by Tanya Huff
She glanced at her watch. Jack would have finished wrapping her in the Troll by now and started pushing the cart toward the Gate.
“Jack, I’m sorry, but you’re still too heavy to get through theWood.”
“The car . . .”
“I’m pretty sure . . . absolutely sure,” she corrected because certainty was at least half of making this work,“that I can get myself when I need to go, but I have no idea how much I can take with me. I’d hate to lose the car and you somewhere between now and then.”
“That would suck,” Jack admitted reluctantly. “What are you going to tell the guys and Shelly about me not being there?”
“That your guardian got freaked by news of the violence at the festival and made me send you home.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Don’t worry, they’ll believe me.”
“Yeah,” Jack snorted. “Totally not worried about that.”
The tiny elevator smelled like heated dust and every once in a while gave a grinding hiccup that made Charlie think she should have just climbed down the metal rungs she could see passing outside the cage.
This elevator only went down as far as the Canaveral level.
“Don’t need to go any farther,” Charlie muttered, stepping out into a dark and empty tunnel. Pulling out a dozen plastic bracelets, she cracked them and slid six on each wrist.
“Magic?” Jack asked as she filled her pockets in the Emporium.
“Nope. Chemistry.”
A vigorous shake and she was bathed in the soft glow of dibutyl phthalate, the multicolored bands of light just enough to activate the night-sight charm on her lids. She couldn’t see much, but she could see enough to keep from slamming into random carts or the tunnel walls. Running full out, she followed a song of shattered stone to Canaveral where she’d fought the Troll.
“And won,” she muttered, stepping around a crushed cart, squinting under the overhead lights.
No sign of Eineen or Paul or the Goblins, but if the Goblins had let their prey get more than three meters from the gate, she’d be very surprised.
Another song sent her after Eineen and Paul. Circumstances dictated it be a love song—boy meets seal, seal enchants boy, boy and seal have children who make the Canadian Olympic swimming team. As she followed it, Charlie made a mental note to check if previous gold medal winners had ancestors from Cape Breton.
Given that it would be pretty pointless to arrive after the Goblins attacked, she concentrated on speed rather than stealth, leaping debris and not bothering to muffle the sound of her sneakers against the stone. Refocusing the Goblins’ attention on her was the point of the trip.
“How long will the batteries powering the headlamps last?” Eineen whispered.
“I don’t know. They’re supposed to be fully charged at all times, but there’s often large variables between supposed to be and are.” He was amazed by how calm he sounded. Forty-eight hours ago if someone had told him he was going to find himself deep in the Duke with a girlfriend who became a seal—or possibly a seal who’d become his girlfriend—backed up against a gate to a fairytale realm, and under attack by Goblins, he’d have suggested they were off their meds. He was terrified, sure, but Eineen was a warm weight against his side, her arms wrapped around his waist, and he had to hold it together for her.
The same way she was holding it together for him. He could feel her trembling, but her voice was steady, the question had been matter-of-fact. He’d never loved her more.
Pushed into the light by its companions, a Goblin hissed, and spit, and howled out a one-man catfight as it scrambled back into the dark.
“That sounded insulting.”
“They use very inventive profanity,” Eineen agreed.
“You can understand them?” The noise hadn’t sounded like words.
“A little. But it’s been a long time since I’ve heard Goblin.”
He thought of asking her how long, but if time spent with Amelia Carlson had taught him anything, it was never ask a woman her age.
“This has all been for nothing,” she sighed. “When they attack, the four skins Catherine Gale took will be destroyed with me.”
“You’re not going to be destroyed.”
“Destroyed. Eaten. Same thing. They don’t like the light, but it doesn’t hurt them. Eventually, the taunting will drive one of them out to attack and at first blood—ours or theirs, it doesn’t matter—the rest will follow.”
“Well, I’d never thought about going through a Goblin’s digestive tract with you, but as long as we’re together, there’s worse ways to end up.”
She twisted in his arms to look up at him—twisted the headlamp back toward the Goblins, setting off another storm of hissing—and said, “You actually mean that, don’t you?”
“I actually do.” Paul would have kissed her except dipping his head would turn the light away from the Goblins. “However, are you sure that going through the gate . . .”
“Even if they didn’t follow us, what’s on the other side is worse.”
“Jack, the dragon-boy . . .”
“Dragon Prince. And he’s long gone.”
Paul had already tried the breaker that was supposed to turn the lights on in the side tunnel. He didn’t know if it wasn’t working because of the gate or the Goblins, but in the end, it didn’t matter. His pockets held his phone and some change. His belt buckle wasn’t large enough to use as a weapon. He was out of ideas. When he’d thought about dying, he’d thought about wearing a pale gray Armani suit and having captains of industry cancel million-dollar meetings in order to attend. There might have been a wife weeping attractively in the background. Torn apart and eaten by Goblins in a mine had never come up. It was hard to believe it was real.
Then it was suddenly very easy.
