The Deavys

by Alan Dean Foster

  Sandwiches were indeed offered, and there was a tall cooler cabinet from which one could purchase sodas and other drinks. There were only three tables near the back of the store, suggesting that the majority of sandwiches on offer were made up for takeout by busy New Yorkers to eat on the run or back at the office. As it was still comparatively early for nearby businesses to break for lunch, all of the tables were vacant.

  “Yob, whats can I do for you?” As the goblin—surprisingly clean—behind the counter leaned forward to peer over the case of cold cuts, his slitted eyes traveling from one Deavy to another. “Three of you want to eats the fourth? I can fix.” The goblin gaze fell still lower. “Or maybe you wants me divvy up that cat?” Pithfwid bristled, but held his tongue.

  “No thanks, we’re all eating together,” Simwan responded to the butcher’s assistant with admirable matter-of-factness, as if he dealt every day with suggestions for the dissection and consumption of the family pet. Not to mention his sisters. He smiled. “Early lunch.” He made an effort to sound as sophisticated as any long-time New Yorker. “Is your glop eel fresh?”

  The goblin looked offended. “All our seafoods is fresh. Glop eel caught in Maelstrom and flown in daily from North Sea.”

  “Then I’d like a glop eel salad sandwich on a Kaiser roll, please. With mayo, hold the fickle.” He glanced back at his sisters. Ravenous as they were, they needed no encouragement to add their own orders.

  “I’ll have sliced roast jackalope on whole wheat toast,” Rose put in hungrily.

  “Club sandwich with smoked roc instead of turkey,” Amber declared, making no attempt to hide her eagerness.

  “Bagel with cream cheese, onion, lox, and caperers.” N/Ice had the most metropolitan taste of any member of the coubet.

  As soon as he finished writing up the order, which appeared as small blood-red lettering floating in the air, the goblin expanded his cheeks like a bullfrog and blew the letters toward a taller, skinnier, slightly yellower version of himself working the back of the shop. That loathsome (but hygienic) entity sucked the drifting words into his eyes, nodded its acknowledgment of the order, and began assembling the requested sandwiches. Having four arms to work with instead of the usual two made the work go quickly.

  There being no table service in the butcher shop, they selected their own drinks from the cooler and seated themselves at the table nearest the rear of the establishment. As befitted their individual tastes, Rose chose Coke, Amber opted for Pepsi, N/Ice picked Africola, and Simwan popped a can of Skull-Splitter Kola from the Firth O’ Forever bottling plant that was located in a part of Scotland that is not to be found on most maps of the British Isles. As befitted a brewery that also bottled an idiosyncratic variant of Irn-Bru, the national soda of Scotland, the Firth O’ Forever’s kola had a distinctive metallic aftertaste.

  Somewhat surprisingly, the goblin who had taken their order brought it out to them himself as soon as it was ready, balancing all four plates on a single tray. As the girls dug in and Amber picked off choice bits of roc to feed the finicky Pithfwid, the goblin lingered. “You foods okay?”

  Dipping a French fry into the pool of ketchup she had squeezed out onto her plate, Rose shoved it into her mouth. This took a certain amount of effort since the French fry was exhibiting a disturbing tendency to try and push back.

  “Everything’s delicious,” she proclaimed honestly. Next to her, N/Ice smiled but did not reply, as she was busy trying to keep the caperers on her bagel from boogieing off her plate.

  By way of reply, Simwan chomped down on a mouthful of sliced glop eel salad. It was, he had to confess, well made, though a little heavy on the dressing for his taste.

  “Enjoy you foods.” Satisfied with their responses, the goblin turned and headed back to his station behind the counter.

  From their seats near the back of the shop, the Deavys were able to watch the comings and goings and occasional vanishings of a wide assortment of customers. Clearly, Tybolt’s was every bit as popular with the denizens of this singular part of New York as the goblin had claimed. Business was so good and so steady that he and his sisters were taken by surprise when a very short, stocky goblin of especially bilious hue waved his apron like a semaphore to darken the front windows. It then moved to the front door and threw a pair of security bolts. Recalling the well-meaning cautionary words of the Witch Trish (“Above all else make certain you stay safe on the right side of the counter”), Simwan hastily finished the last of his sandwich while quietly urging his sisters to do the same.

