Backyard Goblins 3

Alphonse Fisk, Virgil Knightley

Copyright © 2024, Virgil Knightley

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Contents

1. Chapter 1

2. Chapter 2

3. Chapter 3

4. Chapter 4

5. Chapter 5

6. Chapter 6

7. Chapter 7

8. Chapter 8

9. Chapter 9

10. Chapter 10

11. Chapter 11

12. Chapter 12

13. Chapter 13

14. Chapter 14

15. Chapter 15

16. Chapter 16

17. Chapter 17

18. Chapter 18

19. Chapter 19

20. Chapter 20

21. Links to Follow

Chapter 1

It was unseasonably hot in Wisconsin. All across the state, temperatures were soaring with the blistering summer heat of a nearly finished August. The clicking whine of a chorus of cicadas was as prominent as it had been months before and showed no sign of quieting. Most of the people I’d spoken to in town were over it—completely done with the heat and eager for the cool of autumn to gain a foothold.

I was a little different. Before setting up my homestead at the edge of Wa-Pa Lake, I would have agreed with them. But now that I was growing my own produce and spending my leisure hours going for dips in the lake off a recently completed dock, I found that summer agreed with me despite it overstaying its welcome with others.

I also had several others I shared the property with who seemed to agree—goblins from another world that I had given refuge to frolicked in the shallows nearby. There had been three early on, Moppi, Poppi, and Koko, followed soon by more. First, there was Katanika the hobgoblin, then Shantaka the orc, then came the rest of the goblins, led by the eldest among them, Susu.

At some point, shortly after the original three goblins joined me, my old friend and now girlfriend Susie had moved in as well, unfazed by the presence of otherworldly creatures living in my backyard and helping me with chores. She’d come to like them almost as quickly as I had. But the thing that really set my unconventional commune aside was that we were all…sexually intimate.

I guess that’s not specific enough to be different from other communes, come to think of it. Specifically, I was the one doing the lion’s share of the screwing. Each of these creatures had their own strange customs that revolved around mating. After coming to understand the precarious state of life in the world of Elyndor, it made sense, but when I first met them, it had been quite baffling.

Every one of them was vying for a chance to get in my pants and either earn a right to breed or otherwise gain my favor. Their former ruler had been a draconian and malevolent figure that forced them all to compete with one another to be elevated out of squalor, so it became a habit for them. The fact I was a Zintari only compounded the issue.

Zintari, or Specials as the goblins called them, were a type of individual capable of reaping the souls of monsters. This power caused a boost in one’s physical attributes as well as an inexplicable ability to augment and alter those who swore loyalty to the Zintari.

That is to say—me. Each of the goblins had been modified in different ways in accordance with the desires they harbored on a conscious or subconscious level. I had even altered the non-goblins, including Susie. They all possessed supernatural abilities of their own that they regarded as magical.

All of this was something I learned along the way. Had I known from the outset how things functioned, I would not have traded sexual loyalty in exchange for power. That was never meant to be the arrangement. But it was their way, and any attempt on my part to deviate from it would often set their worldviews into chaos. They viewed even the slightest aversions as disfavor or a sign that they were to be imminently exiled and cast into the wilderness where they would surely perish. It sounds dramatic, but it was how they thought of it. Goblins weren’t high in the pecking order of Elyndor, and they had no reason to think otherwise of Earth. It didn’t help that they would likely become test subjects were they ever to be discovered.

“Are you asleep?” Poppi asked me as I lounged in the grass in the shade of a tree by the water.

I opened my eyes and offered her a warm smile. “Nah, just relaxing. What’s up?”

“I finished the orders up,” the small goblin woman answered, her intelligent cerulean eyes sparkling as she returned my smile. Her black hair was tied back in a simple ponytail as always, matched perfectly by the little black bikini she’d put on to join the others. The fabric left little to the imagination, which was how most of the goblins liked to do things. “Do you need anything else before I get wet?”

I quirked a brow, causing the goblin to break into a fit of giggles at the acknowledgment of her phrasing. She waved a hand at me like I was the perverted one. “Not like that! But maybe after if you want.”

“I don’t need anything else,” I responded, ignoring her offer for the time being. If I took her up on it the others were certain to protest or insist that they get a turn right after. Poppi was often quick to seize moments of calm and quiet as a chance to mount me, and the others often resented her for what they saw as treachery and sneakiness. Really, I just think moments of calm put her in the mood, and her preferred form of intimacy was the same. It was hard to tell with goblins, sometimes.

Poppi offered me a nod of acknowledgement before scampering off toward the dock, hurling herself off the end of it in a cannonball to splash the others doggy paddling around nearby.

“Hey!” Susu snapped, her peaceful sunbathing on a floating unicorn pool toy suddenly interrupted by the splashing. She wore a string bikini meant to get my attention every time I looked in her general direction. It was prone to numerous accidental nip-slips that weren’t so accidental. She often feigned a wizened disinterest in sex but was as horny as the others—if not more so. “Bad Poppi!”

The goblin was the matriarch of the group that had arrived later but often butted heads with the original three for supremacy. Her age was considered worthy of the title of elder despite being barely middle-aged by natural goblin lifespans. Surviving as long as she had under the former goblin king was considered a feat unto itself. Most deferred to her authority on things when left to their own devices, but Poppi bucked at her authority now that they had resettled with me.

“Shut it, hag!” Moppi snapped back from the water nearby, standing in the shallows. “Or I pop unicorn!”

Moppi was of the same tribe as Poppi and Susu, though the elder goblin’s naming convention apparently followed a different rule due to the age gap between them. In goblin tribes, goblins born in the same generation often had names that rhymed or began with the same letter and had the same number of syllables. It was just one way they seemed alienated from her despite having known her before all this.

They apparently harbored a distaste for revering elders just for the sake of revering someone other than the king. Now that she had spent some time living with me, she saw even less of a reason to give the older goblin female the time of day. The fact that she now possessed enhancements bestowed upon her by their new king—me—made it even easier for her to talk back openly. Her physique reflected this fact, being of a sturdier and more athletic build than just about any of the other goblin girls. Adding to that, she was the only one among them who aspired to become a true warrior for their people.

“HAG!?” Susu shrieked, leaping from her floating unicorn to tackle Moppi back into the water. As sturdy as the younger goblin was, her footing in the water had been suboptimal. The two both fell, splashing about wildly. I’d granted Susu an enhancement or two since she’d arrived so she wasn’t quite the pushover she would have been when in Elyndor.

Koko, the busty redheaded goblin with chunky braids running down her back, seized the opportunity to climb onto the unicorn and paddle it away from the fight inconspicuously. Her bikini was a vibrant, scarlet red that clung to her breasts for dear life, the thin, wet material shimmering in the sun.

Koko arched her back tantalizingly as she settled into her newly acquired luxury watercraft. After the last few had been popped or deflated, she was smart to get it away from the squabble as quickly as possible.

“Alright, you two!” I yelled from my spot under the tree. “Break it up right now!”

The two squabbling goblins froze, looking over at me apprehensively, wary of the stiff penalty of not complying—being picked up and hurled into the deeper water with my freakish strength. It didn’t endanger them at all; most of them were surprisingly capable swimmers and very buoyant, but it was embarrassing for them regardless. They quickly broke it up, though they continued to stare daggers at one another as I settled back into my relaxed posture.

“Hup!” Susie grunted as she hoisted herself up onto the unicorn float next to Koko. Her auburn hair, usually tied into pigtails, had been allowed to cascade down her back, where it clung to her skin like a wet shower curtain. She kicked her long, lithe legs around as the two struggled to fit on the floaty together before she finally managed to settle in beside her. Koko giggled as Susie whipped her hair out of her face.

“There we go,” she announced, finally comfortable in her position next to the much smaller goblin. Besides me, Susie was the only human that lived on the homestead. I’d known her since we were both kids, dated her briefly in high school, and reconnected with her in college, where we became fuck-buddies.

Recently, we’d decided to give proper dating another shot and were pleased with the results. She often joked that it meant she always had cock on tap, but it was clear to me how much deeper her feelings went for me. There was no mistaking the look she gave me when we sat by the fire at night or how she gazed at me when she thought I wasn’t looking. I was probably doing the same thing for her without even realizing it.

Koko nudged Susie with her elbow before nodding discreetly in my direction. They both got the same look of mischief in their eyes as the goblin pulled her top to one side, revealing a large, plump goblin breast beading with a little milk at the nipple. Susie leaned in and took the dark green flesh of the nipple into her mouth and began to suck, greedily swallowing the milk the goblin’s body offered freely.

“Ohhh!” Koko moaned, only slightly exaggerating with how sensitive her body typically was. She curled and writhed as Susie rubbed the thin red fabric concealing her sex. For a bunch that considered Poppi’s overtures to be treachery, they were awfully brazen with their own as they put on a show for me.

“If only we had some big fat fuck-meat to help us!” Susie lamented dramatically before returning to her self-indulgent suckling. As much as I feigned annoyance, there was no denying the raging erection in my shorts as I watched them put on a lurid display just for me. The only problem with such a display was how open it was—making it vulnerable to interruption by the others.

Without warning, Poppi, Susu, and a handful of others converged on the float, using all their strength to flip it and toss the pair of pool toy sirens back into the lake. They squealed and splashed in protest, to no avail. With the group's goal now achieved, the temporary alliance dissolved as the various goblins vied for control of the unicorn float. It was a minor miracle that they were able to keep themselves from putting a hole in it immediately.

As the chaos spread in the water, I glanced up at the sun making its downward slide toward the horizon. Despite the heat, the days were getting noticeably shorter. But I noticed clouds beginning to build on the horizon that came with a promise of rain that was sure to cool things off. We might have been enjoying the last gasp of summer after all. With that in mind, I broke into a sprint without warning, thudding heavily across the dock before hurling myself into a cannonball close to the squabbling goblins.

Sometimes the only way to settle things with them was to get my hands dirty and roughhouse with them a little. I didn’t mind, and neither did they, as I tossed them about in the water, peeling them off of me as they scrambled up my torso from the front and the back. Some attempted to weigh my arms down, clinging to them with both arms and legs, but my strength at that point was far beyond their ability to thwart my movements.

I wore them out fairly quickly before climbing my way back onto the dock to turn my attention to more important matters—like dinner. I grabbed a towel on my way back from the lake but hardly bothered with it beyond my hair, electing to mostly air dry in the waning heat.

What had once been a single shipping container converted into a living space for myself had ballooned into a half dozen containers arranged together in almost luxury fashion. None of the goblins that had come from Elyndor in the second wave had wanted to return home, even with my personal guarantee that I would visit and watch over them.

Not only had we required additional sleeping space and personal rooms for each goblin, but space to accommodate them in the coming winter months. Poppi had been the one to think of the latter, pointing out to me that goblins’ small stature often made it difficult for them to brave the cold, forcing them to remain mostly indoors.

“Done already?” A hobgoblin asked as I approached the firepit that served as our main means of cooking during the summer and a central gathering point during the cool evenings. Katanika, or Kate as I referred to her, was nearly as tall as Susie, with blue skin, snow-white hair, and inquisitive green eyes.

“Yeah,” I answered, jerking my thumb up toward the sun. “It’s getting close to dinner time.”

Kate got up from the picnic bench, an assortment of arrows she had assembled sitting in a neat pile next to her. “I could have started it for you,” she said.

“I thought you deserved a break after all the scouting lately,” I responded. “You should have come for a dip, though.”

“The water is anything but relaxing when they’re all there,” Kate chuckled. She meant what she said, but her words were not insulting or venomous. It was simply a fact of life for her. “I’d find sitting on your face much more to my liking.”

Kate often seemed more mature and dignified, but it made her sexual overtures even more interesting when they came. She leaned a little closer to me, running a finger down my bare, wet chest. “I know how much you like it,” she purred. “We could get some in real quick before you start dinner.”

“Katanika,” I said in mock surprise. “Are you propositioning me for a quickie so you don’t have to share with the others?”

Kate’s eyes gleamed slyly as she wiggled her eyebrows. “Depends on how much you like the idea.”

“If you get his face, then I get yours,” a large orc announced as she emerged from the house of shipping containers nearby. Shantaka was the only one of the group who had not come from Elyndor but from a world called Numedha, which we still knew fairly little about. She was slightly taller than Kate with olive-colored skin, yellow-on-black eyes, wild, dark hair that reached down to the tantalizing curve of her butt, and a small pair of ivory white tusks that protruded from her lower lip.

“It has been too long since I have felt a tongue upon my nethers,” Shantaka warned. “If you try to keep his for yourself, I am forced to use yours.”

“You speak as though this is a threat,” Kate laughed before the two embraced. “I’m glad to see you on your feet again.”

“Thank you,” Shantaka responded warmly, pressing her forehead to Kate’s in a customary sign of affection among her people. It typically replaced the gesture of a kiss due to the tusks they possessed but was exchanged more freely among those close to one another, regardless of sex or relation. “It was only a minor injury. My enhancements saw to a swift recovery.”

Shantaka and Kate had been on a scouting mission in Numedha recently to seek out the source of a mysterious pounding heard on the door of the portal. Though they hadn’t managed to find the exact source, they had managed to run afoul of some demons.

Initially, I’d believed them to be a singular type of creature, but the more scouting Kate did, the more I realized it was a designation for a whole class of creatures that roamed the subterranean tunnels of Shantaka’s homeworld. They’d bested the creatures, but the orc had taken a solid blow that had thrown her against a cavern wall head-first. With the increased healing I’d modified her with, all she’d needed was a nap to sleep it off.

“Good,” I chimed in. “You can help us with dinner.”

The three of us got to work, slicing and cutting what we needed to throw into pans or onto spits. Goblin appetites were difficult to satisfy, mostly because they ate like every meal might be their last. The first three had improved lately, but the second wave of goblins was still adjusting to a place where they didn’t have to worry about where their next meal came from.

Even if the homestead ran out of resources to feed all of us, I still had more than enough money to stock up on groceries indefinitely. The whole concept of a grocery store was still difficult to explain to them, considering I couldn’t exactly bring them with me wherever I went.

Still, we’d planted more crops and taken more livestock to help them feel more at ease. It was also useful in helping them pass the time. The more goblins there were, the more prone they seemed to be to infighting if even only one of them had an abundance of free time on their hands.

The group from the lake came wandering up just as we were putting the last of the food onto platters and plates at the picnic table. I had abandoned the traditional method of portioning out plates for each individual and just allowed them to grab what they wanted from platters to fill their own plates.

“Hands!” I said with a firm voice as Moppi approached, ready to dig in before the others. The group took a short detour to wash up before returning to the table to eat. Little things like that were also relatively foreign to the goblins, but they were willing to take my word on why it was important. I sincerely doubted that any of them was likely to catch a cold, having resorted to a fixed set of upgrades where I could fortify them against such things, but that didn’t mean there was any reason to risk it.

With plentiful food available, the goblins reverted to a much friendlier, boisterous, and jovial bunch. They laughed and joked with one another while packing away staggering amounts of meat. Some had come around to the vegetables I’d put up on offer, and most had developed a taste for potatoes and rice, but the amount of meat they consumed was still impressive. Fruit went over better, but I had less of it available to gather until further into autumn. And, of course, there was junk food, which I had taken to stocking much less of since the last incident of Koko and two others sniffing out where I’d stashed it and devouring it entirely before I caught them.

When dinner was finished, most of the group assisted with clearing the table while others set about the nightly chores to get things ready for the next day. When a rumble of thunder in the distance caught my attention, I let them off the hook so they could huddle inside.

Storms in Elyndor were much deadlier than the ones in Wisconsin, but the mental and emotional effect it had on the goblin girls was the same. They were terrified of them. Even Poppi, after a recent upgrade made her the most well-read of the bunch, who I had explained lightning to on several occasions, could not overcome her deep-seated fear of thunderstorms. Even rain was enough to put them on edge if it came too hard and fast.

There was a section in one of the containers designed to resemble a conversation pit, which in practice was more like a cuddle puddle on most evenings. We settled down inside it well before the storm hit instead of going to our respective beds. As the thunder rumbled overhead and the lightning flashed outside, the end of summer felt like it had finally arrived.

With an entire pack of goblins piled atop me, snoozing and snoring with the comfort my presence gave them, I felt a little wistful thinking about the turning of the seasons. It wasn’t as though it would be the last summer ever, but I still found it comforting that they’d had a last day in the year for a little summer fun before the hard work of autumn approached.

As I drifted off, I reminded myself that I had done everything I could to prepare them and that they were as ready as they would ever be for what was coming next. All that was left was for me to place my trust in them as they had done with me.

Chapter 2

“Barnes,” a familiar, grumbling voice cut through the blissful nothing of sleep. I grunted, turning my head away from the source of the voice.

I felt a cold, crisp chill in the air soon after. Outside, the wind howled more intensely as the storm seemed to gain steam. For a moment, I considered the idea that I’d mistaken my name for thunder or the sound of something being knocked around in the wind. But only for a moment.

“Barnes,” the voice repeated, much gruffer than before. “Wake up. We got a problem.”

I snorted, my eyes coming open as I realized who was speaking. Standing at the edge of the pit full of goblins was the pale, eerily still figure of Dick Boulder’s ghost. Regardless of lighting, he was always heavily shadowed, casting his features in an even bleaker state than the lack of color in his skin already did. His eyes lacked the subtle shifts, movements, and moisture of the living, appearing to be more like that of a doll’s. His characteristic stubble was ever present and his hair was still thin, but it was fortunate he had a head at all after what I’d done to him. It had been a fatal misunderstanding between us.

“W-what?” I grunted sleepily, rubbing my eyes as I gently pried myself out from under Susie and the goblins. “What’s happening?”

“Hurry,” he retorted simply, a look of urgency on his face. “The portal—!”

He was gone between blinks. It wasn’t unusual for him to vanish suddenly due to how much effort went into him manifesting in such a way that I could see him, but it was never quite so abrupt. Certainly, it was never before he’d finished completing his thought.

I quickly put on some clothes and stumbled to the door. There, I watched as a flash of lightning illuminated sheets of driving rain in the night.

“Holy shit,” I muttered, glancing around to see how badly everything appeared to be flooding. I dug into a trunk containing clothing for more severe weather, grabbing a coat and a pair of rain boots. It was only then that I realized I didn’t have enough for everyone.

“Susie,” I said, hopping into the room as I awkwardly pulled one of the boots on. “We’re getting some flooding.”

“Hm?” She mumbled, sitting up slowly in the pile of goblins. “Huh?”

“Do you have any rain boots?” I asked, pressing forward as my mind went to Boulder’s warning. Had he just meant the rain? Was the cave where the portal was located completely flooded? If that were the case, I wasn’t sure if there was anything I could do about it.

“I think so?” Susie mumbled, grasping around for her glasses for a moment before her hand finally settled on them. “What’s going on?”

“The rain is really bad,” I explained as briefly as I could. “I need you to help me. I’m going to go check on the crops and the cave. I need you to make sure we won’t end up bailing the kitchen out or something.”

“Yeah,” she acknowledged, tying her hair back as the gravity of the situation finally began to sink in. “I’ll be out in a minute. I’ll see if I can find something for Kate and Shantaka.”

Susie was already thinking ahead of me. She knew that no matter how much rain gear we had, there was a snowball’s chance in hell that we would ever get them to go out into the storm. Fastening everything as tightly as I could and grabbing an LED flashlight bright enough to see into the future, I threw the door open and stepped out to check on the storm.

I was almost immediately bowled over by the storm as a powerful gust of rain-sodden wind slammed into me. I braced myself against it and pushed on, making my way first to the extensive garden we’d built for ourselves, seeing as it was on the way. Each of the plants was contained in a short stack of tires stuffed with fertile soil. The tires would keep the water out, but there was still a danger of the tires themselves flooding out.

When I got to the first plants, I grabbed a spare screwdriver from a nearby toolbox and drove it into the top ridge of each tire with superhuman strength, creating drainage holes to keep the soil from becoming too waterlogged.

Once I was satisfied my crops wouldn’t immediately drown, I continued on toward the cave. Being that it was much lower than the rest of the property, the rain had pooled to the point that the water came up to my knees.

Nothing electrical had been left behind, so the only damage was going to be to the wood platform that we had constructed leading up to the portal and the frame we had put around it with a metal track and a hand-cranked metal garage door that prevented unwanted entry. The C4 we’d rigged to the underside of the platform would have to be checked later, once the water receded. I flashed the light around to examine what the damage might have been and froze when I saw a figure standing at the door to the portal.

I discovered the portal several months ago. Without the frame and door, it was an innocuous part of the cavern wall in the relatively shallow cave. It brought Moppi, Poppi, and Koko here and provided the means to get back to Elyndor and Numedha, depending on what each of us was carrying on our person at the time.

Objects from the other world were required as a key to a given destination. My fear had always been that something I left behind in Elyndor would lead to someone with ill intent following me back home.

My stomach dropped as I tried to make out the figure who held his hand up toward the light the moment I shined it in his direction. I regretted not grabbing a weapon on my way out of the house, knowing that if this was the Zintari known as Balor, I would need every advantage I could get in a fight.

As I looked at the figure, I realized it wasn’t built like Balor. He was taller, thinner, and well-dressed, albeit in clothes that seemed a century or two out of date. He squinted at me from behind his pale hand, his demeanor neither timid nor aggressive. In contrast, Balor always stood like he owned the room when not attempting to appear casual and relaxed, which he often failed to do.

“Hello,” the figure said politely.“I didn't mean to alarm you.”

“Who are you?” I asked sternly, restraining myself from becoming too aggressive. I realized recently that whenever I felt like my home or those I cared for were threatened, I had a tendency to fly off the handle. Restraint was a conscious decision in such situations.

“I am called Winters,” the man replied with a precise and elegant cadence to his speech. “Please. The light?”

“Uh, right,” I acknowledged, moving the beam to the side so that I could still see him without blasting him in the face. “What are you doing here?”

The man lowered his hand, revealing a smiling face, large, pale blue, watery eyes, and slicked-back blonde hair that was nearly white in the indirect light. His skin was very pale, but not to the point that he seemed ill. He was fairly nondescript in most ways, but his clothes looked like something a gentleman might have worn a hundred years ago. “Who are you?”

“I’m Daryl Barnes,” I answered readily. “This is my property that you’re—.”

I froze, realizing that when the man had spoken, his mouth hadn’t moved. Instead, it kept that same strange smile that it always had. It was the kind of smile I would have for school pictures when I was in the first grade. It was uncanny and artificial, yet I sensed no malice behind it. Still, hearing him speak without seeing his lips move was enough to put me back on my guard.

“Barnes,” he repeated carefully as if trying the sound of it out for the first time. “You are the Barnes that Boulder spoke of.”

I narrowed my eyes as my grip on the flashlight tightened. I took a cautionary step forward, prepared to fight if I had to. “You knew Boulder?”

“No,” Winters answered, his eyes unblinking, his mouth unmoving. “I only just met him tonight.”

Once again a chill ran down my spine as I struggled to maintain the grip on my flashlight. There was something terribly wrong here. “Boulder is dead,” I corrected him.

“Yet he remains,” Winters casually noted. “Have you bound him to this place?”

“I…” I wasn’t sure how to answer that. Boulder’s ghost and I had both determined that he was somehow anchored to me, but we didn’t know how or why. “I suppose I have, but I don’t know how it was done.”

It was an unusually honest answer. I had no intentions of specifically lying or misleading the strange man, but I also wasn’t very comfortable speaking about it. Winters seemed to accept the answer. “You are Zintari.”

It wasn’t a question or even an observation. It felt like an answer to what I had said, though it didn’t make any sense to me. “You know about Zintari?”

“I do,” Winters answered precisely before turning his head toward the house. “Do you live here?”

“Yeah,” I answered, furrowing my brow as I took a few steps closer. My sense of unease waned despite how surreal and unusual the situation felt to me. I had a distinct feeling that the strange, willowy man meant me no harm. “What are you doing here?”

“I am an assessor,” Winters explained in his precise and elegant tone. “I came to see the gateway.”

I glanced at the closed door, the lock, and the hand crank used to open it. None of them had been disturbed. “How did you get through the door?”

“The rain,” Winters answered before looking back at the door. “But I am unable to leave now that my work is completed.”

“You want to go through the portal?” I asked, confused. If he had come through the portal, how had he gotten past the door, and why was he now struggling with the door to get back? It didn’t make any sense.

“I would like to go home,” Winters stated. “Boulder was adamant that I wait for you.”

“Boulder said that?” I grunted, glancing around to see if I could see his ghost lingering around to confirm it.

“His language was more vulgar, but yes.” Winters turned his attention back to me, the ever-present smile catching me off-guard once again. “He does not like me.”

“We’re a little on edge lately due to some unexplained noises on the door and another Zintari,” I explained, feeling the words fall right out of me without a second of consideration. “He’s sort of our lookout right now.”

“Commendable,” Winters remarked before glancing around the cave once more. “Did you do this?”

“Do what?” I looked up at the rough stone of the walls and ceiling. “Make the cave? No. There was an earthquake, and I found it after.”

“Other beings have come through?” He asked curiously.

“A few,” I answered, still confused as to how forthcoming I was with the information. I felt comfortable with the man, like I had known him for quite some time. “Goblins, Orcs, things like that.”

“Then you are connected to Elyndor,” Winters noted.

“And Numedha,” I added, my hand holding the flashlight faltering a bit more to one side. “But we haven’t explored Numedha much.”

“It is dangerous,” Winters cautioned, holding up a hand and placing it on the door. “That is where the noises originated. The beings there wish you harm.”

“Do you?” I asked, sounding far less accusatory than I might normally have been in the situation.

“I am an assessor,” Winters repeated, staring at me for a moment longer before seemingly realizing that he had failed to address my concern. “No. I do not mean you harm.”

“What does an assessor do, precisely?” I hadn’t learned much about the man despite how long we’d been speaking. Something about him was simultaneously direct and evasive.

Winters considered the question, folding his hands in front of him thoughtfully. “When a new gateway becomes active, we come to assess. We determine the state of the gateway and the world it belongs to. In this instance, the gateway was previously active before being rendered inactive. I was the assessor assigned to this task when it was last active and was asked to reassess when it became active again.”

We had just gone from not enough information to far too much information in too short a time. There was a lot to expand upon, but I had a vague sense that we didn’t have much more time to speak. “How do you know about the Zintari?”

“My people met the Zintari long ago before they destroyed themselves.” Winters looked back at the door, and despite his unchanged expression, I sensed a vague sense of anxiety in him.

“Are you alright?” I wondered, feeling a strange empathy toward the man.

“I wish to return home,” Winters stated, smiling at me.

“Alright,” I agreed, sloshing through the water toward the crank on the opposite wall. “How did you manage to get here if you can’t get through the door, though?”

“The rain,” Winters responded without offering any additional context to the first time he’d answered the question. I turned the crank easily with one hand while keeping the light close enough to him that I could see him without blinding him.

“Where are you from?” I asked, curious as the door settled into place in the track along the ceiling.

“Itaris,” Winters replied, his unchanging face somehow conveying a sense of gratitude. “Would you like to see it?”

“I would, but I can’t,” I admitted. “I have people here who rely on me. I wouldn’t want to worry them or leave them unguarded.”

“You are a guardian?” Winters asked, his unmoving lips never faltering despite the sense of curiosity and wonder I was getting from him. “Curious.”

“Why is that curious?” I chuckled. It was a fancy title, sure, but it wasn’t so unusual as to become so curious about it.

“There are no Zintari Guardians,” he remarked matter-of-factly. “Or so we believed.”

“I don’t know much about the Zintari,” I responded, my face troubled. “So I don’t really understand the significance of your statement.”

Winters considered what I said for a moment, blinking only once in the long stretch of silence. “Perhaps the significance should remain irrelevant to you then so that you may focus better upon your task.”

I shrugged, seeing a little wisdom in that. Worrying about the meaning or significance of things on too grand a scale could become distracting from what was right in front of me. “Fair enough.”

“I have enjoyed our conversation,” Winters stated abruptly. “May I return at a later time for another, when I have the time to spare?”

“Uh,” I mumbled, clearing my throat. “I suppose? I don’t see any harm in it so long as you remain peaceful.”

“Of course,” Winters assured me. I realized now that the grin reminded me a little of the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland if someone had left it on pause. “I do not wish to harm you.”

“Well, then, the answer is yes,” I clarified with a shrug. “Sure.”

“Wonderful,” Winters answered, turning toward the portal without another word before stepping through. I stared at the undisturbed rock beyond the frame for a moment, absolutely confused as the various sensations of my surroundings returned to me. I didn’t realize it, but the cold of the water, the sound of the wind, and the crashes of thunder overhead had somehow become distant, far-off concerns.

No sooner had I become aware of the storm again than it suddenly ceased. It wasn’t at all like how storms typically die down, with a gradual relenting of the rain while the thunder became more distant. Instead, it was more like when someone turned off the shower. The pressure dropped off fairly quickly, leaving behind only the telltale dripping of wet surfaces to let you know it had even been there.

I quickly closed the door, placed the lock back on the crank, and stepped out of the cave. Overhead, the remnants of the clouds vanished from view, leaving only the silver glow of the moon behind amid a twinkling starlit sky. Within moments there was little indication that there had been a storm present at all.

“Daryl?” Susie called as she came down the hill toward me. “Is everything alright? How bad is the flooding?”

I furrowed my brows as I stared at her. She didn’t seem aware of how strange the situation was or how quickly the storm had passed. Moreover, she had no idea that it had coincided with the departure of the unexpected guest known as Winters.

“It’s not too bad,” I answered cautiously, watching her for any signs of something abnormal in her behavior. Besides her remaining oblivious to the swiftly departing storm, nothing seemed amiss. “How did things go with you?”

“Everything’s ok,” she laughed a little. “We got lucky. Kate and Shantaka are bailing some things out right now but I was worried about you, jerk.”

“How am I the jerk?” I chuckled, slowly climbing my way up the hill. “I just went to check on the portal. Boulder seemed concerned.”

“What was he so concerned about?” Susie wondered, following after me.

“I don’t know,” I responded with a puzzled shrug. “He was really worried about something but wasn’t able to get it all out before he disappeared.”

“And there was nothing in the cave?” she asked, her eyes filled with concern.

“No,” I answered, shaking my head before catching myself. For a brief moment, my conversation with the strange man had slipped my mind entirely. It wasn’t like it was unimportant—it definitely was. But my mind had tried to skip over it, leading me to believe that besides a little flooding, there had been nothing noteworthy to see. “Wait, yes. Yes, there was something there.”

“What?” Susie placed a hand on my arm to slow me down, meeting my gaze.

“It was…” I trailed off, struggling to hold onto the thought. The more I tried, the more it slipped through my fingers. “There was a man.”

“A man,” she repeated, pouting as she waited for me to offer more detail. “Just… a man?”

“A strange man,” I clarified to the best of my ability. All of his specific features eluded me, save for his smile. He’d smiled a lot. He reminded me of the Cheshire cat. He had a cat smile. “He was nice.”

“Nice,” Susie scoffed before reaching up with one hand to feel around the back of my head. “Did you slip and hit your head?”

“I don’t think so,” I responded with a slight frown. I didn’t think I had slipped, but now that she had suggested it, I couldn’t be sure that I hadn’t. In fact, I couldn’t remember much about what I’d done in the cave at all.

Chapter 3

“Doesn’t look like there’s any serious damage,” Poppi said, peeking up from the side of the platform. “Guess it wasn’t as bad as you thought?”

“I guess not,” I muttered, scratching the back of my head as I stood atop the platform. I could have sworn that the whole chamber had been flooded, but there was so much about the previous night I was unsure about. “How do the crops look?”

“Really good!” Koko announced as she stepped into the cave, bouncing around happily. “They liked the rain!”

Again, I had thought there would be more damage with the wind and how heavy the rain had been, but I was wrong. “Well, that’s good news.”

“No need to water today, right?” Koko asked expectantly. I shook my head, allowing her and some of the others a little more time to slack off that morning. Nature had taken care of their watering for them.

“We can all relax a little more, it seems,” I chuckled, but the frown on my face wouldn’t let up. I was definitely forgetting something, but every time I tried to retrace my steps from the previous night, my thoughts would wander elsewhere.

It was much cooler than it had been the day before, but it had been enough to allow the water to evaporate. Only a few scattered puddles remained across the entire property, including inside the cave. It felt like a strange dream, and perhaps it was.

I walked back up to the house, where I fired up my laptop. I found a local news station’s site and clicked on their weather report. The recap of the previous night before going into the coming forecast confirmed that the storm had actually happened and that it had been quite a surprise to everyone. But most people were just happy to have the heat finally break to question it too much. We were in the late summer home stretch, with temperatures transitioning over to what we were accustomed to for early fall.

“I blame global warming,” Susie said from over my shoulder as she gnawed on a bagel with cream cheese. She had a towel wrapped around her head and another around her chest that draped down to her thighs.

“You took a shower?” I laughed incredulously. “You didn’t get enough water last night.”

“It was stinky water,” she objected with a little sneer, taking another bite of her bagel before offering me some. “Like poop water or something.”

“Poop water,” I repeated with a laugh, taking a bite from the bagel and handing it back to her. “I don’t smell like poop water.”

“Well, I did,” she countered dismissively, chomping down on her bagel. “What’re we up to today?”

I responded with a quick smile. “Glad you asked. I think today’s the day we take the quads out for a spin.”

A slow smile spread across Susie’s face. “Fuck yeah!” She exclaimed before tossing the bagel back at me to go get dressed. I chuckled a little, peeled the bagel off my shirt, and decided to get changed as well.

Considering how big my property was, I got it practically for a song. But because it was so big, I needed something not only to cover the distance but to help with some of the heavy lifting. After the goblins had arrived, I put it on the back burner.

Now that things were going so well and we were expanding so quickly, the matter had found its way back onto my agenda. The fact I bought multiple of them in one go had put dollar signs in the eyes of the salesman at the dealership and had him practically tripping over himself to throw anything he could in to sweeten the deal.

I bought four utility quads and a few youth ATVs for the goblins to accommodate their smaller size. We’d put off doing the lessons to finish up some other projects, but now that the seasons were beginning to turn, it was time to get them acquainted. Surprisingly, the toughest part had been finding the appropriate safety gear for them, considering they weren’t big enough for adult sizes but also too physically… endowed to fit some of the kids’ sizes.

It took a while to corral everyone for the first round of lessons. The garage we’d built for them was little more than a rickety barn, miraculously unharmed by the storm the night before. The floor was just packed dirt, and each vehicle was stowed in its own little stall with a separate section for maintenance, attachments, and other odds and ends. A few of the snowplows I had picked up in anticipation of winter sat idle in the area, waiting for their chance to be put to good use.

Susie and I both had experience with quads from when we were younger, though I hadn’t had regular access to one since I’d lived with my parents. We wheeled her quad out first and used it as an example for the gathered goblins. We were sure to go through the functions, safety, and so on, but it didn’t stop them from being a little reckless when it came time to try out one of the smaller ones, and it took a while for them to rein in their enthusiasm.

“Moppi!” I shouted with both hands cupped around my mouth. “Hit the brake!”

Moppi had only paid attention to what made the exciting machine go and not much else. As a result, she took off screaming, her ass off the seat and legs wiggling in the air while she laughed maniacally.

“She’s going to kill herself,” Susie muttered as the goblin regained her footing and took a sharp turn. She nearly rolled the whole machine as she charged up a hill to the sound of cheering and hollering from every other goblin gathered.

“I might have made her too durable for that,” I muttered back. Many of the upgrades I’d put into her improved her physical prowess, including durability. It was doubtful that rolling a small quad would do more to her than it would the machine.

Poppi’s problem was just the opposite: being very skittish around the machine. She would tap the accelerator and slam on the brakes, moving in small lurches while squeaking with surprise and fear.

“It’s alright,” I encouraged her from the sidelines. “Just be gentle. Ease into it.”

But again, she kept hammering one thing after the other in her desperate bid to balance the two. Every so often, committing to the gas before deciding to slam on the brakes, tearing up a great deal of the lawn in the process. Eventually, she hopped off the quad, screaming and crying as she hurled her helmet into the crowd of snickering goblins.

