“Is he alive?” I blurted.
“For now. They’re going to make him part of the public trial, with his parents.” He waved to someone, and a second later Telessa was sitting down beside me. “The wig is good,” Sarik told me. “If I hadn’t been looking for you, I never would have guessed.” He was looking at me with newfound respect. “You’ve done well, Lucy.”
I could barely hear what he was saying.
He was alive.
“Not well.” I said at last. “I lost him. How do I get him back?”
Sarik and Telessa exchanged glances. “Impossible,” he told me gently. “Even if we knew where they’re holding him, there’s no-one to mount a rescue mission. There’s talk of a group of rebels – deserters banding together to fight for the royals. But if it’s true, they’ve been silent so far. SSV is being run by the army: I have a
major
for my boss, now.” A waiter approached, and Sarik ordered wine for him and Telessa, despite it being barely lunchtime.
“Lucy,” Sarik told me quietly, “I think I can get you out of Asteria. The SSV has a helicopter it uses for surveillance – I could bribe the pilot to pick you up at night and drop you just over the border.”
“No. I want to help Jagor.”
“You can’t,” Telessa told me gently, resting a hand on my back.
“What do you know about them: the coup leaders?” I asked.
Sarik glared at me in frustration, but then sighed. “You white-haired man’s been sighted a few times. It seems like he’s in charge, and the bald-headed man seems to be his second in command. Neither of them are Asterian military—”
“The bald one sounded like he was Russian,” I interrupted. “Do you think the Russians are backing the coup?”
Sarik raised his eyebrows. “It’s possible. Or maybe he’s just a mercenary – plenty of those around.”
“So how do we find out where Jagor’s being held?” I asked.
Sarik ran his hands through his hair. His wine came, and he drained half the glass before he spoke. “They leaders are going to Hendel’s club tonight: it’s one of his masked parties. They want to let the public see them, I suppose, show they’re not afraid. Hendel let me know, in the hope it would help. Now if I wasn’t being watched, I’d put some agents in the club; maybe bug the place. Hope that they said something that helped us while they were enjoying themselves. But I can’t do anything. I have an army goon literally in the room with me at all times.”
We sat in forlorn silence for a few seconds. I found myself looking at something on Sarik’s snow-white shirt. A red blob. “You’ve got—” I was about to say
wine on your shirt,
but he was drinking white, not red. And the blob was too bright, and it seemed to move.
Sarik suddenly jerked in his seat, his arms going up. His face barely had time to twist in pain before it froze in an expression of shock and outrage. Blood started to flower outwards across his chest as the glowing blob moved off him and across the table, towards us.
Telessa started to scream. We both stood, our chairs toppling over behind us. A vase on the table exploded into glass fragments.
We wheeled around and for some reason I looked up. The bald-headed soldier was on a balcony down the street, with a rifle pointing at our table. As I stood there, frozen, he pointed it directly at me, and my vision went red as the laser sight hit me.
Telessa pushed me to one side and a bullet shot past me, making no more noise than a bird in flight. People were screaming now: they’d seen Sarik’s body.
There was a cab across the street under some trees. The driver had been eating a sandwich, but as he saw what was going on he dropped it, staring at us. Telessa hauled me across the road, accompanied by screeching brakes and honking horns. She almost threw me into the rear seat and climbed in after me.
“I don’t want any trouble,” the driver told us.
Telessa threw money at him and he quickly got the car started. I expected bullets to shatter the windshield, but nothing happened; the trees must have blocked the sniper’s view.
We sped off, with no idea where we should go or what we were going to do.
***
A mile or so away, I got the cab driver to pull over and was violently sick out of the window. He started to complain, so I threw money at him until he shut up.
Sarik was dead. They must have followed him from SSV in the hope of killing both him and me. It was my fault.
Telessa was staring straight ahead, hands gripping the edge of her seat. “Telessa?” I asked gently. She didn’t answer. “Telessa, where should we go?” No reply.
“Go downtown,” I told the driver, “Where the big hotels are.”
