Accidental Acquisition Read online

  She reached into her jeans pocket but instead of the poison checker, her seeking fingertips found the crinkly plastic of a grocery bag, wrapped around something hard.

  “What in the world?” Jillian muttered to herself. Reaching deeper, she pulled out the bag-wrapped object, opened the bag, and looked inside.

  For a moment, she wondered why in the world she had a melon baller with her. Then she suddenly remembered.

  Oh—the ion-scoop. Of course!

  For a moment she was excited—but then she frowned. What could she do with such a small instrument? She remembered Mistress Douchenbag’s claim that it could “cut through anything” but was it true—or more of the wily Yonnite’s lies?

  Well, there’s only one way to find out, I guess.

  Jillian looked over her shoulder. The first customer had left, but another Trollox customer—this one with three heads—had come in and was asking for a scoop of fingers and a measure of eyeballs, so Ripper was busy. She didn’t think he’d notice the hum of the ion-scoop over the sound of his own loud conversation with his customer, whose heads kept talking over each other.

  Carefully, she flipped the switch in the handle and, holding the scoop down by her side, she pressed it against the rusty iron bar by her leg.

  At first, she didn’t think anything was going to happen. Then, with the feeling of a knife cutting through the tough outer rind of an aged cheese, the scoop dug into the rusted iron and dug out a neat little solid chunk of metal.

  Jillian gasped in surprise and turned off the ion-scoop to examine the results of her experiment. She expected the chunk of rusted metal the scoop had dug out of the bar to be molten hot but to her surprise, it wasn’t heated at all. It was cool to the touch—as cold, in fact, as the iron bar it had been scooped out of.

  This was an amazing discovery and Jillian tried to think of the best way to use it. Part of her counseled patience. Just wait until tonight when Ripper’s gone to bed. Then you can use the scoop to get out of the cage and run back to the exit of the Dark Market and get out of here!

  But there were several problems with this plan. First, she had no idea if Ripper planned to leave her in the iron cage or not. What if he decided he couldn’t wait to impregnate her and wanted to start tonight? She couldn’t bear the thought of being raped by the huge, smelly, disgusting creature. Ripper was like something out of a nightmare—an ogre from a fairytale come to life. She had to get away from him as soon as possible.

  Her second consideration was the fact that she was disoriented on this side of the wall that separated the markets, and she had no idea how to get back to the curving archway with its long black curtain. God, she wished she had a better sense of direction! But she had to admit she was lost and she had an idea that running through the Dark Market after night had fallen might be even more dangerous than traversing it during the day. So it was probably better to try to get away sooner rather than later.

  Plus, she just wanted desperately to be out of the stinking butcher’s shop filled with rotting humanoid body parts.

  If I ever get out of here, I’m going vegetarian, she promised herself. Hell, I’ll go Vegan. I never want to see meat again!

  But that was a promise she’d only be able to keep if she escaped in the first place. Hastily, she examined the cage, trying to find a weak point. If she just kept scooping chunks out of the metal, Ripper was bound to notice.

  The latch on the front of the cage was held in place by the thick metal padlock the Trollox had used to lock her in. It was a massive piece of steel, as big as Jillian’s closed fist and quite heavy when she reached through the bars and weighed it in her hand. But the metal loop that held it in place was only about as thick as her pinky finger. Which was thick enough to keep just about anybody in…

  Unless they happen to have an ion-scoop, Jillian thought. Removing just one chunk of metal in the right place ought to do it. She just needed to cut the lock from the latch and then she could swing the door open and run to freedom.

  She waited until she was sure that both of Ripper’s heads were busy talking to all three of his customer’s heads. Then, when she was certain her captor was completely distracted, she reached her hands through the bars of the cage. She cupped the heavy lock in one hand and used the ion-scoop with the other.

  As quietly as she could, she pressed the scoop to the loop of the lock, right in the center. This time the resistance was harder to push through—it was more like trying to cut through a thick, tough watermelon rind than aged cheese, Jillian thought, and she didn’t have a very good angle. But she gritted her teeth and kept pressing until at last, a large chunk was carved out of the loop and the heavy lock fell into her hand.

