by RyFT Brand
There’s nothing here but us and the Clowns.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” DJ said in her Brooklyn accent. Her voice echoed from inside her helmet.
A thick, black arrow stuck in my chest and hung at an odd angle.
“Oh my Gods, get down!” DJ shouted, shoved me away, and worked at removing the straps from her personal mini-missile launcher.
I pulled the goblin arrow from the pad of my armored battle jacket. “DJ, I’m fine,” I said, looking over the crooked, off balance, and dull excuse for an arrow.
“Stay down, Jazz!” DJ shouted, still fumbling with the straps.
I knocked on the top of her helmet with the tip of the arrow, drew my macdaddy revolver, and shot the offending goblin.
“Oww! Oww, oww, oww!” a goblin screeched from the shadows in a high-pitched, pain riddled wail.
“What the heck?” DJ asked and spun around, holding but one of the three straps that had been securing her weapon.
“She shot me!” the goblin screeched. “That cur shot me! How’d she shoot me? I’m in the dark and she shot me!”
Goblins aren’t used to a human that can see in the dark as well as they can. Of course he was also an idiot.
I drew the hammer back and fired.
“Owwww-how-how! She shot me again!” he yelped and fell over crying.
“I’ll never get used to that,” DJ said and pulled off her helmet, spilling out long back hair that shimmered under the moons’ light. “Are you okay? I mean I know you’re not okay, because you’re dying from the stupid stone. I was always telling you to stop using that stone, man, I wished you had listened, but I mean are you okay now, because you got shot with an arrow—”
I held up a gloved hand to signal my trusty sidekick to take a breath. “DJ, I’m fine. Not only are goblins terrible arrow smiths, they’re even worse shots.”
An arrow, this one only slightly straighter than the last, stuck in the ground beside my boot.
I drew my zoon stick, my tazer equipped boomerang, from its sheath, flipped it open, hit the charge button, and, after waiting for the little ‘fully charged beep,’ threw. It bounced off of two goblins and a mire troll. One after the other they lit up in a stunning display of electric blue sparks and screamed then dropped to the street writhing, foaming, and shaking. I smiled despite the pain in my gut. Then, using the calling stone sewn into the palm of my glove, brought the zoom stick back into my hand.
“Cute trick, human. Now drop your weapons and surrender to the might of the Clowns and prepare to be devoured,” a deep voice spoke with a thick, bvorken accent. Even with my shadow sight, I couldn’t spot the speaker.
I head him grunt with a punch impact, and a gruff voice said in goblin, “Don’t tell them they’re food, idiot!”
“I’ll tells them what I want!” the bvorc replied in goblin, and I heard a second punch land. A wiry goblin stumbled out from behind a half crumbled block wall and into the light of the full moons. “You hit me!” the goblin screeched and drew a sharpened stick. “I’ll skewer your guts for that, Blechk!”
A squat, burley bvorc in leather armor stomped out from behind the shoulder high remnants of wall. He had a heavy club in his hands and a scowl on his painted face. “Not if I smash your skull in, Glivctk!”
I recharged the zoom stick and drew my hand back.
“I got this, boss,” DJ said. She brought mother goose, my twelve gauge single barrel shotgun, up to her shoulder and, with a plume of smoke and a boom like thunder, fired. DJ stumbled back out of my sight. Blechk and Glivctk leapt around like their pants were on fire, screaming and roaring and shouting goblin curses.
Whatever DJ had loaded mother goose with couldn’t have been much more then bird shot, not great for killing, but perfect for inflicting hysterical pain.
DJ walked back, rubbing her right shoulder. “Man, that goose kicks like a godzillapede.” The shotgun was nearly as long as DJ was tall, but I had to hand it to her, the kid had style.
“I know,” I said and took the gun. I broke it open and slid a fresh cartridge in the chamber then clicked it closed as loudly as I could as a warning.
The screaming stopped and Blechk and Glivctk limped back behind their wall.
“Pay attention, Clowns. I’m Jazz and I’m here to see your big bad boss,” I announced, in goblin, as loudly as my sore throat would allow. “I have something for him, something he paid me for—we have an accordance. Now you can tell him I’m here, or I can stand here inflicting vast amounts of pain on you lot, then, when your boss discovers you didn’t tell him, well, you know how he handles disappointment.”
