by H A Titus
No, he hadn't really been attacking me. Just toying.
Reminding me that he wasn't my friend. I slammed my palms against the counter. What would it take to get him to trust me? Idiot fae.
I grabbed the door handle. As it cracked open, I heard a small sound—a whimper.
Normally, I wouldn’t have paid it any attention. But given all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, my suspicion snapped to attention.
I peered around the door. It was dusk outside the building. I could see David, Larae, and Eliaster standing under the streetlight by the car. David and Eliaster looked like they were arguing, as usual.
The men’s bathroom was at the end of the building, with the women’s bathroom to the right and water fountains between. Most of the building stretched to my right. Among the benches, a half-a-dozen pale-green-skinned beings threatened the preteen boy, an even younger girl, and a woman who looked just old enough to be their mom. Goblins. Four of them held spears, the other two swords in their gnarled hands.
I let my eyes unfocus, but the humans remained human. I shrank back into the bathroom and touched my sword. I remembered the human slaves I'd seen in the Underworld. Eliaster had said the Seelie tried to control it, but that fae who wanted slaves found ways to get them. Were these goblins slavers?
I peeked out the door. David, Eliaster, and Larae were still talking by the Porsche, totally unaware of what was going down inside.
A scream from the little girl jerked my attention back to the goblins' prisoners. They were trying to subdue the mother and the boy.
I had to act now.
I was probably going to get hurt. Eliaster was definitely going to kill me for this.
Chapter 14
I drew my sword and charged out toward the goblins, screaming at the top of my lungs. I felt like I was running through molasses. My feet slowed and my vision tunneled. Two of the goblins turned back and ran toward me, one carrying a spear, one a sword. This close, I could see the blue veins spidering under their papery-thin skin and the lumps and warts freckling their face and hands.
I lunged sideways as the spear jabbed forward. I swung my sword in a two-handed grip like a baseball bat. The shaft snapped under my blow. The goblin slashed at me with his free hand, the yellowed nails sharp and thick, like knives attached to the ends of his fingers. I dodged backward.
I whirled around to the swordbearer in time to use a one-handed block on his swing. The goblin's surprising strength knocked me back a step. The goblin's sword grated down my blade, and he twisted, trying to get his hilt between the sword grip and my hand. I pulled away and clutched the grip tighter.
Something whipped across my shoulders, pitching me forward. The spearman laughed and struck me again, cracking the broken spear against my head.
Stars exploded and my vision faded. I tumbled to my side, bringing my hand to my head. My sword clanged as it struck the floor. I shook my head, blinked hard.
I heard the doors crack open, and Larae ran in, carrying her shotgun. David and Eliaster were right behind her.
A dry, scaly arm wrapped around my throat and jerked me to my feet.
"Let him go!" Larae ordered.
The goblin pressed his sword into my throat.
"I told you to let him go, goblin," Larae snapped, ratcheting her shotgun.
I resisted the urge to squeeze my eyes shut. If by some miracle she was able to get me out of this, I'd need quick reflexes.
The sword edge tightened a bit on my neck. "Sorry, fae. Insurance and a nice addition to our collection. Sounds like a good deal to me."
Larae's finger squeezed the trigger.
The gun exploded. I jumped, felt the sword slice my neck at the same time the goblin's scream pierced my ears. I stumbled forward. Blood trickled down my neck, and I pressed one hand against the cut.
As the smoke from Larae's gun drifted toward the ceiling, the goblins stared as their leader clutched his splintered leg. The rush of the highway filtered in through the open door.
The goblins snarled and charged forward, forgetting about the family huddled in the corner.
"Look out, Josh!" Eliaster shouted.
I rolled. A sword crashed down on the tile beside me. I grabbed my sword. The goblin gave me no time to get on my feet—he slashed and hacked, his sword clanging against the floor. I scrambled backward, crab-crawling, until my back thudded into the wall.
I jerked my sword up, knocking his aside. He snarled. That gave me enough time to get to my feet. Right. Note to self, don't pause to snarl at the enemy.
