Page 1 of Goblins Don't Count
ChapterOne
The rush of people hurrying towards the ticket counter tapered off as the two main trains of the hour dropped off their passengers and carried new ones away. I was leaning against the brick wall with a churro in one hand and a paperback novel in the other, playing the part of an art student waiting for my train.
“Brown hair, medium build, neon blue polo shirt. Twelve o’clock,” my partner Brannigan said through my comm from the other side of the station where he was slouched on a bench, looking handsome and bored.
I pushed my hair behind my ear and glanced up to take in the crowd, looking back down before the suspect noticed me. He definitely fit the description we’d been given of the known pixie dust dealer freshly arrived in Singsong City. I took a deep, centering breath and closed my eyes, focusing on the afterimage, searching through the crowd with my mind’s eye. My only real magical talent was reading auras. For a neutral witch, it wasn’t much, hardly enough to join the local coven, but in my job, it gave me an edge that was the only reason I’d made detective at my age.
The man he’d pointed out had a pretty pale blue aura that bled yellow around the edges. He was wearing a glamour. Interesting. Slightly behind him and to the left was another aura that flared with bright green and red sparks, like Christmas. I opened my eyes and focused on that pinpoint of energy and saw a short, wrinkled old goblin woman wearing a black knotted shawl over her green-gray hair. I’d never seen such an old goblin before. I’d assumed they were ageless, like the elves.
She was looking around, clearly disoriented and anxious. Goblins were fascinating creatures, part assassin, part banker, all dangerous. This woman might be ancient, but maybe that made her even more deadly. I needed to protect this crowd from the curse she might lay on them if she got to upset.
I headed towards her, tucking my novel under my elbow and stretching my legs as I headed over. On my way, I passed the blue polo shirt and slipped a tracker into his pocket without him noticing, then stopped in front of the old woman.
“Hi. Can I help you?” I asked in my most polite goblin. I’d learned the language from my grandfather’s notes he’d kept when he was a goblin ambassador. At least that’s the story my dad tells. He barely remembers his dad at all.
She blinked at me, golden eyes too bright, too filled with emotion and magic. She studied me, the apparently human girl who spoke her language. I wouldn’t smell very much like magic to her, but she’d probably pick up on the sushi. That meant I’d smell particularly edible. Most goblins didn’t eat people anymore, at least not in public, but she was ancient, so who knew what kinds of habits she’d held onto from a former, less civilized age?
“I want to go to Goblintown. Do you know it?” she asked in a sharp voice that went with her piercing eyes. She reminded me of my mother.
I smiled and moved closer. “Of course I do, wise one.” Hopefully that was respectful enough. I bowed and straightened in time to see her face up close, smiling with still sharp, pointed teeth, even though they were chipped and yellowed with age. She grabbed my arm, threading her fingers through mine as she tugged me down, closer to her height. I wasn’t very tall, but she was very short.
“You will take me.” She wrapped her other hand around my wrist so her weight dragged me down.
I looked up to see Brannigan sauntering in the direction the perp had gone. He’d be hearing all of this on his com, not that he’d be able to understand. I spoke in English. “Take you to Goblintown? I actually have to catch a train, but I can get you a cab so you can?—”
“You will take me,” she said with another broad smile that would have given me shivers before I’d gotten used to goblins. Still, those teeth were very close to my arm, and she could probably bite through it, bones and all, with one snap of her jaws.
“I really can’t…”
Brannigan’s amused voice in my ear was something she hopefully couldn’t hear. “Better take her to safety. I’ll follow the mark and get all the praise and prestige when I bring him in while you help the civilian. And hearing you speak that infernal language gives me shivers.”
I almost glared at his back, but instead, I gave the old woman a tight smile. There was no way I was getting her off my arm without losing it. “All right. We’ll take a cab to Goblintown and then…” And then I’d have to write a report about this and Joss, our Lieutenant, would ask why I knew Goblin and why I’d gotten distracted from my assignment, and then he’d extend how long my parking pass was revoked. I was the only detective this young, but I was also the only one without a functioning parking pass. I had to park three blocks away from the precinct in a dingy garage that I had to pay for out of pocket.
I could get her off me. I had a taser and cuffs. I wasn’t helpless, but I’d seen her flickering aura and stepped in to stop the immediate threat. It was the right thing to do, and now, with the mark hopefully leading Brannigan to his partner, I could take care of this other threat.
She patted my cheek. “We’ll walk. You will explain the city.” She pointed at my churro. “What is that?”
“It’s a sweet bread. Do you want some? We could stop at a churro stand and…”
She snatched it out of my hand and swallowed it whole. She frowned her wrinkled face and then shook her head. “Not goblin sweet bread. You will learn to make it for your husband. It will help you catch a good one. The better the bread, the better the man.” Was this a wise goblin proverb?
She sounded more and more like my mother all the time. The walk from the train station to the nearest lift down to Song, and then through the undercity until we reached the entrance to Goblintown, was slow, and the longer we walked, the slower I got, until she was dragging me along. She was probably stealing my energy and life force so she’d be young and beautiful again to catch another man with her sweet bread. And then eat him. No, that shouldn’t be possible, but you never knew.
When we finally reached the small building that led into the underground warren I’d never actually gone into, I stopped.
“This is Goblintown,” I said, gesturing at the door. I started pushing her hand down and off my arm, but her grip was strong and mine was weak. I really was unnaturally weak. There was definitely something supernatural going on.
“Magga. What are you doing in Singsong?” a girl with curious eyes said as she came out of the shadows, but she was looking at me, not the old woman.
“She’s mine,” Magga said, yanking me tighter to her. “I found her first.”
“Actually,” the new girl said, looking at me with a great deal of curiosity while her green nostrils flared. “Corcarn has prior claim.”
Magga hissed and then turned and pulled me close to smell my neck. She wrinkled her nose and then sniffed my shoulder.
“Okay, you can’t just…” I said in English, but it didn’t matter because she wasn’t listening. She’d gotten to my wrist and then hissed at it, glaring from me to the girl.
She shrugged. “Magga, you shouldn’t have come here. Singsong isn’t the old world, and the Goblin Authority doesn’t allow anyone to damage the goblin image he’s worked so hard to build. Neither will I. Release the sushi girl and relinquish your claim, or suffer the consequences.”
