by Elle Cross
It was the most beautiful skyline. It unfortunately haloed over the nastiest city ever made.
Goblin Market was a cesspool. Literally and figuratively. Parts of it were reminiscent of ancient times before indoor plumbing when waste was thrown directly onto the street. Other bits led down to shadowed sectors where slumlords reigned over their own little kingdoms.
It was this lawlessness and self-policing that made the Goblin Market a refuge as much as a potential prison.
At least there were nicer districts that catered to wealthier clientele who preferred the lack of Fae Queen oversight and had the power to create little strongholds. Theirs were divided into different districts: Dawn, Night, and Gloaming. That was where the light show from the sky was projected. Each district held onto its own version of wealth and prestige.
Immortelle didn't know where she was going exactly, but a sense of borrowed familiarity told her that she looked for a tavern in the Dawn District. “It shouldn't be difficult to find an Oracle in a place like this. There should be several different types of psychics peddling their wares as it is. Half-breed Fae tend to have gifts like that. Sight, vision, etc.”
“Well, look who’s suddenly so knowledgeable about back alley transactions in the Goblin Market,” War teased.
“If I’m gonna be carrying around borrowed knowledge I might as well use it, right? Anyway, each oracle seems to be descended by a specific line of Fae, at least based on the myths of the Mortal Coil. Maybe they’d have a brand or sigil out for all to see.”
“Yeah, ‘fortune tellers are us,’ but instead of the word ‘are’ it would be written with the letter ‘r’ and would be upside down and backwards.”
War turned around when he realized Immortelle was no longer walking at his side. She stood, hands on her hips with an unamused expression on her face. “Really? And here I thought I was saved from the cheap jokes since Mischief wasn’t around.”
“Nah, only highbrow jokes with me,” he winked.
Immortelle shook her head. Best she ignored him and went on her way. “Anyway,” she emphasized, “The Oracles of Delphi were of the house of Apollo. They were the most numerous and most accurate. Or at least as accurate as any other vague fortune cookie. They tend to have sun and moon glyphs on their branding. It shouldn't be too difficult.”
A quick turn into the heart of the district proved her words wrong. Though this was Dawn, and most trading hours happened during the day here, the streets were deserted. A menacing dark seemed to pervade what had been a bustling market center in her memories. Or maybe it was the way the shops were shuttered.
A quick scan up and down the buildings showed that the rooms were vacant. No one shouted from the windows or greeted neighbors as they threw their waste water on the streets. Even vendors were all boarded up. She had been to the Gloaming to track down Vincente in the Fae club, Revels. That had only been a few nights ago, and yet it was as if she stepped into a completely different world.
Maybe they had. She was almost afraid to venture out into the other districts. Dawn was her safe choice, the district that she figured would at least have some information freely floating around.
Where were they gonna find information now?
They continued to walk down the cobblestone streets worn down by a community that was no longer around. The tinkling of glass and some gruff conversation carried in the air and toward her ears. They followed it as if hearing the alluring sounds of a siren’s song.
There on the corner of what could have been a lively intersection was the only business open in an otherwise deserted-looking district.
"Whatever information that can be had, we’d find it here. Loose tongues tend to wag around various spirits." War nodded to the pub, which looked familiar to Immortelle but she couldn't quite place it.
“Yup, agreed.” She peered through the darkened windows to see a familiar shock of white hair. Where there was one twin, the other would be nearby. “And wouldn’t you know, Mischief and Strife are already here.”
* * *
Spells created a patchwork of magical protection around the tavern. It gave the feeling of a worn blanket where some of the stuffing has come undone and the stitching was unfurling. It gave the gloomy building a kind of welcoming feel, as if seeing a stone cold monster dressed in a sweater his grandmother knit for him.
Inside the tavern was cool, all dark wood and shadows. There was a bar in the middle, and configuration of thirteen circular tables with various symbols etched into each one. What the symbols were for, she could only guess. They seemed like gibberish to her, and for all she knew, could be a bawdy limerick in some ogre language.
