Traveler

by Melanie Jackson

  It was Io’s turn to use bad troll. She put real feeling into it, hoping it would keep tears from pooling in her eyes. Macho goblin-fighters did not cry.

  “Sorry, honey.” It didn’t change anything, but Jack seemed to regret the pain he was causing her, to regret that she would have to destroy the crops on her own. And if she cried he might drink her tears, swallow her sorrow. She couldn’t do that to him. He was already carrying a terrible burden.

  Io stopped swearing. It took a little longer to make her body halt its trembling and for her heart to calm, but she stayed at it until the last of the symptoms left her.

  “I’m all right now,” she said. It was a half-lie, but she knew she would have to make it the truth before they went back underground that night. This was their last chance to scout the hive and find fruit fields that needed destroying. It was also their last chance to find Horroban’s bolt-hole.

  He would be somewhere in the city, Io was certain. All Hallows’ Eve was a powerful time magically, and the goblin would want to be close to the source of his dark power.

  “So, give me my gift and show me how to make a flamethrower.” Io rose up on her toes and deliberately pressed her mouth against Jack’s.

  He hesitated for a moment and then began transferring the spell. His hands found her waist and held her up while the powerfully charged spell spilled into her, making her muscles tick and spasm.

  “Goddess!”

  Perhaps it was just her mood, but it seemed to Io that besides the spell she had also being filled with cold purpose and a sort of grim determination. The feelings were foreign and yet familiar. Jack was doing his best to protect her by giving her some of his relentless fortitude.

  She didn’t know what she could give him in return.

  “Hope,” he whispered as the last of the spell left him. He stood looking into her eyes, which she knew were blazing with cold blue fire. “You’ve already given me it. Hope.”

  “Let’s pray it was a fair trade.”

  “It was.” Jack’s lips crooked. “I never do anything to my own disadvantage.”

  “Really? I do. All the time,” she answered, thinking about how much emotion she had invested in Jack and how it might all be taken away.

  “You’ll learn.”

  Io nodded sadly. She was very afraid that he was right.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Twilight moved in early, helped by a new front of storm clouds coming down from the north. There were great banks of them whose deeper shadows crept silently over the city, blotting out the lesser shade of buildings, and making the world go flat metallic green before surrendering completely to the night. The eve before Halloween had arrived in a mood of sullen brooding, a gathering wrath in the sky, and it sat, holding its rain as though saving up its malevolent energy for the coming All Hallows’ Eve.

  Or perhaps Glashtin was still sulking over his guests’ unexpected medical bills, and that kept the weather cold and glowering. Io preferred to believe it was this lesser magic at work than that Nature herself was turning on them.

  As soon as the sun set, she and Jack slipped on their shades and moved out into the colorless world. The tide of events was bearing them along now, accompanied by the crunch of the dreary rubble beneath their feet, bones of old mansions shifting slyly beneath them. The sound put the need to hurry in their soles and—when they let it—worry in their hearts.

  The Labyrinth seemed just as it always had, but Jack and Io chose a new place of ingress and entered with a fresh caution anyway, just in case their previous visits had been discovered and some new traps were laid.

  “What do you think of Death Valley?” Jack asked as they started down the echoing corridor.

  “I don’t. This is quite close enough to a valley of death for me. It’s hotter than Hell down here.”

  “But out west they say it’s a dry heat.”

  “Yeah, right. And it never rains in California, either.” Io knew she sounded bitchy, but bickering kept her mind occupied and her hands steady.

  In another situation, she would have preferred to think about Jack, because thoughts of him were enough to overwhelm anything, even fear of goblins. But the memory of what they had shared, and any speculation of what might come later, was dangerously distracting. What was it Donne had said? “Love all alike, no season knows, nor clime.” That seemed about right. If she started thinking deeply about Jack, she could walk smack into a pack of goblins before even noticing they were there.

  “Damn it! There is green goop everywhere. It’s going to ruin my shoes.”

