Page 14

Chapter Fourteen

G oblins were more than bankers and assassins. They were also weapons makers, particularly bombs and other things that married chaos and gadgetry. I knew that, but I didn’t realize the making also went to hoverboards.

“Try it out,” Sashimi said, nodding at the large disk with glowing purple veins running through it.

We were in his garage, for lack of a better word, and there were so many interesting vehicles that Tarn would go ballistic over. Sashimi’d brought me to an area with smaller equipment, like the piece he was looking at. We were wearing armored suits that could go invisible, with tiny screens that could show whatever was behind me.

I adjusted my helmet, took a deep breath, and then carefully stepped on the dark sphere, shifting my balance as it rocked. Vines sprang out of it, wrapping around my ankles and up my legs, fusing me to the thing before I could do anything about it.

I tugged delicately, but those metal vines weren’t going anywhere. “Um, Sashimi, I’m not sure that I’m comfortable with this.”

He stepped on another board, slightly larger, with the same purple veins. “That’s why we’re trying it. If you’d rather climb up the building, we can do that, but you’re so good at riding, I think you should try this first.”

I shot him a skeptical look. “I’m not that good at riding. Gabby was always better.”

“More careless, but not better. If you weren’t cautious, I wouldn’t suggest these.”

I wrinkled my nose at him. “I’m not cautious, or I wouldn’t be a police officer.”

“It was a compliment. Caution means thinking before acting. If you were an impetuous officer, you would have gotten yourself killed long ago.”

I looked down at those vines and shifted my weight slightly, feeling it respond to me, like it was learning my movements. “I did. I died the second I wrote to the Goblin King.”

I leaned forward, and it slowly moved that direction, then when I leaned back, it stopped abruptly, making my body jerk. Okay. This seemed fairly simple. To rise in the air, I pulled my left leg up, tugging on the vines, and the hoverboard followed, tilting until I pulled the other leg up as well, until I was level, three feet from the ground, the same height as Sashimi when I looked up and saw him.

He wasn’t smiling. He nodded, though. “Good. Five more minutes of practicing and then we can take off.”

“Five minutes?” I shook my head. “Maybe five hours.”

“You’re a natural. Also, the boards are linked. I can just have them work together as one unit if you’d like.”

I shook my head and then focused on putting the thing through as many maneuvers as possible. If I or it went out of control, he’d take over. I was determined not to lose control. I still had to figure out how to clean up the mess I’d made at the governor’s ball with my compelling dress. The dress of evil. If only Sashimi had enormous spider bots that could somehow sweep it all away, like he’d taken care of my raccoon.

After five minutes, I looked over at Sashimi, and he gave me a nod. “Shall we? Our second date is bound to be even more momentous than the first.”

I made a face at him. “That’s terrifying. Our first date was momentous enough. People are targeting witches. The sushi shop was attacked by rocks.”

He blinked at me. “Rocks can be very hard.”

“And windows are notoriously weak against hard things.” I sighed heavily, steaming up the screen on my helmet. “Is this going to be another disaster?”

He cocked his head at me, his visor clear so I could see his shadowed face. “If you listen to my sister, dating is always a disaster. At least our dates might help you find murderers.”

I slowly nodded. “That’s true. There’s a purpose to the pain. That’s okay then. Let’s go break into the Courthouse.”

He smiled and then his face mask went black, as did the rest of the garage. A circle of purple appeared high above, and Sashimi led the way, only visible because of the heat sensors that had kicked in on my goggles, so he was an orange blob. I tried not to freak out with everything being dark, and just followed him up to the ceiling, which had opened out, with faint heat lines running along the sides of the tunnel as we entered. We were moving slowly, riding through the shaft until Sashimi’s voice came into my ear, quietly spoken.

“Are you ready to speed up?”

No. But we’d gone deep in the earth and it would take forever for us to regain the surface if we kept going at this pace. “Let’s go.”

He shot off ahead of me, barely visible as a distant orange blob. I crouched down on my disk and rested one hand on the edge. I shot up and then started spinning. I brushed the edge of the tunnel with my shoulder and then hit the opposite side before I yanked the edge and held on, so the disk was sideways as it shot up the tunnel.

Sashimi’s orange blob was getting closer and closer, but I wasn’t sure how to slow down. When I got to him, he flipped his disk to the side and flattened himself to it as I rushed by.

