There was one thing about goblins that both Mark and Anthony could agree on. They were marauders, but when it came to food, their palate was not exquisite.

  That was to say, that their bellies could stomach eating a poisonous snake and not give out so much as a peep.

  Both of them knew that they shouldn’t think that the poison they were making was something that needed to be made by a hag.

  But the one hag who could have brewed them the poison had given them the dust for the rash on the privates, as she had put it. And now the hag was in jail. Probably looking at community service and some volunteer time at a pet shelter.

  A no kill one for maximum punishment.

  “I can pose as her son-in-law,” everyone knew that a hag’s son-in-law would always visit her to demand that she redid the spell on his wife who, without the baked goods her mother would bring her from time to time, started to look more and more like her as time went by.

  “No. It is too obvious,” Anthony countered.

  But for once, he had no ideas.

  No way to make the goblins who had taken over Callaghan’s farmstead to poop their intestines out. And he wasn’t really sure if it was going to be animal cruelty if he did.

  “Why can’t you just swindle them?” It was a perfectly valid question. One which Mark had asked himself more than once.

  “Well, it is one thing to swindle the goblins for teeth. Another to swindle… wait a second!”

  Mark went back to his though about how the hag was going to be volunteering at an animal shelter. Technically, goblins were animals!

  “We will sic the Animal Common Good Volunteers on the goblins!”

  It was too cruel for words.

  A part of Mark, the decent part of him, thought about the feelings of others and about his Karma Points, which were about as negative as an introvert in a social gathering, but that part had to take a backseat.

  Besides, he was sure that the crap that the volunteers would feed the goblins was a better punishment than the Runny Joy.

  “I don’t know. It is too cruel,” Anthony, ever the sunshine, was not as convinced that he should do this. After all, they had some dust, and they could get some mana printed meat for close to nothing to try and get the goblins to see the error of their ways. “Don’t you think that turning them into miners… Miners!”

  It was like a lightning had struck Anthony. The volunteers were going to bathe the goblins and then sent them off to mine in some godforsaken mine at the edge of the world!

  Or, at least, as close to the giant infested mountains as they could get the goblins without having some giant step on them for trespassing.

  “Do you mean that we could get the goblins to mine us the iron?” Mark asked, having glimpsed into the loud exclaim.

  “Yes!” Anthony had never been for or against animal rights. But these goblins had driven a gnome from his mini-farmstead and his mini-farms.

  Had even gone as far as to eat his dwarf pigs, at that!

  If they were to convince the Archdemon Asmodeos that he could trust in their agricultural prowess, they couldn’t have such a farmstead.

  The mark of every great ruler was, after all, to get the most throughout background check on their federates. And Anthony wished for the status of a federate more than anything else.

  “Then we don’t need the volunteers,” Mark said. Why pay those sadists who sold the animals to those who wanted them, when they could just as easily enslave the goblins? “All we need is the head goblin to get a rash on his privates. Tony, how good are you at pretending to curse?”

  Now, if anyone else had said that to Anthony, they would have been cursed for real.

  But Mark was special.

  Or, at least, Anthony thought that Mark held a certain place inside of his heart which was about as cherished as a very posh old vase which had been broken at some point and then mended up with gold.

  They loved each other, bless their double-crossing hearts. But their love was not the important key at that moment.

  No, the main character was a certain Black Widow stand-up comedian who could charm the hats, and flesh from the bones, of pretty much everyone.

  Now, Mark thought to himself, if he could only make Agatha go and start to romance a goblin, that would be great.

  ****

  The orange umbrella was pale yellow, but Mark still found some solace in it.

  He thought that the enchantment was about as sturdy as it could get. After all, it was rumored that if the rain which fell in Forestria touched your skin, you would either turn into a beggar, a goblin, or, worse, a prophet of a brand-new religion which was identical with all the other religions worshiped in the gambling den that was Mirstone.

  Not that worshiping something helped one strike it big. As the saying went: The casino always wins.

  But there was a different layer to that saying. Something that all tooth fairies knew, but didn’t say to anyone out of fear of the business venue drying up:

  The Tooth Fairy always collects.

  Which was easy. Because when one was caught cheating in one of the many houses of fortune along the Fisher’s Port the teeth flew.

  Which had resulted in a lot of fairies taking up gambling. But they knew better than to cheat.

  No. They snitched on their fellow gamblers and ripped the benefits.

  “Are you thinking about gamblers again?” Anthony asked.

  Mark had been snickering for the past two minutes.

  “Sorry,” it was a poor habit of his. The fairy didn’t want to unnerve his best friend and partner in all but name, but that didn’t mean that he would stop.

  After all, therapists fleeced one for all they were worth. He couldn’t afford a therapist with his negative five million karma points. He couldn’t apply to see one with state funds, either.