  Licking salad dressing from his fingers, he rose and walked back to the counter, where he fumbled with his wallet. “Check, please.”

  Nodding, the goblin wrote out a ticket in the air, puffed out his cheeks, and blew it in the customer’s direction. Simwan read the last figure and dodged to his left as the list tried to enter his eyes. It drifted past him to dissolve in the air in the middle of the shop. Handing over payment, he smiled, nodded his thanks for the food and the service, and turned to go.

  “Whats, no tip?” the goblin hissed. Pale red eyes glared across the counter from beneath protruding bony ridges.

  “Oh, sorry.” Pausing, Simwan reached for his wallet again.

  “Not moneys,” the goblin insisted. It was grinning in a way Simwan didn’t like. Glancing uneasily to right and left, he saw that the rest of the store staff had set their work aside to gather together in twos and threes. Some of them still clutched their heavy butcher knives. They were whispering and gesturing in his direction.

  “If you don’t want money, then how can I tip you?” As he posed the question, Simwan was backing slowly away from the counter.

  “Don’t want a handful of coins,” the goblin told him. “Maybe just a hand. Or two.” He gestured behind the increasingly wary young man. “Eyes of young girl also very nice. Make good base for jellied consommé.” And with that he leaped right over the high glassed-in counter, brandishing a huge, bloodstained blade in one hand.

  Anticipating what was coming, Simwan was ready for him. Stepping back into a karate stance, he uttered a defiant “Hee-yah!” and raised his hands, edge on. As the rest of the store crew rushed the coubet, the goblin who had served them let out a high-pitched shriek and plunged the knife it held straight toward Simwan’s heart.

  Simwan blocked the blow exactly as he had been taught in Mr. Othmul’s class, bringing his left hand up in an ascending chopping motion. There was a sick, slick, shearing sound as the goblin’s hand was sliced off cleanly at the wrist. Green blood spurted. Following up on his surprise and advantage, Simwan darted forward, stiffening his fingers and jabbing. His fingertips went right through the goblin’s neck. When he drew back his hand in a single sharp, pulling motion, blood the color of pea soup gushed everywhere. Clutching at its throat, the choking, dying goblin collapsed onto the sawdust-covered floor. Simwan eyed it for a moment to make sure it no longer posed any threat, then raced to the aid of his sisters.

  All those long hours spent repeating and rehearsing moves in Mr. Othmul’s special classes had certainly paid off. Not for nothing had he studied how to combine the traditional moves of Tang Soo Do with everything he had learned while helping his mother cut up vegetables for dozens of Deavy dinners.

  The girls didn’t need his help. As soon as the attack came in their direction, they had risen from their seats and formed a coubet triangle. Standing back to back, facing three directions simultaneously, they cast at the oncoming goblins such a farrago of spells, incantations, charms, summonses, and forthright preteen angst that the poor creatures never knew what hit them.

  One found itself turned into a green carp. It fell to the floor where it lay flopping helplessly, fighting for oxygen. Two others were lifted into the air. Slammed together, they became fused at the head. This made it difficult for them to stand, much less attack anything. Seeing what was happening to its cohorts, a fourth goblin tried to flee
by leaping back behind the counter. A flurry of force from N/Ice left it diced and sliced and neatly laid out on a platter inside the refrigerated case between slabs of marbled beef and well-trimmed buffalo.

  Breathing hard, Simwan emerged from his defensive pose and looked around the shop. All was quiet, the shade-darkened space around them devoid of motion, except that the last of the surviving caperers took the opportunity to flee N/Ice’s unwatched plate.

  “Trish was right to warn us.” Lowering her hands, which tingled from the aftereffects of casting strong magic, Rose walked back to their table, picked up her soda, and drained the last dregs from the bottle. “I hate fighting goblins. They’re so predictable.”

  “WOT’S ALL THIS, NOW?” bellowed a voice from the back of the shop.

