"Well, that's not good." And would make my job harder, if they acted up and got caught.
I'd been sipping pretty heavily on my water as we spoke, trying not to overdo the wine, and the urge to use the restroom hit me. "I'll be right back."
He got to his feet when I rose, like an old-school gentleman, and then sort of bowed back down until I walked away.
Geez. He made me feel like a princess in a period drama. A girl could really get spoiled.
I found the restroom and did my business, taking a moment to reapply some lip gloss and fluff my hair. I was debating whether or not to add a little bit of mascara when the door opened.
But nobody walked in.
The hallway outside the bathroom was unusually dark. I peered out into the shadowy hallway, but then jumped back with a squeal when a goblin wearing full battle armor strode out of the shadows, headed for me. I backpedaled into the bathroom, since there was no way out past him.
This was not a nice goblin.
He was Bran's height, but looked thicker, and his eyes glowed red in the darkness. He bared what looked like a forest of pointy teeth at me, and I squealed and backpedaled.
An aura of menace radiated off him, physical in its intensity, and I felt the glife of my own magic as it rose to the surface. As he lifted his gigantic sword, I scrambled to grab the magic coating me and mold it into a shield, in the same vein of thought of the things Bran had been saying at dinner.
Just in time, I hardened the magical shield in front of me, and the goblin’s sword bounced off of it with a surprising amount of force.
I stumbled back but quickly regained my footing and prepared to fight.
The goblin rushed at me. Dodging to the side, I just missed cannoning into the sink as I slammed my shield into him as hard as I could, trying to get past him. There wasn’t enough room, so I took a step back as he stumbled but didn't fall. I braced myself to try again but before I could hit him, he turned out the door and ran down the hallway.
My knees were shaking hard enough in reaction I needed a moment to steady myself.
"Andromeda!" Bran's voice called from what felt like a million miles away. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine!" I called back, my heart still pounding. "A,” I choked back the word goblin, I needed to use another term, “thug just attacked me, but I'm fine."
Shrieks, yells, and the sounds of crashing and breaking glass from the other room told me he'd found his way into the dining room.
I rushed out of the bathroom to see three more goblins, all of them big, scary and wearing armor and toting oversized weapons appear from the shadowy corners of the restaurant and rush past the maitre d’.
Oh, no. We were being attacked, in a wine bar in downtown Los Angeles.
By goblins.
This wasn't going to go well for their reputations.
I’d fixed worse, but not much.
10
BRAN
This was Mort's doing,no doubt about it. A large fight between his allies and me, amongst a vulnerable population, emphasizing the monstrous things goblins could do. Since few of the sick ones would stay on task, instead lashing out at the humans surrounding us.
If only I could strangle the weasel, two worlds would be a better place for it.
Goblins streamed into the room, armed and armored to terrify, some afire with bloodlust that didn’t much care who or what became their target.
How much bloodshed was allowed by human society to defend one’s self and others? I ran through everything I knew about modern Gaiun fights. I'd seen the movie Highlander recently, and it seemed to be quite popular. Also superhero movies. There were a lot of beheadings in the first movie, though the details of what happened when a head was taken weren’t correct. Many deaths in the superhero movies as well.
Myself, I often tried for nonlethal solutions, but there was no time or space here to achieve that. With regret, I called my blade from the shadows and executed a high cut across the neck of the nearest blood-maddened goblin. She fell to the precise swing, her warcry cut off between one moment and the next. The howling battle cries of the others echoed through the room.
I was confused by all the screaming from the humans. Wasn't this what they did on TV? From what I had seen, the custom was for them all to conceal firearms on their persons and employ them at the least opportunity. It was disappointing they didn’t; many firearms would make this situation so much simpler.
