been using the wrong sex all this time. I am thinking now that I should have put a female to this specific task, and you already have proven you can get a job done. Also, like most females, you have exceptional taste in decor. I have this lovely piece of art to enjoy courtesy of your efforts.”
Ahmare looked around the throne room, or whatever the hell he called it. No visible means of escape, and no weapons on her as per instruction. She was good at hand-to-hand thanks to all her self-defense and martial arts training, but going up against multiple weaponized males of her own species—
“Twenty years ago, something very precious was taken from me.” Chalen went back to staring at the head. “My beloved was stolen. In the whole of my life, it is the only time I have been violated in such a manner, and I have searched for her, prayed for her return.”
“Which has nothing to do with me.”
“Then your brother will die.” Chalen pushed his half-empty crown back on his balding head, the remaining rose-cut diamonds winking wanly. “You must understand that you are in control of that outcome. It matters not to me whether he is killed or goes home with you. If you bring me back my beloved, I will give you your flesh and blood. Or I will cook the meat off his bones and serve him for Last Meal. What will be, will be.”
She heard the chains first. Then the moaning. Both were very far off—coming from below?
With a series of creaks, a section of the floor opened up at the base of the dais, a six-by-six-foot wooden panel she had not noticed sliding back to reveal a subterranean level some thirty feet down.
It was a fighting arena. An old school stone fighting ring, and in the center of it . . .
“Ahlan!” she cried as she lunged forward.
Lit by flickering torches, her brother was naked between the grips of a set of guards, his head hanging down, his legs pigeon-toed and lax, steel shackles dragging behind his motionless body. Blood rivered down his back, the whipping he’d been given making shreds of his flesh, and she knew by the bad angle of both his feet that his ankles had been deliberately dislocated.
So he could not run.
She dropped to her knees and leaned into the drop. As she opened her mouth, she wanted to yell at him for being foolish and greedy, for staying in the business she’d told him to get out of, for taking the word of a dealer like Rollie, who he should have known not to trust. But none of that really mattered now.
“Ahlan . . .” She cleared her throat. “I’m here, can you hear me?”
“Life is full of moments of clarity,” Chalen said in a weak voice. “And I know you are having one now. You will go and retrieve my beloved for me. When you return, you will find that your brother is released into your custody. Both of you will be free to go, all debts settled.”
Tears welled, but she did not let them fall as she looked up at the conqueror. “I can’t trust you.”
“Of course you can. When I tell you that I will kill your brother if you deny me, I mean it. And further, I swear to you that I will also take you into my custody, whereupon you will find that although the males who are my private guard lack vocal cords, they are otherwise fully functioning. When they are through with you, if there is anything left to kill, I will feed you to my dogs. I only serve the masculine meat to my guards.”
Down below, Ahlan twitched and struggled to lift his head. When that wasn’t possible, he turned it where it hung, a single bloodshot eye peering up at Ahmare. His cracked lips moved, and a tear escaped, dripping off the bridge of his broken nose.
I’m sorry, he seemed to mouth.
That image of him as a newborn young in her arms returned to her, and Ahmare saw him as he had once been a lifetime ago, chubby-cheeked, rosy, and warm . . . safe . . . as he looked at her with myopic, loving eyes.
“I’m going to get you out,” she heard herself say. “Just hang on a little longer . . . and I’ll get you out of here.”
“Good,” Chalen announced as the panel began to reshut. “Well done.”
Ahlan started to struggle, legs flopping in panic. “Help me . . . Ahmare!”
She leaned further down. “I’ll be back soon! I promise—I love you—”
The arena was closed off and she shut her eyes briefly. Down below, her brother’s screams were muffled, an echo of terror that nonetheless resonated loud as a jet engine in her chaotic head.
The conqueror grunted as he struggled to get his frail body off his throne. The robed female with the electronic voice box materialized beside him, holding out a gold cane. She did not touch him, but let him get to the vertical on his own.
“Come,” he said. “You must put some travel behind you before the dawn arrives if you are to succeed. Your brother will receive no more attention from my males, but neither will we render him medical aid. It would be such a shame for you to lose him through the failing of his natural processes while you ponder the inevitable.”
Goddamn you, Ahlan, she thought. I told you that there was no such thing as easy money.
Yet she could not be angry at him. Not until she saved him and nursed him back to health.
“And as a show of good faith,” Chalen said with his jagged-toothed smile, “I will provide you with a weapon to ensure your safety and the success of your endeavors.”
3
THE CASTLE’S SUBTERRANEAN LEVEL was a maze of stone corridors, all damp and lit with torches, following the Igor decor scheme. There was no air underground as far as Ahmare could tell, not that she expected ventilation or comfort in a place that didn’t have electricity and was run by a madman who’d made it literally impossible for his subordinates to argue with him.
In front of her, Chalen traveled on a pallet that was held aloft by four guards, one on each corner, the quartet walking in perfect coordination like a team of carriage horses. From time to time, the conqueror coughed, as if the subtle sway—or perhaps the mold on the walls and the rat poop on the floor—irritated his airways.
Ahmare kept track of every left and each right, and all the straightaways in between, constructing a 3-D map in her mind of the compound.
“So you keep your guns and ammo in an armory,” she muttered. “Or is it more like a bunker.”
“I have many things I do not allow others to be privy to.”
“Lucky me.”
“You are most fortunate, it is true.”
The procession stopped, and a rock panel slid back to reveal another long hallway. This one was unlit, however, and there was a scent to it that was . . . not the same.
“Proceed,” Chalen ordered. “And take a torch.”
“You’re going to let me pick what I want?” she said dryly. “What if I take more than one gun?”
What if she took an entire arsenal, doubled back, and killed the motherfucker right here and now?
Amazing how completely unsqueamish she was at that thought.
“There is only one. You will take what has been given to you and you will be off on your endeavors, to return with what is mine so that you may leave with what is yours.”
“Yeah, I remember the deal.” She faced the conqueror. “But you haven’t told me where I’m going. Or how I’ll recognize the female.”
“It will all be obvious to you. And if it is not, well, that bodes badly for your brother.”
“This is bullshit.”
Chalen’s pockmarked face twisted into a nasty smile. “No, it is the consequence of your and your brother’s decisions. He chose to steal from me. You chose to intercede on his behalf. You are chafing under decisions made freely, and that is folly considering you could have stayed out of this.You opened these doors. If you do not like the rooms revealed, that is nothing I, nor any other, can help you with.”
She thought of her brother hanging like a dead body between those two guards.
“Where is my torch,” she demanded.
Chalen laughed softly. “Lo, how I wish I had met you at an earlier time in my life. You would have been a formidable lover.”
Never, she thought as a guard appeared beside her.
She accepted a flame-topped torch and stepped into the corridor.
“A word of advice,” Chalen said.
Ahmare glanced over her shoulder. “You can keep it. And go to hell.”
He flashed that broken-picket-fence smile again, and she knew she was going to see those ragged teeth in her nightmares. “My place in Dhunhd is quite well assured already, but I thank you for the kind regards. No, I would remind you that it is considered polite to return things you borrow. You must bring the weapon I lend you back to me in good working order. If you do not, you will find that we have another debt to settle.”