“That could have gone better,” Susie chuckled, motioning for Koko to hop on next.

Koko’s problem was baffling. It didn’t matter how many times we explained the operation of the vehicle, she would hit the wrong thing for the purpose she wanted and then flip her shit at the quad like it was somehow willingly thwarting her attempts. She, too, eventually gave up, but instead of running off in a huff, she kicked the tire of the quad, which only ended up hurting her foot.

“This is going to take a while,” I groaned before motioning to Kate to hop onto Susie’s to give it a try. She and Shantaka were the only ones besides Susie and myself who were tall enough to operate them effectively. Kate made herself comfortable, checked her positioning, and ran through her safety checklist quickly before gently engaging the accelerator. She went slow at first, then slowed across the lawn and even slower on the return. She was just slow, sitting stiff and rigid the whole way, but very precise and in control, so I had to consider it a win. The goblins didn’t find it as entertaining.

Shantaka’s run was more like what we had imagined when we purchased the quads. She had a couple of false starts, eased into motion, and then gave a few trial bursts of speed on the straightaway we had set up for training before coming to a relatively controlled stop. Again, not as amusing for the goblins to watch, but it was enough to get the rest of them amped up to try it for themselves.

It went like that for the rest of the day, with a brief break for sandwiches for lunch. Each of the goblins got a turn with Susu proving to be an inspiration to the timid cluster of newbies despite not having much of an aptitude for it herself. Still, by the end of the day even Poppi and Koko had managed to figure things out to the point where I wasn’t overly worried for their safety. The ultimate goal was to bring them with us to Elyndor.

Balor had indicated in our conversation that not all portals allowed for the transportation of things from our world and that mine might even be an exception. If that was the case, I intended to use that advantage more to make things safer for everyone. It also meant I would be able to cover a larger distance to meet with other Zintari who might possess more answers than what Balor had been willing to offer.

That night, when everything had settled down, and the goblins had all crashed for the night, Susie and I took one of the quads up to the cave. Before we could have anyone going into Elyndor for a ride, it was going to be up to us to test it out and find some of the best paths. Balor’s group had hunted down everything they could get their hands on the last time they’d been in the Vale just beyond the portal, but I wasn’t foolish enough to assume the danger was gone entirely. We brought our weapons, just in case there was trouble.

We drove the quad up the ramp and fastened a bit of goblin clothing to the front. The portal didn’t open or give a destination unless there was some kind of item from the other side to act as a key. We had plenty of things we’d picked up along the way, but the scraps the goblins had arrived in suited the needs of the quad the best for now. After that, it was just a matter of driving through with Susie’s arms wrapped firmly around my waist.

We emerged into the cave on the other side, much deeper than the cave on my property. I flicked the light bar installed on the front to illuminate the interior before moving forward. Though there was a platform on the Elyndor side, it was barely elevated off the ground, eliminating the need for a ramp. From there, I maneuvered us out into the cool night air of Elyndor to drive our way down the hillside toward the forest in the vale.

Susie and I had gone over it several times. Having the lights on at night had distinct advantages and drawbacks. Obviously, safety was key, and having the lights on allowed us to see where we were going. Elyndor had zero light pollution and even when both of its moons were out, the light was nowhere close to reliable to drive by. On the other hand, being the only thing for untold miles lit up in the middle of the night could make us targets for whatever was awake on that side of the clock. It was risky, but we had to go with the lights. If traveling in groups, we would even flip on the whip lights along the back for added safety and coordination.

We didn’t go as far as the ruins of the goblin settlement, but we covered a lot of ground throughout the forest itself, finding trails that would work at a later time with a minimal amount of work. Most of them looked like they had been game trails at some point or trails blazed by goblin hunters before the followers of the Balor of Back Bay came sweeping through.

When I spoke with him, Balor told me they had been hunting creatures called dracolisks that followed the miasma storms that were more common this time of year. He’d even explained the value that such creatures had to him for harvested components in alchemy. But he had been a little more evasive about why he’d come down so hard on the goblins and why he had bothered to kill anything other than the dracolisks while in the vale.

Balor viewed the world like some kind of fully immersive video game and talked of leveling up, zones, and other jargon I remember from my college dorm room days of MMOs and twelve-packs of soda. As crazy as it was, he believed it. And the fact he believed it led me to wonder why he had gone so wild on an area of Elyndor he considered to be beneath his level of skill.

Besides the seasonal hunt of dracolisks, the area held no value to him, yet he’d remained in the zone for some time after I’d left. Initially I’d thought he was just looking for my portal, which may very well have been true, but I was beginning to wonder if there was another reason.

Zintari, like myself, gained our power through slaying monsters. Knowing this as well as I did, perhaps he’d purposely cleared the area to stunt my ability to grow stronger, thus keeping a possible rival in check. It was a gross misreading of me as a person, but one I could see being adopted by someone who saw it all as a game.

The only use for power I had was protecting those I cared about and those who couldn’t protect themselves. I had no desire to go on grand quests, take over the world, or any other vague parallel to a video game plot he might envision for himself. Having a peaceful area to drive around in was nice, too.

“Open this bitch up a little bit, ya pussy!” Susie yelled into the side of my helmet. I laughed a little—a sound completely drowned out by the engine—as I hit the throttle into a stretch of even ground.

It brought me back to our high school days. We and a few friends would take the quads out for a ride around in the woods. It was like the more mature version of riding bikes around the neighborhood—or so it seemed at the time. Still, there was something very therapeutically nostalgic about it. Susie howled her approval as the wind rushed past us, pumping her fist in the air as we went.

I switched with her after a little while. Though she was a little crazier with her driving than I typically was, I trusted her implicitly. Years of knowing each other had given her a precise picture of how much I would tolerate on the back of the quad with my arms wrapped around her.

“I need you to adjust your grip,” she said back to me as she slowed into a turn. “Little higher.”

I scooted my hands up a little higher over her abdomen.

“Higher,” she teased, wiggling her butt. Rolling my eyes, I brought my hands up to her tits.

“Good boy,” Susie cooed playfully. “Mama likey.”

“Can mama drivey?” I laughed, not letting go of the deliciously squishy handholds she’d demanded I use. I would have preferred if she’d worn her vest, but I wasn’t about to start complaining. She hit the throttle again, and we were off.

During our ride, we spotted some strange creatures that seemed non-aggressive. One of them looked almost like a small cat with bat wings, and another was like a glowing iguana if it wasn’t a reptile and had slimy skin. Nothing seemed hostile, and none seemed to fear us directly, though the noise of the ATV was enough to drive most of them off.

We rode around for a couple of hours before heading back up to the cave to take a break and discuss the routes we’d taken and which we liked the most. Sitting side by side we pointed out toward the forest, gesturing to which areas we were talking about while scribbling a crude map in the dirt. It felt so much like when we were kids that all my other worries seemed to fall away. The way her eyes lit up, I could tell that she felt the same. It was refreshing.

“We can draw up a better map tomorrow,” Susie suggested excitedly. “You think they’ll understand it?”

“They’re probably better with maps than we are,” I joked. “They’ve had to rely on them instead of GPS.”

“Oh, maybe,” she acknowledged. “Though, their survival skills sometimes seem a bit lacking compared to where they ought to be.”

“Most of them were forced to rely on the king and his cronies,” I said, gazing out in the direction of what used to be the settlement where they’d lived. “It was meant to keep them from running, but it didn’t work in the end.”

“Have you ever asked them what finally got them to leave?” Susie wondered. “Or even how they knew where to go?”

“I have, but they don’t get into a lot of detail,” I responded with a little shrug. “It’s not their way, and I don’t push it. When they want to talk, they’ll talk. But prodding too much seems to make them regress back to the state they were back then. Almost like they’d have to become more like their past selves in order to remember it accurately.”

“Ah,” Susie chuckled. “Alright, that’s probably something we want to avoid if we want to keep all our fingers and toes.”

I laughed at the thought of it, rolling my helmet back and forth with my foot. “Hey, Suze..?”

“Oh, no,” Susie grumbled dramatically. “You’re not about to get all serious on me are you? We were having such a great time.”

I lifted a brow as I looked over at her. “Actually, I was going to ask you how much of this gear you think we could keep on while fucking.”

Susie stared at me, a little dumbfounded, as I wiggled my eyebrows. “But I guess if you wanna be a douche about it—.”

Before I knew it, she tackled me to the ground, throwing me onto my back as she furiously pawed at zippers and straps. I couldn’t help but laugh at her frenzied state before joining her in her efforts. Within moments, she was straddling me, inviting me into herself as she had many times before, her jumpsuit completely unzipped to showcase her beautiful breasts against the light of the double moons of Elyndor.

Chapter 4

“Hello?” I asked, setting the phone on speaker and placing it in front of me next to my laptop.

“Barnes,” Jacqueline Heins’s voice responded. “You have me on speaker right now?”

“Yeah, but everyone’s outside right now. I’m just doing some business shit on the laptop while they fuck around,” I assured her, clicking through a few windows and making sure everything was running smoothly. Almost every revenue stream I had essentially ran on its own these days, but I looked in on them every few weeks regardless to avoid any unpleasant surprises. “What’s up?”

“I have a few worrisome reports sitting here on my desk,” she responded in a much more professional tone than she used with me when we spoke in person. “What can you tell me about a weird storm in your area the night before last?”

“Well, I know the local weather didn’t know fuck-all about it,” I joked, giving the phone a little more of my attention. “Why?”

“Well, neither did the National Weather Service, yet there it was,” Jackie explained. “Right now, they’re chalking it up to some hiccup in the software or something, but I needed to know if it had something to do with your guests.”

I furrowed my brow, thinking back to the night of the storm, and found that more of the details had slipped away from me. Now, I hardly remembered what I had even done out there. Susie said we had gone to check for flooding, but I couldn’t remember the route I had taken or how long I’d been out there.

“Barnes?” She pressed after a long moment of silence. She worked with DHS but had become aware of the unusual nature of the area when the quake that had revealed the cave came across her desk. She had forwarded it to Boulder to check on discreetly, and that was when he and I began to butt heads. After his death, she’d decided to look into things herself. Besides Susie, she was the only human in the world who knew about the portal in a cave in my backyard.

“Yeah,” I rasped, clearing my throat. “Yeah, I’m still here.”

“What happened over there?” She asked, sensing that something wasn’t right.

“I’m not sure,” I answered, choosing a path of honesty with her, knowing that it was much more effective than holding even the slightest detail back. “I remember the storm, but as time goes on I have a hard time remembering the details of that night. Susie said I talked to her about a man in the cave.”

“A man,” Jackie repeated in much the same way Susie had when I’d mentioned it to her. “From the other side?”

I nodded to myself. It felt like an accurate assessment despite the fact that I couldn’t draw upon a single memory to confirm it. Something just felt right about it. “Yeah. I'm pretty sure.”

“Pretty sure?” Jackie scoffed, adopting more of the tone I had come to know her for during our interactions in person. “You don’t remember?”

“No,” I replied honestly, sitting back a little more, neglecting the tasks on my laptop entirely. “That’s what I’m telling you. If I hadn’t told Susie about it right after it happened, I wouldn’t even know that much. The more I try to remember, the more vague it becomes.”

I heard a little bit of shuffling around on the other end before she spoke again in a more hushed tone. “Another Zintari?”

“I wish I could say,” I said doubtfully. “But if it was, I don’t think it was from Elyndor. Susie and I were just there last night, and everything was pretty peaceful. There was no sign of our buddy Balor—or anyone for that matter.”

“What have you got on Numedha?” She asked in that same hushed tone. “Maybe it came from there?”

“Maybe,” I agreed skeptically. “But we still don’t know much about it beyond what Shantaka has told us. I sent Kate on another scouting mission a few days back, and they ran into a scuffle but didn’t discover much else.”

“She can’t tell you where she’s from?” Jackie mumbled impatiently. “Maybe she could lead you back to her town or wherever her people call home.”

“Destroyed,” I answered with a note of finality. “And she’s not even sure how to get back. Their society is strictly divided along caste lines. She was a low-ranking warrior, so she wasn’t privy to certain details about navigation. They were trying to retrace her steps when they were ambushed.”

“Sounds like it’s time for you to get off the bench, slugger,” Jackie scoffed again. “I can’t bring what I have to my superiors unless I get more information on Numedha. As it stands, the scant information we have on Elyndor and other possible destinations from the portal is going to be a big problem. I can’t walk into a room with that and then also say I don’t know shit about this other demon world.”

“I don’t know if it’s a demon world, exactly,” I muttered, clicking out of the various windows on my laptop. I wasn’t in the mindset to continue with such tedium anymore. I would have to have Susie run some checks later.

“It’s a world with fucking demons in it, Barnes,” Jackie argued sharply. “Are we really going to mince words about it?”

“Guess not,” I groaned, running my hands through my hair in frustration. “Alright, what kind of information do you need?”

“Let’s start with just doing what you did in Elyndor. Set something up on the other side as a base camp, secure it, and then we go from there,” She instructed with a little sigh. “I don’t want you to risk your neck more than you absolutely have to. If I can say we have a secure base camp on the other side ready to go I should be able—.”

“Whoa, whoa,” I interrupted, snatching up the phone and holding it a little closer to my mouth as I sprung to my feet. “What are you talking about? What’s this ‘we’ shit?”

“I mean me and the team I’m trying to get with this whole rigamarole,” she answered with a bit more shuffling on the other end as she moved around. “I can’t leave everything to you. And you’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t want to send your goblins on this sort of thing.”

I stared out the window at Moppi tumbling around in the grass with one of the newcomers. It took a moment for me to see that they weren’t fighting or squabbling. Moppi was teaching the goblin how to handle herself better in a fight. I recognized which one she was working with, a goblin by the name of Ji that was like the runt of the litter. I smiled softly at the stronger goblin’s initiative and willingness to take her under her wing. “I don’t know about having government people coming in here.”

“The only way forward is to give us a little skin in the game,” Jackie insisted, a hint of compassion sneaking into her voice. “I understand your distrust of the situation, but that’s why I’m working so hard on this. If it’s me at the helm of everything, I can ensure you as much autonomy as you need. Like I said before, it’s going to be in everyone’s best interests to have a Zintari at the door turning everyone away from club Wisconsin, anyway.”

“Alright,” I agreed. “You’ve made your point.”

“Good,” she replied in a friendlier tone. Like Boulder, she could be abrasive sometimes, but she was a little more willing to let her guard down to show that her worries came from a genuine place of concern. She cared. Boulder had once said she was much better than he’d ever been and perhaps one of the best there ever would be. I was starting to understand why he felt that way. “You get me the information I need, and I’ll put it together with what I already have. Then it’s on me.”

“What do you figure your chances are with this?” I mused, imagining an overly boring PowerPoint presentation in a plain white room with a bunch of guys in suits. It probably wouldn’t be like that, though.

“About fifty-fifty,” she admitted cautiously. “I have a lot of goodwill around here and my record is as close as you can get to pristine in my line of work, but this is going to be a lot to swallow. Assuming I can get over the first hurdle of people laughing me out of the room and convincing them it’s all fucking real, I expect there will be a rubberbanding effect where they immediately default to the opposite extreme.”

“So, some Area 51 shit?” I laughed, only half-joking. A bunch of men in black swooping in and taking everything and everyone from me was a legitimate concern that gnawed in the back of my mind.

“Maybe.” I could tell the woman was being completely truthful with her response and not just doing it for the bit. “But that’s where I operate better. If their response is fear and panic, I can offer them something right there on the spot to calm them down. I look like I have my shit together, you look like a fucking superstar, and we both get to work on making sure everyone’s protected from the nasty shit on the other side of the portal—wherever it goes.”

“I could live with that,” I acknowledged. “I’ll head out in a little bit. We’re almost done with the chores around here, so we’ll have nothing but time on our hands.”

“Chores,” Jackie snorted with amusement. “You sound like my father. Cut it out.”

“Well, what else would you call them?” I chuckled. “Duties? I’m not running a military unit here. It’s just some good old-fashioned farm chores, you know?”

“Uh-huh,” Jackie murmured. “I got to go. Just give me a call or text me when you have something. Take pictures too, dammit. I can’t believe you never thought to take pictures before I did it.”

“Sorry,” I replied sheepishly, shrugging as if she could see the gesture. We said our goodbyes, and I hung up, lingering at the window for a few more minutes as I watched everyone outside go about their day. I didn’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but I had managed to put it off as long as I could. It was time to get back to work.

Stepping out the front door of my container home, I brought two fingers up to my mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle. There was barely anywhere a goblin could go that their ears wouldn’t have heard me. It was the universal signal to gather up and have a seat. Once they’d assembled I heaved a sigh and began to explain.

“The last excursion into Numedha didn’t give us much to go on,” I began, glancing at Kate and Shantaka to assure them I wasn’t upset about it. “But we still have to get the other side secured before something else decides to come knocking on our door.”

The goblins exchanged nervous glances. Most of the newcomers had only heard about Numedha in passing through conversations with those of us who had been before. They understood the idea of demons, though, and wanted nothing to do with it.

“In order to achieve that, I’m going to take a team, and we’ll get it done ourselves. Poppi has some ideas that we can run with, so she’ll be coming with us,” Poppi bounced happily despite the impending danger, always pleased to have a moment of feeling special. She flounced over to stand beside me like we were picking teams for a game of kickball.

“As the only ones with any experience on the other side, I’ll have Kate and Shantaka in the lead,” I said, gesturing to them with one hand. Each did as Poppi had done and joined me. “Moppi will be assisting me with all the heavy shit, putting together whatever Poppi has for us.”

Moppi smirked smugly and joined the little league team I was putting together. “Susie will be assisting Moppi and helping us with the details.”

Susie didn’t move from her spot, though she seemed as amused with the little team assembly as I was. My eyes then settled on Koko, who was frowning at being left out. “Koko.”

The goblin’s ears perked up when I said her name. “Koko is in charge here until I get back.”

“WHAT!?” Susu shrieked in utter disbelief. “Her!?”

Koko puffed her ample chest out a bit as she placed her hands on her hips. “Because Koko suck better dick.”

I covered my mouth to prevent myself from laughing too much, but a snort still managed to slip out. Susie’s lips flattened into a thin line as she looked away and tried to contain her amusement. With humans, such an admission would have been scandalous. In fact, it was an insult to suggest someone got an important position because they sucked the boss off. But with goblins, it was a little different.

“No, Koko,” I corrected, holding my hands up. A fight was imminent, and I had to put a stop to it before it began, or it would turn into an all-out brawl. “Koko has been here longer and knows how I like to do things. She’s more experienced with everything here, making her a natural choice.”

“But I’m her elder!” Susu snarled incredulously. “It’s mine by right!”

“That’s not how we do things,” I responded firmly. “Privileges and responsibilities go to those who prove themselves capable of handling them.”

I turned my attention to Koko, locking eyes with her as Susu seethed. “You can handle it, right, Koko?”

“Mhm!” Koko nodded enthusiastically, her ears and bosom bouncing in time with her nodding head. “Yes!”

“No laziness,” I said pointedly, jabbing a finger in her direction. “Or it’ll be the last time. Understand?”

“Yes!” the goblin repeated, offering me a quick salute she’d picked up from Susie at some point. It had the same kind of mocking flourish to it despite how sincere she was being.

“Good,” I said, clapping my hands together as my eyes settled on Susu. “You will be responsible for dinner.”

“Mmm,” Susu grunted thoughtfully, glancing around at the other goblins that had looked up to her for so long. As much as she didn’t like the idea of answering to Koko, meal preparation was an admirable duty to have bestowed upon them in their tribe. It indicated a degree of trust on the part of the king. My so-called predecessor didn’t let just anyone handle his food, after all. “Acceptable.”

“Fantastic,” I sighed, pleased to have the tension deflating already as I turned to address my team of little soccer stars. “Alright, I want everyone in full gear for this one. I dropped a lot of cash to make sure you’re all protected. Weapons, armor, the works. Get your shit together and meet me at the platform, alright?”

They gave me a series of goblin nods and scattered to the winds to gather their things, leaving Susie and me alone for a moment.

“Where did this come from?” She asked under her breath. “You didn’t say anything about this before?”

“Jackie thinks she’ll have a better chance of swaying people in our favor if we have more info on Numedha and the other side of the portal is more secure,” I explained in a similarly hushed tone.

Susie nodded, her expression ambivalent. “So we’re answering to her now?”

“No,” I responded, shaking my head emphatically. “Nor does she want us to. She wants what we want, but she thinks the discovery of the portal and every portal like it is inevitable and wants to head it off. If she does this right, we get to go about our lives the same as before.”

“Alright,” she sighed, planting a kiss on my cheek before giving my ass a firm slap. “Let’s get out there and have fun, coach!”

“Smartass.” I gave her a playful sneer and hustled off to get my things. I likely didn’t need the extra protection, but having a few options for weapons wouldn’t hurt. After all, I hadn’t fought one of these supposed demons before, and I wasn’t sure what to expect if it came to a battle.

I had to be ready for the worst.

Chapter 5

We ran into trouble almost immediately. We were still setting up camp and bringing through supplies when the first member of the welcome wagon showed up. Fortunately, with Susie’s “Gnome Light”—as the goblins called it—we saw it coming.

It moved on four legs with massive claws that allowed it to crawl along the walls or even the ceiling. The flesh around its skull was pulled tight with strange, fleshy flaps that looked like a cross between fins and ears. Its gaping maw was filled with rows of sharp, ragged teeth, and its spiked, ridged tongue flicked through the air, scenting for prey.

The portal was located in a dead-end tunnel with nowhere to retreat to, so the only option was to fight. I was hesitant due to the close quarters and the sound we would generate, but the alternative was far more gruesome.

Rather than relying on my Glock for protection in the hostile world, I’d recently upgraded to a Heckler and Koch MR762 rifle with excellent reviews. Jackie had also assured me it was a solid piece of equipment when I asked her about it. Between her and Susie, getting a hold of such things seemed absurdly easy, albeit a little on the expensive side sometimes.

I flipped the safety off and sighted the thing through my scope. “What the fuck is this thing?”

“Hunter demon,” Shantaka growled, gripping her sword tighter as the creature drew near. “Capable of tracking prey over large distances for days—sometimes weeks.”

It knew we were there. It sensed us with those weird little flaps and its grotesque tongue. It seemed to be confused, even ambivalent. I realized that it probably didn’t have a lot of experience smelling freshly showered humans and a handful of goblins. Rather than wait for it to come to a decision, I squeezed off a round into its head. The report of the rifle echoed off the chamber walls but was drowned out by the pissed roar of the creature I had just inconvenienced with a bullet through the skull.

“That’s not a little disturbing,” I muttered calmly as it broke into a terrifying charge. Rather than move in a straight line along the floor, it moved in a zig-zagging spiral up along the walls. I missed a few shots before getting a feel for how it moved, tagging it in one of its front legs to throw it off balance.

It fell from the ceiling, writhing around to flip itself over. I peppered it with several more shots until it stopped moving. All told it wasn’t as tough as some of the other things I’d fought in Elyndor, but I’d also had plenty of time to line up my shots with an upgrade in armament.

“Impressive,” Shantaka admitted. “But you must be faster. They typically come in packs.”

“Noted,” I agreed. When Shantaka gave a compliment, it was high praise, and when she gave advice, it wasn’t to be taken lightly. “Stay here with the others. I’m going to take Kate out for a quick look.”

I paused as another of the glowing orbs floated out from the dead creature and drifted into my chest. Unlike the creatures I’d killed in Elyndor, it felt strange and a little like heartburn. I had been nearly exhausted on monster souls to pursue any more upgrades for the others, so having another to keep in my back pocket would be nice.

The others resumed their work as Kate and I took a quick jog to the end of the tunnel, which opened up into a massive cavern and a sheer drop. Long stalactites the size of sixteen-wheelers hung from the ceiling while shadows of winged creatures fluttered through the darkness. Below, it stretched into complete blackness, with the sounds of things scratching around echoing up from the depths. The small lights we carried were bright but didn’t give us a whole hell of a lot to go on.

“There’s a trail that leads upward to the left and down to the right,” Kate explained, pointing both out to me with her flashlight. Both appeared wide enough to comfortably fit a pickup truck if I had one on hand.

“They usually come from below, but not always,” Shantaka uttered in a hushed tone.

“Alright, that means we've got a bottleneck here,” I said, motioning to the entrance to our tunnel. Kate gave me a strange look, so I decided to explain on the walk back. “Bottlenecks are where a wide area narrows to something like this. A large force loses its advantage when trying to move through one, allowing us to strike more effectively.”

Kate nodded in understanding, glancing back at where the tunnel let out into the cavern with a thoughtful look. “Yes, I think I know this concept. We can use this.”

“Hopefully, we won’t have to anytime soon,” I chuckled. “But yeah, it’s a good thing to have in our favor.”

“You must have been quite a warrior among your people to know such things,” Kate remarked amorously.

“Not exactly,” I laughed a little. “I was a teacher—a scholar, I guess, would be the word you would use.”

“But you know this tactic works?” She asked, now a little skeptical.

I nodded confidently. “Worked pretty well in the battle of Thermopylae.”

As we got back to work with the others, I proceeded to explain the battle and the odds stacked against the Greeks in the face of the invading Persians. Susie rolled her eyes at such nerdery, as it wasn’t the first time she’d heard me give the breakdown, but the others seemed interested.

I didn’t share many of the histories of our world with them, and most of what they knew from our culture came from lessons in the moment or Susie vegging out on social media with her phone. Koko was a big fan of endless scrolling whenever she could get her hands on the thing.

Poppi ran a few plans by me now that we had a better understanding of the terrain we had to work with. She wanted to use the chain link to wall off a section of the tunnel completely with a locking gate. Behind it, we would begin building something a little sturdier with the materials we had to work with. Having seen the hunter demon, I wanted to just fill a whole section with concrete but we couldn’t exactly back a cement truck into the tunnel.

“So, what do you suggest?” I asked, looking at the crude drawings on the papers she’d brought with her.

“We use another one of the doors like the one on the portal. But we make it a little sturdier in the frame,” she explained, motioning to different parts of a drawing. “The door we have held up pretty well, so this one should be even better.”

I looked over how she intended to reinforce the door itself and nodded. Normally, you’d never get away with that much weight on a dinky garage door motor, but we were rigging everything to handle cranks that Shantaka, Moppi, or myself were capable of working easily. She even had a way of reinforcing the tracks and securing them to the cavern walls.

“Alright, let’s get it done,” I said, my attention drifting toward the sound of distant shrieking from the cavern at the mouth of the tunnel. It didn’t sound like it was coming our way, but it was unnerving all the same.

Things moved quickly with a plan in hand. But after an hour or so, the noise we generated with our tools became a problem. Soon, more of the hunter demons began to wander toward the tunnel.

“They hear us,” Shantaka stated, looking in the direction of the creatures. “And they can smell the blood of their kin.”

Kate quickly nocked an arrow and let it fly, placing her shot precisely in the shoulder of the creature. She’d learned from my shots earlier that a head shot wasn’t the quick resolution one would hope for. Instead, she slowed the advance of the demon before feathering it with a few more arrows.

Shantaka was more bold, approaching the second of the creatures with sword in hand. It pounced at her from some distance away, allowing her to roll under it. She raked along the underbelly with her blade before springing to her feet and bringing her weapon down on its back. It was a practiced movement she’d used many times before.

More came. And more still. And as their numbers grew so did their variety. As it turned out, the hunter demons sometimes had other demons monitoring their progress. Bipedal creatures with horns, spikes, and vicious claws that Shantaka identified as soldier demons followed them into the tunnel.

The soldiers were tougher, drooling acid and capable of hurling balls of fire. Moppi and I came off of the heavy-lifting detail and went to work. She, with her spear, and me with the HK. We fell into a fairly quick rhythm with Kate and Shantaka, with me and the hobgoblin covering the other two. Behind us, Poppi and Susie continued to work as quickly as they could considering the circumstances. I noticed that even when one of them felled one of the creatures, the ethereal orbs of the monsters’ souls would still gravitate to me. That hadn’t happened before, so maybe proximity played a part in it? Each one of those souls felt like a surge of heartburn every time they sank into my chest.

“This is how they kill my people,” Shantaka said between breaths after the third wave. “With numbers. They don’t care how many they lose.”

I checked the ammunition I had left and made a little grunt of concern. So far, none of us had been harmed, but it didn’t seem like it would last. Having an endless procession of these creatures coming at us, someone was bound to get hurt. I’d provided armored vests for everyone, but knowing that the soldiers could hurl fire and that Shantaka spoke of scores of tougher demons, gave me pause.

“Alright, the rest of you help Poppi and Susie,” I decided. “I’ll hold the tunnel on my own.”

The three of them looked at me, shocked. I waved their concerns off casually. “I can handle it a lot better than you can. Even if I’m injured, I can heal. It doesn’t make any sense to put you in more danger if we don’t have to. I’ll handle the next wave.”

“If a knight comes, we should leave,” Shantaka cautioned me. “They are terrifying foes on their own. Much worse when commanding hunters and soldiers. They’re deadlier with a knight to command them.”

“I don’t know,” I mused with a playful look. “Killing a knight demon sounds pretty fucking rad.”

Shantaka stared at me, nonplussed. With a wave of my hand they returned to work alongside Susie and Poppi, working harder to get things set up. Poppi was making modifications on the fly to erect a proper wall to go along with the door, setting it up along the frame so it could take a firmer beating. I appreciated the effort, but it was adding more time to an already time consuming project.

Fifteen minutes passed before another hunter crept into the mouth of the tunnel, though it didn’t approach immediately. It sensed things out with the strange flaps and its tongue before withdrawing. I didn’t take it as a good sign.

Not long after, my suspicion proved correct as soldiers began to file in—this time with no hunters. I felt the ground shake a little with approaching footsteps before the knight came into view.

If hunters were the size of large dogs and soldiers stood as tall as the average person, the demon knight was tall enough to play in the NBA and wide enough to be a lineman in the NFL. It wore armor of pock-marked black metal, with a rack of twisted horns protruding from its helmeted head. Vicious black protrusions sprung from its muscular arms and flames licked the floor everywhere it walked. Thick, acrid black smoke emerged in wisps and clouds from openings in the front of its helmet while glowing orange eyes stared hatefully at me from within.

“Fuck me,” I muttered to myself, unusually hesitant to move. It was perhaps the first time I’d experienced fear quite like that in a while.

“So the stories are true,” the creature rumbled from within its helmet. The rocky quality of its voice was layered, as if more than one of it was speaking in slightly offset intervals. “A Zintari.”

I opened my mouth to respond with a quip, but found nothing would come out. I gripped my weapon tighter in an effort to remind myself it was there to use at any time. The soldiers lining either side of the tunnel snarled and spat, held in check by the will of their master.

“It is no wonder that so many have perished here,” the knight continued, stepping forward. “We’ve not seen one of your kind in too long. We have laid claim to this world. What business do you have on it?”

“Spelunking,” I replied stupidly. Of all the things I could have said and all the words, I had chosen that one.

“You are trespassing,” the knight pressed, ignoring the ridiculous response entirely.

“I’m not looking for a fight,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster.

The knight looked past me down the tunnel toward the others. They were far enough behind me that they weren’t in any immediate danger, but him knowing they were there was enough to put me on a razor’s edge. “Your people were warned.”

“I’m not really familiar with my people,” I admitted with a stupid shrug. Being the new guy wasn’t going to be a valid excuse to such a terrifying creature. “We don’t talk much.”

“Irrelevant,” the knight responded. “You were warned what would happen if you returned, and here you are.”

“I don’t know what arrangement you had with any other Zintari, but perhaps we could come to a new—.”

“Tear him limb from limb,” the knight commanded with a growl. “Bring me the head.”

The soldiers surged toward me with fire and claws. I felt myself respond instinctively, moving to one side, lifting my weapon and dumping shots into demon after demon. My foot work was impressive, considering how little I was forced to use it in my previous battles. Maintaining my positioning and distance was key in getting through the first several soldiers. I was fast enough that the fireballs didn’t offer much of a challenge so long as I could see them coming and have a half-second to react. The problem was—as it always was—how many of them there were.

Rather than bothering to reload, I dropped my weapon and met the next soldier with a heavy blow with my fist. The fuckers were bone-plated in several places, providing them with a small degree of protection even from my strength. Still, it wasn’t enough with how fast I was.

I felt their claws rake across my vest as well as my arms and legs, but I pushed forward, pulling a combat knife from my belt and opening whatever soft little bits I could find in the crush of demonic bodies. I was pushed back a few steps for every one that I took, but as the heartburn in my chest began to surge I started regaining the ground I’d lost.

I exploded from the group of soldiers on the other end, covered in cuts, bruises, scrapes, and burns. The knight hadn’t moved, and remained stationary as I hurled myself at it with a righteous fist of fury.

The demon caught my punch the way an adult catches a child’s and briefly locked eyes with me before beating my body off the cavern wall like a ragdoll. After getting a few good licks in, he tossed me toward the mouth of the cave, separating me from the others as the remnants of the soldier demons pressed toward them.

“Zintari hubris truly knows no limits,” the knight snarled as it approached, a vicious sword formed of flame and darkness appearing in its hand. “You think the power you have stolen from others makes you equal to those whose very nature is power incarnate.”

“Sounds dumb when you put it that way,” I admitted through the blood in my mouth, getting up from my hands and knees. With a quick glance over my shoulder, I could see that even if he didn’t take my head off with the blade, he could easily drive me off the cliff into the cavern. As terrified as I was, and as much pain as I was already in, the distant sound of Susie and the girls screaming steeled my resolve. “But you’re the one that brought a sword to a gunfight.”

Before the knight could bring his weapon up to annihilate me, I drew my Glock from its holster and opened fire. The first two shots struck it square in the face, ricocheting off the metal of the faceplate before he got one hand up to add cover.

I used the temporary distraction to surge forward, tackling the knight low at the hips and lifting him up into the air before slamming him down onto the ground. Neither impact seemed to bother him, but the whole point was to rob him of the space and stance needed to use such a huge sword.

I pinned his sword hand down with one hand and pressed the muzzle of the gun to the joint in his elbow, pulping the limb with three more rounds. He brought the fist of his other gauntlet into my skull before I could find another soft spot, sending me tumbling to the ground off of him.

As he rolled away I snatched the back of his helmet to line up another shot, only to catch a spiked elbow in the face. I fell back, losing my grip on the helmet but quickly lining up a shot with the back of his knee just as he got to his feet.

The knee buckled, but not before he was able to get a hold of his sword with his off-hand and pivot at the waist to swing at me in a wide, flaming arc. I managed to get under the swing before it took my head off, placing a shot under the chin of his helmet. It didn’t penetrate, but the force at such close range knocked his head back a bit, exposing a small gap between the helmet and gorget. Seizing the opportunity, I shoved the muzzle of the pistol into the gap and unloaded every round I had left.

It pushed against me limply as the pistol clicked several times. We tumbled to the ground together as I got a hold of each of his horns with my hands while holding him still with my legs. I put everything I could into twisting the head. He resisted at first, but the shredded muscles of his thick neck weren’t enough to hold me back. With a wet cracking noise, the fight was finished—at least for him.

I struggled to catch my breath as an angry red orb of light rose from his corpse and drifted into my chest. It felt like my insides were on fire, dizzying me, making me not trust the steadiness of my hands or even my feet, but the sounds of distress from the others drove me on. I seized the dropped sword and charged down the tunnel to rejoin Susie and the goblins, temporarily forsaking my Glock and HK.

There weren’t many of the soldier demons left when I arrived, but those that remained were dispatched quickly with a few powerful swings of the sword. Their bone plating did nothing to slow the momentum of the demon blade down. Once the last one fell, so did I, though it was more like a tripping stumble than anything.

“Daryl!” Susie gasped, her face splattered with the black blood all the demons seemed to possess. “Oh my God!”

“I’m fine!” I said, waving her off as I struggled to get to my feet. Waves of vertigo sweeping over me prevented me from getting much traction. “Hurry and finish. I just need a minute to heal.”

