Rune Thief: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Isabella Hush Series Book 1)

by Thea Atkinson

  The first door refused to open. I tried the next-door down. Same thing. The next one was also locked. There were no bells or buzzers or even windows to peer into. Frustrated, I spun around and tried the doors on the other side of the street. They were all closed as well.

  I wasn't about to give up. Not yet.

  I headed straight to the closest stall, intending to ask the proprietor how I could gain access to those shops. It had been built to withstand the weather, with a roof made of leather and stretching out for several yards in each direction. A thick iron bar framed it up on all sides and crossed the distance from one side to the other far in the back. Every length of it had feet buried deep into the cobblestones on either side.

  At first I thought the stall was being visited by a dozen patrons all at once, but I realized that the patrons were far too small to be buyers. Children. The oldest looked to be about ten, and all of them were chained by the wrists to that bar. They looked dirty and disheveled, as though they had been running for a long stretch before being run down into the ground and collected up.

  My stomach turned into a hard lump of glue. These were human children and the willowy woman inspecting them with a long thumb running along each chin looked more like a reptile wearing Prada shoes than the lithe looking human woman she presented.

  The woman spun around when she saw me, letting a broad grin take over her face. I recognized the look of a con woman when I saw it. She would try to get me to buy something, and maybe I would. Maybe that was my in.

  I sidled over to the stall.

  "How old is your youngest?" I said, turning to the proprietor.

  This close, she was even more terrifying. Her eyes looked reptilian, with the vertical pupils sat in the middle of yellow corneas. I didn't think I could stand it if forked tongue slipped out of her mouth as she spoke, but I held my ground anyway, reaching out to the closest child and laying my palm down on his shoulder.

  The woman looked me up and down with narrowed gaze.

  "How did you get in here?" she demanded. "What are you?"

  What are you? The same question Maddox had asked me.

  "If you can't tell," I said, "then maybe I should be the one who's asking."

  She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot twice as she inspected me.

  "Who knows how old these things are," she finally said. "I don't track them, just sell them."

  She rifled through the shoulders of the children as though she were flicking aside coat hangers on a dress rack. She yanked hard, and a small owl-eyed girl stumbled out from between two taller boys.

  "This one is prepubescent," the reptilian woman said. "If you're a vampire, you'll know that these don't come cheap."

  Vampire. I swallowed down a flood of sour water at the word and all that implied as I studied the poor soul.

  "How old are you, honey?" I said as I knelt down to the girl. The proprietor beside me tapped her foot impatiently.

  The owl-ish eyes welled up with water. I could see trauma behind that gaze, terror in the streaks of dirt on her face. And to think in all of this time, I thought missing children had met terrible fates at the hands of awful men. My heart went out to her.

  "It's all right," I said in a whispered tone. "You don't have to be afraid of me."

  "Her blood is better if she is," the woman said. "You must not be a vampire, then. So what is it you do with your human whelps?"

  She stared directly at me without a hint of interest but still obviously expecting me to answer. It was the type of small talk any seller might make to seal the deal.

  I peered up at the woman. "What makes you think I'm interested that way?"

  She shrugged with what might look like a delicate shoulder if she had been human.

  "You came straight here instead of the other shops," she said. "The shadow bazaar has all sorts of delicacies and precious wares, and buyers don't come here to acquire everyday items. They come here for something special."

  Those reptilian eyes of hers narrowed again. "If you're not interested in children, then leave my stand. You're getting in the way of real customers."

  She turned away from me, fully expecting, it seemed, for me to just walk away and leave these kids here with her. It was very possible these children might be sold as servants to cook and clean, but with the use of the word vampire, the woman had erased any doubt from my mind that they would see something far worse than slavery.

  I took the little girl by the hand. She reminded me a lot of Kassie. Maybe it was the look of trauma in all of their faces that did it because it was in all of them, even the boys. I couldn't leave any of them here.

