We turned a corner, and a massive tower rose at the end of the street. It was a gleaming obelisk of neon and flashing lights fifty stories high. Pixies and fairies buzzed around the signs, wings glittering in the light, orbs of color flashing in the darkness. Periodically, a sign lit up with the words “The Golden Chalice” and a giant goblet tipped forward, spilling out a fountain of gold coins that came raining down toward the street. Just as they hit the sidewalk, they burst into showers of golden light. As the sparks dissipated, the spell reset and it began all over again.
“Beauty, ain’t she?” said Zak, gazing admiringly through the windshield.
I glanced at him, frowning. “Looks like Reno puked all over the undercity. What happened to this place?”
His grin faded, and he turned to glare at me. “You better watch that attitude, Mossberg. The Governor’s done a lot for us. You need to learn to respect that.”
I snorted. “Spoken like a true sycophant.”
He glared at me, but didn’t say anything, probably because he didn’t have the slightest idea what that word meant. If he had, he probably would have taken it as a compliment anyway. Goblins have their own set of values.
We parked on the street out front, and as I stepped out of the Hummer, the smell of fried food and the sound of buzzers and ringing bells washed over me. My stomach rumbled. I hadn’t eaten in... five years. I looked around and saw groups of homeless people clustered here and there in the shadows, under doorways and at the ends of the alleys along the street. They were hiding, waiting for the Peacekeepers to go inside so they could return to begging. My appetite vanished.
Zak led me into the casino, followed by the rest of his crew. The noise, the lights, and the smells that had been so enticing from the curb were full frontal inside. The smell of food mingled with the scent of a thousand cigars and every brand of cheap cologne ever made. Pretty girls dressed in almost nothing -elves, dryads, nymphs, and so on- paraded by carrying trays of booze and refreshments. Fairy creatures of every race and age filled the place, perched uncomfortably on their stools, gazing dull-eyed into the flashing lights and spinning wheels of the slot machines. Stoned gloom fairies sprawled out across the tops of the machines, gazing up at the flashing gold and silver LED lights in the ceiling.
I stood there a few seconds, overwhelmed by the assault on my senses. A casino like that’s enough to make me puke on a good day, but this was different. This was a new body; one that had never been exposed to the chemicals and poisons of our modern environment. The overall effect made me a little woozy.
An attractive dryad server with prismatic silver hair and glitter pasted all over her body approached me with a friendly smile. “Hey, handsome. Care for a drink?” I looked at her, not speaking, not entirely comprehending everything I was seeing. Her smile was perfect, practiced... almost painted on. She was cheerful enough, but in her eyes, I saw pain. I saw the discomfort and humiliation of one of the most beautiful creatures in the world pulled from the wilderness and thrust into a degrading slave-wage city job, painted up in a whore’s makeup to serve drinks and smile like a sideshow freak. Her eyes said all of this to me, but the smile remained, immovable, plastic, eternal.
“Keep movin, Honeycakes,” Zak said in a gravelly voice. He smacked her on the rear, and she let out a yelp as she disappeared back into the crowd. My hands knotted into fists. My mind swam with images of Zak’s skull crashing into a slot machine or a blackjack table, or simply squeezing it in my hands until it popped like a zit.
Not yet, I told myself. Not until I see the Governor...
We crossed the casino floor to the elevators at the center of the room. The doors were polished, gleaming gold, matching ivy embossed into the surrounding mirrors. A bell rang, and as the doors opened, a male centaur came rushing out with a half-naked wood-elf girl riding his back. They went whooping and hollering into the crowd. The girl had champagne bottles in her hands, which she shook up and sprayed into the air like fountains. The gamblers cheered and howled at this sudden display of fae-like abandon, until the guards showed up to quash the rebellion. The couple took off, leading them on a chase deeper into the casino, and they all vanished.
We stepped into the elevator, and the doors closed. The noise and the lights faded away, and quiet synthesized pop music filled the air.