The bartender looked to have a bit of ogre or cave troll in his bloodline. His nose and ears were a little larger than his face. Hands though large were nimble as he stacked plates and pint glasses on trays. Tall and glowering, he grunted more than spoke, yet he somehow managed to get food out to guests, as they were able to get them to their table and eat.
“Oi!” Strife waved an arm at them from a corner booth tucked beneath a staircase, which Mischief descended. His black and white gaze pinned them, too. “There you are!”
Mischief went directly to Immortelle and smacked loud kisses on both of her cheeks before planting a sloppy one on her lips.
“All right, all right, stop it,” War tsked at Mischief, pulling him off her. “You lucky I don’t slay your ass.”
Mischief turned a sassy hip toward War, and slapped his bottom. “You know I’m ready any time, big boy.”
War glowered at Mischief’s grinning face, his lascivious tongue lolling out in invitation. Immortelle slapped her face with her palm, and walked around their play with a shake of her head toward Strife.
He stood to greet her, crooking a finger under her chin so he could look into her eyes. The black and white swirls spiraled like a churning galaxy of stars. Absolutely mesmerizing. “You all right, love?” he asked under his breath as the others approached.
Immortelle nodded her head. “I’m fine, no need to baby me.”
He brought his dark head forward so that his forehead touched hers. “What if I want to?”
“You’d need to get in line.” War spoke through clenched teeth. There was no real heat in his words, and Strife answered with a smirk and a wink.
“I’m already at the head of the line, bruv.” And with that Strife directed Immortelle to sit in their acquired booth. “Menus are coming. Good thing one of us remembered you needed to eat food.”
Mischief flipped his brother off.
Menus appeared at the table even though the bartender seemed engrossed in serving the couple of hunters who had taken a seat on his counter.
"Well, that was great service." Strife whipped the menu open with a flourish. The words were gibberish, and they tended to crawl off the page.
Immortelle pointed to a few items on Strife’s proffered menu, and as soon as he closed it, the menus disappeared. War and Mischief hadn’t touched theirs anyway.
Unseen hands ferried a tray of what could only be called slop onto the table. Bowls of congealed matter in a pool of liquid that had a bit of a grayish cast to it, next to a tankard of brown liquid. The few diners in the tavern gobbled down the slop greedily. A tusked ogre slobbered a bunch down the sides of his mouth and he wiped the excess with a dirty sleeve.
It all made Immortelle a bit queasy. "Do I want to know what’s in the food?" Immortelle asked no one in particular. Mischief poked at the gelatinous goop, making it quiver.
"No," was War’s reply.
Swallowing hard, she called for water. “So tell me what you all were doing? After Thorne sent you here?”
Strife shrugged. “Same old, gleaning here and there. The Gloaming District wasn’t as affected as the Dawn district, so we had a bit of fun and eats there. Apologies for not getting you something from the Revels.”
She smiled. Food was optional to them, but it was nice that he had thought of her hunger. “No worries, I’ve gone wi
thout a meal or two before. Besides, it’s hours before I would have been ready to eat breakfast anyway. I’ll ask the guy for some water.”
She used that excuse to scope the room without being distracted by the men. She filled a mostly clean glass from a tankard of water at the self-serve area by the bar. Immortelle felt a little hum of magick, faint, almost musical.
Then she saw a little pixie flitting around, a trail of gold shimmer behind it. She was enchanted by it, watching it zip and fly in graceful arcs, when someone swiped a meaty palm at it.
They narrowly missed smooshing the pixie flat.
"Hey!" Immortelle said, indignant.
"Don't,” Strife warned, appearing at her side. He was a stealthy one, she’d give him that. “Pixies are nothing to them here."
Immortelle was agog. "They're not flies, though? They are sentient, free-thinking beings?"
Something in her gut told her to shut up. She kept an eye on that table of trolls. The pixie was at least safe traveling up to the upper rafters.
