Healer's Choice

by Jory Strong

  “The prostitutes tell me one of them has been missing for over a day. Apparently she was called from their quarters to service a convict yesterday morning and didn’t return. The man in question is also absent. His foreman says he reported it to you. Under the terms of the conscription contract you were supposed to inform the guard immediately.”

  “It slipped my mind. Consider yourself notified. The workers and prostitutes were warned not to leave the encampment. The fate of those who do is not my concern. One might even consider it a validation of Darwin’s principles. Now if that’s all, I have work waiting for me.”

  “I will return to Oakland within the next day or so and file the necessary paperwork.”

  Orst turned away, heading in the direction of the building housing the guardsmen. At the sight of the man’s straight back in its neatly pressed uniform, Radek allowed himself the small fantasy of the captain encountering a pack of coyotes in the woods and being ripped to shreds as a reward for conscientious duty. Sanctimonious prick.

  Irritation flashed to anger in Radek. If his father had been willing to give him more money instead of calling this venture a pipe dream and turning over what little was officially Radek’s inheritance, then he wouldn’t have needed to supplement his workforce with criminals. He wouldn’t need to tolerate the guard’s presence and, worse, pay for it as insurance that the conscripted men were treated fairly and not thrown to the Weres as the situation warranted it.

  Radek snorted at the ludicrousness of it all. Civil rights for criminals. Concern for whores and the worthless poor. Ridiculous. If there’d been enough of his brother-in-law left to bury then Felipe would have spun in his grave at the direction the guard was taking as the various factions, including the Iberás, fought for control of it.

  Radek paused long enough to turn on his personal generator before entering his quarters. He double-checked the locks on the windows then took a seat at his desk, turning on the computer so he could resume his study of the files.

  It was a tedious, mind-numbing process.

  Open the file.

  Read through pages filled with complex words and ideas.

  Decide whether any of it needed further study or not.

  His alertness faded quickly, though it returned for an instant when he stumbled upon mention of a top secret government-sponsored project being worked on elsewhere in the laboratory complex currently being excavated.

  Radek’s eyes grew gritty, the lids heavy. The drone of the generator outside and the increasing stuffiness inside made it difficult for him to stay awake.

  He succumbed to sleep, to a favored dream.

  In it he smiled as he surveyed the reclaimed valley that was his domain. Where there was now rubble and ruin, much of it covered in tangled vines and rot-created dirt, a city stood.

  Its entrance and the roads leading to it were controlled by him. And like the city itself, they were patrolled not by guardsmen or the private militia answering to his father and Viktor, but by men who owed their allegiance to him and wore a crest of his own design rather than the one created by an Ivanov ancestor.

  His wealth surpassed that of all the Founding Families of Oakland combined. It rivaled that of the Tassone vampire family who ruled San Francisco.

  In his sleep Radek smiled as he stood at the entrance of a grand estate and watched the motorcade containing his father arrive.

  A chauffeur emerged from a sleek black limousine to open the back door. His father exited, pride wreathing his face as his gaze encompassed the city and the mansion behind Radek. “You’ve done well, son. Better than your brother, Viktor.”

  There was a short, pain-filled hesitation. “And God rest her soul, your sister, who was taken from us too soon.”

  Radek aped his father’s sadness over Ilka’s death even as he pressed his lips together tightly to keep from pointing out she’d brought her fate on herself. Death made saints of grasping bitches and sinners alike, and his sister was both.

  He escorted his father along a hallway filled with priceless artwork and into his study. Poured two glasses of expensive, imported brandy as his father claimed a plush chair covered in jaguar hide so black there was only a hint of the rosette pattern present in the fur.

  The sleeping Radek frowned, recognizing a deviation in the recurrent fantasy. But the thread of concern dropped away when his father said, “I’ve arranged a parade through Oakland celebrating your achievement.”

  His father lifted his glass in salute, pulling Radek more firmly into the altered dream. “To your vision. And to your courage for pursuing it when few would have dared.”

  Radek touched his glass to his father’s and the scene changed, veering into new territory but making his chest swell with pleasure. He was riding in an open-topped jeep through the wealthiest section of Oakland.

  Flags bearing his standard fluttered on the vehicles in front of him, as well as the one he was in. Men and women and children, all of them members of the elite, waved from their balconies while their servants lined the street. Even his sour-faced brother tipped his head as the motorcade passed, while at his side, Viktor’s tight-lipped wife regretted turning Radek down when he had expressed an interest in her first.

  Oh how sweet it is, Radek thought, accepting his due as he reflected on the long nights he’d spent locked in the tiny quarters of the original encampment, the generator droning as he painstakingly went over the items salvaged by a crew made up of society’s dregs.

  The computer screen he’d been staring at before falling asleep slipped into the dream, a sinuous thread working its way into his consciousness.

  Numbers and letters rearranged themselves like a divine gift for the worthy, giving up the details of the government-sponsored project being conducted in a separate lab.

  A thrill swept through Radek, followed by a chill. The scientists had known about the existence of Weres. They’d anticipated their emergence and thought they would one day attempt to rule over humans. They’d made plans for that day, to wipe them out using viruses tailored to individual species and tied to nanites.

