Hours passed by in that clearing, and all of them proved enlightening for Kimmie.
Ollie set up nearly a dozen traps on or near the main path, and Kimmie studied each one like a child watching a magic trick. She learned how to create snare traps that used tension to hook a creature’s foot or arm. Or a spring snare that would catch its prey and string it up, like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. They set up trip wires with small bells, to alert them of the goblin’s location, and hopefully send it tumbling into one of the snares. He showed her a small deadfall trap, which would collapse a heavy object from above once a trigger was activated. They didn’t have time to set up a big enough deadfall for a goblin, but she at least understood the mechanics of making one.
Another trap that was demonstrated in concept but not actually implemented was the spring spear, a particularly deadly device, and dangerous to use if other people might be around. The spring spear was designed to impale its target with a spearpoint attached to a long piece of wood under tension. Almost like a cocked, stationary crossbow. Ollie showed her how to make a small-scale version, suitable for critters the size of a squirrel or rabbit, but he also warned her that it was best saved for life-or-death situations.
For each of the traps, Ollie produced a tiny, keychain Rubik’s Cube, irresistible bait for a lowly greenie. Ollie had asked her if any kids ever wandered through these woods on their way back from the beach. If they saw some of these toys and leaned over to pick them up, they’d be in for a shocking surprise. She told him that people rarely wandered through her land, save for her boarders every so often. The four she had right now had shown no interest in hiking through the hills, though, so they figured the area was safe for at least a night or two.
After the traps were set, the two of them settled into a small clearing roughly equidistant from each of the traps. Ollie had laid them out this way on purpose. No matter what direction the goblin approached from, he’d trip something. Especially if he was drawn to the pungent smell of rhubarb pie that Kimmie had brought from her kitchen.
Kimmie glanced at her watch, having left her phone at the house. It was already 9:45 PM. Over an hour since sunset and they’d heard nothing yet.
“Does my watch mess with magic?” she asked. “It’s electric. It runs on a battery.”
Ollie shook his head. “They’d only hear it if it was right up next to them. Phones are different since they broadcast cell and Wi-Fi signals. Those are harder to miss.”
Kimmie leaned back on the beach towel she’d laid out on the ground, folding her hands behind her head. “You’d think we’d have heard something by now. Even a badger should have hit one of the traps by accident.”
“The tension on the wires is too tight. It would have to be a really fat badger to trip it.”
A woman laughed far to the north, back in the direction of Kimmie’s house. They both perked up and Ollie looked at Kimmie.
“Sounds like Mariah,” Kimmie said. “She might be out on the patio with David, or taking a walk. I forget how close we are to the house.”
Ollie exhaled and leaned back on the towel she’d brought for him. “As long as they don’t come out here.”
She grinned. “Sounds like they’re enjoying the patio.”
“At least someone is enjoying the night.”
Kimmie was taken aback. “You aren’t having fun?”
He flashed her a sly smile. “It could be worse, I guess.”
She gave him a curious look and he turned away, fidgeting with his hands. Was he flirting with her? She debated giving him a hard time about it, then decided to let him off easy. For now. “How much longer do we stay out here?”
“Another hour at the most. If we don’t hear anything by then, he’s not out here.”
He settled in against the tree at his back and stared up at the sky. Kimmie allowed herself a quick glance at his rugged features before looking away. Take away the scraggly beard and the gruff personality and he was very handsome. Not that anything would happen, but she could admit to a small schoolgirl crush on the mysterious bad boy. One she’d had since first seeing his picture a couple months ago. The Goblin King on CoN had been insistent on bringing in one of the Hauk boys, and she had to admit it hadn’t been a terrible idea.
Almost half an hour passed with only occasional small talk. They mostly sat quietly and listened to the sounds of the forest as it came alive around them. An owl hooted in the distance, something scurried through the leaves a few yards away, and bugs made their bug sounds. Her thoughts eventually returned to what Ollie had said earlier, about there being worse things than goblins. He seemed reluctant to follow up on that, so she hadn’t asked, not wanting to ruin their newfound détente. But the more she thought about it, the more she wondered what he might be keeping from her.
Worse things than goblins ended up being a long list. Hobgoblins, trow, kallikantzaros, kol’sku, redcaps, just to name a few. Not to mention creatures summoned by magic. One goblin didn’t scare her, even though it should. The idea that worse than goblins could be wandering through her land, though, made her skin crawl.
She looked at Ollie again, and she wondered if he really knew what killed her aunt and uncle. If he did, would he tell her? She thought about that for a while, and in the end, she decided she wasn’t so sure he would.
“You avoided my question earlier,” Kimmie said. Ollie glanced at her, confused. “You never said if you’ve seen a hobgoblin.”
She watched him replay that earlier conversation in his mind. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “You’ve been holding on to that for a while, huh?”
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She shrugged playfully. “I can’t let you keep all of your secrets.”
He leaned his head back against the tree behind him. “Okay. They’re rare, but I’ve seen a few hobgoblins. One was even a king.”
“A king?” Kimmie’s mouth hung open. “A real goblin king?” He nodded. “And it was a hobgoblin?”
“This one was.” He crossed his arms. “Hobgoblins are bullies, so they tend to be pack leaders. And kings are usually just the strongest pack leader in the area.”
“How many goblins in a pack?”
Ollie shrugged. “It depends on how many are in the area, or how strong the clans are.”
“Ooooh, clans!” She leaned forward and crossed her legs, an eager student. “I read about those. They’re called the…” she paused, thinking back to her research, “the Golak, the Partha, and the Raveen. Right?”
He raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Go on.”
“The Golak are the warriors, the Raveen are the spies, and the Partha are the smart ones.”