  She nearly dropped the damn thing—it weighed a ton! But though she strained to hold it, she somehow managed to lower it down to the floor with a barely audible, chunk.

  Jillian stole another glance at the other side of the room. Ripper had his back turned, getting something that smelled noxious and was covered in flies from a chest behind the case, and his customer was watching him eagerly with all three heads. It seemed like there would never be a better time to slip out.

  Slowly, the ion scoop still clutched tight in her right hand, Jillian swung the cage door open and stepped out onto the cold, dirty floor. She was still barefoot, so she was able to creep almost silently across the shop, ducking low to avoid attention.

  She had almost made it to the front door when one of the customer’s three heads turned in her direction and frowned.

  “Hey,” it snarled loudly, to be heard over the babbling of the other two. “Ent that your fresh meat escapin’, Ripper?”

  The huge Trollox turned around and both the yellow and the red set of eyes narrowed at once.

  “Stop her!” the yellow-eyed head bellowed. “That’s the vessel I’m going to grow my heir in—don’t let her go!”

  Panic clawed at Jillian’s throat and she lunged for the door. But she hadn’t counted on how heavy it was—it was solid iron or steel and had obviously been built for the Trollox and his fellow Trollox customers to use—not little humanoids, who were half their size. Though she pulled and dragged with all her might, the heavy door hardly budged.

  Still, it did move some, and she had enough adrenaline flowing through her veins that she might have dragged the damn thing open… if Ripper hadn’t taken two long strides from behind the counter and leaned one massive hand against it.

  “Now then, girly…” The enormous Trollox leaned down to her level, frowning as though she was a kid who’d been caught breaking the rules. “You can’t leave yet—you haven’t paid your debt!” the yellow-eyed head told her.

  “What? You loaned me your handkerchief so I’m supposed to let you ‘borrow’ my womb in return? I don’t think so!” Jillian snarled.

  All her life, she’d read about the “fight, flight, or freeze response”—the way a person instinctively reacts to any kind of life-threatening peril. Jillian had never been put into such imminent danger before and she’d had no idea what she would do if faced with such a situation.

  Now it turned out that—at least in this situation—she was a fighter. When Ripper’s huge hands came around to grab her once more, she reached up with the ion-scoop and swiped at his face—neatly scooping one glowing yellow eyeball directly out of its socket.

  16

  “Our eye! Our eye!” Ripper roared, staggering backwards as black blood poured from the empty socket.

  Jillian dodged around him and grabbed for the door handle again. She yanked with all her might, getting it to open several feet. She wanted to try and tug it open farther—if she couldn’t get through it quickly enough, she was going to be crushed when she tried to escape.

  A little more, she told herself, gritting her teeth as she strained to drag the heavy door open wider. Just a little more…

  But just as she was about to slip through the opening she’d made, another huge hand grabbed her and dragged her back into the shop. It was
the three-headed Trollox customer and he was holding her by her right arm, which meant she couldn’t use the ion-scoop, which she was still clutching in her right hand.

  “Got ‘er, Ripper,” he called, to the other Trollox, who was still wailing and cupping one massive hand over his missing eye. “She ent gettin’ away until she pays for what she did to you!”

  “Oh, she’ll pay, all right!” the yellow-eyed head snarled, glaring at Jillian. “I was gonna take it nice and easy on her and plant my heir in her belly real gentle-like. Now, I’m gonna rip ‘er open right proper, so I am!”

  The hand that wasn’t clutching his wounded eye, fumbled with his trousers, letting out an elephant-sized dick covered in greenish-gray wrinkled skin. It smelled—if possible—even worse than the rotten meat filling the shop, making Jillian want to gag.

  She was so scared at this point, she felt like she might be sick or wet her pants. But she was also angry. How dare this big bastard kidnap her and drag her to his stinking, horrible shop and threaten to rape and mutilate her, all because he’d loaned her a fucking handkerchief? What the hell was wrong with him?