“No, we’re done here,” she demanded as she appeared at my side, helping me up. “We have to get the fuck out of here.”

“If we don’t finish it, we’ll just have to come back,” I argued weakly. My nerves were finally beginning to register all of the damage my body had taken and it didn’t feel great.

Susie searched my eyes for a moment before uttering a solid string of cussing. She moved me over next to the gate and propped me up against the wall. “If anything else shows up, we’re leaving.”

I didn’t argue, which seemed to be good enough for her as she returned to her work. Another wave of vertigo hit me and I leaned back against the wall to relax. The darkness of unconsciousness took me right after.

Chapter 6

Hellish visions of demonic incursions flashed through my mind while I remained unconscious. I saw brief glimpses of their tearing through the fabric of reality as they entered Numedha. I saw beyond into the realm of torment and agony from whence they came. It twisted me up inside, instilling me with a kind of fear that put all other instances of it to shame.

I woke in a cold sweat to find that I was lying in my own bed at home. I glanced around in the darkness, searching for my clock, which had somehow been knocked off the nightstand and onto the floor. I found it and placed it back where it was supposed to be, the small red numbers reading 2 AM.

“Had a rough trip, eh, Barnes?” Boulder asked me, standing completely still at the end of my bed.

“Yeah,” I rasped, my throat absolutely parched. I got to my feet despite the ache that resonated throughout my body. “Where have you been?”

“Figuring some shit out,” the ghost responded, his doll-like eyes tracking me as I walked out of the room in my underwear toward the fridge. Susie was asleep on the couch with Koko, the TV long having turned itself off from being idle. The others had evidently chosen to sleep in their own beds that night.

“Yeah?” I asked, opening the fridge to see what I had to drink. Though I had plenty of water to drink, the carton of orange juice was calling my name. “What about?”

“Why you can’t remember Winters, for one,” he stated as I began drinking right from the carton. There wasn’t enough in it to merit getting a glass. At least, that was what I told myself, with how thirsty I was.

“Winters?” My face scrunched up in confusion. It sounded vaguely familiar. “Is that a person?”

“Exactly,” Boulder grumbled irately. “You had a full conversation with this whack job and can’t remember any of it. I watched, but couldn’t manifest at the time for whatever reason. It was on the night of the storm. He was hanging out near the portal, and I came to tell you. But for whatever reason, I couldn’t stick it out longer than that when I should have been able to.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, wiping the last vestiges of juice from my lips before dropping the empty carton into the trash. I then retrieved the remnants of the milk and went to town on it as well.

“I mean, I spoke with the guy too, but every second required complete focus,” he responded, regarding my guzzling with disdain. “Jesus, Barnes. You going to clean out the whole fridge?”

“Maybe,” I admitted between chugs of milk. “I’m dying of thirst.”

“Drink water,” he scoffed, nodding toward the sink.

“Actually, milk has a perfect combination of water, carbohydrates, and electrolytes for hydration,” I argued before topping off the rest of the carton and pitching it in the trash.

“Bullshit,” Boulder spat before eyeing me suspiciously. “Is that true?”

“Look it up,” I responded with a shrug, finally reaching for a glass and filling it with some water.

“Hardy har,” the ghost grumbled, utterly incapable of looking anything up in his state. “Can we get back to the subject at hand?”

“Sure,” I said, gulping down some water, though only because I was out of everything else. “Winters?”

“Yeah, you don’t remember him or anything he said,” he continued, crossing his arms over his chest. “He said he was going to come back. You told him he could.”

I nearly spit the water out at the revelation, managing to choke it down before I spoke. “I did? Why?”

“He asked nicely, I guess,” Boulder chuckled. “He was a strange guy. Polite, but strange.”

I frowned, struggling to remember even a shred of what he was talking about, but the night of the storm was as elusive as it had ever been. If anything, it was more difficult, with the gnawing thirst distracting me. “He asked, and I said it was fine.”

“Yeah,” Boulder answered again, exasperated.

“Which world did he come from?”

“He called it Itaris,” the ghost replied. “Totally new world, I managed to get a look at the rune on the gateway when he went through, in case you’d like to go visit.”

I scoffed wordlessly before chugging down the rest of my glass of water, just to refill it a second later. “After Numedha, I can’t say I’m psyched for another excursion.”

“You were pretty banged up when they carried you in,” Boulder remarked, a strange look of concern on his face. “I think maybe you’re biting off more than you can chew here.”

“Jackie said—.”

“Fuck Jackie,” Boulder interrupted. “You don’t owe her shit. If she wants that shit secured, she can come out and do it herself.”

I stared at the ghost for a long moment, taking a few more drinks from my glass before deciding I’d had enough. “Where’s this coming from? The last time we talked about her you were singing her praises as an agent.”

“She’s a fantastic agent,” the ghost acknowledged. “But that doesn’t mean you have to do all the work for her. You don’t have the training. She does. You got a whole thing you’re building here with Quickly and the rest. What are they going to do if you end up eating it in some other world?”

“I’m doing this for them,” I argued.

“Bullshit,” Boulder spat. “I’ve been in the game long enough to recognize when someone has a problem. You’re not just thirsty, you’re coming down off of a fucking bender. Whatever shit you do to monsters when they die is having an effect on you. It’s changing you.”

“You’re the expert on Zintari now?” I laughed bitterly, placing the glass in the sink for later.

“After a while, all this shit starts to look the same,” Boulder argued, jabbing a finger in my direction. “And you have got a fucking problem.”

I looked away from the ghost off into the direction of Susie in the next room. I vaguely remembered Balor saying something about the effect different souls could have on the development of powers and abilities for a Zintari. But more importantly, I considered what effect it may have had on him to be so callous and divorced from reality. The man had used some kind of laser vision to flash-fry two people right in front of me without giving it so much as a second thought.

“Maybe it was just too much at once,” I mused.

“Well, how many was it?” Boulder inquired, leaning closer to me.

I shook my head and sucked my teeth as I tried to quantify a number in my mind. I lost count around the third wave with how chaotic things had gotten. “It’s hard to say. There were just so fucking many of them. They just kept coming and coming.”

“Alright, so maybe moderation is a start,” Boulder admitted, spreading his hands. “But take it from me, that won’t be the end of it. I would justify a drink for special occasions, then on bad days, and then—.”

“It’s not alcohol,” I groaned incredulously. “It’s not even remotely the same.”

“Close enough to rhyme,” he objected. “I’m just saying, maybe you put a little more work into learning about it before guzzling down more demon souls, eh? Or any souls, for that matter.”

“Fine,” I conceded, throwing my hands up. “I’ll try to find one of the other Zintari to grill for information. You happy?”

“I’m never happy,” Boulder joked. “And tell Jackie that unless she’s got you on payroll with the government health care and retirement plan, she can go pound sand. That’s what I should have done.”

“I mean, I could probably afford better coverage than whatever they’re offering,” I quipped. “Probably already do.”

“Even more reason not to go risking your neck for this shit,” he grumbled, gesturing toward my junk drawer. “You got a pen and paper?”

I came away from the counter and opened the drawer, pulling out what he needed before setting them on the counter. He took a few steps forward and set his hand across the top of the pen. He closed his eyes and scrunched up his face as he focused on the object, slowly picking it up. Once he had a firm hold of it, he went to draw something on the paper, only to find that it wasn’t marking the white surface.

“Christ, Barnes, as if this shit isn’t hard enough,” he growled. I couldn’t help but chuckle. He scribbled wildly on the page until it began leaving behind black lines. “Fuck.”

“I’ll do a pencil next time,” I chuckled, sliding the paper over to me when he was finished drawing. It was a new rune. “This is Itaris?”

Boulder nodded, dropping the pen onto the floor in a petty act of defiance. “Yeah. Worth noting that this Winters guy seemed to know a lot about Zintari, but his answers to your questions weren’t exactly enlightening.”

I picked up the pen and tossed it back into the drawer before looking the rune over again. “Did he say why he was here?”

“He called himself an assessor,” the ghost responded. “Something about checking the conditions of gateways and how yours had been closed off for a long time. He was assigned to check it now that it was open again.”

“Huh,” I murmured, folding the paper up and setting it aside. We’d add it to the book of symbols we were trying to gather as they became available. As a ghost, he was able to see things that we weren’t and from his point of view, there were runes that glowed along the edge of the portal every time we used it.

“He might be worth talking to for answers, but not if you don’t remember them,” Boulder continued, offering an alternative to tracking down more Zintari in Elyndor. If I decided to speak with Winters, I might have to bring a recording device if I was just doomed to forget it on my own.

“I fought a demon knight in Numedha,” I began thoughtfully. “He said something about the Zintari knowing about trespassing there—that they’d been warned.”

“Sounds like the Zintari had their fingers in a lot of pies,” the ghost murmured thoughtfully. “And like they got around.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, nodding. “Makes me worry about what other things they’ve said or done to piss everyone off that I’ll have to answer for.”

The two of us fell silent in the kitchen as we stared out the window into the yard. There was enough light to make out the vague shapes there, just enough to focus on while I considered a multitude of different tasks and questions available to me when I finally met someone who could answer them.

“So, a demon knight, huh?” Boulder asked, suddenly breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” I nodded with a smile, not taking my eyes off of the night outside.

Boulder frowned thoughtfully. “Sounds pretty fucking cool, actually.”

I let a sharp breath out through my nose as I smirked. “That’s what I said—!”

He was gone when I looked in his direction. I didn’t take any offense to it. It wasn’t something he could help most of the time. It took effort for him to remain manifested, and he’d already held it for longer than usual. Maybe with more practice, he’d even be able to do it during the day.

I shuffled out of the kitchen and back into our living room, where Susie and Koko slept on the couch. I picked Koko up and brought her to her bed, making sure she was nice and warm under a blanket before retrieving Susie and placing her in bed next to me. Despite how long I must have been out, I was exhausted all over again. Before I could let myself conk out, though, I decided to go to the bathroom and check the various wounds I’d sustained in the fight.

Almost everything had completely healed, but I noted that the burns took longer. I didn’t know if that was some kind of rule of magic that I wasn’t aware of or burns just being a little more complicated than bruises and cuts. Either way, I expected them to be healed by morning. Only the burns I’d suffered from being too close to the demon sword looked like they would take longer, which was a little concerning.

I killed the light and went back to bed, falling asleep almost as soon as I hit the pillow. Again, hellish visions danced through my brain, accompanied by screams and the sensation of being up to my neck in hot, thick blood. I’d hoped to have time to give the others some upgrades, knowing that they likely had some queued up for me after the rough time in Numedha, but I had no such luck.

I woke the next morning to the sound of goblins squabbling over something outside. As I listened, I determined it had something to do with breakfast. I groaned, dragged myself out of bed, and got dressed. I’d overslept by a significant amount, considering I was usually up before the rest of them and the one to get breakfast started. As I stepped outside, I saw that Susu had maintained her cooking duties for breakfast and was half of the argument I’d overheard from inside. Moppi was the other half.

“I get more!” Moppi snarled as Susu shook her head.

“No!” Susu objected. “No seconds until everyone else has had first—especially the king!”

“It’s alright,” I said, waving a hand as I approached them. “Let her eat. We all had a rough one yesterday.”

Susu frowned but obeyed, giving Moppi another heaping helping of scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon. I picked a strip off of Moppi’s plate, much to her chagrin.

“Moderator tax,” I noted as I crunched into the bacon. “Where’s Suze?”

“Up your butt,” Susie announced, jabbing a finger into my butt from behind. I nearly jumped out of my pants before turning to face her. She wore a big grin on her face that was equal parts mischief and relief. “You’re looking alright. Thanks for carrying me to bed last night.”

“No problem,” I responded, thumping my chest with a fist. “Told you I’d heal.”

“Took you long enough, though,” Susie teased, draping her arms over my shoulders. “Now maybe I can get some of that dick, hm?”

“Yeah, tonight,” I agreed. I could use a little something that didn’t hurt like hell and she was exactly what the doctor ordered. “How’d it go after I was out?”

“I killed a hunter demon,” Susie answered. “Shotgun works pretty well on them, actually. We got the door installed and locked. Kate went back to check on it a couple of times, and everything looks fine.”

“Thank God,” I said, fishing my phone out of my pocket to text Jackie, realizing only then that I hadn’t gotten any pictures for her. “Shit…”

“It’s alright,” Susie said, plucking the phone from my fingers. “I took care of it. Pictures, too.”

I let out a brief sigh of relief. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” She smirked and stuffed the phone back into my pocket, making a point of lingering around in my pants for longer than was strictly necessary. “What other terrible plans have you got for us, oh fearless leader?”

I told her about the conversation with Boulder over breakfast. She didn’t really like hearing about him, considering the last time she’d physically seen him, she’d thought he was going to force himself on her. But, after learning everything had been some fucked up misunderstanding and he was sticking around to help us out, she was warming up to the idea. The information he’d provided me was interesting enough to help the forgiveness process along.

“I do remember you saying something about seeing a guy,” Susie remarked as she brushed a stray hair away from her glasses. “You said he was nice. But if you can’t remember anything about him, it doesn’t sound like he’d be a good source of information.”

“I could record it,” I suggested.

“What if the recording gets fucked up too?” Susie countered.

I shrugged and gestured vaguely toward the kitchen. “It didn’t work on Boulder, so maybe it only works on the living?”

“Did he do it on purpose, do you think?” Susie wondered, finishing off the rest of the eggs she’d splattered with hot sauce.

“Probably not,” I answered without much information to go on beyond a gut feeling. If he had been a nice—albeit strange—guy, there was no reason to go around erasing memories. Especially if the encounter wasn’t a hostile one.

“So, what’s the plan?” Susie asked again, leaning forward to hold my gaze with her own.

I couldn’t help but smile when she looked at me like that. Susie Quickly would follow me anywhere, including to hell itself. She practically had when we had paid Numedha a little visit. I realized it wasn’t something I wanted for her, but at the same time couldn’t stand to do without her. I wanted her with me on everything, but I didn’t want to put her in danger. In the end, it wasn’t my decision to make—not really. I could tell her what I wanted, but she could easily tell me to go fuck myself and come with me anyway. I believed that’s exactly what she would do. If I tried to sneak off without her, I’d get much the same in a different combination or order.

“I think the Zintari is the safer bet,” I finally said. “Balor mentioned a few to us. So I guess I’ll just pick the one that is the easiest to get to from the trails we plotted out and go from there.”

“What if they don’t like visitors?” Susie asked cautiously. “What do we do?”

“Balor talked about it like there was some form of decorum among them, a process of introduction and announcing oneself,” I explained. “So—in theory—if we try to introduce ourselves properly to whoever is in the area, we shouldn’t provoke anything.”

“Good enough, I suppose,” Susie frowned, reaching over to my plate and taking the remaining crust of my toast. I didn’t object. “Who are we bringing?”

It was a good question. I didn’t know what sort of attitude to expect from another Zintari. If I came rolling up to their front door with a bunch of cronies, they might get the wrong idea as to my intentions. But if I showed up with too few, they might regard me as some kind of pushover. I remembered how Balor responded to seeing my glock, how amazed he was to see things from our world in Elyndor, and I considered what sort of response the quads would evoke. I didn’t need a large show of force to ensure my safety; the Zintari’s curiosity would be enough to buy me safe passage.

“Kate and Moppi,” I responded. “They can both drive and handle that bow, so whoever is on the back can shoot if needed.”

Susie perked up all of a sudden, a wide grin spreading across her face. “Does that mean I get to drive us?”

I rolled my eyes with amusement before nodding. “Yeah, I’ll be on the back with the HK to cover us.”

Susie sprang to her feet and pumped her arm triumphantly. “Fuck yeah, let’s do this!”

Chapter 7

(Jackie Heins)

Jackie Heins leaned on the horn, blasting the car in front of her with sound. If the driver noticed, they gave no indication as they continued to slide into her lane and then to the next, narrowly avoiding crunching bumpers with her and two other vehicles.

“I fucking hate driving in Boston,” she growled, shooting the offending car the stink-eye. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

“I said your guy’s been missing for several years,” the voice from the speaker of her phone said. Though Ava was still back in Washington, she was doing a lot of the research for her while Jackie did the legwork. “You’re sure this guy is your Balor character?”

“Looks like him,” Jackie said as she signaled for a lane change, not taking her eyes off the road. “A little older now, but I’m positive it’s him.”

Jackie heard the sound of typing and clicking from the other end before Ava continued. “Let’s see here. The missing person’s report says his co-workers were the last to see him about six years ago in August. His manager says he walked off the job after a confrontation with a co-worker and didn’t come in the next day. The manager considered it unusual considering his stellar attendance before that.”

“Tell me about the mother,” Jackie responded. “You said earlier that he lived with her?”

“Yeah, she was getting on in years, though, so when neighbors finally found her body, they didn’t think much of it,” Ava answered, clicking through a few things on her end. “Local police wanted him for questioning on the matter, but he’d already been missing before that.”

“So he was missing before her death,” Jackie clarified, pursing her lips. That didn’t seem to indicate he had been involved, but it didn’t rule him out either.

“Yeah,” Ava confirmed, “For a few weeks. I suppose it’s possible he could have come back? His mother wasn’t particularly helpful when questioned about his whereabouts. She didn’t seem interested in talking about him at all, in fact.”

“When Barnes and I spoke to him, he said he’d left things behind entirely, that there was nothing left for him where he came from,” Jackie mused. “But that doesn’t mean he came to that decision immediately. He could have been dipping in and out of Elyndor for a while before that.”

“Assuming it’s the same guy,” Ava reminded her. “We have to make sure this is the person we’re looking for first.”

“Right,” Jackie said, glancing up at the looming Prudential Center before she passed into the tunnel. “I’m going to lose you in a second here. Just text me the addresses I need, starting with the manager. I’ll get back to you later.”

“Alright, stay safe,” Ava acknowledged before hanging up.

Jackie hadn’t expected to find herself in Boston with everything else she was trying to coordinate. Bringing Ava in on things had been an immense boon, however, allowing her to offload some of the work so that she could follow up on a hunch, looking through the missing persons reports for the Boston area going back a decade.

Eventually, she’d landed on one Simon Chase, an unassuming car salesman and college dropout from Boston College. He’d displayed some erratic behavior in the days leading up to his disappearance, leading his co-workers and neighbors to all manner of wild conclusions. Unfortunately, the man had kept mostly to himself, described mainly as a loner with very few friends—most of which he’d lost contact with since dropping out of college courses. He was a singularly unremarkable individual, but the picture that had been provided by his former manager had been a near spitting image of the Balor of Back Bay that Jackie had spoken to alongside Daryl Barnes.

When she eventually emerged from the tunnel, she received the texts she requested from Ava, allowing her to plug the address for the manager into the GPS. She took an exit for Commonwealth Avenue and made her way toward Brookline, a little town surrounded on all sides by the various parts of Boston.

Jackie found a spot to park on the street under a tree that was already beginning to show signs of change for the coming fall. She stepped out of the rental, grabbed a light jacket, and made her way through the small courtyard to the building's entrance.

“Hello,” a concierge said at the front desk as Jackie stepped in through the front door. She hadn’t expected to find a concierge, but it made things a little easier for her.

“Morning,” Jackie responded as she produced her identification. “Special Agent Heins, looking to speak with a Ms. Marlene Ascher?”

“She expecting you?” The concierge wondered, turning his chair to give Jackie his full attention.

“No,” Jackie answered honestly. The concierge pushed a clipboard with a list of names and signatures on it.

“Sign here, please,” he requested, glancing at a monitor behind his desk that displayed feeds from several security cameras. Once Jackie had finished signing, providing a badge number as a courtesy, she slid the clipboard back over to the man. He gave it a brief glance before quickly looking the resident’s name up. “Third floor, apartment twelve. The elevator is just down this hallway on your left.”

Jackie thanked the concierge as she stepped out of the lobby and took the elevator to the third floor. An old man joined her in the elevator on the second floor, mumbling a brief greeting to her. His disinterest in her presence was unusual, considering the usual glances Jackie drew from the elderly set wherever she went. Many had described the pale, dark-haired beauty as having a sort of classic allure, reminiscent of the old days for many men in their golden years. He mumbled again as she stepped off the elevator, hardly giving her a second glance despite the enticing figure that she cut in her tight pencil skirt and high heels.

She knocked on the door of Ms. Ascher’s apartment three times, doing her best to keep it as polite as possible. After a moment the door opened a crack as a woman in her late fifties peeked out from her, the chain on the door still firmly in place.

“Yes?” the woman asked suspiciously, sizing Jackie up as quickly and effectively as she could through the narrow opening.

Jackie produced her identification again as she introduced herself, prompting the older woman to close the door and unfasten the chain. When it came open again, she gestured for Jackie to come in. The older woman still had most of the color in her hair, slightly faded though it was. She was in decent shape and was dressed in a casual sweater and jeans.

“What can I do for you, Agent Heins?” Ms. Ascher asked, stepping into her kitchen to take a kettle off of the stove. “Tea?”

“No, thank you,” Jackie answered as she stepped further into the apartment. It wasn’t quite as big as she would have thought, but it was immaculately kept and tastefully decorated. Besides a single armchair, most of the furniture looked like it had seen minimal use. A large flat-screen TV mounted to the wall across from the chair displayed a movie the woman had paused to answer the door. “I just wanted to ask you a few questions about a former employee of yours that went missing by the name of Simon Chase.”

“Chase?” Ms. Ascher repeated, clearly surprised. “I haven’t heard from him in years. What could DHS possibly want with him?”

“Might be connected to another case I’m working on,” Jackie answered evasively. “What can you tell me about him?”

The woman poured the hot water from her kettle into a mug with a teabag already placed inside, then set the kettle aside. “Not much, I’m afraid. He was pretty quiet and kept to himself. He was good with customers, though. He wasn’t very charismatic, mind you, but he was always well-informed on everything we had on the lot. Whenever we got new vehicles in, he would make it his business to learn everything about them. Customers really liked that.”

“So his sales were pretty good?” Jackie asked, continuing to look around the room. The nearby balcony looked out onto a small playground just outside, but there was no indication that the woman had any children of her own. It was too clean and well-organized. No pictures of them on the walls.

“God, no,” the older woman laughed. “He barely managed to hit his numbers most months. He was good with the customers—and they liked him—but he had trouble closing sales. He was very non-confrontational. If a customer showed any hesitation, he’d tell them to think it over and come back.”

“But you kept him around?” Jackie pressed with a frown.

“Like I said, he was good with the customers and knew a lot,” Ms. Ascher said, dipping the teabag in the hot water several times before giving a trial sip. “His sales weren’t low enough to merit letting him go. Besides, there were plenty of others working for me at the time that could tap his knowledge to help close their own sales and enough salesmanship to finish what he started, so it worked out for everybody.”

“Were they working on commission?” Jackie asked, placing her hands in the pockets of her jacket.

Ms. Ascher took a long sip of her tea before nodding. “Yeah, but everyone got a fair share. If multiple salespeople were attached to a sale, they both saw money from it.”

“So the argument that Mr. Chase got into before leaving wasn’t about the commission?” Jackie suggested.

Ms. Ascher shook her head, her lips pressing into a thin line of concern. “No. The man he argued with—Zack Rubin— said it was, but there were others who overheard the argument and said it wasn’t about sales. It wasn’t even about cars. I didn’t hear it myself, so I couldn’t say. But it got violent. Simon broke his damn arm.”

Jackie’s brows shot up in surprise. “That wasn’t in the missing person’s report.”

“Zack didn’t want to report it,” Ms. Ascher explained with a profoundly confused expression. “He insisted it was just an accident, but I don’t see how something like that happens by accident. They were friendly outside of work, I think, so I just assumed they talked it out or came to an arrangement.”

“Do you have any paperwork for that, by chance?” Jackie wondered.

“No, I’m not at the dealership anymore,” Ms. Ascher responded with a frown. “We did all the appropriate paperwork for something like that, but because Simon never came back to work it never went anywhere. There was no need.”

Jackie pulled the phone out of her pocket and sent a text back to Ada, requesting an address for Zack Rubin. “What was the argument about, if not commissions?”

Ms. Ascher’s face scrunched up in thought as she clicked her tongue. “I don’t know, but I remember someone saying something about elves? Maybe they were playing that D&D game? But I can’t imagine a fight being over something so foolish.”

Jackie frowned, remembering how she and Daryl had first encountered Simon in Elyndor. He had a great deal of elves in his camp, many of which were servicing him sexually when they’d entered his tent. It seemed that there was at least one other person in Boston who might have known about Elyndor besides Simon at the time. Her phone buzzed as Ada gave her the address.

“Ms. Ascher, thank you,” Jackie said as she placed her phone back into her pocket, retrieving a business card in its place to hand to the older woman. “I think I’ll go have a talk with Mr. Rubin about the details, but if you remember anything else strange, just give me a call.”

She handed the woman her card and said her goodbyes before seeing herself out. She mulled the facts over during the ride in the elevator and all the way out to the street, where she got back into her rental car. Jackie had to wonder how many other cases like this might be hovering around in other states, where something slightly odd was actually tied back to a portal to Elyndor—or somewhere worse. After plugging the new address into the GPS, she was off.

Zack Rubin didn’t live far—only about ten minutes from Ms. Ascher’s place. Again, Jackie, gifted with a blessing of insanely good luck, managed to park her car on the street before quickly ascending the stairs of the old Victorian Brownstone. Slipping past one of the tenants on his way out, Jackie was able to bypass the need to buzz in. She double-checked the text with the apartment number and climbed the stairs to the second floor.

When she finally reached the apartment, she gave a slightly more authoritative knock rather than the one she had chosen with Ms. Ascher. The door opened, revealing a comely young man in his mid-twenties with curly brown hair and slightly tanned skin. He wore a T-shirt for a metal band and a pair of old sweatpants.

“The hell ya poundin’ on my door for?” He asked in an accent that was distinctly Bostonian. It sounded less like Back Bay and more like Southern Boston to her ear.

“Special Agent Jacqueline Heins with DHS,” Jackie announced, flashing her badge without breaking eye contact with the young man. “Are you Zack Rubin?”

“Uh, yeah,” the man answered tentatively, crossing his arms uncomfortably. “What’s this about?

“I’d like to ask you a few questions. May I come in?” Jackie nodded toward the apartment interior, not wanting to have a conversation about a fantasy world in the hall where anyone could overhear it. Granted, it didn’t seem likely that anyone would take it seriously, but it still fell roughly into the area of national security.

“Y-yeah, sure,” the man said, stepping back and to the side to let her in. The apartment was a stark contrast to that of Ms. Ascher. It was disorganized but not filthy. Numerous surfaces were covered in books and magazines, while the walls were adorned with various overlapping posters from movies, video games, and bands. A video game controller sat in a nest of blankets on the couch. A large flat-screen TV showed the game on pause, though she didn’t recognize it.

Zack joined her in the living room after closing the door behind her, walking around to stop a few feet in front of her with his arms crossed once more. “Am I in trouble or something?”

“I just have a few questions about an incident you were involved in a few years ago,” Jackie began, glancing around the room a little more. It was a very busy and cluttered space, but she realized it represented a lot of money spent. There was a sophisticated gaming PC she could see through the door into the other room.

“A few years?” Zack scoffed a bit. “Sure, but no promises.”

“I wanted to ask you about the co-worker you got into an altercation with, Simon Cha—!” Zack’s hands flashed outward in a panic as bolts of light sprung from his fingertips. Jackie barely managed to avoid the projectiles by falling to one side against the wall. Her jacket was caught by one of the missiles, leaving behind a small, singed hole. The door behind her cracked and sizzled with the impact of the others.

Jackie drew her weapon as Zack ducked into the next room, preventing her from getting a clean shot. “Fuckin magic?” she muttered to herself as she scooted along the wall toward the open doorway.

“Mr. Rubin, you’ve just assaulted an officer,” she warned while glancing around the corner quickly. She managed to pull her head back before another barrage of glowing missiles peppered the door frame, scattering burnt wooden slivers into the living room.

“Fuck off!” Zack shouted from the bedroom. “I don’t want any of his bullshit! You tell him I’m out!”

Jackie growled a bit, gripping her gun a little tighter as she considered her options. It didn’t sound like the two were on good terms, but he definitely had the answers that she needed. If she put a bullet in him, the chances of her getting the answers went down, and the chances of unnecessary stacks of paperwork went up. “I just want to talk. I don’t want to hurt you.”

When he didn’t answer immediately, she chanced another look around the corner, only to see the man scrambling out the window onto a fire escape. She holstered her weapon and gave chase. By the time she reached the window, he was already flying down the metal stairs to the lower level and kicking the ladder free.

“Motherfucker,” Jackie snarled, vaulting over the railing to drop down to the railing of the next level, then again to the alley below. Zack nearly ran into her, with how quickly the agent had appeared in front of him. As he brought a hand up for another volley of the glowing missiles, Jackie caught him by the wrist, twisted it around behind his back, and slammed him face-first into the nearest wall.

“Agh!” Zack protested angrily. “Police brutality, police brutality!”

Jackie twisted his wrist up behind his back as she leaned against him, kicking his legs apart with one foot. “You want to see brutality? Go ahead and light those fingers up again, Sparkles, I dare you.”

“S-Sparkles?” Zack growled in pain. “It’s a fuckin’ arcane missile spell, ya dumb bitch!”

“You’re lucky I didn’t shoot back,” Jackie snapped, cuffing the man across the back of the head with an open hand. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“I’m done with Simon and all his Balor bullshit,” the young man protested, shaking his head wildly. “I told him I’m out. I can’t do that shit anymore.”

“What shit?” Jackie snapped again, applying a little more of her weight against him.

“T-the…” Zack stammered, shaking his head in denial. “They’re people. Just like us.”

“Who?” Jackie pressed impatiently. “Talk to me, and maybe I can keep you out of a cell!”

Jackie was bluffing, of course. Besides assaulting an officer, they didn’t even have laws to handle what had just happened. She couldn’t drag the young man in on charges of assault with a deadly spell. “How’re you casting spells and shit outside of Elyndor?”

Zack looked back at her frantically out of the corner of his eye. “All spells learned in Elyndor carry over to this one, don’t you know that?”

Jackie’s blood ran cold as the image of Simon incinerating two people with eye beams flashed through her mind. “All of them?”

“Yeah, it just requires more effort,” he answered. Her grip loosened, but she didn’t release him entirely. “You still possess the ability; you just have to spend time practicing it here. There’s some kind of resistance from our world you have to overcome. Once you do, you’re good.”

“Chase knows this?” Jackie pressed.

“Oh, yeah,” Zack laughed a little. “He fuckin’ knows alright. Had a wicked hard-on to try out all his Zintari shit once he could level ‘em enough.”

Producing a set of handcuffs, Jackie snapped one around the wrist she was holding before snatching up the other wrist to do the same. With both hands secured behind the young man’s back, the chances of him lobbing any more arcane missiles went down considerably. She pulled him away from the wall and shoved him down onto a pile of boxes to have a seat.

“So why hasn’t he?” Jackie asked, pulling her phone out and sending another text to Ava, informing her she had some kind of sorcerer in cuffs. “What’s he waiting for?”

“I blocked the door,” Zack laughed bitterly. “He can’t do anything from his side. If he wants to come back, he has to find another way.”

“You blocked it,” Jackie repeated, quirking a brow. “Why?”

“Because he’s a fuckin’ psychopath,” the young man scoffed, looking away. “Doesn’t give a shit about anybody. Doesn’t care who he hurts. Once he got those fuckin’ abilities, everyone else became lesser entities to him.”

“You’re not Zintari, then?” Jackie wondered, watching as the little dots in the text bubble indicating someone typing on the other end continued to appear and disappear. Evidently, Ava didn’t know what to do with the information either.

“No, I had to learn things the hard way,” Zack responded with the same bitter tone. “I don’t get yoked out of my fuckin’ mind after goin’ on killing sprees, sorry.”

“Yeah, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting ‘the Balor of Back Bay’,” Jackie remarked blandly. “I’ve seen how he gets.”

“H-how?” Zack stammered fearfully. “You opened the door?”

“I went to Elyndor through a different portal,” Jackie corrected, setting her phone back in her pocket until Ava could figure out what she wanted to say. “I met him there.”

The young man let out an anguished groan as he leaned back into the boxes, shaking his head. “God dammit, we’re so fucked.”

Jackie held a hand up. “Calm down. He doesn’t know where it is.”

“You better fuckin’ hope not!” Zack exclaimed hysterically. “Because if he finds that portal, he’s gonna make it all our fuckin’ problem!”

Chapter 8

We made good time once we found the northern passage out of the Vale. It was heavily forested, concealing the entrance from the high vantage point we had from the mouth of the cave. It was a narrow canyon with a stream at the bottom, but there was enough room on either bank for us to ride through single-file. I sat on the back of the quad while Susie drove, keeping my eyes peeled for any dangerous creatures we may not have encountered yet. Traveling out of the Vale and north meant that we were venturing into territory that wasn’t as freshly hunted.

The canyon went on for some time due to the various twists and turns it took, sometimes seeming like it would double back on itself. Eventually when the canyon widened and leveled out a little more, the stream veered away from us while we continued north. I had no way of knowing exactly where the Zintari called Izolde would be, but my hope was that if we got close enough, we would begin to see signs of life.

As for us and whatever signs of our passing we might leave behind, Kate had us covered. That was, so long as we remained close to her. I’d noticed during the initial training with the quads that the one Kate had driven hadn’t left behind any tracks while she was riding it. One upgrade later and her trackless steps extended not only beyond her but to a small area close to her. It didn’t matter how fast we went or how hard we cornered— so long as we stayed away from soft, wet ground— we would never leave behind any tracks or signs that we’d barreled through the canyon or the land beyond.

The vegetation wasn’t as plentiful as it was in the Vale, but it was much better than the glimpse of the Badlands I had been given. Much of the plant life was strange misshapen grass, smaller trees that appeared like writhing snakes frozen in time, and lots of bushy things covered in thorns and dark flowers that stayed close to the ground.

Around noon, we found what appeared to be a logging camp and decided to have lunch there. I looked around first to see if anyone was occupying the crude structure or the surrounding outbuildings but found nobody.

“Kinda eerie, huh?” Susie asked as she sat with Kate and Moppi at a roughshod wooden table at the front of the building. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for years.”

“Yeah,” I muttered absently as I peeked in through one of the broken shutters of the window. There didn’t seem to be much of value inside, but I decided to have a look anyway. The front door was locked, but with a little force, I was able to pop it open without trouble.

The inside was covered in layers of dust, with a few workbenches and bunks occupying either wall. Remnants of old, spoiled food were in the larder, and wood shavings from whittling and carving peppered the wooden floor. There didn’t seem to be any signs of a fight or that anything had gone amiss. It simply seemed abandoned. Near the rear of the cabin, I found an old logbook containing various line items in a language I didn’t recognize. I brought it back outside to the lunch table and placed it in front of Kate.

“Do you know how to read this?” I asked, flopping down on the bench next to Susie and reaching for a sandwich.

“Mmm,” Kate grunted around a mouthful of ham and cheese and nodded. I afforded her a moment to swallow what was in her mouth before motioning for her to continue.

“It’s a ledger,” she explained, flipping a few pages. “Destinations, names, dates, quantity…that sort of thing. Pretty boring.”

“Is Izolde’s name in there?” I wondered, taking a bit of my sandwich as I stared to the north through the scraggly branches of the trees around the camp. The hobgoblin flipped several more pages as she quietly scanned the lines.

“Here. A few years ago,” she announced, pointing out one of the lines. “It was a large order. It has directions and instructions.”

Moppi leaned over to look at the book but couldn’t make any sense of what was written. “You drive, then.”

“Guess we’re following you,” Susie smirked as she finished off her sandwich.

After lunch, Kate and Moppi took the lead. Susie was still excited to be driving, so we didn’t bother to switch. I was pretty content to sit in the back and take in the sights anyway. We descended the shallow hill the logging camp had been located on and continued northward.

