Silas Robb: To Hell and Back

Chapter 3

Clean, trendy, probably sells fruity drinks with clever names. Not really my kind of place, thought Silas. I bet it doesn’t even smell like stale beer inside. If this is Mort’s idea of buying me a drink, then this will definitely be the night I kill him.

Clean, trendy, probably sells fruity drinks with clever names. Not really my kind of placeI bet it doesn’t even smell like stale beer inside. If this is Mort’s idea of buying me a drink, then this will definitely be the night I kill him.“This is not the usual way I like to spend my Friday nights,” Silas said.

“Alcohol, drugs, women, music? This is exactly the way you spend your Friday nights except that this place doesn’t have multiple health code violations and multiple… stains, like the quaint little dive you call home,” Mort replied.

“There is no way they play real music at a place like this,” Silas grumbled. “Real music has guitars in it, not computers and cool lighting.”

As though in defiance of Silas, bass thumped rhythmically from the building and through the limo.

They sat outside in a limo gazing out at New York’s hottest new nightclub named, ironically enough, Hell’s Retreat. It was a massive black wall lining the bottom of a high-rise, extensive LED lighting gave it the effect that it was burning. Large double doors, embossed with flames and lit up with red lights, dominated the front. A long line held off by a velvet rope waited outside. The crowd was filled with short dresses, suits, glitter, and shine.

It made Silas sick. Most of the bars he frequented didn’t have crowds out front unless they were watching two drunks beat the s**t out of each other.

Silas groaned and sat back in his seat. Although they were in a stretch limo, Silas still felt it was a tight fit for his six foot five, 270-pound frame. The top of his almost shaved head scratched the ceiling. Space was made even smaller by all the high-tech surveillance gadgets Mort had installed. Not for the first time he missed his Harley.

Mort was Silas’ liaison to the Vatican, but Silas liked to think of him as tech support. He sat hunched over his computer across from Silas, deliberately avoiding Silas’ glare, using his standard hunt and peck method of typing. Seeing his typing, nobody would ever suspect Mort was a computer whiz and top-notch hacker. The way he looked, however, was a dead giveaway. Silas liked to describe it as emo-accountant chic, with maybe a little hipster thrown in. The glare of the laptop reflected back from the glasses perched above his nose and a short beard. He just screamed ‘I know a lot about computers and absolutely nothing about women.’

But then, who did?

Mort was in stark contrast to Silas’s leather jacket, t-shirt and jeans. Silas had been told on multiple occasions that he looked like a street thug or biker. He took this as a compliment. Seemed appropriate for a demon.

Silas opened the bar cabinet and pulled out a bottle of tequila. He preferred bourbon, but he had already drunk that. He took a long swig from the bottle. Maybe the limo did have some advantages over the motorcycle.

“Why are you here Mort?” Silas asked. “This isn’t an Inquisition mission. I’m doing a favor for Mikey here. He wants me to look into something, probably nothing.” Silas nodded at the kid who sat next to Mort.

“Damn Silas, you know I hate it when you call me that,” Michael said. “And I’m telling you something is going on. The streets talk and a handful of kids have disappeared, babies suddenly missing from shelters. It ain"t just my buddy Isaac that’s gone.”

Michael was a former street kid who was technically a ward of Father DeLuca, a mutual friend, but he spent an annoyingly large amount of time hanging out with Silas. Silas hated kids, he hated all humans for that matter, but for some reason he didn’t understand, he tolerated Michael.

They also recently discovered he was a Changeling, straddling the Veil of the Pale, one foot in the mortal realm, the other in the supernatural. Another reason to keep an eye on him.

“He’s right Silas, something is going on,” Mort said. “Besides, you remember the last time we had people disappearing off the streets. That was no walk in the park.”

Silas just grunted and took another swig of tequila. No, Mr. Webb had been no walk in the park. “I really don’t think there’s anything supernatural going on. Probably just some run of the mill human trafficking. I go in, check it out, then you turn everything over to the cops so they can take care of it. Easy-f*****g-peasy, no skin off my back or the Inquisition’s.”

“Well, Father Moreales—you know, our boss—doesn’t think it will be ‘easy-f*****g-peasy,’” Mort said with a raised eyebrow.

“Has anybody ever told you how much you don’t look like Spock when you do that?” Silas asked. “You know, in case you were going for that look?”

Silas leaned back with an exasperated sigh. Of course Moreales was involved. Father Moreales was in charge of the Inquisition Project, a secret group within the Vatican that had summoned Silas from Hell to work for them. They bound him with one of the most convoluted binding contracts he had ever seen. Which was saying a lot since Hell is known for its loopholes and fine-print-ridden contracts.

Now he was forced to work for them until he had paid off his account. The work generally involved protecting ignorant humans from the forces of the supernatural seeping into their world from the Pale, with the ultimate goal of staving off Armageddon and the end of the world.

Frankly, Silas would rather be singing rock and roll in a bar and doing his damnedest to get drunk.

“Okay Mort, just stay out of my way. This is a side gig until we confirm there is a threat from the Pale. If it turns out there is a supernatural threat…well then, I’ll beat the crap out of whatever monster it is this time, and you get to mail off the report to your keepers at the Vatican afterward. Sound fair?” Silas didn’t wait for an answer, “Mikey, you sure this is the place?”

Michael pressed his face up against the glass and took a long hard look at the black building and neon sign. “Yeah, some people I know saw three men enter that place the other night with younger kids, maybe ten or eleven. Long after it was closed.”

“That young? Why would they be taking little kids into a closed nightclub?” Mort asked.

“I don’t know? Why I am sitting across from a demon? Why do grownups ask stupid question? Some things we’ll never know the answer to. Besides, it ain"t just little kids. Some kids I know scored fake ID’s and got into that place. Never came back out,” Michael said.

Silas chuckled. Now he remembered why he let Michael hang out with him.

“Well, now that that’s settled, I’m going to get a drink,” Silas said and reached for the door handle.

“Wait. You can’t go in there dressed like that, put this on,” Mort said. He pulled a suit out from the back of the limo. It was dark gray with a distinct shine to it.

“You’ve got be kidding me,” Silas said. “This isn’t Studio 54.”

“That’s a new A-lister nightclub, there is no way they are going to let you go in there dressed like a street thug. You look like you came straight from prison.”

“Mort, in all the years that you have known me have I ever worn a suit?”

