Page 28 of Reapers Don’t Ride

It was my turn to raise my brows. “A person?”

“Goblins keep slaves. I need him back on our team for a job.”

“Oh. You can’t just steal him back? Slavery is illegal.” Not that legality had made me free.

“No. He owes Romi a life debt. Things happened, a job went bad, and he took the fall. Now we’ve got to get him back.”

I smiled at him. “Honor among thieves. I’ve heard of that, but this is the first time I’ve seen it. Can you tell us anything about Romi’s habits that would help us? What are his vices? Does he eat too much? Drink too much? Does he like females too much?”

“No, just likes to beat the pix. Goblins hate fairies, you know.”

“Sure. Who doesn’t hate fairies? Also goblins. Also werewolves. And whatever you are. I think that’s all I need. It should be finished by day’s end. My friend and I could still use a place to hide for a bit. Maybe another night or two.”

“Fine.” He leaned back, arms crossed, hard eyes focused on me. “It’s a tough job. Are you sure you’ve got it?”

I smiled slightly. “I dislike enslavement. I’ve got it.”

We left out the back, into the narrow alley, Gavriel silent behind me until we’d made it two streets from the bar.

“How are you going to kill a goblin in the middle of the goblin market without anyone noticing?” he sounded so disapproving.

“I’m not. I’m not killing on this trip. You are. If you’d like some suggestions, my favorite way to kill a goblin is to get him to poison himself. Goblins are neurotic about assassination, so what you do is replace his cure-all with a poison. Then, when he’s suspicious about being poisoned, he drinks that, and is done in, killed by his own paranoia.” It was very satisfying.

He frowned at me. “We can’t kill a random goblin.”

“He’s not a random goblin, but of course you’re right. An angel can’t assassinate; he has to execute, and I’m not the killer, so we have to go by your ethics. Ergo, we don’t kill him, we simply paralyze him and put him in a coma so that his family thinks he’s dead and can kill him for us when they burn the body.”

He grabbed my arm, pulling me up short. “You’d burn him alive?”

I blinked at him. “No, of course not. His family and friends would burn him alive.”

He shook his head. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Then you want to buy the pix from him? That’s the obvious solution, but there must be a reason this pix needs to be liberated through the death of his master. That’s what we’ll find out when we go to the market. Some people like to be owned. It gets to be habit. Like being beaten.”

“No one gets into the habit of being beaten.”

“Of course not. That’s insane and twisted. No one’s insane and twisted.” I gave him a look. He was just too innocent sometimes. He’d probably be shocked by the goblin market, particularly the parts I’d have to take him if we were going to find the vendors of the illegal weapons and drugs. Fairies were often addicted to pixie dust. I was betting on this Romi being a dust dealer. That would be the kind of enslavement that would require his death. Could I get him jailed since Gavriel was so morally opposed to disposing of him permanently? I suppose we’d see.

The goblin market was a massive underground warren of shops on top of each other in an enormous cavern. Tunnels came from every direction, with more shops tucked into those twisting paths that were so easy to get lost in.

I enjoyed the goblin market. There were too many sounds, smells, and not many of those scents were pleasant, but it was mostly a cheerful place, and it had everything you could want, including weapons, poisons, and books. Not that I could read books without great difficulty, but I still liked to touch them, smell them, feel the soul of them.

We’d spend time wandering so we didn’t look too suspicious.

After fifteen minutes of walking through the winding alleys, I noticed that we were being followed by none other than Cupid. Our target. If we could catch him while he was following, that would be amusing and satisfying. I went to all the usual weapons vendors.

“Ruby! Look at you! You’ve gotten so beautiful in the last two years. Prison must have been good for you!”

I glanced over to see a demon who worked with Mr. Good coming over with a broad smile. Demons had such large smiles. Mr. Good had called him Apricot. He was subtle, sneaky, and had called attention to me on purpose.

“And you’re suicidal. Pity I don’t have time to kill you just now. If you bother me again, I’ll be sure to make the time for you and your master.”

“Mistress. Nova is my mistress. Of course she has no time for me, makes me visit with her necromancer when I’m feeling aimless.”

“You’re feeling aimless because you’re wandering around the goblin market.”

“Are you here to murder someone?”