Pale: 10.e - Interlude

One After Another – 10.e | Pale
He slept a nascent sleep, impossible to track in hours, days, weeks, months, years, or centuries, because it was a sleep so embedded in meat, meat chunks, and mud.  Grey-brown earth had diluted blood pooling in depressions, black-red bubbles oozing out along with the detritus of violence and waste- parts of broken toys and watches, teeth, wasted staples and scattered wrappers.  This waste is pooled so deep here that it transcends time and nature.  Here, things do not rot, but recycle through, collect, bubble up, and sink down.

An expert hand reached in, wove between bits of trash, and found him.  Two fingers plunge into mouth and throat.  Fingernails keep him from closing mouth and teeth over the offending digits, stabbing upper and lower gums.  He bites deeper regardless, as the fingers in his throat make him vomit and he thrashes, kicking and screaming, into light and action.

With a flick, he was flung into mud and dirt, skidding a few feet before traction was lost.  He puked the remaining dirt, blood, and gunk from his lungs and stomach.

“You’ll do.  Disappoint me and I’ll twist your head off and shove it up your bunghole.  Disappoint me a lot and I won’t kill you when I do it.”

“Blah,” he replied, spitting.  He looked around, bewildered.

“I bind you, blah blah, seal of Solomon, and I oblige you to bind any other goblins you bring forth.  Yeah?”

The homes looked as though they were made of wet paper; they absorbed moisture and buckled, stained and in places even let light shine through, highlighting the spots of mold and stains.  It was dark but there was a lot of ambient light, shining from inside places and around corners, people of various shapes and sizes gathered around, sitting in mud or on whatever trash was available.  It was a street, and it looked like the buildings were designed to focus more on letting alleys happen than on actually being decent to live in.  Rooftops were partially walkways, when other things weren’t stacked on top, and various boxes and collections of things were stowed off to the sides, many protected by creatures big and small.

The things that lived here were- were goblins.  He knew that.  They could be as small as mice and as large or larger than the heavyset one who sat atop a house, no less than fifty medium sized goblins crawling over and around the flesh that pooled out around him.  He could use his own mass, rearranged, as a chair.

There were goblins with noses like broomsticks, noses like hatchets, noses like animals, and no noses at all.  Overbites, underbites, teeth so snarly and woven together the mouths didn’t look like they could open, lips stitched and wobbly too-open mouths with tongues lolling out.  When there weren’t noses or weird mouths there were beaks, or muzzles, or body mods.  Some were naked and others were clothed in trash and rags.

“Stay, or else we’ll do the head twist.  Yes?”  The goblin giving the order was a woman, head like an unpopped zit with features molded into it, hair purple, clothing purple, and it was very clear she stood above a lot of the rest, because she’d been able to pick and choose trash until she had that color scheme.  It didn’t suit her.

He’d been awake for a few minutes and he knew it didn’t suit her.

“Yes!?” she raised her voice.  Some heads turned.

She walked away, rummaging through trash.

He patted himself down.  No real nose, short nubby ears at the side of his head, wide mouth, big head, big belly, stubby arms and legs.  There was a brown bottle in the dirt and it came up to his belly button.

A pair of goblins were sniggering.  They were a pair, very similar, with very tall heads topped with greasy hair, and mouths that extended sideways, with one’s skewed as if the left side was shorter than the right, which extended to his ear, and the other with teeth sticking out of his cheek on the left side.

The newborn watched, eyebrows furrowed, as they pulled a goblin twice his size out of the crowd, festooned with metal and teeth.  One of them hurried to dig a hole, before the two of them shoved him in and buried it.

“No asking for help!” one of them barked, the other stifling his mean snickering.

The goblin lady in purple gave them the finger, grabbed her forearm in a deathgrip, and squeezed flesh and blood upward, so the hand and then the finger swelled, big, disgorged and purple.

“Running out of time!” the other one said.  They fished around in the wettest dirt, and each found another newborn goblin.  Each a little under twice the height of the little brown bottle.

“Ten… nine… eight… six…”

“Here!” the goblin in purple declared.  She threw two more newborns into the muck.  They skidded.

And the brothers reached in at the spot they’d buried the other and hauled out the big one, with the metal and spikey bits, and the snaggleteeth that looked like they could bite an arm off.

“What!?” the one in purple barked.  “No!  Get bent!”

“You’re weak!  Can’t even find a goblin this good!” one of the twins jeered.

“He looks familiar.  Haven’t I seen him!?”

“So cocky without a cock to call your own!”

“Nobody wants you!” the first jeered.

She got flustered enough she seemed to forget about the part where she recognized the goblin they’d buried and dug back up.

One of the others she’d found started to sneak away.  She kicked it hard enough it bent its leg the wrong way.  “Don’t run!  You’re fighting for me!”

“How can it fight?” one twin jeered.  “It’s so small!”

“You’re so bad at this!”

She huffed, turning redder, until her zit-like head threatened to pop.  Her voice became a low growl, just for the three she’d picked.  “Fight for me or else.  Don’t suck or extra fucking else, got it?”

Other goblins were gathering, or moving to vantage points where they could look down on the scene.

So many, he thought, looking around.  So many eyes on him.  Some brought sources of light closer, guttering flames in containers, makeshift lamps, and torches.  It only made the roughly circular arena seem darker.

It was a series of one-on-one fights.  The goblin with the screwed up leg from being kicked was pushed forward and then staggered forward the rest of the way.  They -gender unclear with tufts of fur getting in the way, lasted about three seconds before the other newborn smacked it across the face, then leaped on top of it, pounding it with its fists, expression transforming to a growing glee as it discovered violence for the first time.

Second.  A female with a face that all extended to a point, who moved forward on all fours, and then picked a bit of twisted metal out of the mud.  Her head twitched, shaking, and she sneezed.  She advanced, cautious, pausing to sneeze here and there, while the other goblin, still smiling, watched, caught between defending himself and his new hobby of pounding the now unconscious first goblin.

He apparently wanted to pound until the very last second, when he could move onto the new target, but he underestimated how fast the pointy-faced one was, or how sharp that metal was.  She got a few good cuts in, putting him on the defensive, then sliced him across the belly.

There was more blood in the muddy street, now.

“Bahaha!  I pick good ones!” the goblin lady in purple cackled.  “See!  See!?”

“Get her!” one of the twins barked.

They sent their second.  He didn’t seem to know how to fight or want to fight, and his death came quickly.

So they sent their third.  The one they’d buried and dug up.  Huge, compared to all the rest of them, with metal bracing all around his head and more metal strapped to his body, no care given to sharp edges.

He didn’t care much about the sharp bit of metal she wielded, either.  She cut him four times, and he picked her up.  She flailed, screaming, cringing, babbling frantically.  The crowd erupted.

“She fought fine, break her legs and toss her aside!”

“Make her eat something!”

It was chaos.  Goblins shouting over one another, saying all kinds of things.

But the more scared she got, the more she babbled and sniveled, the less kind those things they were saying became.

Can’t do that, the last of the newborns thought.

He watched as the big goblin lifted the pointy-faced one up, then bit her head off.  Members of the crowd alternately winced and jeered.

“Don’t make me kick you,” the goblin in purple warned.

All confidence, head held high, the last newborn waded forward, glancing down here and there, searching.  A bit of metal wire that could poke.  He grabbed it.  A wooden skewer with a desiccated goldfish on it.

