It didn’t take long for things to get heated. To the point that he started to wonder if there was about to be another fight, and what exactly he was going to do if there was. But he was jerked back to his feet before he could decide.
“The city masters want to know what the Corps is doing here,” Zheng told him, taking over the role of interpreter. “I have to admit to a certain curiosity myself.”
“They’re enthralled,” John rasped, his throat still sore from all the screaming he’d done back in the ally. “They don’t know what they’re doing. Someone is using them—”
He cut off because there seemed to be plenty of people in the crowd who spoke English, and they hadn’t liked that answer. “It’s true,” John yelled, to be heard over the uproar. “We’re not your enemies!”
Annnnnd they liked one that even less.
Several of the spectators suddenly ran at him, one with a drawn dagger, only to get smacked back into the stands by Zheng. It was a somewhat impressive feat considering that he still had the nape of John’s neck in his other hand. “If you want to live, let me do the talking,” he told John, as if he hadn’t just asked a damned question!
Then he struck him.
The blow was hard enough to send John back to his knees, his head ringing, but it quieted the crowd. Which meant that he could almost hear the words the creature on the central throne was saying. Not that he understood them.
But then, he didn’t need to.
“He doesn’t believe you,” Zheng said, as the man gestured threateningly at the cages. “What he does believe is that the Corps needs a lesson in respecting other people’s sovereignty, one written in blood. If you have a reason—a good reason—why that isn’t the case, I would mention it now.”
John didn’t hesitate. His training had covered this sort of thing, too, and even if it hadn’t, there weren’t a lot of options. Not with a crowd currently baying for his blood.
A very expensively dressed crowd.
Like the Korean woman, most of the throng had on a combination of expensive designer clothes and pirate chic, with all of it dripping in jewelry. Money clearly mattered here, and the status that went with it. And people who like money tend to like more of it.
“Ransom,” he croaked, and saw the emperor’s eyes light up.
Apparently, that was a word he knew.
“The Corps will buy them back from you,” John said loudly. “All of them, as long as they’re alive, and at a generous price—”
“Good answer,” Zheng murmured.
But not good enough. Because the Korean woman, at least, was not interested in ransom. The Korean woman wanted blood.
“Hye-Jin say money not bring back her dead,” the temple dancer whispered, causing Zheng to start a little. And then to stare at what was visible in the darkness beneath John’s shirt collar. But he didn’t say anything, including about the Korean woman’s comment, and neither did John. Because what do you reply to that?
John decided he’d better think of something.
“We’ll also help you get to the bottom of this,” he promised. “Find out who is really behind it—”
“She say she already know who behind it,” the dancer said, as Hye-Jin jumped off the dais and started for John.
Zheng stepped in between them, so fast that John didn’t even see him move. The big vamp and the small woman had a standoff that made the hair on the back of John’s neck stand up from all the power suddenly being flung around. It felt likely to give him a sunburn.
But not because of Zheng. The big vampire didn’t wince, didn’t flinch, didn’t give any outward sign that he’d even noticed. He also didn’t reciprocate, keeping his own power on a tight leash. He obviously wanted to avoid another fight, probably because a good number of the people in the stands were sworn to the woman, judging by how many had on matching headscarves. And powerful or not, he couldn’t take on the whole room.
And neither could John.
But he knew someone who could.
“Jonas Marsden!” he yelled, loudly enough that the woman flinched.
“What about him?” she snarled.
So, she could speak English when she felt like it.
“You have two choices,” John said, equally harshly. “You can negotiate with him—I can open a channel for you right here, right now—and take a king’s ransom for each of these men—”
“I don’t give a damn about—”
But the woman was cut off by the emperor, or whoever he was, saying something with a slash of his hand. And the next moment, a dozen vampires in ancient golden armor suddenly appeared and encircled John, adding their bulk to Zheng’s protection. It worried him that the old man had thought he needed it, but the way the woman’s eyes flashed, he might have been right.
“Or?” Zheng said pointedly.
“Or, you can refuse and kill these men—who I assure you, did not know what they were doing—and afterwards you will meet Lord Protector Marsden. But it will be on his terms, at a time of his choosing. And I doubt that any of you will survive it!”
The woman moved. John didn’t see her, hear her, or have any other warning that his senses could track. But since her fist was suddenly around his throat and he was dangling an inch or two off the floor, he felt fairly safe in making the assumption.
The fist squeezed, but it looked like he could manage a shield, after all, when the incentive was sufficient. Because try as she might, his neck didn’t snap under her hand. Until her eyes began to glow, and his shields began to retract, crumpling under the pressure and threatening to choke him out.
Then he was suddenly back on the floor, gasping and retching beneath the protection of a slew of golden clad spears, while the woman and the emperor screamed at each other some more.
“You okay?” Zheng asked, bending down to put a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt on John’s back.
John glared up at him, his face probably as red as a tomato—what parts weren’t swollen and bloody, that was! “Why do you ask?” he croaked savagely.
“You don’t look okay.”
John thought of an appropriate response to that, but was jerked up again before he could make it. He was about to demonstrate to the smirking guard who’d grabbed him exactly what he was still capable of, but wiser heads prevailed. Namely Zheng’s, who suddenly clasped his right wrist, and a terrified temple dancer’s, who was whispering “cool it, cool it, cool it,” into his left ear.
John cooled it, at least enough to realize that a large, square mirror on a frame was being wheeled out from the darkness beyond the dais. It was as big as a shop window and reflected fully half the room. Including the two torches that had just sprang to life on the wall behind the emperor, John supposed so that everyone could see who they were talking to.
For a moment, he felt a surge of relief course through his system. And not just because he might finally be able to make a report. But because, if money would fix this, it might solve more than one problem.
The vampires seemed immune to the enthrallment spell, perhaps because they functioned as a hive mind. The only way to control them would be to gain power over the master, and whoever was behind this did not seem to have managed that yet. Meaning that John could use them to round up the rest of the enthralled mages, who they could then sell back to the Corps.