“Very fast for your first time,” he murmured in my helmet.

“Just getting the disaster over with quickly,” I mumbled while I held onto the side for dear life.

“If you relax your grip, it will automatically slow. Also, if you lean back.”

I carefully took off one hand and raised my body slightly, and I did slow so the lines along the side weren’t just one streaming trail, but broke up into dots. I leaned back and adjusted the sphere so it was under me, which made it easier to relax.

“Good,” he said, and then I heard a thunk under my disk as he knocked on it. “I’m right beneath you. The hatch is coming up soon, and you’ll want to slow down even more while I activate the invisibility shields in our suits. I can lead if you’d like, since you might be unfamiliar with navigating through the city’s skyline.”

Was it time to start laughing hysterically? My heart was still racing too fast, but we weren’t turning around now. “Yeah. You can lead. That would be great.” If I could control my speed, he’d have been leading the whole way.

He tipped one edge of my disk down and then passed beside me as we continued through the tunnel, his dark visor nothing but an orange blob veined with lines of red and purple, and then he was above me, my disk once more flat like an elevator that was lifting me instead of sideways like a frisbee. The tunnel opened up, and we came out of a nice grassy field. It was such a relief to be able to see again, even if everything was shadowy and dull in the night. He dropped beside me and brushed my disk with his, so I slowed and shifted direction to horizontal rather than vertical.

“If you stay low, you’ll probably avoid the trees,” he said, crouching on his disk. Then he disappeared, leaving nothing but a blob of orange as the heat sensor kicked back in. I clung to the disk, ducking lower when a tree-branch nearly took my head. We were in a gated park near Lafayette square, surrounded by tall mansions crowded together, probably half a mile from the court house as the bird flew.

The first corner made me nervous, but I moved like I was guiding a board, and the disk reacted the way I hoped. I started relaxing as I followed Sashimi at a relaxed pace, through the streets, above the traffic, invisible to everyone. When we got to the block the court house was on, Sashimi said, “We’ll put on more speed until we vault ourselves up to the top. Ready?”

“Of course. I was born ready.”

He didn’t take off without me, instead crouching beside me, the orange glow the only thing I could see, but it was enough to make out his body position. He leaned forward, accelerating slowly, and I followed suit, gripping the front of my disk like he did, raising the front so it started to lift from the ground.

I copied Sashimi, glad that my disk wasn’t invisible to me, just to people looking up at it. That would be disorienting to ride an invisible board. We rushed over trees, higher and higher, until we passed the fence far below. There were the steps underneath us and then the building.

He bumped my disk, spinning me around, and then I landed with the softest thump imaginable, finally not moving.

I stayed there crouched, head spinning, heart racing, wanting to leap off the thing and kiss the ground, but we were on the roof, and I wasn’t sure I could peel my fingers from the disk.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and I felt the slight pressure of his hand on my shoulder through the suit.

I swallowed hard and then straightened up. “I can’t believe that worked,” I said, stepping off the disk and falling sideways into Sashimi. Apparently, I was still dizzy from the ride.

“Are you going to be sick? If so, you should take off your helmet. Here…” he moved to lift it up, but I backed away, shaking my head.

“I’m fine. I’m not my raccoon. Just give me a second.”

“Sure. I’ll check the access panel while you catch your breath.” He disappeared into shadows, leaving me alone. What was I thinking? How was breaking into the courthouse going to help anything? Well, it would help narrow down our list of suspects. I needed to do something useful, but so far this case was a disaster.

I flipped up my face plate and took a few breaths, looking out at the lights of the surrounding buildings. The Cat’s Pause was right there, the roof where I’d gotten dress drunk with Sashimi mostly visible. I took a few breaths, opening and closing my hands while I tried to calm down. I’d enjoyed the rocket ride. Why was this stressful? Oh, right, because I had to try to not crash.

“It’s a good view,” he said from my right, voice echoing in my ear and outside my face mask, because he also had his open so he could look at the city unobstructed.

“Right? Dates should always involve fabulous views.”

He took my hand, squeezing it, his suits skin against mine. “I’ll keep that in mind. Do you want to go back home? I can send someone else to check the building’s security, to see what possible access to the office was available if you’d rather. You’ve had a long day.”