“Well no, but…”

“Did you know James Dean used to wear suits almost exclusively until I possessed him? Next thing you know, everybody was wearing jeans and t-shirts and leather jackets.”

“Okay Pony Boy, I’m just saying…”

“I’m not wearing the suit. They’ll let me in,” Silas said and stepped out onto the curb. “Because I’m Silas-mother-f*****g-Robb.”

“You can’t get in buddy,” the bouncer, only slightly smaller than Silas, said as he approached. “You’ll have to go to the end of the line like everyone else. And change into something that shows some style.”

He was looking at his clipboard and not at Silas. Silas let some of his demonic fury leak through into his aura.

“Oh, you wouldn’t want that. My style is way more haute couture, sort of soaked-in-the-blood-of-my-enemies chic. It’s very avant-garde.”

Silas had once possessed a fashion mogul until he’d been shot. But he didn’t like to talk about it.

The man paused and then looked up. Terror spread across his face. His mouth opened to scream, but nothing came out. His jaw worked up and down as though it was not sure if it should be closed or saying something. A wet spot formed at the bouncer’s crotch.

“Let me in, or I’ll tear your soul apart,” Silas said. He had always preferred the Hellraiser lines, they were so much better than what demons actually said. A very unimaginative bunch, demons were.

The bouncer said nothing, couldn’t say anything. He just stepped aside as Silas shoved his way past.

The guy standing at the front of the line, clad in a gray, shiny suit, protested. “Hey, what the hell? He has to wait like everybody else.” Silas gave the guy a quick punch in the gut, doubling him over and sending him back into the patrons behind him. The people in the front collapsed like dominoes and tumbled to the ground in a pile of lace, sequins and short black dresses.

Usually Silas would stop to enjoy the chaos, but this time he ignored his handiwork and stepped into the club.

An explosion of sound and light hit him. Silas winced at the overpowering kick drum. The kids today have no taste in music. The smell of vaping and overly perfumed bodies washed over him like a wave of nausea.

The place was huge and open. The ceiling three stories above and the pillars lining the dance floor that supported it were all designed to look like the roof of a cave. Ground lighting throughout the club was tinted orange and red. Silas didn’t think it could get any more cliché when he saw the carved statues of little demons with pitchforks.

Small tables spread throughout the club accommodating three or four at a time, although larger groups crowed around many of them. Larger booths were against the walls and pillars. Some of these had curtains pulled closed for privacy.

The dance floor was packed full of sweaty bodies swaying and jumping to the emotionless, mindless music blasting from the massive clusters of loudspeakers. At least half the crowd look like they were high on drugs. That was a good sign, maybe Silas could score some good s**t and make this little outing worthwhile.

A waitress walked by with a tray of drinks above her shoulder. Silas deftly snatched what he hoped was bourbon on the rocks off it as she went past. He took a moment to watch her walk away. The waitresses were almost as scantily clad as the patrons. Watching an a*s like that made Silas begin to think this may not be such a bad place after all. He downed the drink in one gulp—Scotch, not bad at all—and set it on a nearby table, ignoring the looks from those sitting around it, and made his way to the bar.

Demons don’t get drunk easily, and they don’t stay drunk long, same with drugs. This was the only thing Silas hated about being a demon. Well, that and being confined to hell unless summoned. Hell was boring. So, on the way to the bar he snatched two more drinks, shots. By the time he bellied up, he finally had a mild buzz going on, which was good; he was now in a state to get some work done.

He ordered a bourbon and turned once again to case the place. Silas doubted he’d find much out here in the open, so he noted the doors behind the bar and three more towards the back, behind the DJ stage.

He was about to poke his head through one of the doors and snoop around when he caught a faint whiff of something. Something unfortunately familiar. It was gone as quickly as it had come, but he knew the smell. Something Unseelie.

His hand slipped into his jacket pocket and closed around the vial inside. It was a cylindrical container about four inches long and an inch and a half in diameter. The iron powder inside made it heavy in his palm.

His eyes, now alert, slid over the dancers and patrons at the bar. He shifted his vision, focusing on seeing past the veil that separated reality from the Pale.

Nothing.

That couldn’t be right, something was going on here; it was out of phase with the world outside.

Then he caught a shimmer out of the corner of his eye. Something not right with one of the workers, a busboy. Silas watched his skin shift and slide in a way that, even given the chaotic lighting of the club, was not normal. He was hiding something, using an actual illusion rather than just relying on the Veil to protect him. Which meant he wasn’t just hiding from mortals.

Maybe this was going to be more interesting than he had thought.

In fact, as his gaze roved the room, it looked like there were a rather large number of busboys, and busgirls for that matter. And it wasn’t just the number that was unusual. These kids were not just busing tables. Silas observed several wiping down seats repeatedly using a spray bottle of some sort while others were wiping down the walls in the darker corners.

A few darted out onto the dance floor randomly to scrub quickly on the ground, only to pop back up and jog off the dance floor.

Why this obsession with cleanliness?

Silas stepped closer to one of the busboys to get a closer look. Whatever illusion they were using was powerful. Seeing past illusions became easier once you knew it was fake and a being as experienced as Silas should be able to see through it, especially this close. But whatever magic was hiding the truth was holding firm.

Then he caught a whiff of that smell again, and it occurred to him where he had smelled it before.

“Goblins,” Silas growled under his breath.

The smell was unmistakable, but out of place. And then it was gone. The illusion covered even olfactory senses. Powerful indeed.

It didn’t make sense. This was not the kind of place you find goblins. Not true Fey, goblins lived on the fringe of both mortal and Fey society, hidden from the former and persecuted by the latter. Tribes banded together in sewers and other convenient subterranean locations far from the prying eyes of mortals and most other supernatural beings. A fancy nightclub was not a natural habitat for these disgusting creatures.

Nor did they have the power to uphold such a strong illusion. Magic wasn’t one of their strong suits. Eating human and other sentient flesh was, however.

“How’s it going in there?” Mort spoke over Silas’ ear piece. It was really creepy having Mort suddenly speaking in his ear when he had forgotten all about him.

“f**k, Mort. Warn me before you do that?” Silas whispered back.

“How would you like me to do that exactly?” Mort asked. “Am I supposed to tell you when I am just about to speak to you? “

Silas indulged a quick fantasy of his fist pounding through Mort’s skull.

“Something’s going on here, Mort.”

