The Master

by Melanie Jackson

  There was also something else in the chamber with the sleeping children, a goblin with a broken neck—a very broken neck. The head had been twisted around until it stared over the dead creature’s back. Again, Nick was grateful for his nose filter.

  “Where’s Qasim?” Jack asked, doing a quick 360°.

  “Not here—and I can’t feel him,” Abrial answered with a frown.

  At the same moment, Roman said, “Up to no damn good.”

  “Damn it!” Abrial reached down for the goblin corpse. “Let’s see what he knows.”

  “What are you doing?” Nick asked. “You want my expert opinion? He’s dead—real dead.”

  “Even the dead can sometimes tell us things,” the nightdemon answered. “I’m going to see if he has anything useful to say.”

  Nick nodded but turned; not even his curiosity was enough to make him watch whatever it was Abrial was going to do to the body.

  “The air smells cleaner, and it’s warmer,” Nick said in relief as he knelt beside the nearest child and felt for a pulse. He’d been worried about the children breathing bad air for prolonged periods of time. Though they looked like broken dolls, they didn’t seem dehydrated or starved. Still, he had a great deal of respect for fey magic and how it could mask appearances. Who knew what these children were thinking or feeling as they dreamed in unnatural slumber?

  It was a relief to feel a light but steady heartbeat in the boy’s neck. His skin was also cool but not dangerously chilled.

  “It’s convective currents,” Abrial answered, sounding remarkably like a modern man of science. Nick still didn’t turn to look at him. Instead, he checked the child’s red and green backpack. It said jeffrey in gold letters. Feeling its heaviness, Nick opened the canvas sack. Inside were a pair of expensive binoculars.

  “Cold outside air is heavier and cleaner, so it displaces the goblins’ foul stench,” Thomas explained. He also knelt. He and Zayn were both swiftly checking the children. “Air is also heated by the underground thermal pools, which then rises. And you should be thanking your lucky stars for that. The smell of an ancient goblin midden can be . . . debilitating.”

  “I don’t wish to sound alarmist,” Farrar interrupted gently, “but I really do feel that we should get this moveable feast underway. The goblins are getting closer. I can smell them—and they us. Especially the children. Their scent will remain after having been kept here for so many days.”

  “Do it,” Jack ordered. “Abrial? Anything useful?”

  The nightdemon made a sound of disgust and tossed the goblin aside; the body hit the wall and then slid to the floor. “There’s nothing here. Qasim drained his brain. I think he may have been drugged as well.”

  Farrar began to play his pipe. Nick could discern no melody to the strange song that floated on the air, but it had an immediate effect on the children. It was too much to say that they awoke, but their eyes did open and they climbed to their feet. Their slack expressions bothered Nick, but he was relieved that they were at least mobile and not panicked. This part of the plan had sounded farfetched to him.

  “Move them out as quickly as you can. I can hear our unfriendly hosts coming from the west.”

  Nick couldn’t hear anything except the Piper’s song, but he didn’t doubt Jack’s word.

  He and the others managed to get the children out of the chamber and into the passage that led back to the bone repository just as goblins began coming—a dozen at first, then a score, a hundred, two hundred . . . too many. They had a plethora of extra appendages, all carrying weapons. The goblins apparently hadn’t seen them yet, but they would soon. Nick had been told that the enemies’ eyes were nearly as keen as the feys’ and their noses were often better—especially those of the trolls, if the goblins had any with them.

  “Farrar?” Jack asked. “Can you do anything to slow them?”

  “I can’t do the goblins and hold the children enthralled. It would wreck their brains,” he answered, looking in the direction of the approaching swarm. “I don’t know if I could do these all anyway. They’re acting crazed. What the hell is wrong with them?”

  “They’ve frenzied,” Thomas said. Nick didn’t know what he meant, but judging from his expression, it wasn’t good. As if to confirm, Thomas added, “They’ve overdosed on goblin fruit and corpse powder—likely a booby trap that they stumbled into, probably courtesy of Qasim. He always was one who liked to play with poisons.”