Pushed from behind, another Goblin stumbled into the light. Head tucked in between its shoulders, it snarled softly. Tiny gold rings glinted along the curve of one rounded ear and two of the small teeth between the four-centimeter fangs were gold as well. It bent and scraped the claws of both hands against the tunnel floor, gouging out four parallel lines and proving that its claws were strong enough to cut through rock as well as steel.
Wonderful.
Paul hoped that the marks on its grimy leather tunic were a faded pattern, but they looked a lot like tattoos.
The hissing and howling from the darkness grew louder. Goblins crowded the edge of the light. Glistening. Gleaming.
“They’re taunting it.”
Paul licked dry lips. “It?” A stupid thing to worry about, but he suddenly had to know.
“Goblins are hermaphroditic.”
“Okay, then.” His heart was pounding so hard his whole body throbbed with every beat. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t swallow.
“So are salamanders and Sylphs.”
“What?”
He felt Eineen shrug. “I didn’t want you to think it was only an attribute of the vicious.”
“Right.”
The Goblin crouched, reminding Paul of a cat just before it pounced. He shoved Eineen behind him, felt her hands on the small of his back, brought up his fists. His eyes snapped closed. He forced them open.
The Goblin was in midair, its claws a meter from his face.
And then it exploded.
Ears ringing, Paul staggered back, Eineen steadying him.
From the mess seeping out into the light, more than the one Goblin had exploded.
It looked like every Goblin in a line between the one attacking them and . . .
Charlotte Gale.
She picked her way through the mess, glowing . . . no, not glowing just bracelets on her wrists glowing. Her face . . .
Actually, she looked disgusted and muttered a litany of “Eww” as she minced forward. When she cleared the worst of the wet chunks, she looked up and smiled. “You know how there’s a note that shatters glass? Seems there’s a note that shatters Goblins.”
T
hose Goblins who’d been outside the line of fire were gone. Had disappeared back into the darkness.
Paul took a breath, gagged, swallowed so he wouldn’t vomit, and realized at some point in the last few seconds when death in obscurity had been imminent, he’d pissed himself.
“I can take care of that.” Charlotte nodded at Paul’s hands—lovely large hands—now covering the spreading stain on his suit pants. “You play in enough bars, and someone you know is going to end up with a lap full of beer.”
“No.” Eineen pushed out from behind him, her voice shaky but her back rigid. “You’re not putting a charm anywhere near his penis.”
“Get over yourself, it’ll be on his pants. Dries right through to the skin. It’s perfectly harmless.”
“No. I do not trust you with genitalia, Charlotte Gale!”
“How about we let Paul decide?” Paul was looking, well, stricken if Charlie had to put a word to it. Seemed like his last straw had been one of those crazy, bendy straws that leaked all over. “Hey. Boy-toy.”When he blinked and focused on her, pulled out of his head by the insult, she smiled. “I’m not judging. You’ve handled all the shit that’s come down the pike at you really well. Will you let me dry you off?”
He took a deep breath and said, “You have something on your shoe.”
Charlie glanced down. There, just where the rubber of her sneaker gave way to canvas, was a large glob of glistening, greenish-gray Goblin guts. “Oh, gross.” Holding the top of the cart, she scraped it off against the bottom edge. She’d barely worn those shoes and that was definitely going to stain.
When she looked back at Paul, Eineen had moved between them, his arms wrapped around her waist, her hands over his. Charlie didn’t have anything against Eineen loudly, if nonverbally, shouting “Mine!” or even mistrusting a Gale’s motives around her man, but making that man wear pee-soaked trousers because of that overly possessive lack of trust? That was mean.
Okay. Charlie could do mean. “So as I arrived, I noticed you were about to shove him at the Goblins, hoping they’d spend enough time eating him that you could haul ass and get away.”
Eineen tossed her hair as much as her position allowed. “I’m carrying four skins that aren’t mine. I have a responsibility to my family.”
A little impressed she didn’t deny it, and had stayed completely Human-seeming while doing so, Charlie spread her hands, the bracelets drawing streamers of light. “”I get that,” she said pointedly, looking at Paul.
He wet his lips, swallowed, and said, “I would have happily died if it meant Eineen survived.”
“Happily?”When he nodded, Charlie surrendered. “I’m impressed; that’s some enchantment. Walk in pee with my blessing. And while we’re on the subject of walking, we should walk out of here.”
“The Goblins?”
“Don’t worry about them.” She pointed back along the tunnel with enough emphasis the lovebirds finally got moving. “The Goblins won’t come near when I’m around.”
“That’s what the Prince said,” Eineen muttered, stepping over one of the sloppier piles of Goblin bits. “Then he left us.”
“And I came back.”
“You were gone for barely half an hour and you were near death.”
“Yeah, well, I heal fast.” She put enough edge on the words to discourage further questions.
“Why?”
Or maybe not. “Why what?” she asked.
Eineen turned her head far enough the beam from her headlamp swept across the side tunnel they were passing. The darkness screamed, Keep moving, nothing here. “Why did you come back? We are not your family and the Gales do not get involved in the business of the Fey.”
Charlie snorted. “You lucked out, I decided to be one of the good guys.”
“You can decide that?”
“Seems I’ll be deciding that every moment of every day. Great power. Great responsibility. Yadda. Yadda.”
