Chapter 22 #2
The smell of sex was stronger here, and I decided to refrain from sitting on the low couch or the futon, or touching any of the furniture at all.
It all looked clean, but not clean enough for someone with my senses, and my skin crawled as I watched Asu and Chen make themselves comfortable on the couch.
A few minutes later, the door slid open, and the owner ushered in a beautiful woman with long, red hair and pale skin. She wore the same loose, colorful robes as the other prostitutes, and her face was heavily made up.
“Are you to be my new owners?” she asked, her dark blue eyes wide with confusion as she glanced between us. She had probably not expected us to be female.
“No,” I said gently, my heart clenching with pity for her. Rage followed quickly on its heels, and I stepped forward, curling my hand into a fist as I confronted the owner. “How could you do this to her?”
“Miss Baine!” Director Chen grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back, then placed herself between me and the brothel owner. The woman’s eyes narrowed at me in annoyance, and she snapped something at Chen. Chen said something back, her voice apologetic.
“Foolish girl,” Asu hissed at me under her breath. “Do you want to rescue your friend, or not? This woman does not understand your ways, and does not believe she has done anything wrong. This is her world, her place—there is no point in arguing with her.”
“Someone should teach her, then,” I growled back at Asu.
But instead of confronting the brothel owner again, I turned my attention to Narana, who was standing nearby and watching the exchange with a horribly vacant expression in her pretty eyes.
She looked every inch the vapid whore she’d been made into, and not at all like a mage, never mind a cunning government agent.
Horror coated my throat at the idea that magic could be used to change someone’s personality so drastically, and I swallowed it down.
I didn’t have time to dwell on such things.
“Do you have any belongings?” I asked, touching her arm gently. Her long hair fanned out behind her as she whipped her head around to look at me. “Anything you need to gather before we go?”
“Everything I own is here.” She hefted a small cloth bag she held in her hand that I hadn’t noticed before. “What is it that you plan to do with me? Are you taking me to another brothel?”
“That’s enough,” Director Chen said firmly before I could answer. She dropped a clinking purse into the owner’s hand, and the owner inclined her head, then hefted the purse. Satisfied, she left the room, though not before shooting me a glare.
“Narana, come here, please,” Chen said in a soft voice, once the brothel owner’s footsteps had faded away.
The woman did as Director Chen bade, her face expressionless.
I could smell the anxiety coming off her, though, and I wondered what this woman had endured.
She’d been sold into prostitution, forced to open her legs for countless men.
It was rape, essentially, and my blood boiled with the need for retribution.
I could hear soft laughter and grunts coming from the room next door, where another man was taking his pleasure, and more further down the hall.
It would be so easy for me to rip through the wall and grab the man by the throat.
I could kill him, or crush his balls. After all, he was probably cheating on his wife. He deserved it, didn’t he?
But I didn’t do any of these things, because deep down inside, I knew Asu was right.
What good would it do? The men behind these walls were simply paying for a service, and most of the women here were just trying to make a living in whatever way they could.
It was impossible to know which ones were slaves, and which ones were here of their own free will.
And yes, I could kill or threaten the owner, and free all these women, but what would that do?
The willing ones would simply find another brothel, and the slaves would be lost without someone to take responsibility for them.
If I involved the local authorities, I would jeopardize our mission.
I couldn’t save everyone. Much as I would like to, I couldn’t help these women. Like Iannis said, I had to pick and choose my battles.
But at least we were going to save this one.
Director Chen placed her fingers on the woman’s temples, then began to chant in Garaian.
After a few seconds, her fingers began to glow white, and Narana cried out, squeezing her eyes shut in pain.
Her body started to shake, but Chen remained steadfast, pushing whatever magic Asu had taught her into Narana’s mind, forcing her to remember.
A shockwave of magical energy rippled outward, ruffling my hair and sending tingles up and down my skin. The burnt-sugar scent of magic filled the air, and a vase sitting on a small table crashed to the floor, shattering into small pieces.