A flock of winged creatures the size of small cars passed overhead. Each one looked like it couldn’t decide whether it was a dinosaur or a bird, with long necks that ended in large eyes and sharp beaks. Their wingspan was impressive, but not nearly as much as the vicious talons on each of their four legs. Those of the hind legs looked especially dangerous. If the noise of the quads caught their attention, they made no indication of it and continued on their way. I kept my weapon trained on them as a precaution until they passed out of sight.

I repeated this process with every creature we came across, of which there were several. In some cases, the noise from the quads would cause them to steer clear of us, usually when it came to the smaller things. In other instances—like with the larger fauna—the creatures would stand their ground and eye us warily. Some insects the size of cats ventured too close to us at one point, but rather than open fire on them, I took a couple of swings with my hand to swat them away. They were either unable or unwilling to chase after us as we continued on.

As we neared the foothills of another range, Kate slowed to a stop and waited for us to pull up alongside her. Pulling her helmet off, she looked over at the two of us. “There is a road that leads up. There’s a village at the top that will likely see us coming from far away.”

“So be on our guard,” I surmised with a nod.

Kate returned the nod as she turned the helmet over in her hands. “There is the matter of the sound as well. They will not recognize it and may be hostile.”

“We’ll take the lead from here,” I decided. Susie was more than capable of following a road. Kate and Moppi agreed after switching places on their quad. We gave the hobgoblin a moment to ready her bow before taking the lead.

The dirt road seemed well-traveled despite never encountering a person for the entire trip. Once the foothills became proper mountains, the road took the form of switchbacks to safely traverse further upward. Nestled among the craggy rocks toward the top was a long wall made of stone, atop which stood bipedal creatures that looked like crosses between mountain goats and humans. They had bows at the ready as Susie slowed us to a stop once again. I motioned for them to wait as I hopped off the back of the quad and approached the gate portion of the wall, where several guards awaited me.

A short man with a bushy beard and thick metal armor met me, holding a hand up to indicate I was to come no further. “That’s far enough, stranger.”

Holding my helmet under one arm, I glanced up at the wall and back down to what I had to assume was a dwarf. He certainly looked the part, complete with a pickaxe that looked like it was meant for war rather than mining. “I come in peace.”

“Peace?” the dwarf chuckled, his eyes shifting toward my companions and the strange vehicles we drove. “Been nothing but noise from what I’m told.”

“Sorry about that,” I said, motioning back to the quads with one hand. “I mean, I’m not looking for a confrontation or anything.”

“I know what ya mean,” the dwarf grumbled, his gaze moving back to me as he took in the details of my attire. I assumed he was trying to determine if what I was wearing was armor or not. “What’s yer business, then?”

“Looking for Izolde,” I answered honestly. The Zintari’s name caused the dwarf’s posture to go rigid once again.

“Issat right now?” The dwarf grumbled, tilting his head as his hand came to rest on the haft of his weapon. “What business ya got with Mistress Izolde?”

“Information, mostly,” I responded without changing my posture. I didn’t want to seem like I was spoiling for a fight or willing to escalate the tension any further. “I’m sort of new around here, and I was informed she might be a potential source to seek out. Again, I’m not looking for a fight.”

His bushy brows furrowed with a mixture of confusion and concern. “Yer a Zintari?”

“That’s what they tell me,” I acknowledged with a little smile. “Though I’ve got the bare minimum on what that entails right now. Hence, why I want to speak with Izolde.”

“Hm,” the dwarf grunted again, his hand sliding away from the weapon. “What’s yer name then?”

“Barnes,” I answered with a shrug. I’d become accustomed to hearing my last name from Jackie and Boulder. It sounded more professional than my first name and I wasn’t inclined to give both until I’d met the woman. I had a sneaking suspicion that Izolde—like Balor—wasn’t her real name. Despite the fact that the goblins were referring to me as their king, I had no way of knowing if calling myself the Goblin King would be a good idea or not. So Barnes it was.

“Alright,” the dwarf nodded, motioning toward the rest of my little group. “You can bring your whatevers in, but we don’t want you riding them through town. Yer gonna have to leave them just inside the wall.”

“Okay,” I agreed. I didn’t want to cause more of a stir than I already had, or I was about to just by my presence alone.

When the gates opened, we drove the quads through and parked them neatly in an empty spot off to the side. Several of the guards along the wall came down to examine the vehicles alongside some others who had been drawn to the noise. The dwarf demanded the crowd disperse to give us some room.

“If ya want to speak to Mistress Izolde,” the dwarf rumbled, pointing further north. “That’s where you want to go.”

Behind the wall, the terrain dipped sharply into a large hollow where an entire village had situated itself. Numerous buildings of brick, wood, and mortar lined the many roads, each with a chimney of brick that billowed puffs of smoke into the air. I noticed only then how much colder it had gotten at our new altitude, but the suits we had under our armor would keep us warm for a little while longer.

Where the dwarf had pointed, on the other side of what was essentially a crater, was an immense multi-storied castle made of twisted jagged rock in several places. If I had to guess, I would have assumed it was made from the side of the mountain itself. As I took it in, I couldn’t decide if we were standing in the caldera of an extinct volcano or an impact crater from something that had struck the mountainside.

“We’ll send word to announce you,” the dwarf continued. “But that don’t mean you’ll get an audience.”

“Understood,” I acknowledged, offering my hand to the dwarf. “Thank you for your help.”

The dwarf stared at my hand in bewilderment for a brief moment before taking it and giving it a few pumps. He motioned with his other hand to a few soldiers at the ready. They all appeared to be of the goat-like species I had seen on the wall. “These gentlemen will escort you. Welcome to Ironrock.”

I nodded again and motioned for Susie and the others to fall in line. I noticed a few hushed comments about the goblins when they took their helmets off. It seemed their kind were neither common nor appreciated around here, but no one was willing to take it further than a few stray remarks. Kate and Moppi scowled toward anyone who spoke ill of them, their ears much more sensitive than mine.

We descended along the main road with soldiers in front of us and behind us. Various townspeople of a few other species I didn’t recognize stood along the sides of the road to watch us pass or otherwise viewed us through windows and balconies. There was a reptilian species, more dwarves, some shaggy-haired human-shaped creatures, and a species I could best describe as a bipedal armadillo. The people as a whole seemed rugged and stout, with anything taller than a dwarf having an impressive shoulder span, even the females.

Every so often, we caught sight of pack animals about the size of draft horses but resembling long-horned beetles. Their large pincers were secured shut with harnesses to prevent accidents. All of the equipment was a combination of leather, wrought iron, or hammered steel.

“This is fucking crazy,” Susie murmured beside me, her head snapping around in various directions so fast that I worried she might get whiplash. “A whole fucking town up here.”

As we ascended to the other side of the crater, the homes became larger and constructed of better materials. The people seemed a little less rugged with clothing, not nearly as rough spun as what we had seen for the majority of our walk. Footbridges designed to pass over the lower terrain, connecting buildings to one another, were more common here, allowing for shorter trips than the roads and alleys would otherwise allow. The packed dirt became cobblestone as we approached the immense jagged structure of the castle.

More soldiers met us at the entrance, mostly of the reptilian species. They were accompanied by a pair of stone golems with panels of steel or iron riveted to their bodies. They moved with a hunched gait, their backs almost like spiked tortoise shells. The soldiers escorted us inside while the golems remained outside the front doors. We ascended a staircase of dark stone adorned with a decorative crimson rug before we stepped into the main hall.

At the far end stood a throne made completely of jagged stone, though it was laced with small veins of gold. The seat itself had cushions the same crimson color as the rug that carved a path through the vast, high-ceilinged chamber. It all paled in comparison to the woman who sat atop it, dominatrix-leather-clad legs crossed over one another. She rose to her feet as we approached, further accentuating the ridiculous length of her legs emphasized by the cut of the black leather corset above her hips. Her waist was skinny, her breasts huge and pierced through the nipples. Her milky skin stood in contrast to her many other piercings and the stylized makeup she’d painted her face with. She exuded a palpable aura of power as she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders.

“Step on me, Mommy,” Susie muttered to me out of the corner of her mouth. I glanced at her briefly before turning my attention forward.

“Welcome, fellow Zintari,” the regal dominatrix said, her voice smooth and dark as midnight satin. A twinkle between the small gap in her thighs indicated that her cunt was pierced as well. Though I couldn’t make it out clearly, that was due solely to the angle. She didn’t seem at all worried about preserving any measure of modesty. “I am Mistress Izolde Blackrose, Scourge of the North, Flayer of Men. I am honored to have you as a guest in my court.”

“You think she’s got an extra one of those lying around?” Susie muttered again as she eye-fucked the woman in the corset. I shot her a look before taking another step forward.

“Thank you,” I responded, taking a second to clear my throat. “I’m Barnes, uh…”

I glanced back at the others as I realized I had only the one title. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to make one up or if people bestowed them on me. Balor hadn’t been clear on what the protocol for that was, so I just split the difference.

“Barnes of the Vale,” I clarified. “King of the Goblins.”

“Well met Goblin King,” she acknowledged with a little nod. “These are your vassals?”

“Oh!” I said, stepping to one side to introduce each of them. “This is Moppi, Katanika, and Susie.”

Izolde took a few steps closer to us, her black lips turning into a bit of a frown. “Susie?”

Susie and I exchanged glances before offering the leather-clad woman little shrugs. “Yes?”

Izolde took a step closer and leaned in, lowering her voice so that her various guards and attendants at the edge of the chamber wouldn’t overhear. “That’s what you went with? You might wanna work on that a little bit.”

I raised a brow as Izolde took a step back, clearing her throat and donning the air of authority once more. “What brings you to my court, Goblin King?”

I shook my head quickly to refocus my thoughts. The quick shift from formal to casual and back again was going to take a moment to get used to. “Well, I’m new and thought maybe it would be a good idea to receive a little guidance from someone more experienced. I spoke with Balor, but—.”

“Balor!?” Izolde exclaimed angrily, her shoulders slumping. “For fuck’s sake, I’ll never be rid of that filthy prick, will I?”

Susie and I exchanged confused glances as Izolde waved her hands vaguely to the others in the room. “You’re all dismissed, I’ll be speaking to them in private!”

When the other occupants—as confused as we were—didn’t immediately comply, Izolde raised her voice to a near thunderous crescendo, her words carrying a distinctly supernatural weight to them that even I could detect. “GET OUT!”

The others fled, leaving me and my three companions alone with Izolde, who stared at us with naked disappointment. She heaved a beleaguered sigh as she stepped away from her impressive throne and waved at us to follow. “Come on, let’s get this shit over with, I guess.”

Chapter 9

Stepping out of the main hall, we walked briskly down a corridor past a few other rooms before reaching what looked distinctly like a dressing room. As we entered, Izolde took her earrings out and grabbed a black silk robe to throw on.

“When I heard a Zintari was here, I thought we’d be getting into it,” she said, flopping down into a chair in front of a vanity and mirror. Numerous glowing stones around the mirror’s frame took the place of light bulbs I would expect to find backstage at a theater production.

“Getting into it?” I asked, a little confused. Susie and the other two looked around the room, which contained other BDSM-themed costumes, storage for makeup, sex toys, and jewelry.

Izolde checked her makeup in the mirror before turning to look at me. “All the nu-Zintari engage in a sort of cold war with each other. It wasn’t part of the game at first, from what I’m told, but now we all do it.”

“Is that why you have all the…” he motioned vaguely to the leather and piercings.

She let out a short mirthful laugh that didn’t at all fit the persona she had projected in the main hall. “I guess? I mean, I’m really into it. The whole bad bitch thing has always been my vibe, but it was more of an aesthetic than a lifestyle. But in Elyndor you can take all of that stuff further.”

“Where are you from originally?” I asked, absently snapping my fingers at Moppi to keep her fingers out of the jewelry.

Izolde held a finger up in mock-admonishment. “We don’t ask that of each other. That’s your first lesson from me. All of the nu-Zintari protect their identities as best as they can, so usually divulging where you’re from is a bad idea. Asking where someone else is from is even worse.”

“Oh, sorry,” I responded, holding my hands up defensively. It made sense now that she had put it that way. Anyone who wanted to get a leg up on competition in Elyndor could sort of cheat by going through the back doors of Earth.

“It’s alright,” Izolde said, waving her hand. “You’re still a newbie so all of that is to be expected.”

“Right,” I acknowledged, glancing at Kate and Moppi to have a seat in one of the spare overstuffed chairs at the edge of the room. Even Kate was struggling to keep her paws off of things. “So this is all just an act?”

“Sort of,” Izolde replied, wiggling her hand in a “so-so” fashion. “You can play the game basically any way you want, so the way each person does reflects their personal tastes. I’m into the BDSM thing so that’s how I do everything around here. I walk around with my tits out, step on some of my subjects to discipline them, fuck the shit out of a few NPCs, then retreat to my own personal area to unwind.”

“NPCs,” I repeated, realizing that she regarded the world of Elyndor as a literal video game the way that Balor did. “You think this is a video game or something?”

“What else would it be?” She laughed again, leaning back in her chair, allowing the robe to come open a little for a tantalizing look at the pale flesh of her breasts. “I mean obviously it’s not a console or anything. It’s highly sophisticated. But it just so happens to be an entire fantasy world with all of the same tropes, literary devices, and creatures as the genre of fantasy fiction? How would that not be something created by someone for the enjoyment of others?”

As far as rationalizations go, it wasn’t a terrible one. It seemed more well thought out than I would have given her credit for. “Balor seems to believe the same thing.”

“Tch, I’m nothing like Balor, alright?” She growled defensively. “There are ways to play the fucking game and he ruins it for everyone.”

“How’s that?” I wondered curiously, slowly sitting down in a chair across from her so I wasn’t looking down on her tits for the entire conversation.

“Look,” Izolde began, holding her hands up. “I’ve gotten a little rough with the NPCs here. I’ve had to take a few out when they posed a threat, sure. But I don’t go around wholesale slaughtering them or tearing them apart to see what’s on the inside. Any degradation I subject them to is temporary, consensual with little safe words if shit gets too intense.”

“Safe words,” I repeated with raised brows. Not only did she have the BDSM look down, but she had applied the ideology to how she did everything in Elyndor.

“Of course,” she scoffed. “I’m not a monster. If I’m sitting on the face of someone who’s got a magic tongue, I don’t want to end up suffocating the poor fucker, right?”

I could acknowledge the beauty in her words as a facesitting connoisseur myself, but I decided not to comment, lest I get us off track. Susie did voice her support, though.

“Hear, hear!” she chirped, pumping her fist. Izolde looked over at her with a little smirk, appreciating her enthusiasm.

“And Balor isn’t like that,” I surmised.

“No,” Izolde huffed. “Either he sees everything as easily replaceable or easily disposable, I don’t know which. Sure, you can reap the NPCs, but why would you need to with how many monsters they give you to work with? I mean the whole point of the upgrade system is to work in tandem with the NPCs to build something in the world. Reclaiming a post-magical-holocaust wasteland, and all that.”

I guessed reaping was the term for what Zintari did when a monster was slain. It seemed apt. While she wasn’t as brutal or unhinged as Balor, it was coming from a place of propriety rather than humanity. Viewing everything as a game, she wanted to play the game “as designed” rather than go around destroying everything.

“Does everyone share this point of view with you?” I asked.

“No,” Izolde sighed, running her fingers through her dark, slicked-back hair. “Unfortunately not. Not all of them are as bad as Balor, but a lot can’t resist going crazy with the power they have here. Some just live here forever. I probably will eventually, but I still have family back home that I look in on. Which is why we don’t share where we’re from.”

“Is violence between the Zintari pretty common, then?” Susie asked apprehensively.

Izolde frowned and shook her head. “Not among the nu-Zintari. But the lore says the original Zintari, what must have been the players in the first iteration of the game, definitely fucked around and found out. But they’ll still do things to each other indirectly.”

I pursed my lips a little impatiently and looked away. Hearing her talk about it as a game made it difficult for me to pursue any line of questioning, especially with Kate and Moppi sitting right there. I stared at the two of them for a moment before allowing my eyes to wander around the room. “Where did you get all of this stuff?”

“I brought a lot of it from home, at first,” she explained, motioning to certain areas of her wardrobe. “Others were made here once I upgraded some of the NPCs.”

“Balor seemed surprised that I had things from home,” I noted, holding up the helmet and indicating the weapons I still wore. The guards hadn’t even bothered to disarm us when we came in, which I assumed was a commentary on just how powerful Izolde was.

“It’s a rare perk,” Izolde admitted with a little shrug. “Some of the portals are tied to real world locations in ways that aren’t very clear, so you can bring things with you from those places. Mine was located in a studio so I can bring things from there. But if I run out to grab a burger and bring it back with me, it doesn’t work.”

“What happens to it?” Susie asked.

“I don’t know,” Izolde confessed with a short laugh. “It doesn’t get left behind and it doesn’t come with me. So…hard to say. There also seems to be a relationship between the size of the portal and what you can bring with you, but I haven’t bothered with that because it’s not as though you can change it. You just learn what’s allowed and what’s not.”

“We have quads!” Moppi bragged, puffing her chest out a little.

“Like ATVs?” Izolde responded, surprised. She looked between me and Susie, each of us nodding in the affirmative. “Wow. Yeah that’s… I haven’t heard of one like that before.”

“That’s how we got here from the Vale,” I clarified. “It would have been a bitch of a trip by foot.”

“You’re in the Vale!?” Izolde chuckled. “That’s awesome. That’s a much better place to start out than up here. Lots of low-level monsters there to get going.”

I closed my eyes impatiently and let a long breath out through my nose. It didn’t go unnoticed, and Izolde looked at me with a bit of concern in her eyes. “What’s the problem?”

“What if I told you, this wasn’t a game?” I said, opening my eyes to lock her gaze with my own. “That it was all real?”

“That would be ridiculous, but it’s understandable why you would be confused,” Izolde objected. “We’ve all been there. But it’s just that sophisticated and detailed of an experience that you can get overwhelmed by it, at first. Or even lost in it entirely.”

“If it’s a game like you say, what happens when you die?” I postulated. “Extra lives? Experience loss?”

“No, you definitely still die,” she admitted. “But that’s a bug, not a feature. Whatever the original Zintari did, it fucked a lot of stuff up for the rest of us. That’s why we have all these protocols for each other now.”

“Right, right,” I murmured, glancing over at Moppi and Kate. “What about them?”

“Your NPCs?” Izolde scoffed. “What about them? They’re hot and everything, and I can see you’ve upgraded them a bit, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“If it was just a game, how would they be able to come through the portal with me back home?” I asked skeptically.

Izolde stared at me for several seconds, dumbfounded by what I’d just said. She looked between each of us quickly for any sign that I was joking. When she found none, her gaze settled back on me as a range of emotions fought with one another for dominance on her face. “What?”

I motioned to Moppi with one hand. “I only discovered my portal because she and two others came through it fleeing an owlbear.”

Izolde’s posture visibly deflated a little bit as she brought a hand up to her mouth. “That’s…no. That can’t be right. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Hand to fucking God,” I promised. “I was just working on a little homestead when it happened. I’ve got a gaggle of them back home seeking asylum from some of the shit Balor was doing.”

Izolde’s eyes became glassier as she looked between us again, lingering for much longer on Kate and Moppi. What she had viewed as non-people a moment ago suddenly gained a measure of humanity in her mind, and she didn’t seem to know what to do with the information. “Oh my God.”

I held a hand up slowly. “Look, whatever you might have done, you didn’t know. You shouldn’t blame yourself for that. Just try—.”

“No, no, no,” Izolde said, waving her hands as she jumped to her feet. She paced around the room several times before coming to a stop. “Anything I did—anyone I killed—usually needed killing, and as a last resort. But the others….fuck, Balor nearly wiped out what was left of the elves. He’s completely enslaved the rest! It was a big deal a few years ago because none of the other Zintari could get any elves among their followers unless they went through him.”

I stared back at her, just as shocked as she was. Susie’s hands went over her mouth slowly as the reality of it sunk in for her as well. Balor had committed a genocide and had a whole slave trade trafficking the survivors. I couldn’t help but wonder if a similar cause was behind why humans appeared to be so rare. In fact, the scarcity of humans may have been what made it so easy for various Zintari to accept that none of this was real or that the so-called NPCs weren’t real people.

“I don’t know what to say,” Izolde murmured, gazing down at the floor. “I don’t know what to do.”

I stood up and took a step toward her, tentatively placing my hands on her shoulders. She didn’t pull away, but her posture grew rigid at my touch. “Like I said, you didn’t know. You couldn’t have known. Especially if the only other people you’ve known from home were all convinced of the same thing. Your logic wasn’t terrible, really. But if you haven’t been a cruel mistress to your people, perhaps you don’t have much to worry about.”

“No,” Izolde said, looking up at me. “I’m definitely a cruel bitch. But I tried to keep it all within a certain framework. It was all a game. Or it was supposed to be. Not a whole way of life.”

I chewed my lip, uncertain how to comfort her in a moment of crisis. I had come from the assumption that it was all real almost immediately. I couldn’t even fathom how it would feel to have been learning it only then after everything I’d seen and done. All my decisions had been informed by that outlook, using a moral compass that was identical to the one at home. They were just different places to me.

Looking around her dressing room, it became clear to me that her background was in theater or film, perhaps even porn. Her readiness to separate a fantasy world from the mundane world back on Earth made even more sense if that were the case.

“I’m from Los Angeles,” Izolde confessed suddenly, her eyes meeting mine before pointedly going to Susie and the others. “I want you to know that. I feel like I owe it to you. My portal is located in an old film studio I inherited from an uncle. I found it when I was cleaning the place out.”

I frowned, glancing back at Susie, who offered me a brief nod of assurance. “We’re from Wa-Pa Lake, Wisconsin.”

Izolde laughed uneasily. “Farmboy?”

“Not quite,” Susie scoffed, crossing her arms. “Crazy homesteader would be more accurate.”

Again, Izolde laughed, but this time it seemed genuinely more amused. She took a step forward and leaned on me, pressing her forehead to my shoulder. I had the feeling it would have been my chest if she hadn’t been so tall. “Fuck,” she muttered.

I patted her on the back a little awkwardly, still unsure of how to actually offer comfort in such a situation. “It’ll take time to process, I think.”

Izolde stepped away, wiping at a few tears that had begun to form in her eyes. Within seconds, she was composed again, adopting the confident air of authority she’d had earlier. “A lot will have to be relearned—recontextualized, even. But I should still be able to instruct you. I can answer whatever questions you might have about being a Zintari, at least.”

I decided to keep it a little lighter instead of diving into serious stuff right away. “What are your special abilities?”

Izolde looked thoughtful for a moment. “Authority, you could say. I can adopt a tone of voice that makes it difficult to resist my commands. That and telekinesis.”

“Holy shit!” Susie laughed, taking a step back. “You can move shit with your mind?”

“Yeah,” Izolde answered with a hint of a smile, motioning toward a hairbrush on the vanity with one finger. It rose into the air as if by some unseen hand. With another twitch of her finger, it was tossed gently over to Susie. “I’m not usually quite as gentle with it, though.”

Susie caught the brush, looking at it in awe briefly before turning her attention back to Izolde. “So can you choke people with it and shit?”

“Would you like a demonstration?” Izolde asked, arching a brow imperiously. Susie’s eyes lit up excitedly before I raised both hands.

“Don’t get her started,” I interrupted. “Or we’ll never get her to leave.”

“Cock blocker,” Susie snorted childishly.

My face scrunched up incredulously. “You don’t even have a dick, so how does that work?”

“Clam-jammed, then,” she retorted.

I pursed my lips. “Beaver dammed?”

“Cliterference,” Izolde added.

Kate and Moppi looked on, confused, as the three of us snickered at how terribly clever we thought we were. They understood English well enough, but certain plays on words were often lost on them. We were pretty fucking amused, though.

“How about you?” Izolde asked, pulling her black silk robe shut. “What have you got?”

“Strength, durability, endurance, regeneration,” I listed them off quickly. “The basics.”

“Regeneration isn’t very common,” Izolde pointed out. “But not rare enough to be your unique thing. You probably haven’t tapped into whatever yours is yet, which isn’t unusual.”

“What about eye beams?” I wondered, thinking specifically of Balor cooking people with a look.

“Pretty rare,” Izolde admitted, knowing precisely who I was talking about judging by the look on her face. “And powerful. But that comes from how much indiscriminate reaping he’s been doing.”

“What other abilities are there?” I pressed as I took my seat again.

Izolde followed my lead and had a seat as well. “Lots. I wouldn’t know where to start. But I guess if you think about the variety you see in comic books, that’d be a start. There’s even literal magic with spells and everything. None of the abilities the nu-Zintari have compare to what the original Zintari had, though. Bunch of elves hurling nukes at each other from towers miles and miles apart, so it seems.”

“Yeah, we encountered some of the fallout from that,” I responded. “Storms, mutated creatures, that sort of thing.”

“Yeah, you get more of it than I do with how close you are to the badlands,” Izolde remarked. “A lot of the world is like that, actually. But your durability helps protect against the miasma, and if your regeneration is good, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Guess I’m fucked,” Susie grumbled, crossing her arms.

“Not entirely,” Izolde corrected, holding a hand up. “He’s already upgraded you, so you can be upgraded to be resistant, regenerate, and even know magic. It takes a little longer and a little more effort but it’s certainly doable. Even Balor used to have a human sorcerer for a while until they had a falling out.”

“Ooooo,” Susie said with a little grin. “That sounds pretty fun.”

It was good to know that what I had theorized before was indeed true. With enough resources, I could effectively bolster any of the girls against casual harm both in Elyndor and Wisconsin. The numerous demons I’d slain in Numedha would be an excellent place to start.

“You ever go to Numedha?” I asked, now that it was on my mind.

Izolde frowned and shook her head. “No, you can see it at night, but I’ve never been there. Or the moons.”

“Wait—you can see it?” I said flabbergasted. “Like a planet in the sky?”

“Yeah, it’s closer to here than Mars or Venus is to Earth,” she clarified. “But it’s still easy to miss because of the dull color.”

Susie and I exchanged glances.

“Have you been there?” Izolde wondered, picking up on our silent exchange.

“My portal can connect directly to it,” I answered, resisting the urge to sound a little smug about the additional features it had. “We went there just a couple of days ago. But it lets out somewhere deep underground.”

“Completely overrun by demons,” Susie added with a look of disgust. “Fucking terrible place.”

Izolde’s eyes went between the four of us in wonder, a million questions forming in her mind, but none of them were able to reach her lips. Instead, she decided to switch tracks, leaning back into her chair. “Are you guys hungry? Maybe we want to continue the conversation over dinner.”

Susie’s eyes lit up, and I offered the Zintari a grateful smile. “Yeah, I could eat.”

Chapter 10

Izolde was a wealth of information. Normally, she would have treated us to some grand feast as part of the pageantry that typically went with everything the Zintari seemed to do, but because things between us had taken a drastically different tone, she elected for something more casual and laid back.

We all clustered to one side of the long feasting table she had in her dining hall, eating whatever the chef felt like giving us. She’d taught her head chef how to cook a bunch of things she liked to eat from California, so we were treated to a lot of Elyndor takes on Mexican food and a few other things.

We laughed and joked for a while, talking about the various things we’d both done in our time in Elyndor. When we got to dessert she sent for a loremaster to come and share some information with us. The elderly reptilian—his people were called dizuvian, it turned out—was older than just about everyone in the town and was capable of reciting numerous histories by heart. He told us of the ancient Zintari and how they were corrupted by their own power and hubris. He spoke of their ability to travel to other worlds through portals they created, where they met other societies and cultures, often bringing members of the new species back with them upon their return. He also detailed how, in hopes of gaining an advantage over one another, they plundered the secrets of Adam to make war upon one another.

Rather than correct it that it was probably “the atom” and not Adam, I let him continue. Kate and Moppi had heard portions of the stories before, but never in such complete detail and were captivated by the way in which the loremaster told it. The stories spoke of how the final days of the Zintari tore holes in the fabric of reality, how rifts had formed between Elyndor and other worlds, and how echoes of such tragedy spanned the cosmos. It was said that some of the old Zintari still existed, but if they did, they had yet to reveal themselves.

As the evening wore on, we switched from desserts to drinks and then took a little tour of her castle. The loremaster accompanied us, giving us the background on various statues, tapestries, or paintings that had been created in Izolde’s honor or those that had existed before her. It was easy to tell which ones she had personally commissioned due to the distinctly sexual nature that each one took. We saw her personal spa, the dungeon occupied by a few of her personal, let’s say, ‘servants’, and the tower where arcane research was done. We toured the armory, the barracks, a couple more pleasure rooms themed in different ways—one of which had an active orgy going when we entered—and the various rooms for study and leisure she had besides.

It felt later than it was by the time we were finished with the tour, but Izolde invited us to take some of the guest bedrooms for the night and then set out in the morning. I had explained how the ATVs were set up and her concern was that a type of wyvern that hunted exclusively at night would be attracted to the lights.

“Mistress,” another dizuvian said politely as he approached our little tour group. “A thousand pardons, but it seems as though Frjor wishes to speak with you.”

Izolde’s brow arched in her characteristically imperious way. “Let him know I will be there momentarily.”

“I remember that name,” I said as the loremaster departed with the dizuvian. “That’s the other Zintari that Balor told me about. He’s here?”

“No,” Izolde said, motioning with one hand for us to follow her as she moved briskly down the corridor. We stepped into a room that we’d yet to see that evening, in the center of which was a platform that looked like it was made of clear crystal or glass. Below it, an arrangement of glowing crystals shimmered and twinkled. The translucent form of a tall man clad in furs and bones stalked around the inner circle of the platform as he waited for Izolde. He didn’t acknowledge her presence until she stepped onto the platform with her, implying that it limited how far he was able to see in the room.

“Frjor,” Izolde greeted him in the same regal tone of voice she had used with us upon our arrival. “What an unexpected pleasure. What troubles you at such a late hour?”

“It’s Balor,” he growled angrily. He seemed less annoyed and more genuinely pissed. “He’s on the move again. He was spotted at my border. What have you heard?”

Izolde squared her shoulders, resisting the urge to look back at us. “Last I heard, he was hunting in the Vale—dracolisks.”

“That was what I suspected at first,” Frjor responded, pointing somewhere to his right. “But the season has just about concluded. The storms have gone, and yet he lingers.”

“He hasn’t come to speak with you?” Izolde asked, her hands clasped tightly behind her back. I had to admit, when allowed to play the part in the full dominatrix regalia, she was quite an intimidating figure.

“No. It vexes me,” Frjor answered. I couldn’t make much out of the man’s face beneath the large animal skull he wore as a mask, but I could tell that he was concerned. “He has grown more unstable as of late—less concerned with protocol.”

“Surely he wouldn’t dare to attack you,” Izolde assured him. “You have a sizable army at your command. His hunting party wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“As I said, it vexes me,” Frjor repeated. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“Have you been to the Vale recently?” Izolde asked, changing the subject. The question caught Frjor off-guard, and he simply stared at her for a while before offering a hesitant answer.

“I’ve no need,” he said, tilting his head to one side. “Why do you ask?”

“Because another Zintari has revealed himself,” Izolde explained. I swallowed nervously, wondering if I was going to be called upon to speak to the intimidating figure. I really didn’t want to get involved with whatever was between him and Balor. “A man by the name of Barnes. Have you heard of him?”

“No,” Frjor answered with a distinct note of concern. “I have not.”

“Strange because Balor met with him weeks ago,” Izolde explained. “He told him of us but did not tell us of him.”

“Again, he flaunts protocol!” Frjor roared almost like the beast whose furs he wore. “Has he aligned the newcomer against us?”

“I don’t believe so,” Izolde answered honestly, sneaking a sideways glance at me and Susie while Frjor’s back was turned amid his fuming. I shook my head emphatically as I waved my hands. “No.”

“If he is in the Vale, he isn’t powerful enough to challenge us,” Frjor surmised. “Why would Balor wish to keep him a secret, then? Why not tell us of him?”

To this, I had no answer, nor did Izolde. Even with her considerable expertise, she was unsure of why Balor was acting the way he was. As we sat in the silence, I began to reconsider something I had thought of right after meeting him—right after we’d had to shake trackers he’d sent after us.

“Regardless,” Frjor growled. “I know we have not always been on the best of terms. But I thought you should know. The last he was seen, he was beginning to head north again.”

“You have my thanks,” Izolde responded formally. “Your kindness will not be forgotten. Rest now, and put your thoughts to less troubling matters.”

Frjor nodded a few times, looking visibly exhausted by the topic of conversation. He bid her farewell and stepped out of the circle. A moment later, the glowing from beneath the platform ceased, and the rest of the room’s lighting evened out.

“That was Frjor,” Kate gasped as if she had been holding her breath the entire time. “One of the most fearsome warriors to ever raid the underground. Many of my people have fallen before his ax.”

“He’s a bloodthirsty one,” Izolde admitted as she stepped off the crystal platform and rejoined us. “So if he’s concerned about Balor’s behavior, we need to take it seriously.”

“You said that the Zintari don’t fight one another anymore, per protocol,” I pointed out. “You think he’s going to break from that?”

Izolde’s brows knit together with concern, and she gave me a slight shrug. “Impossible to say. He’s one of those types who is all about the rules until it’s a rule he doesn’t have any further use for, you know? But even if he doesn’t, there are ways to skirt the rules while still making things difficult for the rest of us.”

The leather-clad woman led us from the room back up the corridor as she continued to speak. “There is a little wiggle room for attacking settlements on the borders or even pushing in a little further. It makes the game interesting. But he also has a habit of going deep into other territory and depleting the local supply of monsters, throttling everyone’s reaping opportunities while accumulating more power for himself.”

Susie let out a sharp clicking noise with her tongue. “Well, that sounds fucking familiar, doesn’t it?”

I nodded in agreement. “I thought it was strange, considering how lowly he spoke of the Vale and the lack of challenge it posed to him. I suspected maybe it was just to keep me quarantined in the area.”

“But for what reason?” Izolde wondered aloud, coming to a stop in the middle of the corridor. “He’s definitely up to something, but I don’t know what.”

“I think he might want to get to my portal,” I suggested, earning looks of concern from everyone. “He sent trackers after us when we first met him, but we managed to shake him. For a few days after, he had his people scouting the area to find us.”

“Why?” Moppi growled protectively. “Why Balor want portal? Have own portal.”

“He has a rift,” I corrected, pointing briefly at Izolde. “Just like you. I think what I have is one of the portals the Zintari used before the Cataclysm. That would explain why it has multiple destination points and can bring more things through.”

“He hurt Poppi and Koko?” Moppi wondered, growing increasingly more agitated. “Hurt goblins?”

I chewed my lip in thought before answering. “I don’t think he would hesitate to. In fact, didn’t you three say you had heard stories of the portal handed down through your tribe over the years? That was how you knew where to go looking, right?”

“Yes,” Moppi grunted with a singular nod.

“I think that’s the real reason that Balor was so hellbent on finding the previous Goblin King,” I deduced. “I think he had more precise information about where it was, and Balor wanted it.”

“If he knew where it was, why wouldn’t he have used it?” Izolde asked skeptically.

“Probably didn’t have anything from Earth to key to the portal,” I suggested. “He just couldn’t get the thing to work, maybe. It’s also possible Poppi managed to steal the penny they originally used to access the portal before he had a chance to test it out for himself. I know that he was doing everything he could to keep his people away from it, though.”

“Probably more worried about the shit that would come through from the other side,” Susie laughed bitterly. “Like from Numedha.”

Izolde’s black lips turned down into a frown. “That certainly spoils my plans for the evening.”

“How do you mean?” I chuckled a little despite the seriousness of the situation.

“I was going to invite you and Susie to my chambers and convince you to let me tie you both up so I could have my way with you,” she admitted with a gesture of defeat. “I haven’t had Zintari cock in way too long or gotten to play with a certified freak like Susie.”

“Heh heh,” Susie puffed her chest out a little, wearing the label like a badge of honor. She even adjusted her glasses to better look the part. “Sounds great, but I don’t share this fat cock with anyone.”

