Midlife Demon Hunter: The Forty Proof Series, Book 3

by Mayer, Shannon

  He was almost close enough for me to kick him if I took a half step. And I really wanted to kick his smug, patronizing face as he looked me up and down. “You don’t look like much. Not really the killer they make you out to be. Though you did escape me in the swamp. I’d have killed you then if I could have and taken back what was mine. But you were too slippery. Not that it matters, this works having you here too.”

  So he was the reptilian creature that had tried to attack me.

  It fit.

  I shrugged. “Appearances can be deceiving amongst the fae, can’t they? Like you and your big ears.”

  The crowd gasped and took a visible step back as if I’d thrown a bag of dog poop at them.

  Davin was close enough now that I really, really wanted to take a swing at him. “Alan, why don’t you pester him?” I said softly. But Alan had slid to the side and was bent at the waist as he inspected a goblin.

  “Are these real? Are we on a movie set?”

  Jaysus, what a help he was going to be.

  The king was talking and I forced myself to listen to what he was saying. “You will hand over the spell book. Immediately.”

  “Eh.” I shrugged. “Tell me what you want it for.” His ears perked up, and I knew he’d picked up on the fact that I hadn’t outright said no. “I mean, maybe you want to make it worth my while.”

  Grimm struggled against the ropes holding him. “No, you can’t! You can’t do it!”

  Another shrug from me. “Everyone wants it, but no one wants to say why. I mean, what’s so important about this spell book?”

  Yes, I knew exactly why they wanted it, but they didn’t know I knew.

  I put my hand on the bag against my hip. The king’s eyes rested on my hand. “A way for us to be . . . more human,” he said softly. The crowd sighed, which only intensified the cheesy smell around them. I swallowed hard and fought the gag reflex.

  Clearing my throat, I struggled a bit to speak. “You mean you want to have better glamor?”

  “No, I mean the spell would allow us to take part in the human world fully. We would be human. And we would be loved.” The goblin king held out a long spindly hand and the urge to take it washed over me.

  I laid my palm against his, seeing the differences, understanding why people would never accept them as being part of the normal world. The strange pebbled skin that came in a variety of shades, overly large eyes, the bat ears and the sharper than human teeth. The extra joints in their fingers that made them exceptionally long and bendy. I fought to speak again. “Grimm hid what he was without an issue.”

  “For a time,” the goblin king said, his voice like a song reverberating through my head. “For a time, but it takes strength and magic, and all of it is exhausting, draining.” He put his other hand on top of mine, and my knees shook and I went to the ground, staring into his eyes.

  Crap.

  Big, super-duper poopy crap. The back of my mind said I was in big trouble, that this was what Crash had warned me about when he’d said the fae would try to take advantage of me.

  But I was only part fae, a very small part. More of me was . . . well, whatever my father had been.

  “Give me the spell book,” the goblin king said, his voice pulling my hands up without touching me, his voice directing me to open my hip bag.

  But this didn’t feel right. It wasn’t his to take. My eyes fluttered closed, and I took a deep breath, the magic in his voice still coaxing me to obey.

  Obedience was not something I did well, something Alan knew best of anyone, and in one of the rare useful acts of his existence, he took that moment to remind me. “Oh, look at you doing as you’re told for once. I like this. I wish I’d been able to put you in your place more when we were married.”

  My head snapped up, and the anger that surged through me shot me to my feet. I took three steps back from the startled goblin king.

  “I’m not giving you that spell book. By all rights it’s mine. With your goblin rules, there are only two ways you can get it. If I give it willingly, which I will not, or—”

  A voice that gave me a different set of shivers spoke.

  “Or you can duel for it.” Crash stepped up beside me. “Those are the rules, Derek. You cannot manipulate people forever. That is not the way of a leader; it is the way of a coward. And the rules of the fae are the same for you as they are for everyone else here.”

