Chapter One

DUSK SETTLED OVER the forested hills and rounded knobs of the mountainside as Michel-Leon Parisee crouched on an overlook and waited as patiently as any other predator waiting for its prey’s nose to peek out of hiding. An early April snowstorm had blown through several days ago, and evidence remained by the snow lingering around gnarled roots and the bite that clung to the air.

“This could go bad before we know it,” Régine Bardin commented as she hunkered down next to him, her gaze intent on the valley below. “The villagers are on edge and grumbling for payback.”

“That’s often the reaction when two worlds collide.” Michel-Leon spared a glance for her. Rumors and whispers had abounded since she was a girl that she was his bastard half-sister. Their coloring was similar, though her hair was more of a true red and his gilded with gold and brown. She had a riot of curls she never could tame, and his tended more toward tousled waves. They both had the same long, lean body and warm smile, and though their temperaments were quite often opposite, they complemented each other.

He thought of her as a sister, and she wished for it for all the wrong reasons.

The stamping of horses and the creak of wagon wheels sounded behind him as the villagers unloaded his requested goods. It broke the silence among the birch and firs. Michel-Leon continued to wait as Régine shifted next to him.

“The tricksters are coming.”

The voices whispered in his head, one warning coming out clear amongst the jumble of messages, as the first pinprick of yellow eyes appeared in the goblin holes that riddled the far hillside. The warning only he could hear—and Régine couldn’t—proved, despite all the rumors and wishing, they didn’t share blood.

“Here we go,” Michel-Leon said as Régine stood and laid her hand on the hilt of her sheathed, long-bladed knife.

Another pair followed the first eyes and then a dozen until the mountain holes were lit like a swarm of fireflies. Michel-Leon straightened and glanced over his shoulder at the small group of men gathered outside the abandoned chapel doors. “Is the tribute ready?” he asked.

A low grumbling answered him as he turned his attention back to the waiting eyes. “Oui. But I don’t see why we ought to give up the food we tilled and toiled for to a mob of troublesome creatures. You’re a chevalier. Blow them out or bury them deep. Isn’t that why we called you here?”

Régine rolled her eyes heavenward. The old ways were being forgotten, and Michel-Leon suppressed a sigh to echo Régine’s sentiment. He pointed at the starry field of blinking eyes. “I could do it your way, but it would end up costing you a lot more than a few barrels of spirits, calves you were going to cull anyway, and some bushels of root vegetables you can afford to give up.”

The other way would be bloody and long, and they’d never be sure they got them all. If even one goblin survived, the stunts it would pull afterward would make the villagers long for the days of kicked over milk pails and holes bored in fences.

The grumbling returned. “What’s to keep them from picking up their pranks and tricks again after you leave? The supplies won’t last long. We don’t figure to keep doing this each month.”

“Don’t worry, if they agree to the terms of the pact, they won’t bother you for a long time.” Michel-Leon patted his pocket to check if his surprise was still there. If this didn’t cause a stir of interest among the creatures, nothing would. He started to walk away and then paused. “I’d wait in the chapel if I were you. Some of the more mischievous among them might see you as friendly targets to play with when they come to collect their booty. Staying out of sight is best. I’ll let you know when it’s over.”

Michel-Leon took off in the gathering dark, one hand resting on his pistol as Régine strode beside him with the same posture. He wasn’t worried they’d have to pull it, but he didn’t want to chance the goblins would find the shiny metal fascinating and attempt to steal it. With his luck, one would blow its damn fool head off, and then negotiations would be over.

“I hope you have more tricks than they do,” Régine muttered. “I’ve never seen an infestation this big.”

“They have fewer places to parlay, and the machines with the iron and the steam, the gutting of the earth, make them uneasy.”

Michel-Leon cocked his head to listen for any other nuggets of wisdom articulating itself in the endless whispers, but nothing stood out. “Times are changing, Régine. Too fast for the little ones to keep up. Science is outstripping magic.”

“You sound regretful.” Régine spared him a glance. “There will always be more monsters.”

