It didn’t look like a brothel. It looked like its cover…a massage parlor. Still made me uncomfortable.

“Ugh,” Kanesha murmured. “I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I. But if they’re using it to hide in…”

Thruor, for her part, stepped up to the desk. “I want to talk to the manager.”
The woman behind the desk looked like she’d retired into that position from one more, shall we say, active – greying but still in good shape and reasonably attractive. She didn’t shy from Thruor at all. “About?”

“Looking for a guy.”

“If he’s your husb…”
Thruor brought her hand down on the desk. “He is not. I’m sure you don’t want me to call my actual boyfriend. He’s a cop.”

I managed not to snicker, then glanced around. A woman not much older than me came out of the back. She did look quite stunning. Or rather as if she put a lot of work into looking stunning.

Rather like me during a shoot. In fact, I wasn’t convinced I hadn’t seen her at the agency. Maybe model wasn’t always a euphemism. Our eyes met and I looked away.

Other fates, I thought. And heck, how many girls graduated from the foster system into places like this?

“Okay. What guy?”

She described Father William.

“Oh. Yeah. He was here with a girl. He seemed kinda dazed, though.”

“With a girl?”

She nodded. “We rent rooms too. With accoutrements.”

I found myself blushing. Thruor, of course, didn’t seem bothered at all. “Maybe I’ll bear that in mind.”

I thought of Mike plus Thruor plus sex toys. Decided I didn’t want to think about it any more.

“So…”

“Thing is, we think he wasn’t here under his own power, as it were.”

The receptionist frowned. Then she tapped a button on her desk. The girl disappeared back into the back room, perhaps as she really registered our presence. We weren’t obviously armed, but we looked to be here on business. She probably thought we were mob.

A moment later, the madam emerged through the same door. Like the receptionist, she looked faded and aged out, but…I also immediately recognized a woman I wouldn’t mess with.
And I immediately realized something else too. She was a priestess.

Of, no doubt, Aphrodite or Freya or some other love goddess, but a priestess nonetheless. I abruptly relaxed.

“What?” Kanesha asked.

I focused for a moment, “Priestess of Aphrodite. I think they made a very bad mistake coming here.”

A very bad mistake.