Page 8

Chapter Eight

S ashimi was in the Goblin Authority’s office. Was he hired to break in here too? No, he was going through some papers on his lap, written in goblin. Yes, I could see that writing from the door.

I moved fast, heading towards him. “Sashimi,” I hissed as I got closer.

His brows rose as I grabbed his arm, tugging him out of the chair, but he wasn’t moving, didn’t understand what I was trying to do. Goblins were heavy, dense, like lead.

“Rynne. What are you doing?”

“You have to get out of here before the real Goblin Authority finds you. If you think me handcuffing you and sticking you behind bars was a relaxing getaway, you’re right compared to what he’ll do to you.” I yanked harder on him, slipped on the smooth stone floor and fell over in his chair, sending it and us rolling towards the window behind the office.

I held my breath to scream, but the glass was magically reinforced and the chair didn’t break through and send us falling to our deaths. Instead, it bounced off the glass and stopped with a jerk, leaving me nose to nose with Sashimi, whose shampoo smelled so delicious, like orangesicle and something dark and musky.

I stayed like that, staring into those golden eyes that were flickering with bits of green that were so alive, so fresh and real, like the fresh spring of a tree’s first leaves.

Don’t bite him. That’s no good, but if you lick him, maybe he’ll think it’s cute and give you a treat. The green beetle has good treats. I’d usually have my dignity, but his treats are worth the humiliation of being a good boy.

The voice in my head was so loud. I turned slowly and stared at the raccoon I’d almost forgotten about. He bared his teeth, but it seemed more like a smile.

“Did you hear that?” I whispered, voice breathless.

“The chair against the glass?” Sashimi asked.

I looked at him, searching his eyes, and then back at the raccoon.

Try licking him. He doesn’t taste that bad for a green beetle. Once I found liver outside the chop shop, a week old, but still good, and there were so many beetles.

I got a flash of image, sound, texture, all of eating a raw, rotting liver, filled with so many different kinds of bugs, including maggots.

I pressed my face against the goblin’s throat, trying to breathe him instead of those incredibly potent memories I was picking up from the raccoon. I was hearing his thoughts, but they weren’t a common raccoon’s thoughts. No. He was a familiar, taking on some of the reason and longevity of his witch. I didn’t have enough witch blood to have a familiar, but his thoughts had been in my head!

The stone door swung open with a crash almost as loud as mine, bringing me upright, still fighting down the nausea from the raccoon’s incredibly potent memory.

The goblin girl at the door had long dreadlocks, and was looking up from a pile of papers that didn’t go with her leather pants and cropped top. Wait a second. I knew that girl from the goblin city, the one who had told Magga that I was bound to Corcarn.

Corcarn. What kind of name was that? Goblin, obviously, but if you look at the root, Cor was like a center, the axis on which a world hung. Carn was people if my grandfather’s book was correct. The people’s axis. Center. King. Corcarn was the Goblin King. Lieutenant Joss had called Sashimi Corcarn.

The girl broke off her staring at us and blinked a few times and cleared her throat. “Sorry. I didn’t realize that I’d be interrupting snuggle time.”

That’s when I realized that I was still sprawled over Sashimi, but not like that first moment, no, because I’d shifted around with the chair’s slide towards certain doom as well as trying not to be sick when the raccoon put all those incredibly graphic images in my head.

“Yes, well, that’s why there’s a knocker,” Sashimi said with a cool politeness that made my hair stand on end.

She scowled at him. “Yeah, and there’s also a lock. If you don’t want to be interrupted at the office, during office hours, you should use the lock.”

“It’s after office hours,” he said smoothly, brushing his fingers over my wrist, his arm draped around me like he’d intentionally ended up in that position.

Her brows rose dramatically, and she put her hands on her hips, crumpling her papers. “If you’re in your office, it’s office hours. You never spend all day in your office. Everyone’s nervous about it.”

“Yes, well. I was waiting for my girlfriend to show up and claim what’s hers.”

