by Sam Hooker
Sloot whimpered. It was in the running for recognition as his signature move. Myrtle might have been making up the whole “compulsory flesh quilting” thing, but he didn’t want to ask and find out that she wasn’t.
“Your threats have been entered into the official record,” said Edmund, scribbling furiously in a little notebook.
“And Bob’s threats to Sloot?”
“You’re a demon,” said Edmund, shooting her a grin that was far too smug for the occasion. “You know perfectly well that you should’ve brought your own stenographer if you wanted anything beneficial to you in the official record.” He paused, then added, “which may or may not exist.”
Myrtle sighed and rolled her eyes. Edmund had a keen legal mind, and she obviously knew that he was right.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Myrtle. “Just say what you have to say so that we can get back to things that matter.”
“Pity,” said Bob, plainly relishing the upper hand. “I don’t want the global economy to dive into a death spiral from which it will never recover, you know.”
“Noted,” said Edmund as he scribbled in his notebook, no doubt rephrasing Bob a bit to make that sentiment seem far more magnanimous than its true context would allow.
“But you leave me little choice,” Bob continued. “All I asked was that you act in good faith in the acquisition of the Domnitor, for use as my puppet.”
“Long may he reign,” said Sloot.
“In a manner of speaking,” Bob replied with a wave of her hand. “However, you’ve obviously done quite the opposite, and delivered him into the hands of a foreign despot who, as far as we know, plans to use him as a puppet to seize control of the Old Country government for herself!”
“You planned to use him as a puppet to seize control of the Old Country government for yourself,” Myrtle pointed out.
“Not according to the official record,” said Edmund, who pointedly wasn’t writing any of that down.
“Inasmuch,” Bob continued, “what sort of businesswoman would I be if I failed to levy the penalties that I clearly stated would result from this very thing?”
Edmund drew in a breath. “Attestations with regard to businesses owned, operated, or avowed to exist, or ever having existed in, or tangentially related to the interests of any person or persons who may have just attested thusly shall not be construed as pertaining to specific or non-specific entities, officially incorporated or otherwise.”
“You’ve left me no other recourse,” said Bob, her demeanor a reasonably accurate parody of sympathy. “I’m going to have to release this uncorrected financial document bearing your signature. The markets will burst into flames, and the Three Bells will crumble under the weight of your abject incompetence, and the name of Wilhelm Hapsgalt will be forever linked to the concept of bad financial management.”
Sloot released a mournful wail, the sort one has to be dead to manage. He was sure that he’d have to haunt something for whatever portion of eternity remained to him. Perhaps the charred ruins of the counting house? That would be fitting.
“Go ahead,” said Myrtle, far more casually than Sloot would ever have dreamt to do. “Sloot is no longer in the employ of the Three Bells or Wilhelm Hapsgalt.”
“Because he’s dead,” said Bob, “I get it. No matter. He was in their employ, and this document—”
“Not so fast!” Myrtle smirked with the satisfaction of someone who’d always wanted to say that. “The lawyers for the Three Bells and the Serpents of the Earth—all the same people, in fact—will have already redacted every scrap of paper with Sloot’s name on it. You’ll not find a single shred of evidence that he’d ever worked for them.”
Bob shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Edmund?”
“It’s possible,” said Edmund, “but only if Peril had very recently been—”
“Fired in verso perpetuity,” said Myrtle. “I saw to it myself.”
Sloot gasped. Everyone else should have, but you just can’t rely on villains for playing into a proper suspense narrative.
“What?” Bob shook her head in confusion. “In verso …”
“In verso perpetuity,” said Edmund. “The same as ‘in perpetuity,’ only going the other way.”
“Backward in time?”
Edmund nodded, the veins in his neck bulging at the effort. “It’s a colossal load of paperwork, but if you’ve got as many clerks as the Three Bells, you could manage it in a couple of days.”
Sloot looked at Myrtle, and the corners of his mouth turned upward. “You saw it coming,” he said.
Myrtle shrugged. “It’s what I do.”
“Well, that’s just wonderful,” Bob groused. “Your signature is worthless then, is it?”
