by Kevin Hearne
“Because hobgoblins are no a monolith, ya tit, any more than any other group of people are. Admiring someone for their actions on one day doesnae mean I have tae agree with them on everything after that. And besides, ma aunt taught me never tae play with fire. Ye can skate by for about the lifespan of a mayfly, sure, but eventually ye get burned, and Holga did, along with the rest of them. I understand the choice she made, but I didnae agree with it, and I’m damn sorry it turned out the way it did.”
A black SUV of indeterminate make and model crunched gravel underneath its tires, and we ducked down in case it was someone random, but the vehicle parked directly across from us and my manager’s spiked mohawk emerged, followed by the rest of her. She wore a black racerback top, black nail polish and lipstick, black jeans, and black Doc Martens. But that wasn’t enough. She moved to the vehicle’s boot to get something else, looking directly at the ferns and trees we were hiding behind on her way there.
“Awright, Al?” My hobgoblin waved and Nadia nodded. “Hey, Buck.”
She opened up the trunk and we heard a zipping noise as she accessed some luggage. The jacket she pulled out of there looked extraordinarily dangerous—even more so once she put it on. It was black leather, of course, but the shoulders, lapels, and forearms were covered with chrome spikes and studs. The spikes weren’t modest quarter-inch things either: On top of the shoulders and the forearms, the spikes were easily two inches long, which meant absolutely zero pigeons would be attempting to roost on her today. That it was far too hot for any sort of jacket did not matter: Nadia was ready for a fight. She was a sleek goth avatar of pain.
Whenever Nadia looks a bit over-the-top like this—and I should admit that she frequently looks over-the-top—I take particular joy in introducing her to others.
[Everyone, this is Nadia Padmanabhan, my accountant.]
“Your…accountant?” Officer Campbell said with his eyes wide, providing exactly the reaction I relished.
“Most people are scared of taxes,” Nadia said as she approached, extending her hand to the officer. “Al keeps me around to scare the taxes away.”
“Yeah,” Officer Campbell managed, shaking her hand and staring at the spikes on her jacket. “I can see how they would be.”
“He’s a good boss, ye know. Not every boss considers the exercise requirements of their accountants, not tae mention their mental health. Al gets intae scraps often enough that I can maintain ma fitness and redirect ma anger at the patriarchy in a positive manner. Ye know what I mean, right? Fuck the patriarchy.”
“Uh. Right,” Officer Campbell said.
Connor and Ya-ping flashed welcoming smiles at Nadia and stated their pleasure at meeting her. Roxanne also grinned and offered the comment that she really liked Nadia’s clothes.
Nadia squatted to give the hounds a few scratches. She looked up at Connor. “It’s nice tae meet ye. I’m worried about these good dugs, though. There’s all kinds of terrible traps ahead, and if they wander, something will get them. Can ye leash them or sumhin?”
“It’s not necessary,” he said. “Tell them what to do. They understand spoken language.”
“Are ye sure? Willing tae bet their lives on it?”
“I’ll confirm they understand. Tell us what needs to happen.”
“Awright. There’s another ridge like this a few hundred meters to the east. Down past that ridge is where ye want tae go—that’s the source of the problem. But between here and that other ridge, there are a shiteload of traps. Some of them are magical, some of them mundane. There are ranks of them, and going around isnae an option. The whole area’s encircled with traps. So I’m gonnay lead ye through it, and we’re gonnay have tae set some of them off. The key tae making it through is tae move single file, step where I step, and be patient. It’s gonnay be slow going. The dugs, especially, need tae be careful, because in some cases there are bullet traps called toe poppers out there. We can step over them, but the dugs might hit them with their gait. Can they see yellow spray paint?”
“Aye,” Connor said.
“Good. I brought some. We need that, a branch, and a decent-sized rock or two, and we can get going.”
She fetched the spray paint from her car, and Ya-ping asked what a toe popper was.
