Chapter 5 Goblin for Punishment

I would love to blame the Goblin blood, the fairy magic, for my mistakes. I would love to. Unfortunately, when I described what happened to my mom and dad while I was getting my instructions from mom about to what accounts and names I was to deposit what sized installments of my cash to start the laundry rolling, and while she was setting us a legitimate real estate company to buy and manage the building I had taken over for my, well actually Sugar’s employees, and my protectees, mom translated my report in to the short form when dad started to protest.

“But Jareth, you had a plan, low signature lurker, the fly on the wall, the face on the scene with fingers in all the little pies the big boys can’t be bothered with. You were supposed to worm yourself into the background so that everyone knew you so well as unimportant and unthreatening that you could dance naked through a mob moot and nobody would notice!” Dad ranted, and he had a point. That had been the plan.

Mom cut to the heart of it. “Oh give it a rest honey. You two had a plan, then Jareth had a moment, probably with a spectacular entrance out of Princess Bride or one of his terrible cartoons.”

I winced. She was not wrong. Technically, me being a changeling, we shared no blood. However the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. That woman shaped me, and she even thought my ears were cute. The fact that she could picture all the cringe scenes I am not telling her about with perfect accuracy should depress me, but my inner goblin knows no shame, so she and I bear matching grins.

“Okay, the building is set up, you can start letting leases today. If you keep the listed rent at what I have listed, and only collect the nominal you said you were going to take from your um, staff, then that will just be another layer of your laundry. Plus the taxes paid on the building and on the rental income will give your own identity some depth for the IRS to cover your casual spending. Best hold off on any more large asset forfeitures for another week until I have all the channels up and running, then we can take easily as much a week if need be.” My mom, the forensic accountant could apparently launder money better than the mob, as long as it was for her son the superhero.

Then she went full mom on me without warning. “You should find some nice superhero friends. You are in a new place, and you are having to lie to almost everyone you know about what you are doing and who you are. It isn’t healthy. You need to find some people in the same positions and make friends.”

I facepalmed. “Mom, I killed 43 people last night, rescued about a dozen trafficked children, and became the protector for a bunch of street entrenched sex workers. This isn’t middle school.”

Mom looked at me seriously. “Exactly. In middle school you couldn’t have killed half so many people, but you can now. You might be able to make friends. You made friends in the army. I think you just need to find people with the same sort of (vague hand waving motions at my physical and neural oddities) issues as you do.”

I sighed. “I’ll get right on it.” There was no arguing with her. She took last night’s body count as a sign I was ready to become a fully functional social being. I know fairy glamour, but I have no idea what magic coats the goggles of mom.

The building I took after was Tony the Pimps. Ownership wasn’t hidden half as well as he thought, so getting it transferred to me actually cost me only a bit of his money. I had spend the day moving people in. How do you use your fantastic super strength and speed? Moving hookers and joy boys into medium luxury apartments. By the time night rolled around, I was ready to hit the streets. The problem is, what with the trouble I stirred up, my Nick Condon ID wasn’t one I wanted associated with the screaming, blood, and firefights that typified last night. Tonight I was simply prowling the streets to make sure no one from outside the neighborhood thought the girls and boys were up for grabs with Tony out of the picture, or that our neighborhood was a safe place to start trouble. Tonight, I would patrol in full goblin king rig. The problem is, I don’t actually have a superhero outfit. I mean, I meant to work up to it, so now I am limited to what is in Tony the Pimps closet.

I didn’t do bad. I have a loose silk shirt with puffy sleeves that opens down the front to expose a lot of chest. When I track down some useful body armour, I will be able to put whatever I want under this. I don’t know how bulletproof I am, but that is not something I want to test with my little goblin ass swinging in the wind. Armour is my next purchase, but I need something that matches my specs, something stronger than normal people can carry. All the superheroes and supervillains have it, but you can’t just get it on Amazon. You have to know people. I have a better chance to get a visa to Latevaria and get a set of Dr Doom undies than spec what I want from an above board dealer, and even giving the specs of what I need would attract too much law enforcement interest. No, I needed to network.

Under the purple silk shirt came the black leather pants and my own jump boots. I looked bad ass. I turned to look at Sugar and Tomas for their opinion.

“You look like a gay pirate.” Said sugar giving me an unimpressed stare.