  “Fresh plaster job,” Jack said. “Now, I wonder why.”

  “To impress visiting goblin dignitaries,” Io guessed randomly.

  “Don’t joke, honey. Horroban isn’t the only ambitious goblin in the world. No reason they shouldn’t finally get smart and unionize. H.U.G.’s feared that for years.”

  “Maybe so, but he’s the only one I’m prepared to worry about tonight. I can’t cope with the idea of a worldwide goblin organization.”

  “Good point. We’ll worry about the goblin mafia later. I am just wondering if this is the route they will be taking the fruit. It leads right to Neveling Lutin’s factory.”

  Io looked around. “Well, skids would slip right along, if they move the fruit on pallets.”

  “The cupped bottom and irregular walls of this tunnel would screw up the average truck, that’s for sure,” Jack pointed out.

  “Tires would slip too. Besides, I haven’t seen vehicles down here—excepting our favorite goblin’s limo.”

  Jack grunted and fell silent.

  There was no music in the grave and none in the underground. There was no silence either, just the infernal humming of the water pumps that set Io’s teeth on edge, making her think again of Hell. It grew louder as she and Jack neared the place that Zayn said was Horroban’s subterranean hidey-hole.

  Jack, who was on point, held up his hand and waved her to a quick halt. Before she could ask what was wrong, he pulled on the invisibility spell and then eased around the corner of the tunnel. Io went as far as the curved bend and then stopped, listening.

  At first her ears could discern nothing over the motorized hum of the pumps, but eventually her ears distinguished the separate sound of low moaning grumbles. It was an unattractive noise, similar to what a wolverine might make when sitting down to devour a particularly tough bit of carcass.

  Jack reappeared beside her and raised his brow, asking if she wanted to use the spell to take a look.

  Io nodded and bent her head back. She tried to tell herself that she was allowing this spell-transferring kiss solely in the interest of thorough investigation, but knew she was lying.

  Once cloaked with invisibility, Io pulled herself away from Jack and forced herself to peer around the corner and see what manner of creatures were making this awful growling noise.

  The first thing she had to do was look down about two feet lower than expected. There were probably two dozen of the creatures moving through the field, snuffling and grunting.

  They had to be goblins of some sort, perhaps children, or else the worker class she and Jack had speculated about earlier. Whatever they were, they were small even for goblinkind, and had withered third and fourth limbs that were little more than bony claws. Their faces were also particularly unlovely and they had no defining sexual traits that Io could see. And she could see a lot because they crawled about naked on hands and knees, licking the fruit in the fields with long black tongues that left a gloss of saliva behind. Io tried to think what they could be doing, but the only explanation that occurred to her was that they were on some sort of polishing detail.

  Saliva seals in freshness.

  They were revolting and pathetic, and also damnably in the way since she and Jack wanted to get to Horroban’s place and the only route they knew of was through this field. They didn’t have any choice about where and how they went. They had to know their enemy’s defenses and weaknesses—if any ex
isted—and this was the only sure path. It was also hers and Jack’s only opportunity. This was a case of dog eat dog. Their job, on this last night of reconnaissance, was to see that they came up with a plan that guaranteed that the right dog got eaten.

  Io eased back around the tunnel’s curve and rejoined Jack. Without saying a word, she wrapped her arms about his neck and placed her lips against his. His hands lifted her up as they began to share the spell.

  Io curled her legs about his waist as Jack began making his way through the goblin fruit field, careful to avoid the grunting workers. She closed her eyes on the sight and told herself that this was a necessary action and she wasn’t enjoying the moment at all—and knew that she was lying about that too.

  Liar, liar, pants on fire. Only it wasn’t the lying that was making her burn through the cotton of her jeans. It was Jack. Io opened her eyes. Her body’s attempts at recalling past passion had to be short-circuited. Her mind’s eye had to stamp it down, too, before it started making stuff up. She hadn’t ever suspected it, but her imagination had an erotic streak that was miles wide and very active when given the right stimulation.

