Page 11 of Ryld's Shadows
“This happens often?” Ash asked.
Cress shook his head. “Not this bad, but…it’s constant. He’s nevernotsurrounded by this…like, fog of dark magic. It’s always seeping out of him. Even humans that don’t have a drop of magic in them can sense it and look at him sideways. You’d think it would at least get better when he’s asleep, right? I mean, how can anyone keep that up? But no, it gets even worse. He goes to sleep and the whole apartment drops to freezing cold, or heats up like a furnace, and if there’s any light in the room at all the shadows crawl on the walls. Creepy as fuck. I’m so done with this job.”
Flax leaned against the doorframe, out of the way and as silent as he could make himself. He narrowed his eyes toward the end. Okay, the kid had freaked him out, too. Something was wrong. Wasn’t controlled about his magic. But to call him a freak? To accuse him of constantly radiating dark magic? He didn’t have a lot of sympathy for someone who just quit when a job got hard, and maybe that colored his thinking, but he wondered how much of this little speech was to make Cress look better and the little drow guy look evil.
“Did AURA enforcement get there to kill the creatures?” Flax did his best to keep the ice from his voice. From the admonishing glance Ash shot him, he’d failed.
“They got there.” Cress snorted. “Lot of good they did. Things were gone by that time.”
“Gone?”
“Yeah. Soon as that littlesulitekstops freaking out, they poof. Like they were never there.” At the silence in the room, Cress glanced up. “What?”
Flax shook his head and walked away. The racial insult had been particularly vile, and Cress knew it. Made Flax like him even less. In the morning, he’d have a talk with Kai. Not that he’d probably be bringing Mr. High and Mighty anything he didn’t know, but just in case. It would help to get a more objective picture of things as well.
Poor kid was gonna need a new babysitter, too.
* * * *
It hadn’t been a bad day. Hank had stayed until dark at the construction site helping to clean up debris and secure tools. The humans had kept most of their comments to themselves and only some of them eyed him coldly. Most of them just seemed happy to have someone strong to haul things from one place to another. That was fine. He carried, hauled and shoveled all day.
Not work he wanted to do forever, but physical labor was fine for now. Hank didn’t have to think or to worry. Just do.
He walked quickly toward the subway station that would take him home. The site was in one of those neighborhoods humans sometimes calledtransitional. Still a lot of crime in the area with lots of new, pricier construction starting. Humans were strange like that. They let communities fall apart, blamed the people living there, then displaced those people to start over instead of making it better.
He’d adapted to living in their world, but humans were still weird.
“Kach, orc-tza!” a voice called behind him in lowland goblin.
Hank quickened his pace. The station was in sight, half a block away. If he ignored the taunt and kept walking, he could make it.
A young goblin stepped out of an alley to block his path, swinging a chain and grinning nastily. “Maybe the orc don’t understand goblin, Pej. Growin’ up with human stink on him an’ all.”
“Maybe he don’t,” the first voice answered, and Hank turned to see another youngster close behind him, smacking a baseball bat against his hand. “Don’t mean we can ignore him walkin’ here.”
“I don’t want trouble, little brothers,” Hank said in goblin, hands held wide in a gesture of non-aggression. “Just want to get home.”
Four more goblin teenagers, variously armed, had joined them.
The one with the bat, presumably the leader, hawked at his feet and continued in English. “We aren’t your brothers,orc. Not your cousins or your neighbors. You don’t belong here and you got some balls walking down our street.”
Hank knew it didn’t matter what he said, but he blurted out, “It’s the only way to my subway stop.”
Chain-kid smacked his weapon against the sidewalk and threw his head back to let out an ululating goblin war cry. The others took it up, and Hank dropped into a defensive crouch. He didn’t want to hurt them. Kids. They were kids.
Bat-kid swung first, aiming for Hank’s head. Hank brought an arm up, the blow jolting him all the way to his shoulder. The other kids attacked as if they shared one brain, swinging chains, tire irons and two-by-fours. With a weapon of his own, Hank could have defended himself relatively well. Barehanded, he just did the best he could, trying to keep the blows off his head and ripping weapons out of their hands when he got hold of them.
At least one kid got a two-by-four to the face, though by that time, the brawl had deteriorated far enough that Hank wasn’t sure if he’d done it or one of the kid’s compatriots had missed.
By the time police sirens wailed up the street, Hank was on his knees with his arms over his head, too dizzy and pummeled to keep fighting. Great. He was going to end up unemployed and in jail for hitting juveniles. The downward slide was just going to keep right on going.
Someone was yelling, “Weapons down, boys! AURA enforcement!” as he slid into the dark.
* * * *
Beeps. Soft voice. Too bright lights.Hank reasoned he was either in Medical at the AURA building or in a human hospital somewhere in the city. No, no, he definitely smelled yeti along with elf and human. AURA, then.
He tried to move a leg. An arm.Ow. So much ow. Goddesses.
