The back door to the Jeep opened, and the ogre squeezed through the much-too-small door. It didn’t look like he’d make it out, but then he got both feet on the sidewalk and straightened to his full height. The Jeep rocked after being relieved of so much weight, creaking. With her arms folded, Cheyenne looked up at the huge gray face and nodded. The ogre stared blankly at her and didn’t look away when he lifted one meaty gray hand toward Rhynehart, who’d already taken off down the flagstone walkway toward the bungalow.
When she didn’t move, the ogre snarled at her, his bright-yellow eyes flashing.
“Hey, if you bash my head in out here, you’ll be short a drow halfling to do more than half the work once we get inside.”
“This isn’t a meet-and-greet, rookie,” Rhynehart called from up ahead, his voice oddly flat across the few yards between them. “Let’s go.”
After another glare into the ogre’s yellow stare, Cheyenne rolled her eyes and headed after Rhynehart down the walkway. She kept her focus trained on the sound of the big guy’s lumbering footsteps behind her, just in case he made any sudden moves.
The human FRoE agent made it to the bungalow’s front porch first and waited for Cheyenne and the ogre to catch up. Rhynehart’s hand rested on the fell pistol holstered at his hip, but he hadn’t drawn it, and it didn’t look like he was going to anytime soon.
Cheyenne reached him on the porch and stepped aside when he nodded for her to move away from the door. “So, I don’t get a run-down of what we’re trying to do this time?”
“Shut up.” Rhynehart still wouldn’t meet her gaze but intently watched the ogre, dressed in the black fatigues, lumbering with surprising speed down the walkway toward them. The big guy had to duck under the overhanging gutter above the porch, then he straightened again and stood in front of the door. Staring at the olive-green siding of the house, Rhynehart leaned toward Cheyenne and whispered, “Do that X-ray vision thing, huh?”
“Who are you looking for in there?”
“I didn’t bring you here to answer your goddamn questions, halfling,” he hissed, keeping his voice just barely at whisper volume. “Just do the damn thing and tell me what you see.”
The halfling lifted both hands in surrender and dipped her head toward him.
She did what Rhynehart had asked—or demanded—of her and took a step closer to the house’s outer wall. She closed her eyes, pressed her hand against the siding, and took a deep breath. Slipping into the focus she needed to use this kind of drow sight was remarkably quick and easy for how suspicious she was of this whole mission. And at first, that suspicion flared with a little more urgency, because it seemed like Rhynehart had brought her to an empty house.
Then she saw a shape moving around slowly at the very back of the house in what must have been the kitchen. The outline of this magical, whoever they were, was bright blue, so she knew to expect a goblin on the other side of the door. The halfling waited a few more seconds, searched through the house for any other movements, then whispered, “Just one goblin in there. That’s it.”
“Okay.”
Cheyenne opened her eyes to see Rhynehart pull out a cell phone, and he looked at her with a scowl.
“I didn’t tell you to stop. Do it again and tell me when that goblin is right in front of the door. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it.” She frowned at him but did what he wanted. Cheyenne closed her eyes and brought her drow sight back up. There was the blue outline, moving at the back of the house. It moved to the right, paused, then turned around and went left across the room. After another pause, the blue silhouette went to the far-left side of the house and started walking up toward the front. “Okay. They’re coming up from the back.”
“I don’t need a play-by-play, halfling. Just tell me when she’s at the door.”
Cheyenne nodded with her eyes closed, watching the aura of the goblin grow larger and closer with every second. “Okay, now.”
Only after she’d whispered the words did it occur to her that Rhynehart had said “she.” He obviously knew the goblin they’d come here to deal with today and wouldn’t tell his half-drow rookie a goddamn thing about it.
Before she opened her eyes, there was a grunt and the loud crack and squeal of splintering wood, then the goblin on the other side of the door screamed.
“What the hell?”
The ogre who’d bashed in the front door with one kick ducked under the frame and stomped into the house, unaffected by the goblin woman’s terrified shrieks.
“Rhynehart,” Cheyenne hissed. “What are you doing?”
He ignored her, his jaw firmly set as he stormed in after the other FRoE operative with his hand firmly on the grip of his fell pistol.
Cheyenne almost couldn’t believe it. They were kicking a door down and storming in—Rhynehart, an ogre, and a drow halfling—for one goblin woman who couldn’t fake that kind of terror if her life depended on it.
No way this goblin was worse than Q’orr.
“Shit.” The halfling clenched her fists and followed the FRoE operatives into the terrified magical’s house since she had no other choice.
Chapter Ninety
The goblin woman apparently wasn’t capable of much more than screaming and blubbering. Most of it wasn’t coherent, but the occasional, “What do you want?” and “Who are you?” broke through above her startled gasps and the clatter of knick-knacks crashing to the floor as the ogre barreled through the house after her. In less than two minutes, the huge magical had pushed her into one of the dining-room chairs he’d whipped out from under the table. Rhynehart had somehow gotten hold of the thick decorative rope hanging from one end of the curtains over the dining-room window. Whether he’d cut the thing off or just ripped it
