Eugh.
Sunglasses’ composure broke, and he bolted to the side of his cousin or sister. “Bind him, Ainsley!” he shouted.
Ainsley looked down at me.
“I bind you, Blake Thorburn, as I mark the twenty-first hour. I bind you for the eighth time, I fix you in place by the cardinal and intercardinal directions…”
The car behind her, the one with the male goblin within, started up, rear lights glowing.
“Move,” I said.
“I bind you-”
“Ainsley,” I said. “I bind myself, until you’ve released me. Get out of the fucking way!”
The car’s wheels spun before it got traction. That bought Ainsley enough time to look at me, eyes wide, then to move.
The car came within an inch of her as a creature four feet tall somehow managed to work both gas and steering wheel. It turned as it reversed at full speed.
It veered in a ‘u’, skidding on ice-slick pavement, tail end swinging four feet in front of me like some great sledgehammer before it violently collided with the other car that had been parked next to me.
Untouched by the crash, almost invigorated, if sheer excitement and activity were any suggestion, the male gremlin crawled up onto the roof of the police car.
The female was currently dancing circles around Sunglasses, who was kicking at it while hugging Tandy close with one arm. He had the golden disc in one hand, and was periodically angling it at the gremlin, trying to catch it with a reflected beam of light.
Ainsley was backing away, putting her at the furthest point from Sunglasses. All of the cars in the long, rectangular lot were now stopped at one side of the fence. She wasn’t on that side, and it left her with very little cover.
“Screwloose,” I called out, remembering the thing’s name. “Return to the one who summoned you.”
He hopped down, then approached me. Swaggering. Strutting, chest out, arms swinging to his side and behind him.
I saw tools appear in his hands at some point they swung out of view. Makeshift tools, things that might serve triple-purpose as lockpicks, swiss-army tools and/or weapons.
There was only malice in his eyes.
Right. What was it Maggie had said? She dealt with mad dogs. Best let off leash on very short spans of time.
Except she wasn’t here to stop it or call it back.
I glanced over, and I saw Ainsley’s abandoned silver chain.
I reached, and found it maybe three or four feet beyond where my hand could touch pavement.
My legs might as well have been welded in place. I was paralyzed from the waist down, fixed in place by some sevenfold curse.
I glanced at Ainsley. She still held the candle.
She looked down at the candle, then back at me.
She shook her head.
I deflated a little.
No use wasting my breath arguing.
I pulled off my jacket, then threw it out, so it might drape over the chain.
It might have worked, if the snow and slush didn’t hurt the traction
I flung it out again, hoping for a better snag on the chain.
A small explosion startled me out of my wits, cutting past my jacket.
The goblin carried a length of pipe with a strap that could go over one shoulder. No, it was two lengths of pipe that were connected, Some kind of crude, makeshift shotgun?
He dismantled his makeshift weapon, shook a shell out, then reached behind him, digging for something.
I took note of the fact that he wasn’t digging in his satchel… and he wasn’t wearing pants.
He retrieved what must have been a gremlin-made shotgun shell, still striding forward. Shell into the small pipe, large pipe slid over both.
I covered my face.
He slammed the large pipe against the small one. It fired.
I screamed.
Shallow damage from a crude contraption, but it was still me getting shot.
“Fucker!” I shouted, lowering my hands. I was openly bleeding from the gouges. A twisted paperclip stuck out of my arm at one spot. Glass in another.
I heard him cackling.
“Little fucker,” I said. “I swear, if and when I get out of this-”
There was a clatter and a bang.
I looked in the direction of the others.
Douchegargler, the female goblin, was perched beneath the open hood of one car, hand holding the hood up. Smoke was billowing from the engine block.
Sunglasses lunged for her.
The goblin ducked into the engine block, letting the hood slam on his hand.
Little fuckers.
I wasn’t about to complain, except they were being indiscriminate, I was included in the indiscriminate part of it, and Laird was almost-
The door opened. It stopped short, banging against the side of the car that had stopped in front of the doorway.
Craig squeezed through the gap. He took in the scene. A parking lot thrown into disarray, his cousins in peril. “What the hell?”
“Gremlins!” Ainsley shouted from the far end of the lot.
I used my jacket to try to catch the chain again.
I managed to get some traction. Not pulling it toward me so much as bunching it up.
Holding both sleeves, I managed to fling the jacket out and get the collar around the chain. I dragged it closer.
Screwloose was apparently out of shotgun shells. He came at me with a blade.
Still kneeling and immobile, I whipped out the chain.
The chain struck him across the face. Shocked more than hurt, he staggered.
I whipped it out again. I caught him around the throat and forearm.
I hauled him close. When he struggled, I bound him further with the chain.
“Drop the weapon!” I shouted.
He didn’t.
Pulling chain tight enough to cut off circulation, I bashed one tiny, gnarled hand against the pavement until he let go of the blade.
“I forbid you from biting or harming me,” I growled.
“Nuh, we’re lovey-dovey,” he growled the words with a distinct English accent. “Bugger me, diabolist, and bugger me well. I’ve got sharp stuff stowed back there. I’ll bite you all I want.”
I held him fast. There was one gremlin, and it was perched on the hood of the car that had trapped Sunglasses’ hand. Laird or Craig were doing something to the door, eroding it by aging it, but it was a metal door, and the process was slow.
Craig and Tandy had backed away from Sunglasses and the gremlin, a little too unnerved to get close.
“Ainsley,” I said. “Release me, and I’ll help Sunglasses over there.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I made promises. To take this seriously.”
“This is serious.”
“-I can’t,” she said, so fast I doubted she’d even heard what I said.
“You can. Sunglasses over there-”
“Owen.”
“Owen’s going to get hurt if that engine explodes. I bound myself to save your life. You-”
“You were bound,” she said, still responding too fast. She was shaking her head, as if trying to deny the situation. “You didn’t have to.”
“I saved your life!” I shouted. “Are you willing to trade away his for some better fortune in the family!?”
“I-”
“Because if you are, then I’m fucking better than you!” I shouted.
“You’re never going to be better than me!” she said, a note of hysteria in her voice. “I could let a hundred people die and I still wouldn’t be as bad as you are when you’re just existing!”
I growled with frustration. Tried to ignore the goblin that was rhythmically thrusting its pelvis skyward in its struggles to escape.