Christian picked up a familiar presence behind him, and identified it instantly as Val, but made a point of glancing away from the display of Tarot cards he was straightening before speaking. “Heya, Val, what's up? You don't look so good.”
She sighed, and leaned against the edge of the shelving unit. “Can I ask a huge favour?”
“Of course you can.”
“My apartment seems to have developed things that go bump in the night. I've tried everything I know, but it's ignoring it all. I've been hearing more and more about you dealing with stuff like this.”
“You got it,” Christian said promptly. “And I don't take money from friends. What exactly is happening?”
Another sigh. “It started maybe a week ago. Just a lot of little things. Stuff not being in places where I know I left it. Walking out of a room, and then having to come back to turn off the water or the radio when I'm sure I already did. It sounds crazy, I know, it's more likely that I'm just losing my memory or I've been too distracted lately...”
“It's not crazy,” Christian said firmly. “But if that's all that's been going on, it shouldn't be too big a problem to fix. I'll be done in an hour, why don't you go sit down, I brought a couple of Eric's homemade cupcakes to nibble on and there's still one left, and we can walk back to your place together?”
Her smile held pure relief. “Thanks. For not calling me insane, if nothing else.”
“Trust me,” Christian said wryly, “I don't find it at all hard to believe. If something happens again, don't wait a week to ask, huh?”
“I was trying to decide if it was my imagination.” She let him shoo her over to the chair behind the counter, and accepted the cupcake he handed her; then he got back to straightening up the shop. When Amanda opened in the morning, she shouldn't have to deal with this mess first thing. Val stayed there long enough to enjoy the snack, then got up to help, leaving him to finish ringing out the cash register for the day.
He called home just before they left; Eric answered.
“I'll be home late, Val wants me to come check something out for her. It sounds pretty straightforward, though, I'll probably be home for supper.”
“Bring Val,” Eric suggested. “I'm making chicken stew. There'll be lots.”
“Val? How does chicken stew at our house sound, once we're done?”
“I think you let Eric move in 'cause he can cook,” Val said, with a smile that was only slightly tired. “I'd love to.”
“Catch that, Eric? 'Kay, we'll be there. Tell Mark that yes, I have my cell phone, 'cause he's bound to ask. See you later.”
Four p.m. in mid-October meant it was starting to get dark already, though it wasn't all that cold. They walked in comfortable silence to Val's basement apartment.
“Hold on.” Christian had learned the hard way that it was best to be ready to grab a stream instantly, which meant preparing himself before going into a possible situation. He sat on the cement stairs, closed his eyes, and slowed his breathing, checking the area for ley-lines. Bingo: there was one running almost directly under the house. Probably part of why Val found it comfortable here, the creative and sensitive and intuitive often responded unconsciously to the lines, according to a number of reliable books and his own observations. Certain of its location and his own readiness, he got up, and found Val waiting patiently.
“Okay?”
Christian nodded, and Val unlocked the door, waving him in ahead of her.
He slowed his strides as he entered, all senses alert. Yes, there was something here, all right... it wasn't a familiar type of presence, but that wasn't all that surprising. He hadn't been doing this long enough to know more than a fraction of what was out there. Behind him, Val flicked on the light switch, illuminating her slightly-shabby, welcoming apartment. They stood in a combined living room/kitchen; the three doors, he knew from other visits, were her bedroom, bathroom, and a closet. The floor was thickly carpeted, and inexpensive wood panelling covered the walls, adorned with an eclectic scattering of plaque-mounted pictures; the three small, deep windows all held plants. He deposited his backpack just inside the door.
“Well, it's not your imagination.” He considered suggesting she wait outside where it would be safer, then reflected on her inevitable response, and settled for a warning. “No promises what you might see. Stay over there and don’t interfere, no matter what.”
“That's fine, and I won’t.” Val sat down where she was, her back against the door, watching intently.
He'd done this with an audience before, but never a friend. He shoved that thought out of his mind, gathered enough power to get the attention of the presence, and used it to back his command. “Show yourself!”
The sound had hardly died before a small hurricane of scales flung itself directly at him with a shriek of rage. With a yelp, Christian threw both arms up across his face and flung up a shield with them, but not before needle-like claws raked his shoulder. Whatever it was slid down the shield to the floor; he had only an instant to register that it was not even waist-height, spindly and vaguely humanoid except that there were too many limbs, before it scuttled off with unexpected speed.
Christian shook his head hard, and paused to look at his shoulder. “Little bugger ripped my jacket. Didn't touch the skin, though. You okay?” He glanced behind him, but kept part of his attention on the rest of the room.