That seemed an odd choice of words, given the fact that she shared me with goblins, orcs, and a hobgoblin, but I kept my mouth shut.

“Ah, too bad. It’s just as well—it would likely run late,” Izolde continued. “And it sounds like you’ll need to head out at first light. It wouldn’t do for me to run you ragged before such a trip.”

“You seem awfully confident in your abilities,” I remarked, feigning offense.

“I am,” Izolde responded without a trace of humor. “I might still be able to demonstrate my skills on you someday, Susie, if Daryl would like to watch.”

“Fine by me,” I grunted.

Susie’s expression turned sour. “I hated Balor before, but now? I think I really, really hate him.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes a little. “You’ll get over it, slugger.”

“I’ll escort you to your rooms,” Izolde interjected before Susie could get too worked up. “And I’ll have someone wake you before dawn.”

The rooms she provided for us were nothing short of lavish. I had stayed in suites in hotels that had less space, style, and flair than the guest room I slept in that night. Granted, it lacked certain modern amenities, but living on my own little homestead had already disabused me of the notion that such things were needed to enjoy myself. Susie and I took one room while Kate and Moppi took the other, though it mattered little considering they were connected with a single door between them.

Following Izolde’s suggestion, I refrained from bringing Susie to pound town that night, despite how tempted I was. Something about the crazy medieval gothic decor got me in the mood, and I could tell that Susie felt the same way. It had a vampire vibe that was a little difficult to resist. Despite the sexual frustration that resulted, we slept soundly in the immense luxurious bed.

The next morning, a servant came to wake us, informing us that breakfast had been prepared and awaited us in the dining hall. We met with Izolde there again, who had decided to see us out to the wall at the edge of town. We talked and joked a little more over breakfast, but it wasn’t like the night before. There was a certain tension that sat behind it that was difficult to quantify. Izolde didn’t want to send us out on our own, but she feared provoking other Zintari by sending a larger force with us. She worried about accelerating whatever plan Balor was working on in the background if we were seen with her soldiers. Alone, we would be faster and less likely to be recognized by any of his scouts.

If Balor himself were to be in the scouting parties—or if he’d bothered to educate any of them instead of using them for labor and fodder—it would be another story. But there was little chance that anyone sourced from Elyndor would know what they were looking at if they saw the vehicles traveling out in the open. An army with Izolde’s banner, however, would be instantly recognizable not just on its face but as an escalation to conflict between other Zintari. It was better to keep things small and fast for the time being.

When she ventured out with us, Izolde wore an eerie white mask modeled after her actual face. It had an old-timey theatrical spook factor. She also wore a leather ensemble that was slightly more conservative than the day before, but not by much. The leather was molded to look like her nude body with a few flourishes—only in an oily black. It reminded me of the paintings Giger would do, and considering how much of a horror fan Izolde was, that was likely intentional. The reverence that people in town showed her as she passed with us was something else. I felt like I was walking in the presence of a minor deity made flesh.

“I have some things for you,” Izolde said as we approached the spot where we’d left our quads. She motioned briefly toward one of the many attendants who had accompanied us on the walk across town. The goat-like creature stepped forward and bowed, offering a black leather corset to Susie.

“I know you liked them,” Izolde remarked, pointing to the corset. “This one is enchanted. The leather will act as armor when you wear it.”

“Holy shit,” Susie gasped, taking the corset to fawn over. “Are you sure?”

Izolde nodded, and I got the sense that, under the mask, she was smiling. I couldn’t wait to see Susie put the thing to use once we had a little time to ourselves. Next, Kate was presented with a quiver that, when filled with twenty arrows, would never have less than twenty arrows so long as only one was taken from it at a time. Moppi was gifted a pair of blades that resembled a cross between daggers and meat cleavers. They looked like vicious little swords in her hands and had holes drilled in them to lessen the weight. Both of them were enchanted to be more durable and never lose their edge.

Finally, there was me. Izolde took a step closer to me before speaking in a lower tone of voice. “I was unsure what to gift you without knowing what your unique talent would be. But after the conversations we had over dinner, I think I have something you’ll appreciate, even if it’s not as impressive as the magic stuff.”

The attendant handling the gifts passed a satchel to her, which she then handed to me. “Contained within are a selection of seeds and cuttings to expand your homestead to this side of the portal. I took the liberty of including an agricultural tome from the loremaster’s library to help you maximize their yield.”

I laughed with unexpected excitement, taking the satchel gratefully and pulling her into a sudden hug. Everyone around us recoiled at the gesture as if I had committed some offense by touching their mistress, but I couldn’t help myself. She was right; it wasn’t as outwardly impressive as a magic set of cleavers or a bottomless quiver of arrows, but it was perfect for me. She pulled away slowly after a moment and placed a hand on my arm, much to the amazement of her gathered subjects. “Alright, get out of here before you do any more damage to my reputation.”

“You got it,” I laughed, securing the satchel to the back of the quad as Susie hopped happily into the driver’s seat. Kate and Moppi thanked Izolde profusely, more in line with what everyone expected for shows of gratitude. They didn’t stop thanking her until the gates were thrown open, and we started our engines.

Placing the HK in my lap on the back of the quad, I gave Izolde a final nod of thanks before we were off. I made a mental note to get back out there for a visit with Susie to take Izolde up on the evening of kink we’d been forced to miss out on the night before. It seemed like just the sort of vacation that Susie would love once all the other stuff with Balor was resolved.

I turned my attention forward as we descended the mountain road, keeping my eyes peeled not just for whatever monstrous threats may attempt to befall us but for any signs of Balor’s scouts waiting in the wings.

Chapter 11

(Jackie Heins)

“So where is it?” Jackie asked, tossing Zack down onto the couch in his apartment. The TV still showed the paused game on the console. “The portal.”

“It’s not technically a portal,” Zack clarified, trying to make himself comfortable on the couch with his hands still in cuffs. “It’s a rift. There’s a difference.”

“Which is?” Jackie asked impatiently, fixing her hair after the brief foot chase she’d had with the man. She glanced at the door frame he’d blasted to pieces when trying to hit her.

“Long time ago, the Zintari got into this big war,” the young man explained, shifting around on the couch to face her. “Basically a nuclear war but with magic, right? It was so fuckin’ big it blew holes in the fabric of space and time. Some are bigger than others. Portals were constructed before the war and can go to different places. But in Elyndor, they tend to just refer to them all as portals.”

“Alright, so you’re saying the one you guys used was a rift and not a portal,” Jackie clarified, adjusting her jacket to finish composing herself.

“Yeah,” Zack sighed, his face looking a little wistful. “Rifts are easier to block off. Especially small ones. They have certain rules to them that the portals don’t have. What you can take from here changes from rift to rift, how much force can be exerted on it, and some other shit.”

“So where is it?” Jackie repeated impatiently, eager to find and secure the rift that Balor had used.

“Out in Southie, where I grew up,” Zack answered hesitantly. He didn’t have much of an option but to comply. “There’s an old tunnel for the T there. They converted it into an emergency training center a while back.”

“I know of it,” Jackie remarked. Sometime after 9/11, the country’s infrastructure had been locked down and secured against possible future attacks. The tunnel he was referring to had been out of use for decades until they converted it into a training center specifically for employees of the MBTA and emergency responders. The whole thing had been funded by DHS. “How did you discover it?”

“My mom and pop were goin’ through a messy divorce,” Zack sighed again, a mixture of bitter emotions awash on his face. “My dad worked on the construction crew that helped refurbish the place and lower the subway cars into the tunnel. On some days when he had me, they still had to work. So he’d bring me out to the site and squirrel me away somewhere just to have me around.”

Jackie frowned, torn on whether or not it was a very sweet thing for a father to do or an incredibly irresponsible one.

“I got bored one day and went exploring in an area they weren’t working,” Zack continued. “I found the rift there by accident. Fell right through it into Elyndor.”

“And what about Mr. Chase?” Jackie pressed. “Did he find it on his own, too, or did you show him?”

“I showed him,” Zack confirmed. “We met in college. He seemed pretty chill then, but boy, was I fuckin’ wrong. Anyway, we hung out a bit and were into the same shit, so I thought I’d show him the real deal, you know? I already knew a little bit of magic then, but nothing crazy.”

Zack went quiet for a moment, staring at the pile of books in front of him while not looking directly at them. His gaze was somewhere much further away as his eyes became glassier. “I swear, if I had known what he would do, I woulda’ never shown him. I never woulda’ brought him to Elyndor.”

Jackie pursed her lips thoughtfully, feeling a pang of sympathy for the young man. She circled around the back of the couch and reached down to the cuffs to unlock them. Once free, Zack rubbed his wrists and looked back at her, a little confused.

“I’m not here to punish you or even detain you,” Jackie explained, swinging the cuffs around before stuffing them back in her pocket. “I’m trying to gather as much information as I can. That includes the Balor of Back Bay.”

“Fuckin’ stupid name,” Zack grumbled, looking away. “Pretentious as shit.”

“You don’t have a cute little moniker like that for Elyndor?” Jackie wondered skeptically. The young man looked away again, pointedly avoiding the question. “Is that what the argument was about when you worked together?”

“Yeah, basically,” Zack confirmed, standing up from the couch to pace around the room slowly. “I got him that fuckin’ job, too, as a matter of fact. But the more we would visit Elyndor, the longer he wanted to stay there. The more out of touch with shit he became. His head got all big because he was the mighty Zintari, and I was just a ‘hedge mage’.”

“Hedge mage?” Jackie repeated with her arms crossed. She’d heard the term used before by the medium she had consulted in Wa-Pa Lake. “Like a wizard that isn’t quite a wizard?”

“Kinda,” Zack responded with a little shrug. “Hedge mages have power over there from training. Different specialties like sorcerer, warlock—that sort of thing. But when they come back here, they only keep a fraction of the power they had there. So the idea is you're a mage on the other side of the hedge but not necessarily here. Compared to the Zintari, we ain’t shit.”

“With the monster souls, right?” Jackie clarified.

“Reaping,” the young man clarified, “That’s what they call it over there, anyway. They build their power up wicked fast that way.”

Jackie took a deep breath as she wandered over toward one of the windows. “Is that what happened to the elves? Your old manager said someone overheard something about elves during the argument.”

Zack’s expression darkened. “No. No, that was way fuckin’ worse. There aren’t a lot of them to begin with because they didn’t adapt to the fallout, as well as the more hardy monsters. There’s very few spaces where they can still thrive. Simon wanted all of it. He wanted the elves to bow to him—adopt him as their new god. But the elves have better histories, they remember more, and they weren’t about to repeat the same old mistakes with the Zintari.”

“I take it Mr. Chase didn’t like that very much,” Jackie posited.

“Understatement,” Zack laughed bitterly. “He went fuckin’ berserk on ‘em. And the more of them he killed and reaped, the more powerful he became. It was a snowball effect. Between the army he’d gathered and his own two hands, he nearly wiped them out—enslaved anyone who was left!”

Jackie turned slowly to face the distraught young man, her eyes wide with surprise. She remembered seeing a few elves while they had been there. Only now, with the added context, did she realize how much worse it was than she had previously assumed. “Jesus.”

“Did it in like a week,” Zack added quietly. “We were on break from school. I picked up some overtime, but he went off to Elyndor on his campaign. He didn’t even tell me when he got back. I didn’t find out until I went out there myself. I confronted him about it at work, and we went off on me. He said I was holding him back, that I was too attached to the NPCs, and that it didn’t even matter what happened to them.”

“But you didn’t think of them as NPCs,” Jackie added in a hushed tone. “You didn’t see them that way.”

“There’s something about the Zintari,” Zack croaked, wiping tears from his eyes. “Something that makes them feel removed from everyone else—above us. Their minds find ways to rationalize it, and somewhere along the line, someone landed on the immersive virtual reality RPG bullshit. But it’s real—all of it. They just have trouble understanding that. The power just goes right to their heads.”

Jackie remained silent, thinking about Daryl and how different it was from how he behaved. She’d never heard him describe the people of Elyndor in such a way. She’d never seen him get drunk on power. But he had admitted to losing control when he had confronted Boulder in the apartment with Susie Quickly. Combined with the trauma he’d suffered as a teacher, perhaps that had been the cause.

The fact that Boulder’s ghost functioned as a constant reminder of his fuck-up might have been what was keeping him on the straight and narrow. Or perhaps his concern for protecting and building up his property tempered his supernatural ambitions. But did that mean he wasn’t vulnerable to future temptations?

“What’s worse,” Zack continued, sniffling as he grabbed a tissue from a box on the coffee table. “Is that he was starting to see humans that way. The look in his eyes when he broke my arm. I’d seen it before.”

“That’s when you decided to trap him on the other side?” Jackie guessed. Zack nodded, ashamed.

“It was all I could think of,” he confessed. “I knew I couldn’t stop him even with all the power at my disposal on the other side. I knew if he decided to use his power on this side, it would be a massacre before anyone would be able to bring him down—assuming they even could.”

“How did you do it?” Jackie asked pointedly. If it could be repeated, it would be a useful tool to add to her kit when it came to other rifts.

“It doesn’t take much,” Zack responded, pitching the crumpled-up tissue into a wastebasket. “The rifts themselves overload if you try to pass various types of energy through ‘em. So his eye beams, my spells—you get the idea. That goes for kinetic energy, too. You have to pass through it at a slow walk or it snaps shut on you.”

He grabbed a few of the books on the table and moved them around, using them to construct a crude layout of what he was talking about. “The rift sits in a narrow alcove. It’s just enough for one person to slip into. I walled it off and placed a rolling panel on the bottom. Even if he could slowly push the barrier out of the way, stepping through would cause the panel to slip out from under him, immediately accelerating him faster than the rift allows while he’s halfway through. It’d lop a piece of him off in an instant, no matter how strong he is.”

“Couldn’t he just regenerate it?” Jackie wondered, watching as he illustrated the movement of the panel with one of the books on the table.

“That’s a rare power,” Zack replied. “Even among the Zintari. Last I knew, it wasn’t one that he had. But even if he had a healer to patch him up in Elyndor, the panel resets. He’d be back to square one without a way to disarm the trap. And again, that’s assuming he can move the walled section out of the way.”

Jackie came around to his side of the couch to have a closer look at the layout. She pointed to the Elyndor side of his crude model. “Is it this narrow on the other side?”

“Yeah,” Zack confirmed with a quick nod. “Just big enough for a person or two to squirm through a long crack in the rock. He couldn’t march an army through there if he tried. It would take forever to excavate it and he would still run into the problem of how narrow the rift itself is.”

Jackie nodded a few times. None of the things on their own would prevent him from coming through if he wanted, but together, they represented a prohibitively difficult sequence. Still, it was possible for him to figure it out with enough time through trial and error.

“We could always fill the alcove with concrete,” Jackie mused. “That would probably do the trick.”

“Probably,” Zack admitted. “But that’s more your area than mine. I did what I could with what I could sneak down there.”

“What if you went back to Elyndor?” Jackie wondered, tapping her chin a little. “Would you have enough power to collapse the opening from the other side—create a cave-in?”

“Yeah, but then I would be stuck there,” Zack scoffed. “With a pissed-off Zintari at my back. No fuckin’ thank you.”

Jackie shook her head, resisting the wily smirk she felt growing on her lips. “How far is it from the Vale?”

“A few day’s ride, maybe,” Zack said. “Why?”

“If we go over there and create a cave-in, I can get us to another portal in the Vale,” she explained. “We’ll come out pretty far from Boston, but getting you a plane ticket back would be easy.”

“I haven’t been back there in years,” he muttered ambivalently. She could see the conflict in his eyes. Elyndor had gone from a child’s getaway to a slaughterhouse because of someone he had trusted. He’d done what he could to make sure it didn’t follow him back to Boston, but now he had a chance to be certain. All it required was for him to go back, retrace his steps, and slip away to the Vale. Jackie was confident that once they got to the Vale, Daryl Barnes would be quick to step in if there was any danger.

“I can probably figure out a way to do it on my own,” Jackie offered, feeling guilty at the idea of forcing the young man back through his trauma.

Zack sighed, looking around the room as he considered the options in front of him. “Fuck it,” he muttered with resignation. “No balls, no blue chips.”

“O….kay?” Jackie snorted. “So you’ll show me where it is and come with me to Elyndor?”

“Guess so,” Zack mumbled, heading toward his bedroom. “Just let me get changed real quick, and we can go.”

“You’re not going to take off on the fire escape again, are you?” Jackie wondered with a note of warning in her voice. He held his hands up in response, shaking his head before making a quick motion of crossing his heart.

Jackie waited while he changed into a pair of jeans and a fresh T-shirt. She sent a text to Daryl and Susie, letting them know to be on the lookout for trouble by the portal and that she had just obtained the location of the rift that Balor had used to get to Elyndor in the first place.

“See you soon,” she added with a little smirk. As amusing as it would be to surprise them completely by showing up in Elyndor, she wanted them to be on the lookout for her in case anything went wrong. She then switched over to the text chat with Ava to let her know what she was doing.

“You’re fucking insane,” Ava responded almost immediately. “There’s no way anyone would sign off on this.”

Jackie stared at the message for a while as Zack stumbled around the apartment, looking for a pair of hiking boots. Ava was right, but at the same time, she was facing a chicken or egg scenario. In order to get official approval for such a thing, she would first have to present her findings. To present her findings, she had to gather more information to be presented.

“That’s why you won’t say anything,” she texted back. “If everything goes as planned, I’ll contact you in a few days.”

“Goddammit,” Ava messaged back. “Don’t fucking die.”

Jackie let an amused sniff escape her nose. She hadn’t planned on dying, but the smallest shred of concern was appreciated.

“What’s so funny?” Zack asked, finishing with his boots as he grabbed his keys.

“Nothing,” Jackie responded dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. Are you ready to go?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” he replied, pulling the front door open. “Let’s go before I change my mind.”

Chapter 12

“Bump!” Susie yelled as we hit a dip in the terrain at speed. I bent my legs to absorb the impact as I lined up the shot on the creature right behind us. It was nearly the size of an elephant but with a lankier canine shape. Numerous spines protruded from its back, and its claws gave it insane traction on the ground to keep pace with us. It was the fastest of its pack, judging by how they trailed significantly behind it.

I waited until we leveled out to fire, right as the creature lunged. It was a short burst, but it caught the beast in the mouth and across the top of its skull, causing it to fall forward into the ground immediately. The rest of the pack leaped over the body in their pursuit, desperately trying to close the gap with us with their toothy maws at the ready.

To my right, Kate knocked another arrow and lined up a shot, not rushing herself in the process. When she finally let the arrow fly, it caught the creature in a soft spot along the side of its skull just below the ear. The creature instantly looked like Kate had switched its “off” button as it went stiff and fell to the side in a heap.

“Hard right!” Susie called out again. I shifted my weight to absorb the momentum while Kate was forced to hold tight to the back of the quad behind Moppi. The creatures were excellent at cornering, and every time we were forced to make a hard turn, they would gain a little ground on us. One of them seized the opportunity to leap toward the back of Moppi and Kate’s ATV.

I quickly sighted the creature up with the HK and squeezed off a longer burst, opening it along the flank like a zipper. It tumbled forward in a ball, coming to a stop against an outcropping of rocks as we entered the canyon. Following along the stream on one side forced the pack into a bottleneck, allowing Kate and me to pick more of them off. After dropping four more, another tripped over one of the bodies, causing the others to lose momentum. Now, the gap between us and them was simply too wide to be made up, and the creatures abandoned the chase.

Kate and I remained on our guard, the wind rushing through our hair as Susie and Moppi navigated the twisting canyon at a much higher speed than the last time we’d been through. I noticed that Moppi seemed almost more effective on the vehicle when it was going faster. Her reflexes just seemed to be more attuned to knee-jerk responses.

After several minutes of relative quiet, I finally allowed myself to relax in the back seat.

“Is that it?” Susie called back without taking her eyes off the path before her.

I patted her on the shoulder to let her know we were free of the creatures. She began to slow down immediately, stealing a look over her shoulder at me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m good!” I yelled back, glancing over at the hobgoblin on the other quad, who flashed me a thumbs up. She’d been the one to see the creatures coming at us from cover along the plain. At first, we’d been content with trying to outrun them, but when they started to close the gap on our turns, we’d been forced to fight back.

We didn’t say much for the rest of the trip, even when we finally entered the relative safety of the Vale, where most of the more dangerous monsters had already been cleared out by Balor. Still, I didn’t allow myself to let my guard down until we reached the foothills that led up to the portal. With the higher speed and more direct route, we’d made excellent time, but that only meant that Balor could do the same. We didn’t bother to bring the ATVs through the portal with us, dismounting quickly to step onto the platform and through to the other side at a brisk walk.

Part of me worried that he had somehow beat us to it, that he would be waiting for me on the other side with a smug look on his face. Instead, one of the goblins waited there on a tall stool next to the crank, grinning at our triumphant return.

“What’s that smell?” Susie wondered, her nose scrunching up as she sniffed at the air. “Smells like chili.”

“Is skeg,” Moppi said, practically drooling. “Goblin food!”

I motioned for the goblin manning the crank to move as I disengaged the lock and closed it myself. I could go back to bring the quads back through once I saw that everyone was alright. “Goblin food, eh?”

“Is good!” the goblin said as she joined Moppi on the way up the hill. “Susu make best skeg!”

I glanced at Susie ambivalently but decided trying goblin food would be worth a shot. It was the first time any of them had attempted to cook something from home using the materials I had available. When we arrived back at the house, Susu and Koko had a large pot over the fire bubbling with what looked very much like chili. Koko started dishing out the food to the other goblins, who all looked elated to have a taste of home served up.

“What’s in it?” I asked Susu as she handed me a bowl filled to the brim with the stuff. There were beans, meat, and several other things I couldn’t quite identify.

“Lots of things,” Susu answered vaguely before motioning quickly for me to try it. “Eat, eat!”

I took a quick slurp from the bowl with one hand, not bothering to use a spoon. Though similar to chili, the spice was a little muted by the presence of other vegetables. It tasted like it couldn’t decide whether it was a spaghetti sauce or a chili, which was fine with me because I loved both. “Not bad.”

Susu and Koko exchanged satisfied looks, evidently having arrived at the idea of making some skeg together. It was a relief to see something that the two could finally agree on.

“Skeg best goblin food,” Koko explained as Susie ate a few spoonfuls. “Use anything we can find. Have everything we need.”

“It’s pretty good,” Susie admitted as she set her helmet on the table nearby. “Just what I needed after that little fiasco.”

“It wasn’t too bad,” I chuckled. “We managed to get through it just fine.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t exactly the ride I had hoped for,” Susie muttered bitterly, though the skeg was going a long way to improve her mood with each passing second. We hadn’t stopped or eaten since breakfast, and it was already the middle of the afternoon.

Moppi had nothing to say, with her face practically buried in her bowl. Skeg appeared to be a favorite among hobgoblins as well, judging by how fiercely Kate wolfed hers down. Not only did it taste good, but they had made a considerable amount of it to feed the whole crew.

“Anything interesting happen while we were gone?” I asked, glancing around for any of the telltale signs of goblin chaos, but I found none. I couldn’t imagine they’d just sat around doing nothing, but there wasn’t any evidence they’d broken anything that I would need to fix, so I was ready to consider that another win.

“Nope,” Koko and Susu responded together, making me instantly suspicious all over again. I gave them both a wary look before continuing onto the house, where I started to change out of my gear. I carefully checked everywhere I went, looking behind doors and under things to see if a mess was waiting for me just out of sight. Again, I found nothing, but there was a little evidence in the kitchen of a mess that had recently been cleaned.

All things considered, if I had found a disaster area in the house, it would have been the least bad outcome of all the scenarios I had envisioned while racing home. As it was, things looked peaceful, which allowed me to unclench my sphincter and let my mind wander to less critical matters like getting myself a quick shower.

I wasn’t in there for more than a couple of minutes before the door to the shower opened and I felt the soft warmth of Susie pressing against my back. Her breasts slid across the slippery, wet flesh of my back as she wrapped her arms around me to hold me close.

“Hey, you,” I said, wiping the wet hair from my brow to look over my shoulder at her. “You alright?”

“I will be,” She admitted, pressing her cheek to my shoulder blade and squeezing me again. “I just need a minute.”

I didn’t argue her statement or try to comfort her. All she wanted was close physical contact to help ground her, and I was more than capable of giving her that. We stood there in the shower, letting the hot water wash away the sweat and dirt from the last couple of days. All I wanted was to settle down and relax with the chaos of goblins popping off around me, but the ambition of another Zintari was casting a shadow over everything. Fortunately, we were still able to get quiet moments together whenever possible.

“Did you get anything from those creatures chasing us?” She murmured against my back.

“No, I think we were going too fast,” I laughed, looking back at her again. “But that’s probably for the best.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t about to slow down,” she responded with a sweet little smile, looking up to meet my gaze. She stared at me with a mixture of contemplation and adoration. I was so lost in the look she gave me that I almost didn’t notice her hand sneaking down across my abdomen to find my dick.

“You must be pretty pent up,” she said in a silky voice. “I was going to wait to try on the corset before I relieved you, but I think the shower will work just as well.”

Seizing my shaft, she gave a long, elegant tug meant to coax an erection from me. It only took a few for her to get exactly what she wanted. I blew out a long breath, letting a handful of possible responses wash away with the steamy water.

“Been a while since I gave you one of these, huh?” She whispered with an impish smirk. The stroking began more rhythmic, more intent on the inevitable result. “You going to have enough leftover for me after?”

“You know me,” I answered plainly. For most, that wouldn’t have been sufficient, but she knew more than anybody how she drove me wild. Our stamina and endurance for one another had been noteworthy even before I’d reaped the first monster soul from Elyndor.

Her fist continued to pump at me from behind as she made an effort to let her slippery skin rub against mine. The feeling of her erect nipples tracing little lines across the small of my back caused shudders of delight to echo down into my muscles. I didn’t notice her downward trajectory until she was already on her knees, coaxing me to turn with both hands upon my hips. I obeyed her silent command, presenting to her the throbbing length of my cock to run her tongue along. With the spray of water blocked by my body, she had no trouble glancing up at me as she took me down to the base.

I let out another long breath as I braced myself against the shower walls with both arms, knowing that her treatment of me up to this point had been gentle compared to what she had planned next. It was nothing short of fucking me with her face, diving quickly like a bird of prey before pulling up with the incredible suction of an industrial-strength vacuum.

“Oh, fuck,” I groaned as I let my eyes close to focus just on the feeling of her and the hot spray running down my back. Her tongue danced and swirled around my flesh, leaving no part of it untouched—not a single inch overlooked.

“I’m close,” I muttered, causing her to pull back off of me and pump my cock hard with one fist.

“That was quick,” she said with a seductive leer up at me. “You want me to slow down, or you want to blow it down my throat?”

I nodded stupidly without a word. She knew what I meant, diving back down onto my dick to resume her punishing throat fucking. It only took another half-dozen strokes before I couldn’t hold it anymore, clenching and tensing as I let myself go in the sultry warmth at the back of her throat. She offered a long moan of satisfaction as she swallowed it, looking me right in the eye with unwavering determination. Only when she’d milked the last drop from me did she pop free of the seal she’d created between us to breathe in a short gasp of air.

“Whew!” She said, flicking her wet hair to one side, softly stroking the base of me to keep me hard. “There was a lot in that one.”

“Yeah, the whole castle bedroom thing was really doing it for me last night,” I admitted sheepishly. “Didn’t think it would.”

Susie stood, running her hands along my chest as she turned to offer her backside to me. “Guess we’ll have to get ourselves a castle so I can keep that dick hard all the time.”

I chuckled as I brought the head of my cock to the inviting entrance she presented me, pulling one ass cheek to the side. The second I made contact I could feel the tension in her body releasing and knew she needed a release just as much as I had. I drove myself to the hilt with a single stroke, pressing her up against the glass wall of the shower and pumping a moan out of her all at once. As her breasts pressed and squeezed against the glass, they cleared away sections of the steam with every push and thrust of my hips.

“Don’t make me wait,” Susie moaned as she shot me a whorish look over her shoulder. “I fucking need it.”

There was no objection from me as I doubled down on my speed but held some of my strength in reserve. The last thing I needed was to put her through the glass by getting carried away. It was exactly what she was looking for, and we both lost ourselves in the carnal merging of our hot, steamy flesh with one another. She tensed up after a minute or two, biting down on her lip before deciding against holding any of her pleasure back. Susie let out a long groan of release as an orgasm crashed through her bottom half, threatening to buckle her knees were it not for me holding her firmly in place as I deposited another load of baby batter deep inside her.

“Ffffuuu—!” She moaned, unable to get the rest of the word out before it trailed off into a silent, extended scream of ecstasy. When she finally came down from the orgasmic high, she was practically glowing. It was in her nature to be something of a slutty pervert when it came to me—it was how she preferred to unwind and what gave her true release. “Oh, shit,” she laughed.

For a moment, I didn’t know what she was referring to, but as my vision came back into focus and I became aware of my surroundings, I noticed several little goblin faces pressed against the glass from the other side.

“Gah!” I exclaimed, nearly slipping on my ass as I jumped back against the shower wall, sliding cleanly out of Susie’s cunt in the process. The pairs of goblin eyes tracked my movement flawlessly, settling on the still half-erect meat swinging between my legs.

“Koko turn?” Koko said from the middle of the cluster of goblin eyes.

I pressed a hand to my chest to make sure my heart was still beating, glancing between the goblins and Susie. It was impossible to know for sure whether or not they had simply followed her inside or if her whorish showmanship had perked up their oversized ears. Whatever the case, we’d ended up with an audience that was all just as horny as she had been. Koko’s particular enhancement saw to it that everyone was in the mood.

“Could I maybe wash my fucking crack before the rest of you jump my bones?” I laughed incredulously. I hadn’t managed a single soap bubble since stepping into the shower. The goblins exchanged glances with one another, muttering and whispering as they consulted one another.

“Five minutes,” Koko announced, pressing her palm to the glass to illustrate her point. “Then fuck time.”

Susie snatched up the soap and tossed it to me with a wicked smile on her face. “You heard the little lady, hop to it!”

I managed to catch the slippery bar of soap after smacking it around in the air a few times, then offered her and the girls another dramatic, withering scowl. “Sometimes, I wish you all just liked me for me and not just as a piece of fuck-meat.”

Susie snorted after a moment of silence. “Bullshit.”

The goblins broke into raucous laughter while Poppi tapped on the glass with her knuckle. “I like you for you. Does that mean I can go first?”

Chapter 13

I had trouble sleeping that night despite the extra workout the ladies gave me. It was one of those times when I woke up in the middle of the night and simply couldn’t get back to sleep. It was just me and Susie in the bed, so slipping out was easy enough. I wondered if perhaps my body just needed less sleep than it used to, but it was hard to make a fair comparison when there was so much on my mind to keep me up under any circumstances.

Rather than mope around the house, I decided to go for a walk and clear my head. One of the great things about having the amount of land I did was that I could go for a long walk whenever I wanted and never technically leave home. I grabbed a flashlight, my phone, and my Glock out of habit before stepping out into the cool night air. It was a little chillier than it had been in a while, but I liked it, so I didn’t bother with a jacket.

I glanced down at my phone, remembering I had turned it off before heading out to conserve battery and hadn’t bothered to turn it back on. I powered it on and shoved it in my pocket while it booted up. The night was clear, and the sound of crickets in the dark felt like they were singing just for me. I didn’t get far from the house before my phone started vibrating with missed calls and messages.

I fished it out and scrolled lazily through things before landing on the messages from Jackie. The time stamp showed that she’d texted me a few hours after I’d gotten home. I stared at the words as I came to a stop, reading them over several times before finally processing them properly. She’d found another rift and was checking it out.

“The hell is she thinking…?” I muttered aloud as a wave of concern washed over me. She was playing a dangerous game, dropping into Elyndor through the rift that Balor—whose name was actually Simon Chase—had originally used. I started texting her back but realized how futile it would be if she was already through the rift. I glanced in the direction of the cave and clicked my tongue a few times. I still had to bring the quads in, so it wouldn’t hurt to have a look.

“Who?” Boulder asked, appearing out of thin air just to my left. “What’s wrong?”

“Jackie,” I responded, doing my best to pretend like he hadn’t startled me. I held the phone out for him to read for himself. His mouth dipped into a frown.

“She’s got a bug up her ass about this one, I guess,” he growled, shaking his head. “Wish she’d start using her damn head.”

“I’m going to bring the quads in,” I said, gesturing with my head toward the cave. “Why don’t you see if you can come with?”

“Will that work?” He wondered, pursing his lips as he followed along behind me. I didn’t know, but I didn’t see any reason why it shouldn’t. If he was tethered to me in some way, then he should be able to make the trip. Surely a world like Elyndor also had ghosts?

I made my way down to the cave, cranked the door open, and waited until Boulder was right behind me to step through. A moment later, I was standing in the cave in Elyndor on the platform. The quads were right where we left them, completely undisturbed. Boulder stepped through a moment later, glancing around with a mixture of surprise and wonder.

“See?” I said, spreading my hands with a smirk. “Nothing to it.”

“It’s different on this side,” Boulder remarked, holding a hand up to examine it. “Doesn’t require nearly as much focus to stay manifested.”

“Different rules, I guess,” I responded as I made my way toward the mouth of the cave to have a look out over the valley. What I found changed my mood immensely.

Near the northern and eastern ends of the Vale, camps of soldiers had been established. The campfires and torches gave me a rough idea of just how many there were. It was at the very edge of the Vale, but there was no mistaking who they were.

“Fuck me,” Boulder muttered, taking in the scale of Elyndor and the fact that the enemy was camped on our doorstep all at once. “Little shit is moving fast. Looks like you just beat him here.”

“He still doesn’t know exactly where I am, but with that many men searching, it won’t take long for him to find us,” I remarked with a heavy sigh. Firing up the quads would be too much of a risk. I was going to be forced to just push them through.

“Garage door isn’t gonna be enough to hold ‘em,” Boulder said skeptically, not taking his doll-like eyes off of the valley below. “Good view, though.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty nice,” I agreed, trying to keep myself from sinking into despair with the looming reality of the situation.

“We could try to rewire the portal,” Boulder suggested, looking over at me. “Make it so it sends him somewhere else when he tries to step through.”

We hadn’t tested setting destinations with the runes yet, but it was an interesting idea. I had no way of knowing if he had anything left from Earth to re-key the portal to, though. “A bit risky. Besides, he’d just pose a danger to wherever he was going.”

“Send him to the fucking demon world,” Boulder scoffed. “Let them duke it out for a little bit.”

“As much as I’d like to see that, I think he’d cream them,” I chuckled. “Then he’d be roided up on demon souls and pissed off.”

Boulder’s ghost didn’t respond, but the look on his face told me that he was fresh out of ideas. He remained there with his hands in his pockets even as I returned to the quads to push them along the ramp and slowly through the portal. He rejoined me as I was pushing the second one through.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he muttered despondently. “I got nothing.”

I checked around the cave to make sure that I wasn’t leaving anything behind that his men might use against us. I realized that even the platform itself could be used to key back to Earth even if I had gone with the idea of changing the destination of the portal. “I could try to reinforce the other side? Wall it up entirely.”

“Worth a shot,” Boulder agreed. “We have to do whatever we can to prevent him from getting back. No telling what that psychopath will do to people.”

I nodded, my shoulder slumping as I realized this was probably the last time I was going to see Elyndor. I couldn’t allow the portal to fall into his hands. The damage he would do with it was beyond imagination. Without another word, I stepped through the portal back home.

When I stepped out on the other side, the platform was soaked, and I could hear the gentle drum of rain beyond the cave itself as puddles began to form along the floor. I hadn’t been gone long enough for a storm to roll in on a clear night without being able to see it coming.

“Ah, you’re back,” a voice said from the base of the platform. “I was hoping we could speak again.”

I went to shine my light in the direction of the voice when suddenly I remembered that he didn’t like bright light. Memories of my last encounter with Winters came rushing back as the strange man came into view. He had the same odd, ever-present smile as before, with pale skin and paler slicked-back hair.