From the sounds of the battle, the other five goblins were giving the others enough to think about. Fine by me. This goblin was mine.
He limped around, snarling, spitting, his forked tongue licking his fleshy lips. "I may be wounded, but no tan-flesh is gonna skewer me!"
I lunged. He dodged, remarkably fast even with shreds of gray-green flesh hanging from his bony leg. As his sword connected with mine, my foot slipped on a smear of blood.
I staggered, twisted to dodge another jab, and sprawled on the ground. The goblin slammed his hand to my neck and his sword swept over his head.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eliaster lunge toward me, a split second of fear frozen on his face.
I was not getting rescued again! I kicked the goblin's bad leg. His swing faltered, slicing into my arm instead of my throat. With a howl, fire racing up my arm, I swung my sword as hard as I could into the goblin's side.
The blade met little resistance and swept halfway through him. The goblin's eyes bulged and he folded over to the ground. I got up, slipping in the green blood pouring over the floor.
The goblin hacked a wad of blood at me. "Stupid…human…"
His eyes dimmed, as if I’d flicked off a light switch. A trickle of blood snaked from the corner of his mouth.
My stomach heaved. The blood of my first kill was smeared everywhere—the floor, my shoes, my hands, my clothes…
"Josh, you okay?" Eliaster asked.
"I, uh—" I doubled over and threw up.
Eliaster quickly stepped back.
"I think you got your answer." Larae knelt beside me. Her cool hands touched my face, turning my head so she could see the cut on my neck. "Eliaster, David, either of you need attention?"
"Couple cuts on my arms," David said. "Nothing big."
Larae nodded and hurried out to the car.
"I'm good." Eliaster turned to the tiny huddled family.
The mom stared at him, her eyes wide. "You—you're crazy!"
"I'm sorry you had to go through that," Eliaster extended his hand toward her.
She slapped it away and, picking up her daughter, hurried for the door. Her son followed close on her heels. They shoved past Larae in the doorway and ran to their van.
Larae snorted as she set down a small red box on the floor beside me. "When will you learn, Eliaster?"
Eliaster's shoulders stiffened. "Well, you can a hardly blame her when she thinks she just saw some bizarre gang war."
He shoved the door open and walked out, watching the family's van screech out of the parking lot.
After Larae taped bandages to the wounds on my neck and arm, I retreated to the bathroom and tried to scrub the goblin blood off my skin. The stuff had the gummy consistency of dried glue. Eliaster handed in my backpack, and I changed into a new pair of jeans and a new t-shirt, tossing the others into the trash. There was nothing I could do about the stains on my shoes, but I could live with that. I scrubbed the stains on my jacket out and dried it under the bathroom hand-dryer.
When I finally got out of the bathroom, it was ten o'clock. David and Larae were already in the Porsche, and Eliaster leaned against his bike, helmet in his hands.
"Think you can make it a little longer?" he asked.
"I'm good."
A breeze ran through the parking lot, blowing dried grass and leaves along with it. It pushed my hair off my forehead, and I took a deep breath. It felt good. Alive. I'd
survived.
Eliaster cleared his throat. "Good job in there, Josh. Piece of advice?"
"Sure." This time I said it like I meant it. I did mean it.
"You're a good fighter. You're fast. You think well. The only thing holding you back is your pride in your own cleverness." He gave me a quick glance. "Don't let your pride become your downfall."
Pride? The only thing holding me back was my lack of technical knowledge. Pride had nothing to do with it.
#
The energy drink I'd chugged before the fight got me three hours longer, then I made the group stop at a hotel on the outskirts of Chicago. I collapsed on one of the beds in our room and fell asleep in minutes. The last image my brain registered was of Eliaster opening a laptop.
Sometime later, a crashing sound interrupted my sleep. I jerked upright. Larae sat up in the other bed, cursing.
Eliaster shook the smashed laptop free of his boot and sat back down in the desk chair. "Sorry."
"Amadán," Larae muttered, pulling the covers over her head.
I eyed the broken pieces littering the hotel room floor. "That wasn't mine, I hope?"