“Are you trying to say I was right?” Mort asked.

Yep, this is going to be the day Silas killed him. “The Inquisition Project has nothing in its database on this place? Nothing in the area?”

“No Silas, nothing. What exactly is going on?”

“They are very clean,” Silas said.

“Well yes, I can see how you would think that is strange, but you have to understand most of the world doesn’t live in a basement, hang out in a roach-infested bar, or only shower once a week.”

“f**k you, Mort. I shower more than once a week. No, this is different. They have an army of busboys cleaning every nook and cranny. And they obviously have some sort of illusion around them.” Silas made his way to a dark corner he hadn’t seen cleaned since he started paying attention. “Also, I smell goblins.”

“That can’t be good.”

“Only for a restaurant that serves human flesh. And has good ventilation.”

Silas peered into the corner searching for—well he didn’t know, but suspected he would know it when he found it. Unfortunately, it was spotless. He was just about to go back to observing the busboys when he noticed a tiny shape growing out of the corner where the wall met the floor.

After glancing around to confirm nobody was looking, he ducked down and plucked it from the ground. Then held it up to the light.

It was a mushroom, and not the fun psychedelic kind. This was a boring old toadstool. Was this what they were cleaning up? A fungus infestation?

It was odd. The place was not damp or moldy. Why were mushrooms popping up so quickly that they had to continually clean them up? Then it came to him.

Goblins. Powerful illusions. It was a Fey ring. Suddenly Silas had an idea of what would be found in the basement of the building.

“Goddammit Mort, Fey again,” Silas slammed his fist down on a nearby table. It shattered under the force. Those seated nearby looked at him concerned, but the club was loud enough that his destruction went mostly unnoticed.

Unfortunately not completely.

One of the doors across the dance floor marked ‘VIP’ opened and a man poked his head out to stare directly at Silas. He was a short, hunched over man, but his looks didn’t matter. It was all an illusion anyway. His suit was also out of place, anachronistic. It would have been the height of style in early twentieth century, the same with the rounded hat he wore.

“Hey, at least this time it"s not my fault. This show belongs to you and Michael all the way.”

The man looked to the left and right, silently signaling to several bouncers around the room.

“Cover’s blown. They spotted me and it doesn"t look like they will settle for a dance fight.”

“What cover? You are probably the most under-dressed person in the room. But too bad about the dance-off, you would have killed it.”

“You know it. Remind me to tell you about the time I possessed a break dancer back in the eighties. But later. Right now I got to kick some goblin ass.”

Silas was striding across the dance floor making for the VIP door.

“Try not to tear the place to the ground,” Mort said, but his tone said he didn’t have much hope.

“Of course. Mort, you know I’m not one for wanton destruction.”

He picked up a small table at the edge of the dance floor as the first disguised goblin lunged at him. In one smooth motion he lifted the table and slammed it into the monster"s chest.

The goblin’s jaw, lined with thin, pointy teeth snapped shut as it flew back into the mass of dancers writhing on the dance floor. The illusion was finally crumbling.

A second goblin was on him. He held up the table again like a tamer holding off a lion, but he didn’t hit this one with any force. He needed them closer.

The illusion was completely gone now, for Silas at least. He could now see the true lanky, slumped forms of the goblins. He could see their large, slathering mouths, over-sized noses dripping with mucus, and their ill-fitting clothes—tent-like suits draped over hunched bodies—hanging over their thin, yet powerful shoulders.

Though Silas could see them, he knew the Veil would still confuse the mortals’ minds. They would remember it as a bar fight, maybe some sort of g**g confrontation. Who knows what a mortal’s mind will dream up to protect them from the truth?

As long as the encounter with the supernatural was brief and their minds able to rationalize their memories afterward, the Veil should hold. Only if they are pushed to a breaking point, where their capacity to lie to themselves is exceeded, would the Veil tear. This would cause a whole new set of problems, most of which would lead to the end of the world.

Silas didn’t want that because finding a good drink during the rapture was going to be a b***h.

He could sense another goblin coming up behind. This one was a little smarter than his buddies and approached warily. He was clever, but not clever enough. As soon as he was within range, Silas lashed out with his foot in a blazingly fast kick to the goblin’s chin.

Its head twisted to the right, further than natural, even for a goblin; its body was forced to follow and the goblin spun around before falling. Silas didn’t have a chance to see if he was still conscious before the first goblin was ducking under the table.

Silas lifted the metal table and brought it down like a hammer. It smashed into the ducking goblin’s head and drove him down, slamming him into the concrete floor.

That seemed to be the trigger point. Chaos erupted on the dance floor. Most of the patrons scattered looking for safety in the tables. They weren’t running for the exit just yet. Why would they? It was just a bar fight, and the floor show was about to begin.

Silas took two steps before three more goblins were charging at him. They were larger than the others and actually had some girth on their otherwise spindly frames. More were flowing out from the rear doors.

Silas felt a strong breeze, and that gave him an idea. He altered course making a wider sweep of the large, and now cleared, dance floor. The charging goblins adjusted course to pursue.

Silas swept past the mortals watching from the edge, letting the goblins form up behind him in pursuit. He tried to act like he was running for his life, but it’s hard to fake fear when you’ve never experienced it.

As he ran past the crowd, he could see the Veil was cracking. As the pack swung by, the humans reacted as they should with monsters in their midst. The screaming and mad dashes for the exits started as the crowd broke.

Hopefully, by tomorrow the memory would be awash in an alcohol hangover and the Veil would be back in place.

That is if Silas didn’t f**k things up any more than they were. Unfortunately, that was kind of Silas’s thing.

A fan was positioned near the DJ stage—sans DJ at this point—and angled out to the room. The goblin pack was just behind him. A screeching, slobbering, and generally disgusting sounding pack.

His plan better work. He could take on a lot of goblins, but a group of ten posed a significant challenge.

He ran straight into the air stream of the fan and reached into his pocket to pulled out the vial. He kicked the bottom of the fan and it tilted upward in its frame so that it pointed to the ceiling. He popped the cap off the vial and turned to stand next to the fan.

Silas smiled at the grinning, triumphant faces of the goblins. Then he poured the contents of the vial into the spinning blades. A black cloud shot into the air over the heads of the goblin pack.

They paused, confused and maybe a little wary. They were right to be. The cloud hung in the air for only a moment before the iron powder fell, swarming the pack in a back mist.

