The smaller addict laughed in a drugged voice—until she felt her assailant’s teeth on her belly. Then, howling, she shoved the other girl away. Rolling to her feet she stood panting for a moment, and then distracted by the juice stains on her hand, she stuck her fingers in her mouth and started suckling. Her eyes went blank.
The first girl huddled on the ground shaking, and then gave in to cries of despair as the other ran away. She didn’t seem to notice that she was drooling as she cried.
Io made a small noise.
“What is it?” Jack asked, moving swiftly to the window.
“Jack,” Io whispered, moved to compassion for the wretched creature below that was barely still human. “I know it’s stupid, but couldn’t you…?”
“No. Don’t even think it.”
“Please. I…I can’t stand her keening. I just can’t,” she said honestly. “And she’ll attract attention if we don’t shut her up.”
Jack considered this point. “It’s only temporary, and you know it,” he said. “She’s going to die soon
if she doesn’t get some goblin fruit. She’ll probably die even if she does get it. She’s too far gone.”
“But we can help her now.”
Jack looked at Io, his face unreadable. She felt naive for suggesting that they stop their own task to help an addict who would certainly turn them in for a piece of blood-fruit. But she truly could not bear looking at the poor, mad creature. There but for the grace of the goddess might have gone her mother.
“We can’t
help
her,” Jack said more kindly, speaking to Io as if she were a child. “The addiction is rarely reversible. And you know that there are other dangers in dealing with a weak mind.”
Io knew this better than anyone, having grown up with it, but she couldn’t let it go.
They could get caught out in the street. The girl could turn them in. And Jack was a death fey. If the girl was wretched enough, given the choice, she might decide to give herself over to permanent oblivion and die in his arms. Hadn’t Io been tempted herself? And she wasn’t a junkie in withdrawal. Could she do that to Jack—make him responsible for someone’s death? It wasn’t fair—wasn’t right.
Yet none of that mattered very much in the face of such complete suffering.
“Please do what you can.” For the first time, Io touched Jack voluntarily. She added obliquely, “If you have to…Well, it would be a kindness. And it wouldn’t be your fault. It would be mine.”
Jack exhaled and a small current passed from his skin to hers as he roused his magic. Io dropped her hand and stepped away before anything substantial could leak over onto her.
“We are done here anyway. There’s nothing else to look at,” she pointed out. “Either we have the goods, or we’ll have to go into the Labyrinth to find them.”
“
I’ll
have to go into the Labyrinth,” he corrected, watching her retreat from him. His expression was annoyed. Apparently he didn’t like having his magic treated like a case of cooties. But that was just too bad for him! Io only had so much strength.
“Just remember that nothing comes for free,” he warned her. “I work for wages, not charity. This girl is going to cost you.”
Io answered sharply, trying to ignore the way her stomach rolled over at the implied sensual threat. “Don’t be such a bastard. You know this is the right thing to do.”
Probably he was just teasing her. They were sort of partners now, weren’t they? He couldn’t wish to harm her.
Of course, it was a little early in the relationship to be guessing about what he might consider harmful.
“Nevertheless, there is a price. I doubt it’ll be high enough, though, since I’m not the total bastard you think me. I knew that I was going to regret getting involved with you,” he added, sotto voce, pulling on
his invisibility and opening the door. Then, louder, “The coast is clear. You coming, softheart? May as well see what you’ll be paying for.”
“I’m coming.”
Io slipped out of the lab and closed the door behind her. The sample vials of perfume and cream she had taken clinked softly in her pockets as she walked. She had removed one of everything they’d found. Not being able to smell with her breather in place, short of rubbing each item on her skin she had no way of knowing which samples might contain the magic-charged elixir that had been aerosolized into the ventilation system of The Madhouse.
She stopped at the top of the staircase and peered after Jack. The stairwell was tight, twisted, and very dark.
“This has to violate fire code,” she muttered, starting after him.
“Write your congressman.” The floating voice was growing faint, so Io hurried after it.