I did have a long day, but cozying up next to Sashimi’s lava fireplace wasn’t going to help things. Maybe it would help a little, particularly if he was willing to distract me. I shook my head decidedly and turned to face him. “Not long enough. Let’s narrow down our suspect list.”

His eyes glimmered and then his mask was back in place, and he disappeared into a blob of orange. I followed suit, and the next thing I knew, he was lowering me down a stone shaft.

“I’m going to drop you three feet and then follow you in.” He let go of me before I had a chance to reply, but I landed well enough, and then he was right there, behind me, probably because he’d scaled the wall. Because goblins did that, even without fancy suits.

I took an even breath while he crowded behind me.

“Go ahead. This shaft should lead out into the judge’s office,” he murmured in my ear.

I nodded and moved forward, my hands skimming both sides of the narrow passage. “What do Goblin dates usually look like? I mean, if your sister goes on lots of dates…” Did he date goblins? I mean, before he decided to date me.

“For her, it’s usually a crime of some kind. She only spends time with people who can get her into trouble.”

“Ah. It’s because she’s a princess and needs to defy the bars of her tower. What about you? What do your dates look like? I mean with goblins.”

“I don’t date goblins. I know my fate, and so does everyone else in my kingdom. My sister…my father managed to betray my mother with a goblin, but it destroyed him. He was stubborn, didn’t want the curse to control him.”

“Seriously? Like she asked him to be obsessed with her. I hope she stabbed him. It’s bad enough to steal a human away, but then to not be faithful to her?”

“Yes. She stabbed him in the heart by falling in love with someone else. The goblin he trusted to protect her, naturally. You can’t trust a goblin.”

“I hope that when I die and you’re forced into some obsession with a human, you aren’t so stupid.”

“I also hope to not be stupid, but the odds are against me.”

I ran into a wall with an oomph, and then fell back into Sashimi, who caught me, sliding his strong hand over my stomach as he held me for a moment.

“We’re here,” I whispered. “It doesn’t go any further.”

He held up his hand and the suit’s palm glowed enough to show me the stone wall in front of us. The floor was coated in thick dust, and nothing, not even a vent, went into the office. “Interesting.”

“Is it? It looks like a basic stone wall to me. No one could have gotten in this way.”

“That does narrow down our suspect list.”

“You really think one of the custodians killed him? They couldn’t get into his office, either. It was locked from the inside.”

“Hm. That does make the case quite tricky.”

I wriggled around until I was facing him, pulling back my face mask so I could see his face, still lit by the faint light from his palm. His mask was open so I could see his glimmering golden eyes. “I guess we’re done here.”

“The end to our date has come so soon? I suppose the day has been long enough.”

I hesitated and then leaned into him, tilting my head like I was going to kiss him. Because I was going to kiss him. That’s how you ended a date, and I was feeling like I could definitely use a distraction from this futile operation.

He leaned back the moment before my lips touched his.

“Good-night kisses are how you’re supposed to end dates,” I said defensively. He hadn’t minded kissing me when he was dress-drunk, but sober was another story. How humiliating.

He nodded then pressed against me, pinning me against the wall while his own head was against the stone above my shoulder. “Do you hear that?” he whispered. Oh. He was hearing something. That’s why he was so close to me, not because he wanted to be close to me.

“I can’t hear anything.” Other than my pride being smashed into smithereens. I concentrated and then heard it: crying. It was coming from the direction between the two first deaths.

I closed my eyes and pinpointed that sound and then mentally stuck it to Sashimi’s courthouse blueprint. That sound was coming from the men’s room, which was precisely between the two first deaths.

In my line of work, the worst murders I saw were the ones used to cause further chaos, such as summoning a demon. To summon a greater demon, you’d need death, and you’d need someone who knew what they were doing. The classic summoning circle was a five-point star, with a death or massive amounts of blood-letting at each point. If someone had killed here for more than revenge, if this was the beginning of a greater summoning, then we had to stop it to save more than lives. Our city would be wiped out if a greater demon was successfully summoned.

“Sashimi, we need to get to the men’s room. Now!”

“Lady Justice has spoken. My sister tells me that no date is complete without an explosion of some kind. Brace yourself. Probably close your face mask as well.” He wrapped his arms around me and I clung to him, braced for the impact.