  "You can't take that thing without paying," the woman said, catching sight of me. Her hand clamped down around my wrist.

  "I'm taking her," I said. I didn't want to know how much time I had left because damn it, I wasn't about to let this child suffer whatever fate this woman had in mind.

  "You take something," the woman said. "You leave something."

  I faced her as though I were facing Scottie again. A bully, that's what she was. Didn't matter if she looked like a skinny stick with knobs and knots on her face, if her eyes were slitted with narrow pupils. All bullies were the same. They felt they owned your ass. The fact that this woman had these children chained to her iron bar in this foul-smelling booth proved she was the worst of bullies. One who thought she owned them and could profit from that sense of possession.

  While I felt sick to my very soul at the thought of purchasing a human being, I couldn't just let this girl stay here left to God knew what sort of fate.

  "What do you want?" I asked her.

  The woman's smile turned ugly. "You."

  CHAPTER 23

  YOU. ONE WORD FROM the owner, but it made me step backward involuntarily. I looked at the girl and the way her face just sort of crumpled when the woman spoke. I got the feeling that she pitied me, and that couldn't be good.

  My hand gripped the railing as I faced the woman.

  "What do you mean?" I said.

  She leaned in and I could swear she smelled my hair.

  "As you can see, I have a market for exotic things."

  She waved a graceful arm over the heads of some of the smaller children. Her gaze ran the length of my throat. The way she said it, the way she eyed my pulse, I felt as though my entire body needed to be scrubbed clean. The hair rose on the back of my neck.

  One look at the girl confirmed everything I thought about the woman's use of the word exotic.

  "I don't know what you are," she said. "But you have a fine fragrance. Like licorice and cherries. If you want the female runt, I'd be happy to swap for you and let her go free."

  I heard a sharp intake of the girl's breath, the hope that she pulled in with it.

  I looked from one child to the next, taking in the filthy faces, the look of trauma. All of various ages, and if I had to guess, not one of them over the age of sixteen. The oldest, a rather brawny looking teenage boy stared off into nothing. I couldn't imagine what was going through his mind to rob it of thought or expression. I just knew it had to be bad.

  "Swap?" I said, testing the word.

  The woman nodded. "Yes. You stay and I unlock her manacles."

  I'd come to save my ass, not peddle it. The woman seemed to sense the offer would get her nowhere and she made a grab for the child's arm. Without thinking, I grabbed for the other one.

  I tugged. Just because I didn't want to be martyr didn't mean I wanted to leave these children to her mercy.

  We stared at each other over the mop of greasy hair. The girl started to cry.

  "You can't do this," I said. Desperation clogged up my throat.

  "They're mine," she said. "I can sell them to whomever I please. Now let go."

  The girl cried even harder.

  I felt as though someone had punched me in the stomach. I thought of all the missing children reports I'd heard over the years and imagined horrible things happening to those poor sou
ls. Despite the fact that I could do nothing about it, I couldn't let the child's hand go. The little thing was clenched in mine so tightly, I could feel it shaking.

  The woman had to use both of her hands to wrest the child's grip from mine and then she jerked her sideways, pushing her back into the line. I stood there helpless, looking from one child to the next and trying to work out some way to release them. There had to be some mechanism that could let them go. They all seemed to be shackled together on that rack. But my shocked brain just couldn't puzzle it out.

  I inched closer to the girl again and was still trying to work through my rage and impotency along with the cuffs when a short fellow strode over and made a polite inquiry about the cost. He was wearing an old-fashioned cloak like the kind you saw in a Dracula movie. The proprietress smoothed down her glimmering dress and pasted on that same look every great salesman wore when confronted by a target.

  "And what would you say the vintage is of that one," I heard the man say.

  "That one is the youngest," the woman said, and I knew she was coming closer. I imagined she would trot out the girl again for inspection. If I was going to do anything, I had to hurry.

  "I don't like them older than five," he said. "They get a funky taste after that."