Val's eyes were wide. “I've had that thing in my apartment for this long?” Then they narrowed, thoughtfully. “What did you just do?”
“Gave it a wall to bounce off. I don't recognize what it is, but I don't think it's one of the big bad ones.” He unclipped his cell phone and handed it to her. “Here, I think this'll be safer with you holding it. If I tell you to, call Mark. Speed dial 2, just press and hold until it starts to call him. But I don't expect to need to.” Not after all Alexandra's lessons, anyway.
Val nodded, and accepted the phone. “Be careful, eh?”
“Always.” He shed the denim jacket too, and pulled up the sleeves of his sweatshirt so his hands were free. It took him only a heartbeat to tap into the stream under the house. “All right,” he muttered. “You scare my friend, you attack me...” He raised his voice. “You're good at hiding in corners,” he said mockingly. “If you're so eager to fight, come fight.”
The thing—he was willing to hazard a guess that it was a goblin subspecies, though not one he'd seen described anywhere—streaked out of the shadows beside a worn chair, directly at him. Even halfway expecting it, it was all Christian could do to slam another shield into place to keep it from clawing him again. He got a slightly better look this time: two legs, four arms, face dominated entirely by huge black eyes and a wide lipless mouth, and those scales were heavy enough to provide good armour. Then it raced off again. Probably looking for a new angle to ambush him from.
Hm. This was going to be a bit more complicated than his initial assessment. The goblin was a vicious little thing, and that speed was going to make it tricky to capture or kill. Alexandra could have it in a matter of seconds... no, she'd made it clear no one was to associate her with witchy stuff. He was on his own.
Aha.
Warily, he started across the room, watching in as many directions as he could. This was probably foolhardy, but it just might work...
Val cried warning, and Christian whirled, snapping his shield back into place. The goblin's attempted lunge at his back ended against the shield.
Which bowed and yielded, giving way beneath its momentum, even as Chris retreated to give it room. It wasn't hard at all for him to make the shield seal itself behind the goblin, and then to close it at the top as well.
The goblin shrieked in utter fury, digging at the barrier with the claws of all four hands, even biting at it with countless tiny pointed teeth. Christian felt the fabric of it start to weaken beneath the onslaught.
Well, it had proven malevolent and violent intentions, and he didn't have long to think about what to do before it escaped. He shaped more stream-power into a dagger, and drove it upwards between two rows of scales, right through the trembling shield, aiming for the heart.
The sudden silence seemed deafeningly loud, as the goblin sagged. Cautiously, he released the shielding wrapped around it and dropped to one knee to make sure it wasn't faking.
“It's okay, it's dead.” Now that he had the leisure to, he studied it more carefully. “Man, it was a nasty little thing.” Those teeth and nails could have done a lot of damage, had he not had stream-power to draw on so quickly—considering what it had done to the stream-enhanced barrier, any ordinary defence would have crumbled in moments. The speed would have been extremely difficult to deal with, had he not learned to think on his feet during Alexandra’s chase games and to be open to unconventional uses for standard skills. On a hunch, he prodded the gums, just behind one of two longer, narrower teeth, and wasn't surprised to see a wet drop well out at the end of that fang. Venom, presumably.
He rather hoped it was not only the first, but the last of its kind that he ever ran into.
Val came closer, cautious but unafraid. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, never touched me.” He held up one hand, and pressed the base of the claw. Another small wet drop. He definitely had luck on his side, that his jacket and sweatshirt had kept it off his skin.
“Get the sweatshirt off now,” Val said. “And anything under it.” The sharpness of her tone made him blink in surprise, but he obeyed and let her help him wriggle out of it and the lightweight T-shirt underneath—he did notice she was holding one part away from him. Only when she turned it the right way around, displaying the dark stains on the shoulder around a trio of rips while keeping her own skin a healthy distance away, did he understand.
“Oh. I didn't notice that. Thanks.”
“Go wash that spot. I'll find you something to put on.”
“Okay. Don't touch that thing, I'll take care of it in a minute.”
He scrubbed his shoulder thoroughly, cleaned the chain of his necklace just in case, and did a brief, shallow trance to make sure nothing had actually entered his body. His skin felt faintly raw there, but he could find nothing dangerous. In his bloodstream, or in prolonged contact, though, that would've been another matter altogether.
He emerged from the bathroom. Val handed him a heavy plain T-shirt of unbleached cotton, and a thick dark red fleece sweatshirt with a wolf on it. “Your stuff's in the bag near the door, but I hope you know how to make sure it's completely out before you put it on again. You're all right?”
