“Yeah, he’s a real piece of work,” said Lola. “You think Ekaterina is bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet. He’s gotten rid of girls before for wearing the wrong shade of lipstick.”
I went over to the door and rattled the handle. Locked, of course. “He sounds charming,” I said, scanning the corners of the room. Sure enough, a pinhole camera resided in the crown molding opposite the bed. I’d run into an operation in Nocturne City selling footage of their girls on the Web. It looked like scumbags thought the same no matter what country you were in.
“He’s dangerous,” Lola said seriously, taking her old seat by the window. “You steer clear of him, if you know what’s good for you. Don’t rock the boat.”
“That’s sort of why I’m here,” I said. “Who’s the boss of this operation? The brother?”
Lola snorted. “What are you, a cop?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And look where it got me.”
“You want to live long enough to tell Dateline your story,” Lola said, “you don’t go asking about who runs this charming little compound of sin. Hell, you keep it up and I’ll shank you.”
I started to say that I usually had a hard time in that area, but the lock turned and the door banged open. Ekaterina and Mikel stood there. Ekaterina gave me a cursory examination. “You managed to look human. Congratulations. You have one hour to eat your supper and then you’ll be expected in the parlor.” She crossed her arms. “Has Lola explained to you how we do things here?”
“I look pretty and wait for sleazebags to come screw me?” I said. “Then you take the money and I get locked back up in this tacky nightmare?”
Ekaterina jerked her head at Mikel and he walked over and slapped me. I can’t say it was entirely unexpected. My cheek started to bleed again and my headache intensified by an order of ten. I just smiled at Mikel. “Bad idea, buddy. You’re going to get exactly what you deserve, and I’m going to be the one to give it to you.”
“You got a big mouth, yeah?” he said, grabbing his crotch with his free hand. “Why don’t you put it to some real use?”
Ekaterina snapped something at him and he backed off, going out of the room, returning with a tray. Ekaterina was definitely the boss, at least of the thugs. You never know what information will come in handy when you’re a hostage.
Mikel slammed the tray down on our table. Two plates of smelly instant macaroni, two sets of plastic utensils so flimsy that I doubted I could even stab myself in the jugular with the broken end, if I were so inclined. “Eat,” Ekaterina said. “You’ll get used to the way things work here. You’re a commodity, and you’ll be healthy or you’ll be sent to the sport. It’s not complicated.”
The door shut, and I looked at Lola, my eyebrow cocked. “She really gets into that whole Mrs. Goldfinger thing, doesn’t she?”
“It’s bullshit,” said Lola. “They get you hooked on something if they can. It makes you easier to control.”
I sniffed the food suspiciously, detecting a tang underneath the general stink of preservatives and fake cheese.
“There’s something in this.”
“A little ground-up Valium,” said Lola, grabbing a fork and a plate. “Keeps you docile.”
“Don’t eat it,” I said, making a grab for her. She danced out of the way with surprising dexterity.
“Fuck off, lady. This is everything we get today. You’re either drugged or you starve. Me, I think a full stomach and a head doped enough not to remember is the way to go.”
I paced, trying to keep my mouth from watering. Foul as it was, the macaroni was the first real food I’d seen in over a week. “So this place—it’s all weres and witches?” I said.
“Yeah,” Lola said. She’d already polished off her plate. “Yeah, it’s all bloods and bites around here. That’s why we come here, you know? No laws, no regulations. People pay a lot to fuck the monsters.”
Her voice had gone slow and dreamlike. Someone starved and weakened would be a puppy with a full dose of Valium in them.
“One last thing,” I said. “What happens to the women who lose the fights? If they don’t die?”
“Fuck if I know,” Lola sighed. “Now be quiet and let me doze until we have to go downstairs. This isn’t exactly fun for me, you know. We’re not roommates.”
“Sorry,” I murmured, looking out the window again. The guard with the dog was still pacing the quad. “Just making conversation.”
CHAPTER 14
By the time a sour-faced girl with artificial hair woven into her own with a comical mismatch effect banged on the door and told us with gestures to get downstairs, I had had plenty of time to come up with and discard fifty escape plans in my head.
A straight run for my life was out—between the bars, the cameras and that son of a bitch Mikel and his ilk, I’d be dead before I’d gotten ten steps out of the room. I had to get the layout of the place, find a phone, find the weak spots.
All before I got jumped by some kink fan who wanted to get his jollies off with a woman of the hirsute persuasion. No pressure, Luna.
Lola nudged my shoulder. “Come on, fish. They dock you if you’re late, and you have to service the employees to work it off.”
The thought of Mikel or Peter anywhere near me turned my stomach. I hustled after Lola, tottering on the platform sandals I’d put on. Girls descended the stairs in pairs and threes, never any alone. Their eyes, to a woman, were the doped, haunted eyes of long-term sex slaves, all hope long ago drained out like so much dirty water.
The parlor was the same sort of elegance I’d come to expect from Ekaterina’s