  Slamming both double doors out of its way so forcefully that one hung broken and loose from its upper hinge, a gigantic figure appeared from the back room. Its yellow-brown flesh was blotchy and scarred from a thousand minor nicks and cuts. The broad flat face flaunted a wart-strewn nose pierced by a single massive metal ring. Hugely protruding ears resembled dead stingrays that had been stapled to the sides of the head. Wild bulging eyes looked down on the startled Deavy brood. A butcher knife the size of a headsman’s ax dangled from one massive fist while the tentlike meat cutter’s apron the apparition wore was flocked with half a dozen different kinds and colors of blood.

  Straightaway appraising the carnage around him, the lumbering ogre threw out a massive, hairy arm and caught Amber, who was still near the freezers, around her neck. Effortlessly drawing her back to him, it held her tightly against his chest as yellow eyes glared out at the rest of the stunned, hard-breathing children from beneath protruding brows that were like ledges formed of granite.

  Simwan stared in shock. Any karate moves, even those enhanced by practice in his mom’s kitchen, were unlikely to have much effect on the hulking figure that had lurched into the front room of the butcher shop. Rose and N/Ice likewise held back, uncertain how to respond. Any sudden moves on their part and the infuriated monster might snap their sister’s neck like a dry twig. With her arms pinned to her sides, the frightened Amber couldn’t raise them to work any spells herself.

  “Look wot you’ve done to my staff!” the giant howled in fury and disbelief as it took in the carnage that littered the floor. “DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND GOOD HELP IN THIS CITY?”

  Holding the enormous meat-cutting knife high in one hand like the blade of doom itself and clutching the terrified Amber tightly to him with the other, Tybolt the Butcher took the first of several earth-shaking steps directly toward the staring, wide-eyed Deavys.

  XIII

  Frightened as they were both for themselves and their sister, Rose and N/Ice weren’t about to let any of them be sliced up and added to the butcher shop’s selection of prime cuts. Raising their hands, they prepared to fling what they could at the stout, threatening giant while simultaneously hoping to free their trapped sibling. Tybolt the Butcher was an ogre. Big, menacingly big, he was also no fool. Observing their preparations, he stopped where he was and took stock. “OI, SO THAT’S ’OW IT IS, IS IT? WICKED LITTLE MAGICIANS, BE THEE? NO WONDER YOU MANAGED TO COST ME SO MANY GOOD EMPLOYEES.” Grinning evilly and flashing snaggled, broken teeth, he swiftly brought the edge of the enormous chopping knife right up to Amber’s neck. Instantly, she stopped struggling. One stiff shove of that massive hunk of razor-sharp steel, an agonized Simwan realized, and Amber’s head would go rolling across the floor. He knew incantations for stopping bleeding, and for repairing injured limbs, but he didn’t know any spells strong enough to reattach the head of a loved one. From the alarmed looks on the faces of Rose and N/Ice, they didn’t either. “SUBMIT!” Tybolt the Butcher bellowed, pressing the edge of the knife into Amber’s neck so that it just barely dimpled her smooth skin. “SUBMIT TO ME NOW, OR I’LL MAKE THIS GIRL’S SKULL INTO A PLAY-PRETTY TO DANGLE FROM ME EAR!”

  Simwan looked around frantically, urgently, as if help might materialize simply from the wishing for it. Rose was no less panicked, and N/Ice was crying tears that vanished into elsewhere before they could hit the floor. They couldn’t give their binding submission. To do so would be to look forward to an unrewarding future as cold cuts in someone else’s freezer. But not to do so would mean seeing their sister decapitated right in front of them. As he struggled desperately with how to respond, how to reply, Simwan thought he heard something in the silence of the room. It was so subtle and soft as to be nearly inaudible. It barely tickled his ears.

  Was that a meow?

  He was almost afraid to turn around, almost afraid to do much of anything. But at the moment, the ogre’s attention was fixed on Amber’s sisters. Glancing around as furtively as he could manage, Simwan found himself the focus of Pithfwid’s urgent stare. His fur all bottled up and presently the color of pure silver, Pithfwid was standing next to one wall, the claws of his right rear foot pressed up against it and dangerously close to …

  It was something Simwan had seen the cat do before. Whether it would work this time, and have any effect if it did work, he had no way of telling. Not knowing what else to do, he determined to do his part. It couldn’t worsen the situation, and it was certainly more promising than doing nothing. He returned his attention to Tybolt the Butcher and the ogre’s limp, helpless prisoner.

