A few minutes had passed in Real since I was stabbed. The car was gone. It wasn’t important to me. The Goblin that stabbed me was the problem. I didn’t want to avenge myself, and I didn’t want to kill him, but I suspected that what he wanted all along was to go to a rich person’s house, kill him, and loot his place. Probably live there until he found something better or was forced to run.

I considered just reporting the missing car to the police. While it was easy for a Goblin to evade the police, Goblins that caused a lot of trouble seemed to disappear. If I was going to keep the cover story for Phil Thibodeaux, I probably needed to report him.

I put a gateway down and sped time in an empty Fairyland before taking myself there. Then I went through a gateway to Phil Thibodeaux’s closet in Philadelphia. In my one form that still matched my original appearance, I showered and dressed up in the Sunday-go-to-meeting clothing Thibodeaux wears and put on a mask and gloves. I got a fresh bottle of hand sanitizer and my wallet and looked in the mirror. Then I went back to where the car was stolen and called 911. It disconnected before it rang.

A man’s voice asked, “What’s the emergency?”

I looked around. Off the road and by a chain link fence, A man in a biker’s jacket held a phone and stared at me. He hadn’t there when I first arrived, so he had to be supernatural.

“My car was stolen. I was just going to report it.”

He spit on the ground. “You’re from the other side and look rather young to be driving a car.”

I said, “While this is an interesting conversation, I think I’ll skip the rest of it.”

I took to shadow and found the car where it was stuck in a ditch. The Goblin was using his cell phone as I approached. I had slowed and started concealing my movement in shadow as soon as I spotted the car, but the Goblin had detected me. He took off into shadow. I was debating taking the car to Fairy, calling 911 again, or just ignoring it all when the biker guy appeared.

“This your car?”

I nodded.

He opened the door and looked at the driver’s seat. “You don’t look like you were stabbed.”

I asked, “What do you want?”

He said, “When a Fairy shows up in Real and calls 911, things can spiral out of control pretty fast. I’m just trying to find out what you’re trying to do here in Real.”

I said, “Excuse me.” I went back through gateways to Phil Thibodeaux’s house and buzzed for the attendant.

The voice on the intercom said, “Yes, sir, what can I do for you?”

My phone rang. The caller ID was “Death.”

I answered the phone. The voice was that of the biker guy by the road. “You’re in a warded place. Tightly warded. Don’t hang up. I just want to ask a few questions.”

I said, “Hold for a second.”

With the phone muted, I said to the intercom, “I’m on a phone call. I’ll call you back later.”

I walked to a bedroom and sat on the bed. “Are you stalking me?”

He said, “That’s my job. So, what’s a living Fairy that never even once showed up on our radar suddenly doing calling 911?”

I asked, “What’s a biker I met by the side of the road doing calling a little boy in the middle of the night?”

He asked, “Can we meet at a diner somewhere? I have a feeling this may take a while so I called and got my shift covered.”

I said, “Fine. Where?”

He named a diner. I looked it up on my phone. “I’ll meet you there.”

I slid through shadow and then decided to walk a block after I got close. He appeared beside me. “You were in an expensive place. Well warded.”

I took out my wallet and handed him a card. “You’re pretty good at tracking folk down.”

He said, “I have to be. I’m a Death.”

I said, “My family warned us all not to come home if we ever met one of you.”

He asked, “Let me guess, you’re the kid of a mortal and a woodland Fairy. Not common but it happens.”

I shook my head. “I’m a Goblin.”

He looked at me. “You sure?”

I said, “I got my ears done by an expert. I got tired of having the points trimmed.”

He said, “So what happened?”

I said, “I got in my car and didn’t notice the Goblin in the back seat until he threatened me. He thought I was a wizard and told me to keep driving. I suspect his real plan was to kill me after getting inside my house. Instead he stabbed me in the car, I went to Fairy, and got better. Then I came back and figured I’d let the police deal with the missing car.”

The Death said, “Look, you can hunt him down or avoid him, whatever you have to do. But on the mortal side, you can’t just bring the cops into it.”

I asked, “If I don’t report the car stolen or damaged—”

He said, “You have all sorts of advantages over the mundane. The downside is that if you start to become visible, the walls start to tumble. So, don’t bring the police into it and don’t expect anyone to take care of your issues for you. Stuff happens, you deal with it. Don’t cause issues, don’t cause deaths unless it’s between you and other supernaturals, and then make sure that you don’t leave any obvious clues behind that something happened.”

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We got to the diner where other people could overhear our conversation, so he switched to Fairy speech midway through what he’d been saying.

I asked, “The paranormal can hunt and kill each other?”

He nodded. “It gets them out of the world. Can you imagine trying to stop them? Justice after the fact is an endless witch hunt. Going after people that cursed others didn’t work in the Middle Ages, and it doesn’t work now.”

I asked, “Is it like second grade?”

He looked at me.

I said, “In second grade, the rule was never tattle. If anything, the teachers supported the bullies over the rest of the kids.”

We sat down in a big semi-circular booth far from the other patrons, and a waitress took our order.

After she left, the man in the leather jacket said, “Sadly, that’s a good analogy. The teacher learns that her boss, the principal, doesn’t like hearing about it and doesn’t want to hear from parents. The bullies’ parents are most likely bullies themselves, so the teacher ends up just wanting the kids to quietly deal with it all and not get their parents involved.

“Here’s the thing. We Deaths try to keep the supernatural from exerting too much force in Real and send them away after their time is up.”

I asked, “The powerful get to lord it over the weak?”

He said, “There’s the Persephone limit. That keeps the really powerful out of the game.”

I asked, “What’s that?”

