by Martha Carr
“Sure.”
“As soon as you get it, start driving. We’ll get this last little piece of work wrapped up, and you’re good to pencil a trip with Sir into your schedule.”
Cheyenne blinked dully. “Can’t wait.”
Then she closed the phone because she had nothing else to say to the FRoE operative who’d called at the perfectly wrong time. She glanced at the brown paper bag on the seat and frowned. I’ll deal with you later.
The burner phone buzzed in her hand, and she opened it again to find that text from Rhynehart, as promised. She plugged it into the GPS on her personal phone and frowned. Yeah, it was about a half-hour drive from the dry-cleaner’s, on the northwest end of Richmond. It looked like a well-populated residential area. Didn’t know the FRoE made house calls.
Strapping on her seatbelt, the halfling pulled away from the dry-cleaner’s and followed her GPS directions toward this last mission with Rhynehart before Sir finally made good on his end of their deal. “He’d better.”
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Cheyenne pulled up in the expected residential neighborhood and found the house with the texted address easily enough. Rhynehart’s black Jeep was parked three houses down by the corner, but the halfling didn’t want her car associated with a FRoE vehicle in what looked like a relatively nice neighborhood just in case things went south. She parked across the street from the address and got out of the car.
The front door of the Jeep opened as she crossed the street, and Rhynehart stepped out, wearing his black fatigues again. He nodded and waved her toward him, so she changed her path from walking toward the house to walking toward him. “Good timing, rookie. Get in.”
“What?” Cheyenne glanced behind the Jeep at the designated house. “That’s the address you sent me.”
“Yep. Just a rendezvous point. Sort of.” He shrugged and looked across the street at her car. “That your ride?”
“No, I’m just really good at hot-wiring cars and thought I’d take the ugliest one I could find for a quick joyride to meet up with you. I thought you already knew that.”
“Very funny. Let’s go.”
Frowning, Cheyenne walked around the back of the Jeep and opened the passenger door. A smell like an old almost-flat basketball mixed with the abandoned failure of copycat Axe body spray assaulted her even before she noticed the huge magical sitting in the back seat of the Jeep. She stood out on the street and stared at the guy, who was so big he had to hunch his shoulders, and the top of his head was still smashed into the roof of the car.
He brought an ogre. What’s going on?
She’d only seen one of those before, and that first ogre had been one of the magicals at that event center when she’d inadvertently crashed a FRoE sting. Now that she thought about it, she was pretty sure the special ops team had brought a fell cannon specifically to blast the ogre unconscious. Even her drow magic had been ineffective on that one. And there was another ogre squashed into the back seat right behind her.
Rhynehart got behind the wheel, closed the door, and snapped his fingers. “Hey. Less staring and more doing what I said. Get in.”
Cheyenne blinked and turned her attention to Rhynehart, who just sat there and stared at her with wide eyes, his brows raised in impatience. “Yeah, okay.”
She climbed into the passenger seat and noted that it had been slid farther toward the dash than the last time she’d sat in it.
Rhynehart started the engine, buckled himself in, and pulled away from the apparent rendezvous point without another word. Then things started to get tense.
She could hear the huge ogre in the back seat, breathing heavily through his nose. For the most part, it sounded like he was leaning forward and breathing right up against her ear. The halfling pulled down the sun visor in front of her, which thankfully had the little mirror she’d been hoping to find there. When she looked through the reflection into the back seat, the ogre was sitting all the way back, or at least as far as he could go with what little room he had. But he was staring right at her with those glowing yellow eyes, his gray-skinned face contorted in a frown. She couldn’t tell if his nostrils had just flared and wouldn’t go back down or if they were normally that massive.
With a final glance at the big guy scowling at her, Cheyenne flipped the sun visor back into place and folded her arms. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing a friend.”
“Didn’t know I had to tell you anything, rookie.”