“Er, sorry,” said Sloot. He wasn’t, really, aside from the polite way that anyone who’d spent eight summers at etiquette camp knew they should be. Sloot could have claimed bragging rights for having won the Best Tea Pourer trophy six times in a row, but he’d never dream of it, having spent eight summers at etiquette camp.
Winking Bob cracked her knuckles and sighed. “You owe me far more than an apology, Peril.”
The scowl she wore now could not have been more different from the saucy smirk she’d affected when Sloot had first arrived.
“He doesn’t, actually,” said Myrtle. She’d found Bob’s saucy smirk and was trying it on.
“My dear,” Bob began with practiced condescension, “spare me whatever technicality you think is going to turn this minor setback in your favor. Edmund?”
Edmund banged his fist twice on a steel door behind him, then fished around in his leather satchel long enough for Sloot to wonder whether he and Bob share some sort of psychic connection, or if they’d just spent so much time in devious legal maneuvering that Edmund knew what was going to happen next. A moment later, the door opened and a wizard wearing a black robe with the hood pulled up entered the room.
“Sloot Peril,” said Edmund, holding out a stack of papers at arm’s length while the wizard engaged in some complex wand-waving, “you are hereby served with an Infernal Injunction, and shall cease and desist all dealings with parties known or unknown to the person or persons present here, if indeed such a place as might be described as ‘here’ exists, until such time as matters pertaining to aforesigned documents—blank or otherwise—have been resolved to the satisfaction of their bearers.”
“Alleged bearers,” Bob corrected him.
“Right. Alleged bearers.”
“Ow,” said Sloot.
Myrtle’s brow wrinkled in concern. “Ow?”
“The papers,” said Sloot, squinting and half turning away from Edmund. “They’re making my head hurt.”
Edmund and Bob exchanged a wary glance.
“What’ve you done to him?” Myrtle demanded.
“It’s an Infernal Injunction,” said Bob. “He’s supposed to be bound to the spot, writhing in agony until it’s lifted.”
“That’s horrible!”
Bob’s head tilted from side to side. “I suppose,” she acknowledged, “but it doesn’t seem to be working very well.”
“It might have something to do with the fact that Sloot’s soul is my property,” said Myrtle. “You’d need an Infernal Writ of Seizure to enforce that Injunction, and you’re not likely to get one against a Demon in Odious Standing without cause.”
“Ow.”
“Oh, stop looking at it!”
“I can’t.” There were sigils crawling around on the page in an irresistible pattern, like thousands of stinging insects forming the shape of a goat eating its young. It was utterly revolting, yet there was something about it. Something that made Sloot want to plant himself on that spot and writhe in agony for a while.
“I’m not interested in his soul,” said Bob, glowering at Myrtle, “but I never walk away from equity. The circumstances that led to Peril’s signature becoming worthless were beyond my control. I demand to be compensated!”
“Ow.”
“Fluctuations in the market,” said Myrtle.
Bob gave a dismissive wave. “That’s the sort of thing that I tell regular people when one of my underlings fails to smuggle a crate of quarantined silk worms off a dock. Edmund?”
“Prior statements involving the existence of laborers involved in illicit commerce shall be understood to have been intended in jest, and do not reflect the practices or policies of any person or persons who may or may not be in attendance at this meeting, which may or may not be happening.”
While Edmund was droning disclaimers, Myrtle’s eyes went dark. Not in a simple angry glower, but rather in a disappear-into-pits-of-smoking-shadow sort of way. Her claws and wings came out.
“Was I regular people, then?” asked Myrtle, in a pair of octaves. “Was I regular people when you told me that I’d have to clean out Whitewood entirely, if I wanted out of my contract with you?”
Bob rolled her eyes. “Yes, my dear, you were. And yes, I can see that you’re clearly not regular people now, but neither am I, so let’s be civil, why don’t we?”
Edmund didn’t seem nervous, which made Sloot nervous enough for the both of them. Sure, he was the largest person in the room by far, his shoulders nearly as broad as Myrtle’s wing span; but Myrtle was threatening Bob! Shouldn’t he have felt beholden to do some posturing or something? Sloot thought that was what tough guys were for.