  “You are a good man, Mark,” Anthony spoke from the heart.

  From the very first time that Mark had buzzed around his head to now, this glorious time when Mark trusted him enough to chuckle in his presence and just space out, Anthony had developed a liking to the man.

  But there was something weighing on Anthony’s soul. The package with the dust he had risked his soul for was still in his pocket. He had to just sprinkle it over Mark, and Mark would become a human.

  But could he do it?

  Rob Mark of his rights?

  To have fairy wings. To swindle goblins and gnomes. To be both kind and evil?

  Anthony wrapped his mana closer to himself, so, that Mark wouldn’t be able to feel it. Wouldn’t be able to know that Anthony was an Archdemon. Albeit, one who never got the official title.

  They finally neared the webs of the Black Widow. Knowing full well that this could be their doom. The smell of muffins and scones painted a picture to them.

  But not the same picture such a scent would have painted had it come from the small and tidy cottage of an aged grandmother.

  For all that Agatha could get the title of grandmother, she was anything but.

  With the holy trinity of measurements on her side, she sported a rounded behind, a black dress-like coloring, and a couple of red eyes which twinkled in the soft evening sunlight.

  She waved at them as soon as they stepped on her web. It was now or never, Anthony thought to himself.

  Because the goblins needed something to scare them. And the only thing which the two had that could scare the goblins was Agatha’s web.

  “Agatha, hello!” Mark took off from Anthony’s shoulder. He did his bow to the spider lady, then he smiled at her and winked. “As pretty as always! I got you the good stuff,” he took out a jar with flies, still buzzing, being kept alive by the small hole on the lid of the jar.

  “Oh, Mark, you rascal,” Agatha waved coyly, as she took the jar. She was too big to bother eating flies, but she still liked to put them in the cocktails of her audience.

  After all, if one of the criminals ended up eating the flies, then she would be able to enjoy the snack of her youth once more!

  “I have come to ask you for something, Agatha,” Mark felt as his palms began to sweat. It was one thing to be part of the staff for Agatha’s performance, but if one was part of the audience, their death was assured!

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Not that there weren’t the occasional survivors.

  People who had laughed from the bottom of their hearts to the performance. People who had thought Agatha so funny, that they had thought that she was the moon and sun.

  But those were few and far between. Of that much, Mark was sure.

  “The only thing I can’t give you is my heart, dear Fairy!” Agatha chuckled as she saw the young Archdemon who was standing by the entrance of her humble adobe.

  Oh, that one was more than simply an Archdemon. A man who wanted to deal with just the Black Market and romance his assigned tooth fairy in silence.

  A man after her own heart.

  “Oh, am I not good enough?” If there was one thing which Mark had learned during his many years collecting teeth from the many criminals that Agatha killed, then it was that if one wanted to romance her, one had to be as indirect as possible.

  Forget about beating around the bush. No, Mark knew from experience that one had to beat around the mountains which were surrounding the valley at the center of which was the forest where the bush grew and birthed blueberries year after year.

  “Mark, I am preparing for a bake off performance,” Agatha told him, as she eyed her oven. Just a bit more, she told herself, and she was going to take out the first batch of muffins.

  It was good that she had made the scones just this morning.

  “So, if you have something to say, do say it quickly, ok?” She asked, as she sniffed the air.

  She didn’t have the best nose around, a nasal infection way back when she had robbed her human half of one of her senses.

  But the hairs on her legs were still sending her signals as to the condition of the banana-chocolate-yogurt muffins that were doomed to be bait, instead of enjoyed by the many guests who Agatha was waiting for.

  Maybe even Brother Rabbit was going to come this time? Oh, that one was a criminal and a half. Agatha didn’t know if the rabbit had really killed Brother Fox, but the officers were still trying to find out if the rabbit had been on the field where Bouquet the Cow had been murdered.

  The farmer, Agatha knew from experience, was not someone who was going to search the forest for the fox. And, besides, Brother Wolf had been found boiled, probably even alive, in a cage-like container just last week.

  That rabbit was eyeing her as well. But she had a carrot cake with his name on it and a nice patch of the webbing from which the rabbit would never be able to escape.

  “I would like to propose something to you. Something noble,” Mark had no idea that he was going to become an accomplice in a plot that was going to bring a homicidal rabbit to justice. Lost in his thoughts as he was. “There are goblins who had taken over Callaghan’s Farmstead. The poor man is just a gnome who is now earning a living in the Black Market, Agatha. Can you imagine? He only had three mini-farms and one food forest to his name. His dwarf pigs are probably eaten by now.”

  Agatha’s eight eyes began to blaze! Goblins!

  They were about as brainless as one could get! If they had eaten the poor gnome’s pigs for true, then she was going to enjoy eating them!

