by Karen Lynch
Before long, I was climbing the steps to Lookout Hill with my stomach fluttering in excitement. I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this. Sure, when I was younger, I’d had daydreams of going on a big job with my parents, but I’d never really seen myself following in their footsteps. If they hadn’t gone missing, I’d be out on my job search now and leaving this work to them.
Halfway up the steps, I came to a strip of yellow caution tape and a downed tree blocking my path. I stared at the tree for a long moment, mulling over what to do. Adjusting my backpack straps, I lifted the tape and ducked under it. There were no signs telling me to keep out, so technically I wasn’t breaking any laws, right?
I’d never been up here alone, and the place had a sad, deserted feel without other people around. But the view was amazing. With the trees bare of leaves, I could see across the rooftops of Brooklyn and the lake below me. It was quiet, too. Not quiet like in the country, but the constant sounds of the city were a little muted. I could see why a goblin would want to make his home up here.
Thinking of the goblin reminded me of my purpose for being here, and I hurriedly climbed the last few steps. I stopped at the top and looked around the deserted area. There were some decent sized trees up here, big enough for a goblin to burrow beneath them. He could be in his home now, mere feet from where I stood. Hell, he could be standing in the woods watching me at this moment, and I wouldn’t know it.
That last thought gave me the willies. When I heard a small movement in the trees, I nearly gave myself whiplash jerking my head in that direction. I let out a breath when I caught the glint of sunlight on a tiny pair of wings. Squinting, I made out the shape of a green, four-inch tall pixie perched on the low branch of a tree. Seemingly immune to the cold, the miniature faerie stood and stuck out its tongue at me before flying off.
I smiled to myself as I took off my backpack and unzipped it. I knew lots of stuff about pixies, such as that they lived in colonies and made their homes inside tree trunks, they lived off insects, and their bite was worse than a bee sting. But the only fact I cared about now was that they preferred to live near other tree-dwelling faeries – particularly goblins.
Reaching inside the pack, I withdrew a plastic bag full of Swarovski crystals that glittered like diamonds. I’d found them among my parents’ supplies, and something told me Mom and Dad had bought them for this job. Goblins couldn’t resist jewels, and it didn’t matter if they were diamonds or crystals.
I opened the bag and made a small pile of crystals on the concrete walkway, noting with satisfaction how they sparkled under the bright sunlight. Walking a few yards away, I created a similar pile. I kept going like that until I had used up the whole bag.
That done, I took a pair of metal shackles from the backpack and stuffed them into my coat pocket for quick access. Then I opened a side pocket on the pack and pulled out the little leather pouch of fey dust I’d brought to Teg’s with me. With nothing left for me to do, I sat on the concrete ledge near the top of the stairs and waited.
And waited.
Two hours later, I was freezing my butt off and longing for a steaming mug of hot chocolate. The only visitors I’d had were a squirrel and several pixies that made rude gestures at me from the trees. I hadn’t seen a sign of the goblin, and none of my crystal piles had been disturbed.
So much for my brilliant plan. I shook my head at my audacity, thinking I could do something that an experienced bounty hunting team had failed at. All I’d succeeded in doing was making my butt numb. At least, no one was here to witness my failure.
I started to stand when something caught my eye. Or more like the absence of something. The pile of crystals farthest from me was gone.
I froze as my heart began to thud. Carefully, I opened the pouch and poured a little of the precious fey dust onto my palm.
A breeze rustled some dry leaves on the walkway to my right. I looked that way in time to see another pile of crystals disappear before my eyes.
“Pretty,” rasped a gleeful disembodied voice.
I went to the closest pile of crystals, knowing the goblin would not leave any behind. The moment I reached them, something barely brushed my back, and I felt a sharp, quick tug on my hair. I spun, but it was too late. He was already gone.
Turning back, I swore softly when I saw the empty spot where the crystals had been. A thin reedy laugh floated to me on the air, and I clenched my jaw.
I ran to the next pile, determined not to fall for his tricks this time. He could have snatched up the other unguarded piles of crystals, but I knew in my gut he’d come for this one. He was toying with me.
The air shifted right in front of me. I reacted quickly, throwing the fey dust at him, but he was too fast. All I got for my efforts was a face full of powder and a sneezing fit.
“Silly human,” he taunted, laughing. “No one can catch Tok.”
Eyes watering, I started toward one of the three remaining piles. I was two feet away when a four-foot tall, green faerie with yellow hair and eyes and a long, hooked nose appeared beside it. The goblin flashed me a wide grin as he scooped up the crystals and poured them into a little sack. “Thanks for the pretty baubles.”
“You’re not welcome,” I growled, earning another infuriating chuckle from him as he blinked out of sight again.
I stayed where I was and watched the rest of the crystals disappear into his sack. He didn’t even bother to hide himself now. He knew as well as I that I was no threat to him.
After he’d scooped up the last crystal, Tok faced me and patted the bulging sack with a smirk on his round face. “You more fun than the last two. You come back.”
I scoffed. “Sure. We’ll make s’mores and sing camp songs.”
His eyes narrowed with interest. “What is s’mores?”