  Fear nearly woke Radek. He’d grown up viewing the stark images of plague and anarchy, the nightmare masterpieces hanging on the walls of every Founding Family to glorify their part in restoring order to Oakland and reclaiming it for mankind.

  Before icy horror could force him from the dream, the dark, hungry place in his soul pulled at him, and he was once again in the jeep. Next to him, his father murmured, “Nothing can bring your sister back, but by freeing us forever from the threat the Weres present, you’re a hero to the human race.”

  It was a golden dream of power and wealth and glory, a temptation so sublime there was no turning away from it. “I did what needed to be done,” Radek said, drinking in the sound of the crowds calling his name.

  Three

  REBEKKA climbed the brothel staircase. There was nothing she could do but wait, and hope Levi remained safe. Even with her gift she wouldn’t be welcomed in Were territory. No humans were.

  Levi would be accepted only long enough to tell his pride family what happened to his brother and to him in Oakland; then he would be forced to leave. Or he would die there. Trapped in a man’s form, he was viewed as outcast.

  Early on in their friendship, she’d been certain if they managed to free Cyrin from the maze, Levi would choose death among his kind over life in the red zone. Worry he would change his mind about coming back gripped her. He was her closest friend and the thought of never seeing him again was intolerable.

  At the top of the stairs she punched in a code allowing her access to the second floor. Along the length of the hallway the doors were all closed. As she passed by them she could hear music coming from some of the rooms, but most were empty.

  Those prostitutes who worked during the day and had somewhere else to go would be off the premises so they couldn’t be called upon to service clients. Those who worked during the night would be downstairs or in one of the other houses.


  The vice lord Allende owned them all—buildings and outcast Weres alike. He’d taken control, killing the previous vice lord, a Wolf, the year before she approached Dorrit about working as a healer in the brothels.

  Rebekka couldn’t suppress a shiver at the thought of being bound by contract to Allende. Some said his animal form was Hyena. Others Jackal. Levi said Allende smelled like Leopard. She’d met the vice lord only once, but she’d heard tales of what he did to those who tried to flee without fulfilling the terms of their agreements—even when those terms were dictated by someone else, a debt-holder or a family member or a court of human law.

  For room and board and safety she healed those who worked in the brothels owned by him. She was free to come and go as she pleased, yet she couldn’t escape this world of prostitutes or the red zone where they plied their trade. She felt bound by her gift, by her upbringing, by the tattoo marking her as a prostitute though she’d never given herself to a man.

  Rebekka reached the end of the walkway and once again entered codes allowing her to pass. Unlike the building she’d just left, serving only Weres, this one held rooms for hosting parties of sexual excess.

  The walkway continued, a bridge built on top of the hallway separating the three front rooms from the three back rooms. Weres patrolled it, walking back and forth, a leap away from preventing trouble or delivering punishment, a menacing presence there to ensure patrons got what they paid for, no more and no less.

  All of those supervising the activities were pure, able to shift between human and animal forms. Their presence in the red zone made Rebekka assume they were outcasts forced from Were lands by their deeds.

  She barely glanced at scenes playing out in the six rooms. The only difference between these and the ones that had taken place in the brothels she’d grown up in was that here men—and sometimes women—played out their fantasies with prostitutes they considered little more than animals.

  Oakland was a port town and the red zone thrived as a result of it. The Were brothels provided something humans who lived elsewhere couldn’t easily experience.

  She passed into the next building, going down to the first floor. Plush carpet and walls painted in erotic murals created a feeling of luxury and entitlement. A higher class of client was served here but not an exclusive one like the three brothels on the other side of the street.

  It was too early in the night for her services to be needed in this building, but they would be. Just as they would be needed in the one she entered next, a place dedicated to those who thrived on giving and receiving pain.

  The sounds of screams and growls, of whips and paddles, dominated. There were few private rooms, as those who found sexual satisfaction in the dungeonlike setting enjoyed an audience.

  Rebekka hurried through, the flash of wedding bands glinting as hands rose and fell, delivering blows. Once again she climbed stairs and entered a walkway. Relief came at reaching the last building, and then the small room that was hers.

  She sat on the bed, legs suddenly wobbly, and wished she could stay. She couldn’t.

  She’d already been away too long. There’d be those who needed her, and she had a message to pass on for Levi. This was the worst of the brothels Allende owned. It served the dregs, the humans who were that in name only.

  Rebekka forced herself to stand. She allowed herself the luxury of a hot shower and a change of clothes before going downstairs.

  In the alcove just beyond the parlor where Dorrit negotiated with clients, Feliss waited. She was delicate and beautiful, doe-eyed with a timidness attracting both the best and the worst of the men who visited the brothel.

  Like the other prostitutes, she wore little in the way of clothing. From the front she could pass for human, hiding the black, horn-tough finger- and toenails underneath polish. But when she turned around, her shoulders, back, and buttocks revealed her Deer heritage.

  Because they were friends, Rebekka knew Feliss’s story. Her mother was a Deer trapped by a hunter who rarely left the woods. Rather than accept death, she shifted into human form, erroneously thinking it would be easy to escape.