“Civil,” Myrtle sneered. “You mean docile. You prefer it when your opponents don’t fight back, is that it?”
“Well, yes,” said Bob, turning an incredulous look toward Edmund. “That’s easier for me, you understand.”
Edmund nodded.
“Anyway,” said Bob, “I’ve got an idea. A little service that you can provide for me, and I’ll wipe out your property’s debt.”
“Forget it,” said Myrtle. “Just draw a line through this one in your ledger.”
Sloot winced. “Actually, you’ll want to add a line in red under—”
“Not the time, Sloot!”
“Right. Sorry. Ow.”
“Sloot never owed you anything,” Myrtle continued, “you just had leverage against him. That’s dried up, so no more blackmail. We’re leaving.”
“Just sit down for a moment,” said Bob. “I’m sure that it will—”
Myrtle waved a clawed hand toward the stout wooden door and it exploded, leaving nothing but a pair of iron bands swinging from the hinges.
“Come on, Sloot.”
“Er, thanks for having us,” Sloot said, demands of etiquette and all. He turned to follow Myrtle, giving one last, longing glance at Edmund’s injunction. “Ow.”
“This is your last chance,” said Bob. She brandished a little envelope between two fingers. “Do you know what I have here?”
“No,” said Myrtle without turning around, “and I don’t care.”
Goblins Marching
Myrtle looked down on the massive congress as she and Sloot flew overhead. “I don’t know about you, but that’s definitely the most goblins I’ve ever seen at once.”
Sloot nodded. There were easily twice as many as had piled up toward the portal the other night, and that number had dwarfed the congress that had trampled him at the Fall of Salzstadt.
That was a strategy that had ended badly. “Swear,” Roman had shouted, “swear like the wind!” Or something like that. They’d tried to attract as many goblins as possible to stave off the horde of undead, and Sloot had been crushed beneath the ensuing chaos. He tried not to think too hard about whether it counted as suicide, but might have been relieved to know that “having been trampled as a result of one’s own bad idea” was considered less gruesome by comparison. In fact, in certain remote villages where marriage between cousins was less frowned-upon than it should be, it was the leading cause of death behind sampling too deeply from one’s uncle’s still.
“I didn’t know goblins had siege weapons,” said Sloot, casting a worried look over the enormous catapults, siege towers, and battering rams that they were dragging along the main road. “Does Vlad have siege weapons?”
“Do you know another Vlad that I haven’t met?”
“You’re right. Silly question.”
“Not one of your best.”
Sloot’s brow wrinkled in thought. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen any around Castle Ulfhaven.”
“I don’t think you bring them out unless you’re besieging someone.”
“Doesn’t that hurt?”
“What, being besieged?”
“Sure,” said Sloot, “that too. But I meant the arrow in your leg.”
“What?” Myrtle looked down. As sure as children can be convinced to behave when they think holiday mascots are watching, there was a black arrow shaft stuck in her leg. She reached down and yanked it out. Sloot flinched.
Myrtle shrugged, and dropped the arrow. “Not really.”
An arrow passed through Sloot.
“Hey!” he shouted down at the goblins, though with less of the stern “you watch it with that thing” than anyone else might have, and more of the pleading “I’d rather you didn’t” that ensured they definitely would.
Myrtle expelled an exasperated breath. “Would you come on?”
“Sorry,” replied Sloot, his eyes shut tight as he wished the constant stream of arrows would stop going thwip, thwip, thwip through him. Panic had gripped him. He simply couldn’t move.
Myrtle said a swear word in frustration. A goblin went pop right next to her, cackled once, and then screamed as it plunged to its inevitable demise.
The thwip, thwip, thwip of arrows stopped, and was replaced by a dull thwap, thwap, thwap beneath him. He opened an eye and looked down.
Myrtle was hovering on her back, flapping her wings lazily and looking up at him. “Can we please move this along?”
“Are you … ?”
Myrtle nodded.
