15
THE WEST SIDE of Low Town wasn’t the prettiest part of town. Crowded with warehouses, steel mills, giant rusting buildings, large courtyards surrounded by metal fences topped with barbed wire, and smoke-belching stacks, the west side was the blue-collar, industrial side of town, while downtown and the east side catered to the corporate side of the city. If my childhood had been spent in Low Town, I would have lived on the east side, but I would have had my fun on the west side.
I knew the Boons & Mills paper plant that Jack had mentioned. The company had moved out of Low Town more than a decade ago and left the city with roughly a thousand fewer jobs. Parked a block from the building, I quickly discovered that many of the workers had shown their anger at the company by spray-painting some not-so-nice things on the sides of the structure and along some of the signs that still lined the sagging metal fence. The windows on the first and second floor had been boarded up. That was likely Reave’s doing if he was keeping trolls with him during the daylight hours.
Glancing up as I approached the main gate, I smiled to see the sun shining bright and clear above my head without a cloud in sight. That could come in handy. My target was Reave, but if it came down to his thugs and the safety of Low Town, I’d take the f*ckers down.
As I neared the gate, an ogre approached, a bloodstained meat cleaver clenched in his right fist at his side.
“Go away!” he barked.
“I need to see Reave,” I said, keeping one eye on the meat cleaver.
“He’s not here. Go away.”
I stared at the ogre for a couple seconds, weighing my options. Threatening his comrades in the building was a waste of time, as ogres didn’t much care for anyone else beyond themselves and the person who paid them. In fact, ogres didn’t respond much to threats in the first place. They needed action.
Unfortunately, ogres were only slightly smaller than trolls, and the a*shole in front of me wasn’t exactly on the sickly side. I wouldn’t be able to overpower him on my best day, particularly with a fence separating us. I’d have to use magic, which I preferred not to use. Of course, if hell hadn’t fallen on my head over the little scuffle with William a couple hours ago, I figured I had a little time before Gideon beat my ass. Or so I hoped.
Smiling, I stepped forward and wrapped my fingers around the wide mesh of the chain-link fence. I started whispering a river of words that had the ogre frowning and taking a step backward. He watched intently as the metal beneath my fingertips started to drip and run as if it were melting. Within a couple seconds, large holes started to appear in the fence. I stopped whispering and gave the fence in my hands a hard jerk. The barrier ripped apart, the section collapsing to the ground with a cheery ring like tiny bells hitting concrete.
The ogre recovered from his bespelled wonder and charged me with a roar, raising his meat cleaver high. Heart pumping, I quickly shifted, sidestepping him at the last second so that he flew past me through the opening. I jumped inside the paper yard and waved my hands up in the air. The remains of the fence mended in a flash and wrapped around the ogre, trapping him in a steel net. He fell over with an angry shout, his arms locked against his body as he thrashed about.
Leaning over him, I reached through the chain-link fence and pressed two fingers to the head of the meat cleaver, repeating the words I had uttered before. The metal blade melted like ice cream on a summer sidewalk, soaking into his pants. Sure, he was still far from harmless, but at least he wasn’t waving a meat cleaver around like some demented butcher. I could do without any fresh nightmares to haunt me—I already had plenty.
Footsteps across the gravel-covered pavement drew my attention away from my prisoner. His mad-cow bellowing had drawn his companions. Three more ogres were running in my direction, knives drawn. As I desperately scrambled for another defensive spell, my eyes lit on a patch of dirt and fine gravel a couple feet away from me. Running to the patch, I slid beside it, falling to my knees. I scooped up a handful, my short fingernails scraping against the concrete. Muttering another spell that I had never had the chance to work before, I held my hand open before my mouth and blew out a steady stream of air. The wind kicked up at my back, sweeping down across the ground before lifting up into the chests of the approaching ogres.
