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Trinity adjusted the black beret she wore to disguise her ears and her baldness, then turned up her collar and fastened her coat closely at her throat. She turned and walked towards the exit with a sway of the hips which would have been grossly exaggerated for a Goblin but looked authentic up here. I was impressed. She could have fooled me into thinking she was an aloof yet stylish human female, a petite and well-dressed woman holding the world at bay behind her sunglasses. "Hi Trinity. How're you doin'?" I stood up and drawled as she drew level with my hiding-place. Her guise as a human disappeared in a flash. Her pose became that of a state of readiness from one of the martial arts - Goblin martial arts, designed for those with sharp teeth and strong fingernails - with claws outstretched and fangs bared. She saw who it was and relaxed - at least, a little. "What the hell are you doing here?" she yelled. Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Have you been following me?" she added in a low growl which conveys more unsettling undertones than the shouting moments earlier. I grinned in response. Always an effective gesture for a Goblin, since my teeth are at least as long and sharp as hers. "Not at all," I replied, "I'm on another job, for another client. One you might recognise, as it happens." I gestured in the direction of Nether, who had silently appeared from his own hiding-place. Trinity swung around, then gasped aloud as she recognised her other brother. "Isn't this nice?" Nether drawled, evidently enjoying the irony of the situation, "A family reunion. Quite touching. We might want to explain ourselves to the natives, mind you." Rosie and Gumshoe had emerged and were now standing in the entrance to the alley. Rosie stood with her mouth open, her head turning from one Goblin to another with an expression of disbelieving astonishment on her face. Gamshack was much more phlegmatic, his expression more one of amusement than bemusement. Still, I doubted either of them had fully understood the words we had used, although I suspect the tone of voice was fairly telling. The Goblin language is widely thought - amongst ignorant humans, at least - to resemble grunts and snarls. A gross misrepresentation. A great deal of the intonation and the subtle emotional markers in our speech is in the upper harmonics, in the registers that the surface-dwellers find difficult to detect. Human languages are extremely blunt and one-dimensional by comparison. Trinity's reaction to her human observers was fascinating. Her martial arts readiness diminished noticeably and she was clearly fighting the instinct - one I have struggled with on occasions - to run and hide in the presence of the surface folk. This is not because humans are individually dangerous - they may be big, but they are slow and noisy too - but because the Goblin race has long felt threatened by the vastly more numerous humans. With commendable swiftness, she managed to recover her composure, noting that neither Nether nor I were in the slightest perturbed by the presence of Gumshoe and Rosie. Even her perpetual wry smirk re-asserted itself. "I take it you know each other, then?" Gumshoe said, making it clear he had picked up something from our exchange. I laughed aloud. "Ladies and Gentlemen," I said in a mockingly formal tone, "May I introduce my little sister Trinity. Sis, this is Miss Rosie o'Chill, present proprietor of Chill's Bar, when Neth has been living these last, oh, eighty years or so. My other client, just at the moment. And Mister Martin Gamshack, Private Investigator, my business partner." Gumshoe nodded affably, while Rosie bobbed a curtsey which would not have looked out of place on a shy eight-year old. It was a thing that would continue to amuse me: Rosie was a woman of middle years who very competently ran a bar full of rough-talking Irishmen with the attitude of a native New Yorker, but nevertheless managed to maintain an almost child-like attitude to many aspects of life. Perhaps that was what endeared her to Nether. "So," I continued in a more serious tone, turning to Trinity, "Now that we are all suitably acquainted, perhaps we can go somewhere just a little more out of sight. Then, you can tell us exactly why you're lurking around in the place where Miss o'Chill's kidnappers released her, not twenty-four hours ago."
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Part 31