Paint it Black: 4 (The Black Knight Chronicles) (10 page)

“You dare break peace-bond in the Market? You’re crazier than a werejaguar in a catnip field!” It turned and ran, and I holstered my weapon. I turned to see where Marty had gone, and found myself face-to-face with four very angry-looking faeries holding swords. One had his blade at Greg’s throat, and the other three were pointing weapons at me. I knew from past experience that I wasn’t going to be able to shoot all three of them before they killed me, so I just put up my hands.

“Um . . . Hi?” I said.

One of the faeries stepped forward and beat his right fist against his chest. He was a little taller than the others, gorgeous, with cheekbones you could slit your wrists on, a dimpled chin, and curly blond hair. Blue pupil-less eyes glittered at me like giant sapphires, and I felt my heart race. Then I remembered everyone’s warnings about the beauty of the Fae, and all the warnings not to fall in love with one. Then I remembered that I like chicks, and managed to curb my baser instincts. His armor had a couple extra stripes on the shoulders that the other guys didn’t have, so I assumed he was the sergeant or ranking fae. “By the orders of the Ancient Ones, no weapons are to be drawn in the Market on penalty of death. One infraction is allowed without punishment. What is your name, offender?”

“Jimmy Black,” I said, thinking that maybe he’d heard of me and might cut me some slack. We’d done a couple of favors for the Queen of Faerie a while back, including setting things up for her to live happily ever after with her beloved dragon.

Apparently the faeries aren’t networked, because the sarge just looked me up and down and said, “You may go, but know this, Sanguine. You draw steel in the Market only on pain of death. We do not tolerate violence within these walls.”

As usual, my mouth started to operate without any involvement from my brain. “So if I need to kill someone, drag them outside the fence, is that the deal?”

The faerie stared at me for a second, then burst out laughing. “Indeed, Sir Sanguine. If you must kill someone, please remove them from the Market first.” He stuck out a hand, and I reflexively grasped his.

“I am glad to see that we understand each other. Now, please move along. There is much to be done, and I must return my men to their work.” The faerie gave my hand a firm shake and led his troops on through the Market.

I stared at their backs, jaw hanging open. Apparently, I had narrowly avoided starting a huge inter-dimensional incident. For a change. Greg stepped up beside me, eyes wide, and Marty crawled out from under a nearby fruit stand, brushing dust off his waistcoat as he did so.

“Dear sir, I apologize most sincerely for not informing you of the penalties for drawing a weapon in the Market. Had I any inkling you were so unfamiliar with local custom, I never would have let you wander about with your hands unbound.” The little lizard’s tail was twitching again, but this time just the tip and much more slowly.

I took this to mean some type of embarrassment, so I patted him on the top of his head. “Don’t sweat it, Marty. I’m used to stepping on my own junk in new places. It’s what makes being me so exciting.”

“And what makes being your friend so terrifying,” Greg muttered.

I shot him a look and turned back to the somewhat mollified lizard. “Now Marty, you were talking about going to see a doctor about human jawbones?”

Marty jumped, his tail twitching faster than ever. “Yes, yes, yes! We must go see Doctor Orbly! If there is one creature in the Market likely to have fresh jawbones for sale, it will be the doctor.”

I danced back to save my ankles from a thrashing and asked, “What exactly does he do with the jawbones, Marty?”

“Or the rest of the people?” Greg added.

“I’m sure I have no idea. But the doctor is a wise man, very wise, and he does great things. Very great things. We should go to him at once.” Marty started off down an aisle in a bizarre hopping stride. Apparently lizards were never intended to walk on two legs, or wear tuxedos, so the strain of doing both at the same time was making Marty walk like an old cartoon character. Of course, half the things around us looked like they were imagined by George Lucas and the other half looked like Jim Henson creations. I never thought I’d find a place that made Greg look normal, but this was it. This and anime conventions. I smothered a laugh and started after our little green guide.

“What?” Greg asked as he fell into step beside me.

“Just thinking that if he breaks out a ukelele and starts singing ‘Rainbow Connection,’ I’m gonna lose it.”

“Pay attention. I don’t think I trust our guide.”

“Why not? He’s just looking to get a little tail. I figure that’s the oldest motivation in the world, so I can kinda buy it.”

Greg gave me his patented “my partner is a moron” look. “Isn’t it a little too convenient that he happened along right as we showed up? Don’t you think he might be the Goblin Market’s equivalent of the guy waiting at the bus station for the cute girl from Kansas to land in LA?”

“And we’re the cute girls?”

He nodded.

“Man, your imagery sucks. But I get it. He’s probably working an angle. And not just one that gets him a nice square of swamp in Human-Land. I’ll keep an eye on him. But for now, he knows people, and we don’t. So if he can get us around in here without drawing Milandra’s attention, that would be a pile of awesome.”

“Why don’t you want Milandra to know we’re here? She could help us.”

“Yes, but help from monarchs isn’t usually stealthy, at least from what I’ve read in the funny books. And I don’t think we have time to go to seventeen state dinners before our kidnap victims are rendered down to their component parts. Nor do we have time for a quest. We have a need for speed, and dealing with the court politics in Faerieland is not likely to get us out of here quickly.”

“Well, when you put it that way, it all makes sense. Now where did the lizard go?”

I looked around and saw our little guide about a hundred yards in front of us. Marty was moving fast, and his head was barely visible in the distance, so I stretched my legs to catch up. I rounded a corner and found the lizard leaning up against a pole, one foot on the ground, one foot on the pole, filing his nails with an insolent posture that came straight out of an old James Dean movie. He even had the collar of his tailcoat popped. “’Bout time you got here,” he sneered.