  My head snapped up. Taste?

  It was only then that I noticed the extended canines in his upper bite. Vampire, my mind whispered. Of course. I shouldn't be surprised, not when the woman had already mistaken me for one.

  The girl was already clinging to me and sobbing into my shirt. She smelled of urine and feces so strongly it was like someone had pressed a bedpan beneath my nose. It made my eyes water. I ran my hands over the bracelets of her cuffs, feeling for the shape of the lock and hoping it was big enough to take the tip of my penknife. I tried ever so hard not to lose my shit, but I was tearing up as I worked the lock.

  I heard the woman telling the vampire to feel free to browse if he wasn't sure her offerings were as good as she said. I thought he was going to argue, but another man blustered over and declared that he wanted to take them all. I fiddled harder.

  "My den is getting an influx of extra patrons tonight. Some sort of costume party in the East End, and I don't have time for my scouts to go hunting. These will do. Providing they're the right price."

  The kids, even the blank-faced teenager started to cry. I stole a look at the owner.

  The woman looked torn between a sure sale and the option of getting rid of all her wares at once, but something was holding her back. It didn't take long before the real reason came out.

  "The last time you bought for your blood den," the woman said. "You didn't pay for months."

  The first vampire shot her a look of complaint. "I was here first," he said.

  They were so distracted with each other, arguing over which one of them should be allowed to purchase first. The second vampire wanted them all, and the first one didn't want to give up the little girl. I stood there in shocked disbelief for several moments before I realized it was an opportunity for me to liberate them. All of them. Perhaps with them all running, one or two of them would have a chance.

  I ducked away from them as they argued and tried to work at the manacles of the young girl's wrist. I twisted the tip of the pen knife just so, hoping to hear the telltale click that would tell me I'd disengaged mechanism.

  She was crying hard by then. They weren't cuffs of any special sort. Fairly archaic, actually, even if they were effective to the person shackled. Years of picking locks and jimmying my way into places enabled me to pop it in seconds. Her loud and piercing shriek of joy pierced a hole in my fear and for a moment I felt exuberant with her. I watched her dig her toes into the dirt for purchase and then she was off like a rabbit, weaving in and out of stalls.

  In my mind, I ran with her. She was a smart girl, obviously. Traumatized, yes, but not so far gone that she didn't understand the need to run and run fast. I was working on the lock of the teenage boy when the proprietress and her potential customers noticed the girl streaking across the courtyard.

  She shrieked in anger. "My goods," she yelled. "Someone catch them."

  One of the vampires groaned.

  "I already have my money out," he complained.

  The proprietress caught sight of me working on a third cuff. She stabbed her finger in my direction.

  "You," she said. "You stay. You freed it, you stay for it."

  Everyone seemed to notice all at once, and everyone seemed to understand that it was beyond the normal. What I had thought earlier were people shopping became a seethe of creatures both humanoid and things distinctly otherwise giving chase to the product running across the courtyard in gleeful but terrified liberation. Those who didn't follow the children swarmed the owner's booth, to help her keep the rest of her goods intact.

  The proprietress went a livid shade of white.

  I'd done it now. Whatever consequences would come, I couldn't turn back. I unsnapped child after child while the chaos made it possible. I had about four more of them liberated before the proprietress got hold of me.

  The seethe of creatures storming the booth marshaled the remaining shackled children into a sobbing cluster. Both vampires stood to the side, their nostrils flaring and bodies quivering as though they were working very hard to restrain themselves.

  I felt like a field mole under the owner's gaze, terrified to move but knowing if I didn't I was vulnerable prey in an open field. I spun on my heel, fully prepared to sprint and dodge, but got no further than the middle of the courtyard before someone grabbed me by the hair.

  The sickening feel of hair pulling free of my scalp dropped me to my knees.

  The owner of the booth let go my hair and gripped me by the shoulders instead. She dragged me, kicking, to her booth. Muttered something that sounded like STAY.