“Sucks to be you,” Paul said dryly.
Charlie laughed. “You’re okay, Boy-toy.
It was clear he wasn’t okay, not quite, not yet, but with every touch of Eineen’s hand, or bump against his shoulder, or loving glance, he got a little better as the attitude adjustment that protected the Selkies in relationships distanced him from what had happened back at the gate. Walking behind them—mostly because they had the lights, but if they wanted to believe she was guarding the rear, she was good with that—Charlie could see the wobble in his movement firm up until he was moving as normally as his trousers allowed. When he half turned to help Eineen over a junction in the rails and she could see the edge of the stain, she sang the charm onto it.
Paul stopped walking, looked down, looked back at her, and said, “Thank you.”
Eineen turned to glare. Charlie shrugged. “Saved your life, saved all four skins—five counting yours—don’t need your permission anyway, only a line of sight, and you’re welcome.”
When they emerged out into the open area, Eineen and Paul ran for the elevator. Although the cage door had been left open and even a Goblin could figure out a big “press here” button, the elevator was right where they’d left it.
Charlie faced the tunnel. She didn’t bother raising her voice; the Goblins would hear her. “Go home. Close and lock the gate behind you. If I come back down here and any of you are still around, I will make you watch the entire run of Barney and Friends.What?” she asked as she turned and found her companions staring at her. “It’s not like they understand English. It just has to be a credible threat.”
Given the destruction in Canaveral, it was a miracle the elevator had remained undamaged.
“Not a miracle,” Paul told her when she made the observation aloud. “The dra . . . Jack. The door had crumpled, but his eyes glowed and he . . .” Jazz hands stood in when he lost the words.
“Good thing,” Charlie allowed, closing the gate behind her. “I know another way out, but it’d be a tight ride up.”
Although, given the way Eineen and Paul cuddled all the way to the surface, she doubted that they’d have minded.
Charlie, while appreciating that true love had inspired half her play list, was tempted to break into Newfoundland sealing songs if only to counteract the rising level of schmoop. Particularly since the schmoop wasn’t being generated by true love but a Selkie enchantment. Still, they’d been through a lot and she supposed they deserved a bit of comfort. First word of baby talk, though, and she was responding with a rousing chorus of “Come All Ye Jolly Ice-Hunters.”
The fiddler in her head threw in a few bars in clear agreement.
Half an hour or so later, standing by the car watching Paul lock up behind them, she finally couldn’t take it anymore. “Are neither of you the slightest bit curious as to how I got back moments after I left, fully healed and wearing different clothes?”
Eineen shrugged, the movement impossibly graceful. “Fey with even the slightest sense of self-preservation don’t get involved in the business of the Gales.”
Okay. That made sense. “Paul?”
“You look like Catherine Gale.” he said turning from the building.
“Well, sure, there’s always been a family resemblance but . . .”
“I don’t mean physically.” Pulling his car keys out, he pointed the fob and unlocked the doors. “I don’t know how to explain it.” He frowned, obviously intending to try. “When you meet a wild animal, you have no way of knowing if they’ll walk off and leave you alone, or attack. You and Catherine Gale share that same unpredictability. You didn’t use to, but you do now.”
“You used to be powerful because of who you were.” Eineen slipped an arm around Paul’s waist. “Now, you’re dangerous because of what you are.”
“Besides,” Paul added before Charlie could figure out her reaction, “you might have wanted to be asked, but part of that was wanting to say I can’t tell you when we did.”
“That’s . . . actually bang on,” she admitted. No real reason not to admit
it.
“I deal with power every day.” He held the passenger door open for Eineen who wore the smug expression of a cat with cream. “The power may be different, but dealing with it isn’t.”
The fiddler in her head came in with a rousing rendition of “Princess Royal.”
Charlie stopped Paul before he could open her door as well—manners devolved into chauvinism too often in her experience—but punched him lightly on the arm as he turned to head around the rear of the car to the driver’s door. “I like you, Paul Belleveau. I didn’t expect to, but you’re okay.”
“I’m thrilled.”
“You should be. And you needn’t look so smug,” she added sliding into the backseat, and flicking Eineen in the back of the head. “It’s not like you knew what kind of a man he was when he groped your sealskin.” A short pause. An added rim shot. Because a sentence like that seemed to require one.
“You planning on using that ax this afternoon, Chuck?”
“Going to have to.” Charlie finished tuning the six on her storm guitar and ran her thumb down the strings. “My other one got destroyed last night.” Last night for the guitar, ten . . . nine . . . eleven nights ago for her. She’d be glad to see those days pass again, so she could call Allie, tell her it worked, and merge the timelines of her life back together. It suddenly occurred to her that no one was going to call her for the next ten, or eleven, or nine days and that was almost enough to make up for losing her guitar. Almost.
The unnatural silence drew her attention back to the basement. Shelly, Tim, and Mark were staring at her wearing varying expressions of horror.
“Ah, Jesus, Chuck, that sucks the big, hairy hard one.” Crouching down, Mark braced himself on her knees and peered up at her through a messy fall of hair. “You okay?”
