by S T Branton
When I arrived at the abandoned grocery store, I noticed something seemed off. Archie had sent me here and instructed me to go in the back, making it seem like that was the only way to stay out of sight. But as I got to the overgrown parking lot, I noticed there were several cars in the front and it seemed like something was going down. Some instinct urged me to check the place out first, so I looked around the building until I found a ladder and hopped up onto the bottom rung.
I climbed quickly and reached the roof without much effort. There were a series of skylights at the top of the building, and I made my way toward them. Lights were visible from inside against the gloom of cloud cover that had settled into place since I left Archie's house, and I knelt to look. Discarded advertisements and rusted-out shelves were scattered everywhere, and I saw a cyclops—scratch that, three of them—moving boxes around. One was at least seven feet tall and had shoulders like a brick wall. Almost half his size was a goblin with a clipboard barking orders like she was playing Farstuff roadshow.
It seemed normal enough, as normal as a warehouse for dealing in illicit goods would be, and I was about to climb back down when I noticed something else. In the corner, huddled together with tied hands and duct-taped mouths was a small group of humans.
Shit.
That was probably also normal for a place like this.
Archie had warned me that his colleagues could be a little rough around the edges, but I had expected some lewd comments or maybe tough bartering, not trafficking in humans.
One of the humans, a man, must have pissed the goblin off because she stepped over and paint-brushed the man with the back of her hand. I winced as she did it again, this time harder. Spit flew as she screamed at him. The other humans—a couple of men, a couple of women, and a few of them looking pretty young—were clearly terrified, but an old man stuck in the middle of the group stood and tried to get between the goblin and the man she was abusing.
She turned on him almost immediately. She punched and kicked, even after he fell to the floor and curled up in the fetal position. Then she pulled a bowie knife from her belt and sat on the old man’s chest.
Bile rose in my throat. Whether these humans were slaves or snacks or goods, they didn’t deserve terror or torture at the hands of some asshole goblin. I had to get in there and stop them, and it needed to be fast. I looked around and found a cinder block laying near the skylight. I hefted it above my head, took careful aim, and dropped it straight down. Not exactly elegant, but effective. It crashed through the skylight and landed on the head of one of the cyclops. I barely caught sight of him slumping over before I darted toward the ladder again. After placing my hands and the insteps of my feet along the sides of it, I slid to the bottom in seconds and jumped off to the ground.
I dashed for the front door and found a window missing its glass and the board that was supposed to block it off hanging open. I climbed in and made my way to a display shelf. I ducked and watched as several more goblins, obviously middle management, huddled around the cyclops that had fallen while staring up at the skylight. The cyclops workers, not having been told their job was to be altered, continued to move Farstuff into their piles with robotic efficiency. They weren’t that bright, but they were damn strong. And there were three of them, which would make this much more difficult.
There were five goblins that I could count, and I had a direct shot at them if I went to the right, around a large shelf, and could mostly avoid the cyclops workers. I waited until one of them had moved far down the long room and drew on my locket.
I darted forward, jumped through the air and kicked a large display toward the huddled goblins. A muffled cry greeted the shelf landing on a few of them, but a couple got out of the way. I dove on top of one and laced a shot to its jaw with my heel. The surprise attack worked since he had no defense, and his eyes were full of visible confusion.
I spun to punch another one right between the eyes. As he stumbled back, he fell onto another goblin who was trying to get up from the shelf falling on him and tangled them both in a mess of arms and snotty noses. A goblin hit me from behind and tackled me to the ground, and we rolled until I was on top of him, raining down fists into his mushy, slimy face. While bouncing to the balls of my feet, I sensed two of them running at me from either direction and I backflipped out of the way, letting them run headlong into one another. Both had been running with knives drawn and stabbed the other.
That left two goblins, and they were regaining their bearings after crawling out from under the shelf. Turning, I saw a cyclops walk right by me, taking no note of the surrounding chaos, and continuing to do its assigned job. Honestly, the dude deserved a raise.
The behemoth looked even bigger in person, and a shiver ran through me at the thought of having to fight not one, but three. I needed to deal with the goblins before they changed their orders.
I grabbed a long metal pole from among the ruined displays around me and spun it over my head a few times. As the first goblin opened his mouth to scream a command, I flung the pole at him. He saw it coming and ducked, but it flew over his head and impaled itself in the head of the goblin behind him. The first goblin stood, looked back at her fallen brethren, and pointed at me.
"Kill that girl," she screamed at the top of her lungs.
"Okay," I said as three single eyes on three giants turned their attention toward me. "Before we get down to business, I have to know. What do I call you? Cyclopses? Cyclopsi? Because that would be hilarious. Cyclopsi. Get it? Because of the…eye. Cyclops…eye… No?"
Not only did they not appreciate my humor, they were advancing at an alarming speed for beings so big. I scrambled backward and wound up with my back against a freezer door. I tested the handle and it opened easily. A wave of inspiration hit me after diving inside, and I hoped my impromptu freezer plan worked. The long-abandoned meat hooks still hung from the ceiling of the freezer and I grabbed one, preparing myself. Cyclopses have one known weakness to go along with their super strength, singular efficiency of purpose, and incredible stamina.
