Evidently he could, for as she went down she never felt her head hit the ground.

Chapter 17

The brothel didn't resemble the ones Sam had occasionally raided during one of the DA's semiannual Clean Up Our City Streets campaigns. There were no televisions tuned to the triple-X-rated Dish Network channel. No thin, hollow-eyed girls in skimpy, tattered lingerie turning their arms in to hide the track marks.

Why she was here, and how she knew it was a brothel, she had no idea.

The furnishings were crude wood minus upholstery: benches, chairs, a small table with a pewter candleholder that looked like Beowulf had used it to find his way around. The walls had some pretty lengths of cloth hanging from hooks, but they were loosely woven and dyed a not very appealing brown. There was a huge oak cask in one corner, and another table with wooden mugs beside it.

Sam smelled alcohol fumes—strong wine—and started to move away from them. When she saw the two men, though, she stopped and stared.

The pair sat on the bench next to the big cask. They were large, sweaty, and dirty twins, with shaggy heads of dark hair and scraggly beards. One of them had been hit in the face with something that had left a half-inch-deep old scar. The scar ran from his forehead through a white blind eye and down to tug at the corner of his mouth. It distorted his mouth into a snarl. The other one threw back his head and laughed, flashing lots of gaps, sore gums, and a couple of chipped, brown teeth.

She hoped whoever was running the place planned to charge extra for kissing privileges.

Men of my time rarely kissed.

Sam gave the pair one more cautious look before she turned toward the voice. In front of her was a plain wood-planked door that opened with a latch string. Going through that led her down another unfurnished corridor into a second chamber, this one filled with women lounging around on pillow-strewn chaises.

This bunch were slightly cleaner than the two waiting out front, but their hair and gowns definitely needed washing. Sam saw something small with wings fly off the top of one girl's head. And maybe delousing.

She cleared her throat. "Did someone call me?"

At the sight of her, the women rose, some of them yawning and stretching. All of them worked up smiles of varying degrees for her.

"She be the master's?" one of them, the youngest and prettiest, asked in a kind of strangled whisper.

An older one sighed. "Aye."

One woman with a wandering left eye and a grease-stained tunic stepped up to Sam. "I say she fancies sommat with tits." Her breath could have been bottled and labeled EAU DE LANDFILL. "Ye fancy wenches, do ye?"

"Not today." Or ever, thank God.

"Makes no never mind ta me." The youngest girl present sidled up, slinking her arm through Sam's. "Marster gives us many toys." She trailed grimy nails over Sam's forearm. "I could bring you."

The lives she could change here with a hose, a scrub brush, and two hundred bars of strong deodorant soap. "I bring my own, thanks."

A woman in an ivory gown emerged from the shadows. Compared to the other whores, she was so clean she might have come from a different planet.

"Indeed you could, Maribel," she said, "but the lady has declined your services. Cease making a nuisance of yourself, please."

Sam eyed her. The body and dress resembled Cinderella's on a good night, but the face and voice were identical to her own. "Who are you?"

"The woman he loved." She swept a beautifully executed curtsy. "You are very welcome here."

Sam looked around. "Where is Lucan?"

"He will not come within these walls unless you permit it," she said. "May I bring you wine?"

The women began sneaking out of the room. "I don't drink."

"You did, once." Her twin adjusted the lacy cuff of one sleeve and then folded her hands in front of her. The ladylike movements made Sam uneasy, probably because she was watching her body do it, and hearing her voice coming out of that primly held mouth. "I would be happy to acquire some fetching males from the slave quarters for your pleasure, if you so wish it."

"You have slave quarters? You have slaves?" Before she could answer, Sam shook her head. "Never mind. How do I get to Lucan?"

"He doesn't want you," she said, her voice bland. "He wants me."

"But you are—Never mind." Sam sat down on the edge of a chaise. "What kind of wine have you got?"

"I will fetch it." Her twin slipped out of the room.

Sudden, cold weight yanked at Sam's feet and legs. She looked down. Large black metal plates ran up her calves to encase her thighs.

"Christ." She jumped up and slapped at her leg. Metal clanked as the jointed gauntlet on her hand hit the hinged knee plates. She pried at the gauntlet, but she couldn't budge them. More metal began crawling up her body. "Someone—help me," she shouted.

Her voice echoed in the empty room. No one answered it.

