A soft ding rose from the center computer monitor. Persh’al shoved his chair over to study the scrolling symbols and nodded. “Yep. There she is again. Trouble at the unmarked Border, kids. Time to do a little digging.” The troll rubbed his hands together and spun before storming across the warehouse and out the front door. Bright, morning sunlight spilled into the dark room before the door shut again with a bang.
The goblins followed him out, mumbling to each other until Lumil shoved Byrd against the metal door. It opened under his weight, and he laughed before they went back to bickering again.
The halfling stared at her Nightstalker mentor. “You and L’zar. You’re trying to keep the Crown from finding me, aren’t you? She doesn’t want me to finish the trials.”
“We need to go.”
“Is it because I’m his kid or Bianca Summerlin’s?”
“The O’gúl Crown doesn’t give a shit about human politics, kid.”
Cheyenne scoffed. “I’m talking about the human part. Halflings aren’t supposed to start the trials at all, are they?”
Corian met Cheyenne’s gaze and took a deep breath. “A lot of moving parts, Cheyenne.”
“Just tell me. Please.”
“I will.” Nodding, the Nightstalker stepped toward her and leaned in closer to whisper, “You know when.”
Then he walked away from her toward the door.
“I’m ready now, Corian,” she shouted after him, her black fingernails digging into her palms. “You know I am.”
“Not for this.” He stopped to open the door and nodded toward the overgrown parking lot. “But I know a drow halfling who’s ready to take on whatever’s sending alerts to Persh’al’s system every two hours. If you can sucker-punch a Nightstalker, kid, you can handle just about anything.”
Chapter Seventy
“Are we there yet?”
“Seriously, Byrd? You’re over five hundred years old, and you still haven’t quit being the annoying toddler in the back seat?”
Cheyenne Summerlin turned toward the goblins sitting beside her in the back of Persh’al’s SUV, smirking. The goblin woman punched Byrd in the shoulder and rolled her eyes.
Byrd flinched and scowled at Lumil. “I don’t know why we have to drive a fell-damn car to this new portal. We could’ve been there in two seconds instead of two hours.”
“You think I like being stuck next to you for the entire drive? Four hundred years listening to you whine, and I still can’t get rid of you—”
“Shut up.” Persh’al slapped his hands on the steering wheel and grunted. He jerked down the rearview mirror to eye the goblins talking beside Cheyenne, his eyes flicking between the road and the mirror. “Don’t make me come back there and carve you both a new victory scar, huh? It’ll be my mark, not yours.”
“She started it. Ow! What’s wrong with you?” Byrd leaned away from Lumil, his nostrils flaring as he grimaced.
Cheyenne scrunched farther against the door behind Persh’al and stared out the window. If I was stuck with someone for four hundred years, I’d probably end up hitting them too.
“Less than five minutes,” Corian muttered from the passenger seat. Persh’al nodded silently and returned the rearview mirror to its regular position.
“Use your brain, man,” Lumil whispered, though everyone in the SUV could still hear her. “We’re scouting the area, so pay attention.”
“I would if I had my own window.”
“Shit, use mine. You can still see, can’t you?”
Cheyenne rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes with a deep breath as the goblins kept bickering beside her. Just change the conversation.
She looked quickly toward the front of the car. “What are we scouting for?”
Persh’al replied, “There hasn’t been a new Border portal in...huh. I can’t even say how long. Longer than I’ve been watching ‘em, that’s for sure.”
“So, you guys don’t know what we’ll find.” The halfling glanced out the window at the trees passing by on the long dirt road that apparently led to the middle of nowhere.
“Not really.” The troll in the driver’s seat shrugged, then shot Corian a quick glance. “But it’s enough to send up a blaring alarm through my system every two hours, and that’s a good enough reason to take precautions.”
“What kind of system is that?” Cheyenne sat back in her seat and watched the rearview mirror in case he looked into it again. He didn’t.
“The kind I know you can appreciate, kid.” Persh’al smiled, his irritation with the goblins momentarily forgotten. “Built it myself.”
“Okay, cool.” Cheyenne waited for more and kept pressing when he didn’t offer anything else. “But unless a new Border portal opens up with its own wi-fi, I don’t get how you’d see a blip on any kind of system.”
The goblins stopped their fierce whispered spat to turn and look at her. Byrd smirked. Corian stared straight ahead in the passenger seat.
Persh’al’s head tilted from side to side as his proud smile widened. “Well, it’s pretty damn easy when part of that system’s set up to trace high levels of magical activity Earthside. Sends it all back to me.”
Cheyenne blinked. “How the hell does that work?”
“You know, kid, if I had my gear from back home, I’d rip the whole thing apart just to show you how it works.” Persh’al chuckled. “This stuff we’ve got Earthside? Rudimentary at best. I nearly pulled my hair out, trying to get human technology to work with magic.”
“What’s left of your hair,” Lumil muttered. She and Byrd shared a snigger.
“Hey, I shave this thing every other day on purpose.” The troll pointed at his blue scalp covered in orange dots and the huge, spiked, bright-orange mohawk that almost reached the roof of the SUV. “You might wanna consider checking out a barber, Lumil. Looks like a cat used your head for a permanent bed.”
Lumil snorted and waved him off.
The halfling ignored the banter and leaned forward. “I’ve heard things about O’gúl tech.”
“Oh, you have, huh?” Persh’al nodded. “Let me tell ya,