“I remember you now,” I said aloud, taking a few steps closer to the strange figure in the night. “I forgot, but now I remember.”

“My apologies,” Winters said, his lips unmoving. “It is a side effect of contact with a human mind. The more your Zintari powers grow, the more reduced it will be. I believe this encounter will remain in your memory more firmly than the last.”

Boulder stepped through the portal a moment later, stepping to my left as if he was preparing to flank the odd man. “Well, well, he’s back.”

“Hello, Boulder,” Winters said, holding one hand up. “You remember me as well?”

“Yep,” the ghost responded gruffly. “Never forgot.”

“Excellent,” Winters replied, not bothering to explain why that might have been. “I wish to speak with you again, Barnes. Is now a bad time?”

“I guess not,” I shrugged, gesturing back to the portal. “I’m about to seal it up, so it’s now or never.”

“Oh,” Winters muttered, though the cheerful demeanor of his face didn’t change in the slightest. “That is a shame. Why?”

“There’s another Zintari on the other side with an army,” I explained, walking down the platform and past Winters. It was strange that whenever he was present, there was rain, and everything was soaked. “I have to prevent him from crossing over, or a lot of people are going to get hurt.”

“Ah,” Winters said with a twitchy little nod. “Of course. The conqueror.”

Boulder and I exchanged glances before I took a step closer to Winters. There was something very strange about his presence that I couldn’t place—something I hadn’t noticed before. It was like I was looking at him but not really looking at him. “You know of him?”

“I do,” the pale man replied, his smile unwavering. “Terrible creature. So much like the Zintari of before.”

“Really,” Boulder muttered. “Perhaps you’d like to shine a little more light on that?”

“Before you do,” I interjected, raising a hand. “Is there anything you can do about the rain? I’d prefer not to over-water my crops.”

“Certainly,” Winters agreed, turning his head toward the mouth of the cave. A moment later, the rain came to a complete stop. “My apologies, I meant no harm. It is our way.”

I waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s walk.”

Winters looked down at his feet for a moment before taking an awkward step forward to follow me. After a few more steps, he seemed to get the hang of it, and his motions became less stilted and weird. We walked up the hill out of the cave and into the open night air. Overhead, there was no sign of clouds. If it wasn’t for the wet grass, there would have been no sign of the rain at all.

“So what do you know of Balor?” I asked, glancing over at the still-smiling Winters. As uncanny as it was, it had a strangely calming effect.

“His role is conqueror,” Winters answered readily. “As yours is guardian, though yours is far more interesting than his. There simply are no Zintari guardians.”

“You said that last time,” Boulder remarked, following alongside us. “What does that mean?”

“All people have roles…callings, jobs, classes, but they refer to them differently,” Winters explained, his hands clasped firmly behind his back. “Each has a collection of roles that they gravitate to—roles they are best suited to. Purposes they must fulfill. I am an assessor. You are a seeker. Barnes is a guardian, but the guardian is not a role known to manifest within the Zintari. It is not their way.”

“Why not?” I wondered curiously. “What is it about the role that doesn’t suit them? Or us, I guess.”

“The guardian is a protector,” Winters clarified. “One who thinks of others before himself.”

Boulder snorted with laughter. “Wait, are you telling me the Zintari were too fucking selfish to have this role?”

“Correct,” Winters replied without a hint of irony. “For Barnes to have it is most curious.”

“Well, I was raised here,” I noted. “I didn’t grow up with other Zintari. I was, for all intents and purposes, human until that portal opened up.”

“Humans have a semi-unique capacity to change their roles in the face of adversity,” Winters continued as we reached the top of the hill to overlook the rest of the property. “You were formally a scholar, correct?”

“Uh, a teacher, so kind of,” I said, though I doubted there was much of a difference in his mind. “Yeah, I guess.”

“But something terrible happened. A tragedy,” Winters continued, looking out toward the house with an ineffable sense of curiosity to him. “Adversity. You chose a new role.”

I thought back to the shooting for the first time in what felt like forever. The sharpness of the memories had dulled somewhat, and the vice-like grip it had on my heart had waned. I remembered resolving to never let such a tragedy happen again so long as I had something to say about it. “I suppose I did.”

“This is not the Zintari way,” Winters repeated. “If it were, they would not have met the fate that they did.”

“What’s the significance of the roles?” I asked, turning to face him. “Why is it important?”

“Roles define interest, desire, dedication, and aptitude,” Winters explained without turning to look at me. “For Zintari, they greatly influence the power they wield. The conqueror, the dominator, and the hunter all wield power in furtherance of their roles.”

I went through a quick mental inventory of the Zintari I knew of and decided that if Balor was the conqueror, then Izolde was likely the dominator, and Frjor was probably the hunter. I remembered how Izolde described her abilities, which seemed thematically appropriate to someone called a dominator. Of course, there was also her attire and lifestyle that really drove it home.

Thinking back to how Frjor appeared on the strange crystal platform, covered in furs and skulls, it made sense he would be a hunter. If I were to view it the way they had, it would be roughly equivalent to a class in a video game. That meant that everything Balor had at his disposal was in the furtherance of conquest.

What didn’t make sense was my own role. For me, it didn’t matter if it was a role meant for the Zintari or not. What mattered now was what I had at my disposal to defend people—to prevent Balor from rolling through the portal and then the rest of Wa-Pa Lake and Wisconsin. “I don’t seem to have any of those unique attributes, though.”

“The power is in service to the role,” Winters repeated, holding a hand up to emphasize the words. “When tested again, your power will shape itself to the task.”

“When I’m forced to protect someone again?” I scoffed. “It’s a little late in the game to be testing out new powers and abilities, don’t you think?”

“You will find that it comes naturally to you,” Winters clarified with a little twinkle in his eye. “Don’t worry.”

“How do you know so much about Zintari?” Boulder questioned, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re not Zintari.”

“I am khi’dae,” Winters answered, as though the statement was all the explanation that was needed. When he looked between us and saw that it meant nothing to us, he continued. “We are old. Ancient, by human standards. We were once contemporaries of the Zintari. We shared much with them in an effort to teach them.”

“Teach them?” I repeated, my brows shooting up. “Are the khi’dae more powerful than the Zintari?”

“Sometimes,” Winters replied with a little tilt of his head. “But wisdom is not always power, nor power wisdom. What we had was experience—much of which differed from theirs. We offered it freely in the hope they would change. Few did.”

“Is Itaris close to Elyndor or Numedha?” I asked, wanting to learn as much about his people as I could. They seemed to know a great deal about the Zintari.

Winters shook his head as he glanced up at the sky. “No. It is much further away. We didn’t meet them until they created a portal to our world.”

“How did they know where to find you?” Boulder glanced up at the sky along with Winters as though the answer was written there somewhere.

“Unknown,” Winters remarked with a sense of unease in his answer despite the smile on his face. “Just as it is unknown how the demons find the worlds they do. It is possible that the method was stolen from the demons by the Zintari. Either they encountered them by chance on another world or forged a portal to Hell.”

“Hell,” Boulder repeated, his gaze falling back to the strange man. “As in THE hell? Biblical capital H?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Winters admitted. “I do not think even those who authored the book truly know. But it seems likely.”

“Fuck me,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair. Knowing that the creatures invading Numedha were not merely given the moniker by the natives and were truly hellspawn made my actions there feel more righteous. It also felt like more would need to be done to protect the portal so that the things never found their way to Earth. “That’s a lot.”

“We usually do not impart such knowledge,” Winters explained apologetically. “But I fear that time is short, and I must be as forthcoming as possible.”

“What do you mean?” I frowned, glancing at Boulder before stepping in front of Winters. “Why is time short?”

“The conqueror,” Winters responded, meeting me with his gaze. My mind was suddenly awash with the malice and fury that Balor felt, not just for me but for everyone on Earth. He had not chosen to remain in Elyndor; he had been trapped there. Now that he had a way out, he intended to return while true to his purpose. He was going to take everything. “You must confront him. You are the guardian.”

“Fight him?” I snorted incredulously. “Guy has a huge headstart on me in terms of accumulating power. I don’t know if I have much of a chance going toe to toe with him.”

“Yet you must,” Winters affirmed with a mixture of assurance and encouragement. “Come. Show me your home. I wish to see what it is you protect.”

“A tour?” I chuckled a little, glancing at Boulder, who looked as puzzled as I was. “Now?”

Winters stared at me unflinchingly. I shrugged and decided there was no harm in it. I guided him down the hill and toward the house. He asked about the gardens as we passed them. I explained as simply as I could, and he nodded with approval.

I went on to explain how we had built the house, how we went about our chores, how we cooked our food, and my various plans for expansion in order to become more self-sustainable. I told him of the additional solar panels I had been considering so that we wouldn’t be as reliant on my gas generator. I went into the plans I had for expanding the cellar and some of the other crops I had in mind. I told him how excited I was to go through the seeds that Izolde had provided for me.

We continued for what felt like a couple of hours, touring the property and speaking on our plans for the future. He told me of his world, which was dominated by darkness, rock, and rain. They used the rains to travel while on other worlds, becoming part of it to move and observe from above. They attempted to adopt unassuming and nonthreatening forms of the locals when interacting with them, down to the clothing. I mentioned that the clothes he’d chosen were considerably out of date.

“They were quite fashionable when last I visited,” he said with a hint of amusement in his voice, unbothered by my criticism of his wardrobe.

By the time we eventually circled back to the cave, I felt simultaneously lighter and more focused. The idea of standing against Balor was no longer the monumental task I had felt it was earlier. I felt considerably more confident about my chances.

“You’re ready,” Winters said, placing a hand on my arm.

“How…?” I tilted my head, glancing again at Boulder, who had miraculously remained with us the entire time. My eyes shifted back to Winters a little suspiciously. “How did you do that?”

“I did very little. I merely reminded you of your role,” Winters said, stepping away from me and making his way up the platform. “Balor fights for himself, but you fight for others. You fight to protect. It is something that one such as him cannot comprehend. He thinks he knows what he is up against, but he does not.”

“He’s got no idea what he’s up against,” Boulder reiterated with a soft chuckle. “So he’ll never know what hit him.”

“Precisely so,” Winters said, bowing his head slightly. “Goodnight, gentlemen. I hope to speak to you again soon.”

“Yeah,” I replied with a soft, serene smile. I felt strangely at ease with the prospect of a knock-down, drag-out fight ahead of me. “You too.”

“Perhaps next time, I will show you my home,” Winters suggested, offering a short wave with one hand.

“I’d like that,” I responded honestly. It would be nice to see another world that wasn’t staring down some kind of crisis. If the rest of his people were like him, it seemed like a peaceful, friendly sort of place.

Winters turned and stepped through the portal without another word, leaving me and the ghost of Boulder behind in darkness and silence.

Chapter 14

“So what’s our plan?” Susie wondered solemnly. I had laid the situation out as direct and detailed as I could for everyone. The mob of goblins that had run a reverse train on me the day before now stared back at me from along either side of the picnic table out back. Kate and Shantaka stood at the other end, exchanging glances nervously.

I sucked on my teeth a little as I scratched the back of my head. “Well, we do have the high ground…”

“Come on!” Susie spat. “Be serious!”

“I am,” I argued before offering her a little shrug. “Mostly. The way I see it, eventually, when they find us, they have to come up the mountainside to get to us. That gives us a distinct advantage. Shooting down onto them while they struggle just to get their footing.”

“You don’t think he’s thought of that?” Susie objected. “I’m sure he’s got things for that.”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. Even if he’s ready for some archers, he doesn’t know what our numbers are, and he doesn’t know how well-armed we are. There’s also the fact that I can just pitch boulders down at them if they gain too much ground.”

“Which he can destroy with laser vision,” Susie countered. It wasn’t like her to be quite so pessimistic, but I could tell she was scared. More than she had been in a long time, in fact. “And what the hell does Jackie think she’s doing?”

I held my hands up defensively. “I can’t answer for her. But she’s doing what she feels she has to do. If she can get that rift closed, maybe it’s not such a bad idea. I don’t know.”

“Can you call Izolde?” Moppi suggested, perking her ears up. “Maybe she can help?”

“If I had a way of reaching her, I’d ask,” I admitted. I wasn’t confident that she would want to risk her own neck or the necks of her people to fight Balor under normal circumstances, but coming up behind one of his armies while he was occupied might have been a tempting offer. But I didn’t know of a way out of the Vale that wouldn’t result in us being spotted, nor a way to get there fast enough without the quads.

Kate raised her hand halfheartedly. “I could sneak past them and go for help.”

“Too dangerous to go alone on foot,” Poppi muttered. She’d heard all about our excursion from multiple sources down to the last detail. I nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly. Even with the stealthy upgrades I’d provided her—and could still provide her—it would be too dangerous to send the hobgoblin on such a journey across open ground.

“We could send her for sabotage,” Shantaka suggested, holding a hand up to keep objections at bay. “We strike at them from the forest. We draw them out enough so their attention is diverted. Kate sneaks into their camp.”

“Then what?” Susu scoffed. “She would be all alone for what?”

“Poison,” Koko said somberly, catching everyone off guard. She motioned toward the empty pot that they’d cooked with the day before, now cleaned and drying in the sun. “They eat too, yes?”

I pressed my lips into a thin line as I considered. It wasn’t the worst idea I’d ever heard, and it was certainly an unexpected one coming from Koko, of all people. “It wouldn’t be enough to bring Balor down, but the rest of his forces might have some trouble. That is, assuming he hasn’t upgraded them against poison.”

Moppi threw both of her arms up triumphantly. “Explosives!”

“I could take the explosives out of the cave,” Susie noted, piggybacking off of the idea of the bloodthirsty goblin. “Mess with the food supply and create a lot of chaos.”

“Do we have enough explosives for that?” I asked, furrowing my brow. Susie responded with an impish look. “Wait, are there more I don’t know about?”

“Maybe a little,” she admitted, averting her gaze from me to feign innocence. It was good to know we had options, but I was also concerned about where she’d been keeping all of them. Hell, she still hadn’t told me where she got them in the first place.

“None of this will help us with Balor, though,” Poppi interjected, deflating whatever levity had managed to creep into the conversation. “Fighting him is going to be the biggest challenge.”

“That’ll be on me,” I assured her. “I don’t think there’s anything we have that could put a dent in an experienced Zintari except for another Zintari.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that,” Kate muttered, crossing her arms over the swell of her breasts. A brief image of how they’d looked topless, bouncing in front of my face the night before while she rode me, flashed through my mind. I didn’t usually let my mind wander so drastically when dealing with something so serious, but having let go of the fear of confronting Balor the night before had a lingering effect on me.

Indeed, the entire encounter with Winters remained fresh in my mind. Unlike the time before, I had the same level of recall for it as I did for any other situation I’d experienced. The strange man’s speculation about my memory improving with my drastic gains in power had been proven true. Oddly enough, it emboldened me further. It felt like a major milestone for such a short amount of time.

There was always the option of picking a fight with demons in Numedha to produce another dramatic leap forward, but the nightmares I’d suffered the last time had been bad enough. Of all the things Balor had told me in our first meeting, the idea of “you are what you eat” had been the only one to be proven true. Choking down so many demon souls had been a thoroughly unpleasant experience. I didn’t want to know what a prolonged exposure might have on my psyche.

As the cross-talk from everyone at the table began to grow, pitching ideas of various levels of viability, I raised a hand to put a stop to it. “Before we decide anything, we need to scout their position more. We need to know what we’re dealing with and how they might be moving. What I saw last night wasn’t really enough to go on.”

I pointed at Moppi, Kate, and Shantaka. “I want you three to get enough monoculars for you three, Susie, Poppi, and Myself.”

The three of them nodded in response as I continued. “That will be our away team. I want everyone geared up in case we run into any trouble. Koko, you will take the rest of them and start stockpiling ammunition and other weapons near the platform on our side of the portal. That way, if we need it, it won’t be far.”

Koko gave me an unusually determined look with a little salute. It seemed that her penchant for laziness didn’t carry over to times of crisis. It made more sense how the three of them had managed to find their way to me in the first place. She motioned to the others to follow her as they got to work.

As everyone cleared out to attend to their duties, a solitary goblin remained behind: Ji, the runt of the litter. She stared at me with big, round eyes as she chewed her lip. “What about me?”

“What about you?” I echoed. I motioned toward Koko and the others. “You’re with them.”

“Can do more,” Ji objected, puffing out her chest. “Train with Moppi!”

I rubbed my chin thoughtfully as I looked over at Susie. She shrugged back at me, unsure of what job we might be able to give her. “How fast are you?”

“Fastest!” Ji assured me, clenching both fists. “Like wind!”

“Alright,” I said, arriving at a decision. “You’re the runner.”

“What runner?” Ji asked, her large bat-like ears twitching around. “Why run?”

I held my hand up, indicating one of the leftover mugs on the table from breakfast. Then another. “If we’re here, and all the supplies are here. We need someone super fast to bring them from point A to point B.”

Ji looked at the mugs skeptically and then up at me. I met her gaze with a sincere look. “It’s an important job. Perhaps the most important job. Like a heart that pumps blood. We need someone to keep things moving so we can do the rest of our jobs.”

“Perfect job for Ji,” the goblin agreed, jumping off of the bench and scampering to catch up after Koko and the others. “Will not fail! Make proud!”

I exchanged a quick glance with Susie before we got our gear together and changed. Once we were finished, we met everyone else at the portal and stepped through to the other side with our weapons at the ready, just in case the enemy had already managed to find our location.

The cave on the other side was empty, putting us off to a good start. Kate, Shantaka, and I went to the mouth of the cave with the gathered monoculars and took a peek at the valley below. Thankfully, not much had changed since the night before. The two camps had spread out a little further to the point that they almost touched. I pointed out a few armored creatures that couldn’t decide if they were rhinos or triceratops. “What are those?”

“Drora,” Kate answered, not taking her sight off the camp. “Used for sieges. Very strong and durable.”

“Any good at climbing?” I asked, noting the shorter legs they had. It seemed doubtful, even if Kate didn’t know the exact answer to the question. I tried to imagine a rhino scaling a mountainside and had trouble visualizing it. Then again, I didn’t really know all that much about rhinos.

“Don’t think so,” she confirmed.

A pack of winged creatures caught my attention next. “What are those?”

“Drakes,” Kate said bluntly. “They fly with riders.”

There was our snag. It didn’t matter if the rest of the armies couldn’t climb worth a damn. If the drakes had riders firing projectiles down on us, the high-ground advantage went away immediately. They could pick us off at their leisure, and everyone else could take the rest of the week climbing the mountain, and it wouldn’t matter. They would be completely unopposed. “We’ll need to neutralize those first.”

Shantaka pointed out a trio of riders out near the ruins of the goblin settlement, each astride swift six-legged reptilian creatures the size of horses. “Scouts.”

“That’ll be how they find us,” I responded, watching them through my own monocular. “See how their tongues lash around? That’s how they scent the air, like snakes.”

Whether or not the creatures could see or hear well didn’t concern me. They were looking for the scent of goblin or human and they were sure to find it with how much time we had spent on the mountainside coming and going. As soon as they got within range, it would be hard to miss. Fortunately, they were starting on the wrong side of the Vale and had a lot of ground to cover still.

“Keep an eye on them,” I told her before turning my attention back to the main camps. My next priority was determining which one held Balor himself. His soldiers were all decked out in the same demonic-themed armor that he favored, making it difficult to differentiate them at such a distance. I checked the tents to see if one looked particularly extravagant, with the assumption that it would be the one he was in. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to take the same approach to war as he did with hunting. I picked out a few spots that looked like command tents but couldn’t be certain.

However, what I could see was how the supply tents were laid out. They weren’t particularly inconspicuous due to how much use they saw in preparation for what was effectively going to be an invasion. I pointed them out to Kate, and she started searching for points of entry that might be effective. The difficulty would be avoiding the scenting of the scouts long enough to get explosives planted in the camps themselves.

A plan was beginning to form in my mind with the information that we had. Susie, Poppi, and Moppi joined us as I set the monocular down. “Alright, I think I got an idea of what I want to—.”

The air thundered, and the ground shook as a massive creature with a wingspan as long as a handful of city buses swooped overhead. It let out a shrieking roar as a cluster of scales around its throat glowed intensely. From its mouth, a jet of blue-white flame shot down into the forest as it came in low. The heat of the jet of flame was so intense that even the lush, green state of the exotic plants wasn’t enough to prevent it from all going up like a tinderbox.

The creature banked right, letting out another deafening roar as it came in for another pass.

“There!” Kate said, pointing at the creature. I lifted the monocular back up to my eye just in time to see the armored form of Balor riding along the base of the dragon’s neck. As the two came in for a second pass, the dragon unleashed another gout of intense blue fire, torching every tree it came in contact with. Beams of sickly yellow-green leaped from the eye slit of Balor’s helmet, catching various pieces of the forest as they passed and incinerating them.

Thick, black, acrid smoke twisted and rose into the air behind them, making it impossible to make out any further details about the camps. As the fire spread through the forest below, it became clear to me that sending Kate to sneak through would be impossible. My blood boiled at the sight of the pair making an entirely redundant third pass. There would be no stopping the flames from spreading from the first two, but there was a sense I got from the third pass that Balor was having…. Fun.

“Oh my God,” Susie gasped into her hands, her eyes wide with horror. Despite how much time she and I spent outside, I never thought of her as a lover of nature. But even she was horrified by the wanton destruction of the environment below.

“Motherfucker,” I muttered hotly. Balor still had no idea where we were yet, but it didn’t matter to him. He was willing to torch the entire valley to get to me—either to smoke me out or starve me of resources from Elyndor.

Blinded by rage, I got to my feet and walked away from the mouth of the cave, leaving the others to gawk in horror as Balor continued to perform a few more sweeps over the valley. I stepped through the portal to the other side, where piles of supplies awaited us. I grabbed a long black case with a handle and returned to the platform, ignoring all questions from the goblins behind me.

I dropped the case on the ground at the front of the cave and knelt beside it, unfastening the clasps. “You wanna play? I can play.”

“Daryl, don’t!” Susie objected, but she might as well have been talking to a brick wall. It’s not something I’m proud of, but the same rage that got the best of me with Boulder had a grip on me again. I pulled out the Barrett .50 caliber rifle and assembled it with a speed born of pure Zintari fury. I hoisted it up the way I would any rifle, not worried about the brutal kick the rifle would have in other hands. I slapped the magazine into the well and cocked the charging handle back before sighting the immense creature through the scope.

“Get back,” Susie warned everyone as she physically pushed them away from my position. I took a deep breath as I moved down the dragon’s neck to where the armored figure sat on its back. Outside of a certain distance, he’d never know where the shot came from. I checked the distance once more and fired.

A moment later, the anti-material round connected with the chest plate of the diabolical Zintari, jerking him free of the stirrups and tossing him into open air. As he went into free fall, the dragon came about to retrieve its rider. As it did, it presented a perfect target in the center of my scope. I fired again, causing the dragon’s skull to whip aside without showing me just how much damage had been done. Judging by the way its wings folded and its body turned awkwardly, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t conscious enough to recover before hitting the ground.

Balor vanished into the flames below as the dragon hit the ground.

“Did…did you kill him?” Susie whispered fearfully.

“No,” I sneered, slinging the rifle over my shoulder as I glared down into the flaming valley. “I just sent him a message is all.”

Chapter 15

(Jackie Heins)

As the employee for the MBTA approached, Jackie reached into her jacket and flashed her badge. “Nothing to see here.”

The employee slowed down to look at the badge. After a second or two of examination, he shrugged and went back to whatever it was he was doing, waving absently to her as he departed.

“How much longer is this going to take?” Jackie said without looking at the man hunkered down in the alcove. “Eventually, someone is going to ask some actual questions.”

“You’re DHS, though,” Zack countered as he unfastened a few more of the bolts securing the sheet metal in place.

Jackie let out an exhausted huff. “It’s complicated. I don’t really want to get into it right now.”

“Alright,” Zack acknowledged, tossing the piece of sheet metal out of the alcove alongside the rolling trap he’d disarmed earlier. “That’s it. We’re all set.”

“That’s it?” Jackie asked skeptically, looking at the relatively few pieces to the whole setup piled next to her feet. “That’s all that was keeping him held back?”

“Well, the rest of it is the rift itself, remember?” Zack explained as he stepped out of the alcove to take off the bright orange vest he used to convince people that he was some kind of maintenance worker. He added it to the pile and brushed off his hands. “You ready? Once we go through anything could happen.”

Jackie had changed into a more durable pair of boots like Zack’s and grabbed a few more magazines for her weapon. It didn’t have the same kick that a tactical team would carry, but it was better than nothing.

“That’s not going to make the trip,” Zack noted, pointing at the gun on her hip. “I can try to enchant them and whatever else you’re carrying, but no promises.”

“Enchant them?” Jackie responded with a little smirk. “I like the sound of that.”

“If it works, it’ll be pretty cool, but if it doesn’t, your gun is gonna go missing,” Zack explained further. “They frown on that shit in the government, don’t they?”

Jackie shrugged, deciding that of all the rules she was getting flexible with lately, that one wouldn’t be the most egregious. After all, Daryl already destroyed her last gun not that long ago. “I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it.”

“Suit yourself,” he responded, motioning for her to draw the weapon. Closing his eyes, Zack muttered a few words and placed his hand over the gun as she held it out to him. His hand and the weapon briefly glowed and hummed in time with one another before the glow spread up the woman’s arm and across her body. It remained only for a second before fading entirely.

“That should do it,” he announced. “Now, just wait a second after I go through before you follow—and do it slowly.”

Jackie nodded, glancing around the mock subway platform as he stepped back into the alcove, where he vanished into the wall. The whole platform was made to look like the real thing, with real cars pulled from the green and blue lines of the transit system and placed on the tracks to complete the set. Special effects panels were also present to simulate different emergencies to respond to. At the moment, there was no training happening, so the platform was essentially abandoned except for the occasional employee who came through on some other task.

Once she was sure there were no eyes on her, she stepped into the alcove and placed her hand on the wall. It wasn’t at all like the experience in Wisconsin. There was a little more resistance when she touched the stone before it began to tingle through her palm and up her arm. Her hand pushed slowly through the stone, followed by her arm and then the rest of her.

Before she emerged on the other side, she felt completely immersed in thick, cold mud. She fell forward immediately, not realizing that the floor was a few feet lower on that side. As she hit the floor, several bells sounded all around her. The passage, which Zack had told her was a narrow crack in the rocks, had been excavated out a little more, allowing for the placement of pressure plates attached to the bells, which functioned as alarms.

Zack stared at the entrance wide-eyed as shadows of people approaching danced across the walls. Jackie quickly shoved the man against the wall as a robed figure emerged into the chamber and loosed a gout of flame from his fingertips. The fire passed between the two of them as Jackie drew her weapon and fired. The mage, whoever he was, froze abruptly as he caught a bullet in the head, then fell forward like a top-heavy ragdoll. Behind him an orc took aim with a crossbow, but the woman already had him in her sights. With another squeeze of the handgun’s trigger, she put a round right in his chest, the leather armor he wore offering no protection.

“I-I didn’t know!” Zack stammered defensively as Jackie grabbed him by the shirt and led him away from the rift.

“Ask me if I have time to care,” Jackie responded, stepping over the bodies as quickly as she could before winding her way down the narrow corridor that had been carved through the stone for easier access to the rift. “I should have thought about it, but I didn’t.”

The narrow corridor led to a decorative chamber filled with statues and other artistic depictions of Simon Chase. The entrance to the corridor itself appeared to have been concealed behind a sliding panel with a relief sculpture carved into the front. As Jackie glanced around, she determined that the room must have functioned like a rectory to a larger temple. Outside, she could hear voices clamoring.

“Bound to get more company,” Jackie warned Zack as she took point. “I hope you’re ready to make actual use of that magic on someone besides me today.”

Jackie pressed her back to the wall beside the doorway as footsteps approached. As another hooded figure stepped into the room, hands aglow with magic, she brought the butt of her weapon across his face. Nearly stumbling to the floor from the hit, the hooded man turned toward Jackie but failed to account for Zack, who pointed at him with two fingers and cried out in an arcane language. The impact was immediate and dramatic. The hooded man slammed up against the opposite wall as if hit by an invisible truck, where his body instantly—and fatally—compacted against the stone.

“Holy shit,” Jackie muttered, wide-eyed, as the crushed mess of what had once been a body slid slowly down the wall. “That’s…. New.”

“Fuck,” Zack gasped, just as surprised as Jackie. “I didn’t mean to go that hard with it.”

“Just make sure I’m not standing in the way when you do it, and you won’t get any complaints out of me,” Jackie murmured as she peeked around the corner. After a moment, she stepped through, sweeping her weapon as she checked the corners of the room. She wasn’t an expert on the subject matter, but she recognized a ritual chamber when she saw one. Especially considering there were more of the hooded, robed figures, all staring at her, completely confused. In the middle of the ritual circle was the restrained body of a naked female elf.

Jackie quirked a brow as she stepped forward, pointing her weapon at each of the hooded men in turn. “Hands up! So much as twitch a finger the wrong way, and I’ll—!”

One of them didn’t wait for her to finish her threat, pointing at her and taking a breath in. She put a round in his chest, causing him to emit a wet sucking noise instead of whatever incantation he had intended. The others stared wide-eyed as the man crumpled to the floor, hands over the wound as a pool of blood formed under him. They threw their hands up in the air as far as they could reach, none of them wanting to be the next victim of the strange weapon.

“Glad we could come to an agreement,” she muttered before turning her attention to her own sorcerer companion. “Get her out of that shit, please.”

As she saw Zack move toward the woman out of the corner of her eye, one of the hooded men gasped in surprise. “Impossible! You’re supposed to be dead.”

“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” Zack responded smugly, quoting Mark Twain.

“Back up,” Jackie said, taking a few steps forward. “Turn and face the wall.”

Zack glanced in her direction incredulously as he finished with the last of the woman’s bindings. “You going to try and arrest them or something?”

Jackie’s lips pressed into a thin line, realizing that she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with them. Killing someone in self-defense was one thing, but executing men who’d surrendered was another thing entirely. “I’m open to suggestions.”

Zack took a step forward, forming a shape with one hand like he was at a metal concert, and growled an incantation. “Seeza!”

A warbling distortion of sound and light slammed into both of the men, causing their bodies to go stiff before falling forward against the wall, sliding awkwardly to the floor soon after as if frozen stiff. Jackie lowered her weapon slowly, a little unsettled by how the men stared blankly at the ceiling. “What did you do?”

“Stun spell,” Zack answered, breathing nervously. “It’ll hold them for a while but it won’t last forever.”

Jackie nodded, turning to face the elven woman as she threw her arms around her, sobbing as she spoke in a language she couldn’t understand.

“She says thank you,” the sorcerer translated awkwardly. “And that, uh… her body is yours to do with as you please.”

Jackie felt a little heat fill her face at the thought that accompanied a nude elven maiden throwing herself at the mercy of her rescuer. “Uh… tell her we’re working. Not going to happen.”

Zack put his hand on the arm of the sobbing elf woman and spoke in her language, translating what Jackie said. She looked tearfully between them before nodding and speaking again, this time more at length. Zack listened carefully, occasionally replying to her, either to clarify something or urge her to continue.

“What’s wrong?” Jackie asked, glancing at the double doors that led to the next room filled with unknown dangers. “We can’t hang out here forever.”

“Uh, she says…” Zack swallowed nervously before motioning toward the doors. “That there are worshippers outside, waiting for the blessing of Balor to join the rest of his followers in their campaign against the Goblin King.”

“Goblin King,” Jackie repeated as it took another moment for her to realize what it meant. “Barnes!? Chase is going after Barnes?”

“Yeah,” Zack responded as the woman continued to chatter frantically in elvish. “She says Balor will punish the Goblin King for trying to turn Mistress Blackrose against her own kind.”

“Wait, so is she supporting Chase or not?” Jackie asked bitterly.

“It’s not much of a choice around here,” the sorcerer explained, taking his jacket off and wrapping it around the woman. “The Zintari are insanely powerful and worshiped like gods. Simon leans into that shit heavily. He can’t get enough of it. Of course, that doesn’t mean she was excited to be sacrificed or that she wants to see her rescuers get hurt.”

“Right,” Jackie muttered, reminding herself how complicated the religious aspect was going to make things moving forward. They were about to subvert and eventually topple what was a god to people. “Well, first thing’s first….what do you want to do about the rift now that we know what we’re dealing with?”

“I’m going to bring this whole fuckin’ place down,” Zack declared resolutely. “I won’t leave a single stone standing.”

Jackie nodded approvingly as she took the elven woman’s arm. “Glad we’re in agreement. I’m going to get her and the other people out of here. Are you sure you can do it?”

Zack motioned to the circle the woman had been at the center of just moments ago. “They left me everything I need, I just have to make a few modifications, and I’m good to go. It’ll only take a minute.”

“Don’t bring the place down on top of yourself,” Jackie joked as she led the woman to the doors and threw them open. The people on the other side that the elf had warned them about were all in attendance, many of them already dressed in armor to begin their campaign in their lord’s name the moment they were given the word. Seeing the strange human emerge from the ritual chamber after a brief commotion caused them all to glance at one another in confusion.

As Jackie’s eyes scanned the group, she noted how uncommon humans were among them, making her stand out even more than she already did in her strange attire. The variety of creatures she had seen in Balor’s hunting camp was nothing compared to what stood before. She didn’t know the names of any of them but knew none of them were to be taken lightly.

“Alright, listen up!” Jackie announced in her most authoritative government voice. “This place is going to collapse any minute! I need everyone to move calmly to the exits in an orderly fashion.”

A few of the armored creatures murmured among each other. One of them, a creature made of stone, held a hand up before speaking in a surprisingly lilting voice. “Excuse me, strange human, what might be the nature or cause of the aforementioned imminent collapse of the surrounding structure?”

Jackie stared blankly at the rock creature for a moment before glancing around at the rest of the occupants of the room, who didn’t seem to take her warning seriously. Even those who had decided to make their way to the front doors were doing so at a leisurely, if not outright lethargic, pace.

Pointing the gun in the air, she squeezed off a few rounds, destroying chunks of the ceiling and the mural of Balor painted on it. “Motherfucker, you better run your ass out of here before I lose my patience!”

The startling sound combined with the pieces of falling ceiling seemed to be enough to kick everyone into gear as they rushed for the exits. The rock creature held its hands up as it backed away. “Right, yes. Understood.”

“Idiots,” Jackie muttered, walking slowly down the main aisle of the chamber of worship to make sure no one had decided to linger behind. She glanced overhead at the undamaged parts of the grandiose mural Simon Chase had made of himself and sneered with disgust. Once certain that everyone had evacuated, she made her way to the door, at which point the ground under her feet lurched heavily.

A moment later, Zack came moving briskly down the aisle like his ass was on fire but didn’t want anyone to know. “Gotta go, gotta go,” he said quickly, waving his hands. “Go, go, go!”

Throwing caution to the wind, Jackie rushed through the door and descended the stone staircase that she found there at a run. As she and Zack reached the bottom, the ceiling of the temple set into the side of the mountain behind them began to crack and shift before collapsing inward. As Jackie slowed down, Zack bolted past her, slapping her on the back of the arm as he passed. “Nope! Keep going!”

“W-what!?” Jackie exclaimed, glancing back at the temple continuing to collapse as the mountain behind it joined in. Her eyes widened, and she grabbed the elf woman at her side and pulled her along. “Oh! Shit!”

Jackie continued to swear rapidly as they fled the collapsing structure behind them, a wave of thick dust washing over everyone as they ran for their lives. Eventually she emerged from the other side of the cloud covered in a layer of dirt and dust, otherwise unharmed.

“That was a bit more than intended,” Zack admitted, breathing heavily as he hunched over to brace himself with both arms against his knees.

“You need to get that shit on lockdown fucking quick!” Jackie snapped, glancing around at the fleeing individuals continuing to move downhill into a fortified town.