The living armor ignored Sam's efforts to get it off her body and grew up toward her face. Things began overlapping it: a wide belt, a chest strap, another gauntlet that left her palm and fingers bare. The suit of armor didn't eat her; it just grew on her like a metal skin. She felt her hair being sucked back, and the feel of a leather strap snaking across her forehead. Bladed and blunt weapons attached themselves to her thighs, hips, and forearms.

At last it seemed the special effects were over. A complete set of armor enveloped her, along with enough weapons to outfit an entire commando squad.

"I'm… RoboCop?" Gingerly she took one of the shorter blades out of a sheath strapped to her left thigh and examined it. It looked pretty real, and when Sam pressed a fingertip to the edge, it cut into her skin with razor-sharp efficiency. "Ouch." She licked the blood away, and it tasted like blood. "Medieval hookers, snake-men, self-dressing armor, and vampires. I've finally gone off the deep end."

You're dreaming the brothel, the whores, and the armor. Everything else was real.

She turned around. "Where are you?"

In the dungeon.

Sam saw a rat peer out at her from under one of the chaises. "Have an Orkin man down there?"

Her well-dressed twin came back with two goblets, and handed her one. Sam checked the contents and saw bits of wood and pulp swirling around the top. "Got a strainer?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Never mind." It was dream wine, so why was she worried? Sam tasted it and nearly choked on the thick, sickly-sweet liquid. "Nice and, ah, chunky."

Her twin took a dainty swig of her own. "It does revive the spirits."

"If it doesn't etch the enamel off your teeth first." Sam set the goblet down on the little table. "What happens now?"

"You take the castle or the dungeon."

Sam frowned. "Take them where?"

"You take what you wish," her twin said with exaggerated patience. "The castle in the air"—she pointed to one narrow window—"or the dungeon below."

Sam felt suspicious. "Does this involve another snake-man?"

The other Sam's mouth stretched wide over pearly white teeth. "You cannot have one without the other."

The stones of the floor under their feet began to crack like melting ice. Sam tried to step back, but the stone under her heel fell away, leaving a black hole.

"It appears," her twin said as she floated up to the windowsill and perched on it, "that he wishes to decide for you."

All of the stones came apart and tumbled into the black hole beneath them, taking Sam with them.

Sam fell. She scrambled for a handhold, anything she might grab, but there were no walls. Beneath her she saw no light, no bottom, only darkness. She fell for what seemed like hours. She fell until she didn't care how hard she landed, or if it would kill her, if she could just stop falling.

The long fall didn't end until someone reached out and snatched her out of the darkness from behind. Hands settled on her shoulders, holding her steady.

"Grapes are out of season here, Samantha," Lucan said against her ear. "Should I order some pomegranates?"

She was still in complete darkness, but too relieved to have stopped falling to care that he had just scared the living shit out of her. "I'm not hungry."

"But you are."

Sam tucked her chin in and turned her head a notch, and saw that the left hand sitting on her shoulder wasn't covered by a velvet glove. It wasn't even a human hand, not with those six-inch curved black claws sprouting from the ends instead of fingernails. Then she looked over at the other hand, which was tanned and had a beautiful manicure. On the ring finger of that one was an old-fashioned signet ring with a gothic letter L.

"Why am I here?" She watched the human fingers sink in a little. "Is this the dungeon?"

"You can't have the pleasures of the world without the horrors, Samantha." The human/monster hands began to turn her around. "You're a cop. You should know that."

Why should I know that? She had had damned few pleasures in her life. Then again, if Lucan represented the bulk of them—which if she thought about it, he probably did—then what did that say about her?

Her left side was against his chest now, and she was going to see his face in another few seconds. Somehow she knew that if she faced him—if she so much as looked at his face—she would be his. Those ghost eyes of his would suck the brains out of her skull, the way they had every other woman who had loved him.

He doesn't love me. He loves her.

"No." The claws ripped into her shoulder as Lucan jerked her to face him. "You'll not run from this now. Not when I've brought you this far. Wake up, Samantha." He shook her. "Wake up."

Lucan had been trying to wake Samantha from the catatonic trance she had fallen into after Faryl's escape, with no luck. He had tried cold compresses, a capsule of ammonia from Burke's first-aid kit, and brandy. Nothing roused her.