Nightbred(91)

Sam caught Chris’s arm as she started to go after her. “Hang on.” She went to one of the other women, who smiled up at her. “When do they feed you?”

The woman looked bewildered. “We cannot stomach food. We are sustained by the water of the fount.” She gestured at the water streaming from the tiered basins.

“Oh, you’re living off imaginary water.” Sam looked disgusted. “I should have guessed.” She guided Chris over to the fountain. Once she leaned over and breathed in, she shook her head. “Jesus Christ.”

Chris, who couldn’t smell anything, frowned. “They can’t live without feeding, can they?”

“Nope, but obviously they believe they do.” Sam gave Werren a hard look. “I wonder why.”

“Some illusions need not be seen,” Werren said quietly as she looked up at Sam. “Please, Detective. It is a mercy.”

Chris looked from one woman to the other. “Okay, I’m not getting the subtext here at all.”

“Don’t drink from the fountain, kiddo,” Sam said to Chris as she bent over and dipped the end of one finger in the basin. When she drew it back and showed it to Chris, it was wet and red. “You won’t like the taste.”

Chris’s throat tightened. “Guess I won’t.”

“Come with me.” Werren rose and led them to a little gazebo shrouded in sweet pea vines. As soon as they stepped inside, the walls turned to bare wood and the vines faded from sight.

Werren closed the door to the women’s quarters behind her, and lit a small glass storm lamp. Sitting atop a small table were stacks of envelopes and money bands. “Dutch sends me in here to count the money each night,” she explained.

“What the hell have you done?” Sam gestured at the door. “Those women have no idea what they are.”

“I told you, it was a mercy. They were brought on board as humans, like your friend.” Werren sat down in the only chair in the room and rested her forehead against her hands. “Dutch kept them in his quarters until they were changed, and only then were they brought to me. Most of them were out of their minds with terror and pain and confusion. The few who understood always attempted to escape.”

“So you’ve been keeping the truth from them for the last four hundred years.” Sam shook her head.

“I kept them sane and alive.” Werren dropped her hands. “Have you ever seen a woman being decapitated? I have, many times. That is what Dutch does to every woman who tries to flee him. Then he forces me to toss their bodies into the sea and clean their blood from deck.”

“Why don’t you just fight back?” Chris asked. “There are, what, at least fifty of you. He has maybe twenty guys at the most, and they’re all still human.”

“None of them have these.” Werren curled her fingers around the medallion chained to her throat. “Dutch controls all of us through the gold. He can make us do whatever he wishes.” She nodded at Sam. “Just as he made your lord do what he wished.”

“That fucking medallion he gave him.” Sam stomped around the room. “That’s how he’s been controlling him. He can channel his ability through the gold.”

Chris recalled something Burke had told her about Kyn ability and its natural limitations, which included the number of humans which could be affected by it. Only a few Kyn like Richard Tremayne had talents powerful enough to affect large groups of people. “When does he do all of you?”

“I do not understand.”

“When has he controlled all of you women at the same time?” Chris watched the other woman’s expression. “He’s never done it, has he?”

Werren cringed. “His power is absolute. He has simply never had occasion to—”

“Hang on.” Chris held up her hands. “Have you ever watched Dutch take over a group of people at the same time?” Werren shook her head. “How about five at once?”

“No, never.”

“Has he done three? No?” Chris braced her hands on the table and leaned in. “Have you ever once seen him control more than one person?”

“Not with my own eyes.” Werren’s expression turned resentful. “But he has done it. Dutch has often told the tale of how he took this ship and slaughtered the crew, without a single man at his back.”

“Captured the ship all by himself, when no one else was around,” Sam said. “Imagine that.”

“Convenient as hell,” Chris put in. “No witnesses.”

“You don’t know him. You are wrong.” Werren shot to her feet and began shaking her head. “He would not say such things if they were not true.”