“S’mores are –” I stared at the goblin as the seed of an idea took root in my mind. I dismissed it immediately. No way. It would never work.
But…what if it did? What did I have to lose at this point?
“What is s’mores?” Tok repeated. His expression changed to one of annoyance, and he slowly walked toward me. “Why you not speak?”
I smiled. “Forget the s’mores. I have something you’ll like even more.”
“More baubles?” he asked eagerly.
“Better.”
His look said I was clearly out of my mind because nothing was better than the sparkly contents of his sack.
I grinned like someone bursting to tell a big secret. “You want to know what it is?”
“Yes, tell me,” he demanded.
“Okay, here goes.” I inhaled deeply.
And I began to sing.
Chapter 5
For a few seconds, Tok watched me with a puzzled expression, and I began to feel like an idiot. But as the lyrics to Finch’s favorite song filled the air around us, the goblin’s eyes took on a dazed look, and his face went slack. He stood there in a trance, his sack of crystals hanging limply from his hand.
I stared at him in disbelief. It worked. It actually worked.
Tok blinked, and I realized my words were trailing off. I took up the song again, singing loudly enough for anyone within a half-mile radius to hear. The moment I saw the goblin fall back into the trance, I leaped into action.
Still singing, I raced to him, yanking the shackles from my pocket as I went. Carefully, I locked them around his thin wrists, making sure they were snug but not too tight. After checking my work twice to make sure the restraints were secure, I took two steps back and let the song die on my lips.
It took about five seconds for him to come out of the trance and for outrage to replace the blank look in his eyes.
“Trickster!” he screeched. “Wicked human.”
He backed up a step, his brow creased in confusion. Then his eyes widened in horror, and he stared down at the shackles around his wrists. Panicking, he wrenched and twisted the shackles, but his efforts were futile. They were Agency-issue Fae restraints, infused
with enough pure iron to sap a faerie of their magic and strength without harming them.
“Take them off,” he shouted.
“I can’t. I’m sorry.” I pushed away the guilt pricking me. I hated the sight of any creature in a cage or in restraints, but if I was going to follow through with this and become a bounty hunter, I had to be as tough as I’d told Tennin I could be.
Tok let out an ear-piercing shriek that made all the birds in the nearby trees take flight. When that didn’t elicit a reaction from me, he stomped his feet and began to screech like he was being tortured.
I let his tantrum go on for a minute, until my ears couldn’t take the abuse anymore. When he showed no signs of stopping, I did the only thing I knew would silence him.
After a verse, I stopped and watched the goblin awake from his trance. He began to rant and scream, and I took up the song again. We went back and forth like this for a good ten minutes before he gave up and stood there, glaring daggers at me.
“Horrid human,” he spat.
“Hey, I’m not the one who has been stealing from innocent people.” I pointed at the sack he still held. “How many jewels does one person need anyway?”
He clutched the sack to his chest. “These mine!”
“I don’t want them. But you’re coming with me.”
Fear flashed in his eyes. “Where?”
How did I explain the whole bounty hunting process to a goblin? I would take him to the bond agent, where he’d be held until the Agency collected him. They would then tag him and turn him over to faeries to return him to his own realm. The tag was actually a special tattoo that couldn’t be removed without the right technology, and it somehow prevented the wearer from leaving the faerie realm.
“We’re going to the authorities, and you’ll be sent back to your own world,” I told him.
“But this my home.” His voice grew louder. “I want stay here.”
“Maybe they’ll let you stay. I don’t know,” I lied. Goblins couldn’t change their nature, and if the Agency let Tok go, he’d be back to his thieving ways in no time.
I approached him cautiously. He couldn’t run or overpower me while he was wearing the shackles, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t bite. When I reached him, I wrapped my fingers around his thin arm and said, “Let’s go.”
If I thought he would come peacefully, I was sorely mistaken. The moment I picked up my backpack and we started to descend the steps, he began to bemoan the loss of his home and all his treasures. I felt bad for him, but there was nothing I could do about it. A few times when his voice rose to a near screech, I resorted to threatening him with song. He stomped down the steps sullenly, giving me a brief reprieve from the noise before he started up again.
We reached the base of the hill, and I steered him in the direction of the exit. I tugged my cap down and tried to ignore the stares we received as we walked through the park. Faeries were a common sight, but it wasn’t every day that you saw a goblin. A goblin walking beside a human was even stranger. More than one person pulled out a phone and took pictures of us.
“Great,” I muttered under my breath. I had no desire to be all over social media, but there was nothing I could do about that now. I maintained an impassive expression as if this was something I did every day, and I marched on.
Tok kicked up another fuss when we stopped at the Jeep. Like most woodland faeries, he’d never ridden in an automobile, and the sight of the big metal box on wheels frightened him. When I opened the rear hatch and lifted the tarp hiding the cage that took up the entire rear of the vehicle, he went into full freak-out. The cage bars contained enough pure iron to keep even a Court faerie from breaking free, which was why my parents always took the Jeep when they planned to do a capture.
“Alright, alright, no cage,” I told him after I’d calmed him down with song.
