"Her who?"
"Rachel Proctor."
Big Paul stopped walking and looked at me. "The department witch," he said.
"That's the one."
The black-and-white unit pulled up to the command post thirty-six long minutes later. A uniform I didn't know got out of the passenger side. Looking in Matthews' direction he said, "Sir, I got a package for Sergeant Markowski."
"That's me." I went over, and he handed me a thick white envelope. "Thanks," I said, and before he had even turned away, I was slitting it open. Inside was a sealed, sandwich-size baggie containing three or four ounces of crystalline white powder. There was also a note from Rachel Proctor, the department's consulting white witch. "No guarantees, but it ought to work. Good luck." She hadn't added "You'll need it." She didn't have to.
Two minutes later, Big Paul and I were back inside the liquor store. I was about twenty feet away from the counter when one of the screechy voices yelled, "Stop! No more close! We cut!"
"I have powder," I said, as calmly as I could. "Have meth. Here. See?" I held up the baggie and let it dangle. One of the goblins stuck his head up for an instant, then disappeared again.
A few seconds later I heard, "Throw powder. Throw here!" The need in that voice was almost palpable.
"One human first," I said. "You made promise. I bring powder, one human let go."
"Throw bag here, or cut humans! Cut bad!"
"You cut humans, no powder. And no car."
More muttered conferring. Then a man crawled out from behind the counter on his hands and knees. He was in his undershirt. Somebody had used one sleeve of a blue-striped outer shirt to bandage his upper left arm. The fabric was soaked with blood, and ding.
"It's all right," I told him. "Stand up, and walk toward us. It's gonna be okay."
The guy stood, but it wasn't easy for him. I guess he was stiff from sitting all that time, or he might've been woozy from blood loss, or both. Early fifties, probably. Tall, skinny, and scared half to death.
I kept my eye on the counter as Paul led the clerk to the door. The uniforms would get him into an ambulance.
"Drug now!" The goblin voice was a scream. "Drug now, or cut woman. Cut tits off! Now!"
"Here!" I said and tossed the baggie underhand. It cleared the counter and disappeared behind it. I felt my guts, already tight, clench a little harder. This was going to be the tricky part.
More mutterings and stirrings from behind the counter. Then I heard sniffing sounds, the kind you make when sucking in air deliberately. There's different ways to ingest meth. It seemed these gobs were snorters.
There was a clock on the wall above the counter. I watched it for two long minutes before calling "Goblins! Goblins, hear me?"
A new sound answered me. It was wordless but had a rising inflection, like somebody asking a question in his sleep.
"Goblins, you let woman go free. Let human go. Let go now."
Thirty-two more seconds crawled across the face of that clock. Then there was a stir behind the counter. A woman stood up slowly, using the counter as leverage. She was a fortyish brunette who had probably known too many Twinkies in her time. "Don't shoot!" she yelled, and threw her hands in the air. "Don't shoot!"
"Nobody's going to shoot you, ma'am. You can put your hands down. Just walk over to me. Easiest thing in the world. Take all the time you want. Just walk over here."
She nervously looked down and to her right. When nobody tried to stop her, she shuffled out from behind the counter and walked unsteadily toward us, her eyes still wide with terror.
Paul put his big arm around the woman's shoulders and led her toward the door. I still kept my eyes on the counter, although the hard part was over now.
I heard the door open behind me, and Big Paul's voice saying, "Come on, move it. Get her out of here."
Then I heard the door close and familiar footsteps coming back.
"All clear," Paul's voice rumbled.
We could have killed both of them, the goblins. Fired through the counter until our guns were empty and the little green bastards were dead or dying. No one in authority would've said "boo" about it.
But we didn't have to do it that way, so we didn't. Killing is never my first choice when taking down a suspect. Well, hardly ever. And if Rachel's spell had worked the way it was supposed to, nobody should have to die.
"Goblins!" I called. "Stand up! Stand up now!"
And it worked. Instead of being told "Blow it out your ass" in Goblin, I saw two furry green heads appear over the counter top. Two sets of black eyes peered at us blearily.
"Goblins! Drop knives. Drop knives. Now! Do it now!"
After a long pause, I heard the metallic clang of something hitting the floor. Then again. The knot in my guts loosened a little.
"Goblins! Come here! Come to me!"
Without even looking at each other, the two creatures slowly came around the counter. I've seen goblins before, and these two looked typical. Four feet tall, more or less. Green fur over black skin. The misshapen heads were standard, but their confused, vague expressions wereprobably due to Rachel's magic, not goblin genetics.
As they shuffled toward us, I reached slowly for the handcuffs on my belt. An amalgam of cold iron and silver, with a binding spell added for good measure, they would hold the greenies secure until they could be put into a special cell. The county jail's got accommodations for all creatures great and small, human and inhuman.
I cuffed one goblin's paws behind his back, while Paul did the other one. As I went through the nearautomatic movements, I thought about the conversation I'd had with Rachel Proctor, once Dispatch had connected me to her phone.
"I need something that looks like meth, smells like it, hell, tastes like it," I told her. "But instead of getting buzzed, I want them made compliant and cooperative."
"So you can tell them what to do."
"Exactly. It's my best chance of getting the hostages out unharmed. The gobs, too, for that matter."
"Why not a simple knockout potion? Aren't you being a little too clever, Sergeant?"