Page 20

For some reason, when I woke up in the vault with Mr. Raccoon snuggled into my side, I didn’t expect Trata to be the one who brought me a tray of the most elaborate breakfast I’d ever seen in my life. I was so hungry. I ate the omelet, the cereal, the fruit salad, and the bagels as fast as I could, then went on to the stacks of pancakes drizzled in syrup with hashbrowns and eggs. She kept insisting I drink a glass of green sludge until I finally downed it, slamming it down on the tray with a satisfying thud.

I wiped my mouth on the fancy cloth napkin and then pushed it off me and stumbled got out of bed. “Where is he?”

She blinked her big golden eyes at me. “Who?”

I put my hands on my hips. “Your brother. What happened after I passed out? Why isn’t he here?” He’d called me love. He’d said that I should have a long life. He’d said that I’d always get my way. What was my way if not him?

She shrugged carelessly. “Oh, you know, he’s here and there. The Goblin King has a lot on his plate.”

I sputtered. “No. He can’t lock me in his vault without him. That wasn’t our deal.”

“Wasn’t it? Did you specifically ask him to be locked in the vault with you? I don’t think you did.”

I pushed past her, going through the narrow stone hall that would slide shut and seal me in if the exterior vault was compromised.

She laughed, following me into the broad living room with its wall of windows that weren’t windows, looking out on the city. “I mean, you aren’t going to be locked in his vault at all.”

I whirled around to frown at her. “What do you mean?”

She smiled a large, sharp-toothed grin. “You asked to save the city, not you. He’s giving you a safe place to stay until you can find somewhere better, but he’s not part of the package. Well played. I think you’re the first human to get out once the Goblin King gets his hooks into her.”

I stared at her while shock mingled with hurt. Anger. Betrayal. I raised my chin. “I need him close to me, or I’ll turn into a goblin.”

She rolled her eyes. “People kill for that kind of power. Green skin can be covered up by a glamour if you hate it that much.”

I whirled around, heading back to the bedroom, Trata trailing after me.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m getting dressed. I’m Lieutenant Sato. I have work to do.” So much work, and I had no idea where to start. But probably with the maid. Was she really working alone? How could a mother choose to summon a greater demon who would destroy the entire city? It didn’t seem possible. Like it didn’t seem possible that Sashimi would call me love if he was going to throw me away immediately afterwards.

Trata smiled, tossing her dreadlocks. “Oh good. I thought…I’ll get the truck ready. I’m your bodyguard today.”

I shot her a look. “Are you? I thought Sashimi was done with me.”

She batted her dark lashes at me. “Done with you? Of course not. You’re his sushi dealer, and he’s still your protector, just from a distance.”

I shook my head and went into the bathroom, climbing in the shower so the spray could beat on my skin. I didn’t want to turn green. He’d said that he chose me to be his Goblin Bride. Did he find someone better between now and the demon? I used his shampoo, but I craved him, not his scent.

I dressed and braided my hair, checking the mirror to see that I looked healthy, vibrant, without a tinge of green. Good. I intended to keep it that way.

When I came out of the bedroom, I headed to the room where Mr. Raccoon had vomited on the floor. I hadn’t seen him since I woke up. Where did he disappear to? He’d turn up eventually. When I least wanted him.

“Where are you going? I got the truck,” Trata asked, trailing me.

“I’m taking the rocket to Granite today,” I told her, slipping inside the clear tube.

She stared at me, blinking, uncertain what to do.

“But, um…”

I forced a smile. “I need him with me when I interview the maid summoner. He’ll be able to read whether or not she’s lying. I need to find out if there’s a bigger threat behind her actions.”

“Oh.” She frowned but nodded. “No one can read a lie better than Corcarn.”

I put my hand on the glass. “Take me to the Granite,” I told it, like I knew what I was doing. Nothing happened.

Trata took over, tapping the glass in a complex pattern that left a slight purple glow behind and then it shot into the air, leaving her behind.

It was terrifying without Sashimi’s arms wrapped around me. As small as the tube was, the space was too large for just me. I sank to the floor with my arms wrapped around my knees and waited for the ride to be over. It only took a few minutes, shooting through the dark, then through the grass, into the sky, over Sing until it came down with five shocks into Sashimi’s closet.

I stayed where I was, arms locked around my knees until he was there, wearing a banker’s navy suit, red tie, eyes golden and glowing as he opened the panel.

I shuddered and then crawled out, past his feet, noticing his beautifully polished shoes before I stood and brushed off my own gray suit. Somehow, I didn’t throw up.

“Sashimi, I need you.”

He held his breath. “Trata was to help you with anything you need.” His voice was low, smooth, elegant.

I grabbed his hand and hauled him with me out the room that had his bed, to the office where Mr. Raccoon was sprawled on the window seat looking hung-over. He belched and rolled over, kicking his feet. Yep. Definitely hung-over.

“Did you get Mr. Raccoon drunk?” How did he get drunk so fast between me waking up and now? On second thought, I didn’t really want to know. I shook my head. “Never mind. I’m sure it was an accident.” I yanked him faster.

