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“You let her treat you like that?” he demanded, staring at Nox, who frowned back.
“My Mistress punishes me if she sees fit,” he growled.
“Mistress? You mean like a female Master?” the rep asked, frowning.
“Never mind my title, I do what I must to keep my bodyslave in line,” Seline snapped, hoping they hadn’t overplayed it. “Now—back to the business at hand. I believe you were about to get me an appointment with Mistress Lendrex? I have important business to discuss.”
The representative just stared at her, his mouth still open. Just when Seline was wondering if she needed to do something else to get him to respond, he picked up a small black communications device and spoke into it.
“Hey, it’s Drover here—got a couple of characters down in the Tangle I think the boss is going to want to see,” Seline heard him say. “Yeah, I know the boss is busy but this is a female Master. Yeah, you heard me right—and she’s demanding a meeting with Mistress Lendrex.” He listened for a moment with the device to the ear hole at the side of his head and nodded. “Uh-huh—that’s what I said. Yeah—I think the boss will want to see them. Right now? Okay.”
He put down the device and nodded at Seline.
“All right—you’ve got an audience with the boss.” He jerked his head at the wall behind him, which had a set of dull brass doors that looked to Seline like the entrance to an elevator. “The lift is there and the code is Alpha Beta Four Nine Zeta,” he told them. “Good luck.”
Seline was a bit bewildered—she hadn’t expected it to be this simple to get an appointment. And yet despite the ease of it, something felt off. The way the rep was looking at them for one thing. Also, why had he asked if she was a “female Master” whatever that meant?
But there didn’t seem to be anything to do but head for the elevator or “lift” as the rep nodded encouragingly.
Nox had risen to his feet by now and he followed her smoothly. Also, with a high, sweet call of,
“Peep-a-cheek! Peep-a-cheek!” her new pet flew down to light on her shoulder. Clearly he was coming along for the ride.
Well—I guess we’re going to the Upper Disk to see Mistress Lendrex, Seline thought, as Nox punched in the code the rep had given them. The lift door slid open and they stepped inside.
They were on their way.
THIRTEEN
SELINE
The elevator doors opened onto an entry room that looked like some designer’s idea of an elegant dungeon. It was extremely plush and expensive looking—but austere and forbidding at the same time, Seline thought.
Black marble floors and gray walls that had black vines growing up them were the first things that caught her eye. A few of the vines had budded, producing blood-red flowers which stood out in stark contrast to the rich but somber color pallet of the Upper Disk.
Overhead were clusters of pale silvery glows, casting more shadows than light. There was also a lighted path at their feet, which seemed meant to lead them down a long corridor which was facing the elevator doors they’d just come out of.
“Well—I guess it’s this way,” Seline murmured in a hushed voice. It didn’t seem right to speak at normal volume in the shadowy Upper Disk—it would be like shouting in a library, she thought.
“Let me go first in case of danger,” Nox rumbled. “Something feels…off here.”
“I think so too,” Seline said. “Why did the representative keep calling me a ‘female Master’?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t know, but I think we might have to be ready for anything.”
“Whatever ‘anything’ might be,” Seline murmured. “But I don’t think you should walk in front—I’m supposed to be an imposing Mistress, remember?”
At first she didn’t think Nox would agree—he must be getting a really bad vibe from this place because he seemed to be on high alert. But at last he nodded.
“All right. But we need to be ready to pivot at a moment’s notice,” he growled.
“If anything happens, I’ll follow your lead,” Seline promised. She might be pretending to be his Mistress, but he was a seasoned warrior and he’d seen a hell of a lot more of the universe than she had—she trusted the big Kindred implicitly.
“Good.” Nox nodded. “Then let’s go.”
“Let’s go,” Seline agreed, nodding back. She took a firmer grip on his leash and they walked together down the dark corridor.
The corridor took several twists and turns but eventually they came to a set of double doors, guarded by two sentries who had the same black body armor and shiny scales as the representative they had met in the Tangle—only their scales were coppery instead of silver, Seline saw.
“Hello, I am—” she began but one of the guards interrupted her.
“Yeah, we know—you’re the female Master,” he said with a smirk. “We heard all about you—the boss can’t wait to see you.”
