by Karen Lynch
The corners of his mouth pulled down. “I might have a concussion, no thanks to you. I’m going to call the Agency and ask for someone who knows what they’re doing.”
A tic started at the corner of my eye, but I resisted the desire to tell this annoying, ungrateful man what I really thought. I nodded and said, “As you wish, sir.”
“Where are you going?” he demanded when I turned to leave.
“If you want another hunter, there is nothing for me to do here,” I said over my shoulder.
His voice grew shrill. “You can’t leave me alone here with that monster.”
I almost laughed. The peri was hardly a monster. A nuisance, yes, but it posed no real threat to him. I was sorely tempted to leave him to deal with it alone. Maybe that would give him a new appreciation for others – like me – who tried to help him.
Then I thought about going back to Levi and telling him I hadn’t been able to complete the first job he’d given me. He’d never take me seriously if I couldn’t even finish a level One, no matter the reason. Part of being a bounty hunter was handling difficult people like Mr. Howell, and if I couldn’t do that, I didn’t deserve the title.
Taking a deep breath, I turned to face the man again. “I’ll stay on one condition. You go to the front of the store and leave me alone to do my job.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off. “It’s that, or I’m out of here.”
With one last glare at me, he walked off in a huff.
Finally. I let out a long sigh of relief and smiled. One problem solved; one to go.
My good mood lasted for approximately four seconds. That was how long it took for the peri to fling another book at me. The heavy volume brushed the back of my head, and a second later, the smell of singed hair reached my nose.
“Son of a…” I reached up and patted my hair, thankful it wasn’t on fire.
“What’s going on?” Mr. Howell yelled. “Did you get him?”
Was he serious? He’d left me less than half a minute ago.
“Not yet,” I called back.
Movement overhead caught my eye, and I looked up in time to see the peri leap over my head to the opposite bookcase. I unclipped the holster on my hip and pulled out the weapon I’d brought with me for this job. Holding it before me, I crept to the next aisle. But there was no sign of the little faerie.
A small thump had me tiptoeing to the far side of the store to peek around the last row of shelves. Something moved on a small table that held a display of the Harry Potter series, and I gasped when I saw the peri’s hands hovering over one of the books. You can clobber me with books all you want, but you do not mess with Harry Potter.
I stepped into view with my weapon pointed at the faerie. “Back away from Harry,” I said slowly.
The peri froze, his gaze on the gun in my hands. He looked from the gun to me as if sizing me up as a real threat. One of his hands lowered until it almost touched the cover of the book.
My finger tightened on the trigger. “Go ahead. Make my day.” I fought back a silly grin. I’d always wanted to say that.
He smirked, and a wisp of smoke rose from the book cover.
I pulled the trigger. A stream of water hit him square in the face, sending him ass over teakettle. He got to his feet, sputtering, and tried to flee, only to fall on his butt again. He shook water from his hair and shot me an accusing look.
“It’s just water. It won’t hurt you,” I said, walking toward him. I didn’t feel the need to tell him a pinch of iron dust added to water made it like kryptonite to his kind. I was pretty sure he’d already figured out this was no ordinary water.
I holstered my water gun and shrugged off my backpack. Unzipping it, I pulled out a mason jar with half an inch of water in the bottom. Scooping up the indignant peri, I deposited him gently inside the jar, and then I screwed on a different lid that had holes punched in it. It wasn’t the most sophisticated equipment, but it worked in a pinch.
The peri banged his tiny fists against the sides of the bottle, squeaking in outrage. Not that I blamed him. I wouldn’t want to be trapped in a glass jar either. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take too long for the Agency to tag him and send him back to Faerie.
I picked up my backpack and walked to the front of the store where Mr. Howell sat behind the counter. He eyed the mason jar nervously as I approached.
“All done.” I carefully placed the jar in my pack, wrapping it in a wool scarf.
He scowled petulantly. “What about the damage to my merchandise?”