"Nope. Just another in a long line of technology that I've fried, gotten irritated with, and put out of its misery." Eliaster saw my look and said, "My glamour. Most fae can use technology, even if they're not very good with it, but I tend to randomly fry electronics."
"I don't know why you even bother anymore," Larae said, her voice muffled by the quilt.
David stepped out of the bathroom, toweling his hair. He raised an eyebrow at the broken laptop. "You could've asked me or Josh to do whatever it was that you needed to use technology for."
Larae sat up, huffing in exasperation. "Okay, jabberwockies, if you're not going to let me sleep, we may as well get moving for the day."
We gathered our stuff and tromped downstairs to the lobby. I managed to stuff down two donuts while Eliaster checked out. Within a few minutes, we were pulling onto the interstate.
The suburbs of Chicago zipped past us: houses, stores, and strip malls speeding by in a blur of urbanity. Clouds obscured the sun. As we pulled into downtown Chicago, David and Larae started talking in low voices. I ignored them and watched the skyscrapers slip past. The wind funneled through the towers, sounding like the howls of monsters and the baying of other Underworld denizens that I didn't even want to think about. It sent a shiver up my spine.
Soon we pulled into the lakeshore drive. Skyscrapers rose to the sky on one side, and on the other, the lake stretched out, flat and gray, for miles.
Eliaster led us down the marina and parked at a small lot close by the docks. A concrete wall curved from the end of the parking lot and around the marina docks, creating a small harbor.
"Our vehicles will be fine here, right?" Larae asked, stepping out of the car.
"Yeah, they'll be fine." Eliaster grabbed his backpack. "C'mon, let's move. If someone sees us accessing the Underworld hatch, we're going to be in trouble."
I hitched my backpack over my shoulders and jogged after the fae. "So this is the only entrance to the Underworld in Chicago?"
"No," Larae said. "But fae are protective of their cities. There are the underground entrances, of course, that everyone knows, but only one publicly known entrance above world. Who knows how many privately owned, heavily-guarded entrances exist."
We reached the wall. A rusted metal hatch was set into the wall at head height, with metal rungs leading up to it. Eliaster climbed up, pulled the hatch open, and ducked inside.
Underground again. Wonderful.
I dutifully climbed in, David and Larae following me. Eliaster pulled on the hatch. It creaked shut, enfolding us in darkness.
David snapped on a flashlight. We stood on a lip of concrete on the side of a concrete tunnel. The tunnel sides shone in the light, slick with condensation. Outside, muffled waves shushed against the wall. Eliaster jumped down into the tunnel, and water splashed up around his boots, soaking the hem of his jeans. He reached down and pulled open what looked like a storm drain. Water swirled down the opening, the stream echoing through the drain.
Eliaster lowered himself down onto the rusted metal ladder and disappeared from view.
I glanced at Larae. "Ladies first."
She snorted, but followed Eliaster without a fuss. I stepped down into the tunnel. Slime squished under my feet. "Beautiful ambience the fae have created, don't you think?" I leaned down and set my slick sneakers on the ladder rungs.
"Just wonderful," David said, following me.
I hadn't gotten far before lights flicked on, illuminating the sides of the slime-greened drain. A damp, thick stench hung in the air. The washing of the waves died, replaced by the ping of water droplets. Orange rust from the ladder smeared my fingers. My tetanus shot was up to date, right? Right. Like that was the biggest threat to my health right now.
Eliaster and Larae waited at the bottom of the drain. As soon as David stepped off the ladder, Eliaster flicked the switch set into the wall, and the drain lights turned off, leaving us in darkness again. David turned on the flashlight.
A metal grate blocked the way in front of us. In the darkness beyond the gate, the beam disappeared into black. Something shuffled at the edge of the beam of light. A pale, clawed hand snaked out and coiled around a couple of the gate's bars.
I jumped as a garbled voice came out of the darkness.
"Who wishes to pass beyond this gate and enter the Underworld?"
"Four we are," David said in an obviously ceremonial answer. "My name is David of Springfield."
A deep, wet sucking sound came from the shadowy figure just outside of David's flashlight beam. "Please, enter."