He looked at me and squinted. “Really? Well, if you’re too powerful, or at least your presence is, you become an attraction to the paranormal. More powers become possible to you in Real, and when near you, other creatures start being able to use their powers.

“We try to keep the otherworldly powers to the other worlds. If you don’t spend enough time in Real, you start to develop a Fairyland presence. When that happens, you start destabilizing everything, and we can’t have you wandering around in Real. That’s when we Deaths have to show our muscle.”

I said, “Do I report a murderous Goblin to you?”

He shook his head. “As long as he keeps it to the supernatural, we figure it helps keep the numbers down. Supernatural beings killing each other just moves their game to the other side where it belongs. It might not go well for the Goblin, though. After we enjoy our meal, I’m going to have to have a conversation with him.”

I asked, “Just a conversation?”

He said, “There’s an expensive vehicle with bulletproof glass in a ditch with a bloody cut in the driver’s seat. Never seen one like it. Genesis brand. Nice and styling while looking normal. That’s just the sort of thing we don’t like left around. He needs to fix the mess. You might want to save him the work, though, ‘cause the simplest fix would be his setting the car on fire.”

I thought about the various sides of the issue. “Let me get this straight. If I fix it, he walks off and can kill again. If I don’t, the car gets burned.”

The Death shook his head. “He was aiming to kill a wizard, there is no down side to that. As long as he kept it among the paranormal, he’s fine. I still need to make it clear to him that he can’t go around leaving evidence.”

I looked at my reflection in the dark glass. Oddly, now I wanted to look like I had after surgery. “If he doesn’t cover up his work, what do you do?”

“We try to talk you into doing it. If talking doesn’t work, we talk to other folk that like to take care of this sort of thing. You don’t want to meet them. They’re like your Goblin friend except they aren’t just in it for the money.”

I asked, “If I pay for this meal, will it be taken as a bribe?”

He said, “We live on bribes. Taking care of the mess and paying for the meal means you know how to manage yourself in Real. It means that when an issue comes up, we look to the other side for fault. Too many issues come up, then we stop showing preference, but if you go out of your way to smooth things, we take that into account.”

I said, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

I went to the bathroom and changed into me with a backpack full of cash and then changed back while keeping the backpack. I took out a bundle of hundreds and pocketed it. Then I went back and put the backpack under the table and pushed it with my foot over to his side of the booth.

He lifted it up to the seat beside him and opened it. “That’s a serious bribe.”

I asked, “What are my limits, what can I do, and when do I get in trouble?”

He smiled and closed his eyes for a second. Three more men in leather jackets came in the door and walked to the table. I slid over and one of them sat beside me. The man with me scooted over to make room in and pointed at the three men and then himself. “McNair, Monvil, Jewett with two tees and I’m Ketler.”

I said, “Phil Thibodeaux.”

McNair asked, “Did he really ask what his limits where?”

Ketler nodded.

Jewett asked, “We all had to memorize it, but do any of you still remember it?”

The other three shook their heads.

Jewett waved to the waitress, “Whatever they’re having, we’ll have the same.”

McNair said, “And some waffles.”

Monvil said, “I got a bad one. Save my place.” Monvil disappeared.

Jewett said, “No one ever asks the rules. No one. You may be the first ever. We had to memorize a long list, but we have to memorize a lot of things and a lot of it fades over time. First off, if you bring it, you gotta take it home. Basically, any spirits you summon or bring to Real, you are responsible for and you have to take them back to where they belong when you leave Real or twenty-eight days. Any unattended unnatural things you can expect to get taken, destroyed, or dealt with, and you won’t have a say.

“Killing mortals is out. You can con them, but no outright theft. If you take a building to Fairy, you had best have the hole filled and rubble on top of the hole before anyone notices. Plumbing issues, electrical issues, and making things dangerous can get you in real trouble. Don’t take what you don’t own clearly and no landmarks.

“There’s a long list of protected plants you can take seeds from but only half and you have to plant some and it gets complicated. Just buy seeds and plants unless they’re common.”

Monvil appeared back in his seat. “Dark gateways, three of them. The whole crew got whisked to hell. I though it was going to be rough, but the Devils were right on it.”

Jewett said, “God bless the Devils. Where were we?”

McNair said, “You can take all the oil you want as long as you don’t cause sinkholes or earthquakes. Seriously, rob the oil fields dry. We’re trying to save the planet. Coal, as long as you don’t destroy anything above it, is all yours.

“As long as it’s legal and paid for, grain and flour is yours for the taking. Keep fires small and try to limit the damage when you are covering up problems. Our real goal is to try and keep things running smoothly and put off Armageddon.”

Ketler said, “And that’s where it gets complicated. None of us can agree on what prevents Armageddon.”

Monvil said, “My theory is that it’s already happening. Best we can do is slow it.”

The conversation turned into an argument between Jewett and Monvil and continued until Monvil had to disappear again.

Ketler smiled as the waitress started placing our orders in front of us. “Thank you, ma’am.”

We had just started eating when McNair gave a disgruntled side to side look. He picked up his burger and disappeared.

Ketler said, “Now you know what we are about. How do you did get from Fairy and manage to be doing so well in Real?”

I didn’t know how much to stick to my story so I covered my mouth and chewed slowly while thinking. “I inherited a waste management company. We clean up polluted sites and recycle waste. It’s complicated but there are folk in the company that are savvy. I have a few Fairylands.”

They all looked up at me when I said that. I feared I might have said too much, so I put the bundle of hundreds on the table. “Gentlemen, leave a good tip. I just realized that I need to clean up a car stuck in a ditch before it causes any issues. I don’t want to get into any trouble with the powers that be.”