Alana brought the sword close to her again. She turned her head from the light. Alana pushed Donna’s hair to one side, and saw the mark tattooed into her scalp.

A circle and a slash. She’d seen this too many times now.

“You made an offering,” Alana said. It wasn’t a question. “But when you call these things, they don’t always do what you expect.”

Donna didn’t reply. She checked Donna’s arm, which was mangled from the elbow down, slashed open to the bone where the goblin had tagged her with its claws. There were tiny black spheres nestled in the fibers of her muscle.

She was infected.

“It was supposed to take the kids, wasn’t it?” Alana asked.

Donna mumbled something.

“What?”

“I said, only one,” Donna hissed.

“Gods,” Alana muttered. There were people making deals with the Other Side. Inevitably, it went wrong, and she had to deal with the consequences. But it always left her with this problem. She knew how to handle monsters. She wasn’t sure what to do about these alleged humans.

Alana’s sword began to flash like a strobe, filling the chamber with light. In the split-seconds that followed, she could see all of the cave, all the way to its edges. There were bones from animals and people, some with scraps of fur and flesh still hanging from them.

Then the goblin was on her, eyes red with hunger and rage.

Alana thought, Shit.

It was shorter than Alana, but longer-limbed, its arms and legs radiating out from its little body, covered in hide and twisted muscle. Its face was a leering parody of human features, stretched wide over distorted bones, pulled back from sharp, jagged teeth.

And God, did it reek.

It was tangled with her, too close for her to use her sword. She dropped her weapon, used both hands to defend herself from its claws and teeth.

She was on her back, with the goblin on top. It went for her throat, jaws clacking shut on empty air as she held it away. It spat and snarled. She had it by both arms. It would not let her up.

Alana began to pull.

It seemed to realize what was happening. The goblin screamed almost like a person, loud enough to hurt her ears.

With a wet slick pop, she tore its arms clean out of its sockets. She closed her eyes for a split-second as jets of black fluid and gore spattered the walls of the cave.

The stink was almost unbearable now. She tried to breathe through her mouth.

The goblin fell to the cavern floor. It was done, but it was too stubborn, too simple to realize it yet.

Alana picked up her sword again, and swung. Its head hit the floor. The rest of its body finally got the hint and died a second later.

She turned back to Donna Peterson. Donna looked scared.