I had to sing two more verses just to get him in the front of the SUV, enduring even more strange looks from pedestrians. I caught sight of one guy across the street recording us on his camera, and I groaned. Pictures were bad enough. I hoped he was too far away for his phone to pick up my singing.
Of course, as soon as I started around the front of the vehicle to the driver’s side, Tok tried to open his door and escape. It was only my threat to sing all the way to the Plaza that made him stay in his seat.
“You cruel human,” he whined when I slid behind the wheel.
I snapped my seat belt. “I told you the Jeep won’t hurt you.”
“It hurt when you sing.”
“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad.” I scowled at him. I was no virtuoso, but I’d never been called a horrible singer.
He nodded. “Awful sound.”
“If it’s so bad, why do you look so blissed out when I sing?”
His mouth turned down. “Can’t stop it. But it torture.”
“Right.” I started the engine and focused on the street. “Just remember that if you get it into your head to try to run again.”
I might as well have been speaking to the dashboard. The first time I had to come to a stop in traffic, Tok unbuckled his seat belt and dived for the door. Thanks to my fast reflexes, I was able to grab him before he was able to open the door. I spent the rest of the drive singing every song I knew to keep him from trying to escape again. By the time I pulled up near the Plaza, I was hoarse, and I couldn’t wait to be free of the cantankerous goblin.
“Stay,” I ordered him as I opened my door and got out. I closed the door and turned to see the last person I wanted to run into today.
“Jesse, what are you doing here again?” Trey called as he sauntered up the street toward me.
I sighed, but it wasn’t like he wouldn’t find out soon enough. I walked around to the passenger side of the Jeep. “I’m here on business.”
Trey laughed condescendingly. “Really? You in the bounty hunter business now?”
“As a matter of fact…” I opened the door and helped Tok out of the vehicle. Grasping his arm with one hand, I shut the door with the other, revealing the goblin to Trey for the first time.
Trey’s eyes bugged out, and he nearly tripped over his feet. I have to say the sight of his mouth gaping like a fish out of water made every minute I’d spent in Tok’s company worthwhile.
“That’s…a…” he stammered.
“Tok, this is Trey,” I said to the goblin. “Don’t mind him. He always looks like that.” Keeping a firm grip on my captive, I ushered him toward the Plaza and past Trey, who still hadn’t recovered his ability to speak.
We reached the steps to the building, and Tok balked, fighting like crazy to get away from me. Trapping him in a tight embrace, I softly sang a few lines against his ear until he calmed.
“Stop that,” he growled when he could talk again.
“Behave, or I’ll sing until your ears fall off,” I warned in a low voice.
The look of horror on his face was almost comical, and it took me several seconds to realize he’d taken my threat literally. I opened my mouth to correct him but changed my mind. It wouldn’t hurt to let him believe that a little longer if it made him stop giving me trouble.
I tugged him up the steps. “Come on before Trey catches up to us.”
Tok walked quietly beside me, clutching the sack of crystals like it was a lifeline. At the top, he recoiled again when I reached for the door, and I tightened my hold on him. I hadn’t made it this far just to let him get away from me now.
“Jesse,” Trey called from the street. “What the hell are you…?”
I yanked the door open and entered the building before Trey could finish his question. The lobby was even busier than it had been on my first visit, but you could have heard a pin drop when I walked in with Tok.
A dozen heads turned in our direction, shock etched on their faces. That soon gave way to disbelief and suspicion as they took in the restraints on the goblin’s wrists. I didn’t need to hear their thoughts to know what was going through their minds. I’d be incre
dulous, too, if I were in their shoes.
Bruce was the first to speak. He left the small group he’d been talking to and hurried over, stopping a few feet from us. His gaze kept flitting between Tok and me as if he was still trying to believe what he was seeing.
“Jesse, what is this?” he asked in a hushed voice. “What on earth are you doing with a…?” He stared at Tok again as words failed him.
While I had been freezing my butt off waiting for Tok to appear, I’d thought about what I would say when we got here. I knew there were going to be questions and opposition to my plans, but I wasn’t going to let anyone stop me from doing whatever it took to find my parents.
I squared my shoulders, channeling my mother, who was the picture of self-assurance. “I’m taking care of the business while Mom and Dad are gone.”
“You can’t be serious. You don’t know anything about hunting.”
I tilted my head at the goblin by my side. “I caught him.”
The other bounty hunters had drifted closer to hear our exchange. One of them let out a disparaging snort, earning a few chuckles from his companions. Someone else said, “Sure you did.”
Tok shifted nervously. I gave his arm a comforting squeeze before I met the gaze of the young man who had spoken. “You think he put those restraints on himself?”
The man scoffed loudly. “No, I’m thinking you’re working with someone else who is trying to pull one over on us. Like that TV show that plays pranks on people.”
A few people nodded, and some even looked around for the hidden cameras.
“You believe what you want, but if you look hard enough, I’m sure you’ll find pictures and video online to back me up. There were enough people taking pictures of us at the park.”
“What park?” Bruce asked over the murmurs around us.