Officer Campbell answered. “They’re booby traps where a bullet has been carefully placed above a nail. Step on the bullet—which is concealed—and it’s pressed onto the sharp end of the nail, which acts like the firing pin of a gun. The bullet shoots straight up into the foot and perhaps the leg.”
Nadia returned with the can of spray paint and picked up a length of fallen eucalyptus branch, hefting it experimentally.
“Right. This’ll do. Okay. Magic Druid man, right behind me and yer dugs behind you. I’m gonnay need ye tae disable some magic stuff if ye can. All the rest of ye follow behind them, single file. Call out if ye’re unsure of where tae step next. I’ll stop and guide ye. And I may shout at ye if ye’re about tae cock up. Stop when I say and do no move until I say. Is that clear?”
Everyone said it was clear, and I wound up trailing behind Ya-ping, with Buck, Officer Campbell, and Roxanne bringing up the rear. But Nadia narrowed her eyes as the supposed volunteer slunk even farther back.
“Sorry, who are you again?”
“Roxanne. Don’t let the name tag fool you.”
Nadia gestured at the uniform. “And…what are ye?” Oh, shite. Here we go.
“This is the uniform of the Victoria SES.” That was a true statement but not an actual answer to the question.
“So that’s all? There’s nothing more tae ye?”
“What do you mean?” Roxanne answered a question with a question.
“I just feel there’s something about ye—I’m a bit psychic, if you want tae call it that, and I got a flash of you doing something violent in the future.”
“I’d be surprised if you didn’t. Have you met men?” Yet another redirection.
Nadia paused before deploying a brief smile and saying, “Fair enough.” She turned on her heel and led us into the bush, and I blinked in surprise. In the normal course of events, she would never do that. She must have sensed that she shouldn’t push it, that there would be no winning an open confrontation with Roxanne.
Which gave me some hope, honestly. If Nadia’s power as a battle seer could show her that truth—vague as it might be—then in one sense she had won already, because she was still alive. She had walked to the cliff’s edge, peered over, and walked away. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t take a running leap at it later and dive off, but at least she had avoided blundering into it, and sometimes, simply avoiding the abyss can be counted as a victory.
I had to wonder what had caused this change in her vision, though, and whether it was a onetime event or a permanent improvement in her abilities. Having a vision of me facing mortal peril days ahead in another country was a significant step up. The emergence of more power didn’t usually come without a cost, and it was the cost I was worried about.
For about twenty meters the walk was casual, but Nadia slowed down as soon as the slope steepened, and she lowered herself to the ground, telling us to stop. She set down the paint and extended the branch out in front of her so that it hovered a couple of inches above the ground. She must have triggered an invisible trip wire, for a crack occurred and a heavy ball with blades sticking out to the front and sides swung down from the trees to whoosh right through the space a human torso would have occupied. If it didn’t outright kill anyone standing in the way, it would have certainly maimed them. Since no one was there, it swung up and then fell back, beginning a slow sequence of pendulum swings.
“Don’t move!” Nadia said to us. “This is just the first of many. There are pit traps tae either side of this. If ye dodge out of the way—if ye get scared by a noise and jump—something else gets ye. This whole area is half
Vietnam and half wizard.”
“What’s Vietnam?” Buck whispered to me.
[A war in which booby traps featured prominently. Thousands of soldiers were wounded or killed by them.]
“Oh, shite.”
“Crawl under this, straight ahead,” Nadia said, and began inching forward beneath the spiked pendulum. Once past the swing of it, she got to her feet and sprayed two spots on the ground with yellow paint, just to the left of a eucalyptus tree.
“Toe poppers. Tell the dugs, Connor. Avoid the paint. We turn here anyway.” She scooched to the right, deployed her branch to trip another wire on the other side of the eucalyptus, and a bamboo whip swung into the unoccupied space, with sharpened sticks ready to pierce anything standing, probably thigh-high. We had to carefully squeeze by that before she held us up and turned to Connor, pointing.
“If we step forward here, sumhin bad happens. A summoning. But I don’t know how or why, much less how we’re supposed tae get past it.”
