He stopped pacing and listened to the questions circling his head.
Why was he here? Was he ignoring a burning desire to snuff out a life? Was the craving already billowing inside him, ready to eat at him when it would later make itself obvious? Was his lording spirit paying him a service by spurring him into action at the auction?
His solitary comfort was the beefy sum he’d placed in his buying account. He had plenty of money to buy at least one woman, and he’d let his domineering spirit guide him through his bidding.
An island without need for companionship, he noticed a twisted sense of camaraderie among the buyers. Though he was the newest, the others accepted him into their ranks, a phenomenon he attributed to the need of the powerful to brag amongst those who understood.
Standing next to the German who wore a tailored suit, sunglasses, and a ponytail, he sensed that need.
“How have you enjoyed the Egyptian woman you bought from me in our side deal?”
Edric recalled having killed her in tribute two months ago. “She was perfect.”
“Then, no buyer’s remorse?”
“None.”
“Excellent. Then we had ourselves a favorable business exchange. I hear this new Iraqi crop is quite lovely.”
Since supernatural prodding had driven him to the day’s auction, the wraith had neglected looking at videos of the inventory. “Yes.”
“You seem at edge today, a bit nervous. Your account is funded, is it not?”
Edric nodded. Despite the common bonds between bidders, each sought an advantage against the other for savings. “I will never make that mistake again.”
The German scoffed. “My loss. But I unfortunately believe you.”
The wraith scanned the room for other buyers and recognized the familiar groups As usual, they seemed engaged in impatient and anxious chatter. He glued himself beside the German who appeared to respect silence when he had nothing worth saying.
Wearing an eastern European imitation of an Italian-cut, a single client entered the room and greeted the seller and his minion.
His nerves prompting him, he broke the silence with his German companion. “Why do you think he does that, showing up at the last minute every time?”
“Perhaps he thinks he earns a psychological edge against us. I can think of no other logical reason.”
“Does he not know that the cut of his suit at the waist gives it away as a forgery? Does he live in a dream world?”
The German scoffed. “We all live a dream, or a nightmare, of some form. I prefer to keep it on the dream side.”
A hush overcame the crowd as the raven-haired minion moved to the stage and made his announcement. “Everyone’s here. So, let’s get on with the excitement.” His long hair brushed his back as he moved to the side of the stage before he continued. “Today’s five beauties hail from Mosul, Iraq with ages ranging from sixteen to twenty-five. You’ve all seen their videos. Now get ready to meet them, starting with number one.”
Bright spotlights lit the stage as a girl appeared from behind a curtain. Wearing high shorts and a tight tee shirt, she squinted and stood defiantly against the lighting.
Edric assumed she was the youngest of the group, and since she was first, he feared the prices would be high today for the small number of women. Though short of stunning, she was attractive with an average height, alluring curves, and well-proportioned facial features.
But something about her struck him.
Every other victim he’d seen had cowered on the stage. This one portrayed a confidence in her eyes and posture that unsettled him. He wondered if anyone else noticed the anomaly.
Gesturing with a circular wiggle of his finger, the minion spoke in a passable Syrian dialect of Arabic. “Turn all the way around. That’s it. Keep going. Now face us again and stop.”
As she obeyed, she retained her confidence and poise. Edric rationalized that her youthful ignorance accounted for the unusual demeanor.
The minion swept his arm towards the woman. “The bidding begins at fifteen hundred liras.”
The audience remained silent.
“Come now, who will bid fifteen hundred liras for this young woman with such exquisite appeal?”
The last client to arrive raised his finger. Edric considered the late arrival in the fake Italian suit his greatest threat for the early bargains.
“Excellent. Now who will bid seventeen hundred? Seventeen hundred liras?”
The wraith lifted his finger.
“I have seventeen hundred for this Iraqi doll. Who will bid nineteen? Nineteen hundred liras?”
The buyer in the imitation Italian suit made his second bid.
“I have nineteen hundred. Who will bid two thousand liras for this healthy girl?”
To add drama, Edric waited.
“Will no one offer the pittance of two thousand liras for this gem? Nineteen hundred going once. Nineteen hundred going twice.”
The wraith pounced. “Two thousand.”
“Two thousand! I have two thousand. Do I have twenty-one hundred? Twenty-one hundred?”
Edric knew his competitor’s limits and expected the late arrival to shy away from bids above two-thousand liras.
“Two thousand going once. Two thousand going twice.”
The challenge came from across the room. “Twenty-one hundred.”
Edric snapped his jaw towards the bidder, a man he recognized as one of the wealthier buyers who preferred the choice selections of the later rounds.
“I have twenty-one hundred. Do I have twenty-two?”
The wraith raised his finger.
“I have twenty-two hundred. Do I have twenty-three?”
The wealthy buyer raised his voice. “Let’s stop playing games. Three thousand.”
“I have three thousand. I shall have to remind our seller to return soon to Iraq for his sourcing. It seems the ladies from there are considered most desirable by our discerning clientele. Do I have a superior bid to three thousand liras?”
Forecasting his craving to kill, the wraith risked more than twice his usual purchase price. “Thirty-five hundred.”
