“Well,I’ma friend of Baron Vik’tor,” I snapped, glaring up at him. “So you’d better let her go—now!”
“You’re lying,” the Naggian man said, but I thought I saw some doubt on his face.
I reached in my pocket and pulled out the Baron’s sigil. The wire felt cool against my fingers but the end of it was still emitting bright red sparks like a sparkler on the fourth of July.
“Would I havethisif I didn’t also have the Baron’s favor and protection?” I demanded. “You’d better leave my friend alonenowor you’re going to wind up sleeping with the fishes tonight!”
I was betting on my hunch that Baron Vik’tor was more like a Mafia Don than a business man and, to my relief, I seemed to be right.
The man who had been harassing the girl dropped her arm abruptly and backed away.
“I don’t want any trouble,” he muttered, holding his hands up in front of him. “Please—don’t tell the Baron!”
“I’ll tell himeverything…unless you swear to never bother my friend again!” I snapped. “And spread the word—nobody else better bother her either!”
But to my surprise, the girl shook her head.
“No—don’t tell himthat,”she exclaimed in a low voice. “If you scare away all my customers, I won’t be able to make a living! I’llstarve.”
“Okay, uh…spread the word that she’s only selling blood,nother, um, booty,” I called at the man, but he had already turned and was walking swiftly in the other direction with his shoulders hunched up around his ears.
“Great…” The girl sighed and slumped down against the brick wall beside the tunnel the man had been trying to force her into. “I’ll be lucky if I can sell enough blood to eat once it gets around that I’m supposedly under the Baron’s protection!”
“I’m really sorry,” I said awkwardly, crouching down beside her. “What’s your name, anyway? You’re from Earth, like me—right?”
“Yes, I’m from Earth. Not that I’ll ever get back there.” The girl looked up at me and there were tears in her big, brown eyes that nearly broke my heart. “I’m Natalie,” she said. “Natalie Hale, from Tampa, Florida. Who are you and how did you get here?”
“I’m Ellie from Harrisonburg, Virginia. And the Commercians—those little blue wormy guys—sucked me up through a mirror. The next thing I knew I was being sold to a huge alien from another galaxy,” I said. “You?”
Natalie sighed.
“Same story. I was looking for my cousin, Rylee, who disappeared awhile ago. I was searching her apartment for some kind of clue when I heard some weird music like trumpets coming from the bathroom mirror. I went to see what it was and…” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that, I was sucked through. The blue worms sold me to an Eloin merchant. But he only bought me because they told him I was a ‘La-ti-zal’ and had some kind of ‘special powers.’” She shook her head in disgust. “What a load of bullshit.”
“Oh—they said the same thing about me!” I exclaimed.
Natalie looked at me.
“Sodoyou have powers? BecauseIsure as hell don’t. The minute my new ‘owner’ figured out I was nothing special, he dumped me here on O’nagga Nine to fend for myself.” She shivered and a miserable look came over her pretty face. “Been freezing my ass off ever since and barely scraping by. I was a graduate student getting my Ph.D back home you know—now I’m nothing but a Blood Whore.” She hung her head dejectedly.
“Hey, you do what you have to in order to survive,” I told her fiercely. “Don’t be ashamed of that—ever.”
“What haveyouhad to do?” she asked, looking up at me. “And you never answered my question about powers.”
“Well…I seem to be really good at alien languages—especially my Master’s language,” I said.
Her eyes opened wider.
“YourMaster?”
“That’s whatI’vehad to do to survive,” I said. “Sir bought me to be his ‘pet.’” I shrugged. “So that’s what I am now—though he’s promised to bring me back home again after he takes me to his home world.”
“Sure he will,” Natalie said bitterly. “I don’t believe a word these alien bastards say, anymore.”
“I believe Sir is on the level,” I said earnestly. “And as for being his pet, I really can’t help that. I mean, he’s ten feet tall and he can break things with his mind. So I guess I’ve just kind of…accepted the situation.”
Natalie shook her head.
“No, no—don’t get me wrong. I can’t talk about you being a ‘pet.’ Hell, I’m nothing but a Blood Whore. I have a pimp and everything,” she added darkly. “Though Inevershould have agreed to that.”