by J. P. Rice
The security guard lifted his chin sharply with the ‘what’s up signal’ as we passed him and walked up to the glass display cases with an employee standing behind them. I peeked back at the security guard with short blond hair.
He was a mountain of a man, tall and husky, but certainly no match for the Morrigan or me. He grabbed the giant headphones around his neck. I heard music coming from them as he lifted them over his ears and adjusted them for comfort. Then he closed his eyes and bobbed his head.
Quite the lackadaisical security guard considering death herself was looming just eight feet away. I focused on the employee behind the counter, who was inspecting a silver ring. He was wearing a set of glasses in the form of headgear with a single eye magnifier on it.
The man took the eyewear off and set it on the glass counter. He looked up at us with a big smile of crooked teeth and said, “How can I help yinz lovely ladies on this frosty day?”
People had called the Morrigan and I many things in our day. Lovely or lady was never one of them. I grinned at the man and said, “We’re here to pay off a loan and pick up an item.”
I grabbed the ticket out of my pocket and set it on the counter. The employee picked it up and squinted, holding the ticket an inch from his eyes. He quickly got frustrated and riffled through his back pocket. He produced an eye-glass case, opened it and put on the pair of spectacles.
He read the ticket again, and said, “Are you making a payment or paying the whole thing off?”
“We’re going to pay it all so we can take the item back,” I answered.
“Looks like that’s gonna be, $22,” he said, walking toward the cash register at the end of the counter.
As I walked down to meet him, I opened my purse and grabbed a twenty and a ten. I slapped the money down on the counter and said, “Keep the change.” I was a generous tipper.
“Well now. That there’s much appreciated. I just gotta run into the back and grab this out of the locker,” he said, shaking the ticket right under his chin. “Be right back.”
The gentleman went into the back and I waited impatiently to talk to this dagger. All we had to do now was shake down Gareth and find out who was behind this operation. If we hurried, we could be done by week’s end and I could concentrate on ending the werewolf-vampire war. Everything was falling into place.
The employee screamed from the back, “Thief. Help. Call the cops.”
The Morrigan and I wasted no time and hopped over the counter. I looked back and saw the security guard with his eyes closed, bobbing his head. We hauled ass into the back and encountered a maze-like room of storage lockers for the pawned items.
The man screamed again, “Holy shit. Are you Bigfoot? Why are you stealing that knife? It’s worthless.”
I tried to follow the man’s voice but kept running into dead ends in this pawn shop labyrinth.
I snaked around the dull yellow lockers and came out to an open area on the other side of the storage facility. The employee was lying face down on the ground. I looked ahead, and the back door slammed shut. Not wasting any time, I hopped over the employee and reached the back door a few seconds later.
I pushed down on the flat knob and kicked open the door. With the Morrigan right on my heels, I searched around the parking lot for the culprit. The Morrigan pointed to some fresh tracks in the snow that appeared to belong to Sasquatch.
A track of giant, three-toed footprints led to the left. Like a men’s size 25. I didn’t see the monstrosity anywhere as my head jerked left and right. Were the prints a decoy? I hadn’t seen the creature before the door slammed shut. A foul odor that resembled feces hung in the winter air and gave me an idea.
I ran over to my Jeep and opened the door. Titania flew out, and asked, “What’s the word, hummingbird? Everything all right?”
“I need you to see if you can smell or hear anything in the vicinity. Specifically, a big stinky monster,” I instructed.
“Anything for my best friend,” she announced and darted off. She flew over to a pile of shoveled snow taller than me.
Titania zipped back over to us. She whispered, “Something is hiding under that pile of snow.”
The three of us stalked carefully toward the pile. As we got closer, I heard heavy breathing. Without warning, chunks of compact snow showered up from the pile and into the air. A large figure materialized in front of me.
I took a few steps back and eyeballed what had to be an eight-foot creature covered in brown fur. The best way to describe it was a cross between Bigfoot and Chewbacca. The beast growled and raised his hands above his head, the magic dagger clutched in his huge right hand.
