Chapter 24: The Barghest

Bjorn heard the visitors to his prison long before he ever saw them. Bound as tightly as he was, it was impossible for him to rush to the front of his cell like the two backstabbing fey across the hall—murderers, both. Sold to the slavers for mere pennies on the dollar, for executing a young nymph when their masters left the three of them alone together. And, before that, a faun. And, if their whispered boasts in the middle of the night were true, dozens before that. Listening to some of the things that they did to their victims before they killed them, Bjorn would have gladly twisted both of their heads from their shoulders and hurled them to explode upon the walls across the room, but his captors had wizened to that particular facet of his abilities the first time they’d taken him to the ‘play room.’

It had not, Bjorn thought now, looking back, been the smartest thing he had ever done, but it had certainly been satisfying. Now, with both his arms bound in silver and secured with padlocks behind his back, his fingers fisted in thick silver balls at the end of the metal sheaths surrounding his arms, a heavy chain securing his neck to his ankles, Bjorn was still paying for that brief moment of satisfaction, and probably would be until Odin came to liberate him. No one wanted a captor-killer, regardless of the despicable things they could do with his blood. And, with his arms bound as they were, it was pretty obvious to all the disgusting blood-suckers so far that that’s exactly what he was.

Third Landers, Bjorn had found, preferred not to buy other Third Landers. Especially pussy vampires who were used to being the stronger, faster, most dangerous creatures in the bunny-rabbits-and-rainbows First Realm. They didn’t like to look the things that ate them, back home, in the eye.

The golden crow, for her part, just curled into a ball at the sound of their captors’ return and pretended the world didn’t exist. She was still fresh, Bjorn had put together from listening to the slavers. A mere five or ten years in captivity. She’d fed a nest of vampires in northern Russia, then had been transported here as partial payment for a quetzalcoatl. Her first masters, it seemed, had been rather gentle with her. And, with Bjorn taking up most of the attention of their captors, she had gone relatively unscathed here, as well. Which was just as well.

Bjorn watched the door open, but without real hope of being taken from this hell. It had been two years since he had been brought to this place, and he’d seen countless vampires pass through the walls, take one look at him, and go pasty white. Vampires, of course, remembered. Those that had come from the Third Lands—which meant all who were not born of a First Realm queen—saw him and he watched their minds flash back to that violent time where every moment had been a struggle for survival in the dark. It was roughly, he assumed, the same reaction that a man who had spent centuries being hunted—and perhaps mauled—by a tiger would have had when finding a full-grown Siberian cat in a pet-store.

Damn.

Bjorn dropped his head in a sigh. He’d been passed up a hundred times already. He had no reason to expect this time to be any different.

But all those dreams…

He snorted. Dreams. So a captive dreamed of being free. Big surprise, there. Kind of like a starving man dreaming of steak and potatoes.

Then he heard a female voice, excited, talking about a yatagarasu, and he blinked and looked up.

Instantly, he froze. Though only half of her arm was visible through the men’s bodies and the wall of his cell, Bjorn’s heart began to pound, seeing the silver-gold webwork through her fingers and forearm, the strange, not-quite-human cast to her skin.

Oh gods, Bjorn thought. Oh gods oh gods…

And then she came into full view, and his heart stopped.

#

Shannon was so stunned by Masaaki’s sudden change of tune that she could only stare. Here they had a yatagarasu in chains and he was going to leave her because she was from the wrong landmass. The bigoted, idiot racist hardass. She should’ve known, though. The Koreans, the Japanese, the Chinese…hell, all those weird slanty-eyed creeps had a thing against each other. She had really pissed off a Korean kid in school by accidentally calling him Japanese. He’d spent like ten minutes yelling at her, telling her how he was not Japanese. In fact, he had used a lot of the same words that Masaaki had used, in describing the Chinese.

Well, screw him.

“How much for all?” she asked.

