Hard Spell

by Justin Gustainis

  Goblins are nasty little bastards, but they usually give people a wide berth. You find them near garbage dumps and junkyards, mostly. They don't tend to come into densely populated human areas.

  "Near as I can figure," Matthews said, "they braced the clerk with those homemade knives they use, and told him to empty the register. The clerk might've thought it was a joke. Anyway, I guess he told them to fuck off, and so they cut him. I dunno know how bad."

  "I bet he gave up the money after that," I said. "So, why are the gobs still in there?"

  "Customer in the back of the store, some woman looking over the expensive wine they've got back there. When she saw what was going down, she called 666 on her cell. That's how we know what happened. There was a black-and-white a couple of blocks over. They got here pretty quick."

  "And the gobs refused to come out with their claws up," Paul said.

  "You got it," Matthews said. "They'd found the woman by then, so she and the clerk are both hostages."

  "What I don't get is why goblins are doing shit like this," I said. "It's not their style."

  "I dunno." Matthews shrugged. "The first uniforms on the scene say the gobs were acting real twitchy, even for them. Hysterical, even."

  Big Paul and I looked at each other. "Meth," I said, and he nodded.

  Surprise and anger chased each other across Matthews' face. "Did you say meth? Are you fuckin' serious?"

  "Do I look like I'm kidding around?" I said. "There's been rumors the last couple of months that some of the local goblins have figured how to cook meth. Story goes, some big drugstore dumped a bunch of expired OTC drugs, including a whole shitload of cold medicine."

  "We checked it out," Paul said. "Since it's not prescription meds, the drugstores don't gotta keep track of it. The ones that are part of a chain, they send the expired stuff back to some central warehouse, and those guys dispose of it like any other trash – at a dump or landfill."

  "We called the company HQs of a couple of the big drugstore chains that have stores in town," I said. "They told us they'd be happy to discuss their waste disposal practices with me – right after I showed them a court order."

  "Which we can't get, because the corporate HQs are outside our jurisdiction," Paul growled.

  "Goblins on meth." Matthews shook his head. "Just what we fuckin' need."

  "Maybe we oughta put this bitch session on hold 'til later," Paul said. "There's hostages, remember?"

  "Yeah, you're right," I told him. I looked over at the liquor store, the flashing red lights bouncing off its windows like something at one of those rave clubs. "Guess we're gonna need CIs." I gestured with my head toward where we'd left the car. "You wanna...?"

  "Sure." Big Paul lumbered off inthe direction we'd come from. Then he stopped, and turned back.

  "Vests, too?" he asked.

  I shrugged. Goblins weren't shooters, everybody knew that. "I don't want one," I told him. "But if you're feeling wussy, be my guest."

  Paul grinned at me. "Yeah, and fuck you, too." Then he pivoted and went back to the car.

  Matthews looked at me. "CIs? What the hell d'you need a confidential informant for? We know where the little green bastards are."

  "Yeah, we do. That's why he's getting some special cartridges out of our vehicle. They're tipped with cold iron. Different kind of CI."

  • • • •

  Nobody knows why cold iron works against the creatures of faerie – goblins, trolls, dwarves, and all the rest. Might just as well ask why silver kills a werewolf, or why vamps can't stand sunlight. Some philosopher has probably spent years trying to figure it all out. But as Paul and I approached that liquor store, I was just glad that my Beretta held a fresh clip of 9mm CI slugs.

  The weapon was holstered, for now. No point in spooking already jazzed-up goblins. My last combat pistol test showed that I could bring it up to firing position in 1.3 seconds and hit what I was aiming at 92 percent of the time. I figured that would be good enough.

  There wasn't much danger of getting shot, anyway. Goblins don't use guns, and if this pair was breaking with tradition, they'd have busted some caps by now. Goblins aren't famous for their patience, even without meth.

  The whole front of the liquor store was glass. As we approached, I thought I saw a flash of green from just above the check-out counter. They knew we were here, all right.

  I pushed the heavy door open slowly, Paul right behind me. A long gray counter ran along the wall to the left, and we walked slowly toward it, our footsteps loud in the stillness. I stopped about twenty feet away. Big Paul would take up position about fifteen feet back and a little to my right, as always. If I went down, he'd be in a good position to nail the bastard responsible.

  "I'm Detective Sergeant Stanley Markowski," I said, as calmly as if I was meeting someone at work. "This is Detective Paul di Napoli." Keep everything cool, that was the idea. The fact that my pulse was pounding in my ears like a crazed conga drummer didn't matter. "Whaddaya say we try to work this out? There's no need for anybody to get hurt."

  The clerk had already been hurt, I knew that. But I decided not to mess up my pitch with inconvenient facts.

  Goblin voices always remind me of fingernails being scraped across a blackboard. The one coming from behind the counter was no exception. "What you want?" it screeched.

  "I want to talk."

  "No talk – want car. Get car or we cut humans."

  Most goblins don't speak English real well, and the only phrase of Goblin that I know translates as "Your mother mates with trolls under every bridge in town."