The screams started almost immediately. The inhuman howls of pain rose above the humans’ sounds of escape. Where the iron touched, the goblin"s skin blackened and smoked. The sparse clumps of hair on their molted heads burst into flame.

They fell back from their charge and into each other. Flesh bubbled and boiled before igniting. The screams and howls turned abruptly to coughs and wheezes. The goblins had inhaled the iron mist, and it went to work on their lungs, cooking them from the inside out.

The leader of the pack fell to his knees in front of Silas and started coughing up blood, ash, and the occasional gout of flame.

Silas glanced at the vial in his hand. Potent s**t. It wasn’t normal iron, of course; that wouldn’t do this kind of damage to goblins. Regular iron is just an annoyance to these fey. This was cursed iron, much more potent.

Silas had once possessed an apothecary of dubious morals. Working out of Cheyenne, Wyoming at the turn of the twentieth century. He was little more than a d**g dealer, deriving concoctions consisting mostly of opioids, cocaine, and the occasional hallucinogenic mushroom. He claimed these magic elixirs and tonics could heal just about anything.

Basically, he was a snake oil salesman, without the wagon. Unsurprisingly, he got a lot of repeat business. He made quite a good living since he had the discipline to never use his own product. That is until Silas possessed him. Because where is the fun in that? Besides you can’t put a kid in a candy store and not expect him to nibble a little.

While the apothecary’s means for making a living were questionable, his heritage was not. He was descended from a long line of alchemists who dabbled in the mystic arts. His grandmother had taken it upon herself to train him in the way of the family business.

As a youth, he was accomplished at making true potions, rare earths, and capturing essences. He could have become a master alchemist, but there was a lot more money to be made in narcotics.

Once his ‘potions’ caught on, that was all he had time for. All that valuable alchemist knowledge faded as his focus went to making and enhancing drugs. But one ancient recipe remained when Silas possessed him: the secret of making cursed iron.

It was a complex task involving the blood of innocents, the timing of moon cycles, and essences of an assortment of mostly mythical creatures. Way too hard for Silas to actually perform. But it allowed him to tell the real stuff from just the plain metal. He had picked this up at a quaint little store up on 64th that sat above a p**n shop.

As for what happened to the apothecary Silas had possessed, he had turned to cutting his stuff with some unsavory chemicals when his supplies were low. It turns out demons have a much higher tolerance for drugs than mortals. Silas accidentally OD’d the poor fellow. Of course, the real tragedy here was that Silas had to return to Hell. And Hell is really boring.

Silas tossed the empty vial aside and walked around the screaming, burning, b****y mess on the floor. The stench of burning goblin meat, not at all the same as bar-b-que, filled the air; the stench was more like a dumpster fire boiling an overflowing port-a-potty. They’ll never get that smell out of the furniture.

A goblin stood in the doorway marked VIP. As soon as she saw him coming, she screeched and slammed the door. Silas took that as a good sign he was on the right track.

The VIP door was locked, so Silas kicked it in with one well-placed blow near the doorknob. Behind him, the place had almost completely cleared out. Perhaps the fleshy bonfire in the middle of the room and the aroma rising from it did not fit with their upscale tastes?

The hallway was a short twenty feet long, and here the mushrooms were more numerous, sprouting from the floors and wall in random clusters. They still look like they were regularly removed, but the bussers were definitely less disciplined about this section.

At the end of the hall a small set of stairs wound down into a hole of old brick and exposed pipes, also thick with fungus. Silas heard footsteps retreating down those stairs. He followed.

The musky scent of mushrooms filled his nostrils as he descended. Faerie mushrooms were valuable for a multitude of magical concoctions and there was a small fortune growing from the floors and walls. He grabbed a handful as he passed, stuffing them into his pocket.

Silas could hear noise from below, loud enough to be a party. He heard laughter and glasses clinking, not yelling and running as he expected. They knew he was coming, but the party carried on.

Great, maybe he could have a drink or two before he had to kick some more a*s.

At the bottom of the steps, a short hallway led to a large room. The hallway was virtually covered in mushrooms, and the doorway to the room was framed in a ring of toadstools that shimmered slightly.

Damn. It was a gateway. That meant the room beyond, though technically in the Fey realm, operated as a sort of DMZ between the mortal and the Fey. Either way, it meant no drinks for Silas, not if he wanted to come back to the human realm.

Good thing he’d brought a flask.

He stepped into the room and was immediately the center of attention. After a moment of mutual inspection, the occupants seemed to accept he wasn’t going to kill anybody right away—despite his jeans, leather jacket and slightly soiled t-shirt—and went back to ignoring him.

There was a quick, quiet burst of static in his ear and he knew he had lost Mort. Seems the range of their earpieces didn’t extent to the Fey realm.

The room wasn’t small and it didn’t match the club upstairs. It made Silas think of a hipster bar—exposed pipes, brick and old wood. Candles, tall and dripping long tails of wax, sat in various nooks in the walls and in elaborate chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. A fire hazard, certainly, but electricity was frowned upon in the Fey realm. Here in the border it would be accepted but not encouraged.

Silas liked bars where the wood was old and the pipes exposed because they couldn’t afford to fix things up and also keep the liquor cheap. Not because it was a design statement. He liked the smell of stale beer in those places, not candles and cologne.

But then again, it was all just a trap anyway.

A bar ran along half of one wall. Three bartenders worked behind the long wooden plank, dressed for an upscale establishment. They would have pulled the look off except for the metal collars that encircled their necks. That and the broken, lost looks in their faces. Chicly dressed waitresses and waiters circled the room, but none looked happy to be there.

It was the patrons, however, that surprised Silas. There were a handful of goblins, their human illusions firmly in place, mixing with humans and high Fey alike. The humans seemed oblivious to the monsters in their midst, but the higher Fey and goblins rarely mixed. High Fey thought they were better than everybody else and goblins hated everyone.

As much as Silas would have liked to think this was a heartwarming display of diversity, acceptance, and inclusion, it was clear that something was going on here. Even as he watched, he could see the sneers on the high Fey as they passed a goblin and the look of pure anger on a goblin face as he was ignored.

It was only with mortals that the two species seemed to interact. They smiled and laughed, engaging the mortals in conversation. It took a moment for Silas to realize it was a lot like a cat toying with its dinner.

“Drink?” A waitress had materialized next to him with a tray of exotic cocktails. “It’s all free. Compliments of the house.”