  “Swell,” Roman answered.

  “The good news is that they’ll die eventually,” Thomas said. “Corpse powder overdose is nearly always fatal.”

  “And the bad news?” Nick asked—reluctantly, but he asked.

  “They won’t croak before they try to tear these children—and us—to shreds. It will also be harder to kill them, because they won’t feel pain or shock from any wounds. Corpse powder is like goblin PCP.”

  “And if that weren’t enough, I see trolls,” Roman mentioned. Nick squinted down the narrow corridor and could see what looked like giant goblins bloated with muscles in the midst of the pack. They had enormous noses and more teeth than he had ever imagined any mammal could have. They were drooling what looked like blood.

  “I see them,” Thomas said. “They’ve frenzied, too—chewed off their own tongues. I guess we know what was done with all those bones from New Orleans. Qasim must have made bushels of corpse powder and put it around this chamber as a trap. Or maybe he planned all along for the goblins to attack the children and do the killing for him.”

  “This isn’t good news. We had better split up,” Jack ordered. “Nick, head left—and watch for the dragon. He’ll be coming this way, and he tends to flame first and ask question later. Abrial?”

  “Zayn, take the kids—you’re better with them,” the nightdemon said. “I’ll hold the goblins here for as long as I can, then try to lead them away from you.”

  Jack clapped the nightdemon on the shoulder. “Our cause needs many things, but not a martyr. Buy us what time you can, then get the hell out. No heroics, Abrial, and I mean it. We don’t want to lose this battle, but it would be worse to win the battle and lose the war.” When Abrial opened his mouth to object, Jack said: “Executioner, have you forgotten Qasim? He still has to be found and dealt with. You may be the only one strong enough to track and take him.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. Get going,” Abrial agreed. Turning swiftly and dropping to one knee, he sighted down his rifle barrel. “Thomas?” he called.

  “I’ve already summoned the dragon. He’s on his way. It may take him a while, because some of the tunnels are too narrow.” Thomas had to raise his voice to be heard above the screams now echoing up the passageway. He turned to Nick. “Can you manage the children?”

  “Yes,” Nick answered immediately. He would have to. He was okay with a gun, but Thomas was the better fighter, and they couldn’t leave Abrial here alone; he’d be overwhelmed in minutes— maybe even seconds, if any goblins sneaked up behind him.

  “Take off, Jack,” Roman said, unslinging his weapon, which looked like some distant cousin of an Uzi. It carried a lot of rounds, but Nick wondered if it would be enough. For the first time in his life, Nick found himself wishing for hand grenades and anti-tank missiles—and perhaps even nuclear weapons.

  “You’re better with children,” Jack objected. “And I’m . . . I’m a death fey. This slaughter won’t bother me as much as it will you.”

  “That’s true, but we can’t afford to lose you,” Roman answered. “That’s the bottom line, Jack. And you know I’m right. We can lose anyone but you.”

  Jack’s tight mouth said he didn’t like the bottom line, but he didn’t argue further. He put his whistle to his lips and turned down the righthand passage. A large group of children followed. Jack did not look back.

  Taking a deep breath, Nick did the same. A third of the rescued children obediently turned in his direction, staring with blank eyes. Nick prayed that he wasn’t doing anything terrible to thei
r minds.

  “Farrar, go with Nick,” Abrial said as he began shooting. He was fast, but he made every bullet count. Sadly, it didn’t slow the horde at all.

  Roman knelt beside Abrial and Thomas, bringing his own rifle into position. Its first blast was as loud as a thunderclap. Whatever was in his gun, it finally penetrated their trance; the goblins screeched loudly and then began to return fire in a disorganized fashion, shooting more of their own than at the fey. Still, the mob did not slow.

  “Nick—leave!”

  “I’m gone,” he said.

  He pulled back as the tunnel erupted in ricocheting bullets and chips of razor-sharp rocks. He walked backward, looking on with respect. None of his friends so much as flinched. Even when shattered stone stabbed them, they went on shooting methodically, buying him and Jack and Zayn time to get the children away.