  "Don't cut humans," I said. "Talk instead. Talk better."

  "Talk no good. Want car, go away far. No prison."

  "Why come here? Why rob?" Talking to gobs always made me sound like some nitwit in an old Tarzan movie. Can't be helped, though. Simple words and syntax are all they understand – in human language, or their own. Goblins aren't real bright.

  "Money. Lots of money at liquor place."

  I caught movement out of the corner of my eye as something shifted in the parking lot outside. I hoped the uniforms out there weren't getting t."

  A full breach almost always results in casualties. Sometimes those include people caught in the middle.

  "Why money?" I asked. "Goblin not need money."

  Living near dumps, goblins usually forage for what they need. Sometimes they barter with other goblin tribes for stuff they can't find on their own.

  "For powder. For powder, need money much. Want powder. Need money."

  Just as I'd figured. Meth-head goblins, Jesus.

  "If I give powder, let humans go free?"

  "You get powder? Shit talk. Cop got no powder."

  "Cops find lotsa drugs. Take during arrest, for evidence. You want powder, or no?"

  I heard some whispering going on behind the counter. Behind me, Paul muttered, "I hope you know that the fuck you're doin'."

  "We get powder, let one human go. Then give car. Need car."

  "I give powder, you let both humans go."

  "One human. One!"

  Hysteria was rising in the voice, making it even uglier than before. "Okay, one human," I said. "I go get powder now. Back soon."

  "Get quick, or we cut."

  As we hurried back to the police lines, Paul said, "I ain't gonna ask if you're fucking nuts, cause I already know the answer to that one. You're gonna try something tricky, right?"

  "I hope so," I told him. "Whether it'll work depends on if she's on duty tonight, or Dispatch can find her."

  "Her who?"

  "Rachel Proctor."

  Big Paul stopped walking and looked at me. "The department witch," he said.

  "That's the one."

  The black-and-white unit pulled up to the command post thirty-six long minutes later. A uniform I didn't know got out of the passenger side. Looking in Matthews' direction he said, "Sir, I got a package for Sergeant Markowski."

  "That's me." I went over, and he handed me a thi
ck white envelope. "Thanks," I said, and before he had even turned away, I was slitting it open. Inside was a sealed, sandwich-size baggie containing three or four ounces of crystalline white powder. There was also a note from Rachel Proctor, the department's consulting white witch. "No guarantees, but it ought to work. Good luck." She hadn't added "You'll need it." She didn't have to.

  Two minutes later, Big Paul and I were back inside the liquor store. I was about twenty feet away from the counter when one of the screechy voices yelled, "Stop! No more close! We cut!"

  "I have powder," I said, as calmly as I could. "Have meth. Here. See?" I held up the baggie and let it dangle. One of the goblins stuck his head up for an instant, then disappeared again.

  A few seconds later I heard, "Throw powder. Throw here!" The need in that voice was almost palpable.

  "One human first," I said. "You made promise. I bring powder, one human let go."

  "Throw bag here, or cut humans! Cut bad!"

  "You cut humans, no powder. And no car."

  More muttered conferring. Then a man crawled out from behind the counter on his hands and knees. He was in his undershirt. Somebody had used one sleeve of a blue-striped outer shirt to bandage his upper left arm. The fabric was soaked with blood, and ding.

  "It's all right," I told him. "Stand up, and walk toward us. It's gonna be okay."

  The guy stood, but it wasn't easy for him. I guess he was stiff from sitting all that time, or he might've been woozy from blood loss, or both. Early fifties, probably. Tall, skinny, and scared half to death.

  I kept my eye on the counter as Paul led the clerk to the door. The uniforms would get him into an ambulance.

  "Drug now!" The goblin voice was a scream. "Drug now, or cut woman. Cut tits off! Now!"

  "Here!" I said and tossed the baggie underhand. It cleared the counter and disappeared behind it. I felt my guts, already tight, clench a little harder. This was going to be the tricky part.

  More mutterings and stirrings from behind the counter. Then I heard sniffing sounds, the kind you make when sucking in air deliberately. There's different ways to ingest meth. It seemed these gobs were snorters.

  There was a clock on the wall above the counter. I watched it for two long minutes before calling "Goblins! Goblins, hear me?"

  A new sound answered me. It was wordless but had a rising inflection, like somebody asking a question in his sleep.

  "Goblins, you let woman go free. Let human go. Let go now."

  Thirty-two more seconds crawled across the face of that clock. Then there was a stir behind the counter. A woman stood up slowly, using the counter as leverage. She was a fortyish brunette who had probably known too many Twinkies in her time. "Don't shoot!" she yelled, and threw her hands in the air. "Don't shoot!"

  "Nobody's going to shoot you, ma'am. You can put your hands down. Just walk over to me. Easiest thing in the world. Take all the time you want. Just walk over here."

  She nervously looked down and to her right. When nobody tried to stop her, she shuffled out from behind the counter and walked unsteadily toward us, her eyes still wide with terror.

