Chapter Twenty-Six
Krystal stared up at the doorway to the slave auction and grunted as a loup-garous, a blonde named Carla, pushed her along roughly. She glared back at the werewolf. “I’m going, I’m going.”
“Not fast enough,” Carla sneered, making to shove her forward again.
Krystal pulled away from her and forced herself forward, right into place beside Roma, who smiled at the scene of werewolves and vampires, demons and goblins, walking through the doors to the auction.
“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” she breathed. She glanced over at Krystal. “Come now, you must admit this is quite a sight.” She gestured to the windows and Krystal stared. The windows were large, allowing for a glimpse of The Goblin Market streets and shops outside, fading into black where the lights could no longer reach. The walls bore the strati of the tree, with large rings of dark wood alternating with light wood, striped up to the ceiling, and presumably going all the way up to the very tip of the tree. Each ring was nearly six feet tall, and Krystal wondered just how old the tree had been before The Goblin Market had bored into its bowels and hollowed it out for room upon room of vendor space.
She heard a commotion from behind her and turned to see several vampires and loup-garous join them. In the middle of the group of monsters was a man perhaps ten feet tall, his skin a sickly gray-green. His eyes were pitch black, as were his lips, a layer of hair atop his head the same raven color with golden horns curling up over his face like a ram. He was rather bulky, but it was all muscle beneath an outfit of dusty brown leather, and two large appendages swayed at his back that took Krystal a moment to place before recognizing them as wings that were folded up behind him. His arms were covered in hair and ended with deadly looking talons, but chains prevented him from making any threatening moves toward anyone around him, although they didn’t stop him from growling at the monsters he passed. Scars ran along his neck in thick puckering scars, reminding her of Frankenstein’s monster.
Krystal’s eyes widened, because that’s exactly what this creature seemed to be. A man fashioned of various parts. But rather than the dead body parts of men, he had been created from the parts of various monsters: Horns from a demon, arms from a werewolf, wings from a…something. He was a hodge-podge of creatures rolled into one terrible monstrosity.
“What did you do?” Krystal whispered.
Roma snickered. “Now, don’t be so dramatic. I told you that he liked you.”
Krystal squinted at the creature, then noted the tattoo of a crow on his neck. “That’s what you had in the dungeon? Number thirteen?”
“Of course.”
Krystal stared at him for a moment, her eyes roving over the crow tattoo.
The crows are not what they appear to be.
“He has a crow tattoo on his neck just like your husband,” she said slowly, turning to regard Roma. “Why would that be?”
Roma’s lips lifted in a smile. “Why do you think, dear?”
You don’t want to see his bad side.
Swallowing hard, Krystal regarded the creature again, his black, angry eyes, glaring hatefully at his surroundings. “This is the other side of your husband that you were referring to. You put his soul into a new body.”
“A stronger body,” Roma nodded. “One befitting a king. Of course, I keep his old body for company, and I confess I love that it doesn’t talk back to me like it used to. Now, he is passive and regal, like he should be. His vulgar side…well, it’s in this strong body now, whenever I have need for it. He can’t make demands of me anymore like this, but does as I say.”
“He can’t argue at all, because you can control his body,” Krystal said. She cocked her head. “Did you kill him? So that you could transfer him to a body that you could control?”
“It was painless, I assure you,” Roma nodded. “And our relationship is better for it.”
Krystal swallowed hard, taking this is.
“He was my first experiment with other creature’s bodies. He needed to have a body superior to any other. A queen can have no less. And I found the perfect parts to assemble it from. And now, just in case your friends prove more formidable than they appear to be, I have an ace up my sleeve.”
“You are one twisted witch.”
Roma paused, then shrugged. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Now, shall we?” She clapped her hands and they swept into the auction room like an entourage. Monsters around the room turned to look at Roma, surrounded by her beasts, and followed by one very extraordinary one.
The room was huge, like a ballroom, with a platform on the far end, a green demon with tentacle hands at a podium, addressing monsters seated before him. And all around the perimeter of the room were cages with large numbers adorning them. Some were large square cages that could hold a tiger or a bear, but mostly, they were bird cages, designed with flare and decorated with flowers and beading to make them more extravagant. All of them held humans.
Krystal put a hand to her mouth in horror as she looked at one human, then another, all around the room. They were clearly drugged, for the most part, although some of the people in more fortified cages seemed to have all of their strength, what good it did them in their chains with their mouths covered by duct tape.
Like the pretty cages, the humans were clean and dressed up to make them more appealing, many of the women in beautiful, lavish dresses and stunning makeup, others in only bras and panties. Men, likewise, were either in sharp suits, or work gear that showed off their strong arms, or just in shiny underwear, their torsos oiled. But they were all meant to attract top dollar.
Her mind reeling with the scene, Krystal turned her attention to locating her friends, and quickly noted Rachel in one of the sturdier cages, all dolled up in a red dress, her makeup a bit too thick, her mascara too dark. Krystal snorted, thinking that the hunter would have been better served doing her own makeup.
Beside her, she noted Amelia similarly dressed in a black dress, then Jade in a blue one, her normal long braid dismantled so that her hair spilled out behind her in a shiny, healthy waterfall of brown silk.
Hunter was in a tux, looking very debonair, even with a rag in his mouth, and she thought that she finally saw the appeal of the scholar. He was sort of James Bond-sexy, with a little nerd mixed in. Or a lot of nerd, actually. Yeah, she was still having trouble seeing the appeal.
But she didn’t see Quinn or Steven anywhere. She scanned the room twice for them to no avail, and she wondered if perhaps they’d been brought to a different room.
And then she saw Serene in the crowd, walking freely. And then Damien. She couldn’t see Shanna, but assumed she was there as well. Krystal turned to Roma, to see if she had noticed, but she was distracted by the podium, a smile lighting up her face. And when Krystal swung toward the stage, she saw why. Quinn and Steven were being led on stage, their arms tied behind them.
Her mouth went dry as the auctioneer regarded the two men, then turned to the audience with a green-lipped smile that showed off moss-covered teeth. “The next two sell as a pair, brought to us by the ever-lovely Miss Indigo Roma.”
Krystal shook her head slowly as she saw the terror in Steven’s eyes, and couldn’t help but feel responsible for his being there. They were both dressed in black vests, their arms bare to show off their biceps, with a good glimpse of chest, and tight black pants with gold buckles on their belts.
“There are many uses for these strong, attractive young men,” the auctioneer observed, looking them over. “Any ladies out there would have a blast drinking the blood from their lovely necks, or having them chained to their beds as they slowly sifted the energy from their bones.” He tilted his head. “And both look like they could do a good deal of hard labor. I’d give them four, no five years in the harshest of conditions. Of course, those looking for a good handsome human host or body to inhabit could hardly do better than these grade A specimens. Let’s start the bidding at $50,000 for the two of the
m, shall we?”
Krystal glanced back at Roma to see the necromancer watching her closely. She swallowed hard. “Stop this.”
Roma shook her head sadly. “I don’t think so, Dearie. Watch your friends be sold one by one until you have no one left. Then we’ll see what sort of tune you sing.”
“I won’t stay with you if you do this.”
“Even if I buy one myself? Say the scholar? Your teacher? Would you like that? Come, Krystal. Choose one to save. You couldn’t do it before, but now that your friends have failed in rescuing them all, I’ll give you another chance. Before you could have saved all but one. Now, you can save only one.”
Krystal looked up at the cages, then let her eyes wander back to the stage.
“Come now,” Roma prodded. “Who will it be? Which of your friends is worth the most to you?”