“I promise, I'm fine. That shoulder's just a little sore, no big deal. It would've been worse if you didn't think so fast. Thanks. And for warning me it was coming from behind.” The T-shirt was a bit loose, the sweatshirt more so, but that was all right.
She shrugged, and dismissed that. “Now what do we do with it?”
“Well, it'd decompose in a day or so alone, but I can speed up the process. It's going to be a lot easier to clean up if I do this on the kitchen floor, though.” He dragged it by the ankles a few feet, off the carpet and onto linoleum, and knelt beside it again.
Val watched in fascination as he channelled power from the stream into the dead goblin, and its body decayed in a matter of moments, dissolving into dust. When he sat back, she fetched a broom and dustpan from the closet, swept up the mess, and dumped it all in the toilet, flushing it with great satisfaction.
“I don't think I could trust it to stay in the garbage until Thursday,” she explained.
Christian laughed. “It'll stay dead, I promise. All right, I want chicken stew now.”
“And I want answers.”
“I think I owe you a few. Can we talk about this while we walk in the direction of supper?”
“We can even talk about it during or after supper, if you like, as long as you don't try to get out of it.”
“I wouldn't do that.” He scooped up his backpack, but Val took it from him and slung it on her own shoulder, leaving him only the double-layered plastic bag that held his sweatshirt and T-shirt and denim jacket. He'd have to ask Margaret if she knew how to get the poison out thoroughly. “Most of the time, when someone's actually seen something like that, I sort of fuzz their memories just a bit so they don't either spend the rest of their lives nightmaring about it or put me on the front page of the tabloids.”
“Don't even think it.” It came out as a growl.
“I didn't. I'm just letting you know why the rumours are staying just that, rumours. I'd rather keep it quiet, but on the other hand, I can't just leave people who need something I can do, so the memory-fuzzing thing is the best compromise I could come up with. But I trust you.”
“That's good.” She grinned at him. “I trust you, too.”
Christian's house was fifteen minutes or so away; Christian suggested they let explanations wait until they didn't have to dodge traffic, and Val agreed. It wasn't Christmas-rush insane yet, but some of the drivers in this city were careless and arrogant at any time of year, and it was best to stick with less distracting subjects.
Christian picked up a familiar presence behind him, and identified it instantly as Val, but made a point of glancing away from the display of Tarot cards he was straightening before speaking. “Heya, Val, what's up? You don't look so good.”
She sighed, and leaned against the edge of the shelving unit. “Can I ask a huge favour?”
“Of course you can.”
“My apartment seems to have developed things that go bump in the night. I've tried everything I know, but it's ignoring it all. I've been hearing more and more about you dealing with stuff like this.”
“You got it,” Christian said promptly. “And I don't take money from friends. What exactly is happening?”
Another sigh. “It started maybe a week ago. Just a lot of little things. Stuff not being in places where I know I left it. Walking out of a room, and then having to come back to turn off the water or the radio when I'm sure I already did. It sounds crazy, I know, it's more likely that I'm just losing my memory or I've been too distracted lately...”
“It's not crazy,” Christian said firmly. “But if that's all that's been going on, it shouldn't be too big a problem to fix. I'll be done in an hour, why don't you go sit down, I brought a couple of Eric's homemade cupcakes to nibble on and there's still one left, and we can walk back to your place together?”
Her smile held pure relief. “Thanks. For not calling me insane, if nothing else.”
“Trust me,” Christian said wryly, “I don't find it at all hard to believe. If something happens again, don't wait a week to ask, huh?”
“I was trying to decide if it was my imagination.” She let him shoo her over to the chair behind the counter, and accepted the cupcake he handed her; then he got back to straightening up the shop. When Amanda opened in the morning, she shouldn't have to deal with this mess first thing. Val stayed there long enough to enjoy the snack, then got up to help, leaving him to finish ringing out the cash register for the day.
He called home just before they left; Eric answered.
“I'll be home late, Val wants me to come check something out for her. It sounds pretty straightforward, though, I'll probably be home for supper.”
“Bring Val,” Eric suggested. “I'm making chicken stew. There'll be lots.”
“Val? How does chicken stew at our house sound, once we're done?”
“I think you let Eric move in 'cause he can cook,” Val said, with a smile that was only slightly tired. “I'd love to.”
“Catch that, Eric? 'Kay, we'll be there. Tell Mark that yes, I have my cell phone, 'cause he's bound to ask. See you later.”