As he drove, I searched through Telessa’s bag and found exactly what I was hoping for: a collar. Telessa was already wearing her “day’ collar, a white leather thing with silver edging. But like most slaves, her owner made her carry a selection and there was a fancier, evening wear one; metal lined with calf leather and finished in black silk. I slipped it around my neck, and closed but didn’t lock the lock at the back, scooching down in the seat so the driver couldn’t see what I was doing. Now we both wore Sarik’s name, and while that might attract the attention of the army, I was hoping it would give us an easy ride with the hotel staff.
When we arrived in the hotel district, I picked out the biggest, most anonymous-looking one I could see. Telessa seemed almost catatonic. I paid the driver and gently guided her out of the cab, then told her I’d do the talking. The walk across the huge marble lobby to the reception desk, waiting for someone to recognize me, was the longest ten seconds of my life.
“Good morning,” I told the clerk. My name is—
should have thought of that in advance
—Clarissa. My owner, Sarik Taum,” I made sure he got the name, “Asked me to book a room here, for him, his other slave and myself.” I leaned close. “Another man will be joining us: someone the SSV has an interest in. My owner wanted me to impress upon you the need for discretion.”
“Of course,” said the clerk, a little breathlessly. Whether it was from imagining the foursome or because like most Asterians he was scared witless of SSV, I didn’t know: but it worked. I paid cash in advance with a generous tip and the usual paperwork just went away.
I took Telessa upstairs and sat her on the bed. She still wasn’t speaking. For the first time since the shooting, I felt I could draw breath. Even if the bald-headed soldier got the license plate of the cab, we were probably low priority – Sarik, and the information he held, had clearly been their main concern.
“Telessa?” I asked gently. No response. I squatted down so that I was at eye level with her. “Telessa, please: talk to me.” When she still didn’t respond, I tried delicately touching her cheek.
Her hand whipped out and I’d been slapped hard across the face before I knew what was happening. I fell backwards, landing heavily on my shoulders and jarring my teeth. She was on me immediately, her other hand slapping me hard across the other cheek.
“Y
ou killed him!”
she screamed. “You stupid, foreign bitch; you killed him!” She whacked my head against the floor, hard, and I saw stars. Again. Again. Then her fingers were scrabbling for my neck, ripping off the unlocked collar so she could throttle me.
“I’m sorry,” I managed, my voice heavy and thick, “They’ll kill Jagor as well.”
Her thumbs were pressing on my windpipe. My vision narrowed down to a tunnel.
“He’s Sarik’s friend,” I croaked.
She stared into my eyes. I think that was the scariest part of it: the lack of tears. She wasn’t grieving; she was absolutely out of control with rage.
She suddenly released me and stalked away, fists bunching as she tried to restrain her anger. She faced the window: she didn’t want to look at me.
And I had no idea what we were going to do. I’d found out Jagor was alive, but I’d lose him forever in a few days when they put him through some ridiculous public trial and executed the whole family. All I’d done was cost Sarik his life.
With nothing else to do, I took the first shower I’d been able to take in days: it should have felt great. Back at the apartment, I’d dreamed of that moment: Jagor and me in a high-end hotel room in France or Switzerland, safe at last, sipping champagne in a foam-filled bathtub. Now, standing under the spray, I just felt...cold. Dead inside, and soiled with something that no amount of washing could remove.
What had I actually accomplished, by falling in love with Jagor? I’d made him break off his engagement with Calara. I’d embarrassed him with a scandal and put him at odds with his mother. I’d endangered him by getting ill and now I’d got his best friend killed.
Or was it even worse than that? My stomach lurched and I slumped forward, catching myself with my hands on the tiled wall. Was the coup somehow my fault? Had they chosen that moment to strike because his public appearance with me made him vulnerable? If he hadn’t been distracted by our relationship, would he have seen this coming a long time ago?
I didn’t know. I didn’t know if I’d ever know. But standing there under the shower, I did figure one thing out: whether or not I’d got him into this mess, I was going to get him out of it. And with a shock of fear that made my insides turn to water, I knew how I was going to do it.
