Chapter 6

We were quickly and quietly walking through the sewers when we heard it. It sounded like an earthquake - for safety, I instinctively grabbed the nearest stable object (which happened to be Vernita.) There was a quick, whispered conversation between the girls.

"Shit. What is it?" "Denver's not on a fault line, is it?" "It's got to be her. She's looking for us." "What the fuck IS that?"

The New Queen was my responsibility, but Vernita was carrying her while she was unconscious. She barely even noticed the extra weight. I hadn't been able to keep my eyes off her; this was the reason we'd come. This tiny, delicate creature had cost more than anything else in the entire war mission, risked the lives of our finest warriors. She was fascinating to me - they said Queens were perfect specimens, goblins with human-like intelligence. No, more than human intelligence. Goblins with the collected intelligence of every goblin under their command, the intelligence of every human that had ever been turned into a goblin.

Fascinating.

As the girls speculated on what could be causing the rumble, and I stared at the New Queen, her eyes snapped open. For the first time, I saw a goblin Queen's eyes - she had rich, black pupils, and the this iris that surrounded them was a deep purple. She wasn't at all groggy, and I wondered whether she'd been feigning unconsciousness - and if so, for how long. How much had she heard?

"They come for me!" she cried, causing everyone but me to jump back in shock. Vernita looked as panicked as I'd ever seen her look, and started to flail at the New Queen, securely harnessed to her back. The New Queen had an eerie smile on her face, and as Vernita's hands came towards her, her thin lips curled back, and she bared her teeth. I thought she was going to bite her, but then ... something started to emerge from the New Queen's mouth.

It wasn't her tongue, though that was my first thought - I'd seen her tongue, and it was as deep a purple as her eyes. No, this was something different - it looked like a ... like a black slug of some kind. Whatever it was, it poked out slightly from her mouth, and seemed to look around, before noticing the arm coming straight towards it.

"Vernita!"

I wasn't the only one who had seen the black protrusion; Beatrice's authoritative cry snapped Vernita out of her panic, and her hand stopped before it collided with whatever the fuck was coming out of the New Queen's mouth. Moving as quickly as Whip at her fastest, Beatrice took two steps forwards, unshackled the New Queen from Vernita, and forcibly hurled her towards me. Fortunately her arms and legs were still bound, and I caught her with ease.

The New Queen turned towards me, and her mouth opened in a snarl. The familiar smell of her musk started to fill the air.

"Stand back!" I shouted, simultaneously cursing and thanking my mother for her experiments on me as a younger girl. On one hand, if she hadn't used me as a guinea-pig, I wouldn't be here - I'd be at home, working in a lab, maybe even lucky enough to be chosen for premature breeding. On the other hand, I was spared the fate of every other girl left alive; being able to be turned into a quivering mess with just a whiff of musk, turned into a pathetic slave, begging for the goblin's kiss.

Right now, for instance; any other girl would have been touching herself, and pleading to be touched. They would have been looking deep into the goblin's eyes, meeting its predatory stare, and unable to bring themselves to stop the goblin from stroking them, carressing them, turning them...

I, on the other hand, met the New Queen's stare calmly, cool as a cucumber. The other girls had already pulled out their gas masks - against a swarm of goblins, they had reduced effectiveness, but against a single goblin's musk it would keep them safe.

Whip harnessed the New Queen to me, and we continued on our way. It must have been her tongue, I reasoned. Her tongue had become infected somehow, and that had caused it to go black, and ... observe us.

As we ran, the New Queen stared, clearly not sure what to make of me. It was obvious that she'd never come across someone who wasn't susceptible to her powers. I smiled, enjoying the reaction of the attractive goblin Queen in front of me.

"I'm part of a new breed," I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt.

There was a long pause, as she sized me up. A slow grin spread across her face.

"So am I," she replied, and her grin widened, showing off her teeth, her purple tongue ... and the black slug that I'd seen earlier.And Then There Were Goblins