“Ah. Sounds like a hook binding.” Those were nasty Fae traps; trigger one and a creature from another plane was summoned, hooked out of hell or wherever they came from, and invariably in a murderous rage about it.
“Awright. Same thing happens if we go left or right, though slightly different things get summoned. If ye can deactivate them, great. If ye can’t, we have tae go back and find another path, or fight whatever shows up.”
“Okay. Give me a minute. Where does the hook happen?”
“About two meters ahead, by those ferns.”
She pointed again, and we could all see what she meant, but Connor looked up and pointed at a gum-tree branch over that spot.
“Got it. Up there, attached to the burl in the branch.”
I saw the burl but nothing attached to it. He must have been viewing it in the magical spectrum. I didn’t have the enchanted monocle with me that would let me see what was happening there, but I didn’t need it. Connor was busy unbinding whatever was there, softly speaking in Old Irish, and he nodded to himself in satisfaction when it was done.
“Good to go under that now.”
“Let me check.” Nadia peered forward and took a tentative step in the direction of the magical trap, then shook her head. “Nope. There’s another physical trap just past it. Whole bunch of toe poppers. Maybe we can scoot around them without triggering anything magical to the side. Stay where you are.”
She did step forward a little bit past the hook binding, but then drifted to the right and sprayed spots on the ground, which formed a horizontal dotted line, an invisible barrier.
“There’s more beyond these, so we cannae just step over,” she said, answering a question I’m sure more than one of us were thinking. “I’m just lighting up the edge here.” She paused frequently to check what was coming to the right, wary of setting off something in that direction. To me it looked like there was a small clearing downhill for a stretch, almost like a ski run, ferns and grasses growing there but no trees. It looked like the kind of space for a pit trap or something, and Nadia was wary of it too. The toe poppers continued all the way to the trunk of a conifer tree, and past that was open space. Nadia’s whole body was tense.
“Sumhin’s weird here. Like…there’s a threat here but I cannae see it yet. I get the sense that if I step in there, I’ll be fine. But if anyone follows behind, I’ll be doomed somehow. No clear idea of what happens. So that’s weird. Okay. I’m gonnay step over there, but don’t follow, okay? Freeze.”
She stretched out her arm past the conifer, and then her right leg. She planted it at the base of a fern. Nothing.
“Okay, all in,” she said, and followed up with her left, placing her whole body past the conifer in fern meadow. Still nothing. She spun and crouched down to the ground. “Awright, Connor, I want ye tae inch forward but be ready tae stop when I say. Get close, but don’t actually break the plane of that tree with any part of yer body.”
“Got it.” He began to move forward, slowly, and once he was nearly past the tree, Nadia held up a hand.
“Stop! Lhurnog’s gob, go back. Bloody hell. This is a killing field.” She came back across with a visible shudder, considered, and then crooked a finger at Ya-ping. “Come here. I want tae see if it’s the same for you.”
Ya-ping moved past the dogs and stopped when she drew even with Nadia. Nadia stepped back into the meadow, spun, and instructed Ya-ping to move slowly toward her. The apprentice crept forward and Nadia encouraged her to keep coming, and when she got to the point where moving past the plane of the tree was a given, she paused.
“Keep coming?” she asked, one foot in the air.
“Aye, baby steps.”
Ya-ping took a baby step, and another, and Nadia kept encouraging her until they were side by side, safe as could be.
“Huh. Good. Connor, same as before. Approach, but don’t cross the plane.”
He took a step and she immediately threw up a hand. “Stop! If ye step across, it all goes wrong. What do ye see when you look at this space in the magical spectrum?”
Connor cocked his head to the side and looked around for a few seconds. “Nothing special…Wait. Something flickered. That was weird. What was—there it went again! I’ve never seen anything like it. Almost like a glitch in the Matrix. A flash in the spectrum and then it’s gone. I can’t…I can’t isolate it. I have no idea what it is.”
“Okay, okay, let’s try something else,” Nadia said. “Good dugs, stay where ye are, please. Al, come forward, slowly, and let’s see if ye’re good tae go.”
