Although I hadn’t really suffered at his hands except to be knocked about a bit, I had seen what he’d done to others. I’d talked to his victims, and seen the scars they carried both emotionally and physically.

And one of those victims was my friend Iris.

That the succubus had suffered so horrendously so recently was actually hard to imagine. She’d been kidnapped and abused by the Healer and his followers for almost a month before we could rescue her, all to get back at me and my friends. When we’d first rescued her, she’d been a shell of her former self. But she’d proven her strength and her resilience by building herself right back up again. She’d also found a partner out of the whole mess. Caleb, Ryu’s deputy at the time, had been with us when we rescued her. They’d immediately fallen for each other, and it was a relationship that might not have happened otherwise.

Despite, or maybe because of, her history with the Healer, Iris had insisted on coming with us. I hadn’t thought it was a very good idea, but Caleb had supported her decision, and he was a healer.

Maybe she needed to confront her captor for reasons I couldn’t understand but he did.

‘You okay?’ Iris said to me, her voice concerned. She was wedged up against me, sitting bitch between Ryu and me.

‘Yes. Are you?’

‘Yes,’ she said, although she didn’t look at all okay. She looked pale and drawn. I took her hand in mine and gave it a squeeze.

‘You don’t have to do this, you know. You don’t have to confront him.’

‘I know. But I want to try.’

I put my arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. She’d be safe with us, even though Iris wasn’t the most powerful of supes when it came to offensive magics. Her natural succubus talents were amazing; she could make the sun dip down and say ‘Hey, how you doin’?’ on a good day. Lobbing mage balls was another thing, however. But the Healer wasn’t powerful, either. He was just supersick in a way that made him perfect for plotting strategies for someone like Morrigan, so he had the strength of her patronage. On his own he was nothing.

‘He’ll be coming along anytime now,’ Hiral said. The little gwyllion was standing on Anyan’s knee on the front seat, peering over the dashboard at the massage parlor that did the kind of massages that involved a lot more vagina than normal.

‘He’s as regular as Big Ben. At least before it got knocked over.’ Hiral’s joke fell flat, as it was undoubtedly intended to.

‘I’m surprised they let him in,’ I said. ‘I can’t see someone like that going in for vanilla sex.’

‘He never touched us,’ Iris said from beside me. Her voice was light, despite the subject matter. ‘He watched, and he liked to tell his men what to do with us, but he never actually touched us.’

‘Oh,’ I said, simultaneously nauseous and curious at the same time.

‘Well, aggression isn’t his thing, apparently,’ Hiral said. ‘He likes to be dominated.’

‘What?’ I squeaked. It was both TMI and so incredibly weird I couldn’t help wanting to know more.

‘That’s what the girl told me. Yvonne is his favorite. She’s a domme, as well as a prostitute. Nice girl, very polite, and has a good sense of humor.’

‘Um, Hiral? How did you get to know Yvonne?’ I asked, totally confused.

‘I went up and introduced meself, what do you think?’ The gwyllion was clearly not impressed with me at that moment.

‘Glamoured?’ I asked, just to be sure.

‘Hell no, I wasn’t glamoured. When I glamour meself, I can’t be seen.’

‘Um, is that sarcasm?’ I was so confused at this point.

‘No, I really did go up and introduce meself. Why wouldn’t I?’

‘Because you’re two feet tall. And blue,’ Anyan said. The gwyllion gave the barghest a dirty look.

‘She’s a dominatrix and a whore, fercrissakes. You think she’s not seen weirder shite than a two-foot-tall blue man? She barely batted an eyelash.’

I shook my head, amazed at Hiral’s tactics. ‘And she talked to you?’

‘Oh, yes. She not only talked, she was good enough to make a deal, once I explained why we wanted our boy. Girls in her circumstances understand the importance of the sisterhood, even if they’re the first to be booted out of it.’

I’m not sure what I found more mind-boggling, Hiral’s sensitive appraisal of intergender politics and how women often shun their most vulnerable sisters, or the fact that any human being would calmly hear out a gwyllion. Contemplating this, Iris beat me to my next question.