The big goblin watched him carefully.

The last newborn stood taller, and smiled wide.

The wire was too little, the skewer would break.  He saw a fang, and picked it out of the mud.  Then, because he only had two arms, decided to put it in his mouth, mud dripping from tooth and hand.

The other goblin stared at him, the headless body lying in front of him.

So the last newborn smiled back, holding back fear.

The bigger goblin, not moving closer, reached down, scooping up mud, and shoved a handful into his mouth.

Why?  What?  Was he a moron?  Didn’t he realize?

The last of the surviving newborns dug into mud again, picking it up, lifting it slowly to his mouth.

And the other scooped up mud, choking back a large handful to beat him to the punch.

The twins were complaining, jeering, stepping forward, but others held them back from interfering.  Whatever they were saying wasn’t penetrating over the raucous crowd.

The last of the newborns didn’t actually eat the mud, but picked it up, letting it slop down his front, throwing weapon aside to use two hands.

And the other gobiln shoveled the street mud into his mouth, choking it down.  Trying to win a contest or benefit from what the last newborn was trying to do.  Every shit-eating grin shot his way only spurred him on further.

He dug up another newborn, deep in the street mud, and his eyes flashed, as if he’d discovered the supposed secret or realized what the prize was that he was trying to discover.  He went to eat the newborn, and it fought back, scratching and biting.

The no-longer-the-last-newborn used that distraction, used the fact his opponent was now bloated, stomach badly swollen, and went to pick up that piece of metal his predecessor had taken up.  With a slice, he opened up the stomach and all the mud his opponent had been eating spilled out again.

The arena collapsed.  Goblins entered, some picked him up.  He screamed, releasing his anxieties and pent-up fear, and the scream became laughter.

The goblin newborn who’d been excavated by his opponent was partially lifted, partially climbed over arms and hands, tackling him in the air with a hug.

“Me!  I picked him!  This is my victory!” the goblin in purple cried out.  “Yay, Pustulebottom!  Yay!”

Even in how he was raised up, hands pushed and grabbed parts of him and sometimes wrenched. He was turned, flipped, swayed, and it was bewildering and violent.  The goblin clinging to him was female and bloody from the scratching she’d given the other goblin and she seemed to see him as her savior.

The goblin in purple was taller than most, so she shoved and pushed her way to the middle of the crowd, and then reached up, seizing him firmly, pulling his companion away.  Goblins backed off a bit, and she remained there, pumping her fist in the air, beating her chest.

Much of the crowd lost interest.

She soaked in as much of the residual glory as she could, responding every time someone tried to communicate to him, or offer him a treat if he found them at a stall somewhere.  Interjecting, trying to claim the rewards.

Off to the side, goblins were carrying an unplugged freezer full of warm meat down the road.  They set it down at the base of a building, and it carved a furrow into the mud.

Two newborns were buried in that mud, near the surface.  One was injured by the freezer passing over it.

They paired up, one taking the hand of the one with the skin stripped from the back of his head, helping him stand, before they scampered off to places more of their scale, out of the way of tromping feet and freezers.

“Fucking- I have to be nice to you now, don’t I?” Pustulebottom asked.  “You’re my champion or shit like that.  They’ll remember this for a week, ugh!”

He started to try and formulate a response, then spat out the tooth and a bit of mud, off to the side, to clear out his mouth.  “Bleh.”

“You want a name?” she asked, clearly dissatisfied.

“Then I’ll call you-”

“I saw,” Toadswallow replied.

The Witch Hunter had woken early in the morning, the rest of the motel’s residents coming and going while he slept, trapped in a room with a Nightmare.  From that point, he hadn’t stopped.  Now the entire nature-ridden region east of Kennet and a full fifth of the city near it were being considered a no-go zone.

Snowdrop had stepped in to relieve some of the Others who were getting fatigued, even though she was tired as well.  She’d stepped out into the late afternoon crowd, spotted him, and he’d spotted her almost immediately.

Now she was making a brisk retreat, weaving through the crowd, while he followed unerringly.

“Bangnut, Bumcake, Tatty, would you unkindly distract our man down there from killing our opossum friend?” Toadswallow asked.

“Unkindly?” Tatty asked, shrill.  “What kind of word is that?”

“Go, or I’ll deliver you,” Toadswallow warned.  “An unkind sort of delivery that begins with a firework where it doesn’t belong.”

“Do it!  Do it!” Cherrypop demanded.

“You want me to use the firework, Cherry my dear?  High velocity, explosion at the end?”

“I’m going!  Geez,” Tatty snarled.  She scampered off.

“No, no, yes, use it!” Cherrypop piped up.  “Use itttttt!”

Toadswallow picked her up in a swooping movement, reached into his vest for the firework, and a wad of not-just gum that his beloved had given him, that he chewed sometimes while thinking of her.  He tore off a bit of the wad, stuck Cherry to the rocket, and then lit the fuse.

She opened her mouth to wail, and he pressed it closed with one finger.  “If you make it, tell Snowdrop to get out of this area of the city.  It’s his now.”

She nodded, trying to pull herself off the gum wad.

The fuse hit the base of the firework, and it kicked off.  He aimed it, and let her rocket off across the street with a sharp ‘Fsssss’ sound.

She tore herself off the wad of gum, leaped down about twenty feet to a trash can, bounced hard off the rim and into the alley, and the rocket continued for a little while.

The firework went off behind a business, startling about a dozen people on the sidewalk.

And a wounded Cherrypop, holding a bit of crumpled up food wrapper around herself, ran down the sidewalk, moving with the wind.

Below the rooftop Toadswallow waited on, Bangnut and Tatty crossed the street, clinging to the undersides of cars, darting between them as they passed.  This wasn’t something they weren’t practiced in, but doing it this deep in the city was something that required certain help and permissions.

Ken was altering flows and giving them his blessing for the time being.  The goblins had access to the more active, living parts of the city, where water, electricity, and heat flowed inside the walls and beneath the roads.

The Witch Hunter carried on, closing in on Snowdrop.  He seemed to notice Bangnut and Tatty, and his head turned, looking up at Toadswallow at the rooftop’s edge.

As Bangnut reached the underside of a car, the car’s tire popped.  It was a sudden, violent sound, and the Witch Hunter backed away fast from the vehicle.  Buying Snowdrop time.  She turned into an alley, black rope around her hand, and there were people there.  She reversed course and went back to the sidewalk.

Toadswallow moved between rooftops, tracking the proceedings.  Tatty was also beneath a parked car, but the Witch Hunter was staying too far away.  Didn’t she have some tools or tricks?

I’ll have to knock some sense into these idiots, about being prepared, Toadswallow mused.

“My daughter!” the Witch Hunter shouted.  “Would you grab her?”

Snowdrop hissed as someone hesitantly approached her.  They didn’t grab her.

The Witch Hunter lived in this world.  He had permission and access and privileges the Others didn’t.  He could say that kind of thing, asking to stop Snowdrop, knowing he looked suspicious, but attempting to force a conversation.  Once in that conversation, he could lie and Others couldn’t.  He could sound convincing and calm while any Other, even Lis, would give off odd vibes.  They would seem dishonest.  Or they’d be forced into a corner.