  Instead, she concentrated on outside irritants—the infernal noise and the hot, damp air that brushed over her skin like rough wet wool. And the ugly, drooling monsters. The combined unpleasantness was almost enough to keep her from grinding herself against Jack’s body. Almost. She compromised with only a small wiggle and a little deep breathing.

  Why didn’t he feel invisible? They might be moving like specters through the hive, but Jack was solid beneath the invisibility cast by the spell, and Io could feel his body change as he too was affected by magic, proximity, or unstifled imagination. He had more discipline, though. He didn’t wiggle.

  They made it safely through the field and into another tunnel before Io had to break their embrace and suck in air at a greater rate than she could manage through her nose. At that, she didn’t know whether to breathe or moan. Though they were hidden from the workers’ view, Jack was slow to break their clinch, letting her slide down his body in unhurried inches before pulling away his spell and freeing her.

  “I am so glad that you are female. As much as I like Cisco, I wouldn’t be carrying his ass through a goblin field doing a liplock,” Jack said, surprising one short gasp of laughter from Io.

  “I also wish that I liked baseball,” he continued. “It’s the traditional thing to think about in these moments when control is a potential problem.” His voice was low and rough.

  “Or England,” Io suggested, her own voice far from its normal tone. “That’s supposed to work too.”

  “This is ridiculous. We need to be thinking about our goblin friend.” Io knew that this wasn’t a sudden expression of new affection. Jack would be careful not to mention Horroban’s name down deep in the Labyrinth when magic might carry it to the goblin war chief’s anxious ears.

  “I have been,” Io answered as they again started a slow creep down the sticky tunnels. She was careful to keep her arms away from the walls. Seeing the goblins licking the blood fruit to a high sheen had put her off touching anything down there. Even thinking about the possibilities of what they used for plaster had the effect of killing her burgeoning desire for Jack—which was probably just as well.

  “Our friend is bold and sneaky—but in a way a childish braggart. We’ve been making him into an exotic boggle,” Io went on at a whisper. “He isn’t really the inscrutable Fu Man Chu.”

  Jack looked back and raised an eyebrow. “Go on. I’m listening.”

  “There are many subtle ways to gain power, but our friend has chosen the route with the highest possible degree of visibility,” Io explained. “He wants to be noticed. He wants people to know him, so they will feel especially shocked and betrayed when he tells them what he’s done. He’s flipping us non-goblinkind the bird before he kills us because he’s pissed off about something.”

  “And you think he will tell everyone?”

  “Oh, I think so. It fits the profile—at least the profile of a human thrill killer.” Io frowned. “Do you think there are goblin psychopaths?”

  “I think the more pertinent question for us would be, are there any goblins who aren’t?”

  “You’re right.” Io shook her head as though still unable to believe the evidence before their eyes. “Every goblin in this city has to know what is going on under here. It’s the attempted genocide of the human race. And they are content to let it happen. I doubt there’s a goblin Greenpeace Let’s Save The Humans Organization.”

  “No. Not with hive mentality. They don’t feel they owe humans anything. We aren’t their kind.”

  “But we have helped them,” Io objected. “The United States gave them a home when threequarters of the world wouldn’t have them. We also forced the world into amending the Geneva conventions to include goblins and other feys under the articles of fair treatment for prisoners.”

  “ ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses’…But they don’t see it that way. You know they don’t.”

  “I know. Only, there was one who tried to help us.”

  “Xanthe’s mole?” Jack asked.

  “Yes. He died trying to help. That should count for something.”

  “Maybe he was trying to do a good deed,” Jack allowed. “He may also have been in it for the money. Goblins love gold. Xanthe could have hired him to get word of her sister, and Horroban found out about the double-cross and snuffed him.”

  Io sighed. “We’ll probably never know.”

