Jack laughed at her. “A girl after my own heart—how my father would have loved you!” His face stilled as suddenly as it had animated. “But you know we can’t do it. We’d only be killing people. Addicts are all that are left up here above ground. The real goblin infrastructure is below. Horroban has seen to that. We wouldn’t do anything more than annoy him.”
“Horroban! How I’d like to see this creature.”
Jack shrugged. “Wouldn’t we all. But here in Goblin Town, trouble travels in pairs and even packs. And our goblin warlord has the biggest and baddest pack of trouble around. No one has ever gotten close. We don’t even know what he looks like.”
And that was the problem. Goblins were flesh-and-blood creatures—but whose flesh and blood was always a question. The monsters swapped tissue and fluids and magic with several species—often on a whim—changing their appearance more often than Paris changed hemlines.
Which made finding Horroban near impossible. Word from one of his rare surviving victims was that looking at the goblin warlord was like staring at a colorless mask with empty holes for eyes. Everything about him was bleached and ghostly—as if he suffered from a sort of goblin albinism. But that report had come last week. There’d been plenty of time for him to change faces, assuming that he even needed to. It was just as possible that he had clouded Jilly’s mind before letting her go report back to H.U.G.—he was strong enough magically to do that.
“Horro…” Io muttered, and then stopped herself. She had already invoked the name twice. Three times would be an invitation. There was too much stray magic floating around to risk it. She wanted to know the goblin’s identity, but not have him visit her in her bedroom some dark night while she was sleeping.
“We really do have a problem,” Io said, looking down at the unconscious addict Jack had just helped. The girl lay toppled as if already lifeless.
“Do we?” Jack’s emphasis was subtle.
“You know we do. And I don’t think that H.U.G. will be any help in this situation. Xanthe is taking halfhearted swipes at this problem—and missing the target because she is more worried about you than what is really going on.” Io looked up, digging for information. “Why is that, Jack? What is there between you two that has her panties in a twist?”
“Professional rivalry?” he suggested, tactfully not commenting on Xanthe’s underwear. Again, the words were playful but the expression was not.
“Try again please. It has to be something more than that.”
Jack reached out and combed her hair back with gentle fingers. Because she was cold and a little frightened, Io let him make the comforting gesture.
“Jealous?” he asked.
“Please! Even your ego isn’t that big.”
Jack smiled briefly. “It’s just the usual old story really. Boy meets girl. Boy gets girl…”
“Boy screws girl and then leaves?”
“Not without a strongly worded suggestion from her.” He shrugged. “Let’s just say that the girl got the magical night she always wanted, but then couldn’t handle the real magic when it started to happen. She thought she could, but her training went too deep. She freaked.”
“Your magic frightened her?” Io asked. She noted that if Jack was telling the truth, then Xanthe had known about Jack’s powers and hadn’t warned her about them. “What parts specifically?”
Jack smoothed her hair back again. “If you ever draw a strong-enough truth spell you’ll find out. Or if you come to me and ask to see those parts, of course. But those are the only ways, little fey. I don’t kiss and tell. Anyway, I doubt those things that terrified Xanthe would scare you much.”
“Well, I don’t think that kissing would be the problem,” she muttered, forgetting about the spell and again saying what was on her mind.
“No?” Jack cocked an eyebrow. That was all that moved. He didn’t shift position or draw in a breath, but suddenly his posture became explicit of intent. He went from sexless companion to prowling predator. Mind and body were both looking out of his eyes, and they wanted the same thing. “Let’s just test this theory of yours.”
“Payback already? But, Jack, I don’t think—”
“Good. Don’t think. Feel.”
Her magical instincts were begging her to flee Jack. Her primitive brain said the same. But her body didn’t agree. Her libido awoke and started to struggle against common sense. She knew it had to be subdued and quickly, but the battle was an even one: long-held mental fear versus a lifetime of physical longing for this very thing.
Jack was smart, too, knocking her off-balance with a change in tactics. His kiss was gentle, not at all the assault he had made the night before. No rough magic coerced her. Instead Jack’s kiss teased. It seduced. And in its own way, it was even more relentless about pulling a response from her.
She had expected him to feel cold like the rest of the world, but he wasn’t. He was all heat, banked-down fires that warmed the soul, the heart, the body. Walls of resistance constructed with so much care began to crack. Io knew that if he pushed, her whole defensive structure would come tumbling down, leaving nothing but rubble about her tender emotions—which hadn’t been out of their shell since the day her mother was seduced by a French goblin and stopped loving her daughter.
“I don’t want to feel,” she whispered against his lips. But even the gentle movements of speech caused further sparks between them.
“I know.” Jack slowly lifted his head. His expression was more sober than languorous. “But if you stay with me, you will feel. Lots of things, many of them horrible. So think carefully, little fey, before you commit. I know you’re out for revenge, and I know why. Can’t blame you a bit for wanting it either. But you have forgotten that revenge is a thing of the heart and soul rather than the mind. It is the hate in the heart that gives us the strength to do what we must. Ideology alone isn’t enough to carry the day. All dogma will do is blind you. Especially here. This is the magical world and you have to use gutthink. You have to feel.”