Before the minion could invite a counter, the wealthy buyer volunteered it. “Five thousand.”
Unable to stomach the price, the wraith shook his head and relinquished the girl to the victor and hoped for a more habitual process with the next captive.
A guard escorted the young lady offstage to a waiting area, and then the next woman passed through a curtain onto the stage.
Like the first, she wore cheap, revealing clothing. She was short, made of lean muscle, and above average as measured by the metrics of beauty the other buyers considered. Walking away with any woman would be costly today.
She displayed a disturbing confidence like the first, and Edric entered a quick bidding war with his usual competitor in the fake Italian suit. But this time, the wealthy buyer remained quiet.
Relieved to be alone bidding above two-thousand liras, he bought her.
Then he bought the next two, completing a trio for purposes that remained murky. Perhaps his Master was thanking him for good work and letting him kill three for sport.
But then the last one appeared. When she faced the crowd, her long straight black hair bounced.
He noticed her pleasing face, with expressive thoughtful bright eyes, and sharp and long nose. He like her defined lips, long neck, and her soft, smooth skin. Her legs were ideal.
Like the others, she portrayed unwarranted confidence, but her demeanor bordered on an insulting presumption of authority.
The minion aimed his palm towards her. “This is your last chance to purchase a piece of Iraq. She is stunning, is she not?”
Before ordered, the woman turned to let the crowd examine her profile, her backside, and then her front again.
“Let the bidding start at twenty-five hundred liras.”
Edric wanted to add her to his collection. She was perfect. “Twenty-five.”
T
he wealthy bidder countered. “Again, let’s not play games. Four thousand.”
The wraith would give up the others he’d purchased today for her. “Five thousand.”
“Six.”
Edric shot a glance at his competitor, who seemed unaware of the visual challenge. Would he not even look at him? “Very well, then. Seven thousand.”
While the minion recounted the status, the wraith returned his gaze towards the woman he wanted. But he noticed a hazy sort of mirage near her inner thigh, and he questioned if it were an invitation or a warning.
The wealthy buyer dashed his hopes of finding out. “Let’s end this silliness. Ten thousand liras.”
A pit formed in Edric’s stomach. Despite his precautions, his account lacked such funds after winning the three previous bids. He shook his head, and the auction ended.
As his frustration rose, he sensed his rising desire to kill, and the three Iraqi purchases would have to suffice.
CHAPTER 31
In the green room, Dianne breathed a sigh of relief.
As she’d instructed them, each of her four colleagues had appeared courageous on the stage, despite the danger and the humiliation. She was certain it had created an air of value, driving up their worth and making them desirable to the one they needed to track to his lair. Somehow, perhaps guided by the dagger or by her own empathic intuition, she’d known the hungriest bidder in the audience would be the wraith.
And he had been there. She remembered his appearance.
Morphing in her memory’s vision into a disgusting demon, the man’s face became a twisted aberration of sagging and torn skins. Fangs protruded from the slimy mouth, and the long, crooked nose hinted of a devil. The beast, its inner essence exposed in nakedness, had a body of scarred and blighted leather, and at its extreme ends, horns, a pointed tail, and cloven hooves.
In her final moments battling the wraith in Michigan, she’d seen a similar image, and she realized that wickedness in its varied manifestations remained ugly at its core.
Her powers with her dagger were growing, and she’d impressed herself with her control of the wealthy buyer. From the green room, she’d tapped his mind to win Nadine’s teenage sibling, and then she’d hammered him with the craving to purchase her in the final auction to keep them together.
Feeling responsible to Nadine for protecting the teenager, Dianne was grateful to the dagger for allowing her purchase by the same man as the youngster.
Although her exposure on stage had prevented her from grasping her weapon, her straight posture had allowed both her legs to touch it, and it had delivered enough strength to manipulate the wealthy man’s actions to add the empath to his collection for the insane purchase price.
However, her gratitude toward the blade stopped there.
When she’d recognized the wraith in the audience leering at her, the dagger had remained silent. It lacked fire, lightning, or even a gentle nudge suggesting it would have supported her throwing it at his heart. And since the bronze blade was a living being, she’d seen no choice but to honor its will.
Honoring it was different than agreement, and she wrestled with a lingering frustration. Why hadn’t the dagger allowed her the kill shot from the stage?
Perhaps he’d have seen it coming in time to dodge or parry the tip, or perhaps the dagger had considered the attack suicidal for Dianne, who’d stood in front of half a dozen armed guards. Whatever the enchanted weapon’s motivation, it had stayed the empath’s hand. It had let her be sold, continuing with the Irish hunters’ plan.
Then she remembered they needed to trail the wraith to his lair since he may already have possession of his next three targeted tributes. The dagger never panicked. The dagger always had wisdom.
Clearing her mind of burdensome speculation, she examined her quiet surroundings. Since a lone guard oversaw the sold captives, she assumed the green room lacked an exterior door. The barred windows at the far end suggested the only door in was the only way out.