  And sending the leftovers to the St. Tarantula Soup Kitchen down the road. The poor and the destitute would welcome some Goblin Goo.

  “Invite the goblins,” Agatha was already making plans to get some rotten meat from the hunter, who always had a roadkill to share, so that the goblins would have something to chew on while their feet got glued to the webbing. “I will get the meat!”

  Mark nodded, bowed to Agatha once more, and then went back to perch on Anthony’s shoulder. Not thinking much of it as the human just began to walk on the webbing so, as if his boots had never gotten stuck on it.

  ****

  Agatha knew that the best roadkills were collected in the mornings. They were from animals who had marinated in their own sauces the entire night, sometimes even for more than one day, if they were found on the Black Roads.

  The morality behind using something that was already dead vs. Killing something that could breed and raise their young was not lost on her.

  She should be sainted, she should!

  But the darn hunter wasn’t seeing things that way!

  “Look, this is an albino wolf. The pelt is preserved. So, as you can see, I have to first skin it and then sell the pelt. Or there won’t be any money for the annual leaf-watching that the children of the schools are going to!”

  “The children do not need carriages to stare at the leaves!” Agatha protested. Honestly, the town was just an hour’s walk from the outskirts of Mirstone!

  Why did these children need carriages to take them here?

  “Back in my day,” Agatha was unwilling to let the hunter cut in. No, he had to see that the new generation was soft. The soft became gamblers in Mirstone and ended up on her webbing.

  She was thinking of the future, she was!

  God bless her black heart.

  “No, back in your day there was an Archdemon ruling over Mirstone,” which was the truth.

  That old man, Arthur, had been a kind and just man.

  “And things were better,” Agatha cut in, placing a leg near the roadkill. Hoping that Leander, the hunter, was not going to notice.

  “Better? He cut off the hands of the thieves! He had the lairs lashed with barbed whips! He beheaded people for trying to spread their religion by force… you know, I think he was doing a good job, now that I am thinking about it,” Leander blinked.

  Had it really been better back when Mirstone had an Archdemon? Or was he just imagining that it was better? There were no wizards who were hiding behind the fact that they paid their taxes, causing acid rain.

  Or harvesting the roadkills.

  No, there used to be more Code-Crafters back in Arthur’s day. Not to mention that the kindergarten offered coding lessons. In HTML, but it was still a way to give the kids something to do other than picking their noses and then smearing the insides of said noses in the pigtails of their crush.

  “See?” Agatha swiftly got her leg away from the white wolf roadkill. She knew that her arguments could save the day! “Look, how about you come to my performance…?”

  Leander shrunk back. Taking off his metal cross and waving it at Agatha.

  “Begone, demon!”

  Now, Agatha had been called many things. Hag, witch, spider, abomination, but demon?

  “The nerve!” The black widow humanoid spider’s nostrils were flaring. Even if the air that passed through them was so little, it was a wonder that she was still alive.

  “Don’t you know I have feelings as well?” Agatha snarked, as she rounded up on the hunter. “Do you honestly believe that I am just someone who kills criminals and does stand-up comedy?”

  Leander was shaking like a leaf. But he saw opportunity in her anger.

  “What else do you do, then?” He asked. Already turning on his memory pendant. It was a kill or be killed world.

  Or, as it was in this situation, a snitch or be killed world.

  “I deliver some of the criminals to the St. Tarantula Soup Kitchen,” Agatha began to dig her grave. “And I give their teeth to tooth fairies,” and the graves of the fairies too, while she was at it.

  “And not just that, but I sell the clothes of my prey to the Secondhand Store in Mirstone,” which would explain why most of the stuff that was to be found there, Leander mused, smelled of piss and refuse.

  “And I even hold a player for their souls by organizing wild hunts!”

  Leander blinked. Ok, he was way over his head. He had not signed up to have anything to do with someone who could start a wild hunt.

  That spider was a demon.

  He did the math.

  The pelt of the wolf would have netted him one golden coin. It was a crime that such a pristine predator was sold so cheaply after his death, but that was how Forestria was.

  No one cared that this was an alpha, once. That he had been the only wolf in the entire pack who had been allowed to procreate.

  Or the fact that he had died fighting a bear while his pack had run off.

  Much like how the Mirstone Army had run off when the Archdemon Arthur had fought for the cesspit that was the City by the River.

  Leander had a family.

  He needed to make sure that there were bodyguards for the children of the city when they got their yearly dose of nature.

  Agatha was a demon.

  But he was not ready to confront her directly.

  “I am sorry,” he was not. But his mother had always told him that, if he had been more handsome, he could have become an actor.

  One of them starving ones who got only one role, forgot their lines during rehearsal, and then got fired.

  But an actor, nevertheless.