  “If you touch one hair of my sister’s head!” Simwan began warningly. “Just one single hair, I’ll …” His voice trailed off.

  Grinning unpleasantly, the butcher accepted the challenge. Using two fingers of the hand that was holding the slablike knife, he fingered one of Amber’s auburn tresses and tugged it out straight. She winced and let out a little whimper of pain. The ogre’s smile grew wider. At that precise instant, Pithfwid promptly jammed one of the claws on his rear foot into the wall socket it had been concealing, raised the index claw on his left front foot, and stabbed it forward. Simultaneously, the captive Amber reached out in the direction of her pet.

  The interior of the shop shook as a single bolt of channeled lightning traveled from the wall socket, through Pithfwid, out his forward-facing front claw, and into Amber’s extended fingers. High voltage and low expectations coursed through her. Every one of her hairs stood on end, electricity dancing violently from tip to tip. The powerful charge also raced through her captor. He began to vibrate uncontrollably, smoke rising from his ringed nose and Dumbo-like ears. The huge knife blade quivered against Amber’s throat, but did not push inward. Ungrounded by relevant cat magic, he suddenly and slowly toppled forward, like a tree that had just been felled. Amber let out a scream and threw herself sideways. Freed from the ogre’s grasp, she just managed to avoid landing on top of the still lethal blade.

  Running to her, her sisters strained to extricate her from beneath the smoking, weighty, cleanly electrocuted corpse of Tybolt the Butcher.

  “Amber, are you all right?” Rose eyed her sister anxiously, looking her up and down.

  N/Ice was so upset she kept blinking wildly in and out of reality. “Amber, did he hurt you?”

  Climbing to her feet, the object of their concern blinked once, adjusted her clothing, and then felt gingerly of her shock-straightened hair. Her eyes went wide. “Omigod, omigod—somebody give me a hairbrush! In Aphrodite’s name, somebody give me a hairbrush!”

  While the coubet fussed and fretted over Amber’s explosively straightened coiffure, a relieved Simwan wandered back to where Pithfwid sat quietly, licking his still tingling front left foot.

  “That was fast thinking on your part,” he complimented the cat.

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Simwan. Everything happened very fast.” Whiskers twitched expressively. “A shocking development, to be sure.”

  Simwan nodded gravely. “Electrifying, even.”

  “Every dangerous encounter inevitably contains elements of both the negative and positive.” Concluding his
tongue bath, Pithfwid rose onto all fours, arched his back into a stretch, relaxed, and padded past his human. “Though we have concluded our business with the proprietor of this onerous and odiferous establishment, there still remains the small matter of obtaining the information we came in search of.”

  “Oh, right,” remembered Simwan. “How to find the Crub.” He indicated the dead butcher. “But if we can’t get it from him …”

  “Then we will ask it of his surviving employee,” finished Pithfwid as he raised his freshly groomed front paw and pointed, “who is presently cowering behind the far end of the meat counter trying to pretend he does not exist.”

  Simwan looked up sharply. Sure enough, an apron-clad goblin not much bigger than Pithfwid was peeking out from behind counter’s edge. Realizing it had been spotted, it uttered a squeal of dismay and bolted for the front door. Simwan reached into a pocket and withdrew the door key that Uncle Herkimer had given him so that he and his sisters could let themselves back into the apartment if their host had laid himself to rest for the night. Or the day, or a week or so.

  “Seal the wheel!” the most senior Deavy present yelled.

  The goblin leaped and grabbed for the door handle. As he did so, the now glowing key flew from Simwan’s fingers and slammed into the center of the door. A burst of subtle radiance radiated from the chunk of molded brass and spread in a circle to all four corners of the portal. No matter how hard the goblin yanked on the handle with both green hands, no matter how ear-burningly he cursed at it, it would not open for him.

  A moment later it didn’t matter, because he found himself surrounded by three Deavy girls. After what had nearly happened to Amber, none of them were in a mood to be courteous.