They slowed as they lifted their arms to shield their eyes. I squeezed my own eyes shut, straining to hear their footsteps over the wind that grew in its ferocity. The spell wasn’t strong enough to generate a wind that could stop the ogres, but then I wasn’t trying to do that. The scuff of feet on concrete sounded close, but it also sounded as if they were approaching much slower. Someone cursed in a gruff voice before something large hit the ground. Holding my breath, I waited, body tensed. They were damn close. I could hear the rustle of their clothes as they moved. A part of me was waiting to feel the ripping of flesh as a knife dug deep.
It wasn’t until I heard two more heavy thuds hit the ground near me that I breathed a sigh of relief. I murmured a few words and lowered my hands to the ground as if I was pressing the air to the earth. The wind slowed and died down.
Lifting the collar of my T-shirt, I ducked my face inside, wiping my eyes with the interior of the shirt before daring to open them. Two ogres lay on the ground less than three feet away, their snores reverberating through the silent air. The third one was a little farther away, curled up into a ball on his side, while the ass wrapped in the fence had even dozed off. It had been a little closer than I would have liked, but it worked, and so far, no one had been killed.
The spell was called Sandman’s Kiss, and I had never worked it before. However, I had used other sleep spells before so I knew the theory behind it. I was also pretty decent at manipulating the weather. It was only a matter of combining a few things to get the Sandman’s Kiss working. The dirt on the ground was twisted into a sleep agent and the wind was the delivery method to get it into their eyes. The only problem was that I was f*cked if I was stupid enough to get it in my eyes.
With a grunt, I rose back to my feet and brushed off my hands on my jeans. The sleep spell lasted roughly an hour on humans and like-size creatures. I was hoping that it would last at least half as long on something the size of an ogre. I couldn’t imagine that it would take me that long to locate and deal with Reave. My best chance for handling the dark elf was to catch him by surprise.
Unfortunately, it looked like the shouting ogre had ruined that for me. A heavy metal door screeched as it was pushed open and an ogre leaned out to look around. Spotting me, he frowned, his large brow furrowing so that his eyes were cast in shadow. My steps slowed as I warily approached the building while he watched me.
“You Gage?” he said almost in a grunt.
“Yeah,” I called, stopping several feet away with my hands out to my sides, waiting for the attack to come.
The ogre grunted again. “Reave’s waiting for you.” He moved back into the building but one hand held the edge of the door, propping it open for me. Yeah, I wasn’t so comfortable with that. When I entered the dark building, I would be at a disadvantage as my eyes struggled to adjust from the bright sunlight I was currently standing in.
Spreading my legs wide, I reached out with both hands, feeling the power filling my frame as I magically grasped the edge of the door. With a jerk, I pulled it free of both the ogre’s grip and the doorframe. The metal door groaned and shrieked as it jumped from the building and flew across the empty yard. The ogre lurched back and I could hear shouting from inside the old paper mill as sunlight poured unexpectedly into its entrance.
I waved one hand at the guard and he stepped back into the shadows as I approached. Pausing just over the threshold, I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, trying desperately to discern more than vague shapes of large creatures moving around in the shadows. An increase in the sound of shuffling feet on gritty concrete nearly had me taking a step back in to the yard, but I couldn’t backpedal. I needed to take out Reave, or at the very least hand him over to the Towers so that they would stop their madness.
Using the same spell I had called up to rip the door off its hinges, I pushed outward through the building. Sounds of stumbling filled the silence. Large crates fell over and crashed to the ground, and still I pushed until the energy reached the outer walls. Wood creaked and groaned before one board after another flew off the large windows that lined the walls. Loud guttural shouts echoed through the empty building as large squares of light shot through the air to land in regular patches on the floor. The shadows receded, but then so did the dark figures that had been looming in the blackness, waiting for me.
As I stepped onto the main floor of the mill, I found that I was alone except for the ogre who had held the door open. There was some shuffling coming from the deeper shadows near the back of the warehouse and behind some of the large machinery that had never been taken from the building. I didn’t see any new giant-size lawn ornaments, to my relief. Apparently none of the trolls had been caught by the light. I didn’t mind beating the shit out of these a*sholes, but I was trying to avoid killing anyone if I could help it. Well, anyone but Reave.
