Irregulars: Stories by Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Ginn Hale and Astrid Amara Read Online Free PDF Page A

peered ahead at the market like a child approaching an amusement park.
    “My parents used to bring me to this market every weekend,” Gunther said.
    “You grew up in Portland?”
    “No, Oakland. My parents still work as translators for the San Francisco field office, but there’s a portal at Fisherman’s Wharf. There were always a lot of other trans-goblin kids to play with here and my parents could visit with their fellow dissident diaspora. Usually people brought sandwiches. Sometimes potato salad. And every now and then one of the men would surreptitiously share his flask of naphtha.”
    “Replace the naphtha with vodka and it would be exactly like going to a picnic at my grandma’s church,” Keith said, smiling.
    “I’ve never been to a church picnic, but there was a feeling of community here that we didn’t always have in Oakland. Coming to the earthly realm was quite the sacrifice for my parents.”
    Keith glanced at Gunther sideways. “How do you mean?”
    “Well, to make a decision to leave behind the shape of a Luminous One and condemn their only child to wearing the flesh of a homely little human, of course. I retain some goblin characteristics, but there’s really no chance of me finding a nice goblin boy to settle down with while I’ve got this meaty body.” Gunther shook his head. “Just too unappealing.”
    “So that’s what you’re looking for? A nice trans-goblin boy?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Keith regretted them. Why was he showing all his cards and behaving like he had no game whatsoever?
    Gunther stopped, standing as if affixed to the green grass by tent pegs, regarding Keith with a slight, sardonic smile.
    “I thought you said you wanted to keep it professional between us,” he said.
    “You’re right. That was cheap of me,” Keith conceded. “Let’s just get to work.”
    Like many places used for congregation by the extra-human American community, the goblin markets were linked through a series of portals. One could walk into a portal in Portland, step through a door, and emerge in Brooklyn or London or Mexico City. In Keith’s experience, in markets that were open to the human public, like this one, the portals were generally disguised as out-of-order toilet stalls. Any human brave enough to open the stall door would be treated to an illusion so unappealing as to dissuade casual entry.
    Keith knew some Irregular agents who were so comfortable with magic that they used goblin market portals to avoid airline security lines when traveling between the coasts. But being neither a magician nor a mythical creature, Keith had never felt too secure with that sort of travel.
    As they walked across the damp grass toward the rows of small, white pavilions, they passed a line of blue portable toilet stalls. Two displayed signs expressing that they were out of order.
    Keith put on his glasses and noted, with interest, that Gunther did as well. Immediately hidden text all around him was revealed. One port-o-let was marked Fisherman’s Wharf while another read Grand Goblin .
    Hidden signage on stalls sprang into view as well. One table, selling handcrafted glass, advertised that their product was fair trade—made by elves who received a decent living wage.
    “What do elves consider a living wage?” Keith whispered to Gunther.
    Gunther just shrugged. “Their own pair of pants?”
    They moved through the rows of canopies. Keith followed Gunther’s lead, stopping when he stopped, simply listening as his fellow agent softly inquired about the weather and other knuckle-poppingly irrelevant subjects.
    Gunther bought a basket of Rainier cherries from a girl named Agnes, then stood there, munching them in front of her, chatting about rain and the phases of the moon and gardening. Just when Keith thought that Gunther had given up investigating altogether he noticed Agnes’s bike—or more specifically, the Carnivore Circus sticker adhered to it. Even without the glasses