“You totally do.” Said Tomas, nodding his head like he just passed judgement on an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Goblin.

I forced a smile, and slipped past them with a snarl. “Well I like it.” I had just pushed between them to go teach New York the meaning of fear when I squealed like a startled piglet and jumped about half a foot as someone pinched my ass, hard.

“Tomas!” Sugar yelled, slapping the skinny little joy-boy playfully.

“What?” Tomas asked, unembarrassed. “I LOVE gay pirates.” He made the “call me” hand gesture and blew me a kiss. I just knew other superheroes didn’t have to put up with this. Maybe not even supervillains. This is what comes from deviating from the plan. Bad goblin, no pie.

I scared a few John’s who looked like they didn’t feel like taking no for an answer. I broke up what had to be the lamest attempt at a shoot out in American history and helped a little old Filipino lady push a gremlin with a bad gas gauge to the nearest station so she could fill “the lying bastard” up. I was beginning to wonder if the rumours of the exciting life of superheroes in New York was overrated.

I was using my glamour in “don’t notice me” mode, which allows me to ghost along in the shadows. You won’t notice me. It works even better on cameras. They don’t notice me, I am sort of a blur to them, and none of their motion sensors work. This has some funny problems in motion sensor controlled bathroom lighting, but that is my issue and not part of the story. One of the depressing things about New York, about any city I have been to honestly, is that I am far from the only invisible presence on the street. The number of street people is heart breaking. There isn’t really much I can do about it, besides callously finding a few of them who are damaged enough to be street entrenched but functional enough to be useful and make them my eyes in return for a little food, money and the circle of thorns tattoo that tells lower level predators that this one is untouchable.

What is worst, is a lot of these people are vets like me. One of the things you don’t think about when you are young and invincible storming the gates of hell for your country, is that hell burns, and once you are burned out, thanking you for your service segues quickly into take your house because while you were away fighting your job was being downsized. People who were the definition of professionalism, of competence, and leadership right up until their body couldn’t do the mission any more came home to find out they didn’t fit and ended up on the street. When my psych evals came back better after my first tours, that should have set off alarm bells. Combat eats people, the fact it felt like coming home makes me a monster. Most people who do superhuman things pay in good coin for breaking human limits. When they get back home, they break.

I was passing one of the homeless camps, ghosting so no one would notice me, when one thin bearded Hispanic guy in a mix of surplus kept tracking me with his eyes, kept moving his body to keep me centered. No one could see me. I put everything I had into my glamour, and there is no way, in the shadows, he could possibly see me. A knife came up in his hand. “What the fuck are you? Alien?”

My heart stopped. Not that he could see me. I mean, outliers exist, people far enough beyond the norm through some form of training, either mystic or combat, that the veil doesn’t really blind them. No it was the voice.

“Sgt Morales?” I asked. The dude ran a PRT, Provincial Reconstruction Team, that I was attached to in Afghanistan. We really did do our best to give a whole generation of them a chance at a better world. Then we left and the assholes took it away, but for a generation it was real, and guys like Sgt Morales were how it came to be.

“Who the fuck are you?” He said, squaring up, dropping into a stance, ready to stick me to protect his people. Yeah, that was Morales for you. I let my glamour shift to my old face, the face I used to believe was mine.

“Corporal Bowie, 2nd PPCLI, hey Sgt. Long time no see.” I said, stepping forward.

We danced around for about ten minutes of paranoia establishing that a) I was me b) he isn’t seeing things I am green and scaly, plus hella toothy. Then we sat in his shelter in the alley, passing a bottle back and forth.

“So you always an alien?” He asked.

“Goblin, and yeah, it turns out I was. Hell of a surprise. I was a changeling. Basically they stole a human to play elf lord, then when he croaked, the deal for the swap was up, and they came to collect their fake and bring it home. I gave them the hard no, now I’m here.” I said.

He looked at me. “You look like a gay pirate.”

I pounded my head against the brick wall as I waited for my turn with the bottle. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“So, are you the reason they got the ambush set up over on Elm?” Morales asked.

When I looked confused, he told me that a whole lot of La Cosa Nostra type heavies in body armour with hockey bags full of gear had been rolling into the back of the buildings around Elm and 41st. Every building around it had at least ten shooters and serious weapons in it. Then a few minutes ago, a limo pulls up, and drops this suit wearing asshole to sit in front of the café as cool as a cucumber, but if he isn’t mob, and the bait for this trap, Morales would eat his sleeping bag.