“You can take that up with the Agency,” I said, though I already knew what they’d tell him. Property damage during a capture was not the responsibility of the Agency unless it was excessive and unwarranted. They would tell him he could have prevented the damage by having a fire ward.
I gave him a parting smile because I was nothing if not professional. “Have a nice day, sir.”
He grumbled something that definitely wasn’t a thank you – not that I was expecting one from him. If this peri wasn’t worth a thousand dollars, I’d be sorely tempted to release him back into the store with my blessing.
I stepped outside and sucked in a lungful of cold air. Even mingled with the unpleasant odors of the street, it was better than the cloying, musty smell of the bookshop. I looked down at my clothes and made a face. Mr. Howell wasn’t overly big on housekeeping either, judging by the dust on my hands and coat.
I was rooting in my backpack for my keys when I was struck by the uneasy feeling that someone was watching me. I scanned the street and buildings but saw no one looking in my direction. It wasn’t the first time I’d had this feeling in the last few days, but then, I had been jumpy since Mom and Dad disappeared.
I patted my coat pocket to make sure I had the small stun gun Dad had given me when I’d first started using the subway. I’d never had occasion to use it, but I felt safer having it on me now. And I needed some kind of protection if I was going to be out in the city, especially at night.
Fishing my keys out of my pack, I started for the Jeep. I don’t know what drew my eyes to the window of the pawn shop next to the bookstore, or why I walked over for a closer look at the display labeled Faerie Talismans. My heart sped up, and a single word played in my mind when my gaze fell on an intricately braided leather bracelet that was the twin to the one on my wrist. Mom.
When I was twelve, Mom had a set of bracelets made for her, my father, and me. Dad’s bracelet was wider than ours, but all three had an identical braiding pattern designed by Mom. The bracelets were more than jewelry. Hidden in the braiding were dried filaments of muryan, a fibrous plant that grew only in faerie. If used properly, muryan was a powerful talisman against faerie glamours.
Mom had made me promise to never go out without my bracelet, and I knew she would not have removed her own outside of our apartment. The thought of how it could have come off her wrist and ended up in this pawn shop made my stomach knot painfully.
The bell above the door jingled when I entered the shop. A skinny man in his thirties with a pony tail and wearing a Black Sabbath T-shirt watched me from behind the glass counter.
“Buying or selling?” he asked when I approached him.
I gripped the edge of the counter. “Neither. I want to know where you got that leather bracelet in the window display.”
His eyes darted from me to the window and back again. “What bracelet?”
“The one that looks exactly like this.” I yanked up my coat sleeve to show him mine.
“If you already have one, what do you need another for?”
“I didn’t say I needed it. I asked where it came from.”
He frowned. “You have any idea how many people come in here in a week? I can’t remember them all.”
“That’s why you have records.” I pointed to a pad of forms on a shelf behind him. “You give a pawn ticket to everyone who sells to you, right?”
He crossed his arms. “Yeah, but I can’t just show that to anyone who wants to
see it. People got a right to their privacy. Only the proper authorities can see my records.”
“I’m a bounty hunter for the Agency. That gives me the authority to see them.” My knowledge in this area was a bit fuzzy, but I was sure I’d read that somewhere in the thick manual.
The man howled with laughter. “A bounty hunter. Good one!”
Annoyed, but not surprised by his reaction, I plucked my shiny, new bounty hunter ID from my back pocket and held it up. His laughter stopped as he leaned forward to squint at the card.
His eyebrows shot up. “No shit. You’re really a bounty hunter?”
“Yes.” I returned the card to my pocket. “Now can you tell me who sold you that bracelet?”
“Not so fast. Is this personal or related to Agency business? I keep my business on the up-and-up, and I need to know I’m not breaking any laws.”
My chest tightened. “Both. That bracelet belongs to a bounty hunter who went missing five days ago. My mother. You can tell me what you know, or we can wait for someone from the Agency to come out. Either way, I’m not leaving here until I know where you got her bracelet.”