Jack knew a whole lot more about Io Cyphre than he had the day before, and it had changed his view of her. A few brief words with his contacts on the force and, mere hours after meeting her, he had received and read her entire file.
There wasn’t much about the fey herself in the papers—she lived a very low-profile sort of life—but there was rather a lot in the archive on the girl’s mother. Everything was very circumspect, since Tigre Cyphre had worked for the State Department, but the French police’s attitude about her killing had been summed up by the penciled-in comment:
Ne sei s’esteit lutin ou non.
We cannot say if he was a goblin…
Jack shook his head. Leave it to the French to deny all knowledge that Drakkar was a goblin.
But even with the official obfuscation, reading between the lines it was easy enough to see that Tigre
Cyphre had been in love with—or at least enchanted by—the French goblin warlord. And she’d been willing to do anything to please him, including using her political contacts to further his business interests.
Unfortunately, European gangland wars had been especially messy that year because of turf battles over the fruit farms in Grasse, and there had been a lot of collateral damage when Drakkar’s empire went down. Tigre Cyphre; the H.U.G. agent Zayn’s twin brother, Syrin; and several other H.U.G. activists had been among the roadkill left by Harkel-Barend’s thugs.
Harkel himself had died two weeks after taking out Drakkar. The files said it was an accident—a freak explosion caused by a faulty water-heater had boiled him in his bath—but the suggestion lurking between the lines of Io’s file was that it was a retaliation slaying, by either Drakkar’s goblins or H.U.G..
The slaying was a nasty bit of work, Jack admitted, but not beyond H.U.G., who were growing increasingly more militant and creative in their fight against goblins. And the story explained Io’s involvement in an organization not usually tolerant of magical beings because of their official stance on the supernatural.
The circumstances surrounding her mother’s life and death also explained Io’s revulsion for drugs and her fear of Jack’s magic: It had probably been
some combination of deadly goblin fruit and magical coercion that enslaved Tigre.
What remained unknown was whether Io herself had had any hand in the dirty business of offing Harkel. She had been in France at the time, arranging to have her mother’s body transported back to the States, so it was possible.
Jack paused at the factory’s side door and waited for Io to catch up.
Should he ask her about this? If she answered tonight, it would be the truth.
He was still wondering about how to phrase his question when Io arrived. He looked down into her concerned face, added to it her compassion for the unknown addict in the street, and decided he didn’t need to upset the applecart by asking.
Io Cyphre was brave and resourceful—and reckless—but she didn’t have a natural killer’s instincts. It was perhaps regrettable, given their present circumstances, but it made her more likable as a person.
Also, fortunately, he had enough killer instinct for both of them.
They stepped outside, Jack being careful to go first in case there were any magic trip lines waiting to snare them. Even with the sun up it was cold. Soot blew along the deserted street, making everything at ground level appear shadowed and adding to the perceived chill of the autumn morning. The whorls of grime also had the disconcerting effect of making
the imagination see things at the periphery of one’s vision. Shade became something warped and sly. It could turn your own shadow into a sinister stalker, and sometimes nervous people ended up with gooseflesh of the brain. Jack had learned to ignore the optical weirdness of Goblin Town, but he could see that Io was bothered. He didn’t say anything. The little fey seemed touchy about admitting to nerves.
At street level, Neveling’s factory looked like an old-style movie theater. This was partly due to the idiot gargoyles etched in the glass of the front doors, and the marquees advertising cosmetics. The rest was the geometry of the architecture. It was as close to a grand public building as the goblins had yet built.
Jack looked quickly up and down the street. There were some parked cars—mostly Hondas and Toyotas. Goblins didn’t buy American because they had trouble reaching the pedals of most models. There was talk among the young and ambitious goblins of reopening the old GM plant and producing custom autos. However, ambition didn’t have them out that morning. Other than the dirty wind and the swaying junkie, nothing else moved.
“Time to go,” Jack thought he heard Io whisper.
“Yeah.”
He walked boldly toward the ravaged girl, who stopped wailing long enough to ask in a slurred voice, “Do you have any?”
