This time of day? Catalin paused before saying anything, then figured that if anyone was going to give him a straight answer about any of this, it would be Victor. “Um... Mr. Victor?”
“Mister?” Victor repeated with a laugh. “There’s no need for that. We’re friends, right?”
Catalin shrugged, deciding not to explain that the slave in him twitched whenever he didn’t use an honorific for an older person. “Yeah... anyway... where are we going?”
“... oh!” Victor slapped a palm to his forehead. “Oh, Cat, I’m sorry... I keep forgetting, you don’t know. We’re going to our headquarters.”
“... headquarters?” Catalin tried to banish the image of a huge iron fortress from his brain. “What kind of place is this?”
“A bit far from what you’re probably imagining, I’m sure,” Victor said with a grin. “It’s an establishment where a lot of our people were enslaved, so we’ll have a good number of allies within reach without drawing too much suspicion. And the supervisor’s been bought off... that type is easy to manipulate. Oh, I should probably mention that the majority of the people at headquarters are Celeste’s surviving subordinates, so now they’re yours.”
“... I have subordinates?” Catalin was sure he knew that at some point, but the reality of having highly trained soldiers at his command didn’t hit him until that moment.
“Well, you all do,” Victor elaborated, “but yours mostly ended up in the same place. You know how Anwar feels about Celeste, so the job they’re being forced to do is pretty degrading.”
Speaking of degrading. Catalin hadn’t realized what was going on, as they slowly left the marketplace behind. The buildings suddenly became seedier and brighter colored, and the signs that hung from the walls depicted curvaceous, half-dressed women. Under those signs sat actual half-dressed women, calling to various passers-by and inviting them in for a drink.
... the red light district? Catalin guessed, edging closer to Victor as if it would take the women’s eyes off him. Suddenly, Victor stopped.
“This is it!” he announced, sounding slightly embarrassed.
The six Guardians’ eyes followed Victor’s gesture, and landed on the building in front of them. The structure itself was identical to the others along the dirt road, but the sign, so large that it stretched most of the length of the wall, would get the attention of anyone walking by. Splashed across it, in shimmery gold paint, were the words “All That Glitters: High Class Gentleman’s Club.”
“It’s a brothel,” Damian explained.
“... I think they know that,” Victor sighed.
“A... a... a...” It was the first time Catalin had seen Saphie look flustered. “Ahh...”
“We won’t...” Talia cleared her throat. “Have to work there, will we?”
“Oh God, no,” Victor said immediately.
“Can we?” asked Kite, glowing.
“God, no,” Victor said more emphatically. He glanced over at his two silent charges: Chris was blushing so hard that blood threatened to burst from his pores, but Catalin stared nonchalantly.
“Do we just go in the front?” Catalin asked.
“... we’re going around back...” Victor raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seem too surprised, Cat.”
“... I would’ve been more surprised if it wasn’t something like this,” Catalin mumbled, following Victor as they turned into an empty alleyway a little downhill from the front entrance.
The back door didn’t appear to have a handle on the outside, but Victor walked up to it and knocked firmly.
“The entrance is around the front, sir!” a cheerful voice from inside called.
“About that...” Victor grinned. “I’ve got a couple of VIPs for the madam.”
The door opened so quickly that Catalin almost didn’t see it, and the person in the doorframe stepped back to let them in. No sooner was Catalin in the door, when something large and very shrill latched itself around his neck. “Commandant!”
From his crushed vantage point, Catalin could see only one thing: that the woman on him seemed to be entirely covered in sequins. And that was about all he got to see; from there, at least five other women and two men squeezed in towards him, all trying to shake his hand, hug him, or introduce themselves at the same time as the others.
“All right, that’s enough.” The voice that finally scattered them was firm, but sounded highly amused.
“But General...” a girl who looked younger than the others whined. “We’ve been waiting so long!”
“I’m aware of that, Mariane. But I’d do believe the Commandant needs to breathe.” The woman moved into Catalin’s line of vision, tucking her wavy brown hair behind her ear and regarding her with a smile. Though Catalin could tell she wasn’t a young woman by any stretch, she was almost inaccessibly beautiful. She exchanged a glance with Victor that Catalin couldn’t quite read, and then sank into a bow.