Zack looked at her, irritated. “I’m fuckin’ trying! It’s been a few years, alright, bud!?”

Jackie waved her hand rapidly toward the town downhill. “What’s all this?”

The sorcerer looked out toward the town, taking a little time to catch his breath as he examined it. “This used to be a smaller settlement until he took it over. We used it as our base of operations for a while.”

He pointed at the fortified citadel towering over the town on the other end. It had numerous towers, walls, and spiked platforms that bristled with siege engines. Jackie noted how most of them were pointed toward the town rather than outside of it. “That’s all him, though,” Zack muttered.

“Yeah,” Jackie sighed. “That’s definitely a him thing. Is there anything you left behind that might still be standing?”

“Aside from little things that are still useful and can’t be attributed directly to me?” Zack asked before shaking his head dejectedly. “Nah. Doesn’t look like there’s anything left.”

“How close do you have to be to hit the citadel as hard as you fucking can?” Jackie asked, looking over at the sorcerer as she wiped the dirt from her face.

Zack stared at her for a moment before shrugging wildly. “Why would we want to provoke them like that?”

“Because they’ve already taken off to pick a fight with Barnes,” she explained, coughing a few times from the dry, dusty air. It was a big shift from the relatively humid Boston they’d left behind. “Remember what she said? There’s a bunch of soldiers here waiting to be called up, likely as reinforcements or to bring supplies. If we throw a monkey wrench in it, that never happens. Having his whole supply line collapse behind him is bound to put him off balance with Barnes right in front of him.”

“Is this Barnes guy pretty tough?” Zack asked, regarding her with a dubious look.

“He’s another Zintari,” Jackie responded, unable to really quantify the level of power that he or Balor operated at. Balor was much more willing to demonstrate his powers for others to see and cower before, but Barnes had hardly used any of his in a little fistfight with her out front of his house. She couldn’t scale the gap between the two at all.

Zack’s head bobbed from side to side a few times as he considered. “I guess that’ll have to do. If you want me to hit the citadel, we should do it from there so we can make a quick escape after.”

The sorcerer pointed out a vantage point on a small hill closer to the town gates. Jackie nodded in agreement. She didn’t want to linger for long after causing more destruction. They would be lucky to get there unharassed, but she was ready to fight her way there alongside him so long as there was a payoff and an available exit. “Alright, lead the way, then.”

Zack agreed without a word and began traversing carefully down the rubble-strewn hillside. Jackie followed a few steps before slowing to a stop once more. “Hey, Rubin.”

“Yeah?” He asked, glancing over his shoulder at her before stopping as well. “What?”

“Did….” She jabbed her thumb back up the hill toward the temple. “Did you leave those stunned guys in the temple?”

Zack’s eyes remained on her for several seconds before darting toward the wreckage of the temple and the billowing cloud of dust spewing forth from the mountain as it continued to settle. He blinked a couple of times as he chewed his lip. “I thought you got ‘em.”

Chapter 16

The only way to describe me was seething. I couldn’t even decide what was more infuriating for me, but the fact Balor was willing to gleefully set fire to an entire valley just to draw me out was close to the top of the list.

“Daryl,” Susie said tentatively, placing a hand on my shoulder. “You need to calm down.”

I shrugged her off and stepped away as I continued to fume. I didn’t want to be touched. I didn’t want to be calmed down. I was so angry it felt like it was going to bubble out of me or explode out of my chest. My mind held no room for anything but that rage. I wanted him dead. I knew he wasn’t somehow, and all I wanted was to ensure it for myself.

“I’m going to kill him,” I growled, pacing back and forth within the cave, glancing toward the mouth of it every so often. There was a feeling inside me that urged me to throw myself down the side of the mountain to tear into him with my bare hands.

“We need to go,” Susie suggested without attempting to approach me again. “He probably knows where we are now.”

“No,” I responded, jabbing my finger in Balor’s general direction. “He was too far away. Anything outside of three hundred feet or so wouldn’t be able to hear where the shot came from because of the delay, and there was no muzzle flash.”

“What about the smell?” Shantaka asked, turning to look back over at me. I froze in my pacing, meeting her gaze with my own as realization sank in. She held the monocular out to me, which I snatched up and used to search the valley. Sure enough, the sniffing creatures were beginning to make their way in our direction.

“FUCK!” I snarled, nearly pitching the monocular off the side of the mountain in a childish temper tantrum. “I just can’t win with this fucking guy!”

“Daryl, please,” Susie pleaded, holding both hands up as she approached me. “Any of the plans we discussed just went up in smoke. We need to figure something out before they get here.”

I frowned as I stared back at her, then turned my attention back to the .50 cal. I snapped it up quickly and took aim. “I got the solution right here.”

“Daryl!” Susie exclaimed but didn’t dare come any closer.

I sighted up the closest of the sniffing creatures and fired. The rider didn’t matter at all to me if it didn’t have the same capability to track us without the mount. I struck the creature along the side of the body, tearing its insides out through the other side. Evidently, it wasn’t nearly as well protected as something like a dragon.

I searched for my next target before the thrown rider even hit the ground, zeroing in on the next of the tracking creatures and putting a round through its head. “Kill them,” I growled.

Another creature. Another shot. Another kill. “Kill them all.”

My vision began to tunnel, and all I could see was red. I was righteous fury incarnate, and I would be damned if I was going to let anyone lay a hand on those under my charge. I’d tear them all to—.

“Barnes,” Boulder said, placing a cold hand on my shoulder. “That’s enough, kid.”

It was like having my head dunked in a bucket of ice water. Suddenly, I was lucid, staring down into the valley with a new sense of clarity, examining my own behavior with clear-eyed disgust. I looked down at the rifle in my hands and let my grip on it go slack, dropping it back into its case.

“….the fuck was that?” I murmured, confused. I looked up to see that it wasn’t just me that could see the ghost with his hand on my shoulder; they all could. It was so quiet I could have heard a pin drop.

“B-Boulder!” Susie stammered in wide-eyed horror. She knew that he’d been speaking to me. I’d told her about everything, after all. But it was one thing for someone to tell you they’d seen a ghost and to see the ghost for yourself.

“Quickly,” he responded calmly with a short nod. “How you keeping?”

“….good?” Susie answered uncertainly, shooting me a desperate look. She had no idea how to handle the situation.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, feeling a little shaky and groggy as the adrenaline coursing through my veins ground to a sudden halt. “I don’t know what happened. I just lost it.”

“Yeah,” Boulder responded, glancing down toward the valley and then up at the sky. He seemed to be somewhat surprised by his appearance as well. “I warned you about that, remember?”

“This felt different,” I replied, feeling a little nauseous and light-headed.

“I got a theory about that,” Boulder said, turning his attention back to me. “Remember what Winters said about your role, how it defines Zintari more than humans. I think he’s talking about a person’s core nature, right? Well, maybe as a conqueror, Balor is particularly good at provoking the natures of others. His role allows him to dial into your protective nature and really piss you the fuck off.”

“You think so?” I asked a little skeptically. “That seems a little far-fetched.”

“Maybe,” Boulder admitted with a shrug. “But the ancient Zintari seemed to love fucking each other up. So maybe it’s more common with you guys than we realized.”

“What about Izolde?” Susie interjected, taking a careful step closer to us as she examined the presence of the translucent Boulder. “She didn’t have that effect on him.”

“Maybe she would if she was trying to pick a fight with him,” Boulder suggested. “They have all sorts of rules about how to approach one another. And you guys talked about her using some kind of hologram to talk to that other guy. Maybe it’s only effective up to a certain range.”

“You mean Zintari might be inherently driven to lash out at one another?” I surmised, feeling a chill run down my spine. The idea didn’t sit right with me at all but a large part of it rang true all the same. “That’s twisted.”

“Winters said they were a people compelled by selfish drives, that they struggled to explain their ways to them,” the ghost continued. “I know I don’t have much to go on here. Just call it a hunch.”

“That’s good enough for me,” I responded, glancing back out at the chaos below. Balor was already emerging from the blaze like he was getting out of the pool after an evening swim.

Boulder’s brow went up as he stared back at me quizzically. “Really? Just like that?”

“Jackie has a theory, too,” I explained, leaning down and setting the rifle aside properly. There was no point in breaking it down; we were likely going to need it sooner rather than later. “She thinks you had an uncanny ability to hone in on supernatural stuff, even if you didn’t know it. She thinks a lot of your hunches were, at their core, correct and that you simply misinterpreted them.”

“That’s a charitable reading of it,” Boulder muttered with a little shrug. “Whatever the cause, you need to be aware of that anger. It could be used to provoke you into making stupid decisions, leaving you open.”

“I’d say I have to fucking agree,” Susie said, crossing her arms over her chest as she glared at me. Agreeing with Boulder likely wasn’t something she would readily do even now, were it not for how pissed she was with me.

I held my hands up and bowed my head slightly. “You’re right, you’re right. Understood.”

“Good,” Susie said crisply. “Now let’s get out—.”

The sound of a large bell, as though from a cathedral, rang out from the valley below. I turned, looking down toward the nearest of the encampments that Balor had made his way toward. Again, it rang, ringing out across the valley above the sound of the raging fires. I spotted the bell mounted to the top of a large wagon with oversized wheels. On the front, a hooded figure stood, acknowledging an order from Balor as the man in the damaged armor approached.

Then, there came the war drums as others joined on their position. Another wagon with a large instrument, like a pipe organ, played by an insectoid with multiple arms, joined in. Then came the string section.

“What the hell is he doing?” I muttered, picking up the monocular quickly to get a better look. Down below, I saw Balor turning to look at me—not in my direction, not in search of me. He was looking directly at me. I could somehow tell, even with the damaged helmet, he was looking right at me. The breastplate of his armor was shredded and warped on one side, revealing mottled bruising across his bare chest. As the music took form, thundering across the valley, he pointed directly at me.

“For whom the bell tolls,” Boulder remarked, nodding in the direction of the music. “That’s what they’re playing.”

Susie and I looked at him a little skeptically, but once he pointed it out, I could hear it, too. It sounded different without electric guitars and proper lyrics, but I could definitely hear it. “This motherfucker is bringing his own soundtrack to a battle?”

“Probably super intimidating to people who don’t know who the fuck Metallica is,” Susie mused. “You think they take requests?”

I let out a snort of amusement despite how dire the situation was becoming. The music signaled to the rest of Balor’s forces that they were to begin mobilizing. They weren’t prepared to march, but they would be soon, and I expected it would take them less than a day to reach us, barring any swiftly moving vanguard moving ahead of the main force.

“I’m not sure how to handle this,” I admitted aloud, glancing over at Shantaka and the others as they rejoined us. Moppi took a moment to run a hand through Boulder's chilled form, amazed at the apparition's strangeness.

“Play to your strengths,” Boulder suggested, looking down at Moppi and swatting impotently at the goblin. Neither of them was touching the other, so it looked ridiculous. “Remember what Winters said.”

I threw my hands up, exasperated. “He said a lot of shit without specifically saying a lot.”

“A bit of it is up for interpretation,” Boulder agreed. “But he said your role is a guardian. That your power is in service to your role, right? Well, if you’re a guardian, perhaps your power lies within those you protect.”

“Sure,” I sighed. “I thought of that, but is it figurative or literal? With Zintari shit, I never really know.”

“Why not both?” Susie offered, motioning to the group gathered. “I know you want to protect us, but that doesn’t mean doing everything. You’ve been training everyone to do jobs for a while now, even me. You’ve given us the upgrades needed to take a little punishment and avoid danger while dishing out some punishment of our own.”

“Yeah, but any Zintari can do that,” I argued. “It’s not something specific to the guardian role, I don’t think.”

“She’s saying how you wield that ability might be part of it,” Boulder clarified. “And I agree.”

I thought about it as I watched the valley below. It made sense. Izolde had mentioned the different ways we handled the augmentation process. Mine seemed to favor more of what the girls wanted for themselves more than what I required of them. Then, when I saw what they wanted, I geared them toward jobs that suited their interests and desires. It was why Koko was such a difficult one for me to manage. All she really wanted to do was bang, be very good at banging, and spit out tons of babies to grow the tribe.

That wasn’t to say it wasn’t something worth aspiring to. She was essentially desiring to be a hot mom, and there was nothing wrong with that, but we weren’t ready for anything like that around the homestead, so she’d been forced to wait in the wings for a little while. Even with her aura of—.

My brows went up slowly as I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. Her aura of arousal might be exactly what we needed at a time like this, I reasoned. Maybe it was time to stop thinking of the problem from the perspective of a human or even a Zintari. Maybe it was time for me to think of how a goblin might address the problem. I was the goblin king, after all.

“Let’s make sure all the quads are fueled and ready,” I said with a little smirk. “Stage them on the other side, and I’ll push them through to this side.”

“How many?” Kate asked, peering at me curiously.

“All of them,” I answered with the smirk still on my face. “I have a plan but it’s going to take all of us to make it work. So whoever the best drivers are need to be at the wheel. Everyone else is going to be riding bitch with a weapon.”

I then turned my attention to Susie specifically. “How difficult do you think it would be to put a bunch of speakers on the quads and have them all linked back to a single Bluetooth device?”

Susie thought about it for all of a second before answering. “About as hard as buying the speakers. The rest would be pretty easy to do, depending on the device you’re trying to network.”

I jerked my thumb in the direction of the thunderous rendition of ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ down below. “When we go in guns blazing, I want to have my own little theme music for it.”

“Are you serious?” Susie scoffed.

“Yeah,” I said in a level voice. “If Boulder’s right and Zintari have a unique capacity to provoke each other into doing stupid shit, I need Balor to at least exert a little effort resisting to do the same with me. If he gives into it, that’s even better.”

“You want to piss him off?” Susie wondered, chewing her lip. She clearly understood what I was going for. She just didn’t like it. What I had in mind had a far greater chance of succeeding if he was provoked into attacking me, specifically at the cost of ignoring the others.

“Go grab my card out of my wallet and drive into town,” I instructed, blowing past her hesitance. “Get the loudest, stupidest speakers you can to mount onto the quads. I don’t care how much they cost. Then, I want to have them all networked to one device for music. I don’t care what it is, but it should have a decent range. Maybe some kind of antenna?”

“Alright, calm down before you hurt yourself,” Susie laughed, holding a hand up. “I have an idea of what you’re going for. I’ll make it happen, but do you think we’ll have enough time?”

“With how you drive?” I responded in a snarky tone. “I think we’ll have time to spare, actually.”

Chapter 17

Susie was just as quick and efficient as always. I knew my way around electronics and had done well for myself with them, but when it came to tackling a vague idea with a specific solution, she was often much better at it than I was. I stationed a lookout at the mouth of the cave to watch the valley while the rest of us returned to the homestead.

I had Susu get everyone something to eat while Kate and Shantaka handled the assignments for each of the goblins. I retreated to the house and laid down for a nap. It was strange, even to me, but I didn’t know of any other way to handle upgrades and augmentations other than being asleep. I knew there had to be a way, but I had to work with what I had.

It took a while to eventually doze off, but when I did, I cycled through everyone to give them upgrades. I had more than enough energy to spend across the group and decided I might never have another chance to dump it into them, so I sought to use everything available to me.

I rounded out most of the abilities that I’d started everyone on, bringing each of the ladies a little further down the paths they wanted to walk. Shantaka and Moppi became more effective warriors while Kate became much more difficult to detect even while people had an idea of where she was. Poppi and Susie became more utilitarian, with Poppi focused more on building and planning and Susie being more focused on supernatural abilities in the field. Her ability to sense us and enemies extended out further with a sharper degree of acuity.

Koko’s aura became more potent and her capacity to give birth was enhanced. I figured there was no harm in it. If we all got through this, settling down might be the best way to spend the time after. If we didn’t—well, there wouldn’t be anything to worry about at that point.

Susu wanted to be a better cook and inspire people. Even further, she wanted to be able to grant special temporary effects on people with her cooking, which seemed like an interesting and useful path to put her on. As selfish as she often seemed, it was usually concerning her position of authority to protect others. I identified with that.

The most important thing was enhancing perception and reflexes. By telling everyone the plan and the stakes, I had put a subconscious desire in many of them to be better at what would be asked of them. It was more effective with some than it was with others, and still mostly took the form of how they felt they could best perform the tasks ahead of them. That worked just fine for me, so long as they were all going to be on the same page when it came time to assault Balor’s forces.

Once Susie had everything set up, she joined me for a little nap. When my alarm finally went off, we both got up without a word between us and began working on getting all the quads to the platform for me to push through the gate. We positioned them all on the other side, and Susie went the extra mile of labeling each one with which goblins would be on them so that there was absolutely no confusion.

“Who’s driving you?” Susie asked, looking up from her marker and pad of paper.

I smiled warmly at her. “You, of course.”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” Susie responded coldly. “I don’t think I can handle seeing you get that way again. It’s like you didn’t even hear me.”

“I know,” I acknowledged, averting my gaze shamefully. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize what was happening to me. I was just so angry, and there was nothing that could calm me down.”

“Boulder seemed to manage,” Susie remarked.

“You get touched by a ghost, and tell me it doesn’t startle you,” I replied, half-joking. Not only had his sudden presence taken me off guard, but the physical contact with him was unnaturally cold.

Susie was unmoved by my attempt at humor, responding to my joke with a withering scowl. I frowned and took a few steps closer to her, gently placing a hand on her arm. “Susie. I’m sorry. Really, I am. I love you.”

Her eyes looked up into mine, glassy with tears she was barely managing to hold back. “I can’t see you like that again,” she muttered, her voice cracking. “That’s not who you are, Daryl Barnes.”

“I know,” I agreed. “And I promise you, it will never happen again.”

I could see the hesitance in her eyes—feel it in her body—but eventually, she made the conscious decision to take me at my word. She leaned forward, collapsing into my chest and letting out a long, tired sigh. “It better not.”

I held her quietly for a while, just the two of us, with the exception of the scout, who sat at the mouth of the cave and looked back at us a few times. I brought her lips to mine briefly to reassure her, then peeled myself away out of fear that lingering any longer would lead to me never letting go.

“Just about time,” I murmured. “You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be for such a stupid idea,” she answered, half-smiling. “You really want to charge in head first like this? Have you picked out what music you’re going to use?”

“I was tempted to pick something absolutely ridiculous to emasculate him a little,” I snickered. “He has such a high opinion of himself, but I decided something to keep us pumped would be better.”

Susie nodded with approval and handed my phone to me. I’d let her borrow it to get everything set up. The music I needed was already on the device, and Bluetooth didn’t require any outside assistance to transmit, so we had everything we needed. She tapped the phone with one fingernail. “Once you set it, just lock it, and it’ll keep going. It’s synced to all the speakers like you wanted.”

“Thank you,” I said, leaning forward to plant a kiss on top of her head.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Susie scoffed playfully. “It’s still a dumbass idea. You can thank me if we don’t die.”

“When,” I corrected her. “When we don’t die.”

Shortly after, the others filed in through the portal to begin getting ready. Susie and I geared up with them and then I took a few minutes to lay the plan out for everyone again.

“Chaos and confusion,” I reiterated. “That’s what I want from you guys. If you can drop a few of them, by all means. But the most important thing is that you keep everyone on their side as off-balance as you possibly can. Leave as much of the hard fighting to me as you can, but don’t hesitate to defend yourselves and each other.”

Susie began to direct them to each of their quads, though most of them already had a good idea of where to go due to the signs she’d made for them. She was nervous and her repeating herself or retreading ground was how it manifested. She even rechecked the connections for the plows we had attached to the larger quads. Obviously we weren’t worried about snow, but we would still need to clear the area out in front of us. The added protection was nice too.

“The priority is to keep attention off of Poppi and Koko,” I said, motioning to the two armored goblins as they got onto their quad. The sun had set long ago, and we would be making the assault in the dark. The brightness of the headlights would work to our advantage when charging into the enemy, and the differently colored glowing poles on the back of each one would help us keep track of one another.

“Susie will know where you are at all times, but there are a lot of creatures down there, so keep your eyes peeled on the colors. When I say switch, you switch. When I say return, you adjust the colors back to your own. That is the responsibility of the driver, while those of you who are passengers do everything you can to keep them protected. Understood?”

The goblins nodded and giggled. As serious as the situation was, the nature of the plan I had laid out for them earlier amused them greatly. It appealed to their chaotic goblin natures on a very deep level. From their perspective, it was less of a battle and more like a highly organized campaign of harassment.

Everyone got to their stations, and the scout informed me that the enemy was going to begin their ascent within minutes.

“Perfect,” I responded. “We’re just in time. Keep an eye out, but if everything goes well, you shouldn’t need to do anything from here. If anyone gets by us and makes it up here, don’t try to fight. Just hide.”

With that, we fired up the quads, causing a deafening thunder of engines to fill the cave. I checked my weapons one last time as I struggled to steady my nerves. Looking back at the goblins under my charge, I wondered how many of them would be hurt by my foolish endeavor. I glanced at Kate, Moppi, and Shantaka to ensure they were ready. With their helmets concealing their faces, they offered me a thumbs-up. I glanced over at the small quad with Poppi and Koko. They gave me the thumbs-up as well. Seeing this, the others joined in to assure me they were prepared. That was it. No more excuses. It was time to go.

“Let’s ride!” I shouted, my voice nearly drowned out by the roaring of the engines. Susie hit the gas, and within seconds, we were hurling down the hillside like bats out of hell. I glanced down at my phone, hit the music, and shoved it deep into my pocket.

As we neared the frontlines of Balor’s troops, the opening guitar peel of Kickstart My Heart blared through every speaker from every quad barreling down upon them. The lights were confusing enough for most of them, preventing them from being able to make any of us out on the back of the vehicles, but the music only offered an additional element of chaos.

“Oh, my Gawwwwwd!” Susie laughed, lowering the plow a little to get in low without scraping the ground below us. We hit the line hard, breaking through the soldiers in their armor like little tin soldiers, scattering them to either side as we blasted through. I popped up from my seat and immediately began firing off short bursts from my HK, with little need to aim with how dense their formation was. I could barely hear my own gun over the sound of Mötley Crüe shredding my ears through my helmet.

The others fanned out just as we discussed. Kate fired a few arrows into the crowd while Moppi took opportunities to swipe at soldiers who got too close. Shantaka had taken up a bow as well but was just as good at using her signature sword to cleave flesh from bone whenever she got the chance. I was doing the most damage by far, which was quite intentional. It didn’t take long for spells to be hurled in my direction as commanding officers among the soldiers and monsters under Balor’s command prioritized me as the greatest threat.

Susie spared a hand to point one of them out to me, having a perfect understanding of the layout of everything in all directions. Not only that, but her gnome light made it so that we saw much better than the majority of our enemies. They were essentially fighting in the dark with torches to light their way while we flashed bright LED headlights in their eyes, and we got to see as plain as day.

I put a couple of rounds in the chest of the commander Susie pointed out, then a few in the chest of the mage, hurling bolts of lightning in our direction. I could smell the burning ozone through the face shield of my helmet, but otherwise, the lightning hadn’t been very threatening due to how wide the shots were.

“The leader!” The shouts rose from the ranks of the soldiers, clearly indicating me. “Blue! Blue!”

I glanced at the glowing whip light of our quad—which was blue—and smirked. “Shift one!” I shouted, almost inaudible even to myself. Thankfully, goblin ears were for much more than show. Everyone but Shantaka was able to pick my voice out amid the chaos, but she wasn’t a driver, so she didn’t have to worry about it.

The colors of all the whip lights on every quad turned blue. “Rotate!”

Susie cut to the left as others on the left cut to the right. Within seconds, we effectively mixed up their ability to track me. Meanwhile the girls continued to pepper them with whatever they had available to them. Some had slings, others just poked with the spears I got them. Koko cut her light and vanished into the darkness as Poppi offered a few parting shots from her bow. They were on their way to their objective while we continued to run circles around Balor’s troops.

Before they could begin picking viable targets again, I gave the order to return to their normal colors. Once again, Susie and I were the only blue whip light on the battlefield, causing them to readjust their tactics once more in an attempt to prioritize me.

“Reloading!” I shouted after putting several more down. My legs shifted quickly with every hard turn Susie made and every dip and bump that we hit. From what I could tell, no one was seriously hurt. The more aggressive members of the group had taken a few glancing hits but were too physically durable to give much time to grazes from spears or arrows.

Just as I got the new mag in, I felt a heavy impact unseat me from the quad. I watched as Susie continued on without me, not yet realizing I wasn’t with her. I pulled the small boulder off of my chest and tossed it to the side, bowling over a few of Balor’s soldiers in the process. Plunged into darkness now that the gnome light had left with Susie, I almost didn’t see the hulking form of the troll as it approached. It was one of the same ones I had battled before my first meeting with Balor. It recognized me, too. This time, though, I was properly armed.

I stepped back, adjusted my footing, and began dismantling the creature with controlled bursts. Its regeneration was almost as good as mine, but that didn’t matter. All I needed was brief openings to create bigger ones. I demolished the knees first, sending him to the ground before airing out his torso and perforating his skull. Even this wasn’t enough to stop the regeneration entirely, but it gave me just enough time to slug one of the torchbearers and seize the magical flame he carried. I jammed it into the open wound in the back of the skull, searing enough of the flesh to keep it from ever mending. That was the end of the troll.

Now that I was stationary, it was possible for me to reap the souls of the monsters I felled. The troll was the first one, but a few others nearby came swooping through the crowd to join it. I knew instinctively that the troll wasn’t just a normal troll. It had been upgraded by Balor at some point to be stronger and more durable, with regeneration that was enhanced beyond the norm for its species. I don’t know how I knew this, I just did the moment I took the soul as my own.

A smug smile breached my lips for just a moment as I reflected on how I was essentially stealing power from Balor. Every one of his soldiers I felled, especially those he’d upgraded, was robbing him of that power.

However, I noticed how nearly none of the other creatures I’d slain had been upgraded at all. It seemed only a handful of elite units got the upgrades while everyone else simply had to make do. Monsters of Elyndor, when not twisted by miasma, had much cleaner souls upon reaping. Demons burned, and those afflicted by the miasma would make me feel sick. Absent those complications, it was a much more immediate and potent surge of strength and vigor.

“Someone make sure Susie is protected!” I shouted, knowing that one of the goblins would be able to hear me and pick her out. I was on foot now, and anyone attempting to slow down and pick me up would only expose themselves to unnecessary danger. Creatures large and small began to converge on me once they knew where I was. Magical flares were launched into the sky to cast a cold, white, flickering light over everything. Our advantage of light in the dark was gone. I heard a sizzling ball of heat shoot past my ear. Dodging only caused me to land in the path of a giant’s club.

I was sent hurling into the air, turning and twisting as I took several shots back at the giant as a parting gift. I hit the ground hard, skidding across the ash-strewn dirt before slowing to a stop. Susie came barreling through the crowd, her plow scattering smaller enemies as she extended a hand to me. I hadn’t wanted her to return for me, considering how little damage even a giant could do to me at this point, but the fact she wasn’t slowing down let me know she was aware of the risk. I seized her arm and swung myself up onto the back of the quad as the guitar solo shredded through the night.

I glanced off in the direction Koko and Poppi had gone, concerned that they had run into trouble.

“They’re almost there!” Susie screamed back at me, somehow sensing my concern. I trusted her assessment and turned my attention to fighting off the horde of monsters and Balor loyalists swarming around us. I was vaguely aware of the damage the others were doing, not just with direct strikes but by creating so much chaos that many among the enemy number were being dropped in crossfires. It was simply too much chaos and confusion for them to keep up with, even with the magical flares casting light on the battle from above.

As the song wound to a close, I noticed several of the lumbering creatures serving as artillery toward the rear of the lines becoming even more sluggish. Seconds later, one of them turned to the nearest other and attempted to mount it. With all the war gear strapped to the creatures, it was difficult, but they both seemed quite vested in making it work. Slowly, the sentiment spread through the lines of those not immediately engaged in the fight until it crept closer to our position. Koko had reached her objective.

The rear part of the camp was dense with non-combatants, and those meant only to run supplies. They were more susceptible to Koko’s aura of arousal. But one of the augments I’d added to it allowed it to relay off of those already affected by it. The bubble that she generated produced additional bubbles, and so on. Now, an overwhelming desire to reach for their nearest comrades and bang out their frustrations was spreading across Balor’s forces like wildfire.

Whatever Balor used to compel them—to demand their loyalty—wasn’t quite as powerful as the need for them to get their rocks off, it seemed. Horny people did stupid shit all the time to get laid. Horny animals would succumb to their baser instincts. Monsters sat somewhere in the middle.

Distracted by the spectacle, I failed to see the spear of arcane magic slice through the night until it was too late. The energy slammed into my chest, unseating me for the second time that night and hurling me to the ashy ground. I scrambled to my feet, checking my vest to see how far the bolt of energy had penetrated, only to see it had gone right down to the skin. Yet my flesh was unharmed. I barely felt a thing besides the force it had hurled me with and that of the ground.

“Am I magic resistant?” I laughed, glancing around for my rifle that had been thrown clear of me. I found it near the burned stump of a tree and snatched it up. The hooded figure—what seemed like a member of Balor’s personal cult, judging by his bling—emerged from the crowd to press the attack. He brought both hands up, letting a torrent of green fire leap from his fingertips at me. I decided to test my theory, moving forward into it without making an effort to defend myself.

To my own surprise, I marched right through the flames and up to the man himself. His face looked withered and gaunt under the hood as I seized him by both wrists and snapped his arms like twigs. He let out a howl of agony before falling to his knees in front of me. I took a moment to quickly pat the flames out on my clothing and body armor.

“Holy shit,” I laughed again, looking down at my hands in awe. “I’m magic resistant!”

Chapter 18

Not only was I magic resistant, but depending on the form the magic took when it was lobbed at me, I was able to knock it back. I discovered this when one of the mage’s companions swooped in to help him. The first hooded man stared, horrified at his broken, gnarled arms; the other hurled a volley of arcane bolts my way. I reached out with one hand and slapped the first few out of the air while the others struck me in the helmet, boring holes through it but stopping dead against my skull.

The mage stared at me dumbfounded while I pulled my ruined helmet off and tossed it to the side.

“What else you got?” I asked, motioning for him to give it another try. “Come on.”

With a hasty incantation and a flourish of both arms, the second mage sent a snapping arc of lightning into my chest and held it on me. I smelled the ozone burning around me as I had earlier, and I could feel the tingle of the lightning across my skin. The electricity broke upon me, licking the ground around me as I raised a hand and pressed it into the bolt. Closing my hand around it, I snuffed it out entirely, much to the mage’s surprise.

“Huh,” I grunted, examining the smoke rolling off of me from the scorched layers of fabric I wore. It would get pretty annoying if I ended up having to fight nude.

A flash of light followed by a concussive wave of force caught my attention. As I turned to find where it had come from, I saw a second flash come from the mouth of the cave up the mountain.

“What the hell?” I wondered aloud. It occurred to me then that I’d been played yet again. Balor didn’t give a shit about those under his command. Even as we were neutralizing the whole of his army with a big hug-a-thon—or orgy, depending on where you looked—he had simply fucked off to the portal.

“Daryl!” Susie yelled, much easier to hear now that my brief soundtrack had finished and the sounds of battle were ebbing away into something else entirely. I hopped onto the back of the quad as she pulled up to me.

“We have to get back up there,” I said, pointing at the cave in the dark. There was another bright flash, which itself was somewhat puzzling. If Balor had gone around us to get to the portal, what was he fucking around with that was creating such a light show?

Without questioning me, Susie kicked the quad into gear, swung it around, and stormed back up the hillside. Moppi pulled up alongside us, and I waved her off. “Protect Koko! I can handle this on my own!”

Even with her helmet on, I could tell she was reluctant, but she did as I told her and broke off with Kate to find Koko. Getting back up was much slower than coming down had been, and I found myself growing impatient as the percussive sounds from the cave grew louder and the flashes brighter.

“You betrayed me!” I heard Balor scream as we arrived at the cave itself. Another man that I didn’t recognize stood forty feet across from him with his hands at the ready. Behind him and slightly to the side was Jacqueline Heins with her weapon drawn. They both looked pretty roughed up.

“I betrayed you!?” The other man yelled back. “Motherfucker, you betrayed me. You took everything here from me. I brought you here, and you decided to just pull the rug out from under me. You shattered the lives of countless individuals here!”

“They’re. Not. REAL!” Balor roared, his voice shaking the mountain around us as twin beams erupted from his eyes. The younger man produced a dense screen of magic to protect himself with, which seemed to do the trick for a few seconds before shattering into pieces. The shock of it bursting caused Balor’s head to snap back enough to lose focus on his eyebeams. “You betrayed me for a bunch of fake people!”

I stepped forward with my weapon at the ready. Whoever the other guy was, his presence had pulled Balor’s focus off the portal at the back of the cave entirely. “They’re not fake people.”

“Ah, there he is,” Balor said, motioning toward me. “The so-called goblin king. My other traitorous friend! Now, I get to put you all down at the same time.”

“Barnes!” Jackie gasped, looking back at me. “Oh, thank Christ. I was afraid we were too late!”

“Nah,” I responded to her without taking my sights off of Balor. “Right on time.”

“This is the guy?” The unknown man asked, his hands at the ready to work some more magic. He didn’t look like he had much left in him.

“This is the guy,” Jackie assured him.

“We weren’t friends,” I said to Balor, moving a little to my right so that he would continue to track me instead of the others. “You were trying to play me from the start.”

Balor stared at me for a moment, glancing at the others briefly. “What do you mean?”

“Sending your people to track me down, clearing the valley to prevent me from growing stronger, making sure I was cut off from the other Zintari,” I explained. “You thought after you extended an olive branch to me that I wouldn’t suspect anything. All you wanted was to get to that portal. Because it’s your only way home.”

Balor tilted his head to the side and started to chuckle. He reached up, pulled the battered helmet from his head, and tossed it to the side, laughing even harder. “I guess you’re not as dumb as you look, though you’re still missing a few pieces. I would have still liked to call you a friend, though.”

“Why?” I scoffed. “Because all the other Zintari think you’re a fucking tool?”

His laughter died quickly, and his expression darkened. His usually cold stare became fiery and intense. “The fuck did you just say to me?”

“I said they don’t fucking like you, Simon,” I repeated. “None of them like you.”

“Don’t call me that!” He snapped, jabbing a finger in my direction as he took a few steps closer to me. “That’s not my name anymore. I’m Balor now! You will address me as such!”

“I don’t give two shits what you want to call yourself,” I growled back at him. “I might if you weren’t a murdering, genocidal psychopath.”

“UGH!” He groaned, throwing his arms up. “They’re not real people! It doesn’t matter what happens to them. We’re the only ones that matter—the Zintari.”

I shook my head, keeping my weapon level with him. I didn’t know how fast he was and didn’t want to leave it to chance, but I wasn’t comfortable with just ventilating him, either. If it was even remotely possible to get him to surrender by showing him how badly he’d fucked up, it would be preferable to losing myself to whatever rage had shown itself within me earlier. “Just because they’re from Elyndor doesn’t mean they’re not people.”

“Elyndor?” Balor repeated incredulously, his eyes darting between the other three and then to me. “It’s not just Elyndor, you fool. It’s all of them. Here, Earth—doesn’t matter. The only ones that matter are us.”

“W-what?” I muttered, my blood running cold. I could see something in his eyes that I hadn’t noticed before, a certain kind of unhinged quality that felt unnatural—unwholesome. I felt like I was staring into the eyes of something truly soulless.

“I’ll show you,” He said, his gaze shifting to Susie. I had only a split second to react as the beams leaped from his eyes, threatening to vaporize the love of my life. I leaped into the line of fire, taking the beams squarely in my chest.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it hurt like hell. I felt myself hurled through the air, hit the ground, and slid through the dirt in a heap. I curled up in a little ball, feeling the pain resonate through my entire body from my head down to my toes, making me wish that I had been vaporized myself. I looked down to assess the damage and found that my body armor had been burned clean away, the smoldering remains of it falling away from my skin. Besides some singed hairs on my chest, I was completely unharmed.