Loud clapping jerked my head up to a second-floor catwalk that looked down on the main floor. Reave was standing overhead, a twisted grin on his thin lips. “Well, this is a surprise. Someone isn’t too worried about the Towers, now, is he?”
“Why should I worry about the Towers when you’re determined to destroy us all?” I shouted, tapping down the urge to rip him off the catwalk with a surge of energy. I didn’t need to. With a hiss, Reave vaulted over the rusted metal railing and landed lightly on his toes right in front of me.
“That’s just it. None of us should feel the need to worry about how the Towers will react,” he snarled. “You’re all power-hungry monsters determined to wipe us from the earth. You need to be stopped.”
“Yes, they need to be stopped.” I sidestepped him, trying to keep a comfortable distance between us as we circled each other. “But whatever you’ve got planned is going to get everyone killed when a new war breaks out. That’s what you’re driving us toward. Not freedom. Just death.” I was unarmed except for my magic and Reave was f*cking fast. The meat cleaver I melted earlier was starting to look pretty damn good.
“You’re afraid—”
“Of course I’m f*cking scared! You’re threatening my family and friends. You’re threatening millions of people who have never done a damned thing to you.”
Reave sprang at me, swinging his fist at my face. I ducked away at the last second, but it was close enough that I could feel the breeze against the tip of my nose. I threw a couple punches at him but never connected. The bastard was too fast.
Large beefy arms wrapped around my chest from behind, pinning my arms to my sides. The arms squeezed my chest, making it difficult to draw a deep breath. I had forgotten about the ogre who had opened the door for me. He’d snuck up on me while I was busy with Reave.
The dark elf laughed as he came closer, watching me struggle. I kicked out with both feet, hitting Reave in the chest with enough force to send him stumbling backward onto his ass. At the same time I jerked my head back, breaking the ogre’s nose when it crashed into his face. The ogre dropped me on a howl of pain as he backpedaled.
Landing easily, I turned in a circle on my toes, waving my arms in the air as I called together large amounts of magical energy. The air crackled and my skin tingled against the charge as I was gathering. This wasn’t so much a spell as it was me forcibly moving around energy. Regardless, Gideon was going to put my ass in a sling any second now, but I couldn’t stop. As I turned to face the ogre on my second turn, I pushed the energy outward, knocking him on his back and thrusting him out of the building through the open doorway. I continued to spin, turning back to face Reave in time to see him rise to his feet. Throwing my arms out to my sides, I shoved the trolls gathered in the shadows against the wall, leaving me alone to deal with the Svartálfar.
“I want the names of the people you plan to sell the information to,” I demanded, taking a step toward the dark elf.
“Information? What information?” he replied with a grin.
“The locations of the Towers. How many do you know?” I didn’t care that the trolls and ogres in the area could probably hear me. I would take them all out, destroy the entire building if I had to in hopes of protecting the people of Low Town. And to do that, I had to stop the information that Reave was trying to traffic.
The dark elf’s voice was low and cold when he spoke. “All of them. All seven.”
I kept my face blank, but inside I breathed a sigh of relief. He was still missing one. Unfortunately, knowledge of even one Tower location was one too many.
With a wave of my hand, I shoved some raw energy at Reave, pushing him across the floor until his back was pressed against a support beam in the middle of the warehouse. His arms were pinned to his sides. Gritting his teeth, he struggled against the spell that held him captive, but he was trapped as long as I could concentrate on holding him to the beam.
“Who are the people trying to buy the information?” I asked again.
“And why should I tell you?”
“Because this has to end. These people trying to directly assault the Towers need to be stopped before they kill us all in another war.”
“You’re right. This does have to end, but it’s the Towers that need to fall. The people of this world won’t continue to bow to their whims. We’re done,” he said with a low growl.
“I understand your frustration and hatred, but—”
“You understand?” Reave tipped his head back and laughed, the horrible and slightly mad sound echoing through the large room. “You understand nothing. You’re one of them. You’re only trying to protect your own interests in hopes that they’ll let you into their exclusive club again.”
