Io reached into her pocket with trembling hands. She handed the vials of Neveling’s perfume over quickly.
“Where can I find you?” She asked as he turned to leave. “If I need you.”
“Just follow the magic, little fey. It knows where
to find me.” Jack’s voice floated back as he vanished into the black fog that was rolling up the street. “And I wouldn’t tell Xanthe about our next little outing. Odds are good she won’t like it.”
Moonlight was beginning to trickle out of the sky and into the dirty streets of Goblin Town when Jack arrived at The Madhouse.
Io watched him come striding up the street, his black duster flowing open like a cape, and the spurs of his black boots jingling musically. Not that the sound called up the same merry thoughts as sleigh bells. It was more the sound of Death moving toward a shootout at a saloon.
And how the night loved him as he stalked along under it: his eyes, his hair, his very flesh!
He didn’t smile when he saw her, but she was coming to know him and recognized that there was satisfaction in his gaze when he looked down at her.
“So, guess what spell I drew?” she greeted him.
Jack sniffed the air. “Something violent.”
Io lowered her voice. “Yep. It started out as a stupid spell to open cans with my finger. But I’ve been
working on it and now I can stuff my right fist through concrete. Or wood, or metal. It probably works pretty well on goblins, too, but I haven’t tried it yet.”
Jack finally smiled. His teeth were very white and strong. “I guess we’re ready then.”
“As ready as we can be.”
And she
was
ready. An afternoon up in the solitude of the treehouse had helped her clarify her feelings and sort them out from facts. Fact one: Goblins were pushing their addictive fruit and killing people. So far, their victims had been willing, but that could change.
Fact two: Horroban was working on something new and nasty on the drug front, and in all likelihood Neveling Lutin was involved.
Another fact: H.U.G. wasn’t going to be any help because bitterness over an old love affair had Xanthe looking the wrong way, and however much she wanted to, Io couldn’t stop the goblins on her own.
Talk about a one-two punch.
Last fact: The police couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything this time about what was going on inside Goblin Town.
That left Io’s feelings. Those were trickier bits to catalog and deal with. They were as basic as breathing and just as hard to resist. She wanted Jack—badly. But she also wanted emotional safety. Chances were she couldn’t have both, not indefinitely. Maybe not at all.
Yet perhaps she could juggle her emotions long enough to stop Horroban. Surely she could say no to Jack and make it stick for the next two weeks. Lust was
not
that overwhelming. It just couldn’t be.
“You’re thinking again,” Jack accused as they set off down the street, forcing a path through the throngs of tipsy tourists. The crowds were getting thicker now that the witching hour—and the traditional free drinks at midnight—were near. Fortunately, with Jack along, people tended to get out of the way.
“Someone’s gotta do it,” Io answered, matching her stride to his. She was glad she had worn boots with moderate heels. “So, do you have a plan?”
“The general outlines of one.”
“Oh good. I’d hate to think we were just making this up as we went along.”
“Not spontaneous, are we?”
“Not in situations where I can die.”
Jack let his eyes travel up and down her once and then grinned. “That’s a real shame, ’cause I can think of one situation—”
“Let’s leave the thinking to me,” Io interrupted. She was
not
going to flirt with Jack. “I’ll be the brain and you be the brawn.”
“But you have the fist of steel. Why should I play the troll?”
“Because you look more like one,” she answered untruthfully. The wrench the words caused told her
that Jack still had his truth spell even if he wasn’t using it on her at the moment.
“How do you do it?” she demanded after a moment.
“What? Look like a troll? You know what they say about the correlation between the size of a man’s nose and the size of his—”
“Jack!” Io kept her voice low. They were entering a less crowded part of town, but Io hadn’t explored the business district before.
“What I meant was, how do you keep your spells? You still have your invisibility too. I can feel it.”
“I didn’t leave town,” Jack answered. “I found a place to crash down at Brush Park.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” Io nodded, though she didn’t care for the idea of sleeping in the ruins of Brush Park. She would never feel safe enough to sleep out there.
“I buy extra spells off of junkies who need money for a fix. Sometimes people drop spells…A little tweaking, a little power and—voilà—a customized spell.”
