“Huh…okay, that makes sense.” I looked around with more interest. The area we were standing indidseem more like a crowded subway station than the lobby of a grand hotel. Apparently people could park their ships or vehicles across from the building, like we had, and then enter here and use a connecting tunnel or walkway to take them to whatever building they needed to go to.
I had been hoping it would be warmer inside, but it was still extremely cold and I didn’t want to take off any of my layers. Still, we were out of the biting wind, which was a big improvement.
“Come along, little one—I believe that’s our lift at the other end there.”
Sir motioned to a shiny ice elevator that was rising slowly upwards at the far end of the lobby.
“Okay,” I said and we walked briskly through the crowds of pedestrians. All of them were Naggians and looked like the vampire merchant we had met at the spaceport—the one whose knife I had used to cut my leash. They all had long black hair and white skin. And I don’t mean light tan like a really pale human—I meanwhite—as white as snow or paper. It made their masses of hair look even blacker, like midnight clouds swirling around their faces.
The fashion seemed to be to leave their hair down and since they were all looking at their feet as they walked along, it was hard to see what their eyes looked like. But every once in a while I would catch someone looking at Sir and me and they never had very friendly expressions on their faces when they did. Some of them even bared their long, curving fangs at us. Clearly we were interlopers here—not wanted on their planet.
We got to the elevator and Sir pushed the button. But since it had already been on an upwards journey, it looked like it might take a while to come back down. To pass the time, I continued to people watch.
Around the edges of the central space there were merchants set up with little stalls filled with goods. Some of them were selling things to eat—I saw a stall that seemed to be selling little pies of all different colors—pink and blue and green and purple. It made me wonder what the fillings were and my mouth started to water.
The stall beside the little pie shop had big pots of some kind of steaming liquid that might have been the Naggian version of hot chocolate or coffee. People would stop and drop a coin in the jar and the merchant would hand them a cup full of the sweet-smelling stuff that they could sip as they went on their way.
Some of them, however, didn’t seem to have a coin on them. Instead, they would speak to the merchant briefly and he would pull out a glass jar that seemed to be half full of dark blue liquid. The prospective customer would press their index finger to a sharp little spike at the top of the jar and wait for a moment before pulling away. Then the shop keeper would give them a cup of the steaming stuff and they would go on about their business.
It took me a moment to realize that they were actually paying with theirblood. I was thrown off by the color, but then I realized the Naggians must have blue blood. They were pricking their fingers and letting a few drops of blood fall into the jar to pay for their morning coffee!
It seemed really weird, but in a society where everyone had to drink blood to survive, I supposed it made sense. I looked over the other stalls, wanting to see if they had similar arrangements. Sure enough, every one of them seemed to have one of the glass blood collection jars, though from the amount they had collected, I gathered that the food displayed cost more than the steaming hot drink I was coveting.
Speaking of the food, there was another stall that was selling some kind of crispy strips of brown meat on a stick that looked a lot like bacon and smelled divine. I wondered if the feast we had been promised would include any of that—I certainly hoped so!
As I was looking longingly at the meat on the stick stall, I happened to notice something else going on behind it, near the mouth of one of the far tunnels. There was a group of girls gathered around and most of them seemed to be waving their hands in the air.
Or maybe, I thought as I looked more closely, they were waving theirwrists. Because they all had on gloves and long sleeves but they had pulled the sleeves up to show their long, white arms. They were dressed all alike—all of them wearing ragged furs that had been dyed a vivid shade of poison green Was it some kind of cult? I edged a little closer, trying to figure out what they were doing.
As I watched, a Naggian man approached the mouth of the tunnel where the girls in green had stationed themselves. Immediately, several of the girls came up to him, waving their wrists in his face.
“You want a bite, Mister?” one of the girls asked boldly. “Fresh, luscious blue blood—my prices are the best you’ll find!”
“No, no…” The man waved her off uneasily. “I have a wife—I’m happily mated. I don’t need to drink from another fount.”
“Bet your wife won’t give you whatIcan,” the girl purred. Pulling back her curtain of long, black hair she bared her snow-white throat for him. “I’ll let you drink from my neck—andyou can breed me while you do it.”
The Naggian man’s face went red but he didn’t try to chase the girl off. Instead he muttered,
“How much?”
“How much for a fuck and suck? Well, why don’t we take a little walk to my burrow and we can talk about the price?” the girl purred. Hooking her arm through his, she led him into the mouth of the tunnel and they disappeared into the gloom inside.
“Are you watching the Blood Whores, little one?” Sir rumbled, surprising me.
“Isthatwhat they are?” I looked up at him and then back to the group of girls dressed in green furs with interest.
“I believe so.” He nodded. “They are women who live on the edges of Naggian society selling the only thing they have to offer—their blood.”
“As well as other things,” I murmured.
Just then there was a muteddingand Sir took my hand.
“Come—our lift is here. We must hurry if we’re going to be on time for the feast the Baron has prepared for us.”
“All right.” I nodded and followed him to the lift, which also appeared to be made of ice. I wondered that it didn’t melt and then thought it was probably because while it was slightly warmer inside the building than it had been outside in the howling wind, it was still plenty cold enough to keep anything made of ice frozen rock solid. I could see my breath coming out in a cloud in front of my face every time I exhaled.
As we were stepping into the lift, I turned for one last look at the “Blood Whores” as Sir had called them. I felt sorry for them—what an awful life, selling your blood and your body because there was no other way to scrape up enough money to live!