The gnomes glanced up as I entered. Way up. Every one of them tried to appear as threatening as possible. A few passed complicated gang signs at me. One little guy raised his arms out wide, as if to say, "You want a piece of this?" Then he jerked his head toward me to see if I would flinch. Since he was small enough that I could probably kick a field goal with him, I can honestly say that I didn't show any fear.
"Word up," my guide said to the largest gnome, who had to be all of two and a half feet tall, including the hat. They performed a complicated handshake, and then did one of those man hugs where they pat each other on the back once. During the ritual, I noted Harbinger waiting at the back of the room. My guide put one hand on my calf and shoved me forward with a remarkable amount of strength. He laughed as I stumbled, and I resisted the urge to toss him across the room.
Harbinger nodded when he saw me. Someone had brought out two adult-sized folding chairs, and he motioned toward the other one. He was sitting at a wooden table that had its legs sawed off. On the opposite side of the table was another gnome, dressed identically to the others, except for the giant, golden, bejeweled dollar-sign necklace he was wearing. The necklace sparkled in the dim light. The room was large enough that we had a little bit of privacy from the other gnomes now. Other tunnels led off in various directions, suggesting that this place had a lot more to it than what you might first expect. I took my seat.
"Owen, this is Sven Bone-Hand, leader of the Birmingham Gnomes. Sven, this is Owen Pitt," Harbinger said to the boss gnome. "He's the one."
The two of us, sitting hunched forward, across the short table from the gnome, made it feel like we were playing tea party with stuffed animals. The creature sized me up. "He's extra big," the gnome said slowly, like that was a bad thing. "Real tall."
Harbinger nodded. "I know, but he's okay. I vouch for him."
"You didn't say nothin' about him being tall," the gnome said. "This changes the game, man. I don't trust tall humans."
"You don't trust any humans." My boss leaned forward. "You going back on the deal?" He reached into his leather jacket and pulled out a stack of rubber-banded currency. It was fat, and the visible bills had Ben Franklin's picture on them. He put the cash on the table and slid it toward the gnome.
Sven picked up the money and thumbed through it. He smiled. His teeth had diamonds embedded in them. "Harbinger, my brother . . . I'm a hustler, but I keep my promises. Let me do my thing." Then he vanished.
Literally vanished, he was there one second and then just gone. His chair was empty. The money was gone too. I blinked. Earl didn't seem surprised.
"Where'd he go?" I asked.
"Gnomes can do that. That's why they come in handy. They have a gift for not being seen." -Somebody had given Earl a beer, and he tilted it at me like it was a toast. "You didn't stay at the compound like I told you to."
"No. No, I didn't."
He took a theatrically long pull from his drink. I had disobeyed his orders, but he knew me well. He knew I was borderline suicidal when it came to loyalty. "With family in danger, I would've been surprised if you had." At least he wasn't mad at me.
I glanced around the basement. "So, what did you just buy?"
"Information."
"Oh, good. I thought you were branching off into wholesale drug distribution or something," I said. "What kind of info?"
He didn't respond directly. "At first, I thought Myers was a liar. There was no way we had a mole at the compound, but if those things knew you were coming, then we've got to face facts. We've been infiltrated. So now we're bringing in a secret weapon. You've met some of the other races that live in mankind's shadow, but they live on the outskirts. Gnomes have mastered living right under our noses, thousands of years, damn near in plain sight. Gnomes are sneaky. Every city has them and nobody ever knows."
"They're urban?"
Earl glanced at the crowd of little creatures watching us suspiciously as the rap music thumped. "Well, duh." He went back to his drink. "Scandinavian originally, but everybody adapts. In the old days they hid on farms, cursing the animals if the owners didn't leave them good offerings. Basically an old-school protection racket, they've just gone mainstream over time. Unfortunately, these learned American culture from watching TV . . . rap videos mostly."
I lowered my voice, "I thought gnomes were supposed to be like all quaint and cute. You know, rosy cheeks, big smile, chubby little guys you put on your lawn. These guys aren't nice . . . They're freaking scary."