  “You come anywhere near me with your disgusting dick and I’m going to cut it off,” she said in a shaking voice. “I mean it—you already lost an eye—you want to lose your dick too? I’ll cut the fucking thing off at the root before I let you put it in me.”

  “Whew…” The Trollox customer still holding her, shook all three of its heads and the middle head spoke. “You got a feisty one here, Ripper. Seems to me you’re gonna have to do something to tame her before you can implant her with your heir.”

  “Reckon you’re right about that,” the yellow-eyed head snarled. Turning, Ripper snatched up the enormous meat cleaver he’d been using to cut up arms and legs earlier. Its blade was reddish-black with rotten, congealed blood but the top of it gleamed silver in the weak overhead lights. To Jillian, it looked as big as a car door.

  “Get away from me! Leave me alone!” she gasped, tugging uselessly at the Trollox that held her.

  “We only need to use your womb, girly,” the yellow-eyed head informed her. “Don’t need your arms and legs. So maybe we’ll just chop ‘em off and sell ‘em in the shop. We’ll keep the rest of you intact—until our heir chews his way out, that is.”

  “Chews his way out! Chews his way out!” the red-eyed head exclaimed. “Hyuck-hyuck!”

  Oh my God, he’s going to do it—he’s really going to do it. Jillian shrank away from the enormous cleaver. She felt like a lost child caught in an evil fairytale, about to be eaten by the giant. God, how had she gotten herself into this situation? Was she going to live the rest of her short, miserable life as a quadruple amputee, waiting to be savagely torn apart by a Trollox spawn?

  But just as Ripper was raising the cleaver and taking aim at her arm, the door to his shop slammed open and a deep voice shouted,

  “Stop! Lay one fucking finger on my Mistress and you die!”

  17

  Kalis thought he’d gotten there just in time, by the look of things. The two-headed Trollox had a meat cleaver raised over his heads and there was murder in his eyes—all four of them. No, three, Kalis saw, scanning his enemy. One socket was empty—a weltering pool of the foul black ichor that was the Trollox equivalent of blood. Had Jillian done that? He had already respected her, but this raised her even higher in his estimation—she was a formidable female!

  “Kalis?” she gasped, her lovely eyes filled with fright. The fear and hope in her face made his heart fist in his chest, but Kalis knew he had to keep his attention on the two males in front of him.

  “Get out of my shop!” the three-eyed one snarled at him—he must be Ripper, if the name on the shop window was any indication. He was also Jillian’s abductor, Kalis’s sensitive Kindred nose told him. Even mixed with the effluvium of rotting meat and the stink of the other Trollox, he could pick out the trail he’d followed to get here.

  “Not until you give back my Mistress—who you took with no legal justification,” Kalis added. He’d been living in the Buy-All-Sell-All long enough to know the laws. Though a female alone in the Dark Market was fair prey for most males, anyone who owned a permanent shop had to obey the laws of the main market, which stated that people weren’t allowed to assault or abduct each other—let alone chop them into pieces and sell them off for parts.

  His words seemed to give Ripper pause for a moment—but only a moment.

  “We do too have a legal right to her,” the head missing an eye snarled. “We gave the girly a handkerchief, so we did, and she took it of her own free will. She owes us!”

  “She owes you a limb for the use of your handkerchief?” Kalis demanded. “I wonder what the Master of the Market would say about that?”

  The Master of the Market was a Quinlow—an omniscient being who saw into the hearts of all and read their true intentions. It was also fucking terrifying—Kalis had been with Mistress Douchenbag when she came before it once for a dispute with a fellow stall-holder and his old Mistress had nearly wet her pants with fear. So invoking its name ought to get a response out of Ripper—at least he hoped.

  But it seemed the two-headed Trollox was a stubborn one. Both heads glared at Kalis.

  “This girly took our eye, so she did—scooped it right out of its socket!” he declared. “She owes us for that too!”

  “I was just defending myself!” Jillian exclaimed. She looked pleadingly at Kalis. “Please—make him let me go!”

