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Instead of well-worn denim, she was strutting her considerable stuff in pink satin clamdiggers, a matching sequined butterfly top—cut low to show an impressive amount of cleavage—and glossy four-inch heels. The heels were nude patent leather, possibly so they didn’t clash with the toenails poking out the end, which were the same fire-engine red as her hair.
I regarded it enviously for a moment. It made the paltry blue streaks in my own short brown locks seem dull and lifeless by comparison. I needed a new color. Of course, for that, I also needed to get paid, which meant getting a move on.
“You’re coming, right?” I asked, as she flipped over the OPEN sign.
“Moment,” she said placidly.
“I just wondered because, you know.” I gestured at the acre of sequins.
Olga continued sorting through the box.
“Not that you don’t look good.”
Zilch. I was starting to get a complex.
“So, listen. We’ve got a problem with the truck.”
She finally looked up. “It no go?”
“No, it’s fine. It’s just, uh, sort of packed.”
“Everyone not fit?”
“No, they’re in there. But I don’t think we’re going to be squeezing in any more.”
“Slaves make their own way home, once we free them.” She held up a fistful of the type of charms her kind used to pass as more or less human.
“Okay, but that still leaves the slavers.”
That got me a long stare.
“Olga,” I said, getting a sinking feeling. “I have to bring them back for questioning. We’ll never stop the selling of your people if we don’t know who’s behind it.”
“That vampire behind it,” she said, stuffing the charms into a sleek pink clutch.
She was talking about a rat fink named Geminus. Until his recent, unlamented demise, he’d been a member of the Vampire Senate, the governing body for all North American vampires. But power, fame, and the idolization of millions hadn’t been good enough. He’d wanted to be rich as Croesus, too, and found that running the slave trade from Faerie fit the bill nicely.
“He’s dead,” I pointed out. “And yet business goes on as usual.”
“Not for long.”
I sighed but didn’t bother pointing out that a handful of trolls and a lone dhampir were not likely to bring down a network Geminus had spent years building. Because that wasn’t our job. All we were after was a new arrival who had failed to arrive.
That sort of thing had always been a hazard for the Dark Fey who paid to be smuggled out of the almost-constant warfare in Faerie. Sometimes the smugglers took the money and then failed to show up, or left would-be immigrants stranded far from home and on the wrong side of the portal. Others did make it through, only to end up in the usual mess faced by any illegals—lousy jobs, worse pay, and no one to complain to. Although that still beat what was behind door number three.
There are tons of old legends about the fey kidnapping humans. What nobody bothered to record is that we do it right back. A lot of the slavers are dark mages who promptly drain the magic—and therefore the life—out of anybody unlucky enough to fall into their hands. Others are more like subcontractors, finding specimens for sale into nefarious “professions” that usually end the same way.
But lately, thanks to Geminus’ death and a simultaneous Senate crackdown on smuggling, the number of active portals was dwindling. That would have been good news, except for the law of supply and demand, which ensured that the price for slaves was going nowhere but up. That had left the smugglers with the ironic problem of having to watch out for other crooks who were trying to steal their illegal cargo. Like the group that attacked a band of would-be immigrants last night.
They’d been lucky enough to make off with an even dozen new slaves.
They’d been unlucky enough to have one of them be Olga’s nephew.
If she caught up with them, I strongly suspected there’d be a few less slavers to worry about. Which wouldn’t have concerned me except that my job these days—on the Senate’s anti-smuggling squad—was to make sure that that didn’t happen. Well, not before I had a chance to question them first.
“You know,” I said idly, as Olga locked up, “a few deaths, even of scumbag slavers, won’t do much to stop the trade. But the info they might provide . . .”
Olga threw me a look, which was hard to see behind her flashy new Dolce & Gabbana shades. They would have seemed odd, because the sun was close to setting, but these shades weren’t for keeping light out so much as letting it in. They’d been modified to enhance all light in an area, because troll eyesight sucks even at the best of times.