  Nick glanced at the Piper. He wasn’t sure if he was grateful for the company or not. Farrar would be better at handling the children and knew his way around the goblin tunnels, but the Piper was disconcerting and more than a bit repulsive.

  “Have a care, nephew. And the Goddess watch after you all.” Farrar didn’t wait for Nick to agree or add his own blessings; he blew his flute and the children filed into the passage after him. They flowed around Nick as if he weren’t there. Farrar called, “Nick, watch our backs. I’ll scout ahead. If any goblins are still sane, they may try to cut us off through side passages as well as come up from the rear.”

  “I’m on it.” Nick looked down at the gun in his hands. It was ugly and, he knew, very efficient. It even smelled like death, bringing home the fact that dress rehearsal was over. The curtain had finally gone up, and everything that happened from here forward would be real. This was battle to the death.

  Nick turned and followed the fleeing children. Like Jack, he didn’t look back.

  “We’re in the Death Valley tunnels now, under the Panamint Mountains. There’s an exit at Furnace Creek. The locals call it Devil’s Hole.” Nyssa’s tone was conversational, but Zee wasn’t fooled; the woman was near panic. They could all sense that time was running out and danger closing in. “The Christian Bible speaks of a bottomless pit where demons dwell, in Revelations. There is a preacher on television who believes that Devil’s Hole is one of the portals to Hell. He tells his parishioners that it is no coincidence that this place is found so close to Nevada’s brothels. ‘For a whore is a deep ditch and a strange woman is a narrow pit,’ or something like that. I never can keep the Proverbs straight.”

  “Lovely,” Bysshe muttered breathlessly as they jogged. “I just adore picturesque places.”

  Zee didn’t say anything, and she didn’t laugh either.

  Nyssa made a face. “I read that Charles Manson searched for a bottomless pit in Death Valley in which he and his family could hide until he would come forth as leader of the new world. He’s a goblin, you know. Insane, too. A rogue from Los Angeles.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Bysshe said. She lifted a hand to her nose, pale in spite of her exertions. The ambiant smell was getting stronger. Zee didn’t care for it, but it didn’t make her ill the way it did the other two women.

  “There is a small platform around here some where,” Nyssa said with a small cough. “We need to climb up to it and then follow along a ledge and down a tunnel. It’s at the edge of a canyon. From there you can look down this abyss into a pool at the bottom. The pool connects to a vast underground lake, the bottom of which has not been explored— at least, not by us or the humans. It has some endangered species of tiny prehistoric pupfish found nowhere else on Earth. They’re small but ferocious. Thomas and Cyra believe the pool may be connected underground to other small pools of pupfish located hundreds of miles away in Arizona and New Mexico. The Devil’s Hole is also connected to the underground caverns located beneath Area Fifty-one.”

  “What is that?” Zee asked.

  “A place where the government has been doing some nasty experiments. They let people think it’s with aliens from another world, but I suspect it is really with some fey bogeys—perhaps a hobgoblin. Supposedly these reptilian-type aliens live in the tunnels and show up now and again to scare the locals. We had only just started investigating when this thing with Qasim came up.”

  “And this is where the ax is? In this chamber with an abyss?” Bysshe asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But not at the bottom of a pit with the ferocious pupfish or whores?” she clarified.

  “No. At least . . . I don’t think it is.”

  Bysshe rolled her eyes.

  Chapter Five

  A migration of upright shadows followed, collecting up strays as it went so that the tunnel grew darker as Nick progressed through the goblin lands. He had the oddest conviction that if he stepped among them, he would hear them murmuring—dark ghosts lost in underground oblivion where night always ruled and the dead never rested.

  “Your woman is brave.” Farrar’s voice startled Nick. Apparently it wasn’t necessary for the Piper to play constantly to keep the children moving.

