“I envy you your gift,” the patriarch said, reminding her she wasn’t alone. “Not just to be able to heal them, but to be able to touch them.”
He wheeled the motorized chair around, pausing at the steel door for Rebekka to join him, then pausing again as he directed her into living quarters as elegant as those in the main house. “This is kept ready for the veterinarian, though he rarely has need of it. It could be yours, and the child’s. Eston would have a better life with you than he’d have otherwise. The maid assigned to you would be yours as well. You could travel to other estates, escorted by my private guard, and be paid well to use your gift.”
Rebekka’s hands fisted the expensive fabric of her borrowed dress. “In exchange for betraying my friends?”
The Iberá batted the question aside with his good hand. “I’m interested only in recapturing the prisoner you claim to know nothing about or have any allegiance to.”
Would your answer change if you knew Levi was Were and Araña branded?she wondered, but didn’t voice the question. “Why? Why is he so important?”
“That doesn’t concern you.”
“And if I don’t help you, you’ll turn me over to Father Ursu for questioning?”
“You’ve had a long day and the child probably needs your attention,” the patriarch said, touching the control so the chair moved forward, toward where the elevator stood open. “Think about my offer as you tend to him.”
Thirteen
ARAÑA bowed her head so the hood of the dark cloak they’d purchased after the attack shielded her face from view. The heavy material made her feel trapped, and in a fight it would hinder her ability to draw her knives quickly and strike fast.
The only place she knew to look for Levi and Rebekka was the brothel. But as she and Tir approached it, dread built with each step. The healer wouldn’t be there. Araña was as sure of it as she had been that Erik would die in Oakland when she first saw the city rising out of ruin.
“It might be better for you to go in alone,” she said, slowing at the end of an already deeply shadowed alleyway. “Some of the brothel’s clients probably frequent the gaming clubs. One of them might have seen me run the maze.”
Tir’s hand tightened on hers in response and he kept going. His harsh no held the same steel as his grip.
Two hyena-faced Weres served as doormen and bouncers. They opened the doors into a leather-and-fur waiting room hosted by a madam with boar tusks and small black eyes in a round human face.
She swept Araña and Tir with a quick, assessing gaze and grunted before saying to Tir, “You pay full price regardless. A quarter if the woman watches. Half if she works my whore. Full price if my whore works her.”
Women lined up without being told. Their clothing left little to the imagination and their appearances ranged from fully human to mostly animal.
“I’m here to see Levi or the healer,” Tir said.
The madam’s eyes hardened. “There’s no healer here. We don’t have any use for the gifted except as paying customers. If it’s Levi you want, then he should have met you outside.”
Araña slid her hand beneath the folds of the cloak. The gesture had two men stepping into the room through doors on either side of the parlor. Their mouths opened in animal threat to reveal razor-sharp teeth.
They retreated when she drew out several bills from the wallet and, keeping her head down, offered them to the madam. “For your trouble. Where can we find Levi?”
The woman grunted and took the bills. “Unless you want to keep paying so you can look at the girls, go outside. I’ll have him located and sent to you.”
They left, and Levi joined them a few minutes later. If he was surprised to see they’d survived, it didn’t show. “Let’s walk,” he said, turning without waiting for an answer and heading in the direction of the boundary between the red zone and the area set aside for the gifted.
When he was out of the hearing range of the Were doormen, he said, “Rebekka was captured.”
Acid rose in Araña’s throat, hot with her guilt. “By who?” she asked, already knowing.
“Guardsmen, but Gulzar, Anton and Farold’s torturer, was in the area as well.”
“When?” Tir asked.
“This morning, as we were taking the child to the Mission.” Levi’s face contorted in furious agony. His lips parted in a silent, impotent human snarl. “I should have hunted the man in the cab with the trapper. He must have overheard us talking about what to do with the child and gone to the maze with the information. The guardsmen and Gulzar were lying in wait for us.”
“She was taken to the maze?” Araña asked, her skin becoming chilled with thoughts of Abijah, her guilt flaying her at the thought of the healer being raped by guardsmen or convicts or the demon.
“I don’t know where she was taken, or even if she lives. None of the men who frequent the gaming clubs and come to the brothels have mentioned her. Pictures of those running are often posted early to stimulate betting interest. We separated. My intention was to draw the guardsmen and Gulzar away and kill any of them I could so Rebekka could escape with the child.”
“Did you recognize the guardsman?” Araña asked, thinking of Jurgen and Cabot and her intention to kill them before she left Oakland.
“Two of them, but not the third. I succeeded in killing one guardsman before I escaped the area. Rebekka works tonight. If she’d managed to escape, she would have come to the brothel, even if she had the child with her. The prostitutes depend on her, and while she’s here, she’s under the protection of the vice lords who own them.”
He glanced up at the sky and quickened his pace. Araña did the same and said, “We need safe shelter for the night.” She didn’t think it would be on the Constellation.
“It can’t be at the brothel, not unless you’re willing to pay for a room and a whore.”
Despite Levi’s waiting in the woods when she escaped the maze, Araña couldn’t bring herself to tell him about the reward being offered for her. She’d lived too long among outcasts and outlaws—men and women whom circumstances might turn into bounty hunters—to willingly reveal there was a price on her head. “A recommendation then.”
He considered the request for several long moments before saying, “Rebekka has a house in the gifted area. She rarely goes there and never speaks about it. If she were here, she’d offer it to you.” The last held some of the same guilt Araña felt.
“You’ve checked to make sure she’s not hiding there?” Tir asked.
“Yes. There was no sign of her.” Levi’s fingers flexed in a lionlike gesture of claws being sheathed and unsheathed. “If you intend to eat, you’ll need to buy food at the stall up ahead. You won’t have time to get it elsewhere.”
“We’ll stop,” Tir said.
At the small shop, Araña hung back with Levi and kept her face hidden as Tir bartered for bread and cheese. Her mouth watered at the sight of the fresh fruit, but buying it would deplete their resources.
He rejoined them and they continued walking. When they were well away from the food seller, Tir said, “Araña’s boat has been confiscated. It’ll be auctioned in the morning and most likely be gone from its berth by the end of the day. I intend to steal it tonight. Is there a place along the red zone where I can hide it?”
Levi’s answer was a lion cough of amusement. “Vampires guard the area at night, under contract with the dock owners as well as some of the cargo ship owners. If you managed to slip past them and steal a boat, the harbor is patrolled by private security, guardsmen, and police. If one of them spots you, they’ll hold you in place with machine guns then board at daybreak. And if you’re foolish enough to make a run for it and dodge them by going into the outer harbor, they’ll blockade you and leave you to your fate.”