The temblor sounded like a freight train, rattling and roaring, ripping apart the earth. Without hesitation, Nick sprang in front of me, putting himself between me and whatever force approached.
I somehow remembered to swoop up my backpack, holding it close as if it contained all the treasure in the world. This was the moment I’d waited for, hoped for, the one I’d purposely brought about. But now that I was about to confront the creature who’d stolen my future, I found it hard to take a breath.
Peering around Nick’s broad back, I could just make out the shuddering rows of cenotaphs. A deep tunnel had collapsed between the grave markers, a raw wound that smelled of rich, black earth.
The Gnome King stood at the head of the tunnel.
I recognized him from his iron crown and his formal robes, which looked as if they’d been woven from the gnarled roots of trees. The king came barely to Nick’s waist, but he hoisted an enormous battle axe on his shoulder, a double-edged blade set on a massive oaken shaft with a point sharp enough to shift underground boulders.
Like all gnomes, the king was bald, and his face was deeply wrinkled. His eyes bulged as if he were some type of sightless grub, and he blinked repeatedly under the moonlight. His hands were calloused, and his wrists were thicker than my arms—the better to burrow through the earth that was his home.
Behind the king, a dozen gnome soldiers rose up from the trenches. Each carried a pickax over his shoulder. They rolled forward like a robot army, silent and determined. When they were six feet away from Nick, the king called out, “Company, halt!” The army stopped with flawless precision.
“Witch McDonnell,” the king proclaimed. “Step forward that we may parley.”
Before I could respond, Nick squared his shoulders. “I speak for Ashley McDonnell.”
I pressed between his shoulder blades. I was the one who’d provoked this confrontation. I didn’t need a man to save me from myself.
But Nick didn’t have a chance to back down. The king spoke with all the pride of a primary earth elemental. “The Gnome King speaks to no mere message boy.”
Before Nick could press his point and be cut down by a dozen pickaxes, I stepped out from behind his shadow. “Speak to me, then, Gnome.”
The king swiveled his enormous head, his attention immediately pinned to the backpack I gripped. “You’ve brought the medicaments you promised.”
I clutched the bag closer, as if I truly valued its contents. “I have.”
The king’s eyes gleamed in the starlight. “Show us.”
“What do you offer in trade?”
The soldiers grunted at my defiant words, soft hoots that echoed with derision. Clearly, no one challenged the Gnome King without consequence. I tried not to panic as they shifted their weight, as moonlight gleamed off the filed iron points of their weapons.
But the Gnome King chose to laugh, the sound rumbling from his broad chest like an avalanche. “A fighting spirit! I like that in an enemy.” He snapped his fingers, issuing a wordless command.
Nick stiffened beside me as the foot-soldiers moved. I thought he was going to fight them all at once, even though he carried no visible weapon. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder, a pleading look that I hoped he would understand. I needed him to wait. I needed him to live.
In any case, the soldiers didn’t advance. Instead, the nearest man reached inside his ragged tunic and produced a leather sack. Without expression, he tossed it to the ground, where it landed with a dull metallic clank.
Nick cocked his head, and I nodded once. With all the grace of a feral panther, he swept up the offering. His clever fingers stripped open the laces, and he poured the contents into one palm.
The coins were pale in the moonlight and perfectly round. Their edges were crimped, but no image appeared on either side. I hadn’t checked the Empire’s commodities tables lately, but Nick had to be holding thousands of dollars of moon-minted gold.
“A fair trade?” the Gnome King asked, gloating over my surprise.
“N— Not quite.” I forced myself to stand taller, to speak as if I were the Washington Coven Mother, a witch of consequence throughout the Eastern Empire. “There is something else that I require.”
“You question my generosity, witchling? You dare to demand more?”
The soldiers hooted again. This time the lines did condense, the fighters moving closer.
“What I ask will cost you nothing,” I asserted. I paused until the gnomes’ rustling died away. “I merely wish to know why.”
“Why?” The Gnome King roared the single syllable. His soldiers took another step closer.
Conscious of the recording pen stashed in my hair, I held my ground and raised my chin to demand, “Why do you want the medicines I offer?”
I caught my breath, waiting for his answer. Nick stood beside me, his body so tense I could feel his muscles vibrate. We were poised on the edge of a precipice, balanced over a bottomless chasm on the thinnest of wires.
When the Gnome King answered, his words trickled like scree sliding down a mountain face. “I’m going to sell your drugs. I’m going to send my men to the corners of the Empire. We’ll offer Vitriol to children. Moonflash and oakwater, even Hecate’s Seal… Wherever an imperial seeks to ease pain, we’ll provide the answer. And we’ll be richer than any imperial has ever dreamed.”
“For this, you hired the banshee?” I asked, determined to cement the evidence I craved.
“Who else could retrieve our elixir from beyond your locks?”
It wasn’t the gnomes’ elixir. Empire General had purchased the potion with cold, hard cash. Rather than argue basic points of commerce, though, I dug for more details: “But why send a shuck?”
The Gnome King’s laugh was bitter. “You imperial sawbones were so terrified of a little ivory comb. We figured we’d clear the decks with another hint of death.”
Hellhounds were bred in underground pits. They fed on subterranean fire. Of course, the gnomes had thought to use their cursed dog.
The Gnome King fingered the edge of his battle axe. “And when…” He relished the words enough that he repeated them. “And when your patients are gone and your hospital is closed, I’ll pay a pittance for the building. For the building and the land. And then I’ll buy property beside it and behind it, the entire city block. My gnomes will tunnel beneath the houses like our fathers did of old. We’ll line corridors with diamond and pave our throne room with gold.”
Delusions of grandeur, a clinical part of my brain clicked. Narcissistic personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder. A dozen diagnoses tumbled through my thoughts as I completed a hurried differential.
I considered pointing out that the Empire had debated the fate of the land for years before they opened Empire General. They’d considered a score of competing claims for the building, for the large plot of land. They’d probably even evaluated the Gnome King’s grandiose scheme and found them wanting.
Before I could say anything, the king gestured with his battle axe. “Enough talking,” he said. “You have our gold. Now give us the medicines and be gone.”
As if we’d choreographed the exchange, Nick returned the gold coins to their pouch and passed the treasure over to me. I gave him the backpack, wishing I could warn him that its contents were useless. He hefted it once, twice, and he gave me a questioning glance, but all I could do was nod and command the transfer.
Nick took the backpack and walked toward the Gnome King. Pausing a mere arm’s length away, he lowered the backpack, stopping just short of lobbing it at the elemental’s head.
The king snarled and grabbed the pack. He tore it open, ignoring the zippers any civilized imperial would use. Plunging one hand in, he seized on the first package inside. When he pulled it out to study its contents by moonlight, he spluttered in rage. “Barley!” he shouted, and then he snatched at the other bag. “Corn!” He tossed both grains and the ruined backpack to the ground with a wordless cry.
I heard the soldiers shift, gripping their pickaxes beneath the moonlight. I watched the Gnome King heft his battle axe, turn it end over end until he grasped the broad head between twin sharp-honed blades. I tasted bitter terror across the back of my throat.
Time stopped as the king drew back his arm. I saw what he was doing. I knew what would happen. I understood everything but there was nothing I could do to stop it.
The Gnome King’s mouth opened. Spittle flew with his roar. He shifted his weight, rolled on his feet, and snapped his arm forward to release all the terrible weight of the axe.
Nick stood before him as if mesmerized by the blades. But the blades weren’t the danger. Iron would never harm him, not permanently, not with his magical ability to heal.
But the oak shaft hurtled straight toward Nick’s heart, the perfect wooden stake to execute a vampire.