In an extreme case, police could be called, and Alpeana had said the Witch Hunter was from the Lighthouse group, and that they had a relationship with the police.  Someone higher up was a witch hunter or tangentially related to them, and believed in the mission.  Way higher up, most likely.

And if it didn’t go that far, it didn’t even matter, because the conversation had to end, people had places to go, and Snowdrop would be released and the Witch Hunter would be released, and he’d be closer to her, more able to study her.

The crowd hadn’t stopped her, though.  He carried forward, jogging, and Snowdrop broke into a run.

He could smell something that tickled at his nose.  Fruity and altogether too pleasant and warm.  Flowers and shit.  His face wrinkled up and he leaned over the roof’s edge, sniffing.

A person on the street looked up, and he pulled away before the innocent gaze could pass over him.  He moved to another corner, sniffed again.  He sneezed, wet, and wiped with the back of his sleeve, moving again.  He wasn’t nimble, hadn’t been born that way.  He was heavy for his size and he’d always be heavy, no matter how he treated his body or ate.

Third sniff.  He could measure the intensity of the smell, the freshness of it, and get a sense of how far away his target was.  It wasn’t as easy as measuring distances alone, because most of the people down there were moving.

Then, using logic, he could narrow it down.

Fae were prejudiced in their own way, choosing attractive people to associate with, so he could ballpark an area, look for the most attractive person, and check they were moving in the right direction.  There.  A person, touched with Glamour in a brief exchange with one of the Fae.  A woman in a short linen dress with scalloped edges at the bottom, hair in curated waves.  Attractive, like the Fae liked, stinking of, as he’d joked with the Kennet practitioners, ninny glitter.

Cherrypop caught up with Snowdrop, who bent down to pick up the paper wrapper Cherrypop was hiding under.  She deposited it in a trash can, but kept Cherry.

She glanced back and up at Toadswallow, who pointed, jerking his head to one side.

Snowdrop picked up speed, then crossed the street.  A car squealed a bit, stopping abruptly as she ran out in front of it.  She ran past the woman Toadswallow had identified.

The Witch Hunter pursued, crossing the street, and the woman passed him, giving him a long, hard, and curious look.

It slowed him down, as he turned his head, tracking her as she walked by.

He almost lost track of Snowdrop in the process.

Car tires squealed, and a car due to stop at the intersection didn’t- not completely.  One tire stopped rotating and the other carried on, the tail end of the car swung out, and the Witch Hunter was near enough he had to throw himself to the side.

There was commotion, people gathering closer- that slowed him down more.  Checking he was okay.  The driver scrambled out of the car to join things, apologizing, reaching out.

The Witch Hunter turned his attention to Bangnut, who scampered out from beneath the car and into the storm drain.

There were more who smelled like glamour in the area.  People passed the Witch Hunter, giving him curious looks, or offended ones.

This was a workable balance, but the Faerie would tire themselves out doing this.  The ninny glitter was Guilherme’s, and Guilherme was near enough to be useful but not so near he could be intercepted by the Witch Hunter, not easily.  The challenge they were running into, as Snowdrop had found, was that if they were close enough to keep track of the Witch Hunter, the Witch Hunter would track them.  But if they didn’t keep tabs on him, then he would emerge from nowhere, coming right for them.

As his territory expanded, the silver bells and then whatever he was doing here, he would get better at doing this over a wider area.

He wasn’t trying to resolve this situation today.  If he got one of them every few days, killing or disabling like he had a couple nights ago, then he only needed a month or two.  If he kept escalating his capabilities and working out how they operated, or if he took out a few more of their key players, then there was a chance he’d have one very good day where he got more of them.

Toadswallow unbuttoned his top button, reached into his vest, and dug into the mud he kept wet and close to his body, between fabric and shirt.  Clawed fingertips traced a circle and he reached into that circle, arm plunging into the hole there, to withdraw a stinkweed, growing out of a pot filled with specially treated manure.

He huffed as he ran along the roof to get ahead of the Witch Hunter, who was pursuing Tatty and Bangnut, now.  He eyed what was going on on the street below, placed the potted plant on the roof’s ledge, then nudged it over.

He didn’t wait to see the results.  He heard the pot crash and if Bangnut and Tatty reported that he’d struck home and killed the Witch Hunter, he’d be smug and act as if he knew and it was intended.  If not, there was a very good chance the spatter would catch him.

If he had good eyes, they’d use their noses to smell him coming, or at least slow him down while he removed the smell from himself.

Toadswallow beat a hasty retreat, following the other, less natural stink.

They all lived in different worlds, operating by different rules.  Toadswallow had emerged in the middling Warrens, where life boiled forth from mud with such ease it was expendable.  He had almost been expended, but he’d realized things early and he had built on those realizations in the decades since.  The power, the privilege, the ability to change the world and the ability to exist were all predicated on having a story and having an identity.  To do otherwise was to be expendable.

When there were this many faces and names and they became anonymous for being this numerous, the stories were short ones, to be forgotten, saved, or twisted around for the next short story.  And they were enunciated in rage, disgust, outrage, jokes at others’ expenses, narcissism, sharp wit, and other feelings that lasted for moments.

Humanity was figuring that out.  That one graphic picture could get ten times the attention of a piece of poetry.  That the average person, given the choice between a hot and heavy exchange of bodily fluids and a night at the opera in starchy clothes, would pick the former.

And the Faerie, by contrast, were retreating.  They didn’t get involved, going back to their courts and kingdoms.  The ones who ventured out were exiles, the tired like Guilherme, and the young, like Maricica.  Faerie were on their way out.

He found Guilherme, wearing the guise of a twenty-something man, shirt partially unbuttoned, skin tan, hair black and thick, swept over to the right side, while the left side of his head had the hair braided.  Jewelry twinkled at his ear.

“Where do you work?” he asked a man of roughly the same age.

“The coffee shop a block that way.”

“I might get fired if I say no.  The pie’s good.”

“Yeah?” Guilherme asked.  He smiled.  “Is that an employee perk?  Getting the leftover pie at the end of the night.”

“Lucky.  Hey, if it’s okay, I’d like to run a survey by you.  A minute of your time, I’m in a rush, I don’t want to give you the scientific rigamarole or whatever.  Let me put some details down on my paper and send you your way.”

“No, people get in trouble for doing that, but hey, uh, while nobody’s around…”

Guilherme led the guy a few steps off to the side, hand on his shoulder.  There was a faint handprint of glamour there.  “I could stop by and buy a slice of that pie, and tip you?”

“Let me get this survey done before I run out of time.  I want you to look at two pictures… tell me what you think.”

Pictures of men’s faces.

Toadswallow reached into his jacket, found a bag of mud, and deposited the mud on the rooftop, drawing out a circle.

Below, Guilherme coughed and fanned at his nose with the pictures he had yet to show the bystander.

The circle filled in with mud, and Toadswallow plunged into it.  He traveled through goblin spaces, aligned to a trash chute inside the building.

He exited into an apartment with heaping clothing and collected refuse, and sat with his back to the wall, head just beneath a window that had been opened to air out the space.  Guilherme was a matter of feet away.

“Insightful.  He’s a criminal.”

“Really.  Have you ever thought of going into law enforcement?”

Guilherme laughed.  “Sorry.  Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s okay.  Is that it?”

“That’s it.  Easy and helpful.”

“Cool.  Drop by for that pie, yeah?”