Four p.m. in mid-October meant it was starting to get dark already, though it wasn't all that cold. They walked in comfortable silence to Val's basement apartment.
“Hold on.” Christian had learned the hard way that it was best to be ready to grab a stream instantly, which meant preparing himself before going into a possible situation. He sat on the cement stairs, closed his eyes, and slowed his breathing, checking the area for ley-lines. Bingo: there was one running almost directly under the house. Probably part of why Val found it comfortable here, the creative and sensitive and intuitive often responded unconsciously to the lines, according to a number of reliable books and his own observations. Certain of its location and his own readiness, he got up, and found Val waiting patiently.
“Okay?”
Christian nodded, and Val unlocked the door, waving him in ahead of her.
He slowed his strides as he entered, all senses alert. Yes, there was something here, all right... it wasn't a familiar type of presence, but that wasn't all that surprising. He hadn't been doing this long enough to know more than a fraction of what was out there. Behind him, Val flicked on the light switch, illuminating her slightly-shabby, welcoming apartment. They stood in a combined living room/kitchen; the three doors, he knew from other visits, were her bedroom, bathroom, and a closet. The floor was thickly carpeted, and inexpensive wood panelling covered the walls, adorned with an eclectic scattering of plaque-mounted pictures; the three small, deep windows all held plants. He deposited his backpack just inside the door.
“Well, it's not your imagination.” He considered suggesting she wait outside where it would be safer, then reflected on her inevitable response, and settled for a warning. “No promises what you might see. Stay over there and don’t interfere, no matter what.”
“That's fine, and I won’t.” Val sat down where she was, her back against the door, watching intently.
He'd done this with an audience before, but never a friend. He shoved that thought out of his mind, gathered enough power to get the attention of the presence, and used it to back his command. “Show yourself!”
The sound had hardly died before a small hurricane of scales flung itself directly at him with a shriek of rage. With a yelp, Christian threw both arms up across his face and flung up a shield with them, but not before needle-like claws raked his shoulder. Whatever it was slid down the shield to the floor; he had only an instant to register that it was not even waist-height, spindly and vaguely humanoid except that there were too many limbs, before it scuttled off with unexpected speed.
Christian shook his head hard, and paused to look at his shoulder. “Little bugger ripped my jacket. Didn't touch the skin, though. You okay?” He glanced behind him, but kept part of his attention on the rest of the room.
Val's eyes were wide. “I've had that thing in my apartment for this long?” Then they narrowed, thoughtfully. “What did you just do?”
“Gave it a wall to bounce off. I don't recognize what it is, but I don't think it's one of the big bad ones.” He unclipped his cell phone and handed it to her. “Here, I think this'll be safer with you holding it. If I tell you to, call Mark. Speed dial 2, just press and hold until it starts to call him. But I don't expect to need to.” Not after all Alexandra's lessons, anyway.
Val nodded, and accepted the phone. “Be careful, eh?”
“Always.” He shed the denim jacket too, and pulled up the sleeves of his sweatshirt so his hands were free. It took him only a heartbeat to tap into the stream under the house. “All right,” he muttered. “You scare my friend, you attack me...” He raised his voice. “You're good at hiding in corners,” he said mockingly. “If you're so eager to fight, come fight.”
The thing—he was willing to hazard a guess that it was a goblin subspecies, though not one he'd seen described anywhere—streaked out of the shadows beside a worn chair, directly at him. Even halfway expecting it, it was all Christian could do to slam another shield into place to keep it from clawing him again. He got a slightly better look this time: two legs, four arms, face dominated entirely by huge black eyes and a wide lipless mouth, and those scales were heavy enough to provide good armour. Then it raced off again. Probably looking for a new angle to ambush him from.
Hm. This was going to be a bit more complicated than his initial assessment. The goblin was a vicious little thing, and that speed was going to make it tricky to capture or kill. Alexandra could have it in a matter of seconds... no, she'd made it clear no one was to associate her with witchy stuff. He was on his own.
Aha.
Warily, he started across the room, watching in as many directions as he could. This was probably foolhardy, but it just might work...
Val cried warning, and Christian whirled, snapping his shield back into place. The goblin's attempted lunge at his back ended against the shield.
Which bowed and yielded, giving way beneath its momentum, even as Chris retreated to give it room. It wasn't hard at all for him to make the shield seal itself behind the goblin, and then to close it at the top as well.
The goblin shrieked in utter fury, digging at the barrier with the claws of all four hands, even biting at it with countless tiny pointed teeth. Christian felt the fabric of it start to weaken beneath the onslaught.