“Wha…” Narana breathed as Chen finally removed her hands. Her face was white with shock, and her knees buckled. Chen and I each grabbed her by an arm, then helped her to a chair. “What is going on? What am I doing here?”
“You’ve had a very bad dream,” I told her gravely. “One might even say a nightmare. But it’s okay now. You’re going home.”
We visited the slaver’s pen next, where Iannis and Garrett successfully bargained for possession of the other two mages.
Henning was overjoyed to see his fellow agents alive and mostly unharmed.
Although they were all very disoriented when Asu and Chen brought them around with the spell, they did recognize Henning and were happy to see him.
We set them up at a hotel room near the docks, where Henning would stay the night with them before boarding the ship the next morning.
Asu returned home with the carriage, and the rest of us got a late breakfast from one of the street vendors, then headed across to the manufacturing district so we could check out the lab for ourselves.
The ferry ride across the harbor only took about twenty minutes, and Asu had given us directions to her husband’s warehouse, so the journey was pretty easy.
As we approached the other side of the harbor, it became apparent that it was as busy as Leniang Island, if not more so.
It was like one gigantic market close to the piers and ferry, with small street stalls and vendors of all kinds.
Since we had a little time, we paused to sample freshly pressed mango juice and admire the view of the island beyond the narrow harbor, beautifully framed by the hills over which we had entered the city.
Despite the difficulties of our mission, I knew I would remember Garai fondly for these gorgeous vistas alone.
It was really too bad that we weren’t on vacation—there was so much to explore!
After fifteen minutes of winding our way through the thronged narrow streets, we reached the manufacturing district, where goods were produced in a series of warehouses.
The long, flat-roofed buildings were separated from each other by narrow lanes, and some of the owners thought nothing of clogging up traffic with heaps of industrial garbage.
I covered my face with my sleeve—the stench was as overpowering as the brothel had been, and even worse in some places.
I wished I could use the air-freshening smell again, but I needed all my senses about me now, and the spell interfered with my nose.
“This is a good place to hide an illicit operation,” Garrett said as we walked along the main road, parallel to the wharf about half a mile away.
There were rows and rows of warehouses, each on their own pier, and plenty of dockworkers moving crates in and out of the buildings.
Loku’s warehouse had a firework logo painted on the side of the building and above the entrance, next to a series of Garaian characters that probably spelled his company name.
“Lots of gunpowder in there,” I confirmed, sniffing as we walked by it.
“It really is a great place to hide illegal arms. I can’t tell what belongs to the guns, and what belongs to the fireworks.
” I sniffed again. “On the other hand, there are thousands of rats in the adjacent building, way more than what’s normal.
I bet they’re lab rats, and that this is the building we’re looking for. ”
We walked on, so as not to alert any guards that we were taking an undue interest in the place.
“I find it puzzling that it’s not bigger,” Iannis said, frowning as he looked at the long, narrow wooden structure.
“Compared to the bunker in Osero, this structure is tiny and terribly ramshackle. I can’t imagine they have an underground facility here.
If this is supposed to be a lab, it is operating on the cheap. ”
“No kidding,” I muttered darkly. The Resistance scientists in Osero would probably have been horrified if they’d been given such a rickety and unsecurable place to conduct their science experiments.
Sure, they’d intended to kill off mages and shifters, but at least they’d been concerned with basic safety when they’d set up their facility.
“Definitely no cellars,” Director Chen said.
“The ground here would not permit it, and the neighbors would be far too nosy to hide any large excavations. As for operating on the cheap, that’s the local practice, to squeeze every last drop of profit out of any enterprise. Public safety is not a priority here.”
“By Magorah.” I crossed my arms and scowled at the building. “This is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Those crowds we passed through are only a few minutes away. What would happen if even one of these rats escaped, carrying an infection?”
Garrett scowled. “Perhaps it has already happened, and that rat is even now traveling on some outbound ship.”