He put up his hands. “Okay, okay, no need to get carried away. I don’t mind cooperating, but let’s keep them out of it. The last thing I need is to have a bunch of agents poking around and scaring off my customers.”
He opened a door behind the counter and entered what looked like an office. I clenched my hands together as I listened to him rifling through the contents of a filing cabinet. This was the first real lead to my parents since they’d disappeared, but my gut twisted at the possibility of where it would take me.
I heard a filing cabinet drawer sliding shut, and then the man was back, holding a paper. He laid the form on the counter and pointed to the name on it. “Carl Porter. He comes in every now and then. Nice guy, quiet.”
I studied the name and address, noting he didn’t live far from here. I could pay him a visit before I took the peri to Levi.
As if the tiny faerie had read my mind, he started to squeak angrily.
“You got a rat in there or something?” the pawn shop owner asked warily.
“Peri,” I said as I took a picture of Carl’s address with my phone. “I caught him in the bookshop next door.”
The man’s lip curled. “You should have let the little bugger burn the place down. I bet Howell didn’t even thank you.”
I smiled because I had thought about letting the peri loose in the store again. “I get paid whether he’s grateful or not.”
“I guess that makes it easier. Anything else I can help you with?”
I pointed a thumb at the window display. “I want my mother’s bracelet.”
He looked like he was about to argue and thought better of it. With a sigh, he went to get the bracelet for me. Something told me that if not for his dislike of having agents in his store, he wouldn’t be as willing to part with an item he’d paid for. Legally, he could hold onto it because I had no proof it had been taken from my mother. If she’d lost it, which I knew in every fiber of my being was not the case, then neither he nor Carl had broken any laws.
“Here you go.” He gave me the bracelet, and I turned it over in my hands to examine it. The tie was broken, and someone, probably Carl, had sewn on a new one.
“Everything good?” the man asked.
“Yes.” I swallowed around the tightness in my throat, needing to get out of there before my emotions got the better of me. “By the way, I hope you have a good fire ward on this place because Mr. Howell doesn’t have one.”
“I knew it! Cheap bastard.” The man shook his head.
I opened the door. “Thank you for your help.”
Outside the pawn shop, I ignored the lingering feeling of being watched and set off for the Jeep. As I walked, I typed Carl Porter’s address into my GPS app to find the fastest route there. With any luck I’d find him at home. If not, I planned to wait there until he arrived because this was too important to put off until tomorrow.
Mr. Porter lived on the second floor of an apartment building that had seen better days. I knocked on his door and shifted from one foot to the other for a minute before I knocked again.
I was resigning myself to waiting for him in the Jeep when I heard the dead bolt move. The door opened as far as the chain lock would allow to reveal dark skin and a single brown eye.
“Hello. Do I know you?” asked an older male voice.
“Mr. Porter, hi. My name is Jesse James, and I wanted to ask you about this bracelet you sold to King’s Pawn Shop.” I held up my mother’s bracelet.
His jaw flexed nervously. “How did you find me?”
“I got your address from the pawn shop.” I produced my bounty hunter ID and showed it to him.
“I-I didn’t steal it. I found it.”
I gave him my most disarming smile. “No one is accusing you of anything. I only want to know where you found the bracelet because it’s related to an important job I’m working on. You don’t even have to let me in. We can talk right here.”
He gave me a one-eyed stare for a moment before he nodded. Then he stepped back and unhooked the chain.
* * *
“Are you sure you’ve never seen either of them here?”
The immaculately groomed receptionist behind the front desk at the Ralston looked down his nose at me. “We cater to Fae royalty and celebrities, not exactly the kind of people a bounty hunter would be interested in.”
“Will you just look at the picture again?” I held up my phone, which had a recent photo of my parents on the screen.