“Not if I can help it.” I reached back with my right fist and plowed it into his face, hitting him across the cheekbone and snapping his head back so that it bonged off the metal support beam. “Tell me their names!”
“No,” Reave grunted. “The Towers need to be stopped.”
I fisted my hand again to hit him but didn’t. Beating Reave senseless wasn’t going to get the information out of him and I wasn’t skilled enough with the kind of enchantment spells I would need to go digging around in his brain for the information. He needed to be handed over to the Towers so that they could pry out the information and stop the chaos that was swirling around the world.
“Fine,” I said, dropping my hand back to my side. Reave watched me through narrowed eyes, waiting for me to attack again. “You’re the only one who knows all the locations. The information has been contained. I’ll hand you over to the Towers. They’ll kill you and stop hurting the rest of the world in an effort to protect themselves.”
The Svartálfar gave a low chuckle that made my skin crawl. I took a step back, glaring at him, as his laughing ground to a halt. “That’s where you’re wrong, warlock.”
“What are you talking about?”
“After the destruction of Indianapolis, I had a feeling that you’d come knocking on my door and I needed a little insurance.” Reave paused and licked his lips as he watched me like I was a bug under a magnifying glass. I was hardly breathing, waiting to find out who else he had blessed with this damning information, but I was afraid that I already knew. “Dear Robert has been such a valuable employee and he has such a hatred for the Towers that I knew he’d want to help. So I pulled him aside and helped him memorize each location. Now he’ll spit out the information to anyone who asks and he won’t be able to stop himself.”
I sucked in a harsh breath as I stumbled a step backward. That was where my brother had disappeared yesterday. It wasn’t about getting a change of clothes. He was checking in with Reave.
I cursed, suddenly sick to my stomach. If I took Reave to the Towers now, they would pull loose the information on Robert as well. They would demand his life along with Reave’s. My mind scrambled, trying to find a way to hand over Reave without trapping Robert as well but I couldn’t think of anything. If I killed Reave myself, I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to convince the council that the threat had been taken care of. I needed the Svartálfar alive with his mind intact to hand over to the Towers if we were to survive this mess.
Stunned by Reave’s revelation, I forgot about the binding spell. Reave leaped at me, plowing a fist into my gut before I could react. I stumbled but caught myself before I could fall on my ass. Rage pumped in my veins, burning a new hole through my soul. Reave had endangered my brother’s life with his plans. He endangered us all. I’d put this a*shole on ice somewhere until I could find a way to protect Robert and then I’d hand him over for torture in the Towers.
“You wanted to take on a warlock. Well, now you’ve got one,” I growled.
A wide grin slithered across Reave’s face as he palmed a long, curved blade that had been hanging at his side. “You? You’re no warlock.” He chuckled. “You’re some kid who couldn’t cut it with the other grown-ups, so you ran. And now I’m going to cut you down.” The dark elf took a step, slicing at me with the curved blade in his right hand. I dodged it in time, watching the knife swing wide of me, but it was the unseen blade in his left hand that got me, digging into my side before I could react.
I groaned, my body clenching and stiffening as the pain exploded out from my side. Reave jerked the blade free, twisting it as he pulled. I clapped my hand over the wound, struggling to slow the bleeding as I scrambled for a new spell that would knock Reave unconscious without taking his head off in the process. Subtle spells weren’t my specialty.
Grinning, Reave slashed with both knives, backing me up. This was f*cking ridiculous. I was trying to fight him with magic when I didn’t need to. Releasing my side, I dodged one blade while blocking his other arm with mine as it attempted to slash across my neck. My side screamed and my back throbbed, but I ignored the pain as I lifted my leg and kicked him in the knee. Reave moved at the last second and I only clipped it at an angle, but it was enough to get the dark elf to warily back off while favoring that leg.