Well, it had proven malevolent and violent intentions, and he didn't have long to think about what to do before it escaped. He shaped more stream-power into a dagger, and drove it upwards between two rows of scales, right through the trembling shield, aiming for the heart.
The sudden silence seemed deafeningly loud, as the goblin sagged. Cautiously, he released the shielding wrapped around it and dropped to one knee to make sure it wasn't faking.
“It's okay, it's dead.” Now that he had the leisure to, he studied it more carefully. “Man, it was a nasty little thing.” Those teeth and nails could have done a lot of damage, had he not had stream-power to draw on so quickly—considering what it had done to the stream-enhanced barrier, any ordinary defence would have crumbled in moments. The speed would have been extremely difficult to deal with, had he not learned to think on his feet during Alexandra’s chase games and to be open to unconventional uses for standard skills. On a hunch, he prodded the gums, just behind one of two longer, narrower teeth, and wasn't surprised to see a wet drop well out at the end of that fang. Venom, presumably.
He rather hoped it was not only the first, but the last of its kind that he ever ran into.
Val came closer, cautious but unafraid. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, never touched me.” He held up one hand, and pressed the base of the claw. Another small wet drop. He definitely had luck on his side, that his jacket and sweatshirt had kept it off his skin.
“Get the sweatshirt off now,” Val said. “And anything under it.” The sharpness of her tone made him blink in surprise, but he obeyed and let her help him wriggle out of it and the lightweight T-shirt underneath—he did notice she was holding one part away from him. Only when she turned it the right way around, displaying the dark stains on the shoulder around a trio of rips while keeping her own skin a healthy distance away, did he understand.
“Oh. I didn't notice that. Thanks.”
“Go wash that spot. I'll find you something to put on.”
“Okay. Don't touch that thing, I'll take care of it in a minute.”
He scrubbed his shoulder thoroughly, cleaned the chain of his necklace just in case, and did a brief, shallow trance to make sure nothing had actually entered his body. His skin felt faintly raw there, but he could find nothing dangerous. In his bloodstream, or in prolonged contact, though, that would've been another matter altogether.
He emerged from the bathroom. Val handed him a heavy plain T-shirt of unbleached cotton, and a thick dark red fleece sweatshirt with a wolf on it. “Your stuff's in the bag near the door, but I hope you know how to make sure it's completely out before you put it on again. You're all right?”
“I promise, I'm fine. That shoulder's just a little sore, no big deal. It would've been worse if you didn't think so fast. Thanks. And for warning me it was coming from behind.” The T-shirt was a bit loose, the sweatshirt more so, but that was all right.
She shrugged, and dismissed that. “Now what do we do with it?”
“Well, it'd decompose in a day or so alone, but I can speed up the process. It's going to be a lot easier to clean up if I do this on the kitchen floor, though.” He dragged it by the ankles a few feet, off the carpet and onto linoleum, and knelt beside it again.
Val watched in fascination as he channelled power from the stream into the dead goblin, and its body decayed in a matter of moments, dissolving into dust. When he sat back, she fetched a broom and dustpan from the closet, swept up the mess, and dumped it all in the toilet, flushing it with great satisfaction.
“I don't think I could trust it to stay in the garbage until Thursday,” she explained.
Christian laughed. “It'll stay dead, I promise. All right, I want chicken stew now.”
“And I want answers.”
“I think I owe you a few. Can we talk about this while we walk in the direction of supper?”
“We can even talk about it during or after supper, if you like, as long as you don't try to get out of it.”
“I wouldn't do that.” He scooped up his backpack, but Val took it from him and slung it on her own shoulder, leaving him only the double-layered plastic bag that held his sweatshirt and T-shirt and denim jacket. He'd have to ask Margaret if she knew how to get the poison out thoroughly. “Most of the time, when someone's actually seen something like that, I sort of fuzz their memories just a bit so they don't either spend the rest of their lives nightmaring about it or put me on the front page of the tabloids.”
“Don't even think it.” It came out as a growl.
“I didn't. I'm just letting you know why the rumours are staying just that, rumours. I'd rather keep it quiet, but on the other hand, I can't just leave people who need something I can do, so the memory-fuzzing thing is the best compromise I could come up with. But I trust you.”
“That's good.” She grinned at him. “I trust you, too.”
Christian's house was fifteen minutes or so away; Christian suggested they let explanations wait until they didn't have to dodge traffic, and Val agreed. It wasn't Christmas-rush insane yet, but some of the drivers in this city were careless and arrogant at any time of year, and it was best to stick with less distracting subjects.
