I stumbled, partially stunned, and Corb stumbled right into my backside. To keep us both upright, his arms shot around me and yeah, he got two handfuls of the girls.
We both froze for just a moment, and then he adjusted his grip and helped me up. I held both hands in the air. “I’m fine, I can walk on my own two feet, no need to use my handles.”
“Didn’t look that way to me.” Gerry winked and then took a good long look at Corb. “And I don’t blame you one bit for buckling to the pressure.”
I put a hand to my head. “It’s not like that. Look, I’m wondering if you can whip up some new clothes, for all three of us.”
Gerry looked us over. “What kind are you thinking?”
I motioned for Bridgette to step forward. “Something that can camouflage us, like Bridgette here.”
The goblin stepped close to Gerry. Gerry took a good look at her. “That cloth is expensive.”
I grimaced and nodded. “How much?”
Gerry ducked under her table and pulled out a bolt of cloth that was mottled green and black. “This is all I have. Will probably take the whole amount to get three of you decked out.”
“How much?” I repeated and watched as she caressed the fabric. Yeah, this was going to cost me.
“Three thousand,” she said.
I started to nod, thinking that wasn’t too bad.
“Each,” Gerry clarified. “This fabric is hard to come by. The goblins don’t give it up easily.”
Corb tugged on my arm, dragging me back a few steps. “Not worth it.”
I looked at him. “I’m not asking you to pay, Corb. I invited you to this party. I’ll pick up the tab.” I flipped open my bag and pulled out the money. Because, yes, I did just walk around with thousands of dollars in my handbag.
Of course not. I’d brought all my cash with me for our shopping trip.
“Gerry, we need these done right away.” I plunked the cash down on the table but didn’t take my hand off it. “How fast?”
She blew out a breath. “Two hours. That will be pushing it, but I can make it happen.”
I took my hand off the cash and she tucked it away and set to work, her hands flying over the bolt of material with a pair of wicked shears that seemed like a better fit for cutting wool off a sheep than making clothes.
Corb put a hand on my shoulder and a cool wash of his power rolled down to my toes and back up again.
“What was that?” I asked.
He smiled. “A little extra protection. Should deflect anything for a little bit. Why don’t you go see Annie, see if you can get any information out of her? Just be careful; like we said earlier she’s been off. Not herself.”
Annie being the psychic who pulled tarot cards for the Hollows Group’s new recruits and had been the nicest to me when I’d first rejoined the shadow world.
I nodded. It wasn’t a half bad idea, and now that he’d mentioned it, I did feel a pull to go talk to her. “You guys look around for anything else we might need,” I said, stepping back from Corb and Sarge. Bridgette stayed close to my side. “We’ll go on up to Annie.”
The guys nodded and slid through the crowd toward the weapons vendors, the blond twins with the cheap wares. When would they learn?
I sighed and wove my way through the crowd to the stairs that led up to Madame Trebon’s Tarot Readings, Annie’s shop.
“Tell me what you can about Goblin Town,” I said to Bridgette.
“There are multiple ways in, but the two main ones are west of Savannah. They are both heavily guarded. There are other ways, but they’re harder to find. One is through the land of faerie. I think that the note said you’re supposed to come to the main gate. That is where King Derek likes to hold his trials.”
Great.
With one hand on the wall, I made myself go all the way up the stairs without stopping, which was, in and of itself, a freaking miracle. At the top I paused, breathing hard, my legs tingling horribly as my muscles seemed to scream for air. “Oh, that’s going to hurt come tomorrow.”
Bridgette nodded. “I hate stairs too.”
Sometimes it was hard for me to remember that I’d only been at this gig, trying to keep up with the young ones, for about a month. Had I lost some weight? Yes. But I still had extra pounds on me, and I wasn’t fit by the standards of those I’d been running with in the most literal of senses.
And yes, I knew I was only thinking about things like stairs and exercise to avoid letting my mind circle back to the fact that my friends had been kidnapped by a mob of goblins. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep my cool if I let myself think about that. Because, no, I wasn’t about to cry. I wasn’t about to whimper and wish that someone would save me.
Gawd in heaven, help those goblins once I got my hands on their stringy little necks. I’d tie them in knots and use them for target practice.
Look at me go and look. There be my last duck, and it was completely on fire.
21
My breath came in sharp bursts as I stepped into Annie’s back room and pushed through the hanging beads that delineated the front and back spaces. Bridgette hung back. “I don’t want to go in.”
I paused. “You okay?”
“I don’t like the smell,” she said.
The smell of sage and a sharper, darker incense filled the air. I couldn’t put my finger on that one, but it was familiar and tugged at something in me, though it didn’t bother me the way it was bugging Bridgette. Peering out of the shadows, I could see Annie at the cash register, helping a tourist by the looks of it.
“So this crystal, it will help stave off bad dreams?” The woman looked to be about my age, with dark hair and the brown fearful eyes of a deer in the headlights.
Annie laid a gentle hand on hers. “If it doesn’t work, you come on back and I’ll do a reading on you free of charge. But I think you’ll be just fine with this.” She wrapped up the crystal in tissue paper and tucked it into a silken bag before handing it back to the obviously very freaked-out woman. Fear rolled off her in waves.
“Thank you, I really hope it helps,” she said softly, her hands clutching at the small bag as if it were her lifeline. “I can’t go on like this much longer.”
Annie patted her on the back and saw her to the door. “You’re going to be just fine.”
She closed the door after her customer and flipped the sign from open to closed.
“Well, I didn’t expect to see you out this way again,” Annie said without turning around.
“And why is that?” I leaned a hip against the doorway that led from the back room to the main area. “You know something I don’t?”
Annie turned to look at me, but she didn’t smile. “I work with the Hollows Group, not outsiders. You can show yourself out.”
My eyes narrowed as I wondered just what the hell was going on now. “I’m just a customer here for a card reading. And I get on fine with the boys from the Hollows Group.”
“Three hundred dollars,” she said.
I knew she’d picked a figure intended to shock me and make me go away. But why? She’d been perfectly pleasant in our first interaction. If anything, she’d seemed to be concerned about my well-being. Something had obviously changed. Corb was right about that.