“Not everything different is monstrous.” A fact Michel-Leon believed fervently and one that had set him apart from other chevaliers when he was in training.

By the time they made it down to the narrow valley, they’d emerged from the trees and stars splashed across the night sky. Michel-Leon sensed all those eyes on them observing their progress, but if the creatures were planning an attack, the ancestral voices weren’t warning him. He would take that as a positive sign even if it was unnerving to be the center of so much crafty scrutiny.

A figure scampered out of one of the holes and danced among the shadows toward him. As it drew closer, the gait changed to a slink until it came to a stop several feet away. The goblin was wizened and gnarled, its face pale in the faint light as it studied Michel-Leon and Régine with a crafty gleam in its eyes and a sly smile on its lips.

“You are not the local lord.” It canted its head to the side and sidled a few steps away, pulling a fine woolen shawl around its bony shoulders. Michel-Leon recognized it from the list of many missing items. None of its clothing appeared dipped in blood and again the voices remained silent, so Michel-Leon relaxed. These goblins had not acquired a taste for death. “You are a chevalier.”

It made a high-pitched whistling sound, and Michel-Leon stood still as many more amber eyes rushed toward him, cavorting around the disconcerting shadows. Régine’s hand tightened on her gun, but she remained steady. He was grateful for her equilibrium and zeal for danger, even as he regretted the peril she put herself in for him and worried about her family’s reaction.

“I am a chevalier. As you are the chief.” He inclined his head with a nod of respect and kept his eyes on the chief. The hairs on the back of his neck stirred at the sensation of having so many behind him. “I’ve come on behalf of the village to parlay.”

The other goblins gathering around them whispered “parlay” with increasing excitement until the chief gave them a fierce scowl and silence fell. It stroked the hanging fringe of its new shawl. “We won’t give anything back. Finders keepers.”

“It does look rather fetching on you,” Michel-Leon agreed. “So, everything you’ve acquired already as well as the tribute on the hill, and in return, you’ll leave them alone for another generation.”

“No deal.” The goblin chief drew itself up in outrage. “Do you think we’ll sell our good behavior so cheaply?”

“No deal!” The other goblins chanted as they scampered and danced in wide circles around him. It was a good thing he’d left the villagers behind. All it would take would be one nervous fool and the situation would get out of hand.

“Michie,” Régine warned, moving to guard his back as Michel-Leon kept his eyes on the chief. That was the one he needed to win over.

“No deal? No negotiation?” Michel-Leon asked, pulling a lighter from his pocket. He rubbed his thumb over the intricate brass work on the casing. He’d miss the little gadget, one of the many items his grandpère had loved to tinker with. “Not even for say…ten years of peace from your amusing pranks?”

The chief eyed the lighter with avid curiosity as Michel-Leon flipped the lid open and closed. The clinking sound caught the sea of gazes. “Ten years might be doable,” the chief said, and its stare turned hard. “Then they won’t forget us. They won’t forget what we can do. A generation takes too long.”

“I agree.” Michel-Leon crouched so he could look the goblin in the eye. “The old ways are fading, mon ami. One day, beings like you and me will be an amusing memory for tales. So in honor of the old ways, let us come to an agreement. A half-dozen barrels of wine, double the number of calves, enough fodder to last you through the lean time, and of course the amusement you had in making the villagers dance to your tune again. That is more than enough for ten years of peace. Or…”

“What? What? What do you offer?” The goblin chief capered, its gaze still locked on the clicking lid of the lighter.

“This.” Michel-Leon lifted the lighter, turning it so the creature could see it from all sides. “In exchange, you leave them alone until my firstborn is old enough to parlay with you.”

The chief twitched, and its followers stirred as they murmured amongst themselves. The language was unearthly, coming out as a sigh among the trees, the babble of a brook, all with the undertone of distant music. It made Michel-Leon sad to think this might be the last time he heard it. There were creatures and monsters he didn’t mind tussling with and felt no sorrow at their loss. The goblins were different. They were annoying. They could be dangerous, but usually they didn’t mean harm. But with each generation the potential for actual violence grew, and it had taken all Michel-Leon’s influence and fast-talking to prevent bloodshed here. He didn’t want to witness that on either side.