Sloot felt ridiculous. The arrows might not be hurting Myrtle, but they’d still have to be picked out at some point. It was times like these that he wished he’d been made of slightly sterner stuff. Not so stern as to give him the urge to charge off to foreign places and engage in heroics, but stern enough to give him the resolve to keep moving forward with his eyes open, on occasions when he was in no danger whatsoever.
Myrtle cleared her throat.
“Right. Sorry.”
They hurried along the main road, surveying the seemingly endless goblin horde as it marched toward the Carpathian border.
“There are no dead,” Sloot mused aloud.
“I’m not sure they ever die,” said Myrtle, pulling a handful of arrows from her shoulder as she flew. “I think they just poof back into the Dark or something. But if it’ll make you feel better …”
She said a swear word, which was followed by a pop, a cackle, and a receding scream.
The rebuke caught in Sloot’s throat and was beaten into submission, arresting its mad dash toward Sloot’s teeth. He’d met Goblins’ Rights types before, and they all sounded as crazy as people who waited until the last minute to do their taxes.
“I meant dead people,” said Sloot. “The walking sort. I thought Gregor was in control of them. Don’t you think he’d have brought them along?”
Myrtle shrugged, causing her to bob up and down a bit as she flew. “Maybe he’s got a bit less control, now that he’s a goblin. Or maybe he left them to do his bidding in Salzstadt.”
They flew past the front of the congress. Sloot pointed down at Mrs. Knife. Myrtle banked slightly to fly directly above her, then unleashed a torrent of swearing so vile that Sloot had a flashback to his first—and last—trip to the dockside market on fish cleaning day.
All of Myrtle’s screaming projectiles missed. She grinned anyway, as Mrs. Knife shook an angry fist up at her. A dozen or so arrows were sent in retaliation, three of which found her foot, arm, and stomach respectively.
“Worth it,” she said, plucking them out as though they were flowers, and she a hill. A h
ill that could fly, see into the future, and collect souls in exchange for services rendered. Hills like that usually had great rings of stones atop them that were traditionally misunderstood.
“That seriously doesn’t hurt?”
“Sort of,” Myrtle replied, her head bobbing from side to side, “but I know that they can’t really do anything to me. Makes it almost … disappointing.”
“You’re disappointed at not being cut down in a hail of arrows.”
“Of course not. It’s more like …” Myrtle paused and blushed. “Well, you know how I defected to Carpathia after the whole robbing-Willie-blind thing?”
“Yeah,” said Sloot, who would have considered that metaphor apt if “blind” meant “took only one eye,” and Willie was understood to be some sort of fly god with thousands to spare. Hapsgalt wealth didn’t come with limits, as Sloot’s corrected version of that fateful financial statement clearly showed.
“Well, I read as much as I could about Carpathian culture. It was confusing at first, then fascinating, and then … well, I get it.”
“Get what?” asked Sloot, who now understood why Myrtle had a book on Carpathian Invasion Theory when he’d gone to visit her, all hopped up on hero’s potion.
“The excitement of battle! I mean, I don’t want to take up professional soldiering or anything, but I can see why someone would want to. The other night, when I was fighting off a tower of goblins—I’m glad you were there, that would take some explaining—I got this sort of rush. But it went away, because I knew they couldn’t really hurt me. I dunno, it’s silly, I guess, but knowing that you can’t be hurt just sort of makes it seem boring.”
“That’s not my idea of boredom,” said Sloot, whose idea of boredom had yet to present itself. If his Quarterly Inventory of Buttons Needing Sewn Back On hadn’t done the trick, it was unlikely that anything ever would.
“I know.” Myrtle winked. She didn’t seem disappointed, not that that prevented Sloot from worrying that she was for the rest of the flight.
Just as the “castle”—which was actually just a pile of boulders on the Old Country side of the border—came into view, so did Vlad. She was standing just on the Carpathian side of the border. Sloot could make out Roman, Nicoleta, Bartleby, and someone else standing with her. It wasn’t until they got close enough to see a couple of fairies near them as well that Sloot recognized the “someone else” who was standing there, with his hands bound in front of him.