She gasped, looking shocked. I also gasped and probably looked shocked, but I had come here to try and convince the Goblin King to date me. The Goblin Authority. Whichever. Still, being called someone’s girlfriend when I was caught snuggling on said person’s lap was on the far side of shocking.

I pointed at the raccoon. “Mr. Raccoon is my familiar. That’s what Sashimi meant. He’s been waiting for me to get my darling little liver-beetle.” Ew. So much ew. My stomach churned again, and I took careful breaths through my nose.

Her brow rose. “So, you aren’t his girlfriend?”

I hesitated and glanced at Sashimi. He’d told me to try and convince the Goblin King to date me. If he told me to do that, but he was the Goblin King/Authority, that meant that he’d already said yes. No, he’d told me to ask him, which meant he’d asked me. Maybe. But what was the other side of the bargain that he hadn’t mentioned? He’d said that the Goblin King would use me, but for what?

“Excuse my sister’s rudeness,” Sashimi said, giving me a polite smile, which was strange because I was on his lap. There was nothing polite about sitting so close to someone so dangerous. “You’ll have to meet her another time when she isn’t so busy.”

The girl, Sashimi’s sister, snorted and left, slamming the stone door behind her, leaving me sitting in the Goblin Authority’s lap with a raccoon’s voice in my head. Maybe this was all a mass hallucination. Yes. That’s what it was. An epic, grand, horrifying hallucination that involved goblins and raccoons and terrifying offices with too many windows.

“You aren’t talking,” he said after a few minutes of me sitting there, trying to work through everything and failing miserably.

“You’re the Goblin Authority?”

He nodded, silky hair brushing my cheek. “Yes.”

I brushed it back behind his pointed ear and just stared at that ear for a long time. It was green with a little bit of rose on the tip. I should probably stop staring at his ear. I blinked and met his eyes. My brain was officially in overwhelm. “I wrote to the Goblin Authority for years.”

“Yes.” His slight smile was not helpful.

“Why do you want me to date you?”

He blinked at me, all innocence. “Do I?”

“You wouldn’t have told me to try and get you to do something if you didn’t want me to do it. You’re not that crazy. So, why? You refuse to be the Goblin King, but now you’re willing if I date you, because me dating you has something to do with why you wouldn’t want to be the Goblin King normally. It’s not that having a goblin king is unenlightened. It’s actually something else, isn’t it? Does it have to do with Goblin Kings stealing humans away? Did you steal one who caused too much trouble and so you’re…” I shook my head and then gripped his jacket lapels. “I’m fumbling around in the dark here, Sashimi, but I can’t see in the dark, colors or not. What’s the deal? Why do you need to date me?” I searched his eyes, his aura, everything, but there was only a warm, glowing nimbus around him, showing his power, his energy, his strength.

He spoke low, soft, careful. “Yes, the Goblin King is cursed to fall stupidly in love with a human girl and die along with her. Being bound to you will make me impervious to any other humans I meet. At least it has ever since I took you under my protection.”

“Took me under your protection? But why…” I winced when I remembered the warning on the book to never reveal knowledge of the goblin tongue to a goblin. Of course, that warning hadn’t been legible to me when I used the book to craft my first letter. I’d only read it years later, after the Goblin Authority had coached me through more vocabulary, including all of his warnings about contacting goblins, talking to goblins, consorting with goblins.

“Your life was forfeit the moment you handed that letter over to a goblin. Happily, he delivered it to me, after removing the goblins who were torturing your brother, leaving it as my privilege to do with you as I saw fit. I could have taken you and your family and enslaved all of you, or I could have killed you. Those were the two rational options.”

“But you aren’t rational, so instead, you put me under your protection, and got ten years of good sushi out of it. Well-played. Seriously, though, you’re really troublesome to your people. Why can’t you just find a nice human to marry and then die, leaving the next generation’s goblin king to follow in your footsteps? For the record, that’s the stupidest compulsion I’ve ever heard of.”

