Traveler

by Melanie Jackson

  Toc looked up and gasped as Jack appeared in the doorway.

  “The faerie’s here. And he’s got a gun!” Then, events began to sink in. “Hey, look! I think he shot the boss!”

  Neveling Lutin squeaked and hid behind his chair.

  “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I didn’t want to do it! I swear I didn’t.” But even as he pleaded, his hand fumbled into his pocket and he pulled out a canister of what looked like mace, but was probably loaded with something far more addictive.

  “Shut up, you coward! He’s not shot. This is just more Halloween bullshit. Anyway, faeries don’t use guns!” Glashtin insisted, apparently stupefied as well as drunk. His eyes were open, but his brain was not comprehending the visual message that Horroban was dead.

  “This one does.” Jack said quietly as he put two rounds into the cowering Lutin who had pointed the canister at him, and then several into the charging Toc. True to troll-form, the beast had first chosen fists over bullets and was too slow to get his guns lined up before the deed was done.

  Jack didn’t like people who pointed guns at him, and trolls in general since they ate people. Toc’s long shiny teeth and long shiny guns both offended him, and the thought of what they could do to Io filled him with enormous, cold rage. It was enough, when combined with the last of Jack’s own core magic, for him to shove back the foreign sorcery and command his body to act.

  When Toc didn’t fall quickly enough, Jack gave him a roundhouse punch to the head to help him on his way. It would have been better with the steel fist, but his own hand seemed up to the job.

  “Did you really just call me a fairy?” he demanded, turning to the unarmed Glashtin. He aimed his gun at the nightclub owner and pulled the trigger again, but the gun was empty.

  Looking down the silenced barrel of Jack’s pistol, the weather goblin at last woke up to his danger. He jumped to his feet and fled into the dark stairwell before Jack could reload.

  Annoyed at his own slowed reflexes, Jack slapped another clip into his gun and started after the scuttling goblin.

  Behind him, the magic of Goblin Town began its midnight crescendo, not caring that its audience was dead. Jack shut the door on the billowing sorcery. He hated being magically naked, but didn’t try to pull any of the raw power out with him to shape into a quick sight spell. The sorcery in Horroban’s little dungeon room was fierce but unwholesome, and his own magic was too spent. What spells he’d shed in the other hallway were likely corrupted now, too. He’d never show himself to Io with such taint inside him. Bad enough that it had touched his skin and bombed his brain. He’d have to do a cleansing before he touched her again. He couldn’t risk that any lingering bits of such contamination would try to mingle with her own pure magic and structure itself into something even more powerful than it already was.

  Jack stepped cautiously onto the narrow stair, hoping all of Horroban’s horror palace wasn’t as dark as his dungeons. Finding his way back out of this funhouse would be a lot harder without any sorcery to aid him.

  Maybe, if he were lucky, Glashtin would find any booby traps before Jack stumbled into them. And if the goddess smiled on him, the drunken goblin would fall in the moat and get eaten by whatever lived down there, or get caught in Io’s fire.

  “Time to go.” Then, though he knew Io couldn’t hear him anymore, he added, “Go on, little fey, burn it all down.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  I love you, Jack had said, and then disappeared before Io could answer.

  I love you, too, she responded, but knew it was too late. Something had happened to the power flowing between them, and whatever it was, it had shut off her unexpected mental connection to Jack. She was alone again.

  Io stood outside Horroban’s gardens, hesitating. Jack had said to start the burn, but perhaps she should wait.

  Heat and magic were shimmering in the green air, spreading out in concentric rings from Horroban’s windowless mansion. The waves were getting stronger, hotter, and brighter with every passing minute. The atmosphere was growing unstable and beginning to distort the world before her eyes. Breathing was almost impossible. Io pulled off her troll mask, stuffing it into her utility belt. It didn’t help much. There was no fresh air to be had.

  Io knew she shouldn’t wait. Another few minutes and she might pass out from heat and lack of oxygen. It was time. She had to start.

  Terrified at what she was about to do, and feeling like a novice trapeze artist about to make her maiden jump without a safety net, Io looked inside for her enlarging spell. She pulled it out carefully. In spite of the heat, her skin wore a chill and her hands trembled, making her fumble when she reached for her can of hair spray.

