Found (7 page)

“She saw
you
coming,” Olivia put in,
joining ranks with her twin sister. “She even knew the color of
your eyes. Although she didn’t say anything about you being a
jerk.”

“All right now, this isn’t solving anything.”
Sylvan put a hand on his bride’s shoulder. “Come,
Talana
, I
think the detective is simply upset because he’s been searching so
long and hard for any trace of Lauren’s whereabouts.”

“Are you siding with
him?”
Sophie
frowned at him incredulously.

“I’m not siding with anyone,” Sylvan
protested. “I’m just trying to defuse the situation.”

“Consider it defused.” Detective Rast gave
Nadiah a cold look. “I apologize if what I saw was offensive—it’s
just that my experience leads me to disbelieve these kinds of
claims.”

Nadiah lifted her chin. “That’s quite all
right, Detective. I don’t expect a mere
human
to understand
my gift.”

“A human? Who’s a human?” Deep and Lock came
up with Kat between them.

“
He
is.” Nadiah nodded at Detective
Rast who was still frowning at her.

“He is?” Lock looked confused. “But I
thought…with his eyes that color of green…”

“So did I,” Deep put in. He look at Sylvan.
“Forgive me, Brother. I was certain he was your friend,
Merrik.”

“No harm done,” Sylvan said in a tight
voice.

“If there’s no harm done then why are you all
so upset?” Kat asked, her blue eyes flicking over everyone’s faces.
“And what was that you were saying a minute ago?” she asked Nadiah.
“Something about danger?”

“She saw Lauren,” Sophie said eagerly.

“I had an
al’lei,”
Nadiah said
stiffly. “A waking dream. My grandmamam warned me I might have them
when I came into my powers. I saw Lauren in an alley filled with
purple shadows. She was wearing red and blue and I had the feeling
that she was in terrible danger. She…” A feeling of dread rose in
her throat and Nadiah put a hand to her chest, trying to hold it
back. “She’s in trouble.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He’s not
there to protect her. I don’t know where he went but—”

“
Again?”
Detective Rast gave her a
disgusted look before turning to Baird. “Commander, I’m going to
change back into my clothes and then I’d like to get this interview
over with.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Baird
rumbled.

“Thank you. And best wishes on your wedding.”
Rast nodded at Sylvan.

“Thank you.” Sylvan frowned. “But
Detective?”

“Yes?” Rast turned back for a moment.

“Don’t disrespect things you don’t
understand.” Sylvan’s ice blue eyes glinted dangerously. “I know
there are many things beyond the realm of human experience but that
doesn’t excuse rudeness toward my kin. The Sight runs in my family.
If Nadiah says she saw Lauren, then she
did
see her.”

“You can believe what you want,” Rast said
shortly. Then he strode off toward the male’s changing area where,
presumably, he’d left his clothing.

“Whew.” Lock shook his head. “He’s a prickly
male.”

“And a rude one.” Deep frowned.

“You’re one to talk about that.” Kat elbowed
the dark twin with a small smile. Deep returned her smile with one
of his own but his twin brother, Lock, looked troubled.

“Nadiah,” he said, turning toward her.
“Forgive me, but we know Lauren was headed for the Maw Cluster. Did
you happen to see the planet she was on during your vision?”

Nadiah frowned. “I don’t think so.”

“You said she was in
O’ah,
wherever
that is,” Olivia volunteered.

“
O’ah?”
Lock looked even more
troubled. “That would be on Primus Six, I think. And you said she
was wearing red and blue?”

Nadiah nodded. “Yes, and blue shoes with
crimson red soles. They were very pretty, actually.”

Lock shook his head. “I was afraid of
that.”

“Afraid? Why are you afraid?” Kat
demanded.

“Yes, why?” Nadiah felt the fear threatening
to close her throat again.

“Because.” Lock frowned. “I believe that on
Primus Six, those are the colors of the skin trade.”

“The skin trade?” Sophie asked at the same
time Olivia said, “What’s that?”

Deep answered for his brother.
“Prostitution,” he said, his black eyes troubled. “If what you saw
was accurate, Nadiah, somehow Lauren has been sold into sexual
slavery.”

The girl with the orange skin led Lauren to
the mouth of the alley and then turned right, into the marketplace.
Things seemed to be winding down now at the end of the day, but
there were still plenty of strange things to see.

