“Okay…” I replied, drawing the word out.
She sighed heavily. “One of the security guards, a serious football fanatic, claims to recognize him. Says he’s Joaquin del Rios, a.k.a. Jack ‘the Ripper’ Rios, the retired football player. You know, the middle linebacker for Oakland up until forced retirement for too many concussions two years ago? Swears he saw him both days in person and wanted to get an autograph, but museum policy forbids employees harassing patrons for personal reasons.”
“Wow. I didn’t expect that one. He should be easy to track down, but what’s the issue?” Her identification threw me, considering I was sure the hulking creature was a Wekufe.
“Well, Rios is dead,” she replied, exasperated. “Died last week from a brain hemorrhage. Made the news and everything. Something about the controversy around head trauma in professional football players.”
“Hey, he was from somewhere in South America, right?” I hated Oakland, living as I did in San Diego, but I had to keep up with the competition in my division. “I recall something about him being the first professional football player from his country.”
“Yes, he was from Chile. Hold on a sec…” The sound grew muffled, and I could tell she was covering the phone.
I was right! It was a Wekufe, and it was wearing Jack Rios as a suit. Then my spirits sank when I realized I’d never be able to collect on our bet. How in the hell could I ever convince her the dead guy was involved in stealing a magic cup, which was likely covered up by a supernatural bomb? Sometimes it sucks being me.
I walked over to the desk and sat heavily in the bizarrely shaped mesh chair. Over the phone, I could still hear the conversation, but it was too muffled for me to make anything out so I waited patiently, drumming my fingers on the desktop while I tried to devise a way to explain the Wekufe that would sound both believable and sane.
I cradled the phone between my shoulder and cheek and then pulled my gun from its holster under my arm. I ejected the clip and the chambered round then disassembled the gun, laying the parts on the desk in front of me.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “I just got news from US Customs that they have no record of him entering the country, and the local medical examiner just talked to the coroner in Santiago and verified that Rios is indeed dead. They’re faxing us a copy of the autopsy report right now. There’s no way that was him in the museum.” I could hear the frustration in her voice.
“What about the bomber—any word on him? Witnesses said he was a young guy and looked Middle Eastern.” I figured there was no point in telling her that yes, that really was the dead former football player, and no, the bombing was not a terrorist act. People loved the concept of myths and legends but mostly because deep down they believed they weren’t real. Knowing humans were really at the bottom of the food chain changed a person’s reality, and for law-enforcement types, that could be very bad. They needed to believe that everything they saw had a rational explanation. I began to reassemble the gun as I listened.
“Nothing yet, but we never really got any good images of him,” she said. “We’re checking video cameras along the street just to make sure, but that takes time.”
“Okay. Look, I’ve got some people to talk to, but if you find anything, let me know ASAP.” I had absolutely no doubt she’d find nothing that would make any more sense than a dead football player as a potential suspect, but I wanted to seem positive.
“Ditto. Oh, and I guess I owe you dinner. Whoever that guy is, he’s clearly connected to this mess somehow. I won’t get out of here until late, though, if that’s okay.”
Holy crap! My thumb slipped off the recoil pin and spring as I was inserting it back into the slide, and the spring caromed across the room, ricocheting off the wall somewhere over the bed behind me. Either she’d made a connection without me making up some bizarre story to link that hulking figure to the bombing, or she really did like me. I didn’t question it. I wasn’t about to push my luck and find out it was just that cops didn’t believe in coincidences.
“Ah, yeah, that’s fine. Just swing by my hotel when you’re done. I’m at the Stanhope Park,” I said, desperately trying to keep the excitement out of my voice.
“Yikes—it must be nice to work in the private sector. I’ll be in touch.”
It took me five minutes to locate the damned spring and pin.
CHAPTER 10
Before my date, I had something I needed to do. Like most sizable cities, New York City had a serious Paranthropoi population. Hell, I knew of a huge population of goblins and trolls alone, and at least three giants—and they didn’t play football. Most of them lived in the underground tunnel system inhabited by the mole people—the homeless humans who took shelter there. It was not a nice place. It was even less nice when you actually knew what was down there. If some supernatural puppet creature and its human-wizard puppeteer were in the city, then some creature down there would know it.
I began to gear up in my hotel room, starting with pulling on my tactical vest. It was a Blackhawk Omega Cross Draw vest that I’d had specially fitted over my cuirass. The armor was impenetrable and weighed little more than a few ounces. Hephaestus had made it ages ago, and Athena had given it to me. The vest itself was an upgrade from my days in the US Navy as an operator with the SEAL Team Development Group, the Navy’s counter-terrorism unit, also known as Team Six.
In fact, most of my gear consisted of modified or updated versions of what I’d used with them. When I needed modern weapons, I still preferred the SIG Sauer and the Glock from my SEAL days. I strapped my Sig to my right hip in a specially designed speed-draw holster and holstered the Glock on the right side of my vest. I stored one of my Dvergar-made knives blade-up in a special sheath on the upper left side of my vest while I strapped the other to my left thigh. I kept a smaller knife in my right boot and an Emerson CQC-6 folding knife in a pocket in my battle dress uniform pants, or BDUs. I also carried a couple of flares and two flash-bang grenades in my vest pockets, and I rounded everything out with a halogen Maglite, a small LED Maglite, knee and elbow pads, and several spare clips for each sidearm.