  A part of her wondered where Jack had found an aerosol spray can. They had been outlawed years ago because they were bad for the environment. Certainly this particular can was going to do a lot of damage to the ozone.

  She popped off the cap and pointed the container at the part of the garden that was farthest from the mansion’s entrance. Channeling the spell, she began forcing the hair spray into a long arch that stretched over the acres of fruit, raining down a deadly mist.

  Next came the tricky part, igniting Jack’s fire spell without blowing up everything in the cavern. Io concentrated on the stream of fuel, willing it alone to burn. Almost immediately, fire of fiercest blue raced toward the mansion’s walls.

  “Damn!”

  Io hurriedly lowered the can to the plants’ level, adjusting the fire’s trajectory and, finally satisfied with the range, she began searing the crops.

  With her left hand, she reached into her belt and pulled out the canister of salt. She had to use her teeth to open it, but once the spout was clear, she had no problem sending part of the enlarging spell down that arm and into the salt, which she began dumping on the ground.

  She covered the stony soil in fire up to the mansion door, but then fell back, leaving a clear path to the rear tunnel. Maybe Jack had found another way out of the mansion, but if not, she couldn’t close off his only route of flight. There were Zayn and Chloe to consider, too. Some of the plants would probably escape the fire if she didn’t finish the job, but so be it. She would not take the chance of trapping either her comrade or her lover in the inferno of this cavern. Io stopped her flamethrower, first by turning off the fire, letting up on the button, and then pulling back the enlargement spell.

  The air was very bad now, every breath a pain to pull into her lungs. Her nose breather was filtering out poison gases but the heat was awful, and the oxygen was burning up at a terrible rate. The air was also growing thick with greasy smoke from fruit that didn’t shrivel but rather burned like meat on a too-hot grill.

  Still, Io hesitated to leave. She was dizzy and feeling sick, but she lingered, eyes tearing in the heat, waiting for Jack. He was coming. She was sure of it.

  Fire largely obscured her targeted area of sight, but she saw Jack when he emerged from the mansion’s doorway.

  Something was strange about him: he was staggering and even from a distance she could see that there was something wrong with his eyes. They were flat, lifeless.

  He was without magic, she realized with a shock. He had no magical defenses at all. This was the first time she had seen him without some kind of supernatural power and it was frightening because it made him look vulnerable.

  “Jack!” she yelled, enlarging her voice so he would hear her over the roar of the fire. She tried to circle closer to him but was stymied by flames. “I’m over here by the tunnel. What happened?”

  Jack lowered his hands and squinted at her over the sea of blue fire. He shouted back what sounded like, “Lutin and Horroban are dead. But I can’t find Glashtin! Maybe…the moat.”

  “Where are Zayn and Chloe?” Io called back, feeling uncomfortable about yelling their plans across the cavern where the echoes could escape and warn others in the tunnels. Still, she was profoundly thankful that Jack was there to yell at, and didn’t neglect the chance for them
to speak again. “Did they make it out?”

  Jack shouted back something about Lutin’s factory and gargoyles. He said he was going to take the elevator near Neveling’s place because it was more direct.

  Overhead, the ceiling cracked and glowing green plaster began to fall. Io stared at it in dismay. They had to get out before the cavern collapsed on them—but not yet! She had something more she had to tell Jack—something that might give him some power back.

  “Jack, I love you,” Io called, beginning to cough. This wasn’t the way she had planned on sharing this revelation with her lover, but she was not putting it off any longer. They might be wasting escape time, but hopefully to good effect. If nothing else, it should make the magic happy when it returned to Jack again. “Be careful. I swear if you die, I’ll never forgive you.”

  The rising heat distorted his features, and his narrowed eyelids made it hard to see his emotion. But she knew when Jack grinned at her. His white teeth were a beacon.

  Staring at her lover across a blue inferno, Io could only be amazed. He was stripped of magic and caught in a conflagration that could kill him, but still he seemed in control. Io wondered what it would take to crush him.