“We don’t want or need all,” Masaaki told her. “I’d say we just take the twins. The barghest obviously hasn’t been broken yet—definitely not something we want to risk taking home with us—and I’d rather fuck a macaque than a Chinese whore.”

“Shut up, Masaaki,” she growled. To their ‘host,’ she said, “How much?”

The tight-lipped man that had taken the duffel over to a strange, human-shaped table and dumped its contents onto it to count, looked up and said, “More than you’ve got here.”

“How many can we afford?” Shannon demanded.

“With this?” The man lifted one of the wads of cash and flicked it back into the pile disdainfully. “One.”

One. Shannon felt her guts clench and her heart start to hammer. She could only save one. She stopped and turned to look at the captives behind bars. Immediately, she felt their accusing, angry stares and wanted to cringe behind Masaaki, but Masaaki was being an asshole, so she winced and tried to pick. How to pick?

They had to take the yatagarasu, obviously. Masaaki could just blow it out his ass. Seeing the young Chinese woman, scowling at them from her cage like she wanted to kill them all, Shannon’s heart went out to her. We’re going to help you, she thought.

“I want two,” she said.

“You’re not getting two with what you’ve got here,” the man said, and Masaaki followed that up with, “Barghests are dangerous, love. They are as strong as werekin in their human forms, but nastier. Restraining him would be difficult, and that one has obviously not been properly trained. And the yatagarasu is simply worthless. If you must have one of these vermin, I’d say take the female twin. She’ll be a good fuck, and I’m sure you could use her blood for something interesting.”

Shannon froze, staring at Masaaki in horror.

Someone cleared his throat in the silence that followed, and Shannon reluctantly turned.

Kneeling on the concrete floor of the cage behind her was a gigantic, bleached-out blonde dude, the barghest that they had been talking about while Shannon had been examining the yatagarasu. The man on the floor, already almost ghostly pale, suddenly lost all color entirely. He swallowed hard against the heavy steel collar around his neck, but didn’t take his eyes off of her face.

Shannon met the barghest’s ice-blue eyes, saw the strange, twisting white tattoos that were wrapped around his body in pale, ivory lines, reminding her of a tiger’s stripes, and she froze. Something about him was triggering a memory, some deep instinctive fear to run. Run, run run…

The man’s arms were encased in silver metal sleeves ending in round metal balls, which had then been padlocked behind him in multiple places up his arms. He was kneeling on the floor because a collar around his neck had been drawn tight down to his ankles, with a length of chain whose thickness reminded her of something off of a battleship linking his ankles to his neck in a painful-looking arc.

The man himself was, undeniably, a beast. Huge, with ice-blue eyes and long, ice-blonde hair, as big around as a bear. And he looked utterly capable of ripping her head off and hurling it through somebody’s chest. But he looked…desperate. There was no question in her mind that he was asking her, silently, to take him from this. Whatever horrors he had envisioned in her hands, they must have been minor compared to the disgusting perversions he was seeing at the hands of these men.

Yet, there was also that nagging gut instinct. Like something deep within was trying to wrest control of her legs and make her flee.

Swallowing, Shannon turned away from him and glanced at the two fey twins. A boy and a girl. They looked like teenagers, maybe fourteen or fifteen. They were in adjoining cells, watching her with fear in their eyes, secured to the wall behind them with regular-sized chains, instead of the massive ones holding the barghest in place.

Twins, Shannon thought. She couldn’t separate twins. And they looked so innocent and scared. So she had to get the yatagarasu. …didn’t she? Masaaki was just being an asshole. …wasn’t he? The little Chinese woman looked like she would gladly stab Shannon in the eye with one of Masaaki’s swords, if given half the chance. The barghest, as big and supposedly dangerous as he was, looked like he wanted to go with her. And the slaver had talked about doing horrible things to the big man in chains…

“Umm…” Shannon swallowed. She could take the barghest. Or the yatagarasu. Or one of the twins… But then she’d be separating twins and they looked like kids.

“I could go get more money and come back,” Shannon said.