I threw my swords into a cheap canvas duffel bag to keep them inconspicuous. During most missions, I wore them on my back. They were kopis-style blades given to me by Athena, three feet long and slightly curved. As sharp as my knives were, the swords made them seem dull. With enough force, they could cut through the pressure hull of a submarine.
The last thing I did was wrap my hands and wrists in a few feet of thin leather strips. They were far less restrictive than gloves, and the leather helped me maintain a solid grip on my weapons, especially when they were wet.
When I finished gearing up, I shrugged into a trench coat. It was awkward, and I probably appeared peculiar, like a hunchbacked flasher, but I learned long ago never to go into battle ill equipped. Fortune might favor the bold, but she rewarded the prepared. I ran straight down the hotel stairs, out a side entrance, across Park Avenue, and into Central Park.
I walked south through the park toward the Ramble, making pretty good time. I passed a handful of joggers and a few walkers, but only the walkers gave me a double take before they crossed to the other side of the path. Smart people. Once I got close, I walked off into the woods toward a significant rock outcropping. The trees were flush with new spring growth, which provided excellent cover from prying eyes.
There had always been rumors and conspiracy theories about caves and underground facilities in Central Park, but they were based on a kernel of truth. There was indeed a massive tunnel complex under the park, with one entrance just yards off a main jogging path in a substantial granite formation near the Loeb Boathouse. Its main inhabitants were goblins, and they kept a fairly sophisticated veil over the opening. The veil didn’t actually disguise the cave so much as cause passersby to not notice it.
Goblins weren’t skillful magi
c users, but like many Parans, they could manipulate humans a bit. Unlike most true fairies, who could turn invisible at will, goblins—who were not fae at all—could not. Instead, they just played with the human brain, specifically the visual cortex, by secreting some sort of chemical. It was a complicated trick to pull off, and not many creatures could do it. That type of veil was so difficult, in fact, that while goblins could keep people from seeing them, they couldn’t keep anyone from smelling them. In any foul-smelling area in Central Park, if there wasn’t a dead body, goblins were to blame.
The goblin cave connected to the other tunnels that wound through the city’s bedrock along dozens of miles of pathways and caverns. They even linked to the subway system in several places. It was the least conspicuous way I knew of to get through the city, and I figured anyone who took a valuable museum piece and knew about the tunnels would use them to escape or hide out. With the exception of the trolls and a group of nasty Kobolds, most of the residents of the tunnels were harmless unless provoked, and I might be able to coax out some information that could prove useful for finding the Kalku and his Wekufe.
Whatever substance the goblins used to block normal people’s vision had no effect on me—plus, I’d known about this cave for nearly two hundred years—so I quickly spotted the entrance along the back side of the granite hill. The opening was only about four feet across, so I had to crouch to enter and then drag my duffel bag through after me. It was incredibly dark and musty and had an overriding scent of dog crap, but once I was inside, the cavern opened enough for me to stand up comfortably. It was still light out, so if I was lucky, not much would be awake down there yet.
I took off my trench coat and pulled the swords out of the duffel then stuffed the coat in it and tossed the bag just inside the entrance. I pulled out my LED Maglite and followed the path before me, keeping my eyes and ears open.
The tunnels were mostly natural formations, fissures running through the bedrock in and around New York City. Some of the tunnels were carved out of the granite, but I had no idea when or by whom. The tunnel I was currently traveling through was natural and, though no more than three feet wide, was easily eight feet in height and got taller the deeper the cave descended. The only problem with it was that because of its proximity to the lake, the floor and walls were wet. Combine that with the nearly 15-percent downgrade and the occasional four – to six-foot drops, and footing could be treacherous.
After about ten minutes of slow going, I pulled a crude map out of my vest pocket. According to the goblin who had given it to me years ago, the path to the subway tunnels should have been just ahead. It wasn’t. If I couldn’t get through to the subway tunnels, I’d have to go right through the heart of the main goblin camp and then through the Kobold settlement. While an individual or maybe even a few goblins could prove helpful and possibly provide information, blundering into the heart of their home would be considered rude and aggressive and probably end all hope of help from them, not to mention piss them off. Wandering into the Kobold colony would probably earn me an invitation to dinner—as the main course.
As I shone my flashlight to examine the tunnel wall to my left where the fork was supposed to be, a unique gibbering echoed up from farther down the tunnel. I didn’t speak goblin, but I recognized the language. Oh well. I guess it’s inevitable. Hopefully, they knew something about the Wekufe or Kalku.
From around the next corner, two goblins appeared, engrossed in conversation. They didn’t even react to me at first, even with my flashlight on, but as soon as they noticed me, they froze and glanced at each other surreptitiously.
Goblins were short, ugly humanoids with long arms and stubby legs, brownish-green skin, and lots of pointy little teeth. Since they were mostly subterranean and nocturnal, their eyes were gigantic. And then there was the smell. Public restrooms seemed sweet by comparison.