Lauren watched wide-eyed as what looked like
a walking tree with purple bark glided down the middle of the
street. To her right, a tiny gnome with bulging iridescent eyes
haggled with an insectile creature with two heads and broad,
glittering transparent wings that buzzed angrily. Further down
across the road, she saw what appeared to be a vending machine
selling amputated fingers.
Ugh!
she thought uneasily.
I
hope those are just some kind of macabre candy. Like the gummy
eyeballs you can buy to give out at Halloween back home.

Just as she was beginning to think her eyes
were going to pop out of her head from the strangeness of it all,
the orange girl stopped so abruptly Lauren almost ran into her.
“What—?” she began.

“We’re here.” Her guide nodded at a small,
dusty booth with a faded red awning. Behind the counter sat Blix.
He was in his human form again with pale blond hair and eyebrows.
When he looked up and saw Lauren, he smiled broadly.

“Well, well, my dear,” he said, rising and
coming around the front of the booth to greet her. “So here you
are. I had hoped you would take me up on my offer.”

“It seemed…reasonable.” Lauren nodded
guardedly and crossed her arms over her chest. She wished she
hadn’t let Vlanka rearrange the red scarf-like
tok
so that
it exposed her breasts through the sheer light blue shirt.

Blix laughed. “Don’t worry about exposing
your lovely breasts, my dear. It’s quite common here on
O’ah.
Especially with those in the trade.”

“The what?” Lauren frowned but he waved her
question away.

“Unimportant. Did you bring me some
cubes?”

“A few.” Lauren pulled the handful of food
cubes out of the pocket of her skirt and held them out for him to
examine. “Uh, fair warning though,” she said, feeling suddenly
guilty. “Most of these feature live worms as their main entrée.
So…” She shrugged. “I don’t know if you’re interested in that or
not.”

“Worms?” Blix frowned and plucked several of
the cubes out of her hand. “What kind of worms?”

“Well that’s just it—I don’t know. I
mean—”

“Stop!”

Both their heads turned and Lauren felt a
surge of relief so great her knees almost buckled. Xairn was
striding towards them.

“Xairn!” Lauren took a step toward him… and
stopped. He didn’t look nearly as happy to see her as she was to
see him. In fact, he looked positively furious. His broad shoulders
were tensed and his big hands were curled into fists at his side.
The look in his red-on-black eyes was terrifying and that was
saying something considering that his eyes looked forbidding at the
best of times.

The minute he reached Lauren, he grabbed her
by the upper arm and pulled her close to his side. “What in the
seven hells are you doing?” he demanded, looking her up and down.
“And why are you dressed like that?”

“She is dressed like that because
I
gave her the clothes.” Blix came forward, his pale purple eyes
glittering.

Xairn turned to her, his face so fierce it
was frightening. “Is that true?” he demanded. “You accepted the
clothes from him?”

“Well, yes,” Lauren admitted. She could tell
she’d done something completely wrong but she didn’t know what it
was. “I’m sorry, Xairn but I—”

“Strip.”

“What?” Lauren stared at him,
uncomprehending. Surely he didn’t mean—

“You heard me. Strip.” Xairn glared at her.
“Take off every single piece of clothing the Spider gave you
right now.”

“But…but I can’t just—”

“Undress now or I’ll undress you myself,
Goddess damn it.” His eyes flashed and when Lauren was a little
slow to obey him, he reached for her and started unknotting the
long red
tok
himself.

“No!” Lauren tried to push his hands away.
“We’re in public. I don’t want to be naked in front of all
these…these people.” If walking trees and gnomes and talking
insects could be considered people, anyway.

“You have a choice,” Xairn growled. “Get
naked
now
in public or spend the rest of your very short
life getting naked over and over in private.”

“What are you talking about?” Lauren
protested as he unwound the
tok
and threw it at Blix’s blond
head. He turned back and started immediately on the elaborate
buttons running down the front of her pale blue blouse.

“There’s no time to explain. Here.” He
stopped undressing her long enough to strip off his own shirt.
“Take that off and put this on. Hurry.”