  “Probably not. And that is just as well. This isn’t the time to start humanizing our enemies. Whatever they are, however moral they are within their own belief systems, the fact remains that they are planning to bring about the end of humankind and our way of civilization—at least, civilization as we have always known it. We are at war. Compassion and mercy have no place until the battle is won.”

  Io thought of her mother and then of all the other blank-faced, blank-minded addicts she had known, the mindless ones who turned their backs on all their principles and everyone they ever loved because they prized their drug more. Zombies weren’t half so dead or dangerous. Yes, this was war.

  “Don’t worry. Conviction won’t fail me.” Her voice was firm. “We’ll put an end to this madness tomorrow night,” she promised.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Io stood inside her small tree house and watched it brighten as the dawn hit the skin of a nearby grove of white birches and backwashed through her living room window. A few of the last shivering leaves sent tiny sparks of reflected gold fire dancing over the floors and walls. It was pretty but cold, flames without warmth, a chimera.

  She hadn’t been gone from here but for a few days—a small number; hardly any, really of those “rags” that Donne said time clothed itself in—but already the place felt abandoned.

  She was tired. Their night in Goblin Town had been long and at times terrifying. She was now convinced that it was more exhausting sneaking about than simply engaging in stand-up battle. It was almost a relief to know that the showdown was finally here.

  Jack had wanted her to rest before leaving the city, but Io had a lot to do before she could leave her home, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep until this job was done.

  Shaking herself out of her growing melancholic reverie, Io went first to the canisters of bird food and set about refilling her feeders. The remainder of the seeds and nuts she poured on the ground below, a small consolation prize for the gathering avians and squirrels who would have to find a new patroness, or else return to hunting grain and on their own.

  “Sorry, guys. This is the last of it. ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow…’ Tomorrow ye may not.”

  Packing came next. Her books, the irreplaceable ones her mother and grandmother had written out by hand, went into a duffle with her few mementos. Her favorite clothes were piled into a suitcase. Seeing how little she had accumulated in her thirty years made Io reali
ze how terribly, achingly lonely her life had been.

  She looked around a little after ten A.M. and said a soft goodbye to her nest. It was doubtful that she would ever come back. Her home was just one more casualty of the goblin wars. It would seem impossibly horrible to be losing it, but the thought of Jack—as unlikely a source of compassion as he was—still offered her some compensation. Somehow, he alone made the loss bearable.

  Io tossed her bags down onto the spongy grass below and then clambered down her tree’s trunk.

  Her next stop would be the bank. The people there wouldn’t be happy to see her withdrawing her savings, but this also had to be done. No institution was safe from the goblins. If Io tried using an ATM or credit cards while she and Jack were on the run, the goblins might know of it and start following her. There was probably some way to drag a financial red herring across their path—Jack would know—so she wouldn’t empty the account completely, but she needed most of her money in hand in order to feel safe.

  She picked up her bags and started hiking toward the road through the crunchy leaves that littered the woods’ floor. She tried not to remember that tonight she was supposed to take her flamethrower down into the hive and watch the goblin fields go boom. She tried even harder not to think about Jack taking on Horroban.

  Jack looked up. Io’s movements were brittle and birdlike as she laid her suitcase and duffle on the table and slipped off her concealing glasses. She had picked up a new spell, but hadn’t done anything to it. It was just a tiny ember waiting patiently to be breathed to life. It was too faint for Jack to even guess at what it was.

  “I had to go through twice. Once over the wall with my suitcase, then I went through at the gate to get my spell. I’m glad I didn’t pack all my books,” she said lightly, finally looking at him. Her eyes were almost lusterless enough to pass for human. “They seem to be making walls higher these days, and I am no good without my beauty sleep.”

  Jack could tell from Io’s face that she was troubled by more than mere physical exhaustion. Saying farewell to her life had exacted a hard price. He’d known that it would, and it angered him that he hadn’t been able to do this task for her. But that was the trouble with farewells. They had to be done in person.