He lowered his eyes to look at the phone for no more than a second. “As I said, I don’t recognize either of them, and I would have noticed them had they come in. They wouldn’t exactly blend in here.”
I bit back my retort and looked around the opulent marble and glass lobby of the hotel. In a corner of the lounge area, a female Court faerie in a stunning red evening gown stood with a blond man in a tux. On the other side of the room was a faerie couple who were similarly attired.
At a thousand dollars a night, the Ralston wasn’t a place I’d ever visit if it wasn’t for my current circumstances. Their clientele came from the upper crust of society, and no one I knew moved in those circles. The only reason I was here now was because of the bracelet in my pocket.
Carl Porter had been eager to tell me all he knew, once I’d convinced him he wasn’t in any trouble. The middle-aged man worked in maintenance at the Ralston, where he said he’d found the bracelet in one of the ballrooms the morning after my parents went missing. When I asked about the condition of the bracelet, he’d told me it had been damaged when he found it.
I couldn’t tell the receptionist about the bracelet or how I’d found it because I’d promised Mr. Porter I would not mention him. I didn’t want to repay him by getting him fired from the job he’d worked at for over twenty years.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” the receptionist asked haughtily. You’d think he was a guest here instead of an employee with all the attitude he was throwing around.
“What about other employees who might have been working that night?”
“I already told you –”
“I know what you said, but just because you didn’t see them doesn’t mean no one else did. You could have been busy with something and missed them.” I leaned toward him over the counter. “This is really important, and I’m not asking for much. Help a girl out, will you?”
He pressed his lips together and finally nodded. “Take a seat, and I will see what I can do.”
“Thank you.”
I did as he requested and sat on one of the stiff embroidered chairs closest to the front desk. He picked up a headset and spoke quietly into it. Then he went back to whatever he’d been doing when I arrived and pretended I wasn’t there.
I was getting fidgety by the time a freckle-faced young man in a bellhop uniform approached me ten minutes later. He stopped in front of my ch
air. “I’m Alan. Bryce said you wanted to ask me about some people who might have been here last week.”
I stood so we were at the same eye level. “Thanks for taking a minute to talk to me.” As I spoke, I opened the photo of my parents on my phone and showed it to him. “Do you remember either of these people being here last Thursday night?”
Alan took the phone and studied the photo. “Oh, yeah, I remember them. They got on the elevator when I was bringing some luggage up to one of the rooms.”
My stomach fluttered. “Did they say anything to you?”
He thought for a moment. “Don’t think so. I got off on four, and that was the last I saw of them.”
“Can you remember what time that was?” I asked as he handed the phone back to me.
“Around eleven, I think, because I’d just come back from my break.” He smiled apologetically. “I wish I knew more.”
“So do I, but I’m grateful for your help.”
He tilted his head, listening to the small headset he wore. “I have to get back to work. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
He hurried off to grab a luggage cart and then headed for the elevators, leaving me wondering where to go from here. The fact that my parents had been here that night could be totally unrelated to their disappearance, but my gut was telling me otherwise.
The problem was that I couldn’t just search the hotel for them. The Ralston was known for its discretion and security, and they were not going to let me snoop around, invading the privacy of their high-profile guests.
A feeling of powerlessness washed over me. What good was being a bounty hunter if I couldn’t use it to find my own parents? I would report what I knew to the Agency, but they hadn’t exactly done much so far to instill any confidence in me. They didn’t seem to be too concerned about two missing bounty hunters.
The dinging of the elevator pulled my attention in that direction as the doors slid open and a couple walked out. The man wore a tux, and the woman was decked out in a shimmering pale blue gown. Her ash-blonde hair was styled in an elegant updo, and she wore a diamond and sapphire choker that had to cost a fortune. She looked familiar, and it took me a few seconds to place her. She was Victoria Hart, Hollywood darling and star of numerous movies over the last two years. According to Violet, Victoria was on the arm of a different faerie each week and had even been linked to one of the royals.