I stood waiting and DJ pressed against me. Her almond shaped eyes were open wide and she looked something more than nervous. I probably should have been nervous too, but I had security in the form of a retainer paid and information to provide. Still, I was in Clowntown. I stretched all my senses, keeping alert for the slightest hint of trouble.
“Go on! Go on Mlevrock, get the boss,” a goblin voice hissed and I heard a pair of boots hurry away.
“Keep alert,” I told DJ.
She drew her ‘pathetic blaster’ and took off the safety. The little pistol is actually called a KFC but had nothing to do with crappy chicken, it stood for Kinetic Force Condenser, although I think my name was more fitting. I never understood what she saw in that little gun.
A few moments later and the biggest goblin I’d ever known lumbered out of the shadows behind us. Two equally big bvorks followed him. I spun and leveled the shotgun, surprised to have been caught unaware. I felt DJ tense. The monsters didn’t flinch, they just stomped over. I lowered the gun. The big goblin stared down at me like he was looking for something, then pulled the thick-as-a-water pipe cigar from his ugly, painted lips. “I don’t see any heads,” he said in his flawless English. Goblins normally had terrible accents. He must have spent a lot of time around humans, maybe in prison, or maybe he’d been a servant, he was a curious one.
He poked me in the chest with a thick, gnarly finger. “I paid you to bring me heads. We’re still getting slaughtered out here so you better have something for me.”
He wasn’t lying, as much as I wished I could say otherwise. Normally I didn’t work for deferred species clients; I was, after all, a monster collector. But it had been a very weird month.
I eyed the fresh scar on his hand. “Healing up nicely, I see. Touch me again and I’ll shoot the other one.”
He pulled his hand away and growled, flashing his pointy fangs.
“I have a head for you,” I said and moved to the bike.
He followed. As he passed, DJ’s perfect little face tensed and she leveled her pistol.
He ignored her.
Watching their mighty leader follow me, other Clowns, armed with an assortment of clubs, pipes, and trashcan lids, crept out of the shadows and drew closer. Curiosity and a bit of confusion, as well as grease paint, covered their faces.
“Interesting weaponry your Clowns have. So what happened to your regular artillery?” I asked.
“None of your business,” he fired back.
I didn’t care anyway. I opened one of the street cycle’s saddlebags, pulled out a cloth sack, and untied the knot that held it closed. Then I pulled out a severed goblin head and held it up so all could see its painted face.
The boss Clown took a long drag from the cigar then blew out a cloud of stinky smoke—which was saying something considering all the goblin stink lofting about. “So what’s this cur got to do with the hits on non-humans?”
“What I want to know is, what was this cur, one of yours as you can see, doing raiding my office?”
The boss Clown had a really pronounced brow, but when he was confused, or feigning confusion, it came down so far it all but covered his black eyes. “I paid you. You were working for me. None of mine raided your office; why would they?”
“I’d really like to know,” I said and tossed him the head.
Other goblins crept
closer, looking over each other’s shoulders at the grotesque head in their boss’s hand.
“What makes you think this goblin raided your office?” the big boss Clown asked and I felt a bite of threat in his tone.
“Because he was in my office when I cut off his head. And he wasn’t alone; there were other Clowns with him, goblins and a couple bvorcs. Three belmars too, magic users, they hurt a friend of mine.”
“Ha!” the big goblin laughed and stuck the cigar back in his mouth. “We don’t run with belmars, they freak me out, and we don’t use magic, we hate the stuff.” He drew on the cigar, the end glowed bright red. As he did another goblin, this one scrawny and slick, shoved his way through the crowd and stared at the head in his leader’s hand.
“Hey!” the little goblin shouted and brandished a wooden club with a couple of rusty spikes hammered into it. “That was Nervock, he was my cousin…and my step-brother, and maybe my grandpa…whatever he was I’ll kill you for killing him, Monster Collector!” Foul drool ran from his knurly lips and hate burned in his black eyes. He lunged for me but his leader stopped him with an outstretched hand.
Like I cared about a goblin threat. “Why don’t you go mate with a rock, goblin,” I snapped.
“And why don’t you choke on some pickles, human!” the goblin whelp shouted, raised his club and shook it threateningly.
Shock and confusion slammed into my consciousness so hard that my thoughts went blank and my heart skipped a beat. It was like my core being had caught something that