Well, if it was a trap, it wasn’t for me. I had seen signs of Spiderman and Daredevil in the last few days, I wonder if one of them was doing a meet? That shouldn’t be a problem. I had seen both of them fight. They had some sort of sixth sense that let them know where their enemies were, so neither one of them would be falling into any sort of an ambush like that. I might go grab a rooftop and watch the festivities, there was no need for a second superhuman to get involved after all.

Being a goblin means you are connected to things that hunt the night. All of nights creatures are connected to the Unseelie, even if they don’t know it. We feel the great predators when they stir. Silent they may be, but the power of their intent warps the night like passing a hand through smoke, it leaves ripples that we can sense. There was a powerful predator moving past right now. Not on the rooftops. On the street.

I couldn’t see. There were just people. I was too new at this, these senses were awesome but they were not really mine yet. I shut my eyes, turned my face to track the predator, then opened my eyes to see a face in profile as it stalked around the corner of Elm and headed towards 41st.

Frank Castle. The Punisher.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! He was not a superhero, well he was, but he wasn’t superhuman. He was squishy human. Flesh and blood, non bullet proof human. The ambush he was headed for would shred a platoon, not just a single guy in a hoodie and combat pants, no visible weapons which means the most he could be packing is a pistol or two, and he is headed to a crossfire of snipers, assault rifles and no shit light machine guns on all four sides, probably with effective cover for their positions. If I left it as it is, the Punisher dies tonight.

I took off down the street, I could cut over on the next block and cut frank off at the park, before he entered the kill box that was waiting for him. I didn’t have time to do anything like a friendly wave off or “hail and well met fellow superhero” heads up. He didn’t know me from Adam, he was on his way to a meet with an organized crime big shot, and expecting a trap. Was is some sort of hostage negotiation? A shakedown? A truce? I don’t know what he thought it was going to be, but without a little goblin style intervention, it was going to be the end of Frank Castle, the Punisher.

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Frank had gone up against the Kingpin, it had cost him, but he had won. He had taken down more thugs than I had swatted mosquitos, and when super powered bad guys were sent to take him out, they got removed from the list of living problems. He was as dangerous as it was possible for a normal human to be. Coming in fast, I would have to deal with those reflexes, the situational awareness of a soldier who had been living in a warzone even more after coming home than when he was deployed. That was fine, I was a superhuman, or at least it was super how inhuman I turned out to be when the shackles of the changeling contract came off, and all the bonus power built up by my other elven half came home. I would take his gun long enough to establish I was friendly and then let him know about the trap. Then it would be safe to give death’s favorite wholesaler back his weapon.

“Punisher, wait. It’s a trap!” I shouted softly as I closed out of the twilight of the park at about sixty kph, the veil of my glamour masking my presence to any eye.

Frank Castle was like the airborne cadre who trained me, about the peak of human lethality. Even with my advantages, those guys remained a threat. Frank was a level above them. He spun, clearing the .45 SOCOM in his big right fist. I dove, my two hands coming together to drive that hand down and out to bring it offline. That is when I noticed how badly I had miscalculated.

When my hands closed on his right wrist, I got a good look at his piece. Unlike the horrible gold plated monstrosities I took from Tony the Pimp, Frank’s .45 SOCOM Heckler and Koch Mk 23 in matte black with underbarrel laser sight and attached silencer was firstly, a work of fucking art, and second, hanging in mid air as I took his wrist to the ground.

Oh shit. Somehow he felt me coming at the last minute and tossed the pistol up when he knew he couldn’t defend the wrist.

Cute feature of the Mk 23, it has an amidexterous safety, which just became important as Frank’s left hand grabbed the pistol in mid air. I tried to turn, but I had both hands on Frank’s wrist, and it doesn’t matter how fast or strong you are in mid air, you have nothing to react against. His left hand closed on that pistol and two freight trains hammered into the back of my skull.

“Fucking monsters? They are sending monsters against me? That won’t be enough. They took Karen, and I’m coming to take her back.” He rumbled. I mean there is such a thing as a gravelly voice, then there is whatever the fuck he is using. I sound disturbing when I speak, he sounds like the gates of Hell swinging open. The Punisher is not media hype. Also, forget what I said. The dude is not normal. He may be biologically human, but that dude is not normal.