“Nothing is ever free,” Silas rumbled and tugged on her collar. She looked back at him in shock. Her eyes quickly clicked to the approaching goblin. She immediately started backing away.

“Is there going to be any more trouble?” the goblin asked as he approached.

“Probably. But it was your guys that jumped first upstairs. I’m a pacifist,” said Silas.

The goblin eyed Silas a moment longer, his illusion shimmering between human and his true form. Something strong was powering the illusion if it was still fighting Silas. “The king would like to speak with you, Mr. Robb.”

The goblin nodded toward the large double doors in the back of the room. While Silas looked, the doors opened and a High Fey couple passed through. The room beyond was hazy with smoke and darkness, but Silas could see there were people beyond standing in a crowd. They seemed to be focused on something he couldn’t see from the door. As soon as the couple was through, the door shut behind them.

Silas looked once again around the room, and this time paid special attention to the oblivious mortals. They were intoxicated, either through alcohol or other drugs, and Silas could tell they weren’t steady. As he watched, one mortal broke away from the group he had been talking too and staggered to the exit. A few steps from the door he stopped and looked puzzled for a moment.

But Silas knew the man couldn’t leave, and there was a good chance he never would. As he watched, a couple of masked goblins came up to the mortal and directed him to yet another door.

The Faerie ring, the mortals mingling with goblins and higher Fey, the collars—Silas was starting to understand what was going on here.

“A king huh? Impressive. Lead on, oh slimy one,” Silas said. The goblin glared at him for a moment mucus, oozing slowly out of one nostril. Sometimes Silas wished he didn’t see through the Veil of the Pale as quickly as he did. Some sights were best left unseen.

The goblin led him through the crowd to the double doors, and one side opened just enough to let Silas through. The room beyond was large enough that it was obviously not a part of the mortal world. This, along with the other hipster lounge, was too big to fit in the basement of the building. The fungal growth receded as the room stretched further and further from the faerie gate.

This new room was darker than the other, walls and ceiling a mixture of wood and stone. It stretched out from the entrance. Along one wall was a large raised stage. Several humans looking dazed and confused stood on it. Collars fitted around their necks and chains attached to cuffs encircling their ankles were out of place next to the dressy clothes they were wearing.

These chains were a precaution, something to hold panicking humans back. The truth was that if they had already drunk some of the drinks or eaten the food in this place or the bar outside, they would be trapped for at least a hundred years in the Fey realm.

The whole bar set up was a trap, a funnel trap like the spider. The main bar brought in the masses; then those who were selected for service were culled away to the VIP lounge, where the actual imbibing of the Fey essence was started in the guise of free drinks.

Once they were tied to this realm, the unfortunate mortals were moved to the final room, the slave auction. A very efficient system.

The humans’ dazed looks changed to fear as the goblin auctioneer call out into the audience.

“Here we have lot 3. Good sturdy stock, from high-class mortal society so they should be easily trainable to not embarrass. They have consumed the essence of this realm and are ripe for further binding. Might need a little breaking to get them in the mood for menial labor, but that’s half the fun isn’t it?” The goblin asked with a wink to the crowd. All pretense of illusion was gone here in the inner room where the monsters revealed their true nature, much to the chagrin of the mortals on display.

Goblins and other high Fey gathered around the stage holding their small auction signs. When the auctioneer started calling out amounts, flags shot up.

Human trafficking.

Along other walls were cages filled with humans of all sizes. Some of the captives sat defeated, others scream and wailed. Still others shook their cage doors, while a few stood staring at the spectacle on the stage across from them with outrage.

A second look around revealed other species. Not just humans were destined for the slave block it seems. Silas detected a few low-level Fey, and even some high Fey standing tall and proud in torn and dirty clothes. It must have been a horrible crime to reduce the Fey to s*****y. They are too proud of a race to take it lightly.

The buyers mingled around the stage drinking and discussing the meat on display. There were humans in the group too, free ones. Enlightened individuals, who could see past the Veil and interacted with the supernatural. Other beings of different shapes and sizes milled about. Silas couldn’t identify every race, but he didn’t need to know they were probably not the cream of the crop. Slave trafficking, human or otherwise, was off limits in the mortal realm.

Not that Silas cared, but he had a job to do.

The goblin had been waiting patiently for Silas to take it all in, but now he gestured to the far end of the room where a throne sat on a raised dais. Another group gathered around this spot; again they were mostly goblins, slobbering and snarling despite the fancy suits they wore. You can take the goblin out of the sewer but not the sewer out of the goblin.

Silas let his escort lead him closer to the throne, which turned out to be a large lay-z-boy with a bunch of wood attached to it to make it look towering in the small room. And it was occupied.

A goblin sat on the throne, lanky and gaunt even for his race. Unlike most other supernatural beings in the room, he wasn’t wearing modern clothing. Clad in a long robe, he clutched a staff in his hands. On his head rested a twisted steel crown. It looked hastily made.

He looked like a reject from a renaissance festival.

“The great Silas Robb,” the enthroned goblin said. His voice sizzled like wet sand scraping rock. Strings of drool hung from his over-sized jowls. “Welcome to my little corner of the Fey realm. I am the Goblin King.”

“Sweet. Can you sing Space Oddity? Or anything off of Ziggy Stardust?”

The king frowned. Silas sighed, “Obviously your majesty is not a fan of the classics. How did you become king anyway? Goblins have always been primitive, tribal.”

The king’s frown deepened and leaned forward. “Primitive? No. I became the king the true way.”

“Sword in the stone? Found that guy who needed a horse?”

“I killed all those who stood against me,” the goblin glared down at Silas. “I crushed my enemies. My magics are the strongest in the Goblin realm.”

“So it had nothing to do with you finding a faerie gate in the middle of New York where you could set up a lucrative slave trade and buy your way in? I must admit creating a bar to trick mortals into imbibing sustenance from the Fey realm and trapping them here was pretty smart.”

Silas saw the quick, guilty shift in the goblin’s eyes. He continued, “Ah, wasn’t your idea, was it? Maybe one of those smarter High Fey whispered in your ear? Maybe somebody else is really behind this and you’re just the flunky executing his idea?”

The goblin slammed his staff down on the dais. It cracked with a power that vibrated through the room. “It is my magics that keep this gate open, keep the illusions running. I am the most powerful goblin that has ever lived.”

