Between Jobs (The City Between Book 1)

by W. R. Gingell

  I opened my mouth to tell Zero that Detective Tuatu hadn’t given up, but something Between twisted and snapped, and I accidentally said, “Ow!” aggrievedly, instead.

  “They know!” said Athelas swiftly. “My lord, they know!”

  “Quickly!” Zero said, between his teeth. “We’re too close! They’ll burn everything this time!”

  “Oi!” I said indignantly. So what if the bodies were burnt? The changelings would be revealed, and serve them right. “The detective!”

  “Too late,” Zero said, starting forward in haste and dragging me with him. “He’ll have to look after himself.”

  But the detective, his eyes rolling back until they were nearly all white, had stopped, and he swayed as he stood. That wall he was propping himself against looked pretty holey, which meant—

  A goblin popped its head out of the wall.

  “Don’t think he can,” I replied, and let go of Zero’s pocket.

  I heard Zero yelling but I ignored it. He was probably just saying the Behindkind equivalent of bad pet at me, anyway.

  I’m not sure if they vanished, or if I fell behind, but either way it only took a second before the detective and I were the only ones in the tunnel—well, apart from the goblin leaning out of its tunnel to stab him.

  I put my head down and ran for it. I punched the goblin, the needle flashing silver in my peripheral, wicked sharp, and it tumbled from its tunnel, scattering needles as it went.

  The detective stared at it in horror, then down at his hand, which was barely scratched by the needle.

  “Beauty!” I said, and snatched up the needles. “Hardly a scratch! It prob’ly won’t even affect you. You lot better keep out of my way, goblin, or I’ll stab every one of you with your own needles!”

  “Drugs?” asked the detective faintly. His eyes, when they weren’t rolled back and white, were trying to focus on the needles in my fist. “Shouldn’t do that.”

  “C’mmon,” I said, grabbing his collar with my free hand. “You don’t wanna stand here. There’s too many flamin’ goblins around.”

  “Goblins?” he said, but it was more of a whimper. His eyes were focused on the goblin that was sobbing its woe on the ground. Too small to be a kid, too humanoid to be a dog; there was no way for him to explain that away to himself.

  “Yep. Better than being alone around the vampire. Keep moving.”

  He didn’t move really well, so I pulled him along by his collar. I thought I could see Zero’s shadow up ahead; not his actual person, but a thin, watery sort of shadow that made me think of light filtering through the top of a pool. Wherever Zero was, it wasn’t exactly in the same place as me and the detective.

  I followed the shadowy thing anyway, kicking at the odd goblin and pushing through the heaviness that must have been Between, all the way up that cave-like hallway I knew well, until we were at the courtyard again.

  When I stepped up onto the flagstones, dragging Detective Tuatu with me, someone grabbed me by the collar.

  I yelled, but Zero’s face swayed before mine and I stopped mid-yell. Good thing I did, because I didn’t realise until I saw his face that I was aiming one of the goblin needles at him. I probably wouldn’t have managed to hit him, but he could have done a bit of damage to me defending himself.

  “Next time you let go of me, I’ll leave you to the goblins,” he said, and dropped me to the flagstones.

  “Oh, that was you leaving a shadow for me to follow.”

  Zero strode away without answering, and I sighed heavily. What a pain. I thought I’d got here by myself. Still, there was warmth mixed in with the annoyance. To the detective, I said, “Oi. You okay?”

  “No,” he said, and threw up.

  JinYeong made a disgusted noise and hastily shifted his pointy shoes away from the mess, and Athelas sighed, “Pet, was it really necessary to bring along a playmate?”

  “Yes,” I told him, scowling. “The goblins were gunna get him.”

  “Surely one human less is not an encumbrance, Pet?”

  JinYeong made a noise that sounded like agreement, and spoke a short, careless sentence.

  “I don’t care if he was annoying you anyway!” I retorted, heatedly. “You can’t let people die because they’re annoying you!”

  “Good heavens, Pet! Did you understand that?”

  I scowled at JinYeong this time. “Nah, I just know his pinched little face, now.”