There seemed to be no point in arguing with
him. Wondering what kind of alien custom she’d broken by accepting
clothes from a stranger, Lauren stripped quickly out of the pale
blue blouse and shrugged into Xairn’s shirt instead. It was much
too large and drooped down to her knees. Which suited her fine,
since the lovely cobalt skirt was the last thing to go. She was
bare beneath the shirt but at least she was covered.

Xairn took each item of clothing as she
handed it to him and tossed it back to Blix. The blond alien caught
the blouse and skirt in turn but there was a strange little smile
playing around his lips that Lauren didn’t like.

“You might as well have saved yourself the
trouble, Scourge,” he said, passing the outfit to Vlanka who folded
it neatly. “In return for the clothing, your little pet gave me
these.”
He held out the three food cubes he’d plucked from
Lauren’s palm.

Xairn’s face was suddenly as impassive as
stone but his deep voice sounded strangled when he talked. “That’s
all? She gave you nothing more?”

“That’s all.” Blix was practically beaming by
now. “Just three little food cubes, my friend. In exchange for
clothing made from the finest Belarian silk and satin. Not to
mention a
tok
made of one unbroken piece of skin from a rare
crimson-hide gelk.
Very
expensive, I’m afraid, and all sales
are final.”

A what?
Lauren looked at the neatly
folded
tok
in Vlanka’s orange hands. Was it really made out
of some creature’s skin? It certainly hadn’t
felt
like any
kind of leather. But from the look on Xairn’s face, she had worse
things to worry about than what kind of weird alien skin she’d been
wearing.

“Xairn?” she asked anxiously, tugging at his
arm. “What’s wrong? What did I do?”

“You’ve sold yourself.” His voice was hoarse
and his grip on her arm tightened until Lauren let out a squeak of
pain. “Sold yourself into the skin trade.”

Panic gripped her by the throat. “What? What
are you talking about? I swear I didn’t mean any harm. I only gave
him the cubes with worms in them. I didn’t think—”

“Worms?” Xairn’s eyes widened suddenly.
“Grieza
worms?”

Lauren shrugged uneasily. “I don’t know what
kind they are. They’re pale orange and about this long…” She held
out her hands to measure. “And they come with a side dish of some
weird blue-green sauce.”

“So.” Xairn turned back to Blix who was
looking much less happy and smug now. “You traded your ‘very
expensive’ clothes to Lauren for three helpings of Grieza worms.
Which are, as you know, a rare and costly delicacy all the way from
Twin Moons.”

“Not rare or costly enough,” Blix protested.
“Not to pay for the fine garments I gave your pet.”

“The clothing you gave Lauren was the
equivalence of slavery and death,” Xairn growled. “And you damn
well know it, Spider. Do you want me to call the Judge of the
Market to settle the claim?” He nodded at the purple tree being
which Lauren had first seen striding up and down the center of the
street. As though sensing trouble, it had stopped what it was doing
and was staring fixedly at the scene playing out in front of Blix’s
dusty stall. “Or will you acknowledge that what Lauren gave you was
of equal value to the fucking clothes?” Xairn finished.

Blix looked sulky. “No. I’ll acknowledge.”
His purple eyes flashed. “But be warned, Scourge—I’m not the only
one who desires a piece of your little pet. An exotic like that
will draw all kinds of interested parties. You’ll have to guard her
with your life if you want to get her out of
O’ah
intact.”

Xairn’s eyes blazed and his voice dropped to
a menacing growl. “I’d die before I’d let you take so much as a
single hair from her head, you sick bastard!”

“And you may. If you don’t watch out.” With
that, Blix disappeared abruptly, taking Vlanka, the clothes, and
the booth he’d been sitting in when Lauren first walked up, with
him. There was nothing left but a dusty, bare spot on the stone
pavement.

“Xairn, I—” Lauren began…but then she
stopped. There was a lot she still didn’t understand but by the
look on his face, now wasn’t the time to ask.

“Come on.” Xairn pulled her roughly down the
street, steering her back into the alley where the Kindred ship was
parked.

“Hey! You’re hurting me!” Lauren protested
when he opened the door and shoved her inside.

“You’d have been hurting a lot worse if I’d
been even a parsec later getting to you,” Xairn growled, but he let
her go at once.

“I don’t understand.” Lauren put her hand on
her hips and glared at him. “Will you
please
explain what
just happened out there?”