These two were dressed in clothes from a 1980s hair-band video. One wore zebra-striped spandex pants and a torn white tank top with neon-colored bandanas tied around his head. The other had black pants and no shirt but wore a leopard-print jacket that had to have been made of plastic. I had to stop myself from laughing.
I could smell them releasing whatever it was that veiled them until the acrid scent became so thick that I started coughing. Finally, after what had to have been three or four minutes of the goblins’ unsuccessful attempts to confound my eyes and fade into the walls, I waved.
“Hello,” I said in between coughs. “I was wondering if you could help me. I’m a bit lost.”
They just blinked and stared at me, mouths agape. Their eyes were impossibly wide, but neither said a word. Living in New York, I knew they would understand English, but I was hoping one or both could actually speak it, too.
“Yes, I can see both of you,” I said, continuing to cough. “Look, I have this map that a goblin made for me years ago, and I need to get to the abandoned tunnels. It shows an entrance right around here somewhere.” I pointed at the wall to my left with my light.
Goblins aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, and those two were closer to spoons. A few seconds later they both just screeched a high-pitched yowl approaching the range of an air horn, and turned tail and ran.
Crap. I chased after the wailing goblins, keeping an eye out for possible left turns, until the tunnel opened onto a low, dark cavern that echoed with excited gibbering. My little light only projected a narrow beam, but the echoes made the space sound vast, and if the smell was any indication, there were dozens of goblins living right there.
I popped a flare and tossed it, and the gibbering changed to shrieks as lots of goblins skittered about to get out of the way. Man, I hoped it was only goblins I was hearing.
“I mean no harm!” I shouted. The last thing I needed was to set off a full-blown goblin riot and send them scurrying down every tunnel for miles, alerting everything of my presence. My eyes started watering from the stench. I placed one hand under my nose.
“I just ask safe passage to the abandoned tunnels,” I said, trying not to sound too threatening. “I’m lost.”
The screams and the skittering died down, but the gibbering did not. I counted eighteen goblins, though it sounded as if there were dozens more just outside of my field of view.
Finally, an enormous goblin about my height made his way into the light of my flare. His shiny, solid-black eyes had to have been the size of grapefruits. He was dressed in jeans that had been ripped and reworked to fit his stubby, muscular legs, and to top things off, he wore a Yankees cap. In one hand he dragged an adjustable wrench about four feet long.
“Go,” he said in fairly clear English, and pointed back the way I’d come with a freakishly long finger that had a wicked nail on the end. “Now.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, backing up with my hands up. I made a deliberate show of turning off the Maglite, but I didn’t leave the area illuminated by the flare. “I just need to pass through here. If someone would show me where the tunnel I’m looking for is, I’d be very grateful. Very grateful, indeed.”
He stopped and blinked his giant eyes at me. Even with that ugly a face, I could tell he was thinking. He cocked his head to one side. “What you have?”
“I don’t have anything with me, but I’ll get you anything you want. Look, I need to get going. I have to find a Wekufe and his Kalku before they disappear.”
“Ah, explosion in museum in park day before,” he said, shaking his head knowingly. “They come through here like you, last evening. Kill Etwe, Finfa, and Otha. You chase dem?” He pointed into the darkness at something I couldn’t see.
“Yes, I am chasing them, and I will catch them and make them pay if I can find them.”
“Kalku very powerful, but Wekufe strong, too. Dey surprise us, kill without warning. Goblins not fighters, not prepared. Otha my brother.” His giant eyes became watery. “You catch
, you kill?”
Suddenly, I was completely surrounded by goblins. They were swaying slightly, just beyond the light of the flare, which was near to burning out.
“I promise I will capture the Kalku if I can, but I cannot truly kill the Wekufe, and I will only kill the Kalku if I need to. He has information I need. But if you request it, once I have the information I require, I will bring the human back to you for your punishment if what you say they did is true. And I will carry out whatever measure of justice you require. I so swear. But I need to move now.”
Part of my job was to be an emissary to the other races with whom we humans shared the world. Sometimes it meant that I had to mete out justice to maintain a balance. In the case of unprovoked murder, I would gladly have returned the culprit for punishment. I might not have liked all the other races we shared space with, but I treated them with respect. There was a single exception to that policy, though: I’d kill every vampire on sight if I had the chance.
He eyed me suspiciously for a few seconds, and then his face softened. It was the goblin version of a smile. “Very well. Skeefa will guide you. If you catch, you bring back. Dead or alive.”
In the failing light of the flare, the giant goblin turned and focused on something back in the crowd. He spoke to one of the smaller goblins dressed in overalls behind him. “Skeefa, take him where Kalku go yesterday. Be fast.”
He turned to me. “We make deal. We hold up our end, you hold up yours. Go.” He dismissed me with a flick of his wrist as the flare died and the cave reverted to total blackness.
I switched on my light and saw the small goblin in kids’ overalls bobbing and weaving in front of me. He waved for me to follow. “My name Skeefa,” he squealed. “Come, come. Let’s go.” And he took off like a shot.
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