  “Yah, Petteu! Nae olgulun—”

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “Now that you’ve finished your rescue, perhaps we could go ahead with our ostensible purpose?” suggested Athelas. “One presumes that the bodies are more or less ash by now, but one can always hope.”

  Zero was already striding toward the glassy windows without waiting for us. It must have taken the other two by surprise as well, because we all scrambled to catch up. Even the detective stumbled after us, raw determination fighting through the confusion and fear in his face.

  “Careful,” I said, and grabbed his hand. “Yeah, mind the step, it’s a big one.”

  Zero must have really been on the hunt, because he didn’t seem to notice that I was attached to his pocket again—or the extra weight from the detective, for that matter.

  The step up to the platform wasn’t as big as I remembered, but the switch in sound was just as sudden; when I stepped up onto the wooden platform, Zero’s voice cut in suddenly above the whining roar of something insecty and very, very loud.

  “Pet,” he said, his voice crisp, “Stay behind me.”

  Ah heck. What was it now?

  “Another ambush?” Athelas’ voice wasn’t loud, but somehow it cut through the noise to rest, soft and interested, on my ear. “Dear me, we do seem to be having our fair share of excitement at this Waystation!”

  “This one isn’t for us,” Zero said grimly. “That’s the sound of devourers.”

  The sound of what?

  JinYeong sniffed a small laugh and made a dismissive remark.

  “Yes, I’d venture to think so,” agreed Athelas. “The Family has ways of finding out when Behindkind become too free with their affairs. Happily for us, it means we were not discovered; the devourers must have tripped the alarms.”

  “We’ll need to fight, regardless,” said Zero. “They’ll destroy everything at the Waystation; and we’re still looking for our human witness who may be the only one to have seen the murderer at his work.”

  “Choshimhaeyo,” said JinYeong warningly, his teeth bared. “Watda, watda!”

  I saw a brief flash of yellow that turned to the gleam of steel; Zero was carrying the umbrella that was a sword.

  “Perhaps it wasn’t entirely wise to carry that back here,” said Athelas.

  “We shall see,” Zero said, taking a step toward the glass windows.

  There was a flutter of drapes or maybe wings, then the glass windows flew open all along the platform. A roar rose in the air; wings, so many wings, bright and loud and buzzing, burst onto the wooden platform. They might have been humans, but humans didn’t have wings that looked like they could cut throats; nor did human mouths split half their faces to display rows of two-inch teeth.

  Swords flashed between the wings, barely sharper than the wings themselves, and Zero’s sword slashed, wide and devastating, to meet them.

  I gripped the detective’s wrist, pulled painfully between Zero’s moving figure and Detective Tuatu’s lax one, and saw Athelas dart past, lithe and neat, in a skirl of twin blades that were small and thin enough to have been knitting needles. JinYeong, eschewing any other weapon than his teeth, was a bloody nightmare on the other side, his face already dripping gore.

  Above the buzz of wings, Zero thundered, “Clear the deck and take the station!” and we pressed forward, locust-people screeching around us.

  I stayed behind Zero, kicking out at the locusts that got too close to his flanks or the detective’s sluggish body, and wished for an extra hand so that I could use a few of the
needles I’d pinched from the goblins.

  One of the locusts, ducking low and wicked fast, slid below Zero’s sword and slashed a wing at me. I jerked back reflexively, but I saw a spray of dark hair flying, touched with blood, and kicked out instinctively.

  The locust kept coming in spite of my assault, gnashing at me with its mouth bloody and bruised. I kicked at it again, panicking, and it screeched its anger, wings shivering.

  “Ah heck,” I panted.

  It wasn’t going to stop, and I didn’t have enough hands.

  It lunged again; lunged and halted abruptly as Zero reached back, plucking it away, and slammed it into the nearest chair. I heard the crack as its neck broke; then Zero hefted the body once again and used it as a shield to plough through the three nearest locusts as he swept their feet from beneath them with his sword.

  JinYeong fell on their bodies at once, tearing out throats with teeth just as deadly as theirs, and it came to my attention that I could hear the sound of those throats being torn out.