He walked off towards an ambush set for him buy people who know what he can do, and I am sitting here dealing with the realization that I am not bullet proof. Just bullet resistant. My skull is intact, but my brain is not doing so good. Either that or the Punisher uses special munitions that summon glowing blue cartoon birdies to fly about my head because while he is walking to his doom, I am stuck here on the ground LOOKING AT THE FUCKING BIRDIES!

Get it together goblin, get your head back in the game.

Frank had reached the intersection, I could see him as he spotted Mr Cashmere Suit mob guy sipping his latte, and move forward into the kill zone.

I was out of time.

I rolled onto my face, and promptly lost the battle with my stomach. Ah, such a waste of truly superior Chinese food. Sorry Yaojing Diner, the fault is in my battered brain, not your battered prawns. I could here the sound of a high caliber sniper rifle round. I was too late.

Then the screaming started, and the mix of various calibers. It sounded like a serious fire fight was developing. They had trapped Punisher in a kill sack, but it wasn’t over yet. Maybe with a little help I could still change the equation from him trapped in their kill sack to them trapped in his.

Now. Get. Up.

I staggered, dry heaved, staggered again.

My mind wasn’t working right, I couldn’t get my thoughts to string together. I was seriously impared, no shape for a fight. If a man doesn’t think in combat, he dies.

But I am not a man. I threw my head back and the laughter started. Mad laughter as I stopped trying to hold my mind together and let it shatter. There wasn’t enough left of Jareth, the me I had thought I was my whole life, left to drive, so I gave myself to the part of me that had always been just a heartbeat beneath the surface, had always been clawing at the edges of my control, threatening to unmake all the work my parents had put into making me a decent human being.

I set the goblin free, and hunted.

I went left, no reason, just that building called to me. I went up the outside of it like a squirrel up a Central Park oak. I went for the window where a long scoped barrel just appeared. I didn’t bother with entry I just reached in, grabbed a face, and hauled him out the window to see how he survived 14 floors without a parachute.

He will have to get back to me on that one, I was already two windows down, where I could hear shouted commands from what was apparently the command center. I went in the window like a cougar into the baby rabbit pen at a petting zoo. Then I began to paint. It is an impressionist work, I am really seeing what I can do with the colour red to explore the themes of screaming. I wonder if Frank would appreciate it? He seemed like an art lover.

Then I was in the halls. My vision didn’t want to work all that well, I lived in a world of shadows and threats. I ran half on the walls, half on the floor, bypassing screaming humanity as beneath my notice, but my claws reaped those who had weapons and seemed to be moving with a purpose. I exited the building at floor twelve, again through a window when I saw a dozen men moving to charge the building where Frank had decided to turn the ambush on the attackers.

I wasn’t anything near human yet, but my mind was starting to clear, and I swear by the moon and the tree that my mouth recovered faster than the rest of me, because I just would not shut up.

“All you boys rushing to get your Punishment? I know the Punisher is hot stuff, but you are making me feel like the ugly stepchild here. Doesn’t anyone want to dance with me?”

Submachine guns in a crowd is a stupid choice. I was among them, between them. I used them like meat shields and they showed the difference between thugs and soldiers as they showed zero trigger discipline and largely executed each other. I think I killed four, but all twelve were dead. I picked up a round in my right thigh, and one stuck over my left shoulderblade. Neither would slow me down.

I was past them and into the building across the way. I could follow Frank’s advance by the gunfire. I am assuming he fired himself dry and was using whatever weapons he picked up along the way because I didn’t pick up the sounds of his suppressed .45 anymore, just a whole lot of 9mm in everything from measured double taps to wild sprays.

I found him holding a corner. It isn’t a situation that should be sustainable, but he held most of a guy in heavy body armour like a shield to kneel behind as he traded shots around both sides of a corner, using the wall on one side, and the meat shield on the other.

He was really distracting them as I was able to tear through the four facing me with complete unconcern as they never took their eyes of Castle as I killed them.

Kick to the back of the knee, then tear out the throat as target one falls backward. Grip two heads and smash them together as I paint the hallway in splattered blood and brains. None of It sticks to me, I am pretty sure that has to do with the elven magic I inherited from my dead other half, as goblins are not at all fashion conscious and love to bathe in bloody bits of things.