“Not bad.” He gave her an impressed nod. “There’s actually dozens of clans these days, but those are the original three, and they’re still the largest, at least back East. Probably the same out here. Those guys are the old guard, and that holds a lot of clout in goblin circles. That’s why all the smaller clans tend to emulate aspects of those original three. They’re not really innovative.”
“Ooooh. Tell me more, Mr. Goblin History professor.”
He shook his head. “I’m not the guy for that. My dad has more giant notebooks full of notes and drawings and stuff than I can count, and all of it contradicts itself. Some say goblins are corrupted versions of dwarves, or elves, or fairies. Or they were created from the ground and the trees by a Norse god named Drauga. That’s what a lot of the goblins themselves tend to believe, but even they don’t know for sure. Ask ten of them where they come from and you might get ten different answers. And that’s only if they aren’t spouting off whatever the current king or their pack leader is making them believe. Although…” he paused for a moment, staring at the ground.
“What?”
“You brought up the original three clans,” he began, before tailing off again.
“Right…?”
“There’s actually four.”
She cocked her head in surprise. “There are?”
“Not everyone knows that.” He looked away, letting his thoughts wander. “When I was younger, maybe around ten or eleven, my dad and I went hunting out in the Appalachias, outside this town called Maybrook. We went down into this old mine shaft, where the locals are hearing distant screams and weird sounds. It was a goblin, of course, and we caught it at the base of an abandoned shaft, way, way deep below ground. Like, so far below ground that the air gets thick, and you can feel the weight of the earth above you.”
He shook his head. “Anyway, we trap it, and as we walk up to it, we can tell by how it’s swaying and chanting and growling that it’s some stupidly savage thing. Even weirder, though, is that it painted itself white from head to toe. And it has crazy yellow eyes with red streaks in them.
“This was back in the days when my dad was a little more studious. He liked to catalogue what he found, trying to find physiological connections, or make cultural observations. He was part pest control, part sociologist in those days. He asks the goblin some questions, and at first it won’t talk. But my dad notices a few things that most people wouldn’t. First, when it painted itself, it used a brush. Not its hands, which most goblins would do. That means it was very deliberate and careful about the whole thing. Very un-goblin-like. Second, this thing has brands on its skin. Now, goblins will do war paint, or tattoos, or even scars. But not brands. Fire ends them, so a goblin messing around with brands is a whole other level of crazy.
“Third, this goblin has stained teeth and its eyes have streaks of red mixed in with the yellow. We never really figured out what was going on with the eyes, but the teeth were stained a reddish color. And my dad figured out that the red was coming from blood. At first I thought it was eating people, but no. My dad knew right away that it was Goblin blood. This thing was eating other goblins.”
Kimmie gasped. “Seriously?”
“So, my dad goes into his spiel, laying out what he knows about it, and the goblin just relaxes and starts blabbing to us. It’s like it wanted to tell us its secrets, and once my dad figured a few of them out, it decided to let us in on everything. And I’ll tell you what, these guys make other goblins look like church choirs doing a bake sale.
“They call themselves the Arunak. They believe in some goblin god we’ve never heard of named Arun, who they believe is the true King of All Goblins. They think they’re supposed to inherit the mantle of ‘favored son’ for this guy, and they go about it by taking out the other clans, who they consider weak. And they do it by becoming a mix of cannibal, vampire, and terrorist. Other goblins hate them. They’re scared to death of them.”
Kimmie scanned her brain for any mention of the name Arunak, but she couldn’t remember ever seeing or hearing the name. “How come no one knows about them?”
“Most of them died out centuries ago. I’ve only ever seen the one, which is good, because they’re scary. Fanatical. But my dad looked into them some more and found some stories and rumors that say they’ve been around for nearly a thousand years.”
Kimmie shuddered. “What happened to the one you caught? The Arunak?”
“We destroyed it. It didn’t even fight us, not really. I think it had already resigned itself to dying. Like its purpose was gone. Or… gone somewhere else.”
Ollie stared off into the distance again, reliving some distant memory. Kimmie found herself wondering how much craziness he’d seen in his life, growing up as the son of a famous goblin hunter. Who took their ten-year-old son down into abandoned mine shafts to hunt goblins? She thought her life was strange.
“Why did they die out?”
He shrugged. “Maybe the other clans knew way back then how messed up these guys were and tried to rectify the problem early on.”
He continued his silent reverie for another few moments, until Kimmie interrupted him.
“What do you think this goblin is?” she asked. “What clan?”
“Do you remember any markings on him? Anything identifiable?”
She shook her head.
“I guess we’ll find out when we catch him. And once we do that, maybe he can lead us to the bigger fish.”
Kimmie’s face brightened as she realized Ollie’s plan. “You think there might be more than one goblin around here.”
“I’m getting that sense,” he nodded thoughtfully. “I would have been on it sooner, too, if you hadn’t hijacked me into going after this little guy.”
“Hijacked?”
“You know you did. You can admit it.”
He gave her a look that nearly melted her knees.
Kimmie looked away, making a show of it as she did. “I admit nothing.”
She caught him smiling at her. She winked, and he got flustered, shifting around on the ground and adjusting his jacket. She was pretty sure she could see his cheeks reddening, even in the dark.
“Anyway,” he said, his serious face taking back over, “I figured going after this one would help me find any others in the area. That’s still the plan, except,” he hesitated, “if he’s out on his own, he might not be much use, anymore. Which means we might be too late to find out what happened to your aunt and uncle.”
Kimmie felt a stab of unease, and whatever feel-good moment she’d had melted away. The idea of capturing a goblin and still not learning how Rob and Belle had died hadn’t even occurred to her. No, she told herself. She’d come too far down this path to let that mystery fade into the ether. Fortunately for her, Ollie was teaching her skills she could use to continue the chase, long after he left. And she was determined to put all of them to good use.