He dug in his feet, pulling my shoulder as he brought us to a stop. “Rynne, I’m at work right now. I don’t have time to play today.”

I spun around to face him. He looked so tidy, with his long hair in elaborate braids secured with brass clasps.

“Oh.” My heart pounded in my chest while he stood there looking edible. Also unapproachable. He looked like wealth, royalty, and power. Out of my league in absolutely every way. He was not the goblin who called me love, and told me I was his bride.

I was wearing my gray suit, washable, and mass-produced.

My phone took that time to explode in chimes as all my messages came through after being underground where they couldn’t reach.

He blinked at me while I pulled it out and frowned at it. There were a dozen messages from my mother, a few from Gabby, one from Clary, and several numbers I didn’t know. But that number, of the werewolf bar, I did.

“The pixie dust dealer,” I muttered as I pressed play on the message on speaker.

The alpha’s voice was less relaxed than usual. “I found him. He’s more of a user than a dealer. He’s on the streets hiding from some company that gave him compensation for testing their drugs. Seems he was the only one from his experiment group who isn’t dead. He’s messed up, though. So messed up. I’ve got him in a secure location. I’ll keep him until the drugs are out of his system, try to undo some of the damage those test drugs did. Also, good work taking out that Carratta demon.”

The message ended and I was left facing Sashimi who looked so pulled together while I…didn’t. I raised my chin and tried to sound like I knew what I was doing. “I need to see the maid.” Maid seemed like such a small and normal term for the demon-summoning murderer.

His brows came together. “She’s in a secure facility.”

“That’s good. I need to find out if she was working on her own or whether there’s a greater threat to uncover.”

He shook his head. “You did your job. The city is safe. She’s no longer your problem.”

I smiled at him and crossed my arms. He was going to be difficult today. It was one thing for him to not want to be involved, but I had my job to do. “Really? But if I don’t find out from her if the demon was part of the scheme to destroy the city and summon a greater evil, how will I know if he’s safe to date?” I wiggled my brows at him, but my heart ached and my stomach twisted at the thought of being with anyone other than Sashimi.

“I’d like to apologize for that,” he said after another moment. “I’ve been preventing other males from approaching you for years. A stubborn demon who refuses to see reason, simply because he enjoys making me squirm, is not your only option. What about Tim from the coven?”

For years he’d blocked other men, but now was over it? After he called me love? I wanted to slap him for not being possessive now, after he’d made me fall in love with him. I raised my chin instead, my words flat, my whole heart smashed. “That was a joke. I’m not interested in dating a demon. Or a warlock. I have my job to do. If you aren’t able to help me personally, I’d appreciate if you loaned me one of your people, someone who can smell lies. Also, since I’ve already invaded your space and taken your time…” I stepped against him, wrapped my arms around him as tight as I could, and pressed my face to his throat, where I’d bitten him.

His pulse beat more and more rapidly against my cheek. “What are you doing?”

“Not turning green. You know my wardrobe would clash. Is this bothering you? I can come while you’re sleeping if you’d rather. Where are you sleeping?”

He took my shoulders and pushed me away from him, frowning down at me. “What are you doing?” he repeated.

Couldn’t he see what I was doing? I was clinging to him as well as I could. I punched him in the stomach. He oomphed, apparently not expecting that. I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the door. “Going to interview a maid. Come with me or not.”

“But you are dragging me.”

“You are capable of letting go of me.” Stupid goblin who couldn’t make up his mind about what he wanted, who let me go when he was supposed to be obsessed with my safety.

He sighed heavily and then moved to walk beside me so it seemed like he was coming on his own. “I have a few minutes.” We left his office, into the room with the large window and larger desk, which was now holding five goblins, each of them freezing when they saw me with Sashimi.

“As you were,” he said in a low voice.

They immediately dropped their eyes and ignored us as we walked to the elevator, holding hands. I dropped his hand, hating this feeling of not knowing where I was with him. Or thinking that I did know, but it wasn’t what I wanted.

In the elevator, he pushed a series of numbers and then leaned against the wall, staring at me with a languid expression. “She’s in the basement.”

“You have secure holding cells in the basement? How convenient. I guess you have real vaults here as well.” Perfect. We’d get this over with and then we wouldn’t have to ever see each other again. But he was still staring at me while I tried not to notice. Finally, I stared back, filling my eyes with the sight of the smooth-skinned man with cutting cheekbones and sharp chin. Soft lips. Burning eyes. He looked so good.

“I like your hair,” I finally said, tugging on the end of my own basic braid.

He didn’t respond, just kept staring at me.

I started feeling self-conscious. No, I’d been feeling self-conscious since the moment I’d seen him looking so sharp when I’d crawled past his feet feeling like a nauseous raccoon. Rejected. What had changed in the time since the circle where we’d contained the demon, and when I’d woken up in his vault?

The doors finally opened, and he gestured me out. “After you.”