‘What’s your deal?’

‘Our boy likes to be tied up, flogged, the whole nine yards. I just asked her if she would be kind enough to tie him up a little more firmly this time. And maybe leave the room so we would have our own chance to play with her naughty boy.’

I shuddered at the imagery, but couldn’t help applauding Hiral’s methods. The Healer was kidnapping himself, effectively.

‘She only asks we don’t leave any, er, remains. They run a clean establishment.’

They certainly do, what with those VIP Jacuzzis, I thought.

‘No remains, period. We need him for questioning,’ Anyan said.

Ryu agreed. ‘Although I doubt it, Morrigan might be willing to barter to get him back. Or we can use him for bait. Or keep pumping him for more information, once we get what we need now out of him.’

Iris was quiet, as was Caleb from where he sat in the driver’s seat. I didn’t like the sound of all that silence, and I worried that bringing Iris wasn’t a good idea. She was a grown woman, decades older than me, but I don’t know if she’d made the right choice. I could understand her desire to confront her tormenter, but maybe it was too soon?

‘And bingo,’ Hiral said, pointing forward with one of his spectacularly long fingers. ‘There’s your boy.’

Iris’s body beside mine went rigid, vibrating with contained energy. I again squeezed her hand, a gesture she returned with painful force.

‘So what now?’ Ryu asked.

‘We let him get upstairs. Yvonne’ll take care of him. Then she’ll give us the signal.’

Ten minutes passed, then twenty. We were getting fidgety, watching the dumpy old former warehouse that housed the massage parlor, when suddenly a stream of people came out the front door. Men and women in various states of undress, the women looking bored and unapologetic, the men’s expressions running the gamut from embarrassed to exasperated. The johns ran to their cars, some hopping into their trousers as they did so, while the girls dispersed leisurely into the night.

One figure, dressed in a leather bustier and short shorts, paired with some seriously pointy dominatrix boots, detached herself from the group and came toward our van, lighting up a cigarette as she walked. The flare of her lighter revealed a sharp-featured, thin face, capped off by a mop of curly brown hair. Large brown eyes inspected our vehicle with cool calculation.

Anyan rolled down his window as Hiral moved around on the barghest’s lap so he was facing the girl.

‘Hey, Hiral,’ she said, her voice rich with boredom. ‘You’re all set, love.’

‘He’s incapacitated?’ the gwyllion asked.

‘Oh, yes. Bound tight as a roast goose. He’s not going anywhere.’

‘Which room?’

‘The rubber room. The hose is in the little cupboard by the sink, by the way.’

‘You are a good girl,’ said Hiral gleefully as I wondered what Yvonne thought we’d need the hose for.

Yvonne smiled, but it wasn’t a humorous expression. ‘From what you’ve told me, he has it coming. I figure he’s getting off lightly. Whatever you do to him won’t be as bad as he made others suffer.’

A shudder ran through Iris’s body, but otherwise she didn’t react to Yvonne’s words.

‘We’ll not be back till morning. I’ve warned everyone away. Text me when you’re all done, and I’ll come back to lock up. Just don’t leave a mess.’

‘No, ma’am,’ said Hiral.

Yvonne made a vague gesture of farewell, and Hiral sighed as he watched her strut away. ‘What a woman.’

I couldn’t help agreeing. Opening our doors, we all hopped out and walked toward our destination. Anyan and Ryu took the lead, Caleb and Iris took the middle, and I took our backs. Partially, that was so I could keep an eye on Iris. I didn’t want her getting into anything she couldn’t handle, or fainting at the sight of her captor or something. She was tough as nails underneath all that soft flesh and blonde hair, but there were some things too tough for any of us.

The brothel, when we walked into its low front door, was as sad and dingy as I’d expected it to be. It wasn’t dirty, just drab and definitely depressing. It had been some kind of industrial building before, and it had been carved up into rooms using the same sort of thin walls companies make cubicles from. Which meant there would be no privacy whatsoever, and any goings-on would be heard by everyone else in the place. But maybe that was part of the appeal?