As she moved to the chair that held her clothes–replicas of Nadine’s clothes–she addressed her colleagues in Aramaic. “He bought me. So, three of you are going with the one we’ve been hunting, and the other two of us are going with the rich guy.”
Heads nodded agreement.
The guard said something in Turkish and pointed at the skirt and blouse on Dianne’s chair.
From the auction experience, she knew he’d watch her change, and asking for privacy was pointless. But she wanted him distracted from seeing the translucent knife glued to her thigh, and while looking at herself in the mirror, she debated invading the guard’s mind or using a mundane tactic.
Sensing the energy drain of her attack on the rich man, she chose the simple path and called to her colleagues in Aramaic. “I need you to distract him while I change. Pretend to argue.”
Three of the Iraqi women prattled off curses at each other, and their vocal volume rose from nothing to jet engine levels in seconds.
From the corner of her eye, Dianne glanced at the guard.
He cringed and looked at the yelling women, but he’d apparently been doing his job long enough and seen enough arguments to monitor it without interfering with angered women.
The empath noted his size–he was smaller than the other guards, but he moved with the graceful poise of a skilled martial artist. And he lacked a weapon, meaning he was the expert at monitoring the changing and half-naked women without allowing the risk of an armed revolt.
Dianne stripped to her underwear, making deliberate movements to avoid flexing the dagger while keeping it from the guard’s direct or reflected view. She stepped into her skirt and lifted it, concealing her secret, and then she called an end to the charade. “That’s enough, ladies.”
Their continued arguing was so convincing, Dianne wondered if she’d opened a true wound.
As she replayed in her head the words she’d overheard them spit at each other, she noticed animosity about who’d encouraged their departure from home in search of work, who’d ignored which warning signs, and who’d placed them in this horrible place. The empath raised her voice. “Enough!”
Silence.
At the far end of the room, the Turkish guard gave a quiet sigh of relief.
Remembering her counsel with the Maiden of Beit She’an, the empath continued in the unbreakable code of Aramaic. “It doesn’t matter how you got here. I vow on my life that you’ll all get out.”
A tingling at her thigh caught her attention, and she realized the dagger desired interaction. With her peripheral vision on the solitary guard, she slid her fingers under her skirt until she caressed bronze.
In a flash, she knew the weapon’s will. It wanted her to invade the spirit of her guard.
Wary and hopeful that the dagger’s plan included control of the unarmed man, she probed him. Keeping a fraction of her awareness within herself–a skill she was developing–she sent a burst of awareness into the man’s mind. But where she expected resistance, she found welcome.
“Hello.”
She felt the ethereal realm’s equivalent sensation of staggering after ramming her shoulder into a door to find it already open. “Excuse me?”
“My name is Ozan. What’s your name?”
“Um… no, wait. Seriously? Aren’t you the least bit upset that I’m in your head?”
“No. Should I be? You seem friendly.”
Stunned, she had no answer. Everyone else, even the young hunter when playing, had resisted her. “I guess not. Aren’t you surprised that I’m capable of this?”
“A little. But I could tell that something strange was happening tonight. The bidders were behaving bizarrely, and I thought there might be someone behind it.”
His nonchalance made her feel less special. “And you just assumed some sort of mind-control game was going on? You’ve seen this before?”
“I’ve suspected. I’ve seen a lot of victims from ancient cultures pass through here. I’ve sensed probing in my mind be
fore, but as you can see, I have no weapons and am useless as an ally for attempting escape.”
Dianne’s empathic disconnect alarm spiked. “Victims? Then you understand we’re victims and you’re part of a horrible crime?”
“Yes. It’s terrible. But since I can’t stop it, I do my part to add a bit of humanity to a grotesque tragedy. I’m often the last caring face a young lady will see in her life. If I can give a little compassion and empathy, then it’s worth something.”
The dagger’s intent with inhabiting this man’s mind became murkier as she sought answers. “Empathy? Like you know what it is to be in our place?”
His deep sadness rose to his surface and was overwhelming.
The fractional essence of Dianne remaining within her body sensed her tears. “You’re being forced to do this job, but it’s not you at risk. They’ve threatened someone you love. Multiple people.”
“Yes.”
“I sense them. Younger sisters?”
“Yes, and a niece. They will be trafficked if I fail to comply in my duties.”
“The local police forces can’t be trusted?”
“No. The boss here has bribed the local precinct’s chief. I am powerless.”
She sensed something else he was hiding. “You’re gay.”
“Yes. You saw that quickly.”
“If they find out, you’re afraid they’ll fire you and sell your family into slavery.”
“Yes, and they’ll probably kill me and my partner. My partner lives in secrecy and fear with me, pretending to be a roommate.”
“I’m sorry. This is terrible.”
“Everything in this building is terrible. I make the best of it. At least I can offer some comfort to those in need and can enjoy some privacy in my off hours.”
Dianne understood the dagger’s intent. “Ozan, I think you should call in sick the next few days. There’s a good chance I’m going to blow this place up before the end of the month.”
“I appreciate the warning.”
The burning question arose. “Do you know the address or phone number or anything to connect me with the man who bought three of my colleagues?”
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