“I think we’ve had enough fun for one day, boy,” he said. “You’ve got more to worry about than just me.” The bastard came at me fast. I dodged and blocked what I could, but the pain in my side and steady loss of blood was slowing me down. In the end, it was a foot in the sternum that put me on my back in the dusty warehouse. I jerked upright again with a groan, but all I caught was a glimpse of Reave’s back as he sprinted out of the open doorway, disappearing into the bright midday glare of the fenced-in courtyard.
Another groan slipped past my clenched teeth as I got to my feet and ran to the doorway, grasping my side with my left hand. My feet skidded through the dirt and gravel as I stopped in the open area and looked for Reave, but he was already gone. The ogres I had knocked out were still lying on the ground, but the one who opened the door was missing. He shouldn’t have been able to get away that fast, but I had a feeling he had sprinted to wherever Reave’s car was stashed and started it in the event that the Svartálfar would need a fast getaway.
“F*ck!” I shouted. I shuffled across the courtyard, holding my side, grumbling about Reave, the Towers, and my own stupidity. I even paused long enough to kick one of the sleeping ogres in the head. He snorted once and rolled over before continuing to sleep, undisturbed.
When I reached my SUV, I stood next to the front grille and lifted my shirt to look at the cut. It didn’t look that big, but the bleeding hadn’t slowed. A good portion of my shirt and the left side of my jeans were soaked. Swearing again, I pulled the wound closed with my left hand while whispering a quick healing spell. I used just enough magic to knit the interior wounds and close the skin. I didn’t want to waste the energy on the blood or the pain.
With a sigh, I leaned against the grille and glared at the old paper mill. This trip had been a disaster. Reave had fled and I had no idea if he was even going to remain in the area now. Robert had the information, making him a massive target. I was hoping my brother thought he still needed me. Strangling Reave sounded so good, but a living Reave with brain intact was the only thing that was going to stop the Towers. But now that seemed impossible since I didn’t have a clue as to where he had gone.
As I stood there, trying to pull together the energy to move, I heard a strange, leathery, flapping noise. Wincing, I pushed back to my feet and twisted around, looking for the source of the noise. I didn’t think it was Reave—the bastard had to be at the edge of town by now—and it wasn’t the sort of noise that would come from an ogre. As the sound got closer, I looked up to see something I had never expected to see within the confines of Low Town.
The creature pulled its batlike wings in, swooped down toward me, and then threw its wings back out again so that it stopped barely a foot from my face. I lurched away, slamming my back into my SUV. The hobgoblin cackled with mischievous glee, his little face split with a wide grin while his almond-shaped black eyes flashed at me. Collapsing his wings a second time to his back, the hobgoblin dropped to the ground and landed lightly on all four limbs like a cat.
He quickly scurried over and climbed up the front of the car until he was seated on the hood. Hobgoblins were strange little fey creatures that were never seen within the city limits, as they preferred deep, undisturbed woods. This one was the first one I had seen up close. I had caught a glimpse of a couple over the years while camping and that was enough to give me nightmares. While prone to playing silly pranks when the mood hit them, they were rarely dangerous.
It was their appearance that I found frightening. Between their large leathery wings, the small horns on their heads, enormous pointed ears, and the pumpkin-orange scaly skin, they looked like demons escaped from an underworld amusement park. This one sat on the end of my hood, his legs crossed in front of him while his long, pointed tail idly swung from side to side.
“You Gage?” the hobgoblin asked. His voice was low and earnest as he leaned forward a bit.
“Yeah.” The word came out slowly as I tensed, waiting for something new to attack me. It had been one of those days when someone was always waiting around the corner to remove my head or turn me into a magpie.
The hobgoblin tipped backward, his little feet kicking up in the air as he laughed and clapped his hands. “Ha ha! I told her I would find you! She had her doubts, but I knew I could!”
“Who? The queen?” The queen of the Summer Court was the only person I could think of who might have dealings with a hobgoblin, let alone had the ability to get them to complete a task. According to most textbooks, they didn’t much care to obey anyone.