Io didn’t approve of giving money to the junkies, but she supposed it was more ethical than simply stealing their magic. It also kept them from mugging tourists for the cash to get their fixes.
“It might be a good idea if you did the same thing,” Jack suggested, lowering his voice. “One of these days, Xanthe is going to figure out what you’re
really doing, and she is going to try to pull you out of the game.”
Xanthe!
Io swore.
“What?” Jack looked down at her, his brows drawing together. “And where did you learn gutter troll?”
“We need to find a safe place,” Io told him. “Somewhere that I can undress out of the public eye.”
Jack raised a brow but didn’t make any suggestive comments. He really was trying.
“I’m ‘ticked,’ ” Io said. “I can get the ones on my arms and legs, but I have a feeling that Ferris may have slipped one onto my back. He isn’t usually a
pat-them-on-the-back
sort of guy, but he glad-handed me a few times the day he grafted on these birthmarks.”
Jack considered for a moment. “We’ll go to my place. I have some equipment.”
“We don’t need much. I have a knife.”
“Yeah, but we don’t want to kill the ticks. They may be useful to us later. We’ll put them in some gelatin with a little blood and then hide them somewhere innocuous.”
Io nodded. He wouldn’t want them at his crash pad. The place was probably warded, but Xanthe could possibly find him anyway, and clearly he didn’t want to be found.
Io, on the other hand, still felt that she might like to have someone on the outside know where she was. Eventually, just not right now. Another Gordian
knot. Damn! She felt as if she was in constant bondage.
Jack’s room was in a dilapidated building of brick where junkies had stayed during the daylight hours. As their addictions grew, so did their sensitivity to sunlight. This building would have been ideal because it had very few unshuttered windows. However, the junkies were all gone now. Jack had scared them away.
He opened the wards on his door, and then using a bit of fire magic he set the kerosene lamp alight. As Io had suspected, fire didn’t bother him.
The room was empty except for a duffle bag that sat on top of an old claw-footed table. There was a hammock in the corner, suspended from two sturdy bolts that had made new wounds in the walls. Most earth feys preferred to sleep grounded, but given the filth accumulated on the water-damaged floor, Io couldn’t blame Jack for choosing to sleep up off of it.
“Okay, let’s see these ticks.”
“I can manage the arm and leg,” Io said, realizing that she was going to have to undress in order to get the trackers off of her. She was wearing another leather outfit that passed for goblin couture, and this one was skintight. “It’s just my back that’s the problem.”
“It’s not a problem. Your knife or mine?”
“Mine. It has a silver blade. It also has one of cold
iron, so be careful. You don’t want burned fingers.”
“And you don’t need a burn on your back.”
“Not if I can avoid it.” She pulled her small pocketknife from her boot and handed it to him. “It’s the top blade.”
“I feel it.”
Io took a deep breath and then turned away from Jack. She undid the corset belt and quickly pulled her sweater up over her head. She didn’t wear a bra, so there was no need to do more.
“Look for moles or any raised skin. It might not be dark. Ferris is sneaky.” Her voice was a little shaky. She hoped Jack thought it was fear and not arousal that made it tremble.
Jack got something out of his duffle bag and then stepped over to her. He ran a slow hand over her bare flesh. He wasn’t using his magic, but his hands were still hot, and they disturbed her pulse and breathing. Io bit her tongue so she wouldn’t tell him to hurry. Or to slow down and take his time.
“Got it. Looks like I spoke too soon. Grit your teeth, little fey. This will hurt.”
“Keep it shallow and it won’t hurt a lot. It should be connected by a single vein.”
“Sorry. Not this time. Your Ferris stuck it on good. It has grafted itself smooth and sent down roots. This sucker is grafted on as tight as your own skin—maybe tighter.”
Io said another bad troll word.
“You want to go on with it?” Jack asked.
“Just do it. I’ll heal.”
“Okay.”
Jack was fast and kept the cut shallow, but Io couldn’t help flinching as the tick was pulled loose. Pure silver was better than any other metal for surgical use on magical beings, but they all hurt. Of course, that was the point of the silver and iron blades—she was supposed to hurt goblins if she got in a jam.