  Derek, the goblin king. Not such a kingly name, that. I stared down at Derek, at his big ears and bright yellow eyes. How in the world had I fallen under his spell, even for a moment? What a douchey face he had, so filled with self-importance despite the fact that he was clearly unable to rule as he should. Sure, I was guessing, but I had a feeling I was right on the button.

  He glared up at me, all but vibrating with anger. “A duel then. A pair for a pair?” He flicked his wrist, and the world around us shivered, the pavement under our feet turning to hard-packed dirt, the buildings morphing into a stadium—no, a colosseum. A replica to be sure, but it was the Colosseum. Right down to the stone and the broken bits at the top. Hell, I didn’t know what they were called, and you know what, it didn’t really matter. I was in trouble, but at least I wasn’t in trouble alone. The goblins watching were now spread out in the stands, rows upon rows of them cheering and hooting and hollering.

  I glanced at Crash. “So I’m guessing he didn’t mean pear, like we’re having a cooking contest for the best pear compote?”

  Crash glanced at me, and while his features were drawn with fatigue, there was also that small spark in his eyes that told me he was trying not to laugh. “Two against two. You hold your own against one of them. I’ll kill the one I’m up against, then help you.”

  I snorted and pulled my two knives. “Or maybe I’ll be helping you.”

  He gave me a bow from the waist. “Most assuredly, it be possible.” His accent rolled around me, and I sighed. Yeah, I had it bad.

  Alan fluttered up on my other side. “Are you fighting, for real? You can’t fight! You’ll end up dead, and I really don’t want to be stuck with you!”

  “Alan, just fuck off, would you?” I growled. “Over there, out of the way.” I snapped my fingers a couple times for good measure.

  Derek the goblin king strode out to the middle of the arena. “You know, this is a bonus. I was going to have to face you anyway, but now I get to skip a couple of steps. Get the book and kill you both, all in one go.” But he wasn’t talking to me.

  I spun to look at Crash, whose face was about as grim as I’d ever seen it. I opened my mouth, but the goblin king spoke over me.

  “You see, Karissa told us you had a spark for this mutt. After our failed attempt with the siren I knew if we pulled her in, you’d follow. Karissa even brought you partway here, using her tits and bits to tempt you one last time.”

  A flutter of wings could be heard, and there was Karissa, watching us from a perch atop a bank of fog, her long blond hair floating in the breeze, her pet man sitting in front of her on his knees, his face in her . . . oh my. She lifted a hand and blew a kiss, not at Crash, but at me.

  “Checkmate,” I muttered. “She didn’t try to stop me from taking you because this was where they wanted you.”

  “And they knew I’d come to help,” Crash said.

  I thought of the card I’d pulled at Annie’s. The devil card, the one of ego and temptation, of the death of friends and relationships. Of danger and choices.

  The choice to take on the job Grimm offered. The choice not to tell Crash, who would have known better than to take it on. The choice to come here without Corb. To find Crash first, then free my friends.

  I stood a little taller, owning those choices, because right or wrong, I had made them. I stared at Grimm, feeling a connection to the ground below me and the dead who were there. The sensation reminded me of what I felt at the graveyard, the cooling power of the dead calming me and strengthening me. “What are the rules for this fight?”

  Derek grinned
, showing off slightly yellow, sharp, crooked teeth. “No rules. Use the weapons you have. To the death.”

  Now here’s the thing. A young woman might have thought she’d be all flashy and show off moves, impress the guy who lit her panties on fire with his touch. I just wanted to get this done as quickly and efficiently as possible. I had a list about ten miles long and not enough hours in the day to get it done.

  I adjusted the bag on my hip. A finger tapped on my back, hard and bony.

  I turned and slid the bag off and put it over Robert’s head, a move which produced a series of gasps. Of course, for most of them, it would look like the bag had just disappeared. “Robert, you keep this safe until the fight is over.”

  “Friend,” he muttered and tapped his finger against my chest, over my heart. “Use.”

  Use my heart? I gave him a nod. “I’ll do my best.”

  Robert tucked his hand into the hip bag and pulled out something, lifted my hand and pressed that something into my palm. I curled my fingers over the cool metal coin. “Use,” he said softly.