As Immortelle looked around the room, she realized that there was a pattern to the grouping of the tables as if they formed a pentagram. At her questioning face, Strife cocked his brow at her. “Supposed to be a kind of neutral zone."
"A sanctuary inside of a war zone. Okay."
"I wouldn't call it a War Zone," Strife replied. "More like an anarchy zone."
He would know, as attuned to conflict and stress as he was.
"Is that supposed to make me feel better? Supposed to make me feel all safe and warm and fuzzy that this is a pretend sanctuary in the middle of anarchy?"
Strife seemed to weigh the question in his mind. "Yes?"
"Well it doesn’t."
"No worries, I won't let anything happen to you." Strife wrapped his arm around her shoulder and drew her close.
Immortelle snorted at his cheap advance. "I'm not worried about me. It's you guys I'm worried about.” She nodded at a group of newcomers that had tromped in. “You seem to be getting all the good attention."
As it was, at least a few mercenaries that had doubled in numbers since Immortelle and War had arrived were eyeballing them. They wore the typical cheap leather, studs, and spliced heads of rhinoceroses on human bodies. Instead of proper clothes, they seemed to just pile roughly sewn skins on top of their body. Served both as a trophy and a functional covering of sorts.
They looked almost like a cast of a fantasy movie on break.
Immortelle sifted their looks in her mind. "I'm not even familiar with their type of Fae."
"They're just mercenaries, for sale for the highest bidder. Fae clans denounce them publicly at any rate."
Strife and Immortelle returned to their table with waters in hand. "All right. Well, we were supposed to have chatter, and here we are, no chatter."
The growing amount of nasty looking Fae crowded into the now-full tavern increased, though there were more grunts than idle chit chat. Immortelle drummed her fingers on the table top. "This is ridiculous." She shimmied around War before he could stop her, and leaned over the bar top. "Do you know where there is an Oracle or some psychic who has set up shop around here? There used to be more businesses the last I remember, and now I can't seem to see any that are open. Why is that?"
The bartender’s helper was a thin, reedy man with stringy hair, and he seemed to materialize before her eyes. There was nothing to him, but she had the distinct impression that he would drag you underwater if they had met by a lake of water. Yes, he looked like he would fit in among seaweed and detritus.
"You would ask, Lady of the Holy Death? You are the reason they are closed. When the Fae withdrew from the Omnia Compound and the Cabal, they began to shift away from the In-between places as well."
This seaweed Fae seemed to be hiding more words than what he was sharing. It was clear to Immortelle now who was actually in charge here. The bartender was all braun, but with the Fae, looks were deceiving. For all Seaweed’s appearance of being a wisp of nothing, he was the one in charge of this tavern.
"There has been no official notice that the Fae have retreated from the Cabal. They are still represented there." Sort of. She didn’t necessarily lie, but since they technically didn’t announce their withdrawal from the Cabal, there was no reason why they couldn’t be considered represented. Besides, the pixies still spoke to her, and she had been offered Carte Blanche from the Arapax.
"And when would anyone rightly talk about their war strategies and plans?" Seaweed asked.
“So what? All the Fae are just following orders? Every last one of them?”
“You would too, Lady, if your power source was leaving. What do you think funds this?” Seaweed fluttered his too-long fingers to indicate not just the tavern but Goblin Market in general.
Immortelle shifted uncomfortably. Il Torero’s demonstration of Fae magicks calling to itself fluttered to mind. She didn't want to think about power and magicks rushing away like an ocean tide. Didn’t want to think about the implications. The bleak possibilities would only serve to hinder, not help her. "Your business does fine."
Seaweed ducked his head in forced modesty. "My business does well during times of forced peace, true.” Then a flicker of something glinted in his eyes, as if a tentacle whipped underwater. “When there is conflict with no open war, the black market always does well."
Immortelle suppressed a shiver at his coiled and slippery words. “And, what, you provide food and weapons? Supplies?”