  Then, horrified that she might have called a jinx on them, she said a quick prayer that she would never find out.

  “…Love…too.” Jack called back. “Careful not…cut…line of retreat.”

  A tower of flame shot straight into the air, stopping only at the cavern’s ceiling. The growing blaze forced Jack back a pace. The thing Jack called the clock tower was burning now. It was impossible to know for sure, but it looked as though there were a sort of giant skull under the plaster that grinned at Io with searing teeth.

  What the hell had Horroban been conjuring down here?

  “I’ll be careful. Get out of here while you still can! I’ll meet you at the factory!” Io shouted as the fire found a crack in the cavern floor and began to bellow its happiness at the discovery of new fuel. Fresh flames reached for the ceiling, their fingers contorting as they clawed at the fracturing stone and started crawling their way to the surface. It looked like a fire demon being born.

  Jack gave her a thumbs-up and then was gone into a tunnel. Barely able to breathe, Io also retreated from the hellscape blaze she’d ignited.

  Jack! Be safe!

  Resolved to finish as quickly as possible and get back to her magically impaired lover, Io ran toward the next hydroponic garden, spending her physical and magical strength recklessly. She began organizing her spells so she could attack again the moment she reached the room. There was much less moisture in the air now; the fire was devouring it along with the oxygen.

  Io erupted into the hydroponic room, igniting her blowtorch and spraying crops as she ran. She flung out salt with her left hand, making wild expenditures of her magic to get the job done as quickly as possible. She didn’t see any of the crawling workers in the fields, but didn’t stop to search for them. If they were there, they would perish. Her priorities were now crystal clear. Jack topped the list.

  The goblin fruit exploded like bombs, hand grenades of juice that burst into fireballs. The cavern became a war zone of organic shrapnel, but Io never slowed, even when bits of burst fruit fell on her cape and began to sizzle like napalm. If it reached her skin, she would stop to deal with it. Until that happened, she would run with Jack’s spell and burn down all evil.

  Jack ran through the door of the garage and pulled up short, saved from a fall only by the corrugations in the metal floor that grabbed the soles of his shoes.

  The goddess was still with him. Not only was the elevator there and humming with power, so was Horroban’s limo.

  Jack dropped to a quick crouch, pulling out his pistol. It was frustrating not having any spells to draw on. He had to rely on the sensitivity of his ears to tell him if anyone was about. With the tunnels filling up with oily and possibly poisonous smoke, he didn’t dare remove his nose breather and hunt by smell.

  He circled the limo, moving like a crab until he came to the driver’s door. Taking hold of the handle, he jerked up and then rolled to stay behind the protection of the door.

  Nothing. No one was inside. His luck held.

  Not daring to get trapped in the interior, Jack circled the car again to the passenger door and repeated the jerking-and-rolling routine. No one. The car was empty and conveniently full of guns.

  Jack went quickly to the control box and started the elevator on its way. He jumped into the driver’s seat and had a bit more luck—the keys were in the ignition. He wouldn’t have to remember how to hot-wire an auto manually.

  Jack began to frown. This was a great deal of good luck in a very short period and it made him nervous. He didn’t like it when things went too much his way. The scales always balanced in the end, and so far he had been bloody fortunate. A big bill was coming due.

  The elevator rose slowly and he began to feel new tension as he closed in on the surface. The new apprehension showed itself in his tightening stomach and in the muscles of his neck.

  The limo’s engine was cold, but it didn’t argue when Jack turned the key. He adjusted the seat backward to accommodate his long legs and clipped on his seat belt, listening carefully to the motor as it idled. Goblins were terrible about maintenance, but this engine was humming nicely by the time the elevator stopped on the ground floor of the old General Motors building.

  Quite carelessly, someone had left the bay doors open, so Jack could drive right out into the night.

  Or maybe it wasn’t carelessness. Perhaps it was a trap. Could Glashtin have come this way? What to do, what to do…? Jack looked at his watch, but his hopes weren’t answered in a happy way.

  “Damn it.”

  Time to go.

