“It’s hardly good form to vomit on the floor of your host,” the goblin-halfling said with a sigh, as if I had disappointed him deeply.

He held me there, my arms singing with pain, until I was done throwing up, then turned me around to face him. Pulling out another clean handkerchief from his other pocket, he wiped my mouth fussily.

“Really thought you’d be fiercer than that, hen,” he said. “After all the trouble you’ve caused, I find out you’re just another weak female…” He frowned at me, as if assessing me. “But you are a pretty little thing. When we get the go-ahead to begin your treatment, my boys will enjoy you. And it is part of my job to keep my boys’ morale boosted.”

Nodding to himself, he opened the door in front of me then pulled me down the stairs. If I thought I’d been horrified walking through the house, I should have known it could only get worse the farther one descended. Hell is under the earth for a reason, after all.

The first thing that hit me, going down those stairs, was the stench. Vomit, piss, shit, blood, sweat, and fear all battled with one another for supremacy within my nostrils. Layoutwise, it was a typical old-house basement, times about a thousand: with the same low ceilings as my basement in Maine, but this one sprawled out like a rabbit warren in every possible direction. Meanwhile, all I could see around me were cells. Many were empty, but they were so numerous that room was left for dozens of prisoners. Mostly the cells contained females, although I saw a few males here and there. Dirty faces with anguished eyes stared up at me as we passed individual cells, and I realized just how big the operation was here. And how crazy.

They’re suffering a population crisis, yet they’re destroying their own kind like children stepping on anthills. It’s nuts… Which is the point, I guess. Jarl and his cronies are nuts. And if they’ve convinced themselves that they can end the fertility crisis, they must also be able to convince themselves that a few sacrifices now are worth being able to breed freely later.

Plus, I realized, the victims were people like my mother, and Iris, who had given birth to halflings.

The enemy, according to Jarl.

I was led farther and farther back, until we came to another set of low doors. Before pushing through them, we acquired another guard, who followed us with curiosity etched all over his face. He had the same weird bendiness of the dryad maid Elspeth who’d served me at the Compound, and I assumed he was of her faction. When all four of us entered the white-tiled space behind the new doors, we were standing in a much smaller room full of cells. These cells were also much cleaner, with real cots instead of shabby blankets on the floor, and proper toilets and sinks.

Taking me to the first of the cells, the Healer opened the door with a large set of keys and pushed me through. I backed to the far corner as the guard who’d followed tried to enter the cell, as well, his hands at the crotch of his pants. But the goblin-halfling stopped him.

“No, son. Not her; at least not yet. We’ve got plans for that one.”

The guard backed up, casting one last feverish glance over my body before turning to leave the little room. The Healer shook his head as Avery stepped forward.

“Avery, you’re in charge of her for the now. Don’t touch; as I said, she’s not yet for use. Most likely this little one will be bait. She has some powerful friends who have been a burr in our sides these many months. Apparently she’s very valuable to the other side, for some reason, and the chief thinks they’ll do just about anything to get her back. After they’re dead, she can take her place in our experiments.” The healer smiled at me, then Avery. “Let her rest, but don’t forget to give her a follow-up shot this evening. Oh, and remember to organize our other little surprise.”

With that, the Healer clapped Avery on the shoulder, very much like a father sending his favorite son off to play in the homecoming game, before he turned to leave.

“Oh, where are my manners,” he said, pausing mid-stride. “Ta, Miss True. Enjoy your stay here at our humble abode. We’ll take very good care of you, I can assure you.” And with that he smiled at me so pleasantly that I was nearly sick again. This time, when he turned to walk away, he didn’t stop.

Avery stood at my cell door, studying me. His yolk-yellow goblin eyes were impossible to read, and his face was impassive. Not knowing what he was thinking, but assuming it was something foul, I put all my hatred and my pride in the look I sent back at him.

He just kept staring until he, too, walked out of the white-tiled room. Leaving me to sit, shaky-legged, on my cot, wondering what the hell we’d been thinking when Julian and I cooked up our little scheme.