  I tucked it into my back pocket. What the hell was a coin going to do, and why was it in my bag in the first place? He must have grabbed it before he pushed me out of the window of the Sorrel-Weed house.

  I did a slow turn to look over the sea of goblins in the stands, but it was Davin who drew my eyes. The Silver Lady was still floating in and around him, drawing energy off his stupid ass if the dark circles under his eyes were any indication.

  The hotel . . . the Silver Lady had said there was a vampire in the Marshall House. The family tree had a spell to bring a vampire plague back, but what did the coin have to do with it?

  Crash moved a little off from me, giving us both distance and breaking my line of thoughts as I worked furiously to put the puzzle pieces together. “When this over, we’ll need to talk,” he said in a low voice.

  Oh, I did not like the sound of that. “Yeah? You kicking me out of the house? Breaking things off with me?”

  I said it all flippant like because . . . well, it was the worst thing I could think of on top of how this day was already going. Only the look on his face said maybe I wasn’t far off. Damn it.

  Son of a bitch. Maybe I really was going from two hotties to nothing in one day. Hell, in a few short hours.

  I faced Derek, the goblin king. He grinned at me. “I will face you, little mutt.”

  “No,” Crash growled, and then Davin stepped up across from him.

  There was no sound of a gong to start things. One second the four of us stood across from each other, the next Davin and Crash were locked up with all sorts of magic flowing around them.

  I wrenched my eyes away from the show they were putting on, from the slurs Davin threw at Crash.

  The goblin king tipped his head to one side. “I’m going to crush you.”

  “Says the guy who’s the size of a bug.” I flipped my knives around so the blades pressed flat against my forearms. The adrenaline roaring through me smothered some of my fear, reminding me that, whatever Alan thought, I was trained to fight. To keep Savannah and my friends safe.

  I sunk into that feeling and let out a slow breath as Derek and I began to circle each other. His teeth glittered at me. “I have killed many of your kind. I helped wipe them out.”

  “Women? You killed many women? I mean, I’ve heard that being turned down a lot can make a man vicious.” I kept my stance balanced as we moved.

  He shot forward, his claws outstretched and his teeth bared like a wild animal. I sidestepped, stuck a foot out and sent him tumbling end over end. He hit the ground hard, rolling through the dirt.

  The crowd laughed.

  I didn’t join them. From the other side of me, I heard a grunt from Crash. I wanted to make sure he was okay, and hell, I needed to see if Davin was sneaking up on me. A quick glance showed me that they’d moved farther from me and Derek, and there was no obvious strong man in the competition between them.

  “You bitch,” Derek growled. “You tried to humiliate me on purpose in front of my people.”

  I shook my head. “Actually, you ran at me. I protected myself, and you took a dive in the dirt. That’s really on you.”

  He snarled and his face twisted, skin bubbling and pulsing. The crowd oohed, but Bridgette’s voice that cut through the rest. “He shifting into a dark goblin! Run!”

  “RUN? Where?” I lifted my hands and indicated the very closed-off arena we were in.

  Bridgette had pushed her way to the front tier of the crowd. “You have to kill him, kill him now!”

  “HOW?” I yelled back.

  “Cut off his balls!” she screeched.

  I turned to see the goblin king had sprung up like a weed after a rainstorm. He’d gone from being four feet tall to having a massive twelve-foot frame bulging with muscle. He was naked as the day was long, and his . . . well, his bits were hanging low.

  “ARE YOU SERIOUS?”

  “Yes, it’s the only soft spot on his hide now,” she yelled, and the crowd around her yanked her off the front line. The only soft spot? Of course it was.

  Jaysus lawd in heaven, this was going to be gross. The now monstrous goblin king took a step toward me and the reverberation rolled through the ground and into the soles of my feet. Fear kissed the back of my neck, reminding me that despite all the things I’d been through, all the shit I’d had to deal with, I wanted to live.

