“Sure.” The guard wandered back into his shack.
Expensive cars had been packed into a vacant lot beside the mock-plantation home at the end of Albatross Avenue. A bored-looking man dressed in formal wear didn’t remove the white buds blocking his ear canals as he gestured at a spot by the curb.
Christian turned off the motor and looked at the draped windows of the house. “Did they have orgies back in the Dark Ages?”
“They have them in every age,” he assured her. “I have seen mortals engage in such acts, but I have never taken part myself. The Kyn prefer privacy.”
“One more reason to love you guys.” She got out of the car.
The man who answered the doorbell wore a black spandex bodysuit and a red-lined black cape, and flashed pointed canine veneers at Chris. “Welcome to the Dark Side. May I see your invitations?”
“We’re just here for the cookies.” Chris pushed past him.
When the doorman started after her, Jamys clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You wish to be silent, go home, and never again dress like this or work for Stryker.”
The man’s mouth clamped shut as he nodded and walked out.
Jamys joined Chris, who was looking around the room. The home’s furnishings were being used by several dozen mortals in various stages of dress and gathered in loose groups. A third were engaged in physical intercourse; the remainder were watching the couplings, drinking, talking, and laughing. Waiters, nude but for small black aprons tied around their waists, circulated with trays of champagne, liquor, appetizers, and baskets filled with small shiny packets. Nude females and males in the center of each group were in the process of climbing down from black-painted platforms.
“He’s over there.” Chris nodded to a well-dressed, indolent-looking male being attended to by a group of adoring young women.
He caught her arm. “I will speak to him.”
“I need to do this, for me. Please?” When he nodded, she squared her shoulders, gripped his hand, and started toward Stryker.
The man seemed wholly preoccupied with the girls competing to use their mouths on his genitals, but as soon as he glanced up at Chris, he smiled and began pushing their heads away.
“Patience, my darlings,” he chided when they began to plead with him. “It seems for me Christmas has come early this year. You are looking exquisite, Tian.”
Christian inspected the pouting faces around him. “You’re looking at about twenty years for statutory rape.”
“I’ll have to advise the district attorney. Perhaps I’ll wait until he’s finished sodomizing the circuit court judge over there.” Stryker’s eyes shifted, and he fastened the front of his trousers. “Who is your delicious-looking friend, and does he have an open mind?”
“Don’t even go there.” Christian eyed the girl closest to her. “Where did you get this bunch? The beaches, or the bus station?”
“These are courtesy of a local church.” He picked up a martini glass from a side table and sipped from it.
Jamys frowned. “You take these children from a place of worship?”
“No, dear boy. Every Saturday the church feeds the homeless in a park not far from here.” Stryker plucked the olive from his glass and fed it to one of the girls. “I find the selection often overwhelming.”
“Stryker likes to hire runaways,” Chris said, her voice flat. “He knows how desperate they are. The younger the better.”
The mortal raised his martini glass. “You told me you were twenty-one, my darling. How was I to know you were such an accomplished underage liar?”
Chris faced Jamys. “I was wrong. We need to get out of here before I jump across that table and yank his tonsils out through his nostrils.”
Jamys glanced back at the smirking mortal before he drew her out of Stryker’s hearing range. “I will not permit him to speak to you like this and live. But if I kill him, the information he has dies with him. I will have to get closer to him and use l’attrait to compel him to talk.”
“Then I’d have to spend the rest of the night spraying you down with Lysol.” She took a deep breath. “Look, I know the jerk, and I can handle him. Trust me.” She turned around and went back to the table. “Stryker, we’re here about the old journals you sold to Professor Charles Gifford.”
“Did I? Let me recall.” Stryker sat back and slowly fondled the girl beside him as he pretended to think. “You mean Father Bartley’s earnest but largely boring chronicles of life among the wild native islanders?”
“Yes. We want to know who sold them to you,” Chris said.