  “Ah man, gross!” I wailed.

  “They’re dead, JinYeong,” Zero said. “They’re all dead. You can stop now.”

  JinYeong looked up, his eyes dark, but pulled away from the ruined bodies. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, raising his brows at me as if to say what?

  “There’s something wrong with you,” I told him. The silence was very loud, and so was my voice.

  “Are all the waystation fae dead?” asked Zero. His eyes flickered over the room, and I saw that there were fae bodies mingled with the locusts; these ones cut apart with locust wings.

  “I imagine so,” said Athelas. “Good heavens! I belie me. There’s one still alive over there, but he is certainly dying.”

  Zero threw down the locust he had been using as a shield and towed me and the detective over toward the dying fae. “How long?”

  “He has a little breath left,” Athelas continued in a considering sort of manner, “but not much, I’d say.”

  I don’t know why, but I felt like I should cover the detective’s eyes.

  “I wouldn’t have told,” said the fae, in a gasp, looking up glassily in our direction. “I wouldn’t have told about the human.”

  “What human?” Zero asked. “Speak quickly.”

  “The one that can pass through Between and Behind,” he said. “The one that should have died. I wouldn’t have told. Not to the Family.”

  Zero, sharply, asked, “Where is the human?”

  The fae laughed breathlessly, and pointed behind us. That laugh must have taken the last of his breath, because his hand dropped and I didn’t see his chest rise again.

  Poor old bearded bloke. When had they caught him again?

  Echoing me, Athelas said, “They must have caught it and put it in the lock-up since you were last here.” He moved back through the room, picking his way through dead bodies to a metal door.

  “Ah, JinYeong, if you please?”

  JinYeong smiled lazily and crossed the room after him to open the door. “Himi obseo!” he said mockingly, but Athelas only gave a small smile.

  “Wait here, Pet,” said Zero, but I was already following them.

  The first thing I saw was an old, holey t-shirt on the cell floor, half burnt. It was the same sort of shirt I’d seen on the old bearded guy the other day—no, it was the same shirt. The exact same shirt, with the big, round hole turning the word shoot into shot.

  A little bit beside and beneath it was a pile of dust—or maybe ashes. Beyond that—

  I swayed a bit. I should have guessed from the smell, but the dead locusts were pretty smelly themselves, so maybe it had masked the smell from the cells.

  Beyond the pile of ashes on the floor was a small sprinkle of blood, and a hand; then more blood, a deep, dark slick of it that slashed the cell across, top to bottom. Someone’s vertebrae, still attached to most of the important bits, gleamed red in one corner.

  Even attached to Zero’s pocket, I shivered.

  “Go outside, Pet,” said Zero. “You’re in the way.”

  I cleared my throat and said thickly, “I’m not. Fought my way here, just like you. Brought him along, too.”

  I held up the detective’s limp hand; he stared around at the carnage as if he thought he was still dreaming.

  “Nawa,” said JinYeong. He pinched my ear between his fingers and dragged me back out with as much implacability as I had dragged the detective through Between.

  He released my ear when we were back at the platform; smirked, and went back inside.

  “Flamin’ vampire,” I muttered to the detective, but I wasn’t shivering anymore so maybe it wasn’t a bad thing to be outside.

  I found that my face was wet, and wiped a warmth of moisture away that wasn’t blood.

  Crazy old coot. Why hadn’t he run away after he tipped me off? They must have caught him lurking while we were at the library, matching faces and figuring it all out.

  I sniffled and bit and used my t-shirt to dab away the rest of the tears. Fine protection I was. Hadn’t even been able to stop one old bloke from dying.

  My voice was still a bit thick when I said to the detective, “You shouldn’t have come here. It’s not safe.”

  He gazed around him in a sick kind of way, and said, “Am I awake yet?”

  “Nope, sorry. Hang on for a bit longer, okay? You’ll be safe when we get back out.”

  “Out?” he asked, as though he was trying to figure it out. “But this was a house. A house!”

  “Still is,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t make sense if you think about it too much. Just keep quiet and try not to get killed.”

