What kind of room is small and made of woodand...
Not a room, she thought suddenly. A vehicle. Some kind of wooden cart.
As soon as she realized it, she knew what therhythmic sound was.
Horses' hoofs.
No, it can't be, she thought. It's too bizarre. I am sick; I'm probably hallucinating.
But it felt incredibly real for a hallucination. Itfelt exactlyasif she were in a wooden cart beingdrawn by horses. Over rough ground. Which ex plained all the jostling.
So what was going on?What was she doinghere?
Where did I go to sleep?
All at once adrenaline surged through her-andwith it a flash of memory. Sylvia. The incense... Miles.
Miles is dead... no. He's not. Sylvia said thatbut she was lying. And then she said I'd never findout what happened to him. And then she druggedme with that smoke.
It gave Maggie a faint feeling of satisfaction tohave put this much together. Even if everythingelse was completely confusing, she had a solidmemory to hang on to.
"You woke up," a voice said. "Finally. This kidsays you've been asleep for a day and a half."
Maggie pushed herself up by stages until shecould see the speaker. It was a girl with untidy red hair, an angular, intense face, and flat, hard eyes.She seemed to be about Maggie's age. Beside her was a younger girl, maybe nine or ten. She was very pretty, slight, with short blond hair under ared plaid baseball cap. She looked frightened.
"Who are you?" Maggie said indistinctly. Hertongue was thick-she was so thirsty."Where amI? What's going on?"
"Huh. You'll find out," the redhaired girl said.
Maggie looked around. There was a fourth girl inthe cart, curled up in the corner with her eyes shut.
Maggie felt stupid and slow, but she tried togather herself.
"What do you mean I've been asleep for a day and a half?"
The redhaired girl shrugged. "That's what shesaid. I wouldn't know. They just picked me up afew hours ago. I almost made it out of this place, but they caughtme."'
Maggie stared at her. There was a fresh bruiseon one of the girl's angular cheekbones and her lipwas swollen.
"Whatplace?" she said slowly. When nobodyanswered, she went on, `Look. I'm Maggie Neely. I don't know where this is or what I'm doing here,but the last thing I remember is a girl named Sylviaknocking me out. Sylvia Weald. Do you guysknow her?"
The redhead just stared back with narrowedgreen eyes. The girl lying down didn't stir, and theblond kid in the plaid cap cringed.
"Come on, somebody talk to me!"
"You really doe t know what's going on?" the redhaired girl said.
"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking over and over!"
The girl eyed her a moment, then spoke with akind of malicious pleasure. "You've been sold into slavery. You re a slave now."
Maggie laughed.
It was a short involuntary sound, and it hurt heraching head. The blond kid flinched again. Something in her expression made Maggie's grin fadeaway. .
She felt a cold ripple up her spine.
"Come on," she said. "Give me a break. Therearen't slaves anymore!"
"There are here." The redhead smiledagain,nastily. "But I bet you don't know whereyouare, either."
"In Washington State-" Even as she said it,Maggie felt her stomach tighten.
"Wrong. Or right, but it doesn't matter. Technically we may be in Washington, but where we really are is hell."
Maggie was losing her self control. "What are you talkingabout?"
"Take a look through that crack."
There were lots of cracks in the cart; the palelight that filtered through them was the only illumi nation. Maggie knelt up and put her eye to a big one, blinking and squinting.
At first she couldn't see much. The cart wasbouncing and it was hard to determine what shewas looking at. All she knew was that there seemedto be no color. Everything was either phosphorescent white or dead black.
Gradually she realized that the white was an overcast sky, and the black was a mountain. A big mountain, close enough to smack her face against. It reared up haughtily against the sky, its lowerreaches covered with trees that seemed ebony instead of green and swimming with mist. Its top wascompletely wreathed in clouds; there was no way to judge how high it was.
And beside it was another mountain just like it.Maggie shifted, trying to get a wider view. Therewere mountains everywhere, in an impenetrablering surrounding her.
They were... scary.
Maggie knew mountains, and loved them, butthese were different from any she'd ever seen. So cold, and with that haunted mist creeping everywhere. The place seemed to be full of ghosts, materializing and then disappearing with an almostaudible wail.
It was like another world.
Maggie sat down hard, then slowly turned backto look at the redheaded girl.
"Where is this?" she said, and her voice was almost a whisper.
To her surprise, the girl didn't laugh maliciouslyagain. Instead she looked away, with eyes thatseemed to focus on some distant and terrible memory, and she spoke in almost a whisper herself. "It's the most secret place in the Night World."
Maggie felt as if the mist outside had reached down the back of her pajama top.
"The what?"
"The Night World. It's like an organization. For all of them, youknow." When Maggie just looked at her, she went on, "Them. The ones that aren't human."
This time what Maggie felt was a plunging in her stomach, and she honestly didn't know if it was because she was locked up in here with a loony, or if some part of her already accepted what the loony was saying. Either way, she was scared sick, and she couldn't say anything.
The girl with red hair flicked a glance at her, and the malicious pleasure came back. "The vampires," she said distinctly, "and the shapeshifters and the witches - "