by Karen Lynch
“Text me the details,” I called to Levi as the elevator doors closed.
It wasn’t hard to find the house in Flatbush. Turning onto the street, I saw a bunch of cars and vans in front of a white, two-story house, and six agents in tactical gear standing in the driveway. I found a parking spot and took a white, hooded coverall from my bag, which I pulled on over my clothes. It didn’t provide much protection from the cold, but shivering was the least of my concerns.
The agents watched me approach, but they didn’t say anything until I reached the bottom of the steps.
“I’m Agent Ross,” said one of them as he took in my outfit and duffle bag. “You one of the bounty hunters?”
I showed them my ID. “Levi Solomon sent me. What’s the situation inside?”
“Honestly, we have no idea,” Ross answered a little sheepishly. “We cleared out when the verries got loose, and we haven’t been inside since. As far as we know, none of them escaped the house.”
“They wouldn’t survive long in this cold if they did.” I adjusted the strap of my bag. “I guess I’d better get in there.”
They parted like the Red Sea, and one of them even went ahead of me to open the door. I entered the foyer, and the door shut quietly behind me. If not for the ten-thousand-dollar bounty, I wouldn’t want to come in here either.
I unzipped my bag and took out a pair of white painter’s booties, which I pulled on over my boots. Then I removed my glasses and donned a white ski mask and white gloves. Taking a few deep breaths, I gave myself a silent pep talk and left the foyer to begin my search.
The house was an old one that hadn’t been renovated to give it one of the open floor plans that were so popular today. Before me was a short hallway with two open doors on my right and two on my left. At the end of the hall were the stairs to the second floor.
I crept slowly down the hall, stopping to peer into the first two rooms. The one on my left was an office, and for a few seconds, I was tempted to go inside and snoop around. But the Agency could arrest me and strip me of my bounty hunter license if they caught me messing with potential evidence. And then there were the verries that needed to be dealt with.
I looked at the room on the right, which was a combined kitchen and dining room. Seeing no signs of movement, I kept going.
The second room on the left was more interesting. It contained at least twenty iron and plexiglass cages of varying sizes. All the cages were empty, but at some point, they had each contained a faerie that was sold on the black market.
A security camera was mounted in one corner, most likely so the owner could keep an eye on his inventory while he was out. I’d seen one in the office and at the end of the hallway, too. I wouldn’t be surprised to find them all over the house. People who dealt on the black market were generally paranoid about their security.
I looked at the cages again, and anger licked at me when I thought about Finch and his parents in one of these. How terrified he must have been when they were taken from him and sold off. What would have happened to my brother if our parents hadn’t found him and brought him home with them?
Reminding myself I had a job to do, I left the room and walked the few steps down the hall to the last door on the right. On silent feet, I entered the living room and stopped to stare at the sight before me.
On the walls and every piece of furniture were giant moths in a wide array of colors. Each moth was as big as a dinner plate with a thick body and two sets of antennae on its head. I’d watched a National Geographic documentary on verries a few years ago, but that paled in comparison to seeing the creatures up close.
A ripple went through them as if they were aware of my presence, and beneath the ski mask, sweat broke out on my upper lip. I remembered thinking the documentary crew had to be nuts to get that close to so many verries, and I wondered now if any of those guys had been hit with the sudden urge to pee. I wasn’t getting paid nearly enough for this.
Moving in what felt like slow-motion, I entered the living room. Verries were attracted to bright colors, except white. For some reason they couldn’t see white, so I should be invisible to them as long as I didn’t make a noise. Their antennae were highly sensitive to sound, and loud noises set them off. I’d rather face a ravenous bunnek than a swarm of verries.
I went to the closest verry perched on the back of an armchair. Holding my breath, I reached out and ran a finger lightly down the creature’s back. On the second stroke, the verry stiffened, and its wings folded against its body.
So far, so good. I let out my breath and picked up the sleeping creature, careful not to jostle it. I turned and retraced my steps to the room across the hall where I gently laid it on the floor of a large glass cage that was littered with white droppings. One down, only a few dozen more to go.
Over and over I repeated the painfully slow process of putting a verry to sleep and carrying it to the cages. Ninety minutes in, I had captured thirty-five of the creatures, and there were five left.
I was reaching for a verry clinging to a curtain when a door slammed upstairs. I froze on the spot as the five verries left in the room fluttered their wings in agitation. The agent said everyone had left the house, so who the hell was upstairs?
Feet pounded down the stairs, and a man called, “God, I slept like the dead. Why didn’t you wake me up, Lewis?”
The verries took flight.
Oh, no! I raced from the room and came face-to-face with a shocked Korean man, who paused on the bottom step.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
“Be quiet,” I whisper-yelled, running toward him.
“Wha–?” The word was choked off as his eyes bulged in horror.
I froze. I didn’t need to look behind me to know I was too late.
Chapter 5
The man yelped and whirled to escape up the stairs. He made it up three steps before the verries reached him. They circled him in a frenzy, and my stomach lurched at the sight of the large curved stingers protruding from their undersides and already glistening with venom.
I looked around frantically for something to help the man, and my eyes lit on a framed picture on the wall. I yanked it from the wall as the man let out a bloodcurdling scream. He fell down the stairs and landed in a writhing, screaming heap at the bottom. The noise only excited the verries more, and they dived at him, stabbing him with their stingers.
I ran at them, brandishing the picture. Swinging, I smashed it into a verry, sending the creature at the wall. The other verries immediately abandoned the man to search for the new threat, but my white outfit confused them. All they could see was the picture I held, and they went after it like missiles.