She shot Rhynehart a quick glance, but he was staring straight ahead through the windshield as he drove them wherever the heck they were headed. The guy’s usual smirk hadn’t appeared since she’d stepped out of her car, and his good-natured joking, however much it annoyed her, didn’t exist. “Why’d you cram an ogre in the back seat?”
“He’s coming along to make sure everything’s going the way it’s supposed to.”
“Because you don’t trust me to handle it.”
Rhynehart’s grip tightened on the steering wheel, which squeaked under the pressure. “Because I decided to cram an ogre in the back seat, and he went along with it. The rest is none of your business.”
“Jeeze. Guess it’s your turn to have a bad day.” Cheyenne glanced out her window instead, and the huge ogre in the back growled.
What’s going on? The whole Jeep smells like one big, steaming pile of pissed off. Is it because I wouldn’t let him buy me a sandwich?
The tension in the Jeep thickened over the next ten minutes. Every time the halfling turned to look at Rhynehart, opening her mouth for another question or a quick-witted jab she figured might get him to loosen up, the ogre in the back seat growled again. He stopped when she took her eyes off the FRoE operative behind the wheel and shut her mouth.
That feeling of wrongness didn’t lift even when Rhynehart drove them into a slightly less affluent neighborhood, but a neighborhood all the same. The houses were spaced farther apart, although they were smaller with bigger yards. He pulled up at the curb in front of a little bungalow painted olive-green with potted plants holding brightly colored flowers dotting the front porch. The house was set back a little farther than its neighbors, and the tall trees rising on either side of the yard to curve toward each other in an arc overhead made the flagstone pathway to the house seem that much longer. And a little ominous.
Rhynehart turned the engine off and got out first, still without a word. When the door closed, Cheyenne turned around in her seat to look at the scowling ogre in the back. “What crawled up his ass, huh?”
The big guy sneered, puffed out a sharp hot meat-scented breath through his huge teeth, and growled again. “Get out, halfling.”
“Yeah, okay. Good game face.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and got quickly out of the Jeep, feeling even more like she was missing something really important. The energy coming off both FRoE operatives was seriously dark and a little suffocating, and during the whole ride out here, it had felt like it was aimed in her direction.
One last mission, huh? Especially if I’m the target.
The back door to the Jeep opened, and the ogre squeezed through the much-too-small door. It didn’t look like he’d make it out, but then he got both feet on the sidewalk and straightened to his full height. The Jeep rocked after being relieved of so much weight, creaking. With her arms folded, Cheyenne looked up at the huge gray face and nodded. The ogre stared blankly at her and didn’t look away when he lifted one meaty gray hand toward Rhynehart, who’d already taken off down the flagstone walkway toward the bungalow.
When she didn’t move, the ogre snarled at her, his bright-yellow eyes flashing.
“Hey, if you bash my head in out here, you’ll be short a drow halfling to do more than half the work once we get inside.”
“This isn’t a meet-and-greet, rookie,” Rhynehart called from up ahead, his voice oddly flat across the few yards between them. “Let’s go.”
After another glare into the ogre’s yellow stare, Cheyenne rolled her eyes and headed after R
hynehart down the walkway. She kept her focus trained on the sound of the big guy’s lumbering footsteps behind her, just in case he made any sudden moves.
The human FRoE agent made it to the bungalow’s front porch first and waited for Cheyenne and the ogre to catch up. Rhynehart’s hand rested on the fell pistol holstered at his hip, but he hadn’t drawn it, and it didn’t look like he was going to anytime soon.
Cheyenne reached him on the porch and stepped aside when he nodded for her to move away from the door. “So, I don’t get a run-down of what we’re trying to do this time?”
“Shut up.” Rhynehart still wouldn’t meet her gaze but intently watched the ogre, dressed in the black fatigues, lumbering with surprising speed down the walkway toward them. The big guy had to duck under the overhanging gutter above the porch, then he straightened again and stood in front of the door. Staring at the olive-green siding of the house, Rhynehart leaned toward Cheyenne and whispered, “Do that X-ray vision thing, huh?”