The last one turned but his pistol was still blind dumping at Punisher, I guess he really made an impression on these guys. I completed his head turn, and somewhere between 180 and 270 degrees his body went limp and dead.

Give Castle points for cool, he ran his pistol dry at that point and dropped it while giving me a measuring look. He was out of ammo, trapped in a corner, and having seen a no shit goblin he double tapped in the skull just tear through half his enemies he was taking a moment to recalculate the tactical situation rather than letting fear or adrenaline restart our fight.

I will say this again. They guy is not normal.

“Not an enemy, here to help.” I shouted as I raced to the other side of the corner, drawing my right hand pistol, my left hand pistol I lobbed towards Castle, trusting the Punisher to be able to snatch it from midair without thought and point it the right way.

I was full on exposed on my side of the corridor so unloaded my .50 Desert Eagle as fast as the block could cycle. .50 Action Express is a big fast bullet, but it is honestly not so great against body armour. I didn’t know if they were wearing plate carriers or just flack vests so I took soft targets of oportunity. Double tap in the balls, because it may not kill you right away, but two .50 into the hips and kibbly bits will keep you from shooting back until you bleed out. One through the bridge of the nose, because muzzle climb is your friend. One through the left shoulder because the guy was turning away from me and that took his gun offline for Frank.

Him? Well not to feel like an amateur, but he put single rounds through seven heads in the time it took me to put two down and wound a third. His slide locked back as we both scanned the halls. I could tell the only sounds left were people in the rooms huddling in place in fear, and those running away. No remaining enemies.

Frank had the empty Desert Eagle offline, not threatening, and I safed and holstered mine. He looked me in the eye and asked calmly.

“You had something to say to me?” God his voice sounded like a badass ought to. Life was unfair. Mine came off too high to sound anything but disturbing when I got worked up.

“Yeah. The mob has an ambush set up for you at 41st and Elm.” I finished my original, and now outdated, message.

He handed me back my pistol.

I swapped magazines in both for full ones, and holstered them on safe. Frank outfitted himself with a Baretta that seemed to please him and enough magazines to start a book club.

“Thanks, I got that.” He muttered, then nodded at my pistol. “Appreciate the loan, but that looks like it belongs to a pimp.”

Gold plated, pearl handled, they were obsenities, but the round was right for my strength, and they were growing on me.

“Thanks. I got them from a pimp. So, how did they lure you here anyway?” I asked.

Suddenly his face went stone, I mean he isn’t Mr Expressive at the best of times, but his face lost whatever expression it had and replaced it with HARD.

“There is this friend of mine, Karen. She is a reporter. She dug up something that pissed the local mob off, mostly because the politicians they pay off are now pretty much trying to cut ties before they end up doing hard time. They decided to make an example out of her. When I started tracking her down, they gave me the offer, me or her. I guess, they wanted both.”

A damsel in distress. I shit you not, a damsel. I mean, my inner comic geek, my inner superhero, that elven knight reflex that isn’t even mine AND my inner goblin are now on the same page.

“I can get her out.” I said.

Frank looked me up and down. “Nothing personal, but I’m not sure I can afford to be seen with you. You look like a gay pirate.”

I laughed. God, did they put that hashtag on twitter or something? I was getting it from everyone.

“That is the thing. They won’t. I am not a mutant or a super soldier. I am a no shit fairy tale goblin. Cameras don’t see me. Motion sensors ignore me. I can get in and get to your Karen safely. You know if you kick in the door, they are going to put a bullet in her head if you get close. If I go in first, and secure her, when they decide to send someone to finish her off, I will eat them alive.”

“Who the fuck are you, anyway?” He finally asked.

I slumped down to the wall opposite him and just breathed through my headache.

“Just another veteran back from the wars trying to figure shit out. I found out I was sort of adopted, only when fairy does it they call it changeling, and even my parents didn’t know, and I have a couple of extra issues. I go by Nick Condon now.”

I gave him my business card.

“One or two extra issues?” Frank said.

“Maybe three.” I allowed. “Do you know where they have your friend.”

Frank sighed. “Yeah, I got that out of him before the shooting started.”

"Are we going to do this?” I asked.

Frank sighed. “You still look like a gay pirate.”

I took that as a yes.