For a heart-pounding minute, I thought I was done for as I batted verries away one after the other. My ribs felt like they were about to crack from the pressure in my chest, and I nearly wet my pants when a stinger snagged on my glove. I managed to swat the verry away before it could jab me, but the close call made me break out in a cold sweat.
The man was convulsing and foaming at the mouth by the time I took the last verry down. I dropped the picture and ran to him, counting at least nine blistering welts on his face and arms. With that much venom in his body, he’d be dead in minutes.
I raced to the cage room where the other verries were still out cold. Opening the door to their cage, I scooped up some of the white droppings and reclosed the door. I hurried back to the man and covered the welts with the sticky, foul-smelling paste. I had to make a second trip to get more, but by the time I was done, the man had stopped thrashing and foaming at the mouth. I had no idea if I’d done enough to save him, but I’d given him a chance, and that was better than nothing.
Yanking off the ruined gloves, I ran to the front door. When I opened it, I came face-to-face with Agent Ross.
“Get an ambulance. There’s a man in here with multiple verry stings.”
He stared at me for a few seconds, and then he turned to bark orders at someone. The other agents
leapt into action as Ross looked at me again. “Has the threat been neutralized?”
“Yes.” I pulled the ski mask over my head, reveling in the cold air that touched my heated face. Stepping back, I waved the agent inside.
He strode past me and went to the unconscious man at the foot of the stairs. More agents passed me, and they warily eyed the dead verries in the hallway as they joined their leader.
Ross called me over. “What is this white stuff all over him?”
“Verry dung.” I tucked some loose hair behind my ears. “If you use it as a poultice, it draws out most of the venom.”
His eyes widened. “You knew that?”
“It’s my job to know that.”
“Impressive,” said a female agent who was kneeling beside the man. “No one could survive this many verry stings. If he lives, he can thank you for it.”
“Who is he?” Ross asked me as if I should know the answer.
I shook my head. “No idea, but I’m pretty sure he’s a friend of the owner. He came from upstairs, and he slept through the raid.”
The agents studied the man with new interest, and the woman reached under him to retrieve the thin wallet in his back pocket. She pulled a driver’s license from the wallet and read the name out loud. “Brian Kang.”
“Run that name,” the lead agent ordered. “I want to know everything there is to know about him and his connection to Lewis Tate.”
“Yes, sir.” She stood and flashed me a smile as she hurried past.
Ross turned to another agent. “Diaz, I want you to find the backup for these security cameras. If we’re lucky, Tate didn’t have time to delete it before he took off.”
“If you don’t need me, I’ll get back to work,” I said to Ross. “I still have to find the nixie and the drakkan.”
He looked at me as if he had already forgotten I was there. “Don’t enter a room until an agent clears you to go in. And if you see anything that looks suspicious, you come straight to me with it. Understood?”
“By suspicious, do you mean anything that looks like the ke’tain?”
Surprise flashed in his eyes at my bluntness. “Exactly that.”
I went to the foyer to get my duffle bag. Stripping off the coverall and booties, I stuffed them in the bag, hoping I never had to use them again. The memory of the verries attacking that poor man was not one I would soon forget.
“What’s this?” drawled a female voice with a thick Texas accent. “They let children play at being hunters here?”
“I reckon so,” said a second voice.
I looked up at the two women standing in the doorway. One was blonde and the other was a brunette, and they looked to be in their mid-twenties. They wore faded jeans, leather jackets, scuffed cowboy boots, and matching mean girl expressions.
Blondie looked down her nose at me. “I think you’re out past your bedtime, little girl.”
“Run along home,” her friend said. “This is a job for the adults.”
I stood, pleased to see I was at least an inch taller than both women, even with their heeled boots. Their pinched expressions said they were decidedly unhappy about it. I’d never had to deal with bullies in school, and none of the local hunters had ever been hostile toward me, so I wasn’t sure how to deal with this situation. I wouldn’t back down from them, but I didn’t want a confrontation with them either.
I smiled so sweetly I was sure their teeth must have ached from it. “I’ll be out of here as soon as I finished the jobs I was sent here to do. You’re welcome to one of them. Do you want the nixie or the drakkan? Sorry, but I already did the verry job.”
I knew perfectly well that these two weren’t here for the small jobs. Like every other out-of-town bounty hunter, they were looking for the ke’tain. They had heard about the raid, and they’d shown up hoping to find their prize. I’d bet half my bounty that they wouldn’t be the only hunters arriving here before the night was out.
Blondie scoffed. “You can keep them. Just stay out of our way.”
“Is that any way to speak to a fellow hunter?” chided a new voice as Kim pushed past the two women. The Texans had looked tough before I saw them next to her. Kim was all lean muscle and hard lines, and I’d heard she had once single-handedly taken down four ogres.
“What is this, a social event?” The brunette curled her lip. “Y’all have to follow proper decorum up here?”
Kim smiled, showing her teeth. “Consider it a little bit of friendly advice. I don’t know how y’all do things back home, but here, we look out for each other.”
“How quaint,” Blondie said in a bored tone. She walked past me, shouldering me aggressively along the way. Her friend smirked and followed her.
“Bitches,” Kim muttered.
I gave her a sideways look. “Friends of yours?”
“Ambrose and I had the pleasure of making their acquaintance last night. They’ve been here one day, and already he is in a bad mood.”
I didn’t respond to that because I had no idea her brother’s mood could get worse.