  Paul put his big arm around the woman's shoulders and led her toward the door. I still kept my eyes on the counter, although the hard part was over now.

  I heard the door open behind me, and Big Paul's voice saying, "Come on, move it. Get her out of here."

  Then I heard the door close and familiar footsteps coming back.

  "All clear," Paul's voice rumbled.

  We could have killed both of them, the goblins. Fired through the counter until our guns were empty and the little green bastards were dead or dying. No one in authority would've said "boo" about it.

  But we didn't have to do it that way, so we didn't. Killing is never my first choice when taking down a suspect. Well, hardly ever. And if Rachel's spell had worked the way it was supposed to, nobody should have to die.

  "Goblins!" I called. "Stand up! Stand up now!"

  And it worked. Instead of being told "Blow it out your ass" in Goblin, I saw two furry green heads appear over the counter top. Two sets of black eyes peered at us blearily.

  "Goblins! Drop knives. Drop knives. Now! Do it now!"

  After a long pause, I heard the metallic clang of something hitting the floor. Then again. The knot in my guts loosened a little.

  "Goblins! Come here! Come to me!"

  Without even looking at each other, the two creatures slowly came around the counter. I've seen goblins before, and these two looked typical. Four feet tall, more or less. Green fur over black skin. The misshapen heads were standard, but their confused, vague expressions wereprobably due to Rachel's magic, not goblin genetics.

  As they shuffled toward us, I reached slowly for the handcuffs on my belt. An amalgam of cold iron and silver, with a binding spell added for good measure, they would hold the greenies secure until they could be put into a special cell. The county jail's got accommodations for all creatures great and small, human and inhuman.

  I cuffed one goblin's paws behind his back, while Paul did the other one. As I went through the nearautomatic movements, I thought about the conversation I'd had with Rachel Proctor, once Dispatch had connected me to her phone.

  "I need something that looks like meth, smells like it, hell, tastes like it," I told her. "But instead of getting buzzed, I want them made compliant and cooperative."

  "So you can tell them what to do."

  "Exactly. It's my best chance of getting the hostages out unharmed. The gobs, too, for that matter."

  "Why not a simple knockout potion? Aren't you being a little too clever, Sergeant?"

  "Can you guarantee instant unconsciousness for both of them, at exactly the same time?"

  "Of course I can't," Rachel said impatiently. "No potion works instantaneously, and there's no guarantee they'd both use it at the same – oh, I see."

  "Right. If they felt themselves being drugged unconscious, they might have enough time to knife the hostages. They would, too."

  "Quite possibly. They're mean little buggers, most of them," she confirmed.

  "I don't want them realizing they've been drugged until I start telling them what to do – not even then, if possible."

  "And you need this immediately, of course."

  "I need it before two strung-out goblins lose patience and start cutting up a couple of innocent humans. How long you figure I ought to wait?"

  "Bastard," she said, but without heat.

  "That's between Mom and Pop, and they're not here."

  A sigh came over the line. "All right, send a police car over to my place, but tell them to wait outside. I'll bring it out as soon as it's ready, assuming I can make it work. Maybe twenty minutes, start to finish."

  "When can you start?"

  "As soon as I stop talking to you," Rachel said, and hung up.

  As Big Paul and I led the unresisting goblins toward the door, I thought about what I could do to show my appreciation for Rachel's efforts. I was wondering if witches liked flowers when I heard the insane screech behind me, followed instantly by Paul's voice shouting, "Fuck!"

  I whirled to see a goblin – the undrugged, uncompliant third goblin that nobody had known about – rushing at Paul. It held a knife with a foot-long blade in one green, furry paw.

  I'd seen Paul's scores on the yearly firearms qualification, including "Draw and Fire." He was slower than me, by three-tenths of a second. But he still had plenty of time to draw down on the meth-crazed goblin.

  I had my own weapon out now, but Paul's bulk blocked my shot. No problem. I knew he could double-tap that little green fucker without my help, and I'm sure Big Paul knew it, too. Right up until the instant that his weapon jammed.

  I heard the click from Paul's Colt Commander, and knew instantly what had happened. And Paul froze. He should have dropped to the floor and given me a clear shot. That's standard procedure. Christ, they even teach it at the police academy. Instead, he just stood there, pulling the trigger on his
useless weapon over and over, as if hoping that i would finally fire.

  Paul's goblin prisoner was between us, and I wasted a precious couple of seconds shoving him out of the way. I reached for Paul's shoulder with my free hand, intending to push him aside so I could get a clear shot of my own. But by then it was far too late.

  I felt the impact as the goblin's blade slammed into Paul's chest, unprotected by the body armor I'd said we didn't need. I heard his grunt of pain and surprise, saw the spray of blood from the wound – the bright red arterial blood that continued to spurt as Paul fell to his knees, giving me at last a clear view of the goblin that had knifed him, its face made even uglier by the rage and drug-induced madness stamped on it, then made uglier still by the impact of my bullet between its crazed black eyes.