I approached the tree, drew even with it, and took one more step before Nadia shouted, “Stop! Al, oh, my gods—it’s you too. What do ye have in common?”
Connor and I exchanged a glance. We had very little in common. He was ancient but looked young. I was younger than he but looked ancient. I was a sigil agent and he was a Druid. The Iron Druid, in fact. Oh.
[Iron,] I typed. [Cold iron.]
Connor’s brows shot up. “Cold iron? You have some on you?”
[The carbon steel in my cane is alloyed with a smidgen of cold iron. It helps since I can’t pierce with it and poison the blood.]
“Understood. So if that’s the working theory, then both Oberon and Starbuck should be a no-go as well, because they have cold iron on their collars. Okay to test that?”
“Sure,” Nadia said.
Connor and I stepped back, and Nadia gave very careful instructions to Oberon. He took tiny mincing steps forward and my manager stopped him before he crossed the plane, and the same procedure was repeated for Starbuck. Officer Campbell and Roxanne were able to cross into the meadow without trouble.
“Okay, we can get past this,” Nadia announced. “Everyone back and get in the same order as before, and watch your feet. Good. Oberon, may I borrow your collar for a wee minute?”
He woofed and wagged his tail, and she removed his collar and told him what a good dug he was. After making sure everyone was clear, she looped the collar around the end of that tree branch she had and stuck it out into the meadow, making sure to keep all of her body behind the tree. For a few seconds, nothing happened. But then we heard a series of whistles and whooshes, followed by a succession of impacts into the ground. Hundreds of tiny bamboo darts had whipped through the field, leaving zero chance that anything in that space would escape perforation. They were fired from clever mechanisms in the trees surrounding the field, and it must have taken forever to set the trap. One of them even thudded into the branch that Nadia was holding.
“Well. That was impressive,” Nadia said.
“May I see that dart?” Connor asked.
“Of course.”
Nadia retracted the branch, Connor removed the dart, and Nadia removed Oberon’s collar and put it back on him, thanking him for letting her borrow it.
“These are poisoned,” Connor said, s
taring at the tip of the dart. “Fast-acting too. With my healing triskele on my right hand gone, I would have had to ask the elemental for help in healing, and it might not have worked in time. And if it had gotten the dogs too, well…I would only be able to save one of us.”
“So we probably shouldn’t step on any,” Ya-ping observed.
“Right. Good point,” Nadia said. She led us around the base of the tree, straight downhill between the killing field and the toe poppers, until she reached the other side of the munitions and deemed it safe to dodge back to the left. But I was dwelling on the fact that someone had designed an incredibly lethal trap triggered by cold iron, in addition to all the other traps surrounding the area.
This wasn’t the work of an afternoon, or even several afternoons. The layering of the traps and the fact that they surrounded a huge area represented months of effort. And if the source of the demons was in the center of it all, how did the demons get out?
Considering the pattern of their appearance, it did seem like they were portioned out, small-batch-brewed, escorted through the gauntlet, and released in our general direction to keep drawing us toward these lethal ends.
Nadia had us halt and she spray-painted the location of some toe poppers on her left, representing the other side of the bullet field we’d been on earlier. Once she’d done that, she moved two meters to the right and started spray-painting a line all the way back to us.
“Between the dotted line on your left and this solid line, you’re safe,” she explained. “Toe poppers on the left, and the edge of a rather huge pit trap on the right.” She looked at Connor. “Got any ideas how to cross the pit?”
“Yeah. I can ask the elemental to fill it in for us. Give me a few minutes.”
He closed his eyes, communing with the elemental, and I took the opportunity to check on everyone. Ya-ping’s mouth was drawn down at the corners. The dogs were wagging their tails. Nadia looked like she couldn’t wait to meet whoever had set all this up and introduce them to the blade of her razor. Buck’s eyes drooped like he wanted a nap. Officer Campbell had a wince on his face and clearly disapproved of all this. And Roxanne appeared quietly delighted, as if this were the most pleasant of walks through nature.