Masaaki gave her a disgusted sigh. “We don’t need the damn barghest. Too dangerous, wan-ko. Barghests eat vampires, in the Third Realm. If you must take one, take a fey.” And, when Masaaki met her eyes, there was dead seriousness in them.

He’s telling me not to take the barghest, Shannon realized, startled. Because he’ll eat me. She glanced again at the chained bear of a man, who was still pleading with her in silence. He didn’t look like he wanted to hurt her. The ivory stripes of tattoos, scrolled upon his body in pretty, symmetrical patterns, was flexing back and forth with his chest as he panted.

…hyperventilated?

“Uh…” She swallowed. “Are you sure we don’t want him?”

With a sigh, Masaaki turned and considered the huge man kneeling on the floor. “What these nice young men won’t tell you about barghests, my love, is that they’re stronger and faster than a vampire, and have the power of shadows at their command. They are the perfect night-hunters, my sweet. And, while that kind of power is delectable to many vampires, they’re also absolutely wretched playthings unless properly trained. Which he obviously has not been. He’d rip up your pretty new house, love.”

“I don’t care about that,” Shannon blurted, seeing the way the man’s platinum-blonde eyebrows furrowed as he turned to glare at Masaaki. “I’ll get him anyway. I’ll just get more money.”

Masaaki narrowed his eyes at her. “Darling. While I’m sure these nice young men would love for you to go empty out your accounts for them, that barghest is worthless and will stay. He obviously hurt someone, girl. Look at his arms. Only a fool would pay money for a creature like that.”

Shannon returned his glare. “You said the yatagarasu was worthless, too. What the hell, Masaaki?”

He made a disgusted sound. “You told me I would be making the decision this trip.” Then, turning to the three men, he said, “We’ll take the Chinese whore. She’s obviously stuck on the idea, and I refuse to listen to her bitch at me for the next week, while we wait for your next shipment.”

“Please take me,” the big man blurted, from the cage. It was the first thing any of the slaves had said, and it made the other three slaves turn and give him a curious look. The man was looking directly at Shannon, ignoring everyone else, begging her with his gaze. “Please.”

Immediately, one of the slavers walked over and hit the man across the face with a riding crop through the bars. “You will stay silent, maggot,” the driver of the car snapped. “Or the next time I ride you, I won’t use lube.”

But the barghest hadn’t taken his eyes from Shannon’s face. His ice-blue gaze was desperate. “Please.”

The man with the riding crop started beating him, then, brutally hitting him upon the unprotected face and chest, while big the man could neither duck nor raise his hands to protect himself. He lost balance and fell over sideways, on his side, as the man brutally continued his attack on his chest, his thighs, his genitals…

“Stop it!” Shannon cried. “I’ll take—”

But Masaaki grabbed her by the shoulders and started propelling her from the room. “We’re done here,” the samurai growled. To the men, he said, “We will be expecting the yatagarasu in our hands by morning.” Then he was shoving her down the hall, up the stairs, through the garage, and back into the van.

“I can’t believe you left him there!” Shannon cried, once they were back in the nice, posh interior of the Mercedes. She was still shaking, utterly sick to her stomach.

“Listen to me,” Masaaki growled. “That thing was dangerous. You told me to help you pick out things that you could free, and there is no way I am letting you free that thing. They eat vampires, you understand?”

“They were beating him,” Shannon snapped back. “Because he was asking me to take him.”

Masaaki narrowed his eyes at her. “Wan-ko, that is what they do to slaves. And he was probably asking for you to take him because he could see that you were a damned queen. And he would find a queen especially tasty.”

Shannon froze. “What?”

“Remember how you were telling me you saw lines of color in people?” Masaaki said.

“Their blood,” Shannon said, with a wince.