“What’s gotten into you?” I glared at the snotty little lizard.

He immediately dropped the bad-lizard pose and fell back into what I had come to think of as “Normal Marty,” where normal could be applied to a talking lizard. “I am sorry, oh Sir Sanguine. This is not the bestest area of the Market, and it may perhaps behoove one to appear to be more dangerous than one is. Unless one is, in fact, dangerous, as you are, sir.”

As usual, it took me a second to untangle his sentence, but no time at all to recognize the thugness in the four guys that had come out of the alley behind him. I backed up into the main thoroughfare to give myself a little room to move, and took a look at our new friends. All four of them were mostly humanoid, but with pig heads and long, curved tusks jutting out from their lower jaws. They were garbed in what looked like scrapyard armor, with bits of chain mail showing between layers of hardened leather and what looked like pots and pans hammered flat and fastened on as breastplates.

The leader was the biggest guy in front, rocking a bright red Mohawk and steel points capping his tusks. He had fists the size of Christmas hams and huge, knobby knuckles that sprouted tufts of black hair from the backs of his hands.

“Martifluousyntherianthemum Gregorovichinglingaringdingdingdong, how good to see you.” He had a surprisingly mellifluous voice for somebody that looked like a cross between
Star Wars
and
Mad Max
.

“K’thoth, fancy meeting you here!” Marty bowed so deeply that his head almost scraped the dirt, then scuttled around behind me. I looked down at the lizard, who looked back up at me with huge eyes.

“Help me,” Marty whispered. I patted him on the head and hoped he was more reassured than I was.

“Our boss wants a word with you, Martifluousyntherianthemum,” the one I now knew as K’thoth said. He still had that super-pleasant tone to his voice that just screamed imminent bloodshed.

“I’m sorry,” Marty said from behind me. “I’m on very important business right now. As soon as I complete this quest, I will seek out Lord Buterin Great-Teeth and settle our accounts. I swear upon my tail.”

“I think that’s
my
tail, Gregorovichinglingaringdingdingdong. If I recall correctly, and I always do, you wagered that tail on a mundane sporting event several moons ago.” I had to look way up past K’thoth’s head to see where this new, high-pitched voice came from.

There was a squirrel with a red Mohawk of his own standing on K’thoth’s head. The squirrel wore a leather jacket and a sword, but before I could draw any Reepicheep comparisons, I looked down at Marty, who had gone so pale as to be nearly transparent. He was scared shitless of this squirrel.

“Lord Buterin Great-Teeth, I presume?” I asked the squirrel.

“Yes. And what is your business with this welcher?”

“He is our guide through the Market. We are on very important business, and Marty is essential to that. I’m sure he can settle any debt he owes you as soon as our work here is done.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not an option. Too many people are aware of Martifluousyntherianthemum Gregorovichinglingaringdingdingdong’s debt to me and his reluctance to pay it in a timely fashion. If this is allowed to continue, I risk a decline in my ability to collect other debts. I’m sure you see the problem with that.”

“I do, and I understand that this puts you in a very difficult position. But we cannot be delayed in our mission, and finding another guide would delay us greatly.” Crap, now I was starting to sound like these guys.

“I don’t care. K’thoth, bring me the lizard’s hide for a new jacket,” the squirrel said, then scampered down K’thoth’s back and vanished into the throngs of the Market.

“Hey guys. Nobody wants any trouble here, do we?” I asked, both hands in the air. Marty nodded so hard I thought his head-ridge was going to flop off. Greg took up a position to my left and a few feet away, close enough to cover my weak side but out of the way enough that I could move freely.

“Seems like you’ve got trouble, Sanguine. Either give us the lizard, or we kill you too. Come to think of it, some fresh Sanguine blood would be excellent for my stew tonight.” K’thoth licked along the edge of a huge cleaver he’d pulled from his waist.

“Now boys, I’m sure you know the rules against weapons at the Market,” I said, looking around at the array of kitchen implements the hoodlums were polishing.

K’thoth grinned back at me. “What weapons? We just got our cooking tools. Ain’t no rule about using our cooking tools, is there? And if you just happen to fall down on my cleaver, well, that’s just bad luck, ain’t it?” He laughed, and his friends followed suit. Everybody wants to laugh with you when you’re the guy holding all the blades.

I whirled my head from side to side, looking for a handy alley to run down or a stall to hide in, or a friendly guard who’d come running at a scream for help, but there was nothing. The few stalls near us had hastily shut their tent flaps and covered their wares when the upcoming scrap became obvious.

“I think I get it,” I said, drawing the KA-BAR knife from my belt. “And since I carry this knife to open boxes, it’s not a weapon right? If you happen to impale your piggy little eyeball on my boxcutter, then that’s just a freak accident.” I heard the hiss of metal on leather behind me as Greg drew a pair of knives from his utility belt.

I smiled my most feral grin at K’thoth and stepped forward, feeling my fangs extend into view. I took a couple more steps forward and said, “Who’s gonna be Daddy’s appetizer?”

K’thoth lashed out with his cleaver, but his armor and general bulk slowed him down too much to ever get a clean shot at me. I sidestepped his clumsy slash and jabbed him in the armpit with my KA-BAR. A kick to one knee and another to his head left him sprawled in the dirt, out of the fight for the moment.