“Never a dull moment,” Zak said, grinning up at me. “You need to relax a little, Mossberg. You might even learn to like it here.”
I didn’t respond. The only words I could think of at that moment were threats, and I knew that wasn’t going to get me anywhere.
The ride took us to the top floor, and we stepped into a huge lavishly decorated suite. There was more gold here, and velvet, and leather, and pretty much anything else you could imagine so long as it looked expensive. If it was gaudy, it was in. There was a massive ebony table with a red marble top at the center of the room. Resting on the table, surrounded by platters of food and bottles of wine, was a gilded fountain of a swan, its head upturned, water spraying out of its beak. Behind that -on the back wall- hung a larger-than-life portrait of Elvis painted on black velvet and sporting two pointy ears under his shaggy hair. Those must have been added later. I’m pretty sure Elvis was actually human.
“Wait here,” Zak said. He disappeared into an adjoining room. His goons spread out, keeping an eye on me while they sampled the food or checked the score on one of the many televisions scattered throughout the place. I stood halfway between the elevator and the table, waiting, getting more disgusted by the second. Whoever this Governor character was, he was living the high life. People were literally begging at his doorstep, but here he was, surrounded by opulence and excess without a care in the world.
I heard a whimper in the corner and realized there was a tall birdcage standing there. When I approached it, I saw two fairies locked inside. They were the nice ones; the kind with butterfly wings, who like to sing and make silly jokes and use fairy magic to make flowers grow in strange and unexpected places. They weren’t happy now, though. One sat on a swing that was dangling from the branches of a fake tree, while the other rested on the limb above her. The second one had drawn her knees up to her chest, with her arms wrapped around them and her tiny opalescent wings drawn tight over her shoulders like a cloak. She was bent forward, sobbing quietly into her knees. The other one wore a distant gaze, as if she had checked out a long time ago.
I was at the end of my rope. I reached down, twisted the lock, and pulled the door open. They snapped to attention, staring at me curiously. I made a sweeping gesture with my arm. “Go on,” I said in a quiet voice. “Get out of here.”
The fairies stared at me, their eyes wide in disbelief. “Hurry,” I urged them. “Go!”
Instantly, they took flight. With a buzz of their wings and the sound of tinkling bells, they zoomed out of the cage and across the room to a partially opened window. They were gone before anyone could do anything to stop them.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” a voice said behind me. I turned to see Zak standing in the doorway. He stepped into the room, followed by a large gray-skinned humanoid creature wearing a red bathrobe. The creature was bald and had one large eye right in the center of his brow. I recognized him immediately.
“Zane,” I said in a low growl.
The police chief grinned at me as he came into the room. “Mossberg. I heard you were around. I was skeptical, of course... Is it really you?”
There was a shuffling noise behind him, and Zane’s hobgoblin bodyguard came out of the back room half dragging, half carrying a dwarf by the collar of his coat. The dwarf was young. He had that smooth baby-faced look that all young dwarves have, before time has had its way with them and turns them into old men. You can always tell by their skin. That and the fact that his beard was only six inches long. That put him somewhere in his teens, maybe twenties if he matured slower than usual. His youthful appearance hadn’t earned him any tolerance from Zane and his goons, though. The kid had a fat lip, a
black eye that was swollen shut, and barely had the strength to walk.
“Whatcha wanna do with him, Boss?” said the hobgoblin.
Zane lifted the dwarf’s chin, staring down into his face. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson. Are you gonna get that money you owe me now?”
The dwarf nodded emphatically.
“Excellent. I’m so glad we could come to an arrangement without breaking any bones.” He turned his attention to the guard: “Get him out of here.”
They headed for the elevator, and Zane settled into the throne-like chair at the head of the table. Zak scrambled to secure a bib across the front of Zane’s robe. The cyclops took a plate and started filling it with sausages, croissants, and whatever else he found within reach. Zane glanced at me as he started shoving food into his mouth. He gestured for me to take a seat.
