Brooke Lee's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The nest was gone, but the noise came back three nights later. Not on the third floor. Below it. Brooke found fresh scratches inside a supply closet on the second floor, and cigar wrappers on the tile, the smell of their nasty smoke lingering in the air. The goblins had dug a new home in the walls. Guests were booked for next week. Brooke had promised the town this hotel would open. She could not open with things chewing through the plaster, breaking things and stealing from the guests. Tia crouched by the closet with her ear to the wall. "They moved," she said. "Deeper. I hear at least four." She pressed the drywall and frowned. "I can't hit what I can't see. Last time the nest was flat. This one has tunnels. I go in blind, I get cornered." Brooke rubbed her eyes under her cat-eye glasses. "So we need a map." "We need eyes inside," Tia said. Moonflower stepped in with a jar and a small glass box. Inside the box, a butterfly turned. Its wings shimmered like stained glass, and pink dust drifted off them. "They love this," she said. "Goblins can't resist the powder. It makes them slow and silly for a while, Release it in the wall. They'll chase it and show you every hole." Brooke didn't like using a creature as bait. But guests were coming. She nodded. "Do it." Tia cut a hand-sized gap in the drywall with her sword. Moonflower opened the box at the edge. The butterfly slipped into the dark, trailing pink. For a moment nothing moved. Then scratching erupted behind the plaster, fast and greedy. She heard a slurring voice, the word “shiiiiitttt” was all she heard. Brooke pressed her palm to the wall and felt it. Little bodies scrambling left, then down, then a hard right toward the corner. She called it out as she felt it. Tia listened and drew lines in her notebook. A branch here. A drop there. A dead end by the pipes. "I have it," Tia said. She tore the wall open along her map. They spilled out slow and dizzy, coated in pink dust. A small one in a baggy jersey stumbled, a gold chain swinging, a cigar still clamped in his teeth. Behind him came a woman goblin with long braids and fur boots, swinging her fists but tripping on her own feet. Tia moved through them. She struck each one on the head before they cleared the closet. The braided one bit her sleeve. Tia pinned her, and it went limp. The scratching stopped. The wall was quiet. Tia stood in the plaster dust, breathing hard, four goblins down at her feet. "Clear," she said. "All of them." Brooke sank against the doorframe. The butterfly fluttered out of the hole and drifted toward the window, wings flashing. Nobody chased it now. Then Brooke looked at the torn wall. Behind the goblin tunnels, the plaster opened into a dark shaft she had never seen on any blueprint. It went straight down, past the first floor, into the ground. Cold air rose out of it. Something below had made that hole first.