“That’s like saying you’re the smartest rat in the sewer. It sets the bar pretty low.”

By now all attention had turned to the king. He glared down at Silas. Other, larger goblins came closer—guards for the king, but they seemed reluctant to get too close to Silas. It occurred to him that they were afraid because they thought he had more cursed iron. Who was he to dispel that notion?

A slick looking Fey stepped from the shadows near the dais. Silas hadn’t even seen him, it was a nice trick. He was short for his kind and wore a suit that shined a little on the bright side. He made Silas think of a car salesman.

“Hello, Silas I am Mordenshidhe of the High Fey. We want no trouble with you or your Inquisition. We’ve remained quiet, only taking those who would not be missed, and doing so sparingly so that it would not be noticed. They pass to the Fey realm, never to return to the mortal world. We are not violating the Veil.” The short Fey spread his arms. “Silas, look around you. You are surrounded by the king’s soldiers and a multitude of High Fey. You can’t stop this, but Grokan is a generous king and is willing to offer you a deal, I’m sure. Something you can take back to your masters in the Vatican.”

Even the king winced at that last comment. Perhaps he wasn’t as dumb as Silas thought. But the king didn’t have to worry Silas wasn’t really paying any attention. He was too busy staring at the king’s staff. He recognized it.

It was the Staff of Alamede, the staff of power. Silas had possessed many sorcerers in his time on the earth and each had at one time searched for the legendary stick. It was basically a giant battery, supercharging any spell wielded through it. This was the source of the goblin king’s newfound strength in illusion.

The king saw him eyeballing the staff and stood pulling it closer, as if fearing that Silas was going to jump up on the dais and take it from him. To be fair, that had been Silas’ plan. But that little man had pissed him off, and now he wanted to take his time with all this.

Silas reached into his pocket. The king stepped back and raised the staff. The other goblins took up defensive postures, but they lacked confidence. The tension in the room shot up. Most of the Fey moved away; this wasn’t their fight.

The king tapped his staff again and a small army of goblins poured into the room from a door Silas had not noticed before. Ogres, twice Silas’ size followed close behind. Now that was a nice touch

The little Fey raised his hands.

“Whoa there, big guy. Don’t move so fast, you might get injured that way. Heel, Silas,” Mordenshidhe said with a chuckle. “Come on it’s cool.”

Silas pulled out his flask and took a long pull.

“See,” Mordenshidhe said. “He’s just having a drink with us. Everything is good. I think we will be able to come to an arrangement that is profitable for both of us. What do you say Si, may I call you Si?”

“I’ll tell you what I think,” Silas said. “I think I’m gonna take another drink out of this here flask. Then I’m gonna take that staff away from David Bowie here break it in half and shove one of the pieces up your a*s and the other up the king’s. Then, if you are still alive, I’m gonna pop your head off your neck like a pimple. After that, I’m gonna kind of wing it.”

The goblin king took a few steps back. Of course, he probably knew more about Silas than his little partner here. The short Fey scowled. “What courage, Silas. I’m impressed by the bravado as you stand surrounded by an army of enemies. It’s a shame we couldn’t come to an arrangement. What is in the flask? Must be pretty good stuff.”

Silas took one last big swig. “Bourbon, mixed with a very potent mix of hallucinogenics.” Silas noticed his look of confusion. “You know LSD, Acid?”

Mordenshidhe’s eyes widened in surprise, or it could have been the drugs. “You’re dropping acid? Here? Right now? Are you crazy? Why?”

Silas took a moment to admire the faint tracers of light coming from the king as he brought up his staff defensively, before answering. “It turns out hallucinogenics counteract illusions spells. Ziggy Stardust here has the staff of Alamede. Based on what I have seen so far, all he’s good at are illusion spells. With that staff he is creating illusion strong enough that even I can’t fully unbelieve them, which means they are effectively real. With this drink it"s a whole new ballgame. It is ironic that it gives me clarity through somebody else"s illusions, but allows my own mind make up whatever it wants.”

“But how did you know to mix LSD in with your bourbon? You couldn’t possibly know what is going on here.”

“Oh, I didn’t. This is just a happy accident. If you had a coworker as boring as mine, you’d mix stuff in with your drinks too.”

“But how are you going to fight us high?”

“Buddy, that’s not the question. The real question is how would I have fought you sober.”

With that Silas grabbed the largest goblin within arms’ reach and smashed his forehead into its bulbous nose. He felt, rather than heard, the cartilage and bone make a satisfying crunch. Then he followed up the head-butt with a kick to the screaming goblin’s groin. He lifted a few feet off the ground dropping him into a howling heap.

Silas paused a moment to admire the color of it howls. How the heck was it able to do that? Oh yeah, the acid.

The king slammed his staff down on the ground, and a flash of power radiated out of it. Silas was pretty sure he could feel the light.

The ogres stepped forward, but the image flickered and Silas could see they were just minor goblins all illusioned up. Of course the one closest to him seemed to suddenly have six boobs. He couldn’t be certain, but he was pretty sure that was the acid.

He grabbed the two that looked the most real. He got one right, the other slammed into his gut. He was able to take most of the blow with a grunt; with the illusion of ogre gone, its strength was severely limited. But it still pissed him off.

With one hand holding the goblin’s arm Silas grabbed its crotch with his other and heaved the creature up and over his head.

The acid was fueling his adrenaline and he used a little too much strength. The slimy, puke green creature smashed into the chandelier covered in candles, bringing it down on a table and sending the small flames scattering.

The goblin smashing into the table seemed to be the catalyst for chaos. Suddenly the room erupted. High Fey attempted to make a dignified exit. Humans, dodging past distracted goblins, made a break for the door. They wouldn’t get far, however. Though they hadn’t eaten Fey food and drink here, they still wouldn’t be able to leave the bar in the other room without help.

The room had changed as the acid kicked in full force, melting the illusions before his eyes. Old, rotting, fungus-covered wooden walls appeared where brick had once been. The trendy exposed pipes became leaky and mold-covered. The tables became the wobbly, rough cut chunks of wood they really were. It was beginning to look like something appropriate for a goblin hang out.

More candles fell over in the rush for the door, igniting spilled hard spirits. Small fires popped up randomly. The place was a tinderbox and would go up in minutes. On the plus side the flames were really cool; Silas could see and feel all the colors. The flames leaped and dance in all sorts of awesome shapes. He could have stared at them for hours.