In little ways, Guilherme had steered the man over to one direction, stood in another way.   It meant he went left instead of right, on his way to work.  One more person sent out into the area with ideas in his head and a touch of glamour around him.

“Toadswallow?” Guilherme asked.  Toadswallow could see the side of his face, and his lips didn’t move.  Sound didn’t travel in any direction except to Toadswallow himself.

“Did you hear me?” Toadswallow asked.

“Smelled you.  Where’s he gone?”

“Our hunter turned west.  Stinks of manure, with any luck.  He almost had our dame Snowdrop.”

“With luck we’ll smell him coming as well, then.  There’s less room for that luck as long as you’re here, filling up my nostrils with the smell of you, goblin.”

“So ungrateful!  What have you been doing?  Putting notions of evil in the heads of youngsters, Guilherme?  Isn’t that crude for a Fae of your standing?”

“It’s less crude than you know.  I’m doing many things at once and I’m doing them in a hurry.  None of you would recognize the art in what I do, if I did art.”

“That just sounds lazy.”

“We’re done here.  If he’s coming, I’m going.”

“I was there, working against him, and you’re running, my good gentleman.  Does that mean I’m the braver man?” Toadswallow asked.

He timed his guttural cackle of a laugh to cut off Guilherme’s first attempt at speaking.

Guilherme responded, “I seem to recall you saying bravery and stupidity are rooted in the same thing.  A year ago or so.”

“That does sounds like something I’d say to you, brave Faerie.  Does it shrivel your testicles, knowing I got closer to our mutual enemy than you were willing to?”

“Good deflection,” Toadswallow cackled.

Guilherme turned his head, looking into the window.  He donned a smug smirk, shifting how he stood.  Fingers ran through his hair, rearranging it, and the stench of glamour filled the air.  A woman walked by in the same moment, glancing at Guilherme, looking annoyed.

“Crude trick, Guilherme,” Toadswallow commented.  “What are you, two hundred years old?  Getting her annoyed at how attractive she finds you?  Or flushed with the thoughts of how she might smack the obnoxious smirk from your face?”

“I loathe that I have to use it.  It’s nothing so crude.”

“Again, I must do multiple things at once.  I’ll see you at the meeting later, with luck.”

“With luck?  Am I such a lucky charm?  Do you flatter me with comparisons to a dismembered rabbit’s foot!?” Toadswallow raised his voice, getting to the point of a near shriek by the end of the question.

The whisper carried back in the air.  “A dismembered something.”

Toadswallow checked the coast was clear enough, pulled his monocle off, then held it out the window, angling it to see in the reflection of the smudged glass.

The woman who had walked by, annoyed, was rubbing at her eye.  She bumped into the Witch Hunter as he rounded the corner, and he caught her before she could fall.  Except she wasn’t falling.

“Creep!” she shouted, pushing him away.

Toadswallow reversed course, going up to the roof and the small, temporary hole he’d forged there.  He arrived in time to see the confluence of actors and glamours.  The woman with the scalloped linen dress returning with a shopping bag in hand, jogging forward- interrupted by a passing man with dark hair.

Guilherme had taken Toadswallow’s bait, to prove something.  He got close, keeping to the crowd, keeping people between himself and the Witch Hunter, while people surrounded the man, asked what had happened, and the woman continued to rub at her eye.

The Witch Hunter spotted Guilherme.

This was Faerie practices 101.  The nudges, the arrangements, knowing how people acted well enough to guide those actions.  A thought of an obnoxious man putting thoughts on the defensive, shaping her reflexive reaction, helped by her inability to see.

It wasn’t that Toadswallow didn’t appreciate many of these things on their own.  It was just… so much effort for something so subtle.  He preferred farts in a can and fireworks.  They were far more fun.

The Witch Hunter’s hand moved toward his gun.  Someone noticed.

And Guilherme slipped away, glancing at Toadswallow, who smirked in response.

There were more agents of Guilherme’s, influenced and caught in the midst of their routines, returning or walking dogs, like boomerangs thrown out, all passing by this point around this time, most attractive, all nudged in subtle ways.

And Toadswallow could see what Guilherme had been talking about.  The multiple things he was doing.  The initial focus was on the Witch Hunter, but there was more on the other antagonist.  Much as the woman in the linen dress had been interrupted and wasn’t stepping up to play her role, a family came through the area, filling up space that Guilherme’s agents would have occupied.  Some pushed forward anyway- to Guilherme’s credit.

A lot of people on two sides of the Witch Hunter probably influenced the direction the man took as he saw the opportunity to pull away, heading out toward the river, southwest.

Toadswallow inhaled, deep, and the summer glitter was heavy in the air.  Beneath and behind it, close to that family and the man with black hair who had interrupted Guilherme’s maneuvers… the musk of dark fall.

The Witch Hunter had no idea how two factions were using him.  Guilherme nudged him one way, trying to entrap him, while Maricica freed him, countering the pawns Guilherme used.  Sending him out toward the water and the southwest.

Toward John.  In a roundabout fashion, toward the Ghouls.

Toadswallow put the monocle back, the lens from a child’s pair of glasses, sorted out his things, then plunged into the depths.  He was already thinking of his own moves.  Talking to Snowdrop, rallying the goblins he’d just scattered around as distractions.

Playing with the balance of power between Maricica and Guilherme, now.

“Dee, you fuckwit, what the everloving fuck is that?” he asked.  “You’re gone for forever and you bring that with you?”

Dee was a skinny adolescent of a goblin, bat-nosed, big-eared, bug-eyed, with fangs poking out of the corner of her mouth.  She fit to human proportions, so she wore human clothes- a lot of fishnets and mesh stuff with a big spray-painted smiley face on her chest.  Some of it had reached past the mesh to paint her skin with flecks that had fallen away, dusting her belly and the top of her shorts.

A human girl followed her, holding onto the back of her shirt.  Wearing a nightshirt with a cartoon character on it, her hair messy.

“It’s a long frigging story, Turdy.”

“I frigging bet,” Turdswallow replied.

“It’s a baby!” Bubble cooed.

“Same thing!  They’re all babies!  So cute and fresh faced!” Bubble cooed.  She hurried forward, pink hair with a white streak in it bouncing more than she did.  The kid shrank back behind Dee.  “How does it taste!?”

“Iunno,” Dee replied.  “I don’t want to eat it.  It followed me, mostly.”

“The story!” Turdswallow pressed.  “Tell us!”

“Do I exist for your entertainment?  Is that all I’m worth!?”

“Yeah, you do and yeah it is!  How much do you owe me, helping you out, you twit?”

Dee paused, then got a scheming look on her face.  “Does this clear my debt, if I tell the story?”

“Fuck no, it doesn’t.  But it’s a start.”

Her face fell.  “Frig, fuck, fine!”

Bubble creeped around Deedee, reaching out with a claw to pat the child’s hair, as the child shrank back, hugging Dee close and keeping the goblin between herself and the goblin with the shaggy pink hair and fanged grin.

“Spitsucker was showing me the ropes last week.  I’ve been thinking for a while, I gotta get out of this pit.  Gotta get friggin’ gone, yeah?”

“Why would you want out?” Bubble asked.

“Because…”  Dee waved a long, skinny arm around at the Warrens.  They were in a sub-cavern, a roughly circular area with tunnels extending out like spokes, bits of trash stuck to the walls to indicate where each tunnel led to… sometimes.  Sometimes goblins stuck things there for fun.