"Humans love to take terrible things and make them cute," Earl said. "Read some of the old fables, before they got prettied up for little kids. If you left your farm's gnome a bowl of porridge and you forgot to add butter, he'd get mad and slaughter all your cows. That sound cute to you?"
"No. That sounds like the kind of thing somebody would hire us to blow up. Can we trust these things?" I whispered.
"Of course not, they're crooks. But this bunch owes me a favor . . . Let me do the talking."
There was a shifting of the air in front of us and suddenly Sven was back in his chair. His "grill" gleamed when he smiled. It was slightly unnerving.
"We good?" Earl asked.
"It's like this . . . I got a business to run, Harbinger. Sparing a soldier? B'ham's up for grabs, my man. I need strong arms to hustle. So it's gonna cost you. Dog-eat-dog world, you know what I'm sayin'?" Almost on cue, the kennel above us shook and the three-headed mutant started barking at something. "West Coast Gnomes tryin' to move in on my turf. Punks gonna get took down."
My boss nodded at me, apparently feeling the need to explain. "The Southern gnome families are from Sweden. The ones from California are Norwegian. That side wears blue hats."
"We got no beef wit' 'em, but these gnomes is straight off the boat, tryin' to muscle in on my turf. Ain't gonna happen. This is the dirty South, know what I'm sayin'?"
Earl smiled. "Consider what I gave you the first half. Second half when we catch the rat. And I know you're up to it. Did I ever mention that I worked with Al Capone once? You remind me of him."
The gnome boss beamed at the compliment. Apparently being compared to Al Capone was pretty darn neat for him. He snapped his fingers. Instantly another gnome materialized at his side. That freaked me out. "This my boy, Heimdall Thorfinn Flargin, but we call him G-Nome, 'cause he's a straight up killa'. He's like a gnome Tony Montana. He's got your back." The new arrival puffed on his cigar. I recognized him as the one that had threatened me on the front porch.
"He'll do," Earl nodded.
"He'll do what?" I asked in confusion.
"Find your snitch. Take care of biz-ness." G-Nome lifted his shirt and flashed his gun again. In the better light I could tell it was a chromed Walther P22.
"No. You'll stay invisible at the compound. Keep an eye out until you find out who's talking to this Condition. And you only talk to me or Owen, that's it."
"Shit, whatever, dawg. Long as I get paid."
"The sooner you find the spy, the sooner I give you the rest of your money."
Sven seemed to take exception to this. "G-Nome's so good, I think we need the rest of the dough up front, know what I'm sayin'?"
"I know what you're saying, and it sounds like you're trying to take my money without showing me any results. No. Half up front, half when you find the spy." Earl acted like dealing with criminal scum was something that he had done a few times, but hell, apparently he had known Al Capone. I had to remember that my boss had been around for a long time.
"Harbinger, my dawg, G-Nome's my main gnome. My main tomte like we say in the old country. He'll get it done. Even if we have to lower ourselves to dealing with"—he sneered at me—"tall ones."
I was getting tired of these little bullies and their lame tough-guy act. "At least I'm not a lawn decoration," I muttered.
"What?" Sven shouted as he shoved away from the table. "What'd you say?"
"Oh hell," Harbinger muttered.
There was a huge chorus of clicks and rattles as a dozen guns were tugged from various waistbands, safeties removed, hammers cocked, or slides jacked. I was sitting down, so G-Nome was able to reach my neck. His little Walther jammed painfully under my ear. "You got a death wish, bitch?" he shouted. The entire gang of gnomes surged forward, guns extended, most of them held sideways and I was about to expire in a slew of small-caliber gunfire.
Apparently I had just made a serious breach of gnome etiquette.
"Do it and I'll get angry," Harbinger stated. "I dare you."