“I’ll take care of this,” the Morrigan said and turned to one of the junker cars in the lot. Using telekinesis, she picked up the rusty vehicle and sent it hurtling toward the hirsute creature. Nimble as a dancer, he moved three steps to his right and did a front somersault to avoid the car. The vehicle cratered into the earth and crumpled like an accordion.
The Morrigan picked up a rusty station wagon, and as it floated in the air, she waited for Bigfoot to make a move. He crouched down and got on the front of his feet, ready to dodge the next offering. The car levitated about ten feet above the ground as the Morrigan decided how to launch her attack.
Without warning, the car flew across the lot, the front grill screaming toward Bigfoot. From the crouched position he jumped and launched himself about fifteen feet in the air. The car flew under him, smashing into the snow and tearing apart the earth. Two tires fell off the vehicle and one rolled harmlessly across the lot, leaving a track in the snow.
Bigfoot landed and stood up straight, waving the knife in front of his chest, mocking us. I planned to set his pretty coat afire and see how he liked that.
I went to call on fire when the Morrigan said, “Close your ears. I’m going to blast him.”
I jammed my fingers into my ear canals, not needing to be told twice. Titania flew over to a pile of snow and buried her head into it. Worried that plugging my ears wasn’t enough, I cast a sound shield around myself for extra protection. I turned to the Morrigan as her lips parted.
I couldn’t hear her wail, but I felt the Song of the Dead as it rippled by, prodding the outside of my sound shield. As if the snow had been picked up by a tornado, it flew in the opposite direction, away from the Morrigan. The sound reached Bigfoot’s thick coat, ripping the hair from his body. It started with small patches, then bigger ones, and I realized this wasn’t a natural creature.
Under the brown hair was a silver substance that appeared to be metal. As more hair flew off the creature, it was either a robot or a person inside a metal superhero suit. The Morrigan’s keening should have busted that suit into a million pieces by now. It appeared to be reinforced with something out of this world.
Bigfoot didn’t drop the knife from the immense amount of pressure coming at him. I called it a he, but without breasts or a penis, there could be a woman inside that metal suit. Or was it a robot?
The Morrigan waved her hand around to get my attention. I removed my fingers from my ears and dissolved the sound shield. “What?”
“Let’s set this asshole on fire,” the Morrigan said, frustrated that someone could withstand one of her powerful attacks.
The enormous metal creature raised his head to the sky and whistled a pleasing melody into the air.
Ignoring the sound, I immediately conjured a fireball into my right hand. “With pleasure.”
The metal hand moved from the handle of the dagger to the top of the blade. He moved the knife down next to his knee and his hand sprang upward in a flash. Gareth flew up into the air, rotating end over end, his two ruby eyes gleaming.
“What the hell?” I shouted as the dagger flew higher in the sky.
I threw my fireball into the ground and sprinted toward Bigfoot. That dagger eventually had to come down. As I approached, the metal man had his chin raised, admiring his handiwork. I jumped at him and thrust my foot forward, the s
ole of my boot connecting with the middle of the chest.
The impact didn’t even dent the material, but it caused the thing to fall backward. I inclined my head to locate the dagger again. The knife appeared to have reached its apex and had started to fall back down. I planned to snatch it out of the air, then get some answers out of the hairless Bigfoot.
A flash of golden light streaked into my peripheral. A large bird I couldn’t identify swooped down and snatched the dagger in its beak. As I looked closer, it was a drone disguised as a golden bird. The drone darted away with Gareth in its mouth, and I turned to the Morrigan.
“Use your birds,” I told her, and conjured two more fireballs. In an act of desperation, I zinged both fireballs, one after the other at the winged drone. The flying object darted left and right, easily avoiding my streaking fireballs.
The Morrigan whistled and within a few seconds, a murder of squawking crows appeared in the sky above. She whistled again, and they took off at a smart pace, chasing after the golden bird. A few crows closed in, but that only caused the golden bird to speed up and increase its lead.
