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“There will be time for us later,” he whispered. “Now we need to talk to you. To find out everything you know.”
Violet let out a long breath, sounding exhausted. “We’ve already talked to the dragon and Were. They know everything we know, and they wrote it down so we wouldn’t lose anything.” She turned to us, and a soft smile played over her lips. “Thank you. Thank you more than I can ever express. I didn’t think I’d ever make it out of there.”
Nerissa stepped forward. She gave me a light kiss before introducing the others. “You know Violet already. Meet Shay, Daisy, Fray, and this is Weaver.”
The four of them nodded, looking confused and more than a little dazed. Nerissa settled them onto the sofa, while the rest of us took the other chairs. Violet joined her comrades, looking a little less shell-shocked than the others.
Nerissa turned to us. “Shay was in there over a year. The others have been prisoners for between two and five months. Violet was the last one captured. They told us they’ve seen at least four Fae and two Weres come through the cells in the past five months. Shay doesn’t know how many were laundered through during the period between when she was captured and when Weaver was put in the cell next to her five months back.”
“So it’s not first in, first out.” I frowned. “I wonder what the criteria are.”
Weaver spoke up, his voice shaky. “I know. I managed to get one of the guards talking. He said that sometimes the transfer takes a while, and once in a while, a buyer reneges on the deal. Then they have to either find a new one, or they have to work out whatever the problem was.”
“The guards—were they all daemons?” Camille shifted to allow Hanna room to bring in a tea tray and some cookies. It was obvious that our housekeeper had been in bed; she was in a nightgown and her hair was braided back. But she never missed a beat—just like Iris, she was always on call.
“No, there were a few humans, too.” Weaver shook his head. “They’ve got a tight operation. By the way, I have to contact my superiors. You’re going to find out sooner or later so I might as well tell you.”
Shade glanced up. “He’s an operative for the Fly by Night Investigations Agency. A freelancer.”
Again with the FBN agency. Twice in one night meant it might be time to pay a visit to the business, especially since it was being run by a vampire. But that could keep.
“What were you doing there?” I accepted the bottle of blood that Hanna handed me. After the experience with the daemon’s blood, I thought I might stick to bottled for a while. The whole out-of-control thing had been frightening.
“Searching for Shay. Her family reported her missing, and the last known contacts were through Supernatural Matchups. Alex hired me to do some research. It led to me getting captured. We thought we were dealing with a kidnapper or serial killer—we had no clue the villain was the dating service itself. By the time I realized what was going down, it was too late. I have no idea why Alex didn’t come sniffing around—he takes good care of his people. Even those of us who freelance for him.”
“We’ll try to find out. But here’s the deal, peeps. You can’t go home. You can’t even come out of hiding. If Lowestar Radcliffe—the daemon who runs the slavery operation—finds out where you’re at, he’ll come after you. He won’t know if you’ve spilled any info or not, but he won’t take any chances. If nothing else, he’ll try to shut you up. Or he’ll kill you out of spite.” I shrugged. “You have to stay missing for a while.”
“She’s not kidding.” Delilah waved a cookie at them. “I saw into the mind of one of their now-deceased partners. They’re vicious, they’re sadistic, and they have absolutely no conscience when it comes to trafficking in people. Or in killing those that cross them. The fact that we rescued the five of you? It’s going to go down in a bad way and the last place you want to be is on the receiving end of their anger and revenge.”
“Then what do we do? Our families must be worried sick—can’t we tell them we’re okay?” Daisy spoke up, her voice wavering.
“I’m afraid not. If they find you, they’ll try to find out who rescued you before they kill you. And then they’ll find out about us. We can’t risk that. Chances are they’re going to discover it was us anyway, but you don’t need to be in the middle of it.” I glanced over at Camille. “We need to figure out where to hide them.”
“We need to start our own underground railroad, given the number of peeps we seem to be running through lately.” Her gaze flickered and I knew she was thinking of the Keraastar Knights.
“We can’t keep them here.” Smoky leaned against a wall, crossing his arms. “If Lowestar figures out we’re the ones who rescued them, we can expect a raid sooner or later, and if they’re here, they’ll be in just as much danger as they would at home.”
Nerissa started to say something, then paused. We all looked at her and she shrugged. “I might know of a place, but I’m not at liberty to say just yet. I’ll have to talk to… someone… tomorrow. For tonight…”
“I think I know where we can keep them for tonight. You guys wait here. Vanzir, Smoky, you’re with me.” Camille jumped up and grabbed her keys.
“You’re going out? But you’re exhausted.” Trillian rested his hand on her arm.
She shook her head. “This won’t take long. We’ll be back soon. For now, get them down in Menolly’s lair. She’s not going to bed just yet. I just don’t want to chance anything—not with life as precarious as it is lately.”
And with that, she was out the door. I motioned to Nerissa. “Take them down below.” As she and Vanzir led the Fae away, Tanne gave Violet a long kiss before letting her go.
Meanwhile, I put in a call to Roman. “What’s up? You need to see me?”
“Yeah, there’s some heavy shit going down and we need to talk.”
I glanced at the clock. Three A.M. Realistically, I could get to his place in half an hour, but I wanted to wait until Camille got back safely. Sunrise was about three hours away. “I don’t know if I can make it tonight. Is it really important?”
“It’s important, but not dire. I know tomorrow night is your Samhain celebration—but afterward, perhaps you can come over?”
I thought about it. It seemed insane to make promises of more than a day now, with so much chaos surrounding us, but we had to keep on the move, keep acting like there was a tomorrow we could count on.
“Menolly?”