“Yes, I have something for you,” he answered,
kneeling down. He took her chin in a hard grip and looked into her mindless eyes. “Who called you to the feast, girl?”
“Odyr and Binns,” she answered. Her mouth slackened even as she spoke the names of her seducers.
Standing in the cold gray shadow of the old church, Io felt rather like the morning after the night before. Only she hadn’t had anything to drink, so the hangover dawn seemed unfair.
She watched Jack go to the addict and take the demented creature’s chin in his hand. Immediately the girl stilled, her face drooping.
Curious, Io ventured closer. She stopped before actually touching either Jack or his patient. She didn’t need to get any closer; she could feel them both, even over the magic pulsing along just below the pavement. Jack gave off an aroma of earth and enchantment that somehow managed to evade her nose filter. It upset her breathing and hurried her pulse. Her attempt to steady her heart was for naught.
She stiffened at the names of Odyr and Binns. They were known to H.U.G. as pushers of goblin fruit. Neither was on the most-wanted list since they didn’t recruit outside of Goblin Town, but they weren’t on anyone’s step-on-the-brakes-if-they-got-in-front-of-your-car list either.
Jack murmured something to the junkie Io
couldn’t hear, and the last little bit of consciousness slipped away from her. He eased the girl’s body onto the ground and she lay there like dropped laundry.
“Is she…?”
“No.” Jack stood. “But she will be before sundown. At least she isn’t in pain.”
Anger licked at Io. “We should just burn this whole place down. It would be a public service. We could have a giant weenie roast. We could toast marshmallows in Neveling Lutin’s building. That alone would be a cause for celebration.”
Jack laughed at her. “A girl after my own heart—how my father would have loved you!” His face stilled as suddenly as it had animated. “But you know we can’t do it. We’d only be killing people. Addicts are all that are left up here above ground. The real goblin infrastructure is below. Horroban has seen to that. We wouldn’t do anything more than annoy him.”
“Horroban! How I’d like to see this creature.”
Jack shrugged. “Wouldn’t we all. But here in Goblin Town, trouble travels in pairs and even packs. And our goblin warlord has the biggest and baddest pack of trouble around. No one has ever gotten close. We don’t even know what he looks like.”
And
that
was the problem. Goblins were flesh-and-blood creatures—but whose flesh and blood was always a question. The monsters swapped tissue and fluids and magic with several species—often on
a whim—changing their appearance more often than Paris changed hemlines.
Which made finding Horroban near impossible. Word from one of his rare surviving victims was that looking at the goblin warlord was like staring at a colorless mask with empty holes for eyes. Everything about him was bleached and ghostly—as if he suffered from a sort of goblin albinism. But that report had come last week. There’d been plenty of time for him to change faces, assuming that he even needed to. It was just as possible that he had clouded Jilly’s mind before letting her go report back to H.U.G.—he was strong enough magically to do that.
“Horro…” Io muttered, and then stopped herself. She had already invoked the name twice. Three times would be an invitation. There was too much stray magic floating around to risk it. She wanted to know the goblin’s identity, but not have him visit her in her bedroom some dark night while she was sleeping.
“We really do have a problem,” Io said, looking down at the unconscious addict Jack had just helped. The girl lay toppled as if already lifeless.
“Do
we?
” Jack’s emphasis was subtle.
“You know we do. And I don’t think that H.U.G. will be any help in this situation. Xanthe is taking halfhearted swipes at this problem—and missing the target because she is more worried about you than what is really going on.” Io looked up, digging for information. “Why
is
that, Jack? What is there
between you two that has her panties in a twist?”
“Professional rivalry?” he suggested, tactfully not commenting on Xanthe’s underwear. Again, the words were playful but the expression was not.
“Try again please. It has to be something more than that.”
Jack reached out and combed her hair back with gentle fingers. Because she was cold and a little frightened, Io let him make the comforting gesture.
“Jealous?” he asked.
“Please! Even
your
ego isn’t that big.”
Jack smiled briefly. “It’s just the usual old story really. Boy meets girl. Boy gets girl…”
“Boy screws girl and then leaves?”