Suddenly the second former-ogre was on him, fists flailing, though Silas was less concerned about that than he was about the giant floating pig with the glowing battle ax soaring toward him. It seemed to be moving in slow motion, unfortunately so was he. But he was able to step to the side just as it passed through the space he had occupied moments ago. It clanged into the wooden floor with a racket like a thousand bells, but that was probably just the acid again.

The ax seemed stuck, at least momentarily. The unarmed goblin jumped onto Silas’ back just as he stepped on the hands holding the ax and slammed his body into the pig’s, which felt more like a lanky goblin that a pig and drove his fist into the piggy’s chinny chin chin.

The goblin on Silas’s back trying to choke him only added momentum and the pig’s head snapped back. As it fell, Silas saw that it was definitely a goblin, not a pink pig. Silas was not sure how he could have confused the two.

The king was leaving, running to one of the back doors. Silas knew those doors led further into the Fey realm. If the goblin got away, he would be almost impossible to find, and Silas would be way out of his element. He had lost track of the slick Fey who had tried to work a deal; he would have to settle for the king for now.

Silas jumped up on the dais before he realized the goblin was still on his back and trying to choke him out. No time to deal with it now. Silas grabbed the king’s shoulder.

He spun, whipping the staff around to smash into Silas’ temple. There was a thunderclap of power and Silas went down to his knee. The room seemed to waver in and out of reality, like heat waves off hot pavement. Silas wasn’t sure if it was because of the power of the staff, the fact that he was hit on the head, or the acid.

The king lifted the staff up over his head, completely abandoning it as a tool for magic and intending to use its club-like properties. He brought the weapon down, but at the last moment Silas leaned over, throwing the goblin still attached to his back forward over his head. The staff made a cracking sound and the goblin’s grip around his throat loosened as his limbs went slack.

It sloughed off his back into a pile on the dais.

“Thank you,” Silas said as he stood. A large goblin guard grabbed his left arm in a useless attempt to restrain him. Silas caught hold of the staff with his right hand at the top and his left below the king’s two-handed grip. Then, using the king"s hand as a fulcrum he slammed the wooden head of the staff straight into the king’s ugly face. It crushed his long, jagged nose and blood poured out of the enormous nostrils.

To his credit the king didn’t let go of the staff. Silas reversed the movement and, again using the king"s hands as a fulcrum, brought the bottom half up into his groin.

Silas reversed the staff’s movement again and hit the kings face. He was able to do this pattern two more times rapidly before the king came to his senses and let go of the staff.

There was a flash of metallic sheen. The goblin at his left had a long dagger. Silas was so entranced by the sparkling array of color induced by the acid—like a thousand diamonds flying through the air—that he failed to notice that it was plunging toward him. It pierced his side in an explosion of pain that seared up his ribs.

He whipped the staff around and shoved the tip straight into the guard goblin’s gut. He doubled over in pain and Silas brought his knee up to meet the descending face. There was another c***k and that goblin also went to the floor.

With the illusion of decadence gone, the room had further descended into chaos. The goblins guards who had before seemed so formidable were now nothing more than runts of their own kind. The king himself had lost any sheen of regalia he had once worn. And it turned out the king and his court were more illusion than reality.

The small fires started by the candles had grown into full-on blazes, quickly consuming the rotting room. Most of the High Fey had escaped, running through the rear doors and deeper into the world of the Fey. A few humans had also tried to escape through the back door, not realizing where there were and probably thinking they would end up in a back alley. They were in for a rude awakening when they discovered they weren’t even on earth anymore. They wouldn’t last five minutes in Fey land.

Oh, well. What really bothered Silas was that the acid seemed to be wearing off. One of the curses of being a demon, drugs burn off just when you are starting to really enjoy them,

The rest of the humans able to run had congregated in the bar beyond. If Silas didn’t move quickly, they would all be burned alive.

It was then that he realized he was holding the Staff of Alamede. One of the most powerful magic enhancers ever created. Placed in the hands of a skilled sorcerer, this staff could allow him to rule the world. The goblin king didn’t understand what he had. Silas was really curious how it had come into his possession. It was priceless.

But a promise is a promise.

Silas brought the staff down on his knee. With an explosion that rocked all the realm of Fey, it cracked in two. Silas felt the power radiate out from the staff like a concussion blast. Then the staff was quiet, just two sticks. Silas turned to the king who was slowly trying to get to his feet.

He saw Silas standing there, holding the two halves of the Staff of Alamede. The shattered end came to a point. Realization dawned on the goblin king’s face and it turned a pale green.

“We can do this the easy way or the…” Silas started. The king jumped to his feet and made a mad dash to the back door, but Silas was faster. He caught hold of the king only a few feet from escape.

“Okay, the hard way.”

There was much screaming. Silas liked to think he was a man of his word.

Once the king was pinned, Silas turned to survey the room. Thick smoke obscured the room and Silas was only able to make out vague shapes moving in and out of the gray clouds, though that could have been the last of the acid.

The last remaining goblins were barreling toward the back door and Silas was in their way. Apparently, they thought Silas less of a threat than the flames consuming the room behind them. As it turned out, they were wrong.

Silas lifted the half of the staff he still held over his shoulder like a baseball bat. He had once possessed a major league baseball player. And yes, it was one of the best possessions ever, until he got the man suspended three weeks later. Who knew cocaine was considered a performance-enhancing d**g?

When the first goblin came within range, Silas swung. The smoke had hidden the staff until it was too late, and he hit the creature in the side of its head. Its face abruptly stopped while its momentum kept its legs going forward. It flopped to the ground on its back.

A second goblin tried to skid to a stop after seeing Silas bringing the club back for another at-bat. But it was too late. The end of the club smashed into its face and he too, went down.

The third goblin stopped in time. It went from looking at its king to Silas c*****g the bat back for another pitch. It disappeared back into the smoke.

The slick Fey had disappeared. And that pissed Silas off, he owed him. But Silas had to get out quickly if he didn’t want to become BBQ. He plunged into the smoke, heading toward the entrance he had come in. He could hear the screams of chaos as the humans in the bar tried to understand why they couldn’t get up the stairs.

A hand clutched at him. Silas pulled away out of annoyance. Then he realized it had come from one of the cages.