  And just like that, I stayed. She rained blows on me as I tried to deflect them.

  "So many predators," the woman complained. "I'll be lucky to get any of them back, let alone alive."

  She shook me and my teeth rattled. Where did she get that strength from anyway? She wasn't that much bigger than me.

  I kicked and cursed at her and brought my heel down onto her instep. Elbowed her in the belly. She muttered another word. This time clearly.

  "Desisto."

  Every small muscle in my face, hands, and thighs quivered to a halt. I was left staring at her and trying to struggle beneath her grip. My chest heaved with fear and rage.

  "You freed it," she declared in a huff of rage. "You stay in its place."

  "What about the others?" The second vampire complained. "I'm not paying full price for half the goods."

  She glared at him and he snapped his mouth shut. I supposed some was better than none and he was willing to concede for the day.

  The proprietress reached into her cloak and pulled out a new pair of handcuffs. These looked different than the others. Made of rusted iron and formed as one solid hourglass shape. She yanked my hands onto either side of the rail and then shoved them onto my wrists. She cut into the skin with the force, and I winced. She snapped them closed with a flourish of triumph.

  "Got you," she said.

  CHAPTER 24

  I RATTLED THE MANACLES against the bar with a rage that, in the end, did nothing but wear me out. They were too tight. Whatever metal they were made of burned like a brand if I moved too much. I eyed the bracelets speculatively. No lock on these like there had been on the girl's cuffs, which meant it couldn't be picked.

  I might have settled for good old fashioned negotiation if I had any idea what to offer in exchange for my freedom. I couldn't very well argue my way out. Brash arrogance wouldn't work on this one. I eyed her as she argued with several would-be buyers. I might have had time to plan out my route of attack but one of the vampires sidled up next to me and inhaled as though he were testing an aroma above a bowl of hearty lentil soup. He was close enough I felt him shiver, and when he let his lips rest against my pu
lse, his lips quivered. Breath that I expected to be hot and moist rasped against my skin like the cold air from tundra.

  "She smells delightful," he said against my skin and might have taken a nip except for the owner who throttled him with the back of her hand.

  "You want a taste, you pay for it," she said. "This isn't a sampler buffet."

  He recoiled under harsh words, as though he was insulted, but his eyes never left my pulse.

  "What is she?" he asked bemusedly. "Not a human child, surely. Her eyes are too old."

  I sucked in a frightened breath at his musing tone. He caught my eye at the sound. His were stunning. Mesmerizing, even. I thought I felt myself sinking into a warm bath and my legs sagged. What had made me think of cold dry land when those eyes were so intoxicating?

  He smiled as though he enjoyed my reaction.

  "No," he said in a voice like warm syrup. "Not a child at all."

  Under normal circumstances, I might be delighted that someone recognized maturity in my gaze instead of the diminutive stature that made everyone mistake me for a teenager. But all I could think was how gorgeous those coal black eyes were and how incredibly tired I was.

  He shifted his gaze to my throat again. My head cleared the way an airplane might if opened mid-flight. A secretive smile still played about his full mouth. This wasn't a vampire like Fayed, and in light of how this one had made me feel, I doubted Fayed was a vampire at all. Fayed was a looker, and I might have tossed him eventually, but he'd never done to me with his eyes what this one did.

  This one lifted a lock of my hair and ran it beneath his nose. I knew my heart was beating like a rabbit in a snare, but I learned a long time ago not to quail beneath a threat. It gave the aggressor more power, and I reasoned that a vampire might be very much like a violent man in that way. And a vampire was no doubt dangerous enough without making him feel as though he owned me in some way.

  I faced him with unblinking eyes, trying to keep my gaze between his eyebrows so he couldn't do that thing again with his gaze. I wondered if he could hear the steadily rising thrum of my heartbeat. I could certainly hear it and if I looked out of my periphery, I could see my chest moving with the awful beat of it.