As she felt the blood roll down her back, she made a note to bring a bone knife next time she came to town. She wanted something she could use on herself that wouldn’t hurt like metal.
Jack pressed his hand over her shoulder blade and muttered something. There was a flash of intense heat as he used his fire spell on her.
“Ow!” Her knees almost buckled as the flame shot through her.
Jack quickly steadied her, bracing her against his body with his free hand.
“Sorry, but it needed to be cauterized. It was that or stitches.” He sounded genuinely regretful at causing her pain, but Io didn’t turn around and seek visual confirmation of his feeling.
“So much for no burns on my back,” she groused.
There was a sound of paper tearing and then Jack wiped her lower spine with some sort of alcohol swab. The cold, or something, raised gooseflesh on her back and arms.
“You need some help getting that sweater back on?” he asked casually.
“No.” It hurt to lift her arm, but she managed to pull the turtleneck back on. Only then did she turn around.
Quickly, she pushed up her sleeve and held out her hand.
“Give me the knife.”
Jack hesitated a moment and then handed her the blade. A few drops of blood had run down the handle.
Io ignored them as best she could, but her hands were still shaking and the blade was slippery.
“Let me,” Jack began, but she made the cut fast.
Jack handed her the stained disposable wipe and took the blade from her. He quickly added the small brown tick from her arm to the larger flesh-colored blob in his lab dish. He also shook off the few drops of blood onto the ticks.
“Where’s the last one?” he asked.
“Outer right thigh,” Io answered, grateful for his matter-of-fact tone. She was also grateful that she’d worn panties under her leather pants—she wouldn’t have bothered wearing them with jeans.
Taking another deep breath, she tugged down the double zippers past her hip bones and shoved her pants down to just below the tick. Her hands were a lot steadier this time, so Jack didn’t offer again to do the cut.
Io worked quickly, and after a fast swipe with the
now very stained wipe, she hurriedly rezipped her clothing into place.
“You’re sure that’s all of them?”
Io did a quick mental search of her body. She was finding it easier to use her magic now. It was like riding a bike. The parts of her that were fey could never really forget what it was.
“Yes, that’s all of them.” She refastened her corset.
“All set then?” Jack asked, taking the wipe and dropping it into the dish with the ticks. “That should keep them happy for a while.”
“Good—blood-sucking leeches.”
“No, blood-sucking ticks.” He fitted a lid onto the dish and wrapped it in a bandanna before slipping the thing into his coat pocket. He then reached into his duffle and pulled out a roll of duct tape.
“Where are we going to take them?” Io asked, watching him add the tape to his coat pocket.
“Back into the nightclub district. I think we’ll leave them in a public restroom taped under a tank while we tour the hive. Goblins almost never clean the bathrooms, so the ticks would be safe enough there until we need them again.”
“Sounds good.”
“I think we may also stop for some dinner.”
Io grimaced. “You’d eat here?”
“We have to kill some time while the crowds thin,” Jack reminded her. “And I know some places that are reasonably safe. No nasty bloodroot vegetables or truly questionable meat.”
“If you say so,” Io replied, knowing she sounded dubious.
“You know, I’m glad we had this moment together,” Jack said, his voice again turning light and teasing.
“I really can’t say the same,” she answered, moving her shoulders gingerly.
“No? But just think what we’ve learned about each other.”
“Such as?”
“I know that you don’t faint at the sight of blood.”
“You don’t either—at least not at the sight of mine. That’s always useful,” Io agreed.
“Very. I also know that you like black lace panties—and that you’ll ask for help if you need it.” He grinned his cold smile. “I like it when girls ask me for things.”
Io refrained from comment on his last point. Sexual recidivism was not to be encouraged, even it was only verbal.
“And what have I learned?” she asked.
“You now know that while I may stick a knife in your back, I probably won’t stick it very far.”
Io laughed. “This little fact is supposed to comfort me?”
Jack opened his door and looked out into the hall. Even when he was reasonably sure that they were alone, he was still cautious. “Hey, you gotta take your comforts any way you can,” he answered, resetting the wards with a wave of his hand.
“Well, that’s the truth,” Io muttered.