He grinned at me, a full smile that showed dimples in his cheeks. “It’s stupid, isn’t it? I hate stupid compulsions. If I’m going to be reckless and idiotic, it should be of my own volition.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did you actually come personally to Singsong City just to protect me?”

He studied me. “No. I also developed a conglomerate, a city inside the city, and experimented with a new philosophy that has been incredibly beneficial to my people and myself. When I came here, the city was a mess. You remember, I’m sure, those dark days when demons were taking over everything in the undercity and Sing. There was a mass exodus from Singsong by all the civilized.”

“Which is why we stayed. So you saw an opportunity, getting investments, buildings like the Granite for a steal, and created order so that you could profit off it.” I shook my head at him. “You really are a clever goblin. Some see chaos, you see opportunity. A girl starts writing to you in goblin. Some see a security breach, you see an out from an irritating compulsion that’s always hung over your head. I guess I am your girlfriend. Do you have a bathroom?” My stomach was churning and tying in tighter and tighter knots, not helped by the idea that Sashimi had been watching me for that long, that my life had been a thread just waiting for a goblin to cut.

He nodded and gestured to the door opposite the raccoon. I got off his lap awkwardly, kneeing his thigh in the process, then stumbled through a door, into a dark, close space that smelled like Sashimi’s shampoo and his skin. A narrow bed was on the side, and then there was another door to the bathroom, which was very nice, spacious, with a claw-footed tub.

I climbed into the tub and sat down, trying not to be sick. The raccoon’s thoughts were far enough away that they didn’t press on my brain. I’d heard about people who had familiars, how sick they were with vertigo and the weirdness of sharing their thoughts with another species. Add to that this new development. I was the Goblin King’s girlfriend.

Not that it was very new if he’d been protecting me all this time. From goblins. Not only goblins. Our shop never got looted or raided. We didn’t lose a single window. That couldn’t have been a coincidence. I mean, it could have been, but it wasn’t. Why did he stop writing to me if he was going to eat my sushi? And how was he bound to me?

The letters must have bound us. His words and mine. And then food. I’d fed him. That bound familiars and apparently goblin kings as well. He’d already been that green superhero in my skin that could fight off the Magga’s transformation.

I started hyperventilating. I couldn’t help it. I’d never even dated, but now I’m bound to a Goblin King so he doesn’t have to actually fall in love? For the rest of my life? Dating someone who doesn’t want me? How was that a good deal? It wasn’t. It absolutely wasn’t. I’d always assumed I’d find a nice, quiet cook who would adore me, like my dad did my mom. And then we’d have a couple kids, and live in happy chaos ever after. I would fight for justice and truth, and he would feed me. And now…

I straightened up and took a deep breath. Now, I had a murderer to catch, and I was dating the Goblin King who wasn’t only devious and clever, he was also rich, powerful, and someone who belonged where all the other rich and powerful people who ruled the city hung out. Namely, the gala where I was going to go for our first date. It was after six, so I’d have to hurry if I wanted to pull this off. Did I want to go out publicly with a goblin?

I stared at my reflection in the mirror. I looked capable, right? Sure, there was some strain around my eyes and mouth, but nothing serious. Seriously, having a raccoon familiar that my goblin boyfriend had tamed seemed just as impossible now as it had five minutes ago.

I took a deep breath and left the bathroom, but I didn’t go directly out to the office. Instead, I went to the other set of doors in the quiet, dark, clearly private sleep space and opened it to reveal the closet. There were so many weapons, but there were also different kinds of clothing. One suit was a blur that showed the back of the closet. Was it invisible? Technology or magic? I shook my head. That’s not what I was looking for.

“Rynne, are you all right?” Sashimi asked from the room, standing outside the bathroom.

“I’m in here,” I called, taking the tuxedo off the rail and carrying it into his bedroom.

He looked from me to the tuxedo, a thoughtful look in his eyes. “You have my tuxedo.”

“Right. Since we’re dating, we should, you know, date. And I know exactly where our first official date should be.”