  Brave? That was a word for her. The more he knew Zee, the more he admired her. Nick doubted that anyone had ever told her that she could be president or an astronaut—or a leader of a hive when she grew up. Hell, he doubted they’d told her she could be anything. Yet, when she’d seen that she wasn’t really living—wasn’t thriving, at least—she had turned her back on the only society and family she had, and had set off to find a place where she could live and grow. And she had struck out boldly, taking her young siblings with her. Such a proposition was enough to make most young women quail, but Zee had never looked back.

  Then she had run into a monster with an evil plan. Faced with Qasim, most people would have run as far away as possible. Instead, Zee had gone for help. She had found what were her supposed hereditary enemies and asked them for help in saving human children she didn’t know.

  Yes, she was brave. And she was compassionate.

  And she was . . . part goblin.

  He kept running into that thought.

  Nick shook his head. He didn’t know a lot about goblin culture, but everything he had heard over the last few days had convinced him that Zee was nothing like the family that had birthed her. She was a swan born into a family of vicious ducklings. And didn’t he believe—didn’t he know—that people could rise above their rough beginnings? The son of a racist wasn’t always a racist. The offspring of killers didn’t always kill. The demon seed myth was just that: a myth. Zee could be whatever she decided to be.

  The floor of the cavern gradually grew folded, and in places the stone had shattered. The children slowed and many began to stumble.

  “What happened here? An earthquake?” Nick asked, as he helped the unresponsive children as best he could.

  “After a fashion,” Farrar answered, watching as Nick tried to deal with the small bodies. There was nothing else the centaur could do, having no physical body of his own. “And damn puzzling it will be to geologists, too.” He glanced down the tunnel and then back at Nick. There was admiration in his voice. “This is Cyra’s work, unless I miss my guess. The cave was already pissed at the goblins for their careless excavations, and was in the mood to do some damage. Still, it was quite a feat, getting the mountain to cooperate and cause a quake at the ideal moment.”

  “It sounds a feat,” Nick answered, having a hard time imagining the delicate Cyra in control of such strong magic. It was also hard to imagine that anyone could communicate in any direct way with the earth. He’d seen Jack listening to the shian, but Jack never answered back—not that Nick had seen, at any rate. Nick supposed he had a long way to go in his recent education.

  “That wasn’t her best trick, though,” Farrar said. “You’ve met the dragon, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s Cyra’s invention.”

  “She made the dragon?” Nick tried not to gape. “You can make dragons?”

  “The d
ragon—its personality—already existed inside Thomas. He was a split-personality back then, two actual beings sharing one body. Cyra was able to give the dragon its own body. She pulled dinosaur bones right out of the rock they had fossilized in, and then conjured flesh and fire for it.”

  So this was Thomas’s animal half! Nick could now understand why the man had been glad to be rid of it.

  “Cyra sounds a dangerous lady,” he said slowly. “She looks so fragile, too.”

  “Don’t be fooled by appearances, Nick,” Farrar chided. “They are all dangerous ladies. Io singlehandedly took out the goblin hive in Detroit. Jack killed the leader, but the destruction of that underground city was all Io. Sober little Lyris killed the goblin king of New Orleans, who was also a master vampire. And Nyssa took out most of King Carbon’s elite troops by summoning the Wild Hunt— something few pureblood feys could do and remain sane, or even live to tell about it.” Farrar gave one of many periodic trills on his pipe, guiding the vacant-eyed children around a deep gouge in the floor. He added, “It wouldn’t surprise me at all if your Zee has some hidden greatness in her, too. Cadalach only calls warriors to service. And the magic mates you for a purpose. There are seeds of greatness in all of you that will be realized in the next generation as well.”

  This notion was by no means new, but Nick didn’t like thinking about it. Hadn’t he just decided the whole genetic destiny thing didn’t really apply?

  “It’s kind of you to help out with our problem— especially since the fight isn’t really yours,” he said diplomatically.

  Farrar laughed. “Kind? I don’t think I’ve done anything out of kindness since good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen.”

  “That would be the . . . thirteenth century?” Nick guessed. His knowledge of such things was hazy.