Traveler

by Melanie Jackson

  Jack staggered back a step, his expression shocked. The wild light slowly faded from his silvered eyes.

  “Better now?” she asked. “Or do I need to hit you again?”

  “Well, damn. I’m not sure.” He raised a hand to his temple and then shook his head. The wild note had also been knocked from his voice. “I feel stone-cold sober, though.”

  “Good.” Io began to shiver as the cold crept back around her. Her words turned to frost and were slow to dissipate. Vapor rose off of Jack in an eerie cloud, making him appear ghostlike.

  “Yeah, I guess.” Jack shook his head again and worked his jaw as though the blow had been physical instead of psychic. “I’m glad you didn’t hit below the belt. I’d be useless to you from here on out.”

  “I still might if you don’t behave,” Io threatened, but without any heat. She felt a little guilty because she had forgotten that she was carrying an enlarging spell and had probably used much more magical force than was necessary. “Come on. Let’s go see if anyone’s guarding the gate. It looks as if Zayn and Cisco already went through.”

  “Good. They should have taken out the guards if any were still there. I am tired of shooting people,” Jack added, looking into her eyes with a still, cold gaze. She would have been frightened, but she knew his expression had nothing to do with her. “Still…”

  “I think I’ve had enough life of crime for one evening, too,” Io agreed. “But, as you say—”

  “Listen, I was serious before. You might want to cover your face,” Jack said. “You look like you’ve been through a fire and are still glowing.”

  “I am not wearing that damned troll mask. And if you ever again suggest it when we are about to make love…”

  Jack’s lips quirked once. “If you don’t want the mask, then put on some sunglasses. Little fey, your eyes are like bright blue beacons. Trolls carry guns. We don’t want to give them an easy target.”

  Io realized that he was right and reached inside her tool belt for her wraparound shades.

  “Better?” she asked more calmly, after having slipped them on with a shaking hand.

  “Much.”

  They both checked their handguns and then started for the iron gateway, pistols in hand. Nothing moved. There were no revelers in the streets, no junkies in doorways.

  “The magical generator will try to take back its magic as we pass through the gate,” Jack warned, turning his head from side to side as he scanned the surrounding building. “Keep as much of it as you can.”

  “We can do that?” Io asked.

  “I have no idea, but it’s worth a try, don’t you think? We’ll need all the help we can get.”

  “Yes. It’s worth a try. Um, couldn’t I give the magic to you now?”

  “Not unless you want to be raped,” Jack answered frankly. “I forgot for a moment back there, but I’m not exchanging spells with you until I am sure that everything from Horroban’s is out of my system. I can’t risk contaminating you.”

  “Oh.” Striving for a bit of lightness, Io asked, “What, no condoms?”

  “Not that kind. This is a case where ‘just say no’ is actually the best answer…so talk to me, little fey. Help me stay focused.”

  “Ah, well, speaking of a lack of condoms, I’m going to miss our place in Brush Park—at least the hammock. I have surprisingly fond thoughts about your bed.”

  “No problem,” Jack answered. “It’s in my bag. Memories may be relived at a moment’s notice.”

  “My hero.”

  “Now stop teasing me and look for trolls. Things are too damn quiet. There should be a zillion screaming tourists racing for the gate.”

  “You just had to go and point that out, didn’t you?” Io muttered. “Damn. What do you think happened here?”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “So, they’re all dead?” Io asked as the four of them huddled at the rear of Jack’s SUV. She felt pretty sure it actually was Jack’s, but didn’t ask.

  Cisco had already departed for home. They had had no trouble passing through the city gates because the tollbooth was fortuitously deserted. Either the guards had all run to help fight the fire, or they had all run away with the missing tourists.

  Zayn had just given Jack a quick psychic healing, a process Jack referred to as a mental high-colonic, but which seemed to restore his baseline level of magic without making him high again. Jack wasn’t entirely himself yet, but he was regaining his strengths with every minute that passed.