I flung the meat hook as the first one came through the door, and it went directly on target, stabbing into the giant’s lone eye. He flailed backward, and I grabbed a second hook. As the second one came through, I repeated the motion and again struck gold. Okay, so there was another weakness. They were as dumb as rocks. I grabbed a third meat hook and waited for the last of them. As the door opened, I took my shot and flung it at him.
He blinked.
Well, shit.
Acting quickly, I rolled forward, through his legs and out the door while it was still open. I popped up and heard him grunt in surprise as I slammed the door shut. The door locked with a click, and I breathed a small sigh of relief. It wouldn't hold him for long, but there was no handle on the inside. The only ways out were to be let out, or to beat the door down. The sounds of the cyclops banging against the door told me that he was going with the second option and my time was limited.
I looked around for the goblin but didn't see her anywhere. I rushed forward, untied the prisoners, and ushered them toward the door. They ran quickly and quietly, not wanting to attract the attention of any more bad guys who might be hanging around. My eyes fell on the Farstuff in the room and I ran to it. I grabbed whatever I could reach and ran like hell for the front exit, boxes of mermaid scales and a roll of dragon skin crushed in my arms.
As I got within a few yards of the window I had climbed through, I saw the last goblin heading the same direction. I let her get to the window before I dove at her, tackling her through the opening and ramming my elbow into her face repeatedly as soon as we stopped rolling. Right before she went unconscious, I heard the freezer door finally give way. Picking up the Farstuff I had dropped, I turned and ran, heading away from the building and back to safety as fast as possible.
Chapter Thirty-Two
"That sucked," I muttered to myself as I made my way back from the grocery store. "That was worse than Great-Aunt Melba the ye
ar she forgot the yams until the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and went ape-shit on the man trying to hoard them all."
The fight left me feeling like I screwed my insides in too hard. When Archie told me he was sending me to see his colleagues, it lulled me into complacency. Not that he was the warmest and fuzziest of people I'd met in my life, but with all his raving against the evils of the Harbingers and Hobbes, I expected the people he kept company with to be at least a little less than insanely violent. It didn't occur to me that I'd walk in on them being as horrible to humans as the people we were supposedly trying to stand up against.
Splinter squeaked and ran up to sit on my shoulder for a comforting cuddle.
"That sucks, too," I said. "Not you. The fact that humans can't protect themselves against wicked Farsiders. It's not because Nearsiders are weak. I mean, look at me. It's that they're ignorant. Literally. That word is thrown around a lot, but this time it's true. The humans are truly ignorant about what’s going on around them. They don't know about the different realms, or the issues with Farsiders who hate humans so much. There's no way for them to defend themselves because they don't know what they’re defending themselves against.
"Maybe Hobbes is right," I said to Splinter as he made his way back into my pocket. He made an appalled chittering sound. "No, hear me out. Maybe the Pax Philosophia is a terrible law. It means the people of The Near have no idea what's going on and The Far have all the power. Look around you. Where is the Philosopher's Guild? According to the Pax, they’re supposed to be protecting the Nearlings as much as they protect Farfolk. But all they seem to do is clean up the mess afterward. That’s not an effective system."
I was so lost in thought that I didn't realize I'd wandered out of the shady part of town and back into the more populated area. It didn't occur to me to pay attention until I nearly ran into someone walking down the middle of the sidewalk. After pulling all the supplies I gathered closer to me for fear the person would see the odd assortment of items I was carrying, I looked up at them. A few choice words had made their way up my throat, but they died in my mouth before I said them. My eyes had locked onto the face of the girl shuffling her way around me, a face that made my heart fall into my stomach.
It was my little sister, Mia.
Well, little might not be accurate. She was my height, her head bowed and focused on a phone in her hands like the one Ally was always consulting. Her cheeks had lost the little girl chubbiness from the last time I saw her, yet I instantly knew it was her. I would recognize that face anywhere.
She looked up at me from her phone and gave a little apologetic grin.
“Sorry.”
She moved right past me, and I realized she hadn't recognized me. She had no idea who I was. I knew that was a good thing, that now wasn't the time to have a tearful family reunion and try to explain everything that happened in the last decade, but it still cut through me. Mia had only been six the night they took me away. In the back of my mind, I still saw her sleepy little head sticking out from her bedroom and staring toward the steps, trying to make sense of the shouting and chaos coming from below. I quieted her and told her to go back to bed. That was the last she saw of me, and now I wondered what she thought happened after that moment.
I should have headed back to Archie's house to give him the supplies that were the point of me leaving in the first place. But I didn't. It was the truth when I told Ally I didn't have any intention of going to see my family because it would be too hard. But my family had wandered into my path, and I couldn't ignore her. This was my little sister, the youngest of my siblings, and to see her so grown up created too much curiosity and draw to ignore. I waited a few seconds until Mia was far enough ahead of me, then fell into step behind her.