  “Do I get the wolf?” Agatha asked in her best dignified tone. She thought that she had painted the picture of her sainthood to the hunter.

  Not even seeing the slight red blinking of the memory pendant.

  The one thing which was going to doom her.

  “Sure. And I am really sorry,” something in Agatha stirred. Leander had not sounded like he was sorry the first time. Did that mean that she could change his opinion about her?

  She smiled a coy smile.

  He said a prayer to God Almighty in his head.

  The white wolf began his final journey. His noble calling was not to protect the pack anymore. Or to be kind to his lady wife, his partner of about five years.

  No, he was to be chopped up and infested with worms. To become goblin bait.

  His spirit growled as Agatha took him off the butchering table.

  They had not seen the last of him yet!

  ****

  The street was dark, and the rats walked around his feet.

  He was an old inspector, that Barty. He had heard the last snitch attempt of Don Apollo, that darn Archdemon-wannabe who had tried to take over after the Archdemon Arthur had died for the freedom of the City by the River.

  Mirstone was not free.

  It was a cesspit which stank to high heaven. Barty placed another scented cloth to his nose. Trying to get the smell of old socks and rotten sauerkraut out of his nose.

  The wizards paid taxes. There was no one who could dispute that. But that didn’t mean that their experiments were environmentally friendly.

  No.

  They sacrificed lake snails, those larger than life snails which were bred from snails and slimes. A steppingstone for the dungeons, the wizards claimed.

  But Barty knew the truth of the matter.

  The wizards were simply trying to fail the crops. To get their factory-made food on the plates of the good Mirstonians!

  Those things created by mana…

  Those tasteless, bloodless, meat-like haunches made from beans! That cheese which didn’t even know what a cow, a goat, or a sheep was!

  A cheese that had come from almonds!

  Barty shuddered.

  But the worst crime, the inspector thought to himself, was the butter.

  A butter made not from the fat of the milk, but from boiled remains of all the extra fat of all of the factory created “foodstuffs” if one could call them that.

  There was only one holy thing when it came to preparing food. Only one thing which could salvage a breakfast made by a newlywed woman who had been living off from her mother’s cooking until the point she had said yes.

  Butter!

  That holy piece of fat that made everything smell divine. That love letter to baking, which could make even a simple pancake batter into a love song.

  The shops were running out of butter. The wizards were conspiring to get all the butter, and to replace it with their nutty butter.

  Barty wanted to storm them towers.

  He wanted to confiscate all the butter. All the eggs.

  To make real pancakes!

  Let the smell wake up his wife and children. Remind them that it was Sunday, that it was a peace offering, and that they should go out on a walk, so Barty could watch the next episode of Paranormal Encounters in Mirstone instead of Fluffy Teddy Bears in Forestria…

  Finally, the dimly lit alley echoed the sound of human footsteps instead of the pitter-patter of rat ones.

  “Hello, inspector, sir,” the hunter still had his bow and quiver on his back. Had it been any other day, Barty would have fined him for it.

  Mirstone was dangerous even without people going around armed.

  But this man claimed that he had information on Agatha. And Barty could not let this opportunity slip.

  He could always fine him later.

  “Here you go,” Barty took out the one-time pardon document. With the full intention to force the hunter to use it, not to get out of real trouble, but for this very meeting.

  Barty was not called the Doberman for nothing. No one got to break the King’s Peace on his watch!

  Except the wizards, who were stealing eggs and butter, forcing him to watch shows about teddy bears who didn’t even know where north was.

  Always asking the kids. Always with those same silly giggles.

  Only for his dyslexic kids to yell and point at a different direction each and every time. He had even gone so far as to place an arrow with the word “North” where they could see it.

  Darn Martha for caring more about what the neighbors were going to say, than getting the kids some help.

  He shook his head as the hunter took a step back. No, he shouldn’t think about his own problems now.

  He had to be the master of his own emotions.

  “When did you record this?” Barty asked. Tapping his own truth and memory two-in-one pendant.

  “This morning. At eight,” it was eleven now. If Barty wasn’t mistaken, then Agatha was still preparing her act.

  If he could catch her, and everyone who helped her, then the criminals would find their way to jail.

  And from there to the mines! Finally, there would be enough ore to get the old wealth back! The King’s treaty with the giants would finally take effect!

  Mirstone would be free of wizards! Would have enough butter and eggs on the shelves in the shops! Barty would be able to watch Paranormal!

  The teddy bears would become a thing of the past.

  And maybe, just maybe, the neighbors would start to mind their own business, and his wife will finally let him get their children the help they needed.

  So, they would not end up as adults who didn’t know which was their right hand.

  Barty smiled at this bright and hopeful future.

  Leander snuck away. Hoping that this was the end of it all…