  Kalis frowned at the three-headed Trollox.

  “Am I right in thinking you have no stake in this?”

  The three-headed Trollox shrugged, though he still didn’t let go of Jillian.

  “Just came in to buy some toes and noses, so I did,” he growled.

  “But now you’re a witness to the crime!” Ripper exclaimed. “You saw her take our eye, Thrasher! She owes us and she must pay!”

  “You don’t get to decide such things,” Kalis said quickly. “Only the Master of the Market can settle such a dispute.”

  He’d been hoping to scare Ripper into letting Jillian go, by mentioning the omniscient Quinlow. But if the Trollox refused to give her up, they really would have to go to the Market Court. It was either that or fight both Ripper and the other Trollox—which he could do, if he had to, in his other form—but he couldn’t be certain Jillian wouldn’t be hurt in the process. The three-headed Trollox holding her by the arm could easily break her bones or even pull her arm right out of its socket and rip it off her body—an all-too-possible scenario if Kalis charged him.

  “The Master of the Market! The Master of the Market!” Ripper’s red-eyed head—which appeared to be an idiot—chanted over and over.

  “Shut up, you fool!” the yellow-eyed head snapped. It focused its one good eye on Kalis. “Very well—let us go to the Master of the Market. We’re sure when he sees what the girly did to us, he’ll be on our side.” He gestured to his empty, bloody eye socket and scowled.

  “I’ll come as witness,” the three-headed Trollox announced.

  “Fine, but my Mistress is with me,” Kalis growled.

  “So you can run away with her?” Ripper demanded with a snort. “Not likely, Kindred!”

  Kalis glared at him, fighting down the Rage that wanted to claim him.

  “I will not run,” he said, slowly and distinctly. “And to prove it, I offer myself as a guarantor for all her debts.”

  “You do, do you?” Ripper looked at him narrowly. “All her debts?”

  “All of them,” Kalis said firmly. “Whatever she owes, I will pay if need be.”

  “Well…” Ripper’s yellow-eyed head seemed to think this over while the red-eyed head stared vacantly at the ground. “Very well,” the yellow-eyed head said at last. It looked at the other Trollox. “Thrasher, release her to him, and we’ll all go to the Market Court together.”

  Kalis nodded gravely.

  “Very well—we’ll go at once.”

  “At once! At once!
” the red-eyed head chortled, earning itself a glare from the yellow-eyed head.

  “Come on, idiot,” it snarled. “We must take a moment to see the Master of the Market, who is certain to rule in our favor.” It glared at Jillian. “And afterwards, we can have our fun.”

  18

  The three-headed Trollox customer at last released Jillian from its crushing grip and she ran to Kalis’s arms. She wasn’t normally a girly-girl, looking to a man for protection, but in this case, she made an exception. Pressing herself against the big Kindred’s body, she trembled with delayed reaction.

  “Do we really have to go to some kind of court?” she asked Kalis, looking up at him as they all stepped out the door of the Trollox butcher shop. Thank goodness the wind was fresher out here—Jillian took a deep, shaky breath, trying to get the stink of rotting meat out of her nose.

  The big Kindred nodded gravely.

  “Afraid so, little Mistress. I’m sorry I couldn’t just take you from him, but I wasn’t sure I could get you out of there in one piece.”

  Remembering how close she’d come to being chopped into many pieces, Jillian shivered.

  “What happened?” she asked, trying to focus on something besides Ripper and his three-headed customer, walking on Kalis’s other side as they traversed the streets of the Dark Market. “I must have been drugged,” she added. “But I tested the tea with my poison checker and it was fine.”

  “The drug was in the massage oil,” Kalis said grimly. “It affected me too. They dragged me out and dumped me just where they’d dumped you, little Mistress,” he added. “I smelled your sweet scent mixed with that of the fucking Trollox and followed my nose to find you.”

  It made Jillian feel a little better to know that the big Kindred hadn’t been behind her drugging and dumping, but she still couldn’t quite wrap her head around it.