A goblin about fifteen feet across and thirty feet tall was occupying the center of the central space, a pillar of an entity, fleshy, with bits of technology gathered all around it.  Gremlins served it, bringing food, hauling wires, pulling things apart and putting them together to improve the setup.  Screens hung from chains in front of the many eyeballs, wired to other screens and various feeds.  Many channels all at once.  A lot were cartoon reruns.  Turdswallow and Bubble were hanging out, cuddling in a corner and watching from a distance, trying to strike the right balance of having a good view and not being too obvious to the busy gremlins who would demand payment at random times, for a chance to watch the cartoons and things.

“It’s a place that fuckin’ devours you,” Dee said.  “Can’t get away from crap.  If you don’t look like you’re working then they’ll recruit you or eat you or some worse shit.”

“They’ll recruit you or eat you or worse shit up there,” he grunted his response.

“There’s a reason so many go up there.  It’s less- it’s way friggin’ bigger, Turdy.  Way bigger!”

He wanted to argue but couldn’t.

Dee went on, “I’m sneaky.  Spitsuck was showing me the bump in the night crap, right?  Go under some kid’s bed, right?  Right.  Then you scare ’em, and the parents come, and you scare them too.�

“Good work to be doing,” Bubble said.

“Right?  Yeah!  An’ it keeps me busy and shit.  An’ if you do it right you can get ’em before they grow up and put everything away in their brain boxes.  That thing under the bed was all imagination, boxed up, taped, packaged and put away.  There’s a lot you can get away with if you time it right.  Steal stuff, toys, tools, games, pawn ’em off here.  They’ll put that in the same box.”

“Pets, though,” Turdswallow said.

“Pets, yeah.  An’ it’s not usually good work.  But Spit and I were doing some next level crap.  Phrogging.”

“I don’t know what it is but I like the sound of it.”

“You do the usual, under the bed crap, but… closets, attics.  Make secret doors, right?  Spit makes entrances to the attic, paints over it, looks like it was always there and shit.  Or if they have huge fuckin’ houses, you move into a room they don’t go into.  Live in freaking luxury, take food from the kitchen, whatever.  An’ you live in their houses without them knowing.  Ramp it up, take things, make noises, screw with their heads, spy.”

“That is next level,” Bubble cooed.

“So I was doin’ that.  I’m creeping around this kid’s room.  She’s got those popular toy bugs, pictures on their backs and crap.”

“Love bugs,” the kid muttered.

“That shit, yeah!  Yeah!  I’m taking that stuff and selling it.  Kid’s all huddled up in bed every night so she seems okay with it.”

“I liked those, actually,” the kid said, sullen.

“Anyway, so I’m there and dad comes in.  Kid’s in bed, covers pulled over her head.  He walks over, bam bam bam, punches her.  Walks out.  What the fuck, right!?”

Turdswallow looked at the kid, who glared at him.

“I know goblins who’d do that,” Bubble said.

“He doesn’t even do it like he thinks it’s funny!  He does it a few nights later.  Kid’s not even sleeping anymore, it’s cramping my style, and she sees me.  Normally that’s fine, but I’m pissed at this point.  There’s only so far I can push this crap.  So I wait two nights, kid’s in bed, I climb under the covers with her, curled up behind her.  She doesn’t move a muscle.  Dad comes in, stomp stomp stomp stomp, punches me.  Way I see it, I’m entirely justified in what I do.”

“What did you do?” Turdswallow asked.

Dee broke off, frowning hard.

“Deeeee.” He leaned in.  “Deee, what did you doooo?”

“Deeeee,” Bubble echoed.

“I had to get rid of him, okay?”

“Because he hit you?” Bubble asked.

“Naw, nah!  No, because one weird hurty thing you do to someone can be explained away at the hospital, but five?  Nah, that’s too many questions and they’d probably ask the kid and kids are shit at lying.”

“So you brought the kid?” Bubble asked.

“She came!  Ugh!  This was a mistake.  I had to dispose of him, she followed, I thought maybe the crotchdroplet would peel off and go mind her own business once she knew he was really gone, but no, she keeps following me.”

His nostrils flared.  She didn’t smell like all the normal smells.

“Kid,” Turdswallow said.

He rummaged in a pocket, and pulled out a cold cheeseburger.  “I was going to poison this, leave it and see what happened.  Might’ve already poisoned it but I’m pretty sure I didn’t.  Want?  Can’t promise you won’t shit your brains out.”

“Grease, fat, salt, meat,” Bubble said.  “Everything you need to grow up right.”

He pulled the cheeseburger back.  “Talk first.  Why follow Dee?”

“C’monnnnnn,” Bubble echoed.

“Where else was I supposed to go?”

“Yeah,” he replied.  “There are places.  If you want, I’ll take you back somewhere good.  But you gotta think of us as big imaginations after a big trauma and crap.  And you’ll have to pay us.  Bury all your baby teeth in a hole in a spot we tell you to or somethin’.  Whenever you lose ’em.”

“Those contradict,” Dee said.  “Can’t forget us if she has to do that.”

“You contradict, you ditzwit!  You let a kid follow you down here!”

The kid reached for the cheeseburger.  He handed it over, let her get her hand on it, but didn’t release it.  “You want to go somewhere safe?”

“I want to watch cartoons,” the kid said, pointing.

“Gotta pay,” Bubble informed her.

The kid patted her legs where pockets would otherwise be.

“Here,” Turdswallow told her.  He fished in a pocket and found a can lid with a razor edge, half an apple with a really big centipede hidden in it, and a coin that had been somewhere unmentionable.  “Give them these if they ask.  One at a time, every time they ask.  Don’t eat the apple bit.”

She nodded, holding the things with the same hands that held the cold, greasy cheeseburger.  She ran off about thirty paces, then stood by, watching the screens, startling a bit as the big goblin burbled.

“You’re so good with kids,” Bubble said.  “Will you give me one?”

“No!  In my belly!  A baby child thing!”

“Ugh.  You can find those all over the place.”

“I’m gonna keep doing the creepy stuff, pawn off anything I grab, scare some people and shit,” Dee said.  “Maybe once I get enough scrounged up I can get what you guys have.”

“It’s good work.  Sounds like you’ve got a plan, Dee-diot,” Turdswallow said.  “Except you can’t bring the little shits home!  Don’t change the subject!  What are you doing with her?”

“Who’s changing the subject?” Bubble asked.  “Baby.  Now.”

Dee shrugged him off.  “Aw, I’ll just look after her, I’ll nudge her if she’s wandering into trouble.  How hard can it be?”

“They’re all fragile, y’know?  They don’t bounce back like we do.  And you were saying you’re leaving to work on other stuff, right?”

“Want her?” Deedee asked.  “She’s so easy, look!  Cartoons, she just sits there!  Give her your leftovers.  And I bet she’s obedient.  Kid!”

“That piece of paper!  On the ground, right by your feet.  Bring it to me!”

The kid picked up the paper, then jogged over, bringing the paper.

The kid went back to watch cartoons.

Turdswallow grimaced.  “You’re… not wrong, it’s dangerous to stay down here, get too comfortable.  Been hearing rumblings.”

“Yeah!” Deedee agreed.  “I wanted to ask!  What are you doing?”

