Witch Way Out (Witch Detectives #3) (12 page)

“How about the part where goblins tried to kill me earlier with a Wisp?” I suggested. “How about the part where goblins came after Siobhan?”

“There has been an attack on the girl?” Ulm looked from Kal to Nea. “Does either of you know anything about this?”

I could feel their nervousness at the anger in his voice then. Kal looked like he might say something, but shook his head. Nea did the same.

“We need her alive and safe,” she said. “No one would risk that.”

“True,” Ulm said. “How do you know that it was goblins, Elle?”

“They were wearing hooded tops, trying to keep out of the sun.”

“Or maybe just trying to disguise their identities. The coven would want the girl dead if it heard about the prophecy, I think.”

It would, but as far as I knew, it hadn’t heard anything about it. Besides, the attack on Siobhan hadn’t been magical.

“Are you sure that no goblin did this?” I asked. “Can you prove it?”

“It is hard to be sure of anything. There are factions. Factions within factions.” Ulm shook his head. “Things are getting very complicated Underneath.”

“We shouldn’t have to prove anything to a surface dweller,” Kal said.

I ignored him. Did I believe Ulm? My powers weren’t a lie detector. I had better odds than most people, because I could detect changes in their emotions, but I wasn’t infallible, and the goblin leader wasn’t exactly easy to read.

“Try to make them simpler,” I said. “I won’t let Siobhan get hurt, just because you’re playing politics.”

Kal growled.

Nea shook her head. “You shouldn’t make threats. Ulm is a great leader. He has done more to unite our people than anyone.”

Yes, I could believe that, but was it a good thing? After all, there was the attack on the archaeological site to consider. He hadn’t said anything about that.

“What about the Wisp? Do you know anything about an archaeological dig just outside the city?” I asked.

Ulm spread his hands. “We do our digging below ground, Ms. Chambers. As I’m sure you must have noticed.”

I had noticed. Was there anywhere in the city the goblins didn’t have tunnels? Anywhere that they couldn’t surface if they wanted to?

“I thought Victoria had this bolt hole built,” I said.

Ulm shook his head. “She made use of it. Goblin hands dug the tunnels, the way they always do. Our hands doing her work, like when she killed your mother.”

I hadn’t asked him last time. This time, I knew I couldn’t leave it. “You know what happened to my mother?”

Kal and Nea looked surprised. Nea made to touch Ulm’s shoulder. “This isn’t what we discussed.”

“I am just making conversation with the daughter of an old friend,” Ulm said evenly.

“One who just attacked you. Not to mention the fact that while you’re doing that, you’re stationary.”

Kal chimed in. “Nea is right. We’re too close to the last meeting place. I thought this was to try to persuade her. We can’t keep you safe if you waste time.”

“I know,” Ulm said, “but some things are worth the risk. Check the tunnels if you are worried.”

“Even after…” Nea looked at me.

“Ms. Chambers will not attack me again. Go, both of you.”

It was clearly an order, not a suggestion. Both Kal and Nea headed back into the tunnels they’d come from. I was more interested in the fact that they needed to. What was going on, Underneath?

“As I said,” Ulm said once they were gone, “things are complicated. And I must admit, there are some things I would rather say to you alone. Yes, I know about your mother’s death. I was not there, but I got the details from one of the goblins who played a part.”

“Which goblin?” I asked.

Ulm looked at me steadily. “A dead one. I try for peace, but even I have my limits.” Was there a warning in that? Probably, given what I’d just done. “I told you before that she was talking to me about the well-being of my people. She came Underneath to try to further that. Victoria took her. She drained her magic. She had her goblins hurt her. She threw her in a hole and left her to die. It is one of my many regrets. If I had found that out earlier, perhaps I might have been able to help her. Perhaps the world would be a different place.”

I swallowed, the pain of what he’d just said hard to ignore. “So, Victoria
did
kill her.”

Ulm nodded. “You could see it like that.”

“What other way is there to see it?”

“You could ask how Victoria managed to take her in the first place. Although if you do, I must tell you that it is a question without an answer. I have been trying to find out almost since Annette died, to no avail. Victoria’s inner circle was…difficult to get inside.”

“And now she’s dead,” I said. There were so many things I wanted to ask right then. I wanted to know what Ulm had been doing all the years Victoria had been in charge. I wanted to know more about the details of my mother’s death. Who had decided that she should come Underneath. What they were going to discuss down there. Why Ulm hadn’t been able to get her out from Victoria’s prison. What he meant when he said that the world would be a different place with my mother in it.

I wanted to ask all that, but I didn’t, no matter how hard it was to step away from it. I didn’t ask it, because I could see what the goblin leader was doing.

“You’re trying to distract me,” I said.

Ulm stood there. “I’m trying to talk to you about someone we both miss.”

“You’re trying to distract me,” I repeated. “You only started talking about my mother when I started talking about the archaeological dig. What is it you don’t want me to know?”

Ulm spread his hands. “I have nothing to hide.”

“Like I’m going to believe that. What is it? Did one of your goblins set off the chaos at the dig site? Was Luc behind all those colored lights? Were all the people in strange costumes goblins dressing up? Did one of your goblins leave a Wisp to try to kill me?”

“You think that was us?” Ulm countered.

“Niall says that it’s an old goblin trick.”

“And of course, Victoria’s old ally can be trusted.”

“He’s the man I love.”

Ulm shook his head. “He’s a man who has the knack of conveniently standing beside the most powerful enchantress around. You think you can trust him? You think he won’t betray you?”

Anger flashed through me and I almost,
almost
lashed out. “This is another distraction, isn’t it? You aren’t like the others, are you, Ulm? Kal’s angry about everything, and Nea…well, she’s a good little follower, but you? You’re a politician, avoiding answering the question any way he can.”