“Most native denizens of the Third Land can see the same way,” Masaaki agreed. “It’s how you hunt. And make no mistake, daimyō, that thing was a killer. I had a short conversation with the slavers while you were pouting in the car. It killed its last mistress—a vampire who thought it would be fun to have a great big predator serving her hand and foot—and splattered one of the Five Realms men’s brains across the wall on its first week in Alaska. They’ve had it for two years and no sales, because no intelligent vampire is going to touch him, aside from maybe a vampire lord or a queen…someone who can enthrall him. And even then, too risky. They’re going to put it down sometime next month.”

“‘It’ is a ‘him,’ Masaaki,” Shannon snapped. “And if he’s really that dangerous and they’re going to kill him, why can’t I just bring him home and enthrall him?”

Too late, she realized what she had said.

Beside her, Masaaki went utterly still. When he spoke, his voice was near a whisper. “You say that so casually, daimyō.”

“He was begging me, Masaaki!” she cried, remembering the pleading in the man’s face. “And we left him there.”

“He probably knows he’s soon to die,” Masaaki retorted. “What you witnessed was the desperation of a doomed man. Nothing more.”

“That’s horrible!” Shannon cried.

“That’s life,” Masaaki snapped back. “You are the one who insisted on dealing with slavers, daimyō. Things like that happen every day, anywhere men are caged at the whim of another. If you want to continue your dealings with them, you are going to have to face the reality of all this, Shannon. If you don’t, they’ll continue to charge you three times what they should, and laugh all the way to the bank.”

Shannon froze. “You mean I could have bought the barghest?”

Masaaki made a disgusted noise and looked out the window. “Not after opening your mouth about the yatagarasu.”

Shannon blinked. “What?”

When the samurai turned to look back at her, he sighed, but there was still irritation in his eyes. “I have seen how you buy things here, wan-ko, so you have some excuse. You don’t haggle. There is a set price. You simply place what you want in a basket, take it to the front, and pay the price.” He let out a slow breath. “With things like slaves, there is no set price. It is either the highest the buyer is willing to pay, or the lowest the seller is willing to sell. Most times, you must haggle, and come to some medium in between. Tonight, they simply set their price, and you paid it, like a fool.”

Shannon blushed. “It’s like a used car.”

“It’s going to set a precedent,” Masaaki growled. “One that will be hard for you to break. You paid their price once, why not pay it again? After all, they have the food that you need to survive. Until you build your harem, they have all the cards.”

“I still think we should’ve bought the barghest,” Shannon muttered. “I feel horrible for leaving him there.”

“You’re going to be leaving a lot of people behind, daimyō,” Masaaki growled. “Get used to it.” Then, taking a deep breath, he said, “Thank you for buying the yatagarasu. I thought, for a moment there, you were going to leave her behind.”

Shannon’s mouth fell open at his hypocrisy. “You were telling me to leave her behind.”

“I was trying to keep you from having to spend all of your money on her,” Masaaki retorted. “Every time you opened your mouth, you doubled her damn price.”

Shannon blushed and looked at the steering wheel. “Oh.”

Masaaki made a disgusted sound. “You didn’t know. I should have instructed you beforehand. But now that you do know, just think about it next time. You should have come out of there with the twins and the yatagarasu, for the amount of money you brought. If you show disinterest, it is expected. They will lower their price. But for the love of Buddha, don’t get excited like a little kid at a sweets-stand. They will charge you whatever they think you can afford.”

Shannon felt tears coming to her eyes, thinking of the three she had left behind. The barghest had screamed for her to come back, as the asshole had whipped him through the bars. And now here she was sitting in this nice, plush seat of a Mercedes, while he was lying in his own blood on the floor of a cell. The thought still left a sickness pooled in Shannon’s gut. Like frozen sewage, slowly thawing against her insides.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Shannon whispered.

Masaaki seemed to understand, because he reached out and touched her gently on the shoulder. “You won’t have to do it again, daimyō. They will deliver the yatagarasu in the morning. I will explain the situation to her. She will stay.”

Shannon was a bit comforted by the surety in his voice, but she still felt that sickening guilt for leaving the barghest behind. He had been begging her. Looking through sudden tears, she just nodded and started the car.