“Go ahead,” he said around a mouthful. “You look half-starved.”
“What’s going on here, Zane?”
“That’s Governor to you,” he snapped, pointing a sausage at me.
I raised an eyebrow. “The undercity doesn’t have a governor. What happened to the mayor? The town council?”
“I disbanded them,” Zane said with a shrug. “Didn’t seem much use anymore.”
I took a few steps closer, glaring down at him. “Let me get this straight... You used your authority as police chief to take over the entire city?”
“Well, somebody had to do something,” he said around a mouthful of greasy meat. The juice made his grayish lips glisten in the fluorescent light. He looked up at me, staring at me with that big unblinking blue eye... like Sauron, but with an eyebrow.
“After you died,” Zane continued, “this place went to hell. You should’ve seen it. It was a nightmare. Gangs running wild, people dying in the streets. Do you know the mobs actually overran the police department? We had to fight back with guns, Hank. We actually had to start shooting them. When you died, it was like the whole city died with you. It was chaos. Absolute chaos. Speaking of which, I heard you were vaporized... how exactly did you come back?”
“I have no idea.”
He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Humph. Well, another one of life’s little mysteries, I suppose. Lucky for us, though.”
“Us? How do you figure?”
“I want you to work for me, Hank.”
I chuckled. “Why?”
“I’ve seen you in action. You’re tough. I’ve seen you take down hobgoblins like swatting flies. Heck, apparently you can’t even be killed. Plus, you have the Stewardship on your side. People respect that. I can use that, Hank.”
“Like the way you use the misery and sickness of this city to make yourself rich? The way you feed off of their weaknesses and addictions?”
He stopped chewing momentarily to glare at me. “Something like that,” he said. There was a moment of silence before he continued chewing. “You know, the people of this city owe me. I brought order out of chaos. I made this city a safe place to live and work in again. Without me, most of these creatures would be dead.”
I leaned forward, putting my fists on the table on front of him. “Zane, I’m trying real hard right now to think of a reason I shouldn’t throw you out that window and watch your fat guts splatter all over the street.”
With my increasing anger, my voice had gotten lower and lower until it sounded like a deep, predatory rumble. Zane’s eyes widened a little. I heard a click-click noise and felt the barrel of a shotgun against the back of my head. Zane’s smile returned.
“I suggest you control your temper,” he said. “I might not be able to kill you, but believe me: I can make you wish you were dead.”
I stepped back, and the gun moved with me. A quick glance over my shoulder told me the others were armed now, too. I wasn’t worried about their tasers or batons. It was that shotgun that concerned me. Little did Zane know he really could kill me. In fact, at point blank range, that fifty-caliber slug would tear my head right off. And if Siva’s letter was accurate, there wouldn’t be any coming back this time. I decided to keep my head, both literally and figuratively.
“I’m not interested,” I said, turning to leave.
The hobgoblin with the shotgun blocked my path. Zane gestured for him to step aside. “Don’t answer yet,” he said. “You’re passing up a big opportunity here. Think about it for a while. If there’s one thing I’ve learned Hank, it’s this: never let a good crisis go to waste. Boys, see him out.”
“What about the fairies?” said Zak.
Zane frowned. “What?”
“The fairies,” Zak repeated, pointing at the cage. “Mossberg let them go.”
Zane stared for a second and then shrugged. “This is the undercity,” he said. “There are thousands of those things. Get me a couple more. And this time, rip their wings off.”
I paused. Something stirred deep inside me, like a wild beast breaking free of a snare. A low rumble worked its way up from my guts to my throat, and my lips curled in a snarl. It erupted from me like a sonic boom. You know that rope I said I was at the end of? That was the sound of it snapping.
The shotgun was two steps away, and I went for that first. I snarled as I lunged at the hobgoblin. He jumped, instinctively squeezing the trigger as my hand knocked the barrel to the side. The kaboom of gunfire sounded like a stick of dynamite going off in that confined space. Behind me, the fountain shattered into a million gold-plated ceramic shards.
