a struck link // christopher lightwood {3}

twenty-nine // Track and field

Above.

Seanan opened her front door and found Gloria on the stoop looking worried.

"What is?" Seanan asked. She managed to bite back the following, What are you doing out in the dark, remembering that as far as they knew the killer was caught and that was no longer a concern.

"Pluto's missing."

Seanan blinked. "Pluto's what?"

"Missing," Gloria repeated. "They went out to retrieve Matthew's flask from the motor wreckage and they haven't come home."

"And you're sure they're not just staying over with Christopher somewhere?"

"I got a . . ." Gloria pauses. "Pluto would say I had a vibe."

"Okay. You just know." Seanan pulls the door further open. "We should probably start with the crash site. I need to go get a coat. Are you coming with me?"

< & >

The crash site was still a disaster. There was no sign of Pluto.

"Careful with the crutches," Seanan said.

"Don't want me to fall?"

"Well, yes, but that's common sense. If Pluto is missing, I'm worried about footprints."

"You mean like these?" Gloria stuck out one of her crutches and gestured at the ground in front of her. There, marked into the sand, were the marks of small, three-toed feet.

"Holler goblins," said Seanan. "Pluto told me that's what their footprints look like."

"So you're saying...the holler goblins took Pluto?"

"That," said Seanan, "or they played witness to it. Maybe both."

< & >

Below.

Pluto woke up sitting with their back against a wall. At least they hadn't been tied down. That was good. They shook their head, trying to clear it, trying to orient themself, and a room full of glowing eyes hoved into view. They were in a cave. Or a burrow. Or something of the sort. And it was full of holler goblins.

The little creatures started forward all at once, babbling in their language too fast for Pluto to translate.

"Hey, can you slow down?" Pluto asked, resigned to the fact that they probably weren't going home any time soon and praying they weren't in for the same fate Dash had faced.

They stopped. They looked at each other. They tried.

And they explained.

It took a lot of explaining.

"So hold up," Pluto said, pausing them. "You're telling me . . . some kind of greater demon did some kind of a magic spell on your land?"

Emphatic affirmatives followed.

"And it's poisoned the land. With demonic energy."

More emphatic affirmatives.

"And you want me to try and cleanse it out."

Nodding. Agreement.

"And you can't do it yourself because...?"

One of the goblins got pushed forward. Clearly some kind of temporary elected representative. Because it poisons us too, it hissed. But you are a Shadowhunter. It won't poison you.

"Yeah, but we train to kill demons. Y'know, the beings themselves, not...I don't know that there's a handbook for...wait a second." Pluto fumbled around behind them and discovered that (thank Raziel) they still had their satchel. They dug into it, found their laptop, and discovered that it wasn't broken and it still had something of a charge. "Please tell me I've got something saved on here that'll help," they muttered, and dug into their little bag of flash drives.