“Who are you looking for in there?”
“I didn’t bring you here to answer your goddamn questions, halfling,” he hissed, keeping his voice just barely at whisper volume. “Just do the damn thing and tell me what you see.”
The halfling lifted both hands in surrender and dipped her head toward him.
She did what Rhynehart had asked—or demanded—of her and took a step closer to the house’s outer wall. She closed her eyes, pressed her hand against the siding, and took a deep breath. Slipping into the focus she needed to use this kind of drow sight was remarkably quick and easy for how suspicious she was of this whole mission. And at first, that suspicion flared with a little more urgency, because it seemed like Rhynehart had brought her to an empty house.
Then she saw a shape moving around slowly at the very back of the house in what must have been the kitchen. The outline of this magical, whoever they were, was bright blue, so she knew to expect a goblin on the other side of the door. The halfling waited a few more seconds, searched through the house for any other movements, then whispered, “Just one goblin in there. That’s it.”
“Okay.”
Cheyenne opened her eyes to see Rhynehart pull out a cell phone, and he looked at her with a scowl.
“I didn’t tell you to stop. Do it again and tell me when that goblin is right in front of the door. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it.” She frowned at him but did what he wanted. Cheyenne closed her eyes and brought her drow sight back up. There was the blue outline, moving at the back of the house. It moved to the right, paused, then turned around and went left across the room. After another pause, the blue silhouette went to the far-left side of the house and started walking up toward the front. “Okay. They’re coming up from the back.”
“I don’t need a play-by-play, halfling. Just tell me when she’s at the door.”
Cheyenne nodded with her eyes closed, watching the aura of the goblin grow larger and closer with every second. “Okay, now.”
Only after she’d whispered the words did it occur to her that Rhynehart had said “she.” He obviously knew the goblin they’d come here to deal with today and wouldn’t tell his half-drow rookie a goddamn thing about it.
Before she opened her eyes, there was a grunt and the loud crack and squeal of splintering wood, then the goblin on the other side of the door screamed.
“What the hell?”
The ogre who’d bashed in the front door with one kick ducked under the frame and stomped into the house, unaffected by the goblin woman’s terrified shrieks.
“Rhynehart,” Cheyenne hissed. “What are you doing?”
He ignored her, his jaw firmly set as he stormed in after the other FRoE operative with his hand firmly on the grip of his fell pistol.
Cheyenne almost couldn’t believe it. They were kicking a door down and storming in—Rhynehart, an ogre, and a drow halfling—for one goblin woman who couldn’t fake that kind of terror if her life depended on it.
No way this goblin was worse than Q’orr.
“Shit.” The halfling clenched her fists and followed the FRoE operatives into the terrified magical’s house since she had no other choice.
Chapter Ninety
The goblin woman apparently wasn’t capable of much more than screaming and blubbering. Most of it wasn’t coherent, but the occasional, “What do you want?” and “Who are you?” broke through above her startled gasps and the clatter of knick-knacks crashing to the floor as the ogre barreled through the house after her. In less than two minutes, the huge magical had pushed her into one of the dining-room chairs he’d whipped out from under the table. Rhynehart had somehow gotten hold of the thick decorative rope hanging from one end of the curtains over the dining-room window. Whether he’d cut the thing off or just ripped it free, Cheyenne didn’t know. But he brought it with him toward the panicked, trembling goblin, who didn’t even try to resist when the man wrapped the thick rope around her torso and tied her into the chair.
With a grunt, the ogre produced a pair of dampening cuffs from a pocket or his belt or something and tossed them to Rhynehart. The man caught them deftly, pulled the goblin’s arms behind her around the wide back of the chair—making her wince in pain and even more fear—and settled the cuffs firmly around her wrists. She sat there gasping for breath, turning over one shoulder and then the other as she tried to meet Rhynehart’s gaze or see what he was doing or both. The dining room filled with her whimpering and rapid breathing.