The shotgun blast tore a big chunk of marble out of the tabletop, and ricocheted into the wall behind it, blowing a hole through Elfis a foot wide. Zane dove for the floor with Zak was right next to him. My hand closed around the shotgun barrel and I yanked it forward. The hobgoblin was too stupid to let go, and he fell right into my waiting fist. There was a cracking sound that I could barely hear over the ringing in my ears, followed immediately by a spray of blood from his nose. The scream that followed, I could hear just fine.
I caught the meathead by the front of his uniform and swung him around. The goblin who’d been sneaking up behind me found himself playing catch with three hundred pounds of blood-soaked hobgoblin. They both went down. As they landed, a taser went clattering across the floor. I smashed the butt of the gun down on the tiles, shattering it as the barrel folded like warm butter.
Somebody whacked me across the back with a steel baton and sparks of pain shot through my nerves. I spun around to see a wood-elf standing there, his baton bent nearly in two. The look on his face melted into a mask of sheer terror as I reached for him. I caught him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. He kicked and fought for a second, until I hurled him backwards across the room. Sadly, he was already unconscious when he landed, and therefore missed out on the satisfying sound of his bones breaking. I smiled anyway. He was sure to appreciate my handiwork when he woke.
I turned, looking for Zane, and found him crawling across the floor towards the elevator. I went after him. The remaining goblins charged me all at once. There was a flurry of fists and batons, the fizzling sound of tasers that didn’t quite get the job done, followed by more satisfying screams. The fight only lasted a minute or so. When it was over, I stood next to a pile of twitching green bodies in black uniforms and armbands.
The sound of a chime alerted me to the fact that Zane and Zak had made it to the elevator. The two of them were inside, frantically pressing the button to close the doors. I leapt over the sofa in one bound, reaching them just as the doors slammed shut. I snarled and punched the doors with my bare fists. The metal gave way, forming clear imprints of my knuckles. Unfortunately, the elevator was already gone.
I turned, scanning the room for the stairs. I had a feeling Zane wouldn’t be sending the elevator back for me. A quick search revealed nothing. Apparently, the only other way out of that suite was by the fire escape. I was too furious to think clearly at that point. I didn’t care about escaping. I wanted Zane. I wanted him dead.
I snatched a carving knife off the table and went to work pr
ying the elevator doors open. They resisted for a moment and then began to separate. I dropped the knife, prying my fingertips into the narrow gap. I spread my legs and forced the doors apart. The tiny electric motor didn’t stand a chance. It made a whining sound and then gave out entirely. The pressure released, the doors slid open, and I found myself staring into a pitch-black five-hundred-foot shaft.
I could hear the elevator below. I couldn’t be sure how far it had gone, but I knew it was still moving. The cables dangled in front of me. I hesitated for a second, trying to estimate the height of the fall. Then I grabbed my hat and leapt.
Chapter 6
As I went plummeting into the darkness, I heard faint music drifting up from below. It was the elevator’s sound system. The noise grew louder, and I saw the black shape of the elevator rushing up at me. I couldn’t do much but bend my knees and brace for impact. I had enough momentum built up that I expected to go right through the roof.
The only problem with that plan was that a heavy steel beam ran across the top of the frame. It was right in my path, and I didn’t even see it until I slammed into it. My legs buckled. I collapsed, and the frame groaned beneath me. The sheet metal roof bent, sagging inward, contorting the sides of the elevator so that the structure twisted into the walls of the shaft. There was a high-pitched shriek, and the elevator lurched beneath me.
I landed parallel with the beam, sprawled out across the roof. I was probably lucky to be alive. If not for the give of the structure, I’d have had a few broken bones at the very least. The speed of the elevator may have also contributed to my lucky landing. If it had been going the other way, it would have been a whole different story. As it was, I was going to be sore in the morning, but thankfully, I was in one piece.
A Dame to Die For Page 4