  Which meant I had to be smart about this. I had to outsmart this big ducking goblin.

  25

  Outsmarting a goblin? All I had to do was piss him off enough that he would make a mistake and give me an opening. That being said, I was still standing with him in a fighting ring, and hoping I could take him down before I got killed or maimed.

  No problem, irritating men was a gift of mine.

  “I talked to your girlfriend,” I said, loud enough that the crowd could hear me. “She said you couldn’t get it up again last night.” I made a motion to his man bits, and he roared as the crowd howled with laughter.

  So much for any sort of solidarity amongst thieves. Or goblins, as was the case. Big dumb Derek let out a roar that rattled my ears and literally sent me shuffling back a few steps.

  Crash yelled something at me, but I couldn’t hear him through the ringing in my ears.

  “Did you tell your wife yet that you have a girlfriend?” I asked.

  A screech from the stands said not so much.

  I grimaced, still moving, keeping my distance from the giant lug, waiting for my moment. Robert had said to use my heart, but I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by that. Maybe my magic? But I still didn’t fully understand what I was capable of—or how it could be of use in this particular situation.

  The goblin king held out his hand, and a pool of deep red shadows curled up from his palm, wove through his fingers, and began a slow crawl toward me.

  “HURRY! He’s using his magic!” Bridgette screeched.

  Her yell pushed me forward and I ran toward the goblin king. As I got within his reach, he swung the hand covered in red shadows toward my head. I bobbed downward, came up on the other side as his hand passed over my head.

  I snapped up a knife, thinking—or maybe just hoping—I could cut off his hand.

  The knife that had just decimated two deadbolts dug into his flesh and bone . . . and stuck. He wrenched away from me, taking one knife with him.

  “Oh dear,” I whispered. Looked like Bridgette had been right.

  He whipped around and grabbed me with both hands around the waist, circling me with his giant mitts. Lifting me, he snarled, “I’m going to squeeze the shit out of you.”

  The constriction around my middle ramped up as he leaned into his hold on me, and yeah, I could tell he meant what he’d said. And it was obvious he could follow through too. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t so much as gasp around the pressure on my middle.

  It would be a matter of a minute, maybe less, before I blacked out. I twisted in his hands
, one knife still tucked against my forearm. One knife, one shot at his twig and berries. I pulled my arms above my head as if I were squirming to get out.

  A boom rippled the air behind us, almost like thunder had been unleashed in the small space, and the crowd oohed at whatever they were seeing.

  Even the goblin king’s stupid yellow eyes slid away from me. I snapped my hand forward, throwing the only weapon I had left, praying that it hit its mark. Or marks. I closed my eyes, knowing that I had no time left.

  Crash wasn’t going to save me. My friends didn’t know I was in trouble, and I had nothing left to defend myself with or fight.

  The sudden release of the hands on me sent me tumbling to the ground. I hit the dusty packed dirt with a puff of air and had to roll quickly to avoid the flailing feet of the giant goblin. His legs shook and his whole body seized as blood sprayed from between his legs.

  I ran to his arm, where my other knife was still embedded, planted a foot on his skin, and yanked my blade free. The goblin king stared up at me. “Damn . . . un-terrr.” The last word slurred as the light went out of his eyes.

  Just like that, gone, his body shrinking as the life left him.

  There was no time to find my other blade. I turned as Davin strode toward me.

  Crash was on the ground behind him, stunned by the looks of it, holding his head in his hands. “Give me the spell book,” Davin said, “and you can go free.”

  “I’m not giving you anything,” I wheezed around what I was pretty sure was a cracked rib or two. Maybe even some breaks.

  “Well, then, how about give it to me, or I will kill him?” Davin held up his hand and a spell shot out of him, wrapping around Crash and holding him tightly. “My master will not like that he is dead, but we can live with it. We can survive without his help.”

  I held onto my one knife, keeping it tucked against my forearm. The Silver Lady was still behind him, and I felt the same connection to her that I’d felt before—a link to the power that welled inside of her, just under the surface.