There was a stretch of time when I was in The Deep that I tried to imagine what my family was doing. I'd sit in the corner of my cell, pretending I was curled up in my father's recliner, and pretend their daily life was playing out in front of me. I never got to involve myself in it, but I would try to envision each of my siblings in the ways they might have grown and changed as the years passed. I'd put them in various situations and watch the imaginary versions of them live out their lives in my mind. After a while, it became too difficult to picture how they might have changed and what it would be like for them to face the challenges of life. Eventually, they dropped out of my daydreams until it was only me pretending to sit in my father's chair alone.
Now I didn't have to imagine what Mia looked like. She was right there in front of me, and I saw all the ways she'd changed. Angles and high cheekbones had taken over her face, and heavy makeup reminded me she was a teenager. It hit me that she was a year older than I’d been the night they arrested me. Despite all the makeup and tight clothes, she still looked so young. It made the years I'd lost with her, and the years I'd lost with myself, feel even heavier.
We walked along until we reached a stretch of small shops and restaurants. I recognized it as being fairly close to Archie's house. Mia looked up from her phone and grinned when two other girls walked out of a coffee shop and rushed toward her to gather her in excited hugs. I remembered hugs like that. Ally and I used to exchange them after not seeing each other for a few hours, feeling like it had been so long.
It was harder to watch her subtly now that we were in a public area, but I wasn't quite willing to relinquish my proximity to my little sister yet. She looked happy and healthy. The years had treated her well, and she had obviously grown up adjusted and secure. Even dealing with my disappearance, she was living a good life.
I hovered around the display window at a nearby boutique for a few more minutes and watched her out of the corner of my eye. She and the other two girls giggled and talked, then disappeared into the shop. I walked away, wishing I could go up to her, if only to look into her eyes again. As I put the shop behind me, I felt solidified in my convictions. The Pax was for the best. I was glad Mia could grow up shielded from the awful truth. Those few minutes made me feel more committed than I ever had been and clarified exactly what I had to do—stop these assholes from pulling off whatever attack they were planning.
If they wanted to take down The Near, they were going to have to get through the heinous Sara Slick first.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I pounded on the door when I got back to Archie’s place, then kicked it a few times for good measure. He came to the door glaring, at me.
“What is wrong with you?” he asked as I pushed past him into the house.
“You didn’t tell me I would be walking in on a party.”
“A party?” He was confused.
“Yeah.” I stalked toward the basement. “A let’s-beat-the-living-shit-out-of-the-humans party. Do you think they went with e-vites for that? The engraving would probably be really expensive.”
“Sorry. I did tell you they were less than reputable.”
“Well, I got your stuff.” I dropped everything onto a table in the workshop. “Your colleagues are a little dented, but I’m sure you took out a proper insurance policy on them, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”
“What did you do to them?”
“Nothing anywhere near as bad as they were doing to their human pets.”
He dropped it there, which was a good decision on his part.
“I haven’t heard anything from Ally yet,” he informed me.
“Good.”
“Let’s see what you got and we’ll get started on your new rune.”
I swept a hand over the pile of Farstuff to display it to him.
“This is what I managed to snag. I got the ‘they were being jerks’ discount.”
“Does that mean you stole it?”
“You catch on fast. What do you think? Is it what you need?”
He examined the various containers and objects I had brought, occasionally grunting and murmuring to himself. There was a point when I decided he was doing it for dramatic effect and had already long since decided whether
he had what he needed. Finally, he nodded.
“There’s some good stuff here. But it’s not everything I’ll need.”
“What else?”
“This is the Farstuff part of the equation. I’ll need to send you to procure the Nearstuff.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“There’s a guy not too far from here who usually has some Nearling teeth available to buy.”
Gross. Tooth Fairy, my ass. All this time, it’s a creepy Far dude snatching teeth from unsuspecting people.
“A human tooth would help you make the weapon?”
“There are other things that would probably work, but the tooth would give it the power I’m looking for.”
I shoved a pile of papers off a chair and sat with a sharp thud. After grabbing the arms tightly, I tilted my head back.
“Go for it.” I opened my mouth.
“What?”
“I don’t need to go shopping again. We don’t have the time for me to jaunt off on another excursion. Take your pick.” I assumed the dental position again.
“Sara, you can’t be serious. I’m not going to simply pry a tooth out of your mouth while you’re sitting here in my workshop.”
The dismissive note in his voice brought back a rush of anger I’d pushed down after leaving the prison. I straightened my head and looked directly at Archie.
“For two months in The Deep, I couldn’t talk because a guard used a stick wrapped in steel wool like a pipe cleaner to scrub my throat after I spoke to him. If you look at my back, you’ll see places where they peeled pieces of my skin away to see if it was easier to do after steaming me for an hour. Spoilers, it is, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I fought a giantess, a goblin, and a scary-ass chewed bubble gum spider my first night in prison. I’m not afraid of you pulling a tooth. I have plenty of them.”