Chris watched the men shuffle back. “They weren’t expecting a fight.”
“Anyone else want me or my friend to take off our clothes?” Sam called out loud. The guards grabbed the man she had knocked out before they hurried up the stairs. The light from the upper deck vanished as they slammed shut the door. “I didn’t think so.”
Someone struck a match, and a glow appeared around Werren as she brought a candle in an old-fashioned brass holder over to Chris. “We can see in the dark,” she said as she handed the light to her. “You cannot.”
Now Chris could see some of the women climbing into the hammocks and covering themselves with thin blankets. “What is this, like, the punishment section?”
“This is where we live,” Werren said. “The crew calls it the sluts’ quarters.”
“You mean, this is where he keeps you when you’re not working on the casino ship?” Sam, who obviously knew a lot more about the women, demanded. “Down here? All of you?”
“Yes.” Werren nodded to a pretty young brunette, who climbed up the stairs and sat on the step nearest to the door. “But it does not look like this all the time. Only when Dutch or the guards are here.”
A blur of color and light encircled Chris, who found herself standing in the middle of a beautiful garden of flowers. Overhead the sun glowed in a bright blue sky, and an orange butterfly fluttered right by her face. The women, all of whom were wearing gowns even more lovely than those they had removed earlier, reclined on cushioned chaises and armchairs. Some picked up books to read; others worked on needlepoint.
“Holy Toledo.” Chris reached out to touch the curling petals of a tiger lily. “What is this?”
“It’s what she does,” Sam answered for Werren as she inspected their surroundings. “She can produce three-dimensional illusions. Very convincing ones. I speak from personal experience.” She looked at the blonde. “So how long can you keep it up? An hour? Two?”
“It will last as long as I will it.” Werren walked over to a pretty marble fountain, and sat down on its edge.
Sam caught Chris’s arm as she started to go after her. “Hang on.” She went to one of the other women, who smiled up at her. “When do they feed you?”
The woman looked bewildered. “We cannot stomach food. We are sustained by the water of the fount.” She gestured at the water streaming from the tiered basins.
“Oh, you’re living off imaginary water.” Sam looked disgusted. “I should have guessed.” She guided Chris over to the fountain. Once she leaned over and breathed in, she shook her head. “Jesus Christ.”
Chris, who couldn’t smell anything, frowned. “They can’t live without feeding, can they?”
“Nope, but obviously they believe they do.” Sam gave Werren a hard look. “I wonder why.”
“Some illusions need not be seen,” Werren said quietly as she looked up at Sam. “Please, Detective. It is a mercy.”
Chris looked from one woman to the other. “Okay, I’m not getting the subtext here at all.”
“Don’t drink from the fountain, kiddo,” Sam said to Chris as she bent over and dipped the end of one finger in the basin. When she drew it back and showed it to Chris, it was wet and red. “You won’t like the taste.”
Chris’s throat tightened. “Guess I won’t.”
“Come with me.” Werren rose and led them to a little gazebo shrouded in sweet pea vines. As soon as they stepped inside, the walls turned to bare wood and the vines faded from sight.
Werren closed the door to the women’s quarters behind her, and lit a small glass storm lamp. Sitting atop a small table were stacks of envelopes and money bands. “Dutch sends me in here to count the money each night,” she explained.
“What the hell have you done?” Sam gestured at the door. “Those women have no idea what they are.”
“I told you, it was a mercy. They were brought on board as humans, like your friend.” Werren sat down in the only chair in the room and rested her forehead against her hands. “Dutch kept them in his quarters until they were changed, and only then were they brought to me. Most of them were out of their minds with terror and pain and confusion. The few who understood always attempted to escape.”
“So you’ve been keeping the truth from them for the last four hundred years.” Sam shook her head.
“I kept them sane and alive.” Werren dropped her hands. “Have you ever seen a woman being decapitated? I have, many times. That is what Dutch does to every woman who tries to flee him. Then he forces me to toss their bodies into the sea and clean their blood from deck.”
“Why don’t you just fight back?” Chris asked. “There are, what, at least fifty of you. He has maybe twenty guys at the most, and they’re all still human.”