His hands were soothing as he smoothed them down her arms. He cupped her cold hands with his larger, warmer ones. She appreciated the gesture of consolation, even as she hated his words.
“If you can’t face your emotions, then now is the time for you to get out of the game.” Jack’s voice was dispassionate, giving no hint of his own feelings. “Go home and think about it for a bit. If you’re still in, then meet me outside The Madhouse at midnight tonight.”
“I’m in!” Io answered immediately.
Jack shook his head.
“Think about it, Io. Feel about it. Aren’t you nervous? I sure as hell am. I don’t trust it when things are going so smooth and sweet that you can spread it on toast and have it with tea. Experience says the pendulum is due to swing the other way and things are gonna get ugly. I don’t want you getting killed because you flinched at the wrong moment, or walked into a situation with blinders on.”
“I’m not a coward,” she said hotly. Not about facing goblins. “And I’m not stupid.”
“I never said you were.” Jack dropped his hands and stepped back. Io once again felt cold and bereft. “By the way, if you come tonight, try to draw a better spell. Cheat a little—have a stir around in the bowl and look for something with a bit of kick. I don’t think apple perfume is going to help you much if you get cornered by bad guys with big teeth. And speaking of things that smell bad, you’d better give me those samples.”
Io reached into her pocket with trembling hands. She handed the vials of Neveling’s perfume over quickly.
“Where can I find you?” She asked as he turned to leave. “If I need you.”
“Just follow the magic, little fey. It knows where to find me.” Jack’s voice floated back as he vanished into the black fog that was rolling up the street. “And I wouldn’t tell Xanthe about our next little outing. Odds are good she won’t like it.”
Chapter Seven
Moonlight was beginning to trickle out of the sky and in
to the dirty streets of Goblin Town when Jack arrived at The Madhouse.
Io watched him come striding up the street, his black duster flowing open like a cape, and the spurs of his black boots jingling musically. Not that the sound called up the same merry thoughts as sleigh bells. It was more the sound of Death moving toward a shootout at a saloon.
And how the night loved him as he stalked along under it: his eyes, his hair, his very flesh!
He didn’t smile when he saw her, but she was coming to know him and recognized that there was satisfaction in his gaze when he looked down at her.
“So, guess what spell I drew?” she greeted him.
Jack sniffed the air. “Something violent.”
Io lowered her voice. “Yep. It started out as a stupid spell to open cans with my finger. But I’ve been working on it and now I can stuff my right fist through concrete. Or wood, or metal. It probably works pretty well on goblins, too, but I haven’t tried it yet.”
Jack finally smiled. His teeth were very white and strong. “I guess we’re ready then.”
“As ready as we can be.”
And she was ready. An afternoon up in the solitude of the treehouse had helped her clarify her feelings and sort them out from facts. Fact one: Goblins were pushing their addictive fruit and killing people. So far, their victims had been willing, but that could change.
Fact two: Horroban was working on something new and nasty on the drug front, and in all likelihood Neveling Lutin was involved.
Another fact: H.U.G. wasn’t going to be any help because bitterness over an old love affair had Xanthe looking the wrong way, and however much she wanted to, Io couldn’t stop the goblins on her own.
Talk about a one-two punch.
Last fact: The police couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything this time about what was going on inside Goblin Town.
That left Io’s feelings. Those were trickier bits to catalog and deal with. They were as basic as breathing and just as hard to resist. She wanted Jack—badly. But she also wanted emotional safety. Chances were she couldn’t have both, not indefinitely. Maybe not at all.
Yet perhaps she could juggle her emotions long enough to stop Horroban. Surely she could say no to Jack and make it stick for the next two weeks. Lust was not that overwhelming. It just couldn’t be.
“You’re thinking again,” Jack accused as they set off down the street, forcing a path through the throngs of tipsy tourists. The crowds were getting thicker now that the witching hour—and the traditional free drinks at midnight—were near. Fortunately, with Jack along, people tended to get out of the way.
“Someone’s gotta do it,” Io answered, matching her stride to his. She was glad she had worn boots with moderate heels. “So, do you have a plan?”
“The general outlines of one.”
“Oh good. I’d hate to think we were just making this up as we went along.”
“Not spontaneous, are we?”
“Not in situations where I can die.”
Jack let his eyes travel up and down her once and then grinned. “That’s a real shame, ’cause I can think of one situation—”
“Let’s leave the thinking to me,” Io interrupted. She was not going to flirt with Jack. “I’ll be the brain and you be the brawn.”
“But you have the fist of steel. Why should I play the troll?”
“Because you look more like one,” she answered untruthfully. The wrench the words caused told her that Jack still had his truth spell even if he wasn’t using it on her at the moment.
“How do you do it?” she demanded after a moment.
“What? Look like a troll? You know what they say about the correlation between the size of a man’s nose and the size of his—”
“Jack!” Io kept her voice low. They were entering a less crowded part of town, but Io hadn’t explored the business district before.
“What I meant was, how do you keep your spells? You still have your invisibility too. I can feel it.”