  Io was feeling a little odd, too, after her mental wrestling match at the town’s border. She had kept most of her spells at the crossing but felt like her brain had skinned knees. That made it a fine counterpart for the outside of her body, which had begun to feel the night’s wear and tear, and was protesting the abuse vociferously.

  At least it wasn’t as cold as it was inside of Goblin Town. The deep, unnatural freeze had also ended at the city’s borders, making her wonder if it had something to do with Glashtin’s death. Jack had been a little vague about how the goblin died, saying only that he had been casting weather spells when his car crashed.

  “They are all dead but Hille Bingel,” Jack answered. “She wasn’t at Horroban’s with the others. The diva was probably on stage at The Madhouse inciting a riot.”

  “That is one lucky goblin,” Zayn muttered.

  “Or a smart one,” Io replied. “Was Hille in very deep with Horroban?”

  Jack looked at Zayn, who hesitated a moment before answering unhappily, “Yes, I think so. Deep enough that she sent her pet to guard Lutin’s factory. She was also Horroban’s lover—for whatever that’s worth.”

  Io exhaled slowly and scrubbed sore hands over her tired face. “Well damn. I’d hoped that we’d gotten them all.”

  “We were bound to miss something. Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do about this now—except leave before the vindictive creature organizes a posse,” Jack answered practically. He was feeling better but still hadn’t risked touching Io in case the magic got rowdy again. “We’ve got to get out of Dodge, pronto. The goblins will be disorganized and temporarily leaderless, but Hille won’t be slow to take charge. I’m betting that there’ll be a reward offered and bounty hunters after us before the sun has set.”

  “The press will be all over it too. A missing presidential candidate is going to be big, big news,” Zayn added gloomily.

  “Unfortunately, you’re right.”

  “Where are we going to go that they can’t find us?” Io asked. “Any big city will have goblins. For that matter, so could almost any town. I know the hives don’t cooperate with each other much, but they might make an exception in our case. Just consider it—we could be the cause of goblin unity. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy just thinking about that.”

  Jack looked thoughtfully at Zayn and then at Chloe while Io spoke. The exhausted Zayn was pale, both from his night of adventure and from tussling with the town borders so he could keep his healing spell. Jack doubted Zayn would have fought so hard to retain the magic if Chloe hadn’t been so badly hurt.

  The girl was certainly damaged. Her skin was still paper-white with shock and her clothes bloody and shredded. But a sane woman looked back out of her bruised eyes. The goblins might have addicted her, but they hadn’t destroyed her completely. The kid was stronger than Jack had expected, and she deserved a chance to fight back and live.

  “We’re leaving, too. We can’t go back to H.U.G.,” Zayn said quietly. “It isn’t safe. The goblins have their spies everywhere. Anyway, they’ll never take in a goblin junkie, not even if Xanthe asks them to.”

  Chloe winced slightly at this harsh statement, but she didn’t argue with it or look away from Jack. “Please, let us go with you—at least for now,” she whispered, laying a protective hand over her stomach. “We can’t go back and I…I don’t know what else to do.”

  Jack looked at that sheltering hand for a long moment, as though trying to see what hid behind it. Io, thrilled and
yet terrified, thought she knew.

  “Well, Io and I are heading for Death Valley,” he said at last. “Goblins can’t live in the desert and there have been rumors about an abandoned tomhnafurach at the edge of the wasteland.”

  “An underground city of giants?” Zayn asked, putting his arm around Chloe as she exhaled her relief and laid her head against his shoulder. “But it’s supposedly a ruin. The last reports were in the ’twenties, and it sounded on the edge of collapse even then.”

  “Just the parts where the human explorers were allowed to visit. You know how the wild tomhnafurachs are. The feys didn’t invent them really, just sort of remodeled what they found. And they have a way of surviving even after everyone has gone—though it has probably been awfully lonely out there on its own. It might be ready for company, even if we aren’t the preferred flavor.”