“None of them have these.” Werren curled her fingers around the medallion chained to her throat. “Dutch controls all of us through the gold. He can make us do whatever he wishes.” She nodded at Sam. “Just as he made your lord do what he wished.”
“That fucking medallion he gave him.” Sam stomped around the room. “That’s how he’s been controlling him. He can channel his ability through the gold.”Chris recalled something Burke had told her about Kyn ability and its natural limitations, which included the number of humans which could be affected by it. Only a few Kyn like Richard Tremayne had talents powerful enough to affect large groups of people. “When does he do all of you?”
“I do not understand.”
“When has he controlled all of you women at the same time?” Chris watched the other woman’s expression. “He’s never done it, has he?”
Werren cringed. “His power is absolute. He has simply never had occasion to—”
“Hang on.” Chris held up her hands. “Have you ever watched Dutch take over a group of people at the same time?” Werren shook her head. “How about five at once?”
“No, never.”
“Has he done three? No?” Chris braced her hands on the table and leaned in. “Have you ever once seen him control more than one person?”
“Not with my own eyes.” Werren’s expression turned resentful. “But he has done it. Dutch has often told the tale of how he took this ship and slaughtered the crew, without a single man at his back.”
“Captured the ship all by himself, when no one else was around,” Sam said. “Imagine that.”
“Convenient as hell,” Chris put in. “No witnesses.”
“You don’t know him. You are wrong.” Werren shot to her feet and began shaking her head. “He would not say such things if they were not true.”
“Wouldn’t he, Werren?” Sam suggested. “You’ve just said that you’ve never seen him demonstrate this power over more than one person. Neither has anyone else. If he really had it, why wouldn’t he show it off? It’s not like the guy is modest.”
Chris joined in. “For that matter, why does he need to keep guards watching over you and the other ladies? He should just be able to think you into doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants.”
Werren shook her head. “You are mortal. You do not understand his power over us.”
“Actually, I think I do.” Something occurred to her. “If every woman on this ship is Darkyn, then they also have abilities like yours. What are they?”
Sam watched Werren, who remained silent. “Either you tell us now, or I go out and start asking.”
“Analise can make herself appear as young as a girl, or as old as a crone,” Werren said. “Naomi can erase small wounds from the flesh with a caress. Bethana summons unbearable longing in men and women. Sayda stills their minds so they may remember nothing.”
As Werren continued describing her ladies’ abilities, Chris’s heart sank. From the way it sounded, none of the women on the ship had a violent or dangerous talent that might help them overpower the crew. Dutch had also spent the last four centuries terrorizing them, and had done such an excellent job that they were all as scared as a herd of bunnies caught in the middle of a biker run. It had never even occurred to them to remove the medallions that he used to keep them enslaved.
“You should go back to your ladies,” Sam said once Werren had finished. “We’ll join you in a minute.”
Chris watched the woman leave. “We’re really screwed.”
“Vander wants Alenfar,” Sam told her. “He thinks Lucan will trade his rule for me. If he doesn’t, he’s going to torch us and a couple hundred gamblers on the casino boat.”
The thought of being burned alive made Chris shudder. “I could jump over the side, steal one of the boats.”
Sam shook her head. “Too many guards with guns.”
“I’m a fast swimmer, and it’s my job. Besides, I owe you a life,” she argued. “Let me save yours.”
“You can do that by staying here and helping me spring all those people locked in the casino.” Sam glanced at the door. “We have to get the women to work with us, too.”
“How?” Chris asked. “They’re so scared of Vander and the guards they’re practically robots.”
Her friend nodded. “Then it’s high time we deprogram them.”
* * *
Jamys took his leave of Lucan as the suzerain finished issuing orders to the garrison. “I will meet you and the men at the rendezvous once I have retrieved the gems.”
“I hesitate to suggest you pursue a fool’s errand,” Lucan said, “but I doubt you will find anything of value in this secret cache. Samantha told me the extent to which Coburn was tortured before he was killed. Had the man truly been in possession of the emeralds, under such duress he surely would have revealed their location.”