He instantly stopped laughing, but was still smiling broadly at me. “Oh, no.” He then said something in this high, squeaky voice, but I shook my head, not understanding. “Her,” he said, and then the two-foot-high hobgoblin disappeared and was replaced by a three-inch-tall violet pixie hovering in the air as her little dragonfly wings beat a mile a minute. A second later, the pixie was gone and the hobgoblin was back to sitting on the hood of my car.
“Her? The pixie?” I asked, and he nodded. “She was at that fix house, right?”
“Yes, she said you rescued her. Saved her life.”
“Okay, but why did you need to find me?” The little devil wasn’t making any sense, but he seemed pleased with himself over something.
“She was worried over you. She thought you’d be in trouble with that Svartálfar. I told her that I’d find you, keep an eye on you.”
“Why?”
“To help her clear her debt with you. She’s a good friend.”
“And you’re doing this out of the kindness of your heart?” I said, looking down at the hobgoblin through narrowed eyes.
The little fey grabbed his long tail in both hands and looked away from me, seeming almost embarrassed. “Well, she said you were a warlock and that you were taking on a Svartálfar alone. I thought you must be a lot of fun, so I wanted to tag along for a bit.”
What he meant was that he thought I was a one-man wrecking crew, causing chaos and mayhem wherever I went, and he wanted to watch the destruction, particularly if it involved a Svartálfar.
I sighed and roughly scrubbed my hand over my face. I didn’t need this. “Look . . .”
“Duff. I’m Duff,” he supplied with a grin.
“Look, Duff, it’s been a rough day. I had a little powwow with the Svartálfar and it didn’t go so great.”
“I saw.” It was the first time that he didn’t sound like he was about to burst out laughing.
I sat down on the bumper beside him and groaned. “And now I haven’t a clue as to how I’m going to find the bastard,” I said, talking mostly to myself.
The little hobgoblin giggled and pounded on the hood with his two small hands. I jerked, turning to look at him as he exclaimed, “We can find him for you!”
“What?”
Duff leaned in and grabbed my cheeks in both hands, his fingers pinching my flesh in his growing excitement. “Reave. The Svartálfar. We can find him. You need him? We can find him.”
I stood, pulling my face out of his grip. “I don’t understand.”
“I can get the pixies and some of my people! We can find him, track him. It’ll be fun. We’ll find him for you so my friend can clear her debt. Right? It will clear her debt?”
“You and your friends can do it safely?” Hope started to form in my chest. I might have a way out of this mess.
He nodded eagerly, a grin spreading across his face with a wicked delight. “We can find him for you. We’ll watch from a distance and be safe.”
I stared at him for a second, trying to think of some other option, but I was drawing a blank. “And you have no problem helping me?”
He held up his hand like he was trying to balance a set of scales. “Don’t like the Towers. They killed so many fey. On the other hand, you don’t seem evil. You saved my friend and many others. Also, you seem . . . different. Better. Funner.”
I nodded. “All right. If you and your companions can find and follow him safely, then I’d appreciate your help. You can find me at my tattoo parlor when he settles in one location. I’ll come and get him. He won’t escape a second time.”
The hobgoblin gave a happy shout as he launched himself off the car, his wings thrown wide as he took to the air. He gave me a little salute before darting off. I tried to watch him go but he was surprisingly fast, disappearing around some buildings.
I pushed off the grille of the car and rose with a groan. My side was killing me as it healed, and my clothes were rough and scratchy from all the dried blood. I was hurt, tired, and pissed from today’s adventure. Reave got away, which was the one thing that I couldn’t let happen if I was going to have any hope of saving Low Town and stopping the coming war. But at least I now knew that Robert was in deep shit. Well, deeper than since we last spoke.
For now, Reave was on hold until Duff could get back to me with his location. I would have to turn my focus to protecting Robert and finding a way to get Trixie safely back with her people. If I couldn’t save Low Town, then I could at least make sure she had somewhere safe that I could stash her for a little while. It wasn’t much, but right now I’d be happy with one thing going my way.