The clawed hand pulled, and the rusty gate screeched open. I cringed at the sound.
David stepped forward.
The hand snaked out, the claws curling to slap at his head.
Eliaster grabbed David's arm, shoving him back, and slashed his sword at the hand. A crimson streak opened across the pale skin. With a hiss, the monster withdrew into the gate.
Eliaster stepped closer. "Eliaster Tyrone, son of Seelie councilman Cormac Tyrone, seeks passage."
"You, I recognize," the monster growled. "You should have spoken up first. Enter—no harm will befall you or your party."
Eliaster confidently led us through the gate, though he kept a tight grip on his drawn sword as we passed a pale, mountainous thing. I didn't turn my head to get a good look at it. It made me feel like I was five again, refusing to acknowledge the stuffed grizzly at the Bass
Pro Shop in Springfield, afraid that if I actually looked at it, it would come to life and jump after me. Stupid idea, especially down here. But I still couldn't make myself look at the monster.
The gate clanged behind us, and David jumped. His face was pale, and a trickle of sweat tracked down the side of his face.
"I was told—" he started in a whisper.
"You should have been cleared," Eliaster said. "A long time ago. But monsters like that can't necessarily be trusted."
"Then why was he guarding the gate?" I asked.
"Most likely he's a prisoner bound to do so," Eliaster took the flashlight from David and continued forward. "I'll be sure to report him if we have time to find the proper authorities."
We continued walking along the tunnel, the flashlight beam dancing along as Eliaster played it back and forth in front of us. The longer we walked in the darkness, the more
I could feel the tension in the group rise. Even I recognized that this was a perfect place for an ambush. The cut on my neck throbbed as I twisted my head back and forth, straining my eyes into the shadows.
Finally, we spotted the familiar orange glow of the light globes ahead. Eliaster sighed and clicked off the flashlight.
"So…plan?" David asked.
"Find a friend of my da's," Eliaster said. "We'll come up with the rest of it once I've talked to him."
Larae glanced at me and pursed her lips. I shrugg
ed.
The tunnel took us about five hundred yards inland before stopping at two large metal gates. Four fae stood outside the gates. Two of them looked like ceremonial guards—brightly-colored uniforms, swords, et cetera—but the real guards stood beside them, armed with machine guns.
"Security's obviously a lot tighter here," I muttered to David as Eliaster announced himself.
He nodded. "Springfield's a relatively small town in the Underworld. A lot of the bigwigs live here in Chicago—several councilmen in both the Seelie and Unseelie courts, as well as some powerful businessmen."
"Sounds like Overworld Chicago," I quipped.
David nodded. "A fair assessment. The important from both worlds tend to gather in the same place, whether they realize it or not."
As we stepped through the gate, I stopped in amazement. Spread out below me was a city I couldn't see the end of. A colorful market of tents, booths, and twisting brown ribbons of streets sat below the hill we stood on. At the far edges of the city sat mansions and houses, disappearing into the distance of the cavern.
David prodded me forward. "C'mon, Josh. It's not that amazing."
But it was. Even after seeing Springfield's market, it was.
The fae let me trail a few steps behind them, soaking up the atmosphere. Springfield's market had smelled dusty, but clean. Chicago's market smelled like a weird, head-turning combination of sewer, flowery perfume, spicy curry, the musty cologne of old books, and the moth-eaten smell of canvas. I kept an eye on Eliaster's black leather jacket as we weaved in and out of the crowd.
We stopped outside a peppermint-striped tent. Two human attendants stood outside, both wearing dark suits that bulged with muscle, looking like bouncers at an Overworld club. Eliaster gave his name to one of them.
The man nodded and stepped inside the tent.
While we waited, I scanned the small market square around us. It was a dead end, with our tent at the very end and two long tents flanking it, before shrinking down to a one-lane street with small booths on either side. In the middle of the square, a group of acrobats were somersaulting and leaping their way into a six-person pyramid. A few people stood around them, watching with keen interest. The tent to our right was empty, with a For Sale sign dangling from the wall.