That caused the gnomes to hesitate. Apparently they knew just what my boss was capable of. A dozen little muzzles hovered around my skull as Sven huffed and turned increasingly dark shades of red. "You know how insultin' it is to be stuck out on a yard to keep away Fey? Do you, punk? You ever have a wizard hex you and plant you out in the grass, huh?"
"Sorry. I didn't know!" I cried, hands raised in the surrender position.
"You come in my house, and think you can get away with calling us lawn gnomes? I don't think so. Waste him, boys," Sven ordered.
"Hold your fire." My boss stood, towering over the diminutive gang. "He doesn't know Scandinavian fairy lore. Give the kid a break. He's had a tough day."
G-Nome snarled. "I demand respect!"
"Shoot him and you've got to deal with me, and even if one of you little bastards was smart enough to load silver bullets, then my great-granddaughter and a bunch of Hunters are parked outside. They hear gunfire, they come down here, and Julie will kill you all."
One of the gnomes piped up. "I saw her. She's really tall for a girl!" Several other gnomes nodded at this, as if that fact was somehow extra terrifying. It was a really tense moment.
"Your man has to pay for dissin' my boy in our own house," Sven stated.
"Hell no," Earl said.
"You know I can't lose no face in front of my crew, comin' in here and callin' my tomte a lawn gnome. So either we get some respect, or we're gonna have us a gunfight. He's at least gotta get a beatdown."
Harbinger appeared to mull that over for a moment. "Sounds fair."
"Earl!" I shouted.
"I told you to let me do the talking," he told me calmly. "A beating's better than getting shot. Okay, Sven, but let's make this sporting. Make it a fair fight. My man wins, you still do the job, and it's half up front, half on completion. Your gnome wins, you get it all up front, plus I'll throw in another ten grand as a bonus."
The gnome leader thought about this, stroking his beard slowly. "But it has to be a fair fight . . ."
"Fair?" I asked in confusion. Fairy-tale creatures or not, I was a three-hundred pound former, illegal pit fighter. I bench-pressed over four-hundred pounds and had once beaten a gargoyle to death with a tire iron. I was having a hard time seeing how me fighting somebody the size of a Cabbage Patch Kid could be construed as fair.
Sven held up both hands, fingers splayed open, displaying them to Harbinger. Gnomes had six fingers on each hand. "Twelve."
My boss shook his head. "Eight."
Did these guys have to haggle about everything? He turned down two fingers. "Ten. Or somebody's takin' a bullet."
"Fine, but no weapons. And you're not allowed to kill him. I need him on my crew. Once he's out, you leave him alone, or I step in."
"Deal." The gnome clapped his hands together. Suddenly it seemed like there was at least another thirty gnomes in the room. Money immediately began to change hands as they started taking bets.
"Seriously?" I asked in total bewilderment. G-Nome pulled his pistol out of my neck. He was grinning savagely as he passed his .22 off to another little guy, and then started signaling specific other gnomes. Those tossed their pieces also. The shirtless Thug Life one dropped the dumbbell with a clang, stood, and cracked his knuckles. Other gnomes began to efficiently remove the plastic furniture from the center of the room. I had a feeling they'd done this before.
"Don't hold back. They're tougher than they look. Sam Haven got drunk one time and picked a fight with half this many gnomes and got his ass handed to him. It was hilarious. Don't worry about murdering any of them. They're magical, so they don't die easily. And try not to lose, 'cause it's gonna cost the company another ten thousand dollars." Earl clapped me on the shoulder as I stood. "Though, personally, it's worth it for me to watch you fight ten gnomes at one time."
"But, but . . ." Somehow this had all just spiraled totally out of control. "I've already had a really crappy day!" There was a huge quantity of gnomes in the room now, as a veritable sea of red hats formed a large circle around us. Ten of the little buggers were waiting for me. G-Nome was stalking back and forth, high-fiveing the others. "I can't hit them! They're tiny." The audience began to boo.
"Owen, there ain't no rules. Don't forget to protect, well . . ." Earl waved toward his crotch. "You know, they're gonna hit you low."