Huh.He was going to let me pass. But I knew better than to leave a strange dog at my back. Especially one which may or may not have fur. And scary red eyes. And a tendency to growl at me fromwithinmy own head.
Seeming to sense my reluctance, Orthus shook rain from his fur and whined again, blinking those strange eyes at me. Then he turned and took several steps toward the warehouse before pausing to glance at me over his shoulder.
If it weren’t completely ludicrous, I’d have sworn he was trying to escort me into the building, a demonic Lassie coming to the rescue. But that couldn’t be right. Why on earth would the dog lead meintothe factory where I planned to free the prisoner he was supposed to be guarding? And where I’d probably shoot any of his remaining goblin masters.
Surely I was mistaking the creepy dog’s even creepier behavior for actual intent. He couldn’t have been trying tohelpme. Could he?
Since I had no problem turning my back on the crippled goblin—if he’d had another gun, he’d already have used it—I followed Orthus toward the plant, my bare feet splashing through shallow, glacial puddles, my gun still aimed at the back of the dog’s skull. Just in case.
When he climbed the steps, I hung back to watch. Goblins never worked alone. Ever. Everyone who knew they existed knew that. And while they wouldn’t hesitate to snack on one of their own victims—or on a fallen comrade, if the chance presented itself—goblins would never desert a still-living member of their own species. So where were Rent-a-goon’s friends? Surely they’d heard the alarm. And the gunfire.
They had to be inside, with Cari Murphy. Waiting for me.
Orthus was leading me into a trap, and I had no choice but to follow him, even knowing what would likely happen once I stepped over the threshold. Because abandoning the target was not an option. Not on a live retrieval.
I glanced between the treads at the space beneath the stairs to make sure no one was hiding there, waiting to grab my ankle. Dismemberment by goblin was pretty high on my list of things never to experience. Right up there with being bitten to death and skinned alive. Either of which a goblin might do, if given enough time and motivation.
The hollow under the steps was empty, so I climbed them with my gun trained on the huge room ahead. The lights were on, but more than half of the florescent fixtures were broken, and those still functioning didn’t come close to illuminating the interior to my satisfaction.
At the threshold, I studied the huge space, which was dominated by four long rows of injection molding machines, each identical, from what I could see. Between the middle two rows, the center aisle was defined by a set of straight yellow lines painted directly onto the concrete floor, like a single-lane pedestrian roadway.
A series of doors ran along the right-hand wall. The two closest were marked as restrooms, and judging from the smell emanating from that section of the factory, the goblins had managed to clog at least one toilet. Past the restrooms, two more closed doors were labeled as storage, and beyond that were the three offices, whose windows I’d noticed from outside. The third office door was closed, the gap beneath it dark. But the first two were open, light from within painting an identical set of elongated rectangles on the floor.
Bingo.
Orthus barked once, from halfway up the center aisle. I think he wanted me to hurry. Apparently, Timmy wasn’t going to last much longer at the bottom of that well…
Glancing quickly in either direction, I stepped into the building, my stolen gun aimed at chest height in front of me. The main space appeared to be unoccupied, but there were literally hundreds of places a full-grown human could hide, and even more places to conceal a five-foot-nothin’ goblin. I couldn’t help but expect an army of sawed-off Rambos to converge on me from behind the machines, and it didn’t take me long to realize that following Orthus down the center walkway, where I could be attacked from virtually any direction, would not be the wisest course of action.
Instead, I veered to my right, edging along the front wall of the factory to keep the room—and anyone who might be hiding—in front of me. I turned the corner onto the right-hand wall and glanced down each row of machines as I passed, but the aisles were empty. When I came to the ladies’ room, I hesitated. In order to clear it, I’d have to swing my focus—and my gun—away from the rest of the factory.
In situations like that, I sometimes wished I had a real partner. Rusty had never let me down, but no car, no matter how fast and reliable, could cover the room at large while I checked the john.
My free hand on the bathroom doorknob, I took one more glance around the factory and nearly jumped out of my skin to find Orthus less than five feet away. He blinked, red-tinted eyes flashing as they reflected light from the few still-functioning fluorescents high overhead.
I frowned, and he cocked his head at me. Then he shook it slowly back and forth. Was he scolding me? Or telling me there was no one behind door number one?
Or was I losing my mind?
Orthus took up a position directly in front of the bathroom door, facing the rest of the room with his back to me.
He was covering me. The fuckingdogwas offering to watch my back.
When I hesitated—this was too damn weird—Orthus glanced back at me and barked sharply, clearly telling me to get on with it. So I pulled open the bathroom door, my gun already trained on the space inside.
The restroom was empty. Incredibly foul, but completely empty, except for a grungy sink, a filthy toilet, and an empty toilet paper roll. I didn’t want to know what they’d been using since the tissue ran out.
Disgusted, I closed the door and moved on to the men’s room. Again, Orthus stood watch. If the dog was out to get me, he was certainly doing it on his own schedule.
The second bathroom and the first storage closet were both unoccupied, but as I approached the second storage closet, Orthus began to snarl at the closed door, his lips pulled back to reveal a mouthful of black gums and frighteningly sharp teeth.
My heart thumping, I inhaled deeply and pushed wet hair away from my face. Orthus’s snarl intensified, somehow buzzinginsidemy head. I raised the gun to what I hoped would be chest height on a goblin. Then I kicked the door open.
The doorknob slammed into the wall inside, revealing a second goblin, similar enough in appearance to the first Rent-a-goon to convince me that they were related. Maybe brothers. But that’s all I had time to think before he lunged at me, thick hands open and grasping. I squeezed the trigger, and he threw himself to his right. A small hole appeared near the edge of his left sleeve. Blood filled the space, pouring from the wound in his bicep, but he never slowed. Nor did he reach for the gun still holstered on his right hip.
Apparently, I wasn’t enough of a threat to warrant shooting.
Behind me Orthus growled sharply. I had a moment to wonder which of us he was going to bite, then he sprinted into the factory at my back, barking furiously.