  The trapper never dropped his guard. He kept her chained or caged, used her as whore and wife and ultimately the mother of his child.

  When the opportunity arose, and Feliss managed to free her mother, her mother changed and returned to the forest. If Feliss had been able to shift between forms, instead of being born in a mixed one, then her mother wouldn’t have abandoned her.

  But because Feliss wasn’t pure, she was left behind. And when she hit puberty, she was forced to take her mother’s place as whore and wife until the hunter who’d fathered her came to Oakland to sell the pelts he’d taken years to gather, and sold Feliss as well to the vice lord before Allende.

  Rebekka’s stomach turned thinking about it. She raged at the horror, the injustice.

  It shouldn’t be possible to hold a woman against her will, human or Were. It shouldn’t be possible to sell someone into prostitution.

  But if the history books were to be believed, even in the United States, before The Last War, sexual slavery existed, with the masses turning a blind eye, not wanting to know about the plight of girls lured to this country and forced to sell themselves, or about the millions who had no choice in other places around the world.

  Rebekka crossed her arms over her chest, rubbed her palms against the material of her blouse. This was the first time she’d been to the brothel since escaping from the Iberá estate after being held there in the hopes she would lead the patriarch to Tir.

  For the Iberá patriarch, the hunt was now over. She had no fear of being made a prisoner at the estate again, though a tightness swelled in her chest at a remembered conversation. He wanted the red zone eliminated. But as horrible as the brothels were, if he succeeded, the prostitutes would find their contracts sold.

  Some would be sent to other cities. Some would be placed on ships like the Pleasure Venture, or sold to brothel caravans like the one she lived in until her mother’s contract was bought by a vice lord in Oakland. And some would simply disappear, sold to places like the maze, or to hunters like Feliss’s father.

  If only she could heal them completely, free them from being trapped between forms and make them whole, able to shift. If only—

  “Are you okay?” Feliss asked, drawing Rebekka from the turmoil of her thoughts.

  “I’m fine. Levi found his brother. He wanted me to tell you he’ll be back after he sees Cyrin home.”

  Feliss looked down but not before Rebekka saw the doubt, the hopelessness, in her friend’s eyes. She took Feliss’s hands in hers and gave them a gentle squeeze.

  “He’ll be back.” If they’d been alone, Rebekka would have added, He won’t forget his promise to buy out your contract so you never have to let another man touch you if it’s not your choice. But they weren’t. And she couldn’t. Like the human brothels of her childhood, there was jealousy and plays for power here, too.

  Feliss pulled free when the sharp clap of hands summoned her into the parlor. Rebekka retreated to the small room that served as her workplace unless someone came to get her. Most of the time she healed using her touch and her will, but she also kept supplies on hand, salves and bandages, formulas meant to reduce pain or cleanse.

  Word of her return spread. Within minutes a male Lynx arrived, shuffling in painfully, his human testicles swollen and bruised and his buttocks smeared with blood. He was followed by another prostitute, and another, a steady stream testifying to the brutality of those who visited the brothels.

  She’d lost count of how many she’d healed by the time one of the pure Weres who served the dungeon madam arrived. “You’re needed in the next building.”

  “Give me a moment more.”

  He nodded and left. She finished healing a Cat whose teat hung by a thread of flesh, nearly bitten off by a drunk patron in the bar.

  Rebekka rose to her feet, swaying with crushing fatigue. The Cat looked at her without exp
ression, turned away, and left without comment, emotions deadened except for an underlying hatred of all humans.

  Rebekka drew in a deep breath, trying to suck strength in with the air. Her gift wasn’t inexhaustible. There were limits and she had far exceeded them already with the healing of the Weres in the woods.

  She forced herself forward. Passed by the leather-and-fur parlor where Dorrit dickered with a client as female prostitutes stood in a line, Feliss no longer among them.

  The bouncer who’d brought the message peeled away from a spot near the doorway to accompany Rebekka down a hallway with glass-fronted windows. Inside the rooms, prostitutes performed the acts required of them while humans paid to walk back and forth, watching from the hall.

  Rebekka kept her attention focused forward but it didn’t save her from getting a glimpse of Feliss on her knees before a burly, unwashed man. From seeing his fingers wrapped in Feliss’s hair as his cock thrust in and out of her mouth with no care for the pain he caused or the damage he might do.

  It was a relief to turn onto a hall with the doors closed, to have several moments away from the brothel atmosphere as she and the bouncer entered the stairway, climbing upward before stepping onto the connecting walkway and going to the next building.

  They descended once again, and, even muted by the walls separating the passageway from the dungeons, Rebekka could hear screams and cries and the sounds of paid-for violence.

  Instead of remaining in the parts of the brothel off-limits to clients, the bouncer punched in a code and opened a door leading to the area set aside for play. The scent of sweat and blood and sex hit Rebekka.

  “This way,” he said, placing a hand on her back and guiding her, his presence a deadly deterrent.

  They walked past men and women gathered around prostitutes bound onto pieces of equipment, gagged and made helpless.

  Servers moved among the clients, selling liquor that would erode all boundaries and control by morning, the waitresses and waiters themselves available for a price.