I walked into a high-ceilinged armory with balconies and vaults that went up at least a dozen floors, filled with goblin assassins like you never see before they kill you. A thousand pairs of eyes were on me, on Sashimi, every one of them analyzing the threat. Me. I was the threat.

I took a deep breath of the slightly pine-scented air and walked towards the nearest assault-suited goblin. “I’m here to see the woman who hosted a Carratta demon,” I said in my best goblin. “I brought Corcarn to check for lies, but he’d prefer to do his other business. Are there any others who are good at gauging truth?”

There was a beat of silence before Sashimi took my arm and tugged me away from the goblin and down a side hall. “No one can taste lies as well as me,” he said softly.

“I’m sure, but the Goblin Authority has business to do. No time to play.”

He shot me a look. “You are playing a very dangerous game.”

I gave him a flat smile. “Am I? That does sound in character. I was the one who wrote to the Goblin King. In Goblin. Just think of all the dangerous playing I can do now that you’ve relinquished your claim on me. Only joking. I’m perfectly content being Singsong’s premier police officer. There’s way too much to do to get into trouble. Other than the fact that all the things I’m going to do are going to cause trouble for very dangerous people. I’m going to take classes with Gabby, you know, so I can use this amazing power the Magga gave me to do more than see auras from a helicopter. I need to learn assault magic.”

He grunted. “That sounds useful.”

“Yes. I need to raise money for the department. I’m absolutely holding a policeman’s ball, but that’s not going to be enough. That means we’ll be ticketing people who can afford it. Fining the people behind the pixie dust trade and the black market weapons dealers, which means I’ll have to set up a sting that actually…”

“You shouldn’t tell me the details,” he said, cutting me off. “I might be one of these people behind the city’s crime, particularly weapons dealing.”

I shrugged. “I don’t mind giving you a heads up. You were the best partner I ever had.” And now I wanted to cry. Or punch him again.

I wasn’t a crier, but my heart was aching so horribly, and he smelled so good. I wanted to taste his skin, cuddle on the couch, and never let him go. I wanted us to be on the same side forever. Maybe he’d realized that being a criminal was more interesting than being with me. Or maybe he’d found a sweet human girl who’d thrown herself on his mercy. Maybe that was why he was wearing that suit and had his hair fixed so nice, because he was courting a real human bride.

He froze, looking at me with narrowed eyes.

“What?” I asked.

He stared at me for a beat longer before he shook his head and gestured me forward. “I thought I smelled something.”

“A bomb? Infernal fire?” I sniffed, trying to smell what he’d smelled, but only metal and the slight hint of pine filled the hall.

He didn’t answer, just kept walking until he stopped at a door and placed his palm on the metal. “Sushi,” he said in his low voice. The door opened, and then we walked into a room where the maid was secured to the floor by chains of heavenly gold behind a metal table, looking tired.

“Hi,” I said, giving her an awkward wave. “I hope you’re comfortable.”

She smiled. “It’s Lady Justice here to personally see to my comfort.” She tugged on her hands. “I’d be more comfortable if I weren’t in chains.” She looked so normal, worn, human.

I licked my lips as I sat down in one of the chairs opposite her, a table between us. “You’ll be moved to a secure prison after your trial. You won’t have to wear chains in an establishment that neutralizes all magic and ties to heavenly or infernal. I’m sorry about what happened to your daughter.”

Her gray eyes burned with sudden rage. “You’re sorry? Of course you are. If you’d been in charge, you wouldn’t have taken the payout and buried the case. You would have brought them to justice. But my daughter would still be dead. Driven mad. Terrified that if she told me, I’d die too. She was too weak. She relied on the corrupt justice system instead of taking matters into her own hands. I didn’t make that same mistake.”

I swallowed hard. Her voice shook, but there was infernal fire in her veins. “You’re saying that you weren’t working with anyone? How was Brannigan involved?”

She flashed a sharp smile. “Brannigan, the son of the conglomerate my daughter worked for? He was there to watch and make sure no one found anything. You were the one he had to watch, to make sure that Lady Justice didn’t see too much.” She glanced at Sashimi. “No one wants you to see their ugly crimes.”

I took a shaky breath. “You’re saying that Brannigan was part of a corporate conspiracy that your daughter tried to blow open? Do you have proof?”

She shook her head. “Proof isn’t good enough. I don’t want justice. I want them to suffer a million times worse than she suffered. I want the city to pay!”

“And all those innocent people, the ones like your daughter who wanted justice, you want them to pay too? You want to become a monster even worse than these people you tried to take down?” I shook my head. “I don’t believe it. You didn’t want to summon a greater demon. You already had the power to destroy the ones who hurt your daughter.”

She laughed, a creepy sound that went down my spine like ice. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be a sheep surrounded by wolves. Singsong City is full of wolves that need culling. Like your goblin. Humans are nothing in our own world. Well, not for long. We’re taking it back. This is only the beginning.”

I stood up, my hands shaking as I smoothed them down my pants. “Thank you for your time.”