  Maybe he fainted, or maybe it was that bit of goblin poison working in him. I helped him sit down on the step and he went pretty quiet for a while, eyes closed.

  I peered through the window on tiptoes, as if that would help me see any better, glad for the section of wall that hid the worst of the gore from me. JinYeong saw me through the sliver of sight I had of the lockup, and snarled at me, but Zero was only a hulking shadow somewhere near to where the dead Behindkind fae lay. Athelas didn’t glance in my direction at all.

  “He’s dead after all,” I said huskily—to the detective or to myself, I wasn’t sure which one. Why did they have to burn him, though? It wasn’t like they had a changeling of him out there to get rid of: it was as if they’d wanted to make a mockery of human death rites.

  I’d gotten used to seeing him out of the corner of my eye whenever my three psychos weren’t around, a kind of scruffy guardian angel who shouldn’t have existed, or survived, or been possible.

  I was glad I hadn’t told my psychos about him.

  Faintly, I heard Athelas ask, “No telling, I suppose, how long he’s been dead?”

  “No,” Zero said shortly. “Human, JinYeong?”

  JinYeong made a noise of assent, and kicked at the ashes angrily.

  “At least we know it’s human,” remarked Athelas. “I suppose our search for the real human murder victim is now over. He’s probably been dead the whole time.”

  “Well, he hasn’t,” I said to myself, in a small, angry mutter.

  “They must have taken the body down because they didn’t want to draw attention to the house,” Zero said, nodding. “They wouldn’t have expected one of their own to be murdered next.”

  Athelas surveyed the rest of the cell. “It’s quite possible they didn’t know who they were dealing with.”

  “It’s no good trying to find anything else here,” Zero said abruptly. “Anyone we could have spoken with is dead. We’ll deal with the changelings and find a new angle.”

  “A good idea, I fancy,” agreed Athelas. “I wonder if I should mention, Zero, that the waystation seems to be becoming a little…well, condensed.”

  “I know,” said Zero. “Something is pulling this whole area of Between in on itself. We’d better leave while we can. JinYeong, take a sample of the ashes just in case.”

  He came fo
r the door at a lope while JinYeong fished something small and plasticky from his pocket to scoop up ashes, and Athelas followed behind.

  “What a shame,” sighed Athelas, looking over his shoulder. “It might have been nice to see someone play with the Family. They were doing quite well.”

  “It wouldn’t do any good,” said Zero, his voice harsh. “This is the way it always turns out. Pet, hold tight. No, tight.”

  “That’s as tight as I can hold!” I protested, as JinYeong whipped past us and disappeared down into the courtyard. Athelas followed, moving more swiftly than I’d ever seen him move.

  Oh man. This was bad.

  Zero made a hissing between his teeth, snatched up my hand, and dragged me out from Behind and into Between, the detective trailing behind me as I snagged his collar just in time. The courtyard passed in a flash, the tunnel Between and human by turns, but the detective didn’t feel like a drain on me anymore, though my fist was tight around his collar. Maybe Zero was doing that, too.

  But above and beyond the pull I should have felt from the detective, there was another feeling entirely. A feeling of pressure, or weight; or maybe it was the feeling that something was trying to turn me inside out.

  “Ow, ow, ow!” I said, as I sprinted behind Zero. “Ow, flamin’ heck, ow!”

  “Faster!” said Zero, between his teeth. I saw him look back at me once, while the hallway flashed past, Between but not Between, and windows winked with vaguely sunny light. Then he swept me off my feet, detective and all, and fairly hurled us all through a window.

  We should have fallen, but we floated instead. We floated, and then something made a giant puff around us, and we blew sideways into a bush.

  “Yow!” I Mumbled in protest, smothered by leather jacket on one side and stabbed by branches on the other.

  Someone stuck an elbow in my ribs, so I jabbed them back.

  “What?” said Detective Tuatu’s voice, plaintively.

  “Don’t jab me with your elbow, then,” I told him sourly.

  “Well, Pet?” asked Athelas’ voice, and two slender hands removed me from the dual embrace of Zero and the bush.