The goblin chief hissed in disapproval and the others picked it up until the entire valley hummed with the sound of an army of angry teakettles. Régine started to draw her gun, but stopped when Michel-Leon laid his hand over hers.

“I hope you know what the hell you’re doing. They are keyed for action,” she said, trying to keep her eyes on all the scampering forms.

Michel-Leon had one gambit. If it didn’t work, he’d have to think of something better in a decade.

“No deal!” the chief announced, tightening the shawl around it. “Ten years, then we’ll play again and make the mayor’s wife cry more tears. Collect the tribute,” it snarled to its followers, and a group scampered away up the hill.

“Those fools had better stay in the chapel,” Régine said, a frown marring her brow as they disappeared into the trees.

“We warned them.” Michel-Leon straightened and slipped a cigarette out of his pocket. He gestured with it to the goblin. “If that is what you wish. Ten years then and the tribute. I’ll see you again when that time is up.” He brought it up to his lips and opened the lighter. The goblin chief paused, its hand lifted to swear. Michel-Leon flicked the striker and the flame flared.

“A spark! He’s got a spark in a box!” The goblins hooted and hollered until the rolling hillsides up to the Vosges rang with the noise. Michel-Leon shut the lid and the flame disappeared.

“Do it again. Bring the spark back,” the goblin chief demanded as it broke the line of the undrawn circle around Michel-Leon.

“This? I thought you didn’t want it.” Michel-Leon flipped it open again and worked the mechanism to make the flame reappear. “It’s a bit of human craftsmanship. What you would call human magic.”

The goblin reached out with greedy hands, its eyes fixed on the flame. “Does it always work?”

“I cannot promise it will work forever. Human magic doesn’t work in the same way yours does, but my grandpère made this about thirty years ago, and I suspect it has at least that many years of sparks left in it. He was quite clever.” Michel-Leon closed the lid on the flame once again and dropped the lighter in his pocket as the goblins moaned in disappointment. “So, do we have a deal on the ten years of peace along with the tribute?”

“No deal!” The chief tore its gaze away from Michel-Leon’s pocket. “We want the spark in the box.”

“I don’t know,” Régine cut in with a frown for the chief. “You keep changing your mind. How is the chevalier to know you mean it this time?”

“We swears. We swears.” The chief held out its hands for the lighter, its eyes round with awe.

“I think the chief means it, Michie.” Régine gave his shoulder an approving squeeze, but it didn’t comfort him.

Michel-Leon squatted down again and watched the capering goblins with a sense of sadness. He would miss their wonder and tricky ways. Eventually, they’d figure out a loophole. They were goblins. But given the difference in time between his world and theirs, he doubted he’d ever see another one around these parts in his lifetime. He held up the lighter one more time. “The spark and in exchange you keep to your homes and the peace until my first born is old enough to parlay with you?”

“Oui! Oui! Oui! We have a deal.” The goblin chief capered its hands outstretched to take the lighter.

Michel-Leon tossed it to the chief, and it grabbed it out of the air with a quicksilver motion. The goblins held their breath as the creature flicked it open and the flame flared to life. “We have the spark!” For a heartbeat, the goblins celebrated in the valley, and then they were gone.

Michel-Leon glanced at the now dark goblin holes and sighed. “Goodbye, little ones.”

“Making a deal like that is chancy,” Régine broke the silence and took his hand. “If they grasp your intent behind it, it’ll anger them. Or you’ve given fate a reason to mess with you, challenging it like that. You might end up a father, after all.”

“No children.” Michel-Leon slung an arm around her shoulder. “I will buck the system as you do, only I have a thousand voices in my head screaming over my decisions. You merely must contend with your parents.”