Not his problem. He’d broken up the s*****y ring. His job was done, saving humans directly was not part of his job description. He looked at the row of cages, or at least the ones he could see through the smoke. Most of the them were going hoarse from yelling for help.

In front of him was a woman and child, both n***d, as were all the slaves. They didn’t scream; they knew they had little chance of mercy, but some spark of hope that could not be extinguished made them look at him with pleading eyes.

The kid was a few years younger than Michael.

Fuck it.

Silas pulled on the lock with his demonic strength and shattered the metal bolt holding it shut. The child smiled and ran forward. For a moment Silas thought it was going to try and hug him, but then his mother intercepted and pulled him toward the exit. She yelled a thank you as they ran.

He noticed the other slaves staring at him in surprise and worse, that damn look of hope.

He better get some extra credit for this. He started ripping the doors open one by one, freeing the humans one cage at a time. When one tried to hug him, Silas punched him. From then on, all he got was a simple thank you.

By the time he had opened all the cages and broken the chains of the few on the slave block, the screams had changed to coughing, their throats raw from smoke.

In the bar, the humans had all bunched up like a traffic jam and fallen to the ground where the air was still a little breathable. None could go up the stairs. And Silas knew they wouldn’t unless he helped them.

They all looked to him pleadingly.

“Looks like I have to do everything,” Silas exclaimed and shoved his way through the crouching crowd.

“We can’t leave,” someone wailed and others echoed it in confusion.

“Of course not, didn’t anybody ever tell you not to eat or drink in the land of the Fey? This is what happens when you stop telling good old-fashioned faerie tales to your kids,” said Silas.

He arrived at the passage to the stairs and tore away part of the fairy ring around it, breaking the circle. The faint glow emanating from it faded, as he proceeded to tear out another three-foot section of the mushrooms.

The mortals still didn’t move, looking at him for guidance.

“Run idiots. You were tricked into eating and drinking, so you have a chance,” Silas roared.

And it was true. Because they had been tricked into eating rather than willingly consuming from the Fey realm, the bond was weaker. With the ring damaged, they could leave. If the ring grew back, they would be compelled to return. But Silas was pretty sure the fire would take care of that.

They didn’t need to be told twice. The n***d and beaten mortals ran past Silas in a mad dash for the stairs. At this point the smoke was getting to Silas also. Time for him to get out.

He plunged into the crowd of people trying to get up the stairs. His mercy had almost reached its limits. He punched and kicked his way through the crowd, but he stopped short of breaking bones or seriously injuring any of them. It would kind of defeat the purpose, and Mort would find some way of fining his account. So, Silas mostly rode the wave of n***d humans up the stairs and into the upper club.

The fire from below had spread quickly. Fueled by the goblins Silas had left burning up here, most of the club was now in flames. With no goblin bouncers to stop them, the former slaves had plenty of room to stream across the dance floor and out the front door.

The n***d humans poured out of the building with Silas in their midst. Behind them the fake flames flickered on and off as real flames licked up the side of the building. Knowing goblins, it was definitely not up to current fire code.

The limo was parked on the street in front of the club. The rear window was open and both Mort and Michael stared out, Mort with his mouth opened in shock and Michael grinning ear to ear.

As Silas approached, Michael threw open the door for him. After ducking inside, he turned to a still shocked Mort.

“Done.”

Outside the limo, the awning and most of the entrance to the building collapsed in a belch of smoke and ash. Silas was surprised how quickly it went up; the whole place must have been rotten to the core. That’s goblins for you. Everything they touch turns to s**t.

“You burned the place to the ground,” Mort said, the shock still on his face.

“I’m sorry, have we met?” Silas asked. “Mort, it’s like you don’t even know me. Yeah, I took care of the problem, and I still have plenty of time to celebrate in a real bar.”

“Took care of the problem? You destroyed it. How many people did you kill?”

“Not too many. Most of the casualties were goblins, though some of the slower mortals may not have made it. But sometimes you got to break some eggs.”

Silas dug around in the mini bar. The acid was almost entirely out of his system, and he was dangerously close to sobering up. All that was left was rum. Silas grimaced. Not a fan of the sweet liquor. But desperate times and all that…

Steve, their intrepid driver and Silas’ one and only recruitment effort, tried to pull away from the curb. Traffic was snarled as n***d people and smoke flooded the streets. It was mostly chaos.

In the distance, they could hear sirens.

“That was so cool,” was all Michael said.

“What exactly was going on in there?” Mort asked.

“Human trafficking with a faerie twist. Apparently, some enterprising goblin tribe had found an active faerie ring right here in New York. With the help of some Fey whelp, they set it up to trap mortals. Once they ate or drank on the other side, they wouldn’t be able to come back.”

Silas leaned over the back seat, “Hey Steve, we should probably move it. Don’t want to be here when the police and fire show up. Might get hairy.”

“Got it boss, but with all these…um na… um people running around, it’s tricky,” Steve replied.

“Well just run—,”

“Hey!” Mort shouted.

“—push them gently out of the way.”

Silas turned back to Mort, “So what did saving all these human doomed to a life of s*****y—not to mention the untold number that have could been taken—earn me?”

“Well, we didn’t offer anything. As you so rightly pointed out, this wasn’t technically a mission from the Inquisition Project. In fact, it seemed to be a mission of mercy on behalf of Michael here.”

“I don’t do missions of mercy,” Silas grumbled. “It’s called a favor, and I expect those to be paid back.” Silas glared at Michael, who just grinned at him. “But this has to count for something? I mean, I saved mortals, protected the Veil and all that.”

“You’re right, you do deserve something,” Mort said. He leaned forward and patted Silas’ shoulder. “’Atta boy.”

He was gonna kill Mort. This was it, this was the day. No doubt about it.

Mort must have seen the storm gathering. He sat back, way back, and opened his laptop like a shield. “It says right here in section four of the Infernal Binding Contract, IBC for short, subparagraph seventy-three, that any personal missions not specifically assigned by the Inquisition Project, altruistic or not, shall not count towards demon’s release account.”

Now it was Silas’ turn to sit back. He had zoned out when Mort had mentioned the IBC. Someday he should really read what he had signed. It was just so boring.

Silas upended the bottle and started chugging the booze. At least he could get as drunk as possible. Getting sloshed seemed to irritate Mort, and irritating Mort was always something Silas enjoyed. He might be getting screwed out of money by the Inquisition again, but at least it was something. Sometimes it was the little things that made life worth living.