I walked out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. “Tell me everything you know about this masked party,” I said.
Telessa turned slowly and stared at me. “Why should I help you?” she asked, her voice as cold and dead as I’d felt in the shower – without hope.
I stepped closer to her. “Because if you help me, I’ll make sure they kill that bald-headed bastard.”
She stared at me. “You’re really going to go in there? To the club?”
I nodded.
“I want to kill him myself,” she told me. “You have to let me. Promise me no-one will stop me.”
I hesitated, thrown. “I’ll make sure they—”
“No,
promise me.
Promise me I get to kill him, when the time comes, and no-one gets in my way.”
I’d like to say I agonized. Murder is murder, even if I understood why. But he’d taken Jagor. He’d been ready to kill the civilians. He’d shot Sarik.
I looked her straight in the eye. “Telessa, I promise you: when all this is over, you can kill him. I’ll make sure no-one stops you.”
She stared at me and then nodded, and just a hint of life seemed to creep back into her eyes.
“There are expectations,” Telessa explained, “Even for slaves. Especially for slaves who are also wives. Sharing is normal, but only within the same social class and within limits. It wouldn’t do for the wife of a powerful businessman to be seen with a truck driver, for example, or with one of her husband’s rivals. But some women want to cross those boundaries. So places like Hendel’s club have masked nights. The women all wear the club’s collar and are masked, and they’re not allowed to speak.”
I nodded. “Okay, so people can swap without shame – that makes sense.”
Telessa shook her head. “It’s not swapping. The husband or owner doesn’t go. The men who do go, don’t take their slaves. They just see a woman they want and order her over. They never see her face, and she never speaks, so they don’t know who it is. It could be some woman they’ve never met, or their best friend’s wife.” She looked at me meaningfully, checking I understood. “And whatever they want, the woman has to obey.”
I tried to process that: willingly placing myself in the hands of the white-haired man, the man who I feared most in the world. It was unthinkable. But so was the alternative.
“I understand,” I told her. “What do I need to do, to be ready?”
“Drop the towel,” she told me.
I dropped it and stood naked.
“You won’t pass for a blonde like that. We’ll have to shave you completely bare.”
***
Several hours later, I stepped out of a cab in a new dress. The hotel staff hadn’t batted an eyelid when I’d asked them to buy it for me and send it to my room, together with make-up, lingerie and shoes. Given the sort of debauchery they thought was going on in our room, they’d probably been shocked by how tame the requests were.
Telessa had gone to work with lip plumper and lipstick to give me a pout, knowing my mouth would be the focus once the mask was on. I was wearing her spare collar again, unlocked as before, and the blonde wig.
Outside Hendel’s skyscraper, I stood outside the locked door, looked into the security camera and hoped. How many women did they let in? Was I pretty enough – was I the right sort of pretty?
After a long pause, the door buzzed and I was in. I followed exactly the same routine as when I’d come with Jagor: down in the elevator to the bottom floor, find a locker and strip off. Except this time, I wasn’t just playing some sex game with my lover. This time I was turning myself into a genuine sex slave, someone who was there to be
used
by strangers.
With trembling hands, I took off the dress. I’d chosen a push-up, translucent bra and panties, with a suspender belt, stockings and heels. I was hoping it would attract attention, while giving me options – though having any sort of plan was almost laughable given the situation I was about to put myself in.
Each locker held a club collar – a heavy, shining steel band with the club name engraved on the front and a metal ring for—I stiffened—control. The collars locked on, and could only be removed by a club attendant, when you left the club through the one-way exit back into the locker room.
As I held it, I looked at my bare hands, nails painted a bright, shining scarlet. My engagement ring was back in the hotel with Telessa. So was my safeword ring.
I took a deep breath.
For Jagor.
There was a click as the collar locked. The weight of it was a constant reminder of what I was, for the next few hours. The final step was the mask: elegantly carved from some shining, lightweight metal, it covered my face down to just above my lips, fastening securely at the back. I looked in the mirror and saw a straight-haired, blonde slave. I was anonymous...I hoped.
I opened the door to the club and stepped inside.