He moved closer, still studying me intently. “You’re upset. Do you want to talk about it?”

I snorted. “Did you get that line from a movie or something? Goblins don’t talk about things.”

“Of course goblins talk about things, just not usually feelings. My uncle had to learn to talk to humans. His job was to keep my mother alive, but she needed tenderness and nourishing more than blatant protection, so that’s what he gave her. I learned from him how to be adaptable, from war, defense, or emotional bonding.”

“How nice to have that option. It’s like a therapist in the whole goblin king package.” I handed him his suit and headed for the door. “If you’d pick me up at ‘Change Your Stripes,’ by eight, I’d appreciate it.”

“Do you need me to make reservations?” he asked, draping the suit over his arm.

“No, but you might need tickets. Otherwise, you’ll have to sneak us into the governor’s ball.”

His brows rose while his eyes darkened, glowing ever so slightly. “Governor’s ball? You want to publicly date me, a goblin, at the governor’s ball? Everyone will know about it in a matter of minutes.”

I shrugged, although my chest was so tight I could hardly breathe. I’d never have a nice normal relationship with a nice normal person who actually liked me. Not that my odds had been terribly good even before the Magga’s curse. “You didn’t say that we’d have to pretend date. You said date. Is that true? Can we have just a pretend relationship?”

He hesitated, then shook his head no. “We will have to continue to feed the binding, or the Magga’s curse will take over.”

“I guess it’s good to know that there’s an out if I ever get bored being your human decoy. I can just switch to team goblin. You can pick me up at Stripes at eight.”

“And if I can’t get you into the governor’s ball?”

I patted his shoulder. “Then I guess we can break into some houses instead. But my outfit will be all wrong.”

“Lady Justice wants to do some breaking and entering?”

“I want…” I clenched my fists and tried to control my aching heart. I wanted to be free of these chains to him and his people, but at least the price I’d pay kept my brother safe. I’d really thought the goblins would kill him.

He moved closer, eyes softening with concern. “I know that you’re struggling. I can smell your emotions, your panic. I can take you anywhere you want to go, breaking or procuring a ticket, but whatever you do now can’t be undone after you’ve had time to consider the implications. Publicly dating me will cause you problems at work, at home, all over.”

I took a shaky breath and felt like I was going to burst into tears. I didn’t cry. He shouldn’t be gentle with me. Goblins weren’t gentle, but apparently he could pretend to be gentle if he thought it would help him with long-term issues.

I raised my chin. “You just announced that I was your girlfriend. But now you want to keep our whole thing private? No. My mother would rather I date a goblin than I was single, and Lieutenant Joss hired you to come in. You’ve managed to become practically respectable.”

“People hire us, but it’s still the same reaction to a goblin as there always has been and always will be, and with good reason. Many of us are bloodthirsty world-wreckers who have nothing better to do than relish the pain of others.”

“Another warning. That’s you, is it? It doesn’t matter what you’re like when you’re so disciplined. I’m your ticket to staying out of love-prison, so you’ll do your best to keep me vaguely content. I always wanted a boyfriend who didn’t like me.”

“I do like you, Rynne Sato. Your character is admirable. I am not incapable of admiring character.”

I nodded and headed for the door. “Of course it is. My character is so admirable.” It was like the demon with the soul thing. Yes, I’m so grand under the surface. What was wrong with my surface? I didn’t seem horrible looking when I saw my reflection, but I guess nothing said, ‘desirable female who you’ll want to throw away your life to romance.’ Probably didn’t go with the cop job description.

I hesitated, then turned to look at him over my shoulder. He had followed me out, still holding the tuxedo.

“Do you mind paying for my dress? I want to get something really expensive.”

He shook his head, frowning slightly. “Rynne, I own the bank. Money isn’t an issue.” He came towards me and handed me a black card.

I looked at it and then up at him. “What’s this?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Other than freedom.”

His smile was bitter. “Freedom is usually an illusion. Someone always has to pay for it.”

I took the card and turned around, marching out of his office like I had somewhere to go.