I watched as the golden bird zoomed across the cerulean backdrop, the rubies on the dagger getting duller by the moment. Soon, the sky swallowed the entire vision. The crows kept chasing the golden object, but it seemed like it was in vain.
When I turned back to the metal beast, it was standing with its arms folded over its chest. The Morrigan said, “Unless you like torture, you better tell us where that knife is headed.”
A soft man’s voice came from the metal, and asked, “How do you kill something that is indestructible?”
The Morrigan immediately responded. “Is that a challenge? We’ll either burn it and melt you down. Or I’ll call on some liquid nitrogen so that I can freeze you and smash you into a million pieces. In fact, you can choose how we do it.”
The Morrigan’s kill first and get the person’s soul to talk came to the fore, but we needed answers from a living body.
I said, “Just tell us where the knife is going, and we’ll let you live. I know this is only a suit. And something is inside that suit. And if we poured fire inside that suit...”
He cut me off and spoke regally, “I’m but a robot, controlled from afar.”
“Fook it, let’s burn him,” I said, calling another fireball into my right hand.
He changed his tone, his voice deepening, “Now, now. Perhaps we can reach an amicable agreement.”
As we approached, he warned, “I don’t think you two are prepared for how deep this all runs.”
That was a juicy tidbit, but I wanted the whole steak. “Where is that bird taking the knife?”
“Goldenwing has been instructed to take that dagger to one place and one place only. In fact, Goldenwing is being controlled from afar as well,” he revealed.
“Let’s go. Spill it,” the Morrigan demanded, growing impatient.
The man paused for a while and said, “It’s been instructed to take the dagger to the Goblin Queen. My masters are paying the Queen a handsome pile of gold to keep the dagger within her stronghold.”
I gulped down the lump in my throat. Nobody had ever breached the Goblin Queen’s castle. Not legendary knights, wizards or witches. Not even a thunder of dragons that had come after the Queen’s riches. She’d killed them all, most likely with a big smile on her face.
“What else do you know? Who are you working for?” I asked.
He advised, “I think you better sit down for this. You aren’t prepared to hear this.”
“Why not? Just tell us,” I demanded.
“Why not? Because the people are more powerful than her,” Bigfoot said, referring to the Morrigan. He chuckled. “Shouldn’t even call them people, I guess.”
That meant it had to be Gods. I tried to imagine which pantheon was behind this. And I kept coming back to the Norse.
“All right. Get ready for your heads to explode,” he warned and took a deep breath.
I was sick of the teasing. With all the sexual frustration built up inside me, this was torture.
“Three are involved. The Triumvirate comprises...” A beeping sound cut him off, followed by a robotic voice, “The self-destruct mechanism has been activated.”
“Oh, shit,” I screamed, as the Morrigan and I ran for cover. Titania flew backwards and dove into a pile of snow. The Morrigan and I dove behind a junker car as an explosion almost blasted out my eardrums.
I peeked over the hood of the car. Pieces of metal, flesh and a spray of blood flew into the air like a busted pinata. Body parts and chunks of armor bounced off the building and fell to the milky landscape. The pure snow, now tainted with blood and smoking silver pieces of metal had lost its virginal quality.
“Perhaps he wasn’t lying about being controlled remotely. Apparently, his master was watching and didn’t like the secret about to be exposed,” I opined.
“Hotdogs, anyone?” the Morrigan asked as she laughed. “I can respect it. Sucks for us, but that’s the best way to keep someone quiet.”
Titania came out of the pile of snow and dusted herself off, as I asked, “Can we believe him about the Goblin Queen?”
The Morrigan shook her head and looked at the destruction around the parking lot. “Not yet. We need confirmation on that. It would be the perfect place to send people you wanted to see dead. However, it’s also the perfect hiding place for Gareth. Nobody wants to go there.”
“I don’t. But I will to avenge my father,” I promised. “I’ll run through the gauntlet myself to taste the sweet nectar called revenge.”
“Whoa, that was some wild stuff,” Titania exclaimed, shaking snow off her special shirt.
“That’s nothing if we have to go to Sleepy Willow and invade the Goblin Queen’s castle,” I informed her.
