Keith turned onto SW Stark Street and walked slowly, scanning the brick facades for arcane symbols hidden in the graffiti. He pulled his NIAD-issue glasses from their case and put them on. Through the enchanted lenses, he could now see that a few faint faerie signs marked the building. They were remarkably like hobo signs: circles, slashes, and arrows indicating what a passing extra-human might encounter. The building directly in front of him was marked “cream left out”.
Not surprising. It was an ice cream parlor. But Keith noted it all the same. If the owners left product out intentionally to feed passing extra-humans, they might have some other-realm connections. If this had been New York or Boston, the whole bottom six inches of the building would have been scribbled with vulgar Gaelic epithets left by leprechaun gangs. Here only a couple of marks had been left at ankle-level and they looked like elf work. Apparently one could find work with a shoemaker nearby. He walked up and down the street. Here and there other spirits had left their mark. He found some ancient Japanese cursive left by displaced yokai that had been overwritten in English by a local Native American salmon spirit.
At last he came to a telephone pole plastered with flyers and handbills for various shows, crudely taped and staple-gunned over one another. One caught Keith’s eye. Carefully, he peeled aside a flyer advertising a Dykes-n-Dogs singles meetup (canine companions welcome) to reveal the words:
Theater of Blood
Carnivore Circus
One Night Only!
Lulu’s Flapjack Shack
A quick map search revealed that the restaurant was located on the city’s east side. The sun was setting now. As Keith predicted, his proximity alarm started to gently flash as more and more extra-humans emerged from their lairs, homes, and office buildings. Blinking green nine: vampires. Yellow two: pixies. Red three: goblins.
Across the water, the city’s east side with its hipster bars and award-winning restaurants beckoned, but Keith’s days of gourmandizing were long gone. Besides, the east side of Portland was known to contain the largest naturalized goblin population in the world. If he was going to go asking questions there, he’d need backup. Preferably backup that both spoke the language and understood the treaties that existed between humans and goblins.
Because of the necessity for human flesh for certain historic goblin rituals, NIAD, in conjunction with other human governments, had struck a bargain: ten death row inmates sent to the goblin realm every year, no questions asked. In return for this, the goblins had agreed to an extradition treaty that had curbed the ability of goblin human-hunters to disappear on the wild white mountainsides of their snowy kingdom. Keith could see how, when the deal was made a century prior, it would have seemed like poetic justice to render up a sinner to the tortures of hell.
The program had been largely effective, but not completely. Certain goblins still chose to hunt human beings. The only time Keith had ever used his mage pistol against a hostile was when he’d neutralized a pair of goblin butchers in an abattoir in Chicago. He wasn’t excited about the prospect of using it again. Avoiding direct conflict, through use of the greater communication skills provided by a translator or community liaison, would provide the most desirable outcome.
At least that’s what the NIAD field operations manual assured him and he was willing to give it a try, if only to sidestep filing the mountain of paperwork required by investigating agents who discharged even a single, laser-etched incantation bullet.
He phoned the field office for backup, then headed back to his hotel, stopping only briefly at a supermarket to purchase bread and cheese.
***
Keith’s room at the Mark Spencer Hotel was small and not at all hip, but it had the two things Keith needed most—a bed and a tiny kitchenette. He laid his mage pistol on the small square of counter next to the range and started dinner. He heated the warped nonstick skillet that had come with the room and laid one piece of buttered bread down in it, hearing an appealing sizzle. He added a couple of slices of havarti and another slice of buttered bread and waited. He didn’t really watch his food so much as he listened to it—smelled it. Behind him the television let him know about events currently taking place in the Willamette Valley. There was a brewer’s festival and a triathlon, perfectly representing Portland’s twin obsessions: the culinary arts and outdoor recreation. The open window let in a pleasant summer breeze.
Keith was pondering his chances of still being in town for the brewer’s festival when he felt a slight vibration from his wrist. He glanced at his watch. The numeral three glowed red—goblins close by.
There was a knock at his door. Out of habit, Keith switched off the range and shifted his skillet off the electric element. Mage pistol in hand, he moved to peer through the fish-eye lens. Outside his door he saw a tall, well-muscled man wearing the standard black trench coat favored by their department, despite the fact that it was nearly eighty degrees outside. He had lustrous black hair and blue eyes and a jawline perfect enough to get him a job selling any men’s cologne on earth. The man smiled and held up his NIAD badge. The circular insignia of the Irregular Affairs Division gleamed dully in the yellow hallway light.
Gunther Heartman. Keith cracked his knuckles. It was a bad habit and also a tell, since he did it only when extremely irritated, but he found he couldn’t stop. Gunther worked in the San Francisco office as a field agent and member of the strike force. He also did do-gooder double duty as a community volunteer, coordinating the annual human returnee Christmas party. Held in San Francisco, this party was arranged for the benefit of humans who for whatever reason had been away from earth for too long to be normal. Some had been hostages; others, lost in amateur magic-using accidents only to be retrieved years later, addled and hopelessly out of sync with everyday human life. Still others had never lived on earth at all and were dealing with the problem of having been repatriated against their will. It was a mixed bag of scratched and dented individuals who needed further socialization before being allowed to roam free in the general population.
Gunther had convinced Keith to come in from HQ to participate the previous year. And because Gunther was a good-looking man, Keith had been happy to oblige, on the notion that he might find opportunity to seduce him. He’d taken the red-eye from DC and six hours after landing was running a little table where he helped the human race’s long-lost weirdos create, decorate, and ultimately eat the most disturbing Christmas cookies imaginable.
Still covered in sprinkles and colored sugar, they’d had sex for the first time. Keith had thought he was in love at the first taste of Gunther’s mouth, but he’d played it cool, returning to DC on the next flight.
Gunther had phoned him about a week later. He’d been in DC for some meeting. They’d met, screwed, and parted that very night.
This pattern repeated itself a few times as the two of them casually entered each other’s orbits, only to be pulled away again the next day. That suited Keith fine for a while.
Then, just like that, Heartman had ended it.
He’d ended it just as Keith had been about to suggest that they try to see more of each other.
Keith pulled the door open, but not far enough to let Heartman enter. “What are you doing here?”
“You called for me.”
“I called for a goblin linguist.”
“And here I am,” Gunther replied. “There was no one else available so they sent me.”
Keith gave a resigned sigh and pulled his NIAD-issue utility knife from his pocket. He folded the identification light out and focused the beam. “Light verification please, Agent Heartman?”