“The way you’ve avoided answering the question of which side you belong to?” Ulm shot back.

I ignored that. This wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about what some goblin thought of me, either.

“What happened at the archaeological site, Ulm?” I demanded. “And no evasions this time. Did your goblins try to kill me? Did one of them put a witch girl in the hospital?”

Ulm stared at me. When he spoke again, it was quietly. “I don’t know. You want the truth? I don’t know. I know the incident you’re talking about, just as I know about all the others. The doppelgangers and the thieves and the rest. My people are letting off steam. Going to the surface and doing things they shouldn’t. Yet this time, a witch got hurt, and I don’t know who did it.”

“And that’s so bad?” I asked.

“Haven’t you been paying attention?” he demanded. “Don’t you know how dangerous things are right now? I’m trying to plot a course up to the surface for my people. A safe course. A peaceful course. Yet, one wrong step and everything could fall apart. My people aren’t united. I have prophecies and rumors flying everywhere. One misstep and we could give the coven an excuse to hunt us. We could give Kal and his kind an excuse for the war they really want. I don’t know who hurt this witch, and if I don’t find out, it could be just the kind of issue that sparks a conflagration that consumes us all.”

I saw Ulm then.
Really
saw him. Yes, he had greatness in him. He had charisma and power, yet he was also just one goblin, bent almost double by the weight of the expectations on him.

“Do something for me,” he said.

“I’m not joining your cause.”

“I’m not asking you to. I just want you to find out who hurt this witch. I can’t do it. If I do, it looks like I’m handing over one of my people to the coven. I can’t ask them to come in and do it. You can. Find them. Deal with the problem. Help my people.”

I looked at him for several seconds before I nodded. “I’ll try.”

I headed back up to the Vaults then. There was no point in staying longer. Nothing that Ulm could say that would make things clearer. Not that talking to him ever did make things clearer. Everything he’d said about Siobhan, my mother and the situation buzzed around in my head.

I didn’t know
what
I was going to say to Niall when I got back.

“This is madness, Elle.”

Niall sat opposite me in my offices, where Fergie, Siobhan and Marie were all doing a really bad job of pretending not to listen in from the other side of the room. I didn’t even know what Marie was doing there. I was sure even they could see how unhappy Niall was with my latest adventure. I got his feelings pouring over me in a torrent. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were going to the Vaults? Because you knew I would advise against it?”

That was exactly why I hadn’t told him, and we both knew it. Niall wanted to keep me safe ahead of anything else. I even appreciated the sentiment, most of the time, yet, I still had to do it.

“I didn’t tell you because I was worried you would try to stop me,” I said.

“Which means you know how dangerous it was going to see the goblins like that. I do not like the sound of the goblin who came to fetch you. What if he had been sent to kill you instead?”

That was ludicrous. I could take care of myself. I’d shown that again and again. One goblin wasn’t a threat. Although, thinking back to the moment when Luc had more or less appeared behind me, it was hard to suppress a small shudder at the sense of danger that seemed to accompany him.

“And the rest,” Niall went on. “This leader of the goblins…can you not see how dangerous he is? Being alone with him…”

“Ulm isn’t anywhere near as likely to attack me as Kal is,” I assured him.

“If you believe that, then I worry about you,” Niall said. “Individuals in his position do not get there by being gentle and sweet. Do you really think, if it suited his aims, that he would hesitate to try to kill you?”

Probably not. I already knew that Ulm was manipulative. He’d tried to drive a wedge between me and Niall. He’d tried to distract me from asking about what was going on. I had no doubt that if the situation called for it, he would be prepared to do far more. I also got the sense from him that violence wasn’t what he wanted.

“If Ulm resorts to violence, then that harms the goblins’ chances of coming out into the open,” I said. “He needs to keep things peaceful in order to get what he wants. He even
stopped
the violence when I lashed out and his subordinates tried to fight back.”

“And what if he hadn’t?” Niall asked, reaching out for my hand. “I do not want to lose you, Elle.”

I knew he didn’t, just as I didn’t want to die, but I couldn’t just stand back and do nothing. “I had to let them know not to come after us. That Wisp trap, the attack on Siobhan…”

“Are good reasons why you shouldn’t have gone in alone,” Niall said with obvious exasperation.

“And I needed to find out more about what happened to my mother.”

“And, there it is,” Niall said.

“There
what
is? This is important to me, Niall.”

“Yes. But is it becoming too important?” He looked away and, desperate not to argue about this, I stepped away toward the others. Maybe if I could turn this into an ordinary debriefing, we could both calm down a little.

“I learned a few things down there,” I said to them. They stood quietly, each obviously unwilling to be the first to speak. Niall and I were apparently projecting our mood well. “The goblin leader says that his people weren’t involved in the attempted attack on Siobhan.”

“Do you believe him?” Siobhan asked.

I shrugged. It was impossible to know for certain. “I think he was telling the truth, but even he admitted that he doesn’t know what all the goblins are doing. He as good as admitted that the Wisp attack could have been them. And maybe some other stuff.”

Fergie nodded. “That makes sense. The cases we’ve been taking on…so many potential supernatural events happening at once is unusual. Too unusual to be a coincidence.”

I nodded. “Ulm described it as goblins pushing at their boundaries. They want to come up to the surface, and a few of them are coming up to cause trouble.”

“More than a few,” Siobhan said. “We had three more potential cases come in while you were out.”

Marie looked from her to me. “Is three a lot? I mean, how often do these things come up?”

It was strange hearing her ask that. I had to remind myself that for all that she knew about the supernatural side of things, for all that she was Niall’s assistant and Fergie’s girlfriend, Marie was still only human.