“More. Better. We supply with information.” A greenish glow flashed in Seaweed’s eyes.
Immortelle didn't like the way his eyes glowed like that. And she didn’t like the way they roamed over her and how his gaze slid meaningfully toward the men goofing off at the table.
He sneered as if hearing her thoughts. "You know, information like the location of a certain favored weapon of the Cabal, and a few Vampires at her back."
It was as if ice water skittered down her spine. "And what kind of price would that kind of information fetch you?"
His cunning smile revealed a mouth full of glittering fangs. They could tear flesh from bone easily enough. "More than you could pay to silence it, Lady." This time he spat out the honorific as an insult.
“What about I don't kill you? What would be the price of that?”
Seaweed laughed at her. “I don't deal like that. This here is neutral, and if I want to keep it that way, then I gotta abide by the rules. Your rep says you know about rules, too. While you're still here, no one can harm you. But outside," he shrugged his shoulders.
Well. Tongues were loose in here after all. There was a call out for her. And there were rules regarding her safety.
As long as she stayed inside these walls, she was safe.
Of course safe was relative. There was no guarantee that the mercenaries would play by the rules. Besides, she couldn't stay in here forever.
She flipped a coin his way. "Ale. And make it good. This is supposed to be my final stand and all."
Seaweed laughed. "Of course, Lady. Coming your way."
The ale remained untouched even as she took it back to the table to share that enlightening conversation.
Strife eyeballed the rest of the tavern, calculating odds. "So what kind of plan do you have?"
"I don't have a plan, other than survive. I was hoping you all might have some more detailed direction."
War simmered, his wings growing weighty and full. "Dammit all to hell and back. We shouldn't have left the Omnia."
“You're joking, I would have had the same problem there too! People love the idea of killing me, for one reason or other."
"Well, the reason being more power. That's always a good enough reason for anyone."
Immortelle clutched the tankard of ale before she was tempted to hurl it across the room. "We could always muscle our way out."
War lifted his eyebrow at her. "And risk you getting hurt? No thank you."
She met his gaze. "I can get hurt, it's fine."
Immortelle dragged a hand through her hair. They weren’t making any headway and if more hunters and mercenaries crowded in here, they would likely be crushed into tiny pieces and served in the tavern’s blue plate special tonight. At least she would be.
A flickering light caught her eye, and she turned to it. The pixie zoomed in erratic circles above their table, hidden in the shadows of the ceiling beams. How long had it been hiding up there, out of reach of the ogres? It bobbed a little bit, as if it was trying to communicate with her, and then dashed away toward the staircase landing.
That was when the shimmering ball of golden light transformed into a little girl. Or at least what looked like a little girl. She was roughly three feet tall with a heart-shaped face and hourglass body covered by a dress of leaves. Shaggy, multi-colored hair angled around her face emphasized her huge doll eyes. She gestured to Immortelle in a “come here” motion.
Was Immortelle the only one able to see her? Oh gods, this couldn’t be real. Was she the only one who could see this?
Perhaps no, because in another second, the pixie flipped back into a gold ball of floating light.
The men had been chatting amongst themselves, but she didn’t bother pretending that she’d been paying attention. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm gonna follow that pixie."
"Pixie?" They said in unison.
From one moment to the next, Immortelle slipped from the table and ducked up the stairs. If anyone noticed her or the fact that she followed a pixie, there wasn't any chatter from the rest of the room. She didn't bother to see whether or not War, Mischief, or Strife followed behind her.
They’d have to meet up with Death and Fear some other place. Considering all the discord she stumbled upon, it shouldn’t be hard for them to assume that Strife was nearby, and therefore, the rest of them. She wouldn’t allow herself to entertain the possibility that Death or Fear were out of commission.
Immortelle skipped up the stairs, and the upper levels of the tavern looked to be accommodations. Some of the rooms had a fair share of noise coming out of them, and she hoped to all that was holy that she didn't have to go into any of those rooms.