  “We’re magical. I bet we’ll find shelter there. In any event, it’s worth a try.” Io said, slipping her hand into Jack’s and smiling up at him. “And if not there, then somewhere else. There’s Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Texas, Mexico—lots of dry, lonely places where we can be safe and start again.”

  And I can play Adam to your Eve?

  Yes.

  Promise?

  Io nodded to acknowledge Jack’s question about whether there would be a passionate reunion for them as soon as they were alone.

  “It sounds like a plan to me,” Zayn said. “And since tempus fugit and all that…”

  “Climb aboard the getaway express,” Jack answered politely. “We’ll pick up supplies for you on the road. I’m afraid there is no going back for clothes or other possessions. Xanthe may have your homes under surveillance.”

  “We can’t stop and see—,” Chloe began.

  “No. I’m sorry,” Jack said. He laid a hand in the middle of Io’s back and urged her toward the passenger side of the vehicle. His touch was warm and soothing. “It’s hard, but it is better for everyone if the world thinks you were blown up with the factory. Xanthe wouldn’t mean to betray you, but as Zayn said, H.U.G. is compromised.”

  Chloe nodded sadly and allowed Zayn to help her inside the SUV.

  “We’ll be switching vehicles shortly since they have the license plates for this one,” Jack said, climbing into the driver’s seat. “We’ll organize a car for you then. Do you have fake ID if you have to arrange other car rentals or hotel rooms—something not from H.U.G.?”

  “Yes,” Zayn answered. “My brother had some done for me back when—back when he was in trade in France. I know what needs to be done.”

  “Good. Start practicing saying your new name. From this day until we make it to sanctuary, you have to forget who you are.” Jack turned the key and the engine roared to life. “Buckle up, kiddies. I don’t anticipate any trouble, but you know what rush hour is like around here.”

  “It would be like that bitch Fate to get us in a wreck,” Io muttered.

  “Exactly. I feel like we’ve used up as much vehicular luck as we dare. And this isn’t the morning for filling out accident reports for the police.”

  Jack turned the SUV against the sunrise and drove toward the still dark horizon.

  Epilogue

  A freshly scrubbed, trimmed, and dyed Mister and Missus Carroll lay facing one another on a sagging double bed inside a small no-tell motel outside Rochester, Minnesota. They should have traveled a greater distance before stopping for the night, but it had taken Lewis a while to find just the right car to buy after trading in the SUV in Michigan. And they had both been very tired, and longing for a degree of cleanliness that could not be had in a service-station restroom. The residue from the oily smoke required lots of hot water and abundant soap to remove completely. The other sorts of psychic residue would take something stronger.

  An equally exhausted Mister and Missus Gaylord were also in Rochester, but at a different motor lodge and with different shades of hair. They also now possessed their own vehicle and luggage. It wasn’t just that Jack wasn’t ready for too much togetherness with the unhappy lovers. It was a matter of safety and confusing the enemy.

  Io fingered the blue polyester bedspread and eyed the yellowing sprayed acoustical ceiling. It wasn’t the sort of place that bothered with luxuries like faux art for the walls or Bibles in the rooms, but it did have an old television without any vertical control bolted to a plastic wood-veneer-look table. The TV was turned low to a twenty-four-hour news channel. So far, there had been no mention of the disappearance of any presidential candidates, and only a small item about Halloween celebrations being disrupted by an underground explosion caused by a leaking gas main in an uninhabited part of old Detroit. The goblins had not gone public with their hunt for the H.U.G. terrorists. Yet. But it was only a matter of time before something was leaked either by the goblins or by H.U.G.’s propagandists.

  Io wondered briefly if they were going to be blamed for sabotage or whether the goblins would accuse them of murder. The courts were fairly uniform about the definition of murder when it came to killing goblins. Only in Arkansas, Texas, and Delaware was it not considered a capital crime to kill one.

  “You make a great redhead,” Jack said softly, smoothing back a damp lock from her forehead. He switched off the television. “Enough of that.”

