Kelly Meding - Another Kind of Dead

“I think that was a two-base hit,” Wyatt said without looking away from our quarry.

“Three at least,” I said. “Maybe even a homer.” I dropped the lamp on the sofa and circled, giving the wriggling creature a wide berth. Actual tears streaked its cheeks. Amazing.

I took the brief respite from attack to remove the knife from my ankle sheath. As soon as I got what I needed, I intended to kill it quickly—which was an odd realization. I should have wanted to take my time, use the captured goblin for a little therapeutic payback for all the hell I’d been put through by one of its queens, but I didn’t. Something in its too-human eyes, as brown as my own, quelled that need. Produced just a little bit of mercy.

And let’s face it—mercy and I were not good friends.

The hybrid kicked out with one foot, slipped on its own blood, and fell. Its hand was knifed to the wall above its head, and the jerking stop produced another bellow of anguish. Wyatt had the sense to dash back across the apartment and shut the door. No need to arouse the neighbors any more than we already had.

“Who sent you here?” I asked, staying out of the wailing creature’s reach.

“Master,” it snarled.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, we’ve been over that. Who is your master?”

“He.”

Okay, that narrowed my suspect list down to the entire male population of the city, maybe even the state. “Do you know his name?”

It snarled and tried to stand. I kicked its legs out from under it, eliciting another shriek as its hand ripped against the knife. Blood ran down its arm and pitter-pattered to the floor. The color was off—some dusky shade of mauve that wasn’t goblin-fuchsia or human-red. I sniffed the air. Goblin blood had a very distinct seawater odor. All I smelled was sweat and, from the dead body behind me, the faint metallic scent of Peters’s blood.

“What is your master’s name?” I asked again. It didn’t reply. I dangled my knife in front of its face. “Want me to nail your other hand to the wall?”

A whimper hid behind its growl; it understood my threat. “For … forbid … den.”

“You’re forbidden from saying his name?”

Nod.

Fabric whispered behind me. I twisted my neck to look at Wyatt. Intense concentration creased his forehead and deepened the lines around his mouth. The look was similar to when he was summoning something difficult—far away or too large to move without serious effort. Energy crackled around us. I started to ask what he was doing but didn’t want to break his focus.

The hybrid shrieked. A dark bruise appeared on its neck, to the left of where its Adam’s apple should be. I blinked. Wyatt grunted. On his outstretched palm was a tiny square of metal, barely half an inch wide.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Tracking device, I think,” Wyatt said.

I watched, flummoxed, while Wyatt dropped the device into the sink, turned on the water, and then flipped the switch on the disposal. Metal gears ground it with a sound like nails on a chalkboard. When he turned it off, I asked, “How did you know?”

“I guessed. I couldn’t see it, but I felt something inside its body that could be summoned, something small. I wasn’t sure what it was until I had it in my hand.”

“I thought you needed line of sight to summon something.”

He blinked. “I always have before,” he said slowly, speaking while turning the realization over in his mind. “But it was just under the skin. Practically line of sight.”

Neither one of us said it, but we had to both be thinking it—had Wyatt’s death and resurrection-via-magic last week altered his Gift?

“Guess this master likes to keep track of his toys,” I said, dragging the conversation back to our prisoner.

“Looks that way.”

Still out of reach, I squatted eye level with the sobbing creature. It seemed to know it had lost its last advantage. “So,” I said, drawing the single syllable out into three, “now that backup isn’t going to find you, how about you make a choice? Long, slow death, or fast and mostly painless?” Part of me begged it to say long and slow.

Too-human eyes gazed at me, full of very human tears. How did a goblin get eyes so human, ears so much like mine? Its skin was smooth, unmarred by age, almost young. Colored oddly, but not slick and oily like a goblin’s normally was.

My stomach twisted as a frightening idea burrowed into my brain and didn’t let go. This hybrid was not, as I first assumed, a goblin with human traits. Worse than that, it had once been human, and a very young human, given its size. I was certain of it, and grew more certain as the seconds passed—so certain I nearly vomited. I did drop the knife.

“Evy?” Wyatt was beside me instantly. I couldn’t look away from the creature, but he must have seen something in my expression. “Evy, what is it?”

Ignoring him, I pierced the hybrid with a stare. “You were human once.”

The creature cocked its head, a picture of perfect agony. It wetted its lips with a pink tongue—not the thin sandpaper strip of a goblin. “Toe … kin,” it said. Raised its broken hand toward its chest. “Token.”

“Your name is Token?” Wyatt asked.

No, no, no . I didn’t want to know the thing’s name. Not when I was about to put it out of its misery. We weren’t friends, or allies. It was an abomination of nature. A creature that had no business existing, much less having a name.

“Name,” it tried out the word. “Yes.”

“Okay, great,” I said, snarl indicating it was anything but. “So, Token, what’s your master’s name?”

Token crunched up his face. “Token … good.”

I snorted. “Good? You murdered a man!”

Wyatt wrapped his hand around my forearm, a silent comfort and an attempt to control me. My temper was spiking, and he knew it.

“Master told … me.”

“Your master was wrong.”

Token’s face reflected utter disbelief. He’d stopped crying, but a river of clear snot trailed from nose to chin. He looked like a chastised child who’d been told Santa Claus was dead. “Can’t be,” he said. “Is master.”

“Even masters can fuck up.”

Wyatt made a sound—something between a grunt and a snort. We knew all too well how people in charge could make blind, dumbass decisions that got people under them killed. Me, for example.

Token stared at me, long seconds ticking away while his childlike mind tried to puzzle things out. Something sparked in his brown eyes. I braced for an attack. He surprised me with “You … master?”

I shuddered. “No, I’m no one’s master.”

“Token’s master.”

“Fuck you, you piece of shit.” I shot to my feet too damned fast and my left knee buckled. Wyatt caught me before I fell. I pushed him away, harder than I intended, and he almost tipped backward over the sofa.

I wheeled around and stormed into the kitchenette, hands fisted, fuming. Angrier for the uncontrolled outburst than at Token’s actual statement. “Hate” wasn’t a strong enough word for how I felt about goblins. Experience had taught me everything that training hadn’t, and I’d put all that information to good use over the last four years, hunting and killing any I could find. Enjoying it when I knew they’d broken the law and harmed a human. And I’d done my job well.

If I’d done it too well, I had paid for it and more ten days ago, when a goblin queen had kidnapped me and tortured me to death. She’d enjoyed it, returning every injury I’d inflicted on her kind and then some over the course of two and a half days. I’d hated goblins before that; now my gut desire (right or wrong) was to see the entire race wiped off the face of the Earth.

Genocide wouldn’t make the pain go away, but the illusion did tend to brighten my day.