  Not trusting the situation, Jack nevertheless gave the car the gun and rocketed out into the night. He had to get to Neveling’s factory. Zayn didn’t know about the scheduled three A.M. bang. There’d been no reason to tell him about it when they thought Chloe was being kept at Horroban’s. Jack wasn’t a fan of Zayn’s, but he didn’t want the blood of innocents on his hands. He had to get Zayn and Chloe out of the building before it blew. He also had to warn Cisco to watch out for Lutin’s gargoyles. One man, even armed, was barely a match for a pair of attack-trained gargoyles. An unwary man was nothing but dinner.

  The streets were deserted around the automotive plant, and Jack took the car up to nearly top speed. There’d been no reason for the tourists to party down here. Horroban had seen to that. Yet things would be different as they neared Lutin’s factory. There shouldn’t be many people down there, but junkies did like the neighborhood. Jack had to make time now while it was safe.

  Lights appeared suddenly in his rearview mirror, coming up fast. They were a dangerous dazzlement to his already assaulted eyes. Jack slapped down the rearview mirror and punched the accelerator.

  So, here was the expected scale balancer. Cursing, Jack reached into his pocket and pulled on his shades. Squinting into the lowered mirror he made out the shape of the car. It was a two-door Jaguar convertible sport model in gleaming red. There was only one XKR 100 in Goblin Town.

  Glashtin. The thing in the moat hadn’t eaten the goblin after all. Wasn’t that too bad!

  Lightning blasted the road ahead of Jack, temporarily blinding him with a white hot sheet of energy. The car-shaking thunder was instantaneous, telling Jack the strike had been close.

  Damned weather goblin!

  It was bad enough that he had to cope with a short clock and a faster car driven by a maniac; lightning strikes were a nasty icing on the cake. Or, more accurately, icing on the road.

  The thought was no sooner conceived than hail began to fall. It wouldn’t be long before the roads were impossible and treacherous.

  Jack deliberated hard, calculating odds even as he picked up momentum. He had the advantage of a heavier car with better traction, and the fact that Glashtin had to expend tremendous effort to throw lightning at hi
m. But Glashtin’s Jag was built for speed—its V-8 engine was a screamer—and being close to the ground, it would corner well at fairly high speeds. Both Jack and the weather goblin knew the city, so geographic familiarity wasn’t a factor in this fight. It would probably come down to who was the better driver—and who got lucky.

  Jack grinned, his core magic slowly drinking in his racing adrenaline and beginning to awake from its swoon. Io’s declaration of love had helped, too, allowing an exponential growth that had never been possible before.

  It was his often-deplored human side that made him enjoy non-fey things, but he just loved fast cars! And he had a better grasp of what they could do than the goblin nightclub owner. Goblins were wary of machines, filled with distrust and fear of things mechanical. Glashtin wouldn’t adore his car, wouldn’t know how to coax her to perform. He would probably be gripping his wheel with all four hands, all twenty of his knuckles white.

  And Jack was lucky.

  Glashtin didn’t stand a chance.

  The only hitch would be if pedestrians got in the way. Glashtin wouldn’t hesitate to play pedestrian pickoff with junkies. Jack still had a few scruples.

  Cursing at the delay, Jack turned away from the factory and headed east where streets were likely to stay deserted. He rounded a bend and, for a moment, lost the goblin’s hail and had a good look at the road ahead.

  He glanced at his watch. Two-thirty. He had half an hour to lose the goblin, get to the factory, rendezvous with Io, warn Cisco, and make sure Zayn and Chloe were out before the big blow.

  His reawakening magic answered confidently: Piece of cake. Jack wasn’t certain that he could trust its assessment.

  The street ran straight and empty, nothing but dark buildings lining the sidewalks.

  Another lightning strike came dead ahead, buffeting the air, but Jack refused to swerve. At these speeds that was as good as suicide. Better to fry from a bolt than smash and burn slowly. Anyway, Glashtin had missed by thirty feet; he was having trouble driving and also throwing lightning around. A side benefit to not avoiding the storm was that driving through the electrical aura also fed Jack’s magic, giving it juju food. Food was good. Jack needed his reflexes in top working order for what he was about to do.