The twit couldn’t keep two ideas straight in her head sometimes.  Smart sometimes, an airhead at others.  She was forgetting she needed a babysitter as she urged him into a career choice.

“I dunno,” he said.  He looked at the kid, then Bubble.  “Bubs?  What do you want?”

“All meat.  I got ambitions,” Bubble said.  “Gotta get strong, gotta kick ass, gotta eat meat, gotta get more meat that’s not for eating.  Meat makes the world go around.”

Turdswallow nodded.  It was a good answer.

“And you?” Deedee asked, excited.  “Creeping?  Being a bump in the night?”

“Ah, nah,” he told her.  “I’d get bored.”

Bubble gave him a pat on the head.  “You’re too smart, Turdy, too clever for your own good.  Gets goblins killed, if they can’t sit and be stupid.  When your brain goes too fast you get moving and it’s easy to move into trouble.”

“There’s kid stuff!” Deedee exclaimed.  “If you’re good with kids and you’re smart you could do kids!”

“Phrasing,” Turdswallow told her.

“Kids!  They’re all squishy and malleable!  I could get that kid over there to do all sorts of things, like if I told her to spin around in circles before she talked to me!  They’re a riot!”

“Mmmmm,” he grumbled, while considering, his eyes narrowing.

“You’d have to sanitize,” Deedee told him.  “Fix the language and shit.”

“Shit,” he grumbled.  “I can do that.”

“Want to do it with me?” he asked Bubble.  “We could turn you to… Bubbleyum instead.”

She made a face.  “It’s not all aspirational and shit.  Hard to climb the ladder in goblin society if you’re teaching kids what sorts of nails to eat.”

“Doable,” he told her.  “Not impossible.”

“Not for me, fuckyboo,” she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.  “I don’t like kids that much.  At least if they’re ours we can smack ’em across the back of the head and tell them to go away for a few days.”

“Yeh,” he agreed.  “Yeah.  Arright.  We’ll think about it.”

“You could use my pet human as practice!  Show her the ropes!” Dee exclaimed, excited.

“Yeah.  Sure, some!  Only some!  Don’t go sticking your mistake on me.”

“She’s not that sticky.”

He stabbed a warning finger at her.

“You!  Child thing!” Dee called out.  “Come!”

The kid perked up, then ran over.

“You’ll need to protect your tiny ass down here,” Dee told the little girl.  “How are your knife handling skills?”

“And improvised weapons,” Toadswallow said.  “And tricks.  Gotta keep some tricks in your back pocket.”

The kid looked at him and nodded.

“You are good at this,” Bubble said, leaning into him, head on his shoulder, hand on his buttock.

“You know that was too close, moron,” Toadswallow said.

Snowdrop shrugged.  She was wearing headphones with flared rims that mimicked an opossum’s ears, black denim shorts, and a gray crop top with a white snowdrop flower where every petal was an outline of an opossum.  Florid text around the flower read ‘I have a mouth and I must scream’.  There was a hood attached, and Cherrypop slept inside the hood, making it poke down a bit, the collar of the top pulling tighter across the throat.

They zig-zagged between backyards and traveled along and through fences to get to the back of Avery’s house.

“A lady without something in her pocket is lacking,” he told her.  “Disappointed in her times of need.”

“Didn’t have anything, yeah,” Snowdrop told him.

“More than the rope.”

“I carry a lot of stuff, usually.”

He put a hand on her arm.  “You’ve got more of the Kelly girl in you now, am I right?”

Snowdrop looked at him.  “Nah.  She’s not giving me anything right now.”

“Then, my dear, you can carry more shit.  So carry more.  Be ready.”

“He’s an idiot who falls for that stuff all the time, so that’s a real winning plan.”

“Don’t get clever with me.  Everything counts.”

“And here I thought you cared about me and wouldn’t say stuff like this to me.  Meanie.”

“Snow,” he growled.  He held firmer on her arm, stopping her from walking.  “What’s your plan?”

“Ditch Avery, ride off into the sunset, steer clear of opossum males and trashy boys.”

“Gotta persist if you want that stuff, trashmouth.  Gotta live!”

“I know that!” she shouted.

Stupid sacrificial animal! he thought.  He didn’t say it.  Sacrificial animals got touchy about those sorts of things.

“So work harder at it, yeah!?” he told her.

“You don’t have to lecture me like I’m four months old!” the four month old opossum shouted.

“I was less than forty minutes old when I was figuring some of this out, so don’t give me excuses.”

She huffed, folding her arms.

He drew himself back, exhaled, and forced himself to calm down, to be composed.

He scratched the top of his head.

“How’s your human?”

“Headache free, happily sleeping, last I checked.”

“How’s our witch hunter?” Snowdrop asked.  “I saw some at the end there.”

“Headache free and running rampant, last I saw,” Toadswallow told her.  “Getting into our shit.  He�s checking places Others like to live.  Matter of time before he finds John or the ghouls.”

“I don’t like either of those.”

“Yeah, well, it is what it is.  So you like those guys.  You like your human?”

Snowdrop shrugged.  “I could stand to be through with her.”

“You like us?  Her, sleeping in your hood there?  The others?”

“Nah.  It’s not fun anymore, having to share trash food and being all immature and stuff.”

“Yeah,” he replied.  “I wanted to run an idea past you, but I’m going to need you not to tell your human.”

“I’m sworn to secrecy.”

“But you can keep a secret.”

“I’ll… keep everything from her.  No ifs ands or buts.”

She’ll keep some secrets, with discretion, he interpreted.  “Okay.  How would you like a bit of steady employment, down the line?”

“A job?  I’m free, no obligations, nothing.”

“When you’re free, when Avery doesn’t need you.”

“Remember the sage?  Plastic beard?”

“Most places have one.  Usually the same sort of rule as your Carmine, Alabaster, whoever, trying to stay so you don’t have to travel more than a day to find one.  Sometimes they’re in the Warrens, sometimes up here, sometimes they’re tucked away, and sometimes they’re further because goblins are really bad at counting and keeping track.  Helps manage things, to have someone.”

She cocked her head the other way.  “But-”

“You’re goblin enough.  You’re popular.  They like you.  It’d be a part time gig, bit of showmanship, bit of wisdom.  Not for right now, but a few years down the line.  Once you have that wisdom.  We’d need to get there first.”

“Great goblin sage Snowdrop?”

“If we call you a goblin, make that our rule, it’s a bit of a lark for anyone passing through.  What do you think?”

“I think… I’m adamantly opposed.”

“Does that mean you’re adamantly interested, or not completely opposed.”

“Nah,” he echoed her.  “Okay.  I wanted to run that by you.”

“I’ll have to keep it a secret from Avery.”

“Hmmm.  Do me a favor?  Don’t go talking too much about it?” he asked.  “Think on it, we’ll talk about it again, after some things clarify, and you can bring it up then, how’s that?”

“I’ll have to keep it a secret from her, yeah.”

“Not sorry.  I shouldn’t go.  I was told not to bother her while she’s sleeping.”

“Sleeping at this hour?”

“Give me Cherry then.”

“Cherry,” Snowdrop said.  She tugged on her hood, jostling Cherrypop.  “You should stay asleep forever, jerk.”

“Cherry!” Toadswallow barked.

Snowdrop stuck her arms in the air.  “Aaaaaaa!”