I marveled at the impact point in silence. The force still hurt, and something about the energy made me feel ill, like I’d just been hit with weaponized swine flu, but the tissue was still intact. Groaning, I pulled myself to my feet. The ill feeling passed from me within a few seconds, but a lingering fatigue remained.

“….What the hell?” the young man with Jackie muttered as he stepped away from me, giving me a wide berth.

“How is that possible?” Balor wondered as he continued to walk toward me. I shifted my stance to remain between him and Susie. “You’re not strong enough to take a blast like that. You haven’t reaped enough.”

“Not here,” I grunted, turning my head to the side to spit some strange, bitter flavor from my mouth. “But I had everything I needed in Numedha.”

“Numedha?” Balor echoed, glancing up at the sky in an attempt to find the planet somewhere among the stars.

“HA!” the young man laughed, clapping his hands together. “You stupid motherfucker! You went through all that to cut him off from his reaping supply when he had a whole other world to do it with!”

“Shut up, Zack!” Balor roared, his eyes glowing as he turned his attention to the distracted young man. I brought my rifle up and squeezed a shot off just in time. The round struck Balor right in the face, throwing his aim off just enough to spare his and Jackie’s life. The sickly yellow-green beams shot harmlessly off into the night before he corrected his stance and aim, focusing once more on me.

“Let’s put your strength to the test, then!” Balor laughed sadistically, his eyes glowing as he charged at me. I knew that if he couldn’t put me down at a distance, he was going to rely on his strength in close combat to do the trick. I repeated the tactic I’d used with the troll, to much less effect. The rounds didn’t shred his knees. Instead, they slowed him slightly by forcing him to misstep. It wasn’t enough to make a difference.

He closed the remainder of the distance in the blink of an eye, swinging out at me with one fist that landed cleanly with the side of my skull. I felt like a rocket-powered sledgehammer had just struck me as I was sent stumbling into the wall of the cave.

Reeling, I struggled to get my footing as he launched himself at me again. This time, I got the weapon up and fired a more sustained burst into his chest. The force of the HK was enough to slow him down, allowing me to step to the side and avoid another blow. I put a few rounds into the back of his skull to force him to stumble forward, but the fact that I was getting so little for my spent rounds was discouraging.

He whirled around, snatching the weapon by the barrel and bending it before ripping it free of my grasp. Before I could respond, he beat me over the head with it like a club and then slammed it into the side of my body like a baseball bat. Stars filled my vision as I stumbled around. I knew he was breaking things with each impact and that I was healing them, but it wasn’t going to do me any good if I couldn’t hit him back with something.

“Pretty durable,” Balor remarked briefly before looking at the ruined HK. “More than this thing, anyway.”

He tossed it to one side as I squared up, shaking my head to refocus my vision. He approached me without bothering to put his guard up. I lashed out with a fist, which he dodged by leisurely leaning to one side and slamming a fist into my ribcage. The force lifted me off the ground even as it broke bone. I fell to the ground on my hands and knees. I had just enough to let out a brief cry of pain before his eye beams struck the back of my skull and drilled me down into the ground. I felt the stone crack under the force.

“You’re so full of shit,” Balor snarled with disdain. “You hold me solely responsible for something they all do, no matter who they are. As if I’m the only one tearing up these little paper people merely by moving through their small paper world.”

I lifted my head from the broken stone and vomited onto his boots. It was petty, but it felt like the right thing to do at the time. It wasn’t, which I realized as he jumped back in shocked disgust and then slammed the puke-soaked boot into my head. I sailed back several feet deeper into the cave with him in calm pursuit. He wasn’t in a rush. He knew he outclassed me.

His eye beams may not have been able to delete me from existence, but they still hurt like hell and left me feeling like shit. Behind him, Jackie opened fire. He ignored her as each round struck him in a tight grouping along his back, not leaving so much as a mark on him. His armor was banged up pretty badly, but underneath, he was doing just fine.

“You’re insane,” I groaned, wiping traces of puke from the side of my mouth as I struggled to get to my feet. “Maybe you all are. But you’re definitely the worst.”

“Me?” He laughed, placing his hands on his chest to feign insult. “You think I’m the worst? Man, if you only knew what the other Zintari were like. How many have you even met? Two? Three? The ones around here are nothing. They’re pussies. Frjor likes to pretend he’s a big game hunter, and Izolde fucks anything and everything on two legs to forget how much of a nobody she used to be.”

“Not like you, right?” I said, raising my fists to guard my face. “What were you before you came here, huh?”

“Car salesman,” Jackie yelled from behind him. I laughed, and it was the most damaging thing I’d managed to do to him up to that point. It was like Jackie had just pulled his pants down in gym class for everyone to mock. Honestly, I had no problem with car salesmen—or any career path, really. It was his mundanity that we were mocking, and he knew it. Balor turned, ready to make Jackie pay for outing him. I seized the opportunity and rushed him.

I tackled him at the waist, just in time for the beams from his eyes to carve molten lines through the ground beneath us. Before he could recover, I snapped one of the glowing stone shards free and thrust it down into his neck. It broke on contact even as it cut a long, shallow line across the exposed flesh.

He knocked me clear of him with the back of his fist, his other hand darting up to his neck frantically. The look of surprise on his face told me everything. It had been a long time since anyone had drawn blood on him, as little as it was. “Y-you cut me!”

“That was the idea,” I muttered. Our gazes met briefly before he was on me again. He hit me perhaps six or seven times before I even registered the first hit, knocking me around like a pinata deeper into the cave until I fell back onto the wooden platform I had constructed with the girls.

Behind him, I heard Jackie and Susie call my name, but the sound was muffled. I could feel my regeneration starting to slow down. Soon, it would struggle to keep up at all. He threw himself at me, wrapping his hands around my throat. As he squeezed, he slowly cut off my air supply. Durable as I was, I still needed to breathe.

“Just for that, you know what I’m going to do?” He leaned forward, speaking to me through his teeth, his eyes watering. “I’m going to reap you after I kill you. Then I’ll move on to Jacqueline, Zack, and that other bitch. I don’t think I’ll get much more from them than simple satisfaction, but you…? Ohhh, you should give me quite the boost. I’ve waited so long to try reaping a Zintari.”

I stared at him in horror, unable to speak as my vision began to blur. Evidently, I looked as confused as I felt because he continued to speak poison to me as I kicked and thrashed around under him.

“That’s right,” he said with a little chuckle. “You reap enough of those paper people, and eventually, you get the ability to reap other Zintari. It’s not a known technique among the nu-Zintari, but it’s practically half of why the ancient ones fought one another so hard. They wanted each other’s souls—their power.”

That must have been why the Zintari were so antagonistic toward each other. Part of us recognized the predators that each other were. On some subconscious level, we knew we could easily become victims if the others grew too much in power. We were animals—predators—eyeing each other not just as competition for resources but as possible resources ourselves.

“And after I reap you,” Balor hissed, smacking his lips as he salivated at the idea. “I’ll have every ability you have. All your power will be mine. Now, die!”

“N-n-n!” I protested, thrashing as hard as I could. I couldn’t do a thing to hurt him.

“Hey, fuck-knuckle,” Boulder growled, placing a translucent spectral gun to Balor’s skull. “You forgot to say ‘Simon says’.”

The sound of the shot was almost deafening with how close I was to it. Balor’s head whipped to the side, though there was no blood or even a wound. His hands clapped down around his skull as he fell to the side, writhing around in agony. “HRUAAAGH!”

“Y-you… took my joke,” I rasped, scrambling back to my feet. “I wanted to use that joke.”

“Yeah, I could see you were just waiting for the right moment,” Boulder quipped, holding his gun on Balor. He lowered his voice as he spoke again out of the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know if I got another one of those in me, so you only have one choice.”

“W-what’s that?” I coughed, rubbing my neck. “Dance battle?”

“You gotta reap me,” Boulder answered coldly, his eyes darting over to me briefly. “He said he’s done it a bunch of times. It must be why I’m tethered to you. You killed me, but you never properly did a reaping.”

“No,” I objected. “No. Absolutely not.”

“You’re not spoiling for a lot of options here,” he said as Balor leaned against the cave wall and pushed himself upright, his chest heaving. Though the ghost bullet hadn’t done any physical damage to him, it must have felt like he’d just had his skull hollowed out by one. “I’m more powerful now than any of the other ghosts wandering around back at your homestead. That should count for something—maybe give you enough of an edge to drop this asshole.”

“Hypocrite!” Balor seethed, his eyes wide with unfettered rage. “You act like I’m so vile and abhorrent when the soul of a man you killed stands as evidence that you’re no different. You’ve enslaved him to your will, even!”

“I’m no one’s slave, dickhead,” Boulder replied, holding his weapon at the ready. Even if he had enough energy to pull the trick off again, there was no way in hell he was going to hit Balor without the element of surprise.

“He’s right,” I said, picking a crowbar off the ground that one of the goblins had used to open one of the crates on the other side. “Some of us can actually earn loyalty without torturing and maiming people. Do you even have anyone close to you that you haven’t physically chained down?”

I motioned toward Zack toward the mouth of the cave. “Sounds like he used to be your only friend, and it didn’t seem like he was leaving a glowing review just now.”

“What’re you doing?” Boulder muttered, glancing over at me. “Come on. You better get on with it before he—.”

“SILENCE!” Balor roared furiously, releasing blasts so wide and dense from his eyes that they appeared as one. I swung down with the crowbar, hooking into a plank of the platform under my feet before he could throw me too far. The beam broke, but I caught the next one, and the next one, and the one after that. Each one kept me from being thrown completely, allowing me to sit there and simply tank the incredibly powerful energy pouring out of him.

I could hear him screaming wordlessly at me as he drew nearer. My whole existence felt like I was experiencing the sum total of the entire covid pandemic. There was nothing for me to puke up, but I wanted to. My muscles screamed in agony, but I shut them out. My mind reeled with panic and fear. If I fell, everything and everyone I loved would be next. After them would come the loved ones of every other person Simon came across in a desperate attempt to fill the hole inside him.

I heard Susie shrieking in horror as she ran toward us. Jackie was trying to hold her at bay while demanding Zack use some kind of spell to save me. He didn’t have anything to protect me with. No one did. It was all on me. All the while, Balor stalked toward me, dumping all of his rage and power into the blast. I felt like I was caught in the rapids of a raging river. Somehow, I had rooted myself in place, but a single movement would forfeit it entirely. He was screaming—screaming for me to die. My vision was just that yellow-green color as I felt my skin finally beginning to sizzle and burn.

Then I saw the faint shadow of his foot as he drew closer, and I took a chance. I wrenched the crowbar free, hooked it around his ankle, and yanked. The beam went tearing through the top of the cave, disintegrating a long line through the stone up into the sky. Barely keeping my own footing, I grabbed a hold of his leg and swung him around, slamming him into the stone wall of the unopened portal.

We struggled briefly as he tried to get to his feet. “Let go of me!”

I jabbed the stone behind his head with the crowbar, keying it to Earth so he fell backward through it. His body below his shoulders was still in Elyndor, but everything from the neck up was on the other side waiting for the rest of him. Remembering the drawings that Boulder had given me of the portal as he saw it, I looked up at the border of the portal where the symbol for Numedha should have been and placed my hand on it.

The portal’s connection to Earth was severed as it established a new connection to Numedha, leaving the top part of Balor behind and the rest of his body completely still.

“You forgot to say ‘Simon Says’,” I rasped.

“It doesn’t work when you say it twice,” Boulder objected behind me.

“Fuck you, it’s my joke,” I argued, shoving Balor’s body through to Numedha and then rolling limply away from the portal. “You stole it from me.”

“Like hell I did,” he rumbled. “I should have never saved your ass.”

“Too late,” I chuckled painfully as Susie came rocketing across the cave to tearfully throw her arms around me. “No take-backs.”

Boulder’s ghost flipped me off.

Chapter 19

Jackie and Zack picked me up as gingerly as they could, bringing me over to the mouth of the cave just in case anything happened near the portal. As absurd as it sounded, they couldn’t be sure that Balor was actually dead.

“How did you know that would work?” Zack asked, staring at me wide-eyed.

I coughed a few times, looking down at my burned arms visibly healing, albeit slowly. “I didn’t,” I admitted. “But it was either doing that or just sending him off to Numedha with a blank check to kill as many demons as he wanted.”

“What exactly did you do?” Jackie asked, looking back at the bloodstained platform as she attempted to make me comfortable against the side of the quad.

“Sawed him in half with the portal, I think,” I chuckled briefly before every pain receptor in my torso convinced me it was a terrible idea. “What are you doing here?”

Jackie glanced at Zack and stood aside to make room for Susie, who was still on the verge of hysterics with how close I’d just come to death. “Originally, we set out to disrupt supply lines and reinforcements. But we got into a scuffle on our way and got some information out of one of Chase’s lieutenants.”

“We knew what he was going to pull,” Zack continued. “He wanted to do everything to draw you out—up to and including sacrificing everyone down in the valley—to gain access to the portal. Everyone held in reserve was meant to be the invasion force for Earth.”

“But you guys beat him here,” I surmised with a brief nod, draping one arm over Susie. It didn’t matter that snuggling into me hurt like hell. The pain would pass. “Thank you.”

Zack shrugged and let out a long breath. “Well, you probably would have drawn him back out when he realized his backup wasn’t coming. As soon as it came into the Vale, they would have ended up joining that little fuckfest you kicked off down there.”

“Probably spared a lot of lives doing it this way,” I added, not wanting to diminish their contribution to the win over Balor. He was probably right, but I couldn’t be bothered to think about roads not taken at the time. The fact I’d scraped out a win over such an enemy was too much of a relief. “How’s everything going below?”

Susie looked at me and offered a little smile. “Graphic and lewd. But it looks like the fighting has stopped. We’ll have to consider something special for Koko when she gets back.”

I nodded my agreement and closed my eyes for a minute to rest—or what felt like a minute. When I opened them again, I was back home, lying on the couch wrapped in bandages. The sound of birds chirping outside functioned as the gentlest alarm clock I’d probably ever experienced.

“Wh—?” I muttered, glancing around the room in confusion. Jackie slept on the floor nearby while Susie snoozed in the armchair we’d recently picked up to fill out the expanded space of the house. Zack was propped up against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest with his head hanging to one side as he drooled on his shoulder.

The goblins, Kate, and Shantaka had mostly stuck to the pit in the middle of the room, but a few of them had formed smaller clusters around the living room that turned it into a minefield for anyone who might have needed to get up and use the restroom—like me.

Sliding out from under the blanket that had been thrown over me, I crept across the room in my underwear, careful not to step on any of the goblins. I checked each one I passed for signs of any wounds but realized halfway across the room that even if they had been hurt, their saliva was a highly effective healing method. Koko’s was even more effective than the others after some recent upgrades.

I was pretty quick in the bathroom, considering how much everything still hurt. I looked the bandages over to see if anything needed to be changed but decided against tampering with whatever work had been done on me until someone woke up. I glanced out the window, seeing the first rays of dawn beginning to peek through the branches of the trees in the distance. It felt unusually peaceful.

Rather than go back to sleep, I made my way outside, enjoying the crisp morning air in a way that only a near-death experience with a superpowered psychopath can do for you.

“Not bad,” Boulder said, stepping up beside me. “All things considered, I mean.”

I looked at the ghost, shocked that he was manifesting with dawn on the horizon. “Boulder. Holy shit, are you alright?”

“I’m great,” he admitted, his face looking somehow younger and more alive despite the state he was in. “Had a talk with Jackie back in Elyndor. She got a little misty, but I think it went pretty well.”

I nodded quietly, rotating my shoulder to work out some of the stiffness I felt when I did. “Thanks for the help, by the way. I don’t know if I could have gotten through that without you jumping in there.”

“I’m sure you would have figured something out,” the ghost responded confidently. “I just got tired of watching you get your ass beat.”

“I had him right where I wanted him,” I lied with a slight chuckle. “So what now?”

“Farm stuff, I imagine,” he replied, unsure.

“Not for me,” I corrected him as I turned to face him. “You. Balor said I was essentially enslaving you—that you’re stuck with me. I’m not fine with that.”

“Eh, we’ll figure it out,” Boulder assured me. “I’m not worried about it.”

I had a strange feeling he wasn’t telling me something, but I didn’t want to press him any further. “So, you’re strong enough to be out in the day now?”

“For a little bit,” he confirmed. “Dusk and Dawn sort of thing. Kind of nice, actually.”

“You spent a lot of time watching sunrises when you were—?”

He was gone, and this time, it felt different from the other times. I didn’t waste a lot of time looking for him. If he wanted to talk again, he knew where to find me. There was something serene and satisfied about him, though, which made me feel alright about how everything had gone. I stretched a little and made my way back inside to make everyone some breakfast. They’d more than earned it.

The house was a chaotic mess of hungry goblins before the first batch of bacon was finished sizzling in the pan. Susie joined me in the kitchen to help, planting a kiss on my lips as she took a quick inventory of what I was working on. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah, a lot,” I answered, pushing Poppi out of the kitchen with my foot. “Beams really fucked me up though.”

“Yeah, you looked like shit,” Susie confirmed as she glanced over at me, a little smirk tugging at the corner of her lips as she brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face.

“You still do,” I lied, not willing to take any of her savage abuse lying down. She slapped my chest with the back of her hand in response, causing intense searing pain from the healing burns under the bandages.

“Awwww yeah, just like a sunburn, huh?” She laughed as I pushed her back playfully.

“I got bacon grease right here if you wanna start shit,” I threatened insincerely. She only laughed in response and got to preparing other stuff for me to cook. She had Koko and Susu set the table outside as Jackie walked in, rubbing her eye with the back of her fist.

“How are you fucking standing?” She yawned. She hadn’t bothered changing out of what she’d fallen asleep in. I recognized the tank top and pajama pants as Susie’s, having seen them many times before.

“I drink all my milk,” I joked, plucking some bacon from the pan with my bare fingers to show off a little bit. It stung about as much as hot water from the tap might, but my skin didn’t even turn red. “Helps for strong bones.”

“Uh-huh,” she grunted skeptically, then shouldered past me to steal a strip of bacon from the plate I was piling it all onto. Despite the fact that it hadn’t cooled much, she popped it into her mouth, maintaining eye contact with me as she did. I could tell by a slight twitch under one eye that it wasn’t painless, but it was the only tell she had that it hurt. The woman was never going to let herself be outdone. That’s what I got for showing off.

“You sticking around?” I asked her as she casually got herself a glass of water.

“For a little bit,” she responded. “I have to book a flight for Zack and myself back to Boston, seeing as we destroyed the rift back in Chase’s temple.”

“Ew, a temple?” Susie sneered with disgust.

“Exactly my thought,” Jackie said, taking a long drink of the cool water. “But once I do that, we’ll know how long I’ll be around. I’ll probably head back out to Boulder’s old place later to have a look around.”

“They haven’t sold it yet?” I asked, throwing some eggs into a pan to begin bubbling. As much as I wanted to fry them over medium, the best way for me to feed a large group was just to scramble them.

“He willed it to me,” Jackie replied. “We talked after you went down for your little nap. He told me where to find all the paperwork, along with a few other things.”

I glanced back at her with a raised brow. “Moving to Wisconsin, then?”

“We’ll see,” Jackie scoffed. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Once I make all the proposals in DC, it’d be nice to have a place of my own nearby if they want me.”

“That’ll be nice,” Susie said brightly. “So we might get to have you over like this more often.”

“Yeah,” Jackie agreed with a soft smile on her lips, reconsidering the situation after how Susie had framed it. “I guess so.”

“What about Zack?” I asked, nodding in the young man’s direction. Despite the complete chaos in the house with goblins tumbling around and bickering, he remained completely asleep against the wall with his undersized blanket. “What are you going to do with him when you get back to Boston?”

“Nothing,” Jackie responded, placing the glass on the counter and crossing her arms. “Poor fucker’s been through enough. I’ll recommend we keep an eye on him for a while, but he put his life on the line to help me out and set things straight. It wouldn’t feel right to drag him into anything else.”

“Could offer him a job,” I suggested, sliding eggs onto a large plate and refilling the pan with some more. “See if he’s interested. If he’s some kind of wizard, it would be useful to have a guy like that on your team.”

“Seems redundant with a Zintari, but the more the merrier, I suppose,” she agreed. “I’ll see what he thinks.”

I exchanged glances with Susie, who had grown a little more tense. I motioned for her to take over with the eggs before turning to face Jackie. “Yeah, about that… I don’t think I want to be on the team.”

“What?” Jackie stared at me, stunned. “After what just happened, do you really think it’s a good idea to step away from this?”

I held my hands up. “Look, I can still lend a hand when some asshole yoked out of his mind rolls up to the front door of our world, but I have a lot to do here. There’s going to be a lot of people looking to me for answers. All of Balor’s followers are on the other side of the portal without any direction. There’s no telling what they’ll get up to if I don’t guide them toward something better.”

“Barnes!” Jackie snapped irritably. “You can’t be serious with this shit.”

“I almost died, Jackie,” I retorted incredulously. “And it’s not even the first time. I need to start taking it a little easier, or I won’t be as lucky next time.”

Jackie stared at me quietly, considering my point of view and empathizing. As much as she needed someone with my power as added security against large threats, I wasn’t keen to go traipsing around other worlds looking for fights. If one found me here in our world, I wouldn’t think twice to step up, though.

“I could really use you with me on this,” Jackie murmured sadly. “It’s so much bigger than I thought at first. I might have bitten off more than I can chew.”

“Look,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll do whatever I can when it comes to the politics and talking to your superiors if you need. I’ll be right here if someone decides to have trouble with our portal, but that won’t change. It’s my home, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Jackie looked up at me dubiously, chewing her lip before finally giving me a short nod. “Alright. More fun for me, I guess.”

Breakfast got worse at the table outside before it got better. Moppi and Koko were in disagreement on something and were tumbling around on the grass again while a few of the other goblins cheered them on. Moppi was tough and durable, but Koko’s squishier body made her surprisingly resilient. She was also much more slippery than she had been when they first arrived.

I whistled loudly to round them all up, sitting them down at the table to begin shoveling their faces full of food. With full stomachs, they would be a lot less confrontational with one another. Zack finally joined us after we started eating, wedging himself in between Poppi and Susie as he struggled to get any food for his own plate.

When breakfast was done, everyone got dressed and started on the chores like a big battle hadn’t taken place the day before. Jackie and Zack helped out with a few things. She’d booked a flight for both of them, but they weren’t scheduled to leave until the next day. Once everything on our side was dealt with, we headed over to Elyndor to retrieve the quads and take stock of the damage.

To my surprise, there were piles of armor discarded around the broken platform where I’d killed Balor. The large gouge he’d opened in the cave’s ceiling allowed a lot more light in, even without the sun at its zenith. From just beyond the armor, an elven woman I recognized from Balor’s hunting party stood from where she’d been sitting. She, too, had divested herself of her armor.

“Many of Balor’s forces have offered their armor and badges of office to signify their surrender to you,” she explained as she approached, her hand on the hilt of the sword she wore on her hip. “Most don’t know any other way than what he forced upon us and will need guidance.”

“Us?” Susie responded protectively.

The elven woman nodded and pulled her weapon from the sheath before dropping to her knees. Bowing her head, she offered the blade up to me. “You have freed what remains of my people from the tyranny of the Balor of Back Bay. I am forever indebted to you and offer you my blade—my services—in the hopes of making amends.”

I wasn’t sure how to explain my position. I wasn’t looking to conquer anyone or march out into the lands of Elyndor and start kicking asses and taking names. I wanted to settle down and start building.

“We accept,” Jackie said, taking the sword from the woman and motioning for her to stand. “But you’ll be working with me on things.”

That seemed like a fair enough compromise, for the time being, I supposed. The elf rose and offered a salute across her chest that I didn’t recognize. Zack and Kate got to work with Moppi on getting the quads back to our side of the portal as I strolled to the mouth of the cave. Down in the Vale, I saw the magnitude of the damage that Balor had done and what I was dealing with.

Several smaller camps had formed where there had been only two large ones. Different factions of Balor’s army with different ideas of what was to come next had already begun to form. I scratched my head as I considered what to do next.

“Poppi?” I called back into the cave. The small goblin flounced up to me happily, always pleased when I asked for her by name. I motioned down into the valley. “What do you think?”

“Think of what?” She asked, observing the various camps.

“The best spot for a new village,” I clarified. “A lot of the people here don’t have anywhere to go, especially the elves. They can’t go back to where Balor was keeping them before, and they’re not likely to be welcomed anywhere else for a while yet. At least, not until word of Balor’s demise spreads.”

Poppi didn’t argue my points. Instead, her expression became more thoughtful. “We can have a look to be sure, but I think keeping it close by might be nice. I could draw up some ideas.”

“To be clear,” I added, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You’re all still welcome to stay with me for as long as you like. This is just to address what are all basically refugees from a war.”

A grin spread across Poppi’s face as she leaped up and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Thank you! I knew that was probably the case, but it’s good to hear, too.”

I gave her a firm squeeze before releasing her to go drawing up her ideas. Susie looked at me with a little smirk, her eyes twinkling.

“You sure you want to do this?” She teased. “You haven’t even finished with your own homestead, and you want to start building a bunch of others?”

I gave her an amused look, crossing my arms. “Depends on if you’re going to lend a hand, I guess.”

“I could be persuaded,” she admitted with a demure shrug of her shoulder. “But I’ll have to take my compensation in fat fucking dick if you don’t mind.”

“I think I can manage that,” I laughed, throwing my arm around her and drawing her close to me. She snuggled into me, taking a deep breath and letting out a long, contented sigh. We watched as the valley woke to a new day of unanswered questions and unclear paths ahead. It was going to be on us to steer things in the right direction, but so long as we were in it together, I had a feeling that everything was going to be alright.

Chapter 20

“Thanks for inviting me,” Izolde said as I took her coat. She wasn’t dressed as ostentatiously as she typically was in Elyndor, but she still had a clear goth-metal-chick thing going that stood out from the rest of us.

“How was the flight?” I asked, hanging her black coat near the door as Susie and Kate came in behind her. Both were carrying her luggage. Although she was only staying for a week, it looked like she had more than enough for three times that.

“Not bad,” she responded, motioning with one hand. “Are these all shipping containers?”

“It is,” I chuckled. “What do you think?”

“I love it,” she confessed, brushing some of her hair out of her face. “Ingenious, really.”

I made a sweeping motion with one arm. “Well, come in! Come in! Let’s introduce you to everyone before dinner.”

Izolde smiled, rubbing her hands together as she followed me in. The smell of turkey demanded that the first stop be the kitchen, where Susu and Koko worked hard to prepare the Thanksgiving feast for later. Susu’s excitement over cooking such a new and different assortment of dishes could not be overstated. It was second only to the palpable excitement of the other goblins upon realizing that we had an entire holiday dedicated to stuffing ourselves to the gills with food and passing out.

“Susu, Koko, this is Izolde,” I said, motioning between the Zintari and the pair of goblins.

Koko turned, sparing a hand to balance herself against the counter as she struggled to navigate the kitchen with the swell of her belly. She was only a few months along, but goblins had a much shorter gestation period for their offspring than humans did.

“Hello!” She chirped brightly with a little wave of her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you! We have some snacks on the table, but dinner won’t be ready for a couple more hours.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind,” Izolde responded, impressed with how eloquent Koko was. Not only was it a big difference from most of the goblins she had experienced within Elyndor, but it was a massive difference for the rest of us since Koko first arrived. Unlike some of the others who had been augmented to speak the language perfectly, she had learned on her own with Poppi’s tutelage.

I led her from the kitchen out to the living room, where a large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall with the sound cranked up displayed the football game. I was only peripherally aware of who was playing, but Jacqueline and Moppi were deeply invested. They jumped to their feet as we entered the room, though not for us.

“Go! Go! Run, you motherfucker!” Jackie yelled at the screen as a player bolted down the field and into the endzone. “YEEEAAAAH!”

Moppi jumped up and down, her breasts bouncing wildly, before looking over at us and adjusting her beer hat. It only had root beer in it, but it didn’t change how ridiculous it looked on her head. “We’re winning,” she declared confidently.

“Oh, shit,” Jackie said, setting her beer aside and wiping her hands on her jeans before offering one to Izolde. “I didn’t hear you come in. I’m Jacqueline.”

Izolde lifted her chin as she looked Jackie over, taking her hand gently. “I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Izolde. It’s nice to meet you, Jacqueline.”

Jackie paused to give Izolde the once-over as well, making no effort to conceal what was on her mind as she did so. Though not as revealing as her Elyndor attire, she still wore a flattering corset over her black see-through top with a black bra underneath. That seemed to be what did it for Jackie. Her cheeks got a little pinker, though it could just as easily have been the alcohol. “You can call me Jackie.”

“Jackie, then,” Izolde repeated with a slight purr in her voice. I hadn’t expected them to hit it off so quickly, but it was always good to see people getting along.

I guided Izolde out of the living room to show her the rest of the house, including the recently added guest room where Kate and Susie had dumped her luggage. “This’ll be you.”

“Mmm,” she responded, glancing around the room at the relatively simple decor. With all the expansions we’d put in, we hadn’t had the chance to dress them up much. “How about your room?”

I raised a brow in her direction as she walked over to one of the bags of luggage, unzipping it to reveal a neatly organized collection of fetish gear and sex toys. “I told you that I was going to show you a good time when next we had a chance. I intend to make good on my offer to play with Susie for your viewing pleasure.”

I laughed a little as I leaned on the doorframe. “Oh, she’s going to get a kick out of that.”

Izolde gave me a satisfied look before closing the top of the luggage and zipping it back up. “I hope you do too. How about Jackie? Do you think she would be interested in a private session this week?”

“Well, she’s not staying for the whole week,” I explained. “So you’ll have to take it up with her in the next couple of days before she flies out of town.”

“I thought everything had been worked out,” Izolde responded, crossing her arms expectantly.

“It is,” I assured her. “At this point, it’s paperwork, team selection, and all the boring shit. But they’ve already completed most of the construction around the caves on both sides to secure the portals.”

“You are pleased with their work?” she asked. “They’ve respected your boundaries in your backyard?”

“Yeah,” I responded, motioning for her to follow me out the back door. There, we circled around the house where a trio of goblins jumped into a massive pile of leaves they had raked up several times throughout the course of the day for that specific purpose. I pointed out toward the cave. “It’s just up there. I hardly notice them most of the time.”

A small, unassuming building that resembled a barn had been erected around the cave. Inside, it was much more secure, with armed guards at the ready, but you would have never known it from the way it looked outside. “It was a little tough convincing them of my terms, but when it became clear that there really wasn’t much they could do to remove me and that I was on their side, they came around.”

“Will they be more amicable when I speak to them?” Izolde wondered, looking briefly at me before turning her attention to the frolicking goblins in the leaves. “Will I have to be firm with them as well?”

“I already carved out a provision for any other Zintari who come to the table in good faith,” I assured her again. “There’s nothing to worry about. What about Frjor? Have you heard anything from him?”

“He’s still traveling,” she remarked, stepping away from the goblins to make her way further up the hill. Though she remained relatively impassive, I could see her visibly growing less tense with the peaceful state of things on my homestead. “He’s trying to feel out the state of mind of some of the other Zintari before we approach them. Word of Balor’s demise has spread faster than we expected, so he’s trying to keep pace.”

“The offer is open to any of them,” I affirmed. “So long as they agree to the terms. There’s no reason we can’t all work together on this. Restoring Elyndor would be in everyone’s best interests. It’d keep us close with the government here, too.” I laughed. Quite ironic that I, an off-grid homesteader, somehow ended up tangled with feds.

“Have they discovered anything in Numedha?” Izolde pressed. She hadn’t been herself, but concerns about the world the demons came from were growing with everyone who had even the most remote knowledge of it. In the distance, several treehouses could be seen amongst the woods' fiery blaze of orange, yellow, and red leaves. Some of the goblins had sought to live as they should have been before the previous Goblin King, but most still spent most of their time in the house with the rest of us.

“Not yet, but they’re still searching for their point of entry,” I murmured. We’d determined that the spot the portal connected to had definitely not been where they’d originated from on Numedha, but not much else. Any bit of exploration had to be preceded by a massive wave of force to make room for the science types. “We’ll get there.”

“Itaris?” She queried, pursing her lips. “Have you heard from this Winters figure?”

“Christmas,” I said with a confident nod. “He’s curious about the holiday, so I invited him out to experience it with us. We still have to make some preparations for his stay. His world is much wetter than ours. You’re welcome to come out for that, too.”

Izolde regarded me impassively before averting her gaze. “You’ve been awfully kind, Daryl. All of this is a breath of fresh air—more than I thought it would be. I don’t know how many of the others are going to want to join your little coalition, but I’m happy to be part of it.”

“Of course,” I responded with a warm smile, placing a hand on her arm and reassuring her with a little squeeze. “I know it takes a lot to go against that instinct. We all have it with each other, but we have to work at being better than it if we’re going to avoid situations like Balor in the future.”

“Yeah,” she agreed as the facade of the dominator melted away, revealing more of the human she kept concealed beneath. “You’re right. It’ll be hard getting adjusted to it, but I think we can pull it off.”

I smirked and patted her on the back. “Good!”

Izolde’s brow arched a bit at me, briefly resuming the appearance of the dominator before she broke into a bit of a laugh. “Has anyone ever told you how much of a dork you are?”

“I tell him all the time,” Susie chuckled as she came up the hill toward us. “But I don’t think he takes it seriously. Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Izolde replied with a faint smile. “Still getting used to acting more like a human than a Zintari. It’s been forever since I’ve even thought of Thanksgiving, much less attended one. It’s very nostalgic. Like being a kid again.”

I looked around, taking stock of our surroundings and just breathing it in. There’s a special smell that comes with autumn. The leaves from the trees and the crisp, cool air create something unique that I’ve never experienced at any other time of the year. But around Thanksgiving, it was even better. Turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie—all of it was like a drug for me. I could snort the smell of Thanksgiving dinner like a drug all day. It felt like the world relaxed a bit more.

“Did you want to come with us?” Susie asked, adjusting the backpack she had slung over her shoulder. “It shouldn’t take too long. We’d be back before dinner.”

“Where are you going?” Izolde asked, glancing between us.

“We’re going over to the other side to visit the village,” I answered. “They’re also making a little attempt at Thanksgiving, which seems rather appropriate. So we’re going to meet with the aldermen there, discuss a few things, and schmooze a little bit. Neighbor stuff.”

“I got some pies to bring over,” Susie added, gesturing briefly with one hand to the backpack she wore. “And we’ll probably shuck some corn.”

“Corn,” Izolde repeated, a little amused. “Really?”

“Heh, yeah,” I answered a little bashfully. “Big thing with my folks when I was a kid. Seeing as we’re doing our own thing this year without them, considering how complicated it all still is, I thought it would be nice to keep the tradition going.”

“And the shit grows like wildfire in Elyndor,” Susie snorted. “We planted a little bit over there without expecting much, and it sprung right up. They’re talking about expanding the crop next year if people take a shine to it.”

Izolde looked ambivalent. She wasn’t sure what it would do for her reputation to partake in such a wholesome activity with the new settlers of the Vale, but then, there was no way for most of them to know who she was. Whenever she made public appearances in her own domain, she did so with a mask and a slightly different kind of attire. If I hadn’t known she was the same person, I may not have recognized her myself.

She weighed her options and gave us a nod. “Sure, why not.”

Susie and I beamed and took each other’s hands. The engagement ring on her finger brushed against my skin as our hands joined, sending a wave of elated warmth through my chest. I gave her hand a quick, loving squeeze, which she returned immediately. I checked my pocket to ensure I had the credentials to present to the guards when we got to the cave. I pulled the badge out quickly and clipped it to the waist of my jeans before giving Susie a quick kiss.

“Alright,” she whispered against my lips. “Let’s make this quick. The turkey isn’t the only thing that needs stuffing today.”

I snorted with laughter, giving her another quick kiss as we led the way toward the unassuming barn concealing a portal within. “Alright, let’s go shuck some corn.”

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