It could have been worse. Goblins have little trouble blending in with the general populace, though they live for roughly half again the typical human lifespan. On average, they’re as stubborn as they are tough, but while they’re damn hard to kill, they have no extra-physical abilities or special powers. No Netherworld oomph behind their punches. With a goblin, what you see is what you get.
Unlike Lexie Hotpants.
“What do you want?” he barked, stomping down the steps and across the empty lot toward me. Rent-a-goon kept his focus trained on mine, even with his dog growling relentlessly from inside the building. The sound wasn’t loud, but neither was it soft. It was just…near. Eerily, discomfortingly close, as if it were inside my head, rather than separated from me by fifty feet of parking lot. And a fucking building.
Ihatedogs. They seem to know instinctively that something about me is…different. And they’re typically eager to explore that difference—with their teeth.
Shuddering at the very thought, I forced my attention back to the goblin. “You know anything about cars?” I cocked my head to the side, which was supposed to look disarmingly cute, but it also gave me a better look at the motion sensitive wire threaded through the chain link fence.
I recognized the model. Intrepid. The MicroPoint cable would detect any fence disturbance—including an attempt to disable the alarm—and locate it to within a few feet. There was no way I was getting over that fence unnoticed. But Rent-a-goon just might be willing to disarm it for me…
“Who are you?” the goblin asked. Either he wasn’t falling for my act, or he wasn’t into women.Shit. There wasn’t much I could do about his orientation, and the only way to tell for sure was to pull out all the stops.
“I’m Lexie,” I said, forcing a giggle from my disinclined throat. If that didn’t work, plan B required drunk Lexie Hotpants to vomit on his feet, distracting the goblin long enough for me to go for my dagger. Or for his gun.
“I think there’s somethin’ wrong with my car,” I added, stumbling closer to the fence. “Could ‘ja maybe take a look?” I took one more fairly stable step, and a bright, motion-activated light flared to life, blinding me from somewhere above the guard booth adjacent to the gate.
Rent-a-goon came closer, stopping beside the guard booth to look up at me. “I don’t—”
“Hey, is that a gun?” I propped one hand above my eyes, shielding them from the security light as I stopped a foot from the fence, as if I didn’t know about the sensor. “What’s that thing for? You gonna shoot me?”
Grinning like an idiot, I leaned forward, as though for a better look at his gun. But really, I was giving him a better look atmyguns. Unfortunately, one nearly came un-holstered.Oops. Damn V-neck.
Even from ten feet away, I saw his expression relax. In my experience, straight men are gullible, be they goblin, imp, or human. One look at a nearly-bare boob and they let down their guard, as if a woman can’t possibly support the burden of her breasts and her brain at once. Let alone a weapon.
Damn, I wish I hadn’t left my gun behind. But it was probably a good thing I had. Otherwise, I might have put a bullet through his throat for being such a moron. Then I’d have to kick the shit out of his corpse for making me break my own rule. Company policy, if you will. No killing—not even the bad guys—unless I’m in eminent danger.
Or being highly paid for my services.
Hey, a girl’s gotta eat.
Rent-a-goon smiled and stepped closer to the gate. He clicked the safety on his pistol and cradled it in one wide palm for my inspection through the chain link. “Don’t worry. It won’t go off. You wanna see?” His small brown eyes glittered up at me from beneath bushy black brows.
Hellyeah, I wanted to see his gun. I happened to have left mine in my other pants.
“Is it heavy?” I peered at the clunky black pistol and stepped forward so that my chest brushed the fence. Accidentally on purpose.
A high-pitched, squealing alarm sounded, seemingly from every direction at once. Jumping back, I whipped my head around, searching for the source of the unbearable noise. No need to pretend; the racket was truly obnoxious.
Before I could find the speaker, the sound stopped, all but the persistent ringing in my head. My focus snapped to Rent-a-goon, who now held a key-chain-sized remote in his left hand, his thumb still hovering over the largest of three buttons.
“Sorry about that.” He smiled patronizingly up at me and shoved the remote into his pocket, then pulled open one half of the gate, conveniently admitting me into his compound. “It’s to keep kids from throwing rocks through the windows.”
Suuure it was. The expensive, motion sensitive, barbed wire topped fence was to keep teenagers away from a supposedly abandoned plastics plant.Totallybelievable.
I was stepping through the gate, my mouth already open to answer in character—Lexie Hotpants would believe whatever she was told—when the deluge struck, drenching us both instantly. The rain came hard and fast, and almost painfully cold, in contrast to a thus-far mild Memphis fall. The sudden torrent took me by surprise, and it shocked the hell out of Rent-a-goon, who took his focus from me to frown up at the clouds. His gun still lay flat on his open right palm.
I snatched the pistol and thumbed off the safety before he even realized I’d moved. Goblins are known throughout the Netherworld for their physical strength and stamina. But quick on the draw, they are not.
Rent-a-goon’s chin dropped. His gaze found the gun in my grip.Hisgun. For an instant, I could see him wrestling with the obvious choice: lurch out of the way to avoid getting shot or try to take the gun. If I really were a helpless, drenched woman in need of mechanical help, taking the gun would make sense. But if he had any gut instinct at all, he’d know better than to—
He went for the gun, wide mouth curling into a snarl.
I pulled my left arm back, a bully playing keep-away from a shorter child and smashed the butt of his own pistol into Rent-a-goon’s right temple with a horrible, hollowthunksound.
The goblin swayed on his feet. He blinked and shook his head to clear it, slinging water from his hair. Yet he remained stubbornly upright, though that same blow would have dropped most human men.
Fucking thick-skulled goblins.