“Not without a strongly worded suggestion from her.” He shrugged. “Let’s just say that the girl got the magical night she always wanted, but then couldn’t handle the
real
magic when it started to happen. She thought she could, but her training went too deep. She freaked.”
“Your magic frightened her?” Io asked. She noted that if Jack was telling the truth, then Xanthe had known about Jack’s powers and hadn’t warned her about them. “What parts specifically?”
Jack smoothed her hair back again. “If you ever draw a strong-enough truth spell you’ll find out. Or if you come to me and ask to see
those parts,
of course. But those are the only ways, little fey. I don’t kiss and tell. Anyway, I doubt those things that terrified Xanthe would scare you much.”
“Well, I don’t think that kissing would be the problem,” she muttered, forgetting about the spell and again saying what was on her mind.
“No?” Jack cocked an eyebrow. That was all that moved. He didn’t shift position or draw in a breath, but suddenly his posture became explicit of intent. He went from sexless companion to prowling predator. Mind and body were both looking out of his eyes, and they wanted the same thing. “Let’s just test this theory of yours.”
“Payback already? But, Jack, I don’t think—”
“Good. Don’t think.
Feel.
”
Her magical instincts were begging her to flee Jack. Her primitive brain said the same. But her body didn’t agree. Her libido awoke and started to struggle against common sense. She knew it had to be subdued and quickly, but the battle was an even one: long-held mental fear versus a lifetime of physical longing for this very thing.
Jack was smart, too, knocking her off-balance with a change in tactics. His kiss was gentle, not at all the assault he had made the night before. No rough magic coerced her. Instead Jack’s kiss teased. It seduced. And in its own way, it was even more relentless about pulling a response from her.
She had expected him to feel cold like the rest of the world, but he wasn’t. He was all heat, banked-down fires that warmed the soul, the heart, the body. Walls of resistance constructed with so much care began to crack. Io knew that if he pushed, her whole
defensive structure would come tumbling down, leaving nothing but rubble about her tender emotions—which hadn’t been out of their shell since the day her mother was seduced by a French goblin and stopped loving her daughter.
“I don’t want to feel,” she whispered against his lips. But even the gentle movements of speech caused further sparks between them.
“I know.” Jack slowly lifted his head. His expression was more sober than languorous. “But if you stay with me, you will feel. Lots of things, many of them horrible. So think carefully, little fey, before you commit. I know you’re out for revenge, and I know why. Can’t blame you a bit for wanting it either. But you have forgotten that revenge is a thing of the heart and soul rather than the mind. It is the hate in the heart that gives us the strength to do what we must. Ideology alone isn’t enough to carry the day. All dogma will do is blind you. Especially here. This is the magical world and you have to use gutthink. You have to
feel
.”
His hands were soothing as he smoothed them down her arms. He cupped her cold hands with his larger, warmer ones. She appreciated the gesture of consolation, even as she hated his words.
“If you can’t face your emotions, then now is the time for you to get out of the game.” Jack’s voice was dispassionate, giving no hint of his own feelings. “Go home and think about it for a bit. If you’re still
in, then meet me outside The Madhouse at midnight tonight.”
“I’m in!” Io answered immediately.
Jack shook his head.
“
Think
about it, Io.
Feel
about it. Aren’t you nervous? I sure as hell am. I don’t trust it when things are going so smooth and sweet that you can spread it on toast and have it with tea. Experience says the pendulum is due to swing the other way and things are gonna get ugly. I don’t want you getting killed because you flinched at the wrong moment, or walked into a situation with blinders on.”
“I’m not a coward,” she said hotly.
Not about facing goblins
. “And I’m not stupid.”
“I never said you were.” Jack dropped his hands and stepped back. Io once again felt cold and bereft. “By the way, if you come tonight, try to draw a better spell. Cheat a little—have a stir around in the bowl and look for something with a bit of kick. I don’t think apple perfume is going to help you much if you get cornered by bad guys with big teeth. And speaking of things that smell bad, you’d better give me those samples.”