Goblin Goo
Time moved differently for us. What would be a minute or two to a human ran more like twenty to thirty minutes to Phil and I as we battled together to overcome so many goblins hoping to sink their claws into us.
With so many of them, neither one of us had time to pair up together. It was a free for all, and Phil’s earlier sarcastic taunt proved a hell of a lot less funny the longer we fought.
I might really get decapitated at this rate.
“It’s close,” Phillip cried out over a downward swing of his blade. “They’re growing in number. The entrance has to be nearby for this many to be here together.”
“Lucky us,” I grumbled, dodging down and throwing a kick into a goblin whose translucent sword nearly reached my throat. “It’s a lot more than twelve now.”
Phillip swooped around in a circle, somehow decapitating three Shadow Goblins, whose spray I barely sidestepped.
He somersaulted and avoided the reach of the burst. With surprising grace and agility, he landed close to where I was crouched and grabbed me around the waist, tugging me out of the path of another swiping weapon.
With his crossbow out and aimed, the other Hunter rapid-fired arrows at several goblins, striking them right between the eyes. All of them were sent flying back to the floor. Not dead, but on the floor was better than trying to cut us to pieces.
The Austrian’s expression was pure joy. Out of the two of us, no surprise, he was having the most fun.
What a stab junkie.
Smirking to himself, Phillip rose and swung an arm out to slice into several more necks, taking nearly four of the creatures down in one move. Goblin heads went rolling. Like the ones before them, their bodies burst into gloppy liquid a second later.
“I love when their heads get a full roll in before they burst. Sort of satisfying, don’t you think?”
“Uh-huh,” I replied, not listening. I was just trying to keep my dinner from making a grand reappearance.
No matter how many times I saw it, the display was beyond vomit-inducing, and my once-thought steel-clad stomach lurched in grossed out horror. I missed a good ol’ fight with a vampire, whose body only burst into ash and didn’t require a power wash after extinguishing it.
Those were the good old days.
In minutes, the area turned into a poor re-enactment of the Spartan 300 war scene, with liquid explosions and ground covered in nothing but goblin goo.
The visual of our war was far less appealing, missing hundreds of gorgeous muscle men in speedos and capes and an overabundance of epically slowed down battle pan-ins.
It definitely didn’t scream ‘heroic two overcoming the odds.’ Instead, it screamed ‘three showers and a small pile of incinerated clothes.’ Maybe the death of a certain sassy heroine too big for her britches.
For sure, I’d never wear these boots again.
The Austrian posed for a second, pretending to be some kind of Prince of Death. He wasn’t, but you had to give the dude props for his limitless enthusiasm. Truth be told, even I wanted to applaud his fighting genius.
Phillip was amazing in a one-on-one stand-off, but fighting a horde the size we did showcased his impressive skill set the most. Guess two-hundred plus years of living would pretty much make anyone a god on the battlefield.
Still, it was no small feat to fight through so many, and definitely not without obtaining some injuries doing it.
His clothes were perfectly in place, nowhere cut or torn, and his skin was immaculate even with black-tar blood spraying every few seconds.
Granted, nothing would scar, but blood may be present.
I wasn’t terribly sure what our regeneration abilities meant for bloodshed.
The only true way to know for sure was to bleed, which I’d be crazy to do on purpose. So, I wouldn’t.
But say whatever you want about the dude, he could fight.
Moonlight rained down on him, casting the Austrian’s bad boy look in a beautiful glow. Standing the way he did, Phillip belonged there, enemies closing in, dark hair blowing in the wind, puckered mouth and tattooed hand blowing me a kiss.
Wait, what? What an asshat.
It was definitely from mocking the bastard Hunter blew that kiss. I was covered in splashes of goo. Very few places were left untouched. That last decapitation put me in the direct path of another liquid explosion, and my face was covered immediately in tar-like muck.
“You okay over there?” the other Hunter asked, knowing perfectly well I wasn’t.
Wiping the black-liquid from my eyes, I coughed and spat out what had gotten into my mouth. “Oh, I’m just over here living the dream, Phil,” I remarked flatly, sinking a blade into the stomach of a nearby goblin. “How the fuck are you still clean?”
Phillip’s lips rose in their usual sexy way. “Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge.”