The next hours were hell. I don’t know how long I lay there, staring at the ceiling, but it was a long time. When there was finally a clattering at the main door, I leaped off my cot, ready to face whoever came at me.

It was Avery, his tall, slender goblin frame holding a syringe in one hand and a small plate with a sandwich and an apple in the other. Placing the plate on a small table near the door to the room, he used his now empty hand to retrieve a single-serving bottle of water from his pocket which he also set down on the table. He came toward my cell, syringe in hand, when the door clattered open to reveal the overly eager guard from that afternoon.

“Need help?” the dryad asked Avery, and I saw the goblin frown before he blanked his expression and turned toward his cohort.

“Now, Derek, why would I need help with a little halfling-female?”

The guard blinked.

“Why don’t you go play with someone else. Or better yet, clean out some of the other cages. It’s fucking disgusting out there.”

Derek grunted, looking at the ground.

“Well?” Avery intoned, sounding increasingly miffed.

“Well, he says I’m supposed to watch. Make sure she gets her second dose.”

The goblin before me blinked at the dryad, his face speaking volumes in its coldness.

“Fine. Just… stay out of my way.”

“Yes, sir,” Derek said, shuffling his feet awkwardly.

Avery unlocked the door to my cell, then stepped through, carefully pocketing his syringe as he did so. I knew I had no chance in hell of escaping that place; not with all the guards milling about. But the thought of him giving me that second shot, which was obviously important, terrified me so much that I reacted reflexively. Striking out at Avery, I tried to make a break for it, only to be caught in the viselike grip of the goblin doctor.

“Stay there, Derek,” Avery barked as he used his goblin’s terrific strength to manhandle me to my cot and sit me down. Then he positioned himself so that his back was to the door, turning me so that I had one butt cheek teetering on the cot with my own back to the walled-corner of my cell.

What he did next was entirely unexpected. Leaning down, he placed his scaley green lips against my ear.

“Yell for me,” he whispered. “As you know, it’s supposed to hurt.”

And then he raised the needle to my neck, only to go right past it to squirt the contents of the syringe under my shirt and down my spine. Partly because he’d commanded, and partly because the fluid was cold, I groaned, then added another whimper for safety’s sake.

Then I looked into his yellow eyes, cocking my head inquiringly. He lowered his lips to my ear one more time.

“I want out of this hellhole…” he whispered.

“And you, little halfling, are my Get Out of Jail Free card.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I slept fitfully that evening, and was almost relieved when Avery the goblin came bright and early to give me breakfast and another shot. Just like last night, he squirted this one harmlessly behind me.

“Just don’t use your magic at all,” he repeated sotto voce. “Or the jig is up.”

I nodded, still completely unsure whether to trust this guy. On the one hand, I could understand somebody wanting to get out of this prison, even if he was one of the guards. On the other hand, these people obviously made a hobby out of sadism, so convincing me that I had an ally and then crushing my dreams of freedom might simply be an example from page 198 of their Idiot’s Guide to Torture.

But why risk leaving me my powers? I thought. Then I frowned.

You don’t actually know if your powers have reappeared, because if you use them, you’re screwed. So you have to assume they’re there… because the enemy doctor who is helping you for no obvious reason says they are.

I glared at the doctor kneeling before me, trying to figure out why the hell he would help me, but I couldn’t read anything in those yellow eyes. When he rose to leave, I lay back down on my cot, planning to spend the day in the hypnagogic doze I’d mastered all those years ago when I’d been committed.

It had only been a short time—maybe an hour—when I heard the main door open once again. I liked to think I was ready for whatever they were going to spring on me, but I wasn’t at all ready for what came through that door.

“Iris!” I shouted with a combination of joy and horror: joy to see my friend alive, horror at the condition she was in.

Her once-gorgeous blonde hair was lank and matted; her body emaciated and clad in only a too-short dirty T-shirt. But it was the haunted look in her eyes that almost destroyed me.