The Morrigan leaned down and picked up a bloody chunk of the body. She held it in front of her face and then stuffed it into her black cloak. She grabbed a few scraps from the metal suit and put them in another pocket.
Not sure I wanted to know the answer, I asked meekly, “What are you doing with the body parts?”
“Taking it back to Clara Spiritus. I’ll have Dian Cécht identify who this was. Then I’ll have someone run tests on the materials used for that suit. If we can find out where it is from, it would go a long way in figuring out who is behind this.”
It was a gross move, but a necessary one.
Titania said, “I guess I’ll ask. Who the hell is the Goblin Queen?”
When I had taken Titania’s magic, she had given up on staying abreast of the supernatural world. I couldn’t blame her, and explained, “Do you know King Ballistar of Sleepy Willow?”
Titania nodded and said unsurely, “The evil king? I thought someone just killed him.”
“You’re right. He is dead,” I confirmed. “The Goblin Queen was his first wife. When Ballistar found out she was dabbling in cannibalism, he hatched an assassination plot. But Queen Gabrielle caught wind of it and formed a plan of her own.”
The Morrigan kept collecting fragments of the metal suit, as I explained, “She cleaned out the treasury, stealing all the gold and jewels and taking them to a place where nobody would chase after her. She went to the swamp and encountered the demons. She offered to share her riches with them if she could stay there safely. The goblins welcomed her with open arms.”
Titania listened closely, as I continued, “The king sent his wardens and numerous hunting parties of well-trained warriors to return with his fortune. They all failed. They all died. Gabrielle seemed to derive pleasure from it, sending the warrior’s heads back to her ex-husband. After a while, the king gave up and forgot about her. Gabrielle and the demons had one unifying characteristic in common, an unquenchable thirst for the flesh of beings. It was never enough.”
The Morrigan finished collecting samples, and we got in the Jeep. I started the vehicle and cranked the heat.
I turned to Titania in the back seat and said, “Gabrielle quickly
rose up the goblin ranks, eventually finding herself as their queen. She arranged bands of thieves to ransack the land, bringing back more jewels to add to the pile. They used the stolen gold to buy goods, never touching most of the stash.”
I rubbed my hands together for warmth. “To protect their money, they made it so invading the swamp was nearly impossible. And if you made it in, you weren’t leaving. They built a castle in the middle of their land. Tales have been told about some beings making it to the castle, but no one has returned with any of the spoils.”
“So what is protecting the castle?” Titania asked.
“That’s the problem,” I answered. “Supposedly, things spring up out of nowhere. I’ve heard that the Queen cast a spell on the swamp itself, instructing the land to kill any intruders.”
“So, hypothetically. If we had to go there, how would we get to the castle?” Titania asked meekly.
The Morrigan shrugged her shoulders but remained silent. I was hoping she could shed some light on how to breach the castle. I hadn’t told Titania the other part of the story. When I’d lived in Sleepy Willow, I’d seen a huge disappearance of newborn babies in the area around my village.
We’d found out that the goblins were stealing the children and using them for nourishment. Then, they grew bolder moving on to dwarves, then sidhe adults. I almost threw up in my mouth just thinking about it, the bitter stomach acid building up in my throat. Titania’s tiny size prevented me from revealing that part to her. If we had to go, I didn’t want her freaking out the entire time.
Even with the Morrigan in tow, I worried about going into the swamp. We’d gotten into a lot of crazy brawls in our day but battling the most powerful magical entities could always end in disaster. A cold sweat leeched through my skin at the thought of battling the Goblin Queen.
We needed to confirm a few things, but it appeared we were headed for the netherworld known as Sleepy Willow on a crash course with the Goblin Queen.
Chapter 10
Owen threw the raw chicken into the sizzling wok and a gust of smoke plumed into the air. He sprinkled salt over it, then used a rubber spatula with a red handle to stir the meat into the sesame oil, ginger and garlic. He’d invited me to dinner over a week ago and I was using the occasion to ask him to watch Justinian while I went to Sleepy Willow.