“You aren’t actually quoting Dodgeball to me right now,” I grumbled but ducked all the same, cutting off the legs of another goblin.
“Does it turn you on?”
“Not even a little bit,” I sassed, finding my smile.
“Too bad,” he remarked while pretending to be disappointed.
I spun around and sliced several goblins close to me with a pair of daggers to clear space. “How could you get sexy from all this carnage?”
Do not ask him that, V. I repeat, do not ask him anything remotely sexual. Your life depends on it.
“How could you not? Suspension Bridge Effect, it’s a thing.”
“No it’s not,” I barked in retort.
“Is too,” Phillip countered, smirking a little too happily in the midst of battle. “Or at the very least, you must be all hot and bothered from watching me look so good.”
“You’re the only one who thinks so.”
But he wasn’t.
I’d never openly admit to finding it ultra-sexy the way he cut down several goblins with a large arc of his sword.
Or how his muscles straining in a downward punch or upwards kick were damn near beautiful and absolutely made my pulse race.
Or how the deadly glint in his eyes just about brought me to my knees in teen girl glee.
I’d definitely never voluntarily mention how one of his mischievous smiles could take my useless breath away.
Not when his head was as large as it already was.
Plus, I couldn’t afford to get distracted. Not by his good-looks. Not by the sensual way he called out to me, even when we were up to our elbows in goblin goo. Not when sex was one illicit comment away from my mind.
Christ. I’m already thinking about it.
Phillip swept his eyes across the growing mass, probably calculating how long it’d be before one of us fell victim to numbers alone. It didn’t show on his face, but I could do the math; the odds were against us.
No matter how many Shadow Goblins we killed, more would instantly take their place. We’d gone far past the initial twelve, and now I couldn’t count on both hands how many we fought and took down.
“Is this one of those high-count goblin communities you were talking about?”
Phillip brushed back his hair, like he was at a photoshoot and not battling a throng of goblin spawn. Then he quickly stabbed his claymore into a goblin that sprouted up behind me.
His body was a hair’s breadth away from mine when he flicked his light eyes over to meet my gaze. “Seems so. If there’s this many outside, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a whole society of them underground.”
“Well, isn’t that special. I thought you said there weren’t usually ones this large left undetected?”
I pivoted, my back resting up against Phillip’s, and hoped I could dispel the uptick in my pulse caused by a certain bad boy. I beheaded a goblin with one hand and sent another to the floor with a powerful kick.
“It’s not often, but it happens,” was all he replied.
Not exactly a comfort, his words.
Burning pain unlike the others struck my stomach, and I was immediately staggered by it. Quickly, I slid down the other Hunter’s back. Phillip instantly pivoted my direction to catch me before imbedding his sword between my attacker’s eyes. Then, with a growl, he lopped its head off.
Luminous eyes dropping to where I held myself, he hastily inspected the area, but it had already healed. “Good.” My partner breathed a grateful sigh. “All healed and fighting fit.”
“Funny,” I complained, no longer in pain but plagued by its memory.
I’d never get used to the agony of being stabbed. Never.
The number of goblins increased exponentially as I recovered from the anguish of being fully impaled, from front to back.
The dynamics of fighting so many was a new thing for me.
I’d never been so outnumbered before, even after facing my fair share of old vamps.
It was a daunting reality when I looked out at nothing but red eyes and fanged mouths.
Forget training. I just want to survive tonight.
“About time they showed up,” my partner commented offhandedly, not the least bit concerned about the massive crowd of goblins closing in on us.
Before I could demand what he meant, several wolves cut paths through the horde and tore out several throats, effectively decapitating each goblin. But all I saw was fur, and I didn’t have to think too hard who the fur might belong to.
Goblins scattered like ants, evading the tactical attack of a hunting pack of wolves the size of Grizzly Bears.
Sounds I’d never heard before left the mouths of the creatures we fought.
It almost sounded like goblins were more afraid of wolves than they were Hunters, and I had to wonder why that was.
But it didn’t matter when I watched the pack work seamlessly together to take down several screeching shadows. I was just glad to see them.
Reinforcements!
Sloan appeared off to the right, spinning a spiked chain in a deadly circle around his body and cutting into all parts of the goblins nearby. The crowd of goblins dispersed to avoid Sloan’s reach, except it put them directly in the path of Kris.