Camille and Morio had joined hands and were taking down a circle of bone-walkers with their death magic. The purple lightning from the circle of power surrounding them crackled, destroying every skeleton it touched as they walked forward, driving the magic in front of them. Delilah was slashing her way through the goblins, her blade singing every time it bit deep into the flesh of one of the creatures.
A glance toward the parking lot announced the arrival of Smoky and Roz. They asked no questions, merely joined Shade and Trillian, who were knee deep in battle, driving their swords through the chaos that spilled out from the portal.
Vanzir was guarding the vortex, attacking as more goblins poured through the opening. He couldn’t prevent them from coming through, but he was making a dent in the incoming tide. And, thank the gods, only a handful of goblins could come through at a time. We were lucky in that regard.
The energy vortex spread between two of the tallest trees like a spider’s web, overshadowing the brilliant green of early-summer leaves. The energy fluctuated enough to signify that it was a rogue portal—not one that had been opened and stabilized when Otherworld decided to reconnect with Earthside. That alone was cause for concern. There were too many rogue portals showing up lately, and we knew why, even if we couldn’t do anything about it right now. And their numbers would only increase until we found a way to stabilize the time-space continuum through which they worked.
I grabbed out my phone and put in a conference call to Iris and Tanne Baum. The Woodland Fae from the Black Forest had been working hand in hand with us over the past few weeks. In December, we had discovered that—if they worked in tandem—Iris and Tanne could shut down rogue portals.
“We’ve got another one.” I gave them directions. Tanne said he would swing by and pick up Iris, and they’d be here in fifteen minutes.
As I returned to the battle, the others were just finishing up the last of the bone-walkers. The goblins were all dead. And Smoky had taken Vanzir’s place, guarding against anything else that might take a notion to emerge from the portal.
“Iris and Tanne are on the way.” I stared at the blood saturating the ground and the field of broken bones. “Anybody call the FH-CSI to send out a cleanup crew?”
“I did.” Delilah shook her head. “How many this time?” She pulled out a notebook and pen.
“Twenty-four goblins and forty-two bone-walkers. The raiding parties are getting bigger.” Camille cast a dark look at the portal. “Either Telazhar has managed to figure out how to find rogue portals or he’s creating new ones. I have no idea how he might be able to do that, but we have to take him out. Eventually, he’s going to figure out how to rip open the portals from the Sub-Realms even without the spirit seals, and then we’re going to have demons coming through instead of goblins.”
Delilah let out a long sigh. “That makes . . .” She stopped to calculate for a moment. “Over two hundred goblins, three hundred bone-walkers, forty-five ogres, and two trolls since this started. A drop in the bucket compared to the thousands under Telazhar’s command, according to Trenyth. And do we even know if he’s opened up rogue portals to other countries over here? Are there goblins overrunning small towns in Norway or Russia that we haven’t heard about, simply because they’re cut off? Camille’s right. We have to kill him.”
Trillian stared somberly at the carnage. “Last we talked to Trenyth, he said Telazhar is bearing down heavily on Ceredream. His armies are pounding at the gates. The City of the East is beleaguered, but luckily they’ve managed to stave off the assault, but you know that’s not going to last unless somebody intervenes. But for now, that gives us an advantage because with most of Telazhar’s resources tied up trying to invade Ceredream, he can’t focus too much on Earthside.”
“Maybe. But I wouldn’t bet on that lasting for long.” I stared at the bleak remains of the goblins and the twitching parts of the bone-walkers. A hand skittered past me on the ground—finger bones clutching at the grass to pull itself along. Without thinking, I stomped on it, hard, crushing the bones. “Why do you think he only sends his recruits during the night?”