“I didn’t leave town,” Jack answered. “I found a place to crash down at Brush Park.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” Io nodded, though she didn’t care for the idea of sleeping in the ruins of Brush Park. She would never feel safe enough to sleep out there.
“I buy extra spells off of junkies who need money for a fix. Sometimes people drop spells…A little tweaking, a little power and—voilà—a customized spell.”
Io didn’t approve of giving money to the junkies, but she supposed it was more ethical than simply stealing their magic. It also kept them from mugging tourists for the cash to get their fixes.
“It might be a good idea if you did the same thing,” Jack suggested, lowering his voice. “One of these days, Xanthe is going to figure out what you’re really doing, and she is going to try to pull you out of the game.”
Xanthe! Io swore.
“What?” Jack looked down at her, his brows drawing together. “And where did you learn gutter troll?”
“We need to find a safe place,” Io told him. “Somewhere that I can undress out of the public eye.”
Jack raised a brow but didn’t make any suggestive comments. He really was trying.
“I’m ‘ticked,’ ” Io said. “I can get the ones on my arms and legs, but I have a feeling that Ferris may have slipped one onto my back. He isn’t usually a pat-them-on-the-back sort of guy, but he glad-handed me a few times the day he grafted on these birthmarks.”
Jack considered for a moment. “We’ll go to my place. I have some equipment.”
“We don’t need much. I have a knife.”
“Yeah, but we don’t want to kill the ticks. They may be useful to us later. We’ll put them in some gelatin with a little blood and then hide them somewhere innocuous.”
Io nodded. He wouldn’t want them at his crash pad. The place was probably warded, but Xanthe could possibly find him anyway, and clearly he didn’t want to be found.
Io, on the other hand, still felt that she might like to have someone on the outside know where she was. Eventually, just not right now. Another Gordian knot. Damn! She felt as if she was in constant bondage.
Jack’s room was in a dilapidated building of brick where junkies had stayed during the daylight hours. As their addictions grew, so did their sensitivity to sunlight. This building would have been ideal because it had very few unshuttered windows. However, the junkies were all gone now. Jack had scared them away.
He opened the wards on his door, and then using a bit of fire magic he set the kerosene lamp alight. As Io had suspected, fire didn’t bother him.
The room was empty except for a duffle bag that sat on top of an old claw-footed table. There was a hammock in the corner, suspended from two sturdy bolts that had made new wounds in the walls. Most earth feys preferred to sleep grounded, but given the filth accumulated on the water-damaged floor, Io couldn’t blame Jack for choosing to sleep up off of it.
“Okay, let’s see these ticks.”
“I can manage the arm and leg,” Io said, realizing that she was going to have to undress in order to get the trackers off of her. She was wearing another leather outfit that passed for goblin couture, and this one was skintight. “It’s just my back that’s the problem.”
“It’s not a problem. Your knife or mine?”
“Mine. It has a silver blade. It also has one of cold iron, so be careful. You don’t want burned fingers.”
“And you don’t need a burn on your back.”
“Not if I can avoid it.” She pulled her small pocketknife from her boot and handed it to him. “It’s the top blade.”
“I feel it.”
Io took a deep breath and then turned away from Jack. She undid the corset belt and quickly pulled her sweater up over her head. She didn’t wear a bra, so there was no need to do more.
“Look for moles or any raised skin. It might not be dark. Ferris is sneaky.” Her voice was a little shaky. She hoped Jack thought it was fear and not arousal that made it tremble.
“Got it. Looks like I spoke too soon. Grit your teeth, little fey. This will hurt.”
“Keep it shallow and it won’t hurt a lot. It should be connected by a single vein.”
“Sorry. Not this time. Your Ferris stuck it on good. It has grafted itself smooth and sent down roots. This sucker is grafted on as tight as your own skin—maybe tighter.”
Io said another bad troll word.
“You want to go on with it?” Jack asked.
“Just do it. I’ll heal.”
“Okay.”
Jack was fast and kept the cut shallow, but Io couldn’t help flinching as the tick was pulled loose. Pure silver was better than any other metal for surgical use on magical beings, but they all hurt. Of course, that was the point of the silver and iron blades—she was supposed to hurt goblins if she got in a jam.
As she felt the blood roll down her back, she made a note to bring a bone knife next time she came to town. She wanted something she could use on herself that wouldn’t hurt like metal.
Jack pressed his hand over her shoulder blade and muttered something. There was a flash of intense heat as he used his fire spell on her.
“Ow!” Her knees almost buckled as the flame shot through her.
Jack quickly steadied her, bracing her against his body with his free hand.
“Sorry, but it needed to be cauterized. It was that or stitches.” He sounded genuinely regretful at causing her pain, but Io didn’t turn around and seek visual confirmation of his feeling.
“So much for no burns on my back,” she groused.
There was a sound of paper tearing and then Jack wiped her lower spine with some sort of alcohol swab. The cold, or something, raised gooseflesh on her back and arms.
“You need some help getting that sweater back on?” he asked casually.
“No.” It hurt to lift her arm, but she managed to pull the turtleneck back on. Only then did she turn around.
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