Régine grimaced. “Maman can equal at least half those voices.” She took the cigarette from him and pulled in a deep breath. “When you asked for one of these, I thought you’d taken them up. Steadies the nerves, they say, though not something I think I’d want except on occasion.”

“Your nerves needed no steadying. You did well.” Michel-Leon had missed having someone he could trust at his back. Giving into her nagging had been a good decision.

“She is not one of us.”

Michel-Leon ignored the whispering voices that drowned out Régine’s reply. The sky lit up with a bright white light streaking away from them toward the northwest. Michel-Leon squinted up at it as the voices went quiet in his mind. He watched it curiously, trying to identify it. Some type of comet. It was hard to make out any details as it undulated with a rainbow hue.

“What is it? It’s beautiful,” Régine said in awe. “Look at the colors in its tail.”

Michel-Leon eyed the long body in the wake with a sense of foreboding. There was an impression of long, eel-like tails, but they were mere shadows in the glow. There was something familiar about the light and the overall shape mixed in with the importance of the time of year. It nagged at him. He fought off the rising tide of the voices roaring in his mind. It had to be bad for this many to be babbling at once. He sank to his knees, his legs weakening as he fought to remain present. The voices fed the fear, which only made the voices louder.

“Michel-Leon!” Régine cried, her fingers digging into his shoulders. “Stay with me. Remember the song.”

He tried to concentrate on her voice, tried to focus his eyes on any point to ground him as the screaming began. Then Michel-Leon lost the battle and the voices swarmed over him. The surrounding landscape disappeared as Michel-Leon saw nothing but gray. The gray of nothingness. The gray of smoke and ash. The bitter, fearful remains of fire.

The screaming increased a hundredfold. Screams of pain and terror and with it the most horrid sounds Michel-Leon ever heard, the rending of flesh. He tried to close his eyes and cover his ears, rocking back and forth, but it never worked. He had no eyes and ears in this other realm.

“Metz. Metz. They overwhelmed us. The wings blotted out the sky. All the chevaliers perished.”

“In Angers, hundreds disappeared even before the swarm hatched. Hundreds. They all walked into the mists never to be seen again.”

“One in ten died in Lyon.”

More and more testimonies came as the splintered memories of past chevaliers came forward. Figures appeared out of the mists, and Michel-Leon concentrated on one. That was the trick. Try to listen to them all and it would overwhelm any soul. Pick one voice, one story to hear, and pray to the Almighty he picked the right one.

The figure solidified into a large man missing an arm with half his face ripped away. “Don’t repeat my mistakes. Evacuate the city. Get them all out before it’s too late.”

“Sweet Saint Jeanne, what happened?” Michel-Leon asked, reaching out to grasp the man’s shoulders. “What happened with the mists and the swarm? What does the light in the sky portend? What’s coming?”

He made a mistake, asked too many questions as the ancestors rushed to answer and tell their tale. The voices rose to a crescendo again, threatening to tear away his control, and the figure in front of him dissolved back into the gray. Michel-Leon reached in vain for him. “Come back. I need to know.”

More and more of the figures surrounded him, all trying to talk at once, and the screaming wouldn’t stop. He caught glimpses of hideous injuries, a promise of his own eventual fate, as the figures before him flickered in and out of sight. Every time he tried to focus on one, the rest hounded him more.

Michel-Leon concentrated on a spot over their shoulders, an unseeing spot in the distance and sang under his breath, paying attention to each word as if it were a lifeline. “Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, dormez-vous…” If he couldn’t make sense out of them, he had to turn to the histories he was painstakingly compiling. The voices tried to drown him out, but Michel-Leon sang louder. “Sonnez les matines…”

Strong hands gripped his shoulders, shaking him, and a loved voice returned him to reality. “Come back, Michie. Don’t make me tell my grandpère I failed you. I’d never leave the kitchen again until I have littles of my own.”

Michel-Leon focused on the familiar heart-shaped face before him with its stricken expression. Sense and memory returned. Régine. He grasped her arms. “We need to get back home. Trouble is coming. Trouble on wings.”