“Aaaaa!” Cherrypop replied, nearly falling out of the hood in her haste to spring upright and stick her arms in the air.

Avery leaned out of her window.  All of them looked up from the back garden to the young teenager with messy strawberry blonde hair.  She had been sleeping.  She winced before hissing, “Shut up!  Please!”

“Headache’s gone,” Snowdrop remarked.

Toadswallow followed Snowdrop as she scaled up to the side of the house, to the little bit of roof that extended below Avery’s window.

Avery was there, looking pretty bad.  Worn out by a headache.  Elsewhere in the house, kids were screaming or shouting.  Avery winced with every sound.

“Tashlit can’t come back soon enough, it seems,” Toadswallow remarked.

“It’d be nice,” Avery said.  “I just hope Verona’s situation gets resolved.  Did everything go okay?”

“Stayed out of trouble,” Snowdrop said, climbing in through the window.

“Thanks for seeing her home,” Avery told Toad.  “Sorry I’m not more hospitable, but…”

“It’s alright, dear.  I had things to talk to her about.”

“I’m offended by the terrible offer,” Snowdrop told him, quiet.

“Offer?” Avery asked.

Toadswallow glanced at the opossum girl.  “She’ll probably tell you.  You loaned her a lot of your Self, Avery?”

“Through our bond.  It’s a bit sloppy, though.  But I thought it would be better if she was strong.”

“It’s good.  But you’ll heal slower if you keep doing that.”

“I’d rather have a healthy Snowdrop,” Avery said.  “I’m going to close the window now and go back to bed.  Kerry goes out to the backyard and does the screaming thing, all on her own, so it’s better if I have the window closed.”

“Silencing rune?  I can’t draw it very well.  But I’m doing it a bit.  I didn’t want to spend much personal power while loaning out to Snow.”

“I was thinking of something like a slap from the old soggy handshake.”

Avery laughed, then rubbed the back of her head.  “Ow.”

“You know what I’m talking about?”

“Snowdrop gave me the rundown.”

The ‘soggy handshake’ was Toadswallow’s weapon form.  Goblins could become weapons, and his was something akin to a lone boxing glove resembling a very full diaper in consistency.  A heavy shackle locked it to the wrist, which let him mess with whoever had their hand stuck inside by having something writhe against the hand.  It also stored an improbably large number of random little goblin tricks and trinkets.  Glue bombs, screaming doll heads, capsules of suspicious looking brown paint, a Mother Tick from the warrens… distractions, easily fired off from the wrist with a slap of the free hand.

He’d worked with Bubble to match in that regard.  He was the right hand, she was the left.  Mismatched pugilist’s gloves.

“Ow,” Avery said.  “Be safe out there, Toad.”

She shut the window, then retreated to bed.  She was careful in how she lay down, arranging pillows.  Snowdrop cuddled close, and after Avery said something Toadswallow couldn’t hear, Snowdrop became an opossum, and Avery snuggled her close to her chest.

There were bigger things at work.  Others were making their moves, and before too long, the Witch Hunter would make his next one.

The fairy danced between boughs, carefully adjusting leaves and branches, while referencing the back of a leaf, which had a very specific pattern on it.

She hummed, sang, and twirled, butterfly wings.  Moving a flower, breaking off a twig that had no leaves.

She tugged on another thing, and then realized it wasn’t a leaf.  She shrieked, then took flight.

Butterfly wings didn’t lend themselves to velocity, however.

Toadswallow reached out, caught her, and stuffed her into a glass jar that four other fairys were inside, corking it.

The faerie realm was expansive, everything carefully arranged, and fake.  There was no heart to it, because it was so far from being alive.  It was to the common human garden what the common human garden was to the rich forest.  Pretty, but useless for more than looks.

He continued picking up odds and ends, including the little things that were hidden in bushes.  Charms for listening and warding, it seemed.  None reacted to him, but they didn’t protect against goblins for the primary reason that most goblins didn’t care to come this far in, or got distracted well before they made it this deep.

Toadswallow had started giving some lectures and lessons to young practitioners with interest in goblins.  He was figuring out how little he knew, and he had an obligation now.  Bubble was working on earning power and clout with practitioners, working with a family, and he was peripheral to that, the two of them keeping an eye out for one another as they worked.  The goal, in the end, was for him to earn clout and influence the children of young practitioners, and for her to gain power to influence goblins.  And they’d fought, they’d separated, they’d gotten back together.  They’d known each other from the first hour they’d been born and they’d grown together- so many goblins didn’t eat enough or didn’t find the opportunity to grow so they stalled at small sizes.  Some didn’t have the potential, and others had it but didn’t seek it.

Size was the big way that a goblin could get clout, but they weren’t growing any further.  So he collected tricks, and Bubble gathered power, and they waited for an opportunity to flip the tables on a bigger, more powerful goblin.  Like they had, in that first hour they’d been alive, in Pustulebottom’s contest with Slackjaw and Cracksaw.

The frustration and the fights came about because they were both frustrated, both stumped.  The road to greatness was steep.  He had so much to learn and Bubble didn’t value the trinkets and little magic items he gathered.  He sold services to young humans and taught them things, but in the end, he didn’t understand the Abyss, or Ruins, or anything else.  He didn’t even understand humans.  It was a slow series of lessons and Bubble hated slow.

He hated it too for that matter.  So he took risks, like breaking into the courtyard of a Faerie Lord, seeing what knick-knacks and lesser wildlife he could take and twist around to goblin purposes.

Faerie approached.  Taller than humans, slim, obnoxiously pretty.

He drew into shadows, hand rummaging in pocket, and he found a good distraction, a little paper packet with a number of Warrens fireflies in it.  Each would set a fire every thirty seconds to a minute, until caught or extinguished.  Here, the Faerie would be obligated to handle each last one before getting around to chasing him.  Or they would chase him, then realize the fires were spreading behind them.  Or they would burn.

“You betrayed me, Ysolde,” one said.  “And to a High Summer princess!?”

“No, Eristan, not a betrayal, don’t you see!?”

“I don’t!  I can’t!”

Toadswallow gagged, silent, hiding within bushes.  It seemed so fake a drama.

“All of life’s a stage, Eristan.  All of us are telling a kind of story… each the stars of our own tale…”

Toadswallow lurked, holding the fireflies ready for a moment’s notice.

“The High Summer tells stories of adventure.  But adventure inevitably falls to intrigue, don’t you see?”

“The spring court, yes.  And better yet, if pressed, the best adventures are subverted by tragedy.”

“Tragedy, Ysolde?  But we’re of the high spring.”

“You’re of the high spring, Eristan.”

“No!  Then you’re-”

Toadswallow made a barfing sound.  Both Fae stirred, looking.

He hucked the fireflies their way, holding onto one corner.  The paper packet tore, the rest of the paper soared out, and it burst into a ball of flame, little bugs with lit-match bottoms flying around and setting a surprising amount of fire to the Faerie’s clothing and nearby foliage.

Stupid, he thought.  Stupid Faerie with their stupid melodrama.  Stupid ideas, stupid fanciness, stupid flammable clothing.

He legged it.  Back to the tunnel he’d used to break in.

He was halfway back to the Warrens when the thought crossed his mind.

The Witch Hunter was inside.  In the factory where Nibble and Chloe were.