  “Do I?” Io touched her newly shorn curls. They had been hacked off at her jaw line in a sort of rough bob. “You don’t look bad as a brunette.”

  “No? I rather had the impression you didn’t care for the change.”

  “It isn’t that I don’t like it. It’s just…different.” Io waved a hand and then confessed, “It’s like a stranger is sharing my bed.”

  “It won’t be dark for long,” he said gently. “I could put a bag over my head, if that would help. I’m the same from the neck down.”

  “No! It isn’t that.” Io sighed. She looked into Jack’s eyes, which were for once not blank with introspection or shielded with emotional sunblock. Staring into them was both a delight and yet terrifying. She said slowly, “Maybe the problem is the bed. I’m not used to sleeping in one, you know. I like being up in the air.”

  “Missing the hammock?” he asked. “I could string it up. A couple of extra holes in the wall would hardly be noticed.”

  Io smiled but shook her head. Her moist hair slid easily over the slick bedspread.

  “Jack, what happened to Glashtin?”

  Jack paused, but finally answered.

  “He smashed his Jag. On the front of the limo.” Jack combed her hair again. “Come on, little fey. Talk to me. What is bothering you tonight? It’s not Glashtin’s timely end.”

  “No.” She sighed again and finally asked the question that had been plaguing her, “Jack, you know that Chloe is pregnant, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Zayn knows, too, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure he does. I think the big question on his mind is does the baby belong to him. And the big question on mine is—if not his, then whose?”

  Io stared at him blankly for a moment, and then comprehension dawned.

  “No! Not a troll!” she said, appalled, sitting up. She put a hand over her own belly before drawing her knees up tight. “And not Horroban! He didn’t…”

  “Probably not.” Jack’s expression was neutral as he said this. He remained reclined. “Horroban reputedly didn’t like human women.”

  Jack didn’t say anything about the trolls. Trolls usually just ate their victims—but not always. At least, not right away.

  “Oh, goddess help that child! Chloe isn’t old enough to be having a baby. Especially not if…” Io looked over at the curtained window where the sun was setting in bloody crimson glory. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “But even if it isn’t his, even if it’s—Zayn wouldn’t leave her.”

  “I’m certain that Zayn would protect her regardless of whose child she carried. And I understand that.” Jack looked into her eyes and mind, and addressed the fear there by saying sincerely,
“I wouldn’t abandon you—not under any circumstances, either. You never have to worry about that. I swear it.”

  Io exhaled slowly and began to uncurl. She laid back down on the bed and rolled onto her side.

  “Because you love me?” she asked softly, vernal hope unfolding.

  “Because I love you,” he agreed, and curved his body into hers.

  They were in the most unromantic place in Minnesota, possibly in the United States, and in Hell’s own jam to boot, but Io felt herself begin to smile and some of the leaden worry fall away from her heart.

  Jack shook his head once and touched a finger to her lips. He traced their outline carefully, his finger leaving a tingling trail behind it.

  “Such radiance! You look like this is the first time I’ve said this. I think I mentioned it a time or two before.” His voice was amused.

  “You did tell me. It’s just that the first time we were shouting over a cavern fire and needed to make our magic stronger—I thought it might help you like that—and the other time you were high on some drug,” Io explained, feeling a little silly but determined to be truthful since Jack was so open.

  Jack shook his head at her again. He rose up on one elbow and stared down at her. “Do you really think our magic would have been fooled into giving us power by words without meaning? Or that any goblin drug would lead to declarations of love? I rather suspect that just the opposite would happen. Power would be taken away at a false declaration. And any drug of Glashtin’s would lead to violent feelings, not gentle ones.”

  “You’re right,” Io agreed. She curled her fingers into Jack’s shirt and tugged gently at the fleece. “I know this. I just needed to hear it again without the explosions and drugs.”

  “I understand,” Jack answered. “I wouldn’t mind hearing the words again myself.”

  Io’s smile widened another notch.

  “You know that I love you, too.”

  “Good. Now, while we are being frank and sharing, is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”