Then Rhynehart stepped around the chair and went to stand between the snarling ogre and a totally dumbfounded drow halfling who had absolutely no idea what was going on.
This is so wrong.
The FRoE team leader folded his arms and cocked his head, staring at the goblin woman with a completely blank expression. Then he let out a long sigh through his nose and just kept waiting.
Finally, the goblin woman found what she could of her voice. “I-I don’t understand. Why are you here?”
Rhynehart and the ogre said nothing.
“P-please, I-I haven’t done anything. If y-you’ll at least tell me w-what this is about, I can… I’ll… I just…” The goblin turned her wide, pale orange-yellow eyes on Cheyenne, who hadn’t felt like an animal startled into a corner like this in a really long time. “At least tell me why you’re here. Please.”
“She can’t help you, Anasz.”
“Wha—” The goblin couldn’t seem to catch her breath as she glanced from Cheyenne to Rhynehart and back again. “But I don’t—”
“Hey! Greedy eyes on me, goblin. I’m the one talking to you, not Resting Bitch Face over there.”
Cheyenne blinked furiously and scowled at the man. The FRoE were supposed to give magicals more chances than anyone else, weren’t they?
“I don’t… I just…”
“Okay, time to turn off the waterworks and shut your mouth until I tell you to open it. Or Jamal’s gonna have to shut it for you.” Rhynehart gestured at the massive ogre beside him, who added another warning snarl.
Anasz whimpered again. “Please don’t.”
Rhynehart squared his feet and clasped his hands in front of his belt. “Then listen up. We know you were involved in smuggling that shit off Rez 38. Your name came up three times from three different magicals. You’re gonna tell me how you did it and who helped you.”
The goblin’s mouth opened and closed, her upper lip—just a little darker blue-green than the rest of her face—sticking to her teeth with how dry her mouth had become. She stuttered again and looked at Cheyenne with pleading eyes.
“She can’t answer for you,” Rhynehart barked. “Start talking.”
“I-I-I don’t—”
“Who did you meet outside the front gates?” the operative shouted. “I need names, Anasz. I need dates and times. What kind of vehicle they used. Where you met them. Where you made the drop-off. How many times did that shit change hands before it got to Carytown?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking ab
out,” the goblin wailed, straining against the rope around her chest and shoulders and the dampening cuffs behind the chair. “I’ve been off Rez 38 for f-f-four…for four years. In this house. I run a bakery.”
“You’ve been bringing in a little extra cash by smuggling, too.”
“No!”
Rhynehart leapt toward her and thrust a finger in the goblin woman’s face. She lurched back in the chair with another whimper, staring at the man’s threatening finger. “It’s over, Anasz. Your time’s up. This house, your goddamn bakery, everything you own—it’s all ours now. You know we can take it away from you just like that.”
“Why?” The goblin was on the verge of hyperventilating now. “I haven’t done anything. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I live here by myself. I don’t make any trouble. I run my business like every other regular person.”
“I want names.”
“I don’t know any magicals Earthside!” She was getting even more worked-up now, her voice squeaking in a high whine between sharp, quick breaths. “I left Rez 38 and cut ties with everyone. I want to be here. Please!”
Rhynehart looked the goblin woman up and down and stood back, lowering his hand. “Should’ve thought of that before you started dipping your fingers into black magic, Anasz.”
“What? No!” Anasz clenched her eyes shut and whispered fiercely in a language Cheyenne didn’t understand. She rocked back and forth in the chair, muttering the same few phrases over and over.
With a grimace of disgust, Rhynehart gestured toward the terrified magical and glanced at Jamal. “What the hell is this? What’s she doing?”
The ogre tilted his head and studied Anasz, then shrugged. “Praying.”
“Give me a fucking break.” Rhynehart turned toward the goblin woman and brought his face just inches from hers before he started shouting again. “Your gods don’t even exist on this side, goblin. They can’t hear you!”