And Chloe wasn’t well either.  She’d been chained up and had been too dangerous to release, as of late this afternoon.  A berserk rage that had continued since her last altercation with the Witch Hunter.

John and Bluntmunch were inside, with Bluntmunch’s favored goblins.  They’d wanted to go all out.

The windows flashed but there were no sounds of gunshots.

Toadswallow sat, counting out his tricks, monocle flashing with reflected light as he periodically looked up.  Other goblins stood by.

Crooked Rook approached, and Toadswallow motioned for the nearest goblins to move away.

Rook stood there, holding the head of her cane in both hands, patient.

She looked down at Toadswallow.  It was just them now.

“Ma’am.  I’m so fucking curious what you’re on about,” Toadswallow remarked.

“You could ask,” she said, smiling.

“Would you be evasive?”

“I’d rather hold a position where I don’t have to evade.  Saves energy.”

“Do you?  Hold that position?”

“What are you up to?” he asked.

“Standing outside a factory, waiting to see if we were right to place trust in the hands of John Stiles, Bluntmunch, and Bluntmunch’s favorite goblins.”

“Some goblins will die,” Toadswallow said.

“What are you up to in Kennet, in general?” he asked.

“Keeping to promises made while terrifying Matthew and Edith, avoiding the practitioners that you all so thoughtlessly recruited, intriguing you, sir.”

“Most are.  And I do believe you understand why, better than many, Sir Toadswallow.  Why it’s so important to be intriguing.”

He chuckled.  “Do I intrigue you?”

“You did.  But I’ve figured you out for the most part.  You’ve a ways to go, sir.”

The windows lit up with another gunshot, silent.

The Witch Hunter’s shot wasn’t silent or silenced.

“Are you a fighter?” he asked.

“A poor one.  I manage.  I’ve heard you’re not one.”

“A gentleman goblin with a bag of tricks and a mind to suit.  I pick fights I can win.”

“Better to not fight at all.”

“I agree more than you know,” he told her.  “But here we fucking are, standing on the road outside a factory, eyes on windows, ready to leap into the fray if it’s asked of us.”

A full minute passed without gunshots.

“Alpeana came to me this morning to tell me things,” Crooked Rook said.

“Did she?  She told us all things about the Witch Hunter.”

“She told me certain details, quite interesting.  She also told Maricica.”

Crooked Rook glanced at him.

Toadswallow sighed.  “She’s a bit, how shall we say it?”

“Glaikit.  A moron,” he told her.

“Unkind.  I prefer to blame circumstance first, then to take the best possible interpretation, and then to think of things like that.”

“Being a moron is a terrible circumstance.”

Crooked Rook shook her head.

“Do you extend this jolly fucking philosophy to practitioners, Rook?”

“Oh yes,” she said, peering over the mask she held over her lower face.  “What a circumstance, that.  Almost always their own fault.”

“So we’re on a similar page, then, hm?”  He chortled.

“Perhaps.  I did hope to sound you out about the page you were on, Toadswallow.”

“The last I checked, the last page I glanced at was a French lingerie magazine, with fancy words for each outfit.”

“Don’t deflect.  I said I’d figured you out, Toadswallow.  I think you’re very smart, but you’re also prone to missing out on the critical details.  I suspect I know your answer, but I wanted to ask… of the two sides, one wanting to take the Carmine Throne and cast Kennet in new light, and one wanting to oppose that and seek peace…”

“John’s peace, yes.  Who do you side with?”

“A long few years ago, I visited the Faerie courts.  I came to a theory.  If words of it left my lips, half of the Others here in Kennet would want to draw and quarter me.”

“And I think you’d hear me out more readily than just about anyone.  Verona would take to it, but she’s not here.”

“Don’t talk to me about her or them.”

He chortled.  “The Faerie live by stories.  But so do goblins.  It’s… the limerick to their poetry.  The one-liner to their epics.  From a very early point in time, I knew it was important to tell a lie and portray myself as confident, to be open and ready for ideas, and to be armed with any tool… even theirs.  Perhaps that equips me in a unique way.”

“Not unique.  Rare.”

“The thought crossed my mind… what if the goblins were an eighth faerie court?  What if we’re a counterpoint, noisy and active, to Winter?”

“I shan’t say a word, Toadswallow.  They would want to draw and quarter you, Fae and goblin alike.”

“Everything I’ve done since, aping them, dressing myself up, giving myself a meaningless title, the tricks, using their tricks in my own way, like the curse of three… it’s worked out well enough.  I have no glamour, but the Winter Fae have little else.  It makes its sense.”

She looked down at him, and it looked like she was smiling, from the way her eyes lifted up.

“You’re not saying no.”

“Were I to say yes, and if word were to get around, I’d be the focus of much upset here in Kennet.  You’ve neglected to mention what I asked about.  What are you doing?  What is the aim of your… faction, shall we say?”

“A faction of one with some buttocks he kicks into steep motion now and then?”

He gave the Oni woman an appraising look.  He suspected she understood, and he suspected she had either had her own thoughts along similar lines to his, or others had, and those thoughts had been passed down to her.

He decided to trust.  “Many courts have their markets.  Each trades in different things.  I think Kennet could host an eighth.”

“A goblin market?  With you at the helm?”

“Not me at the helm.  I’d prefer to walk around, friend to many, giving advice, jolly and just threatening enough.”

“Do you hate the idea?  I think it would be interesting.”

“I’ve nothing against goblins.  I’d support you.”

“Hmmm,” he grunted, approvingly.

“I won’t say a word to Bluntmunch.”

“Bigger is often the same as being in charge, when it comes to goblins.  He’d object on basis of size differential alone.  It’s truly fucking obnoxious.”

“But I should, at this point, raise a point of interest.  There’s a reason I walked over here.”

He turned his head, looking up at her.  “It wasn’t to inquire about sides and affiliation, to subtly guide me onto your side?”

“Not at all,” she told him.  “I don’t believe much in subtlety, that’s more the province of others and I trust them to handle such things.  I believe in position.”

“Playing your chess game?”

She nodded.  “I changed my position and walked over here because Lucy Ellingson approached the place I was previously standing.  Just around the corner.”

Toadswallow went pale.  He looked at her, then walked a few feet to the right.

Sure enough, right around the corner, Lucy Ellingson was standing near Matt and Edith, wearing her fox mask, hat, and cape, her eyes burning.

And she wore the earring.

“Be careful.  Their kind can listen in.”

“You-” Toadswallow bit back vicious curse words.  Had she realized?  Had she done that on purpose?  It seemed so, but he couldn’t be sure.  Why?  To put him at odds with Lucy?

To force him to her side, in a roundabout fashion?  He hadn’t wanted to take a side.  He’d wanted to build a market on the battlefield that Kennet was inevitably going to become, to invite other key goblins in, to gain power that way first and foremost.

“John just communicated!” Matthew shouted.  “Bluntmunch is down!  John wants assistance!  Collapse in and be careful!”

They moved.  Goblins were eager.  Guilherme was, for all his years, not about to let goblins beat him to the scene.  Maricica had things to prove.  The only ones who didn’t enter to fight were ones who couldn’t.  Lis, Alpeana.

Lucy didn’t rush into the fray, for once.  She was usually quick on the draw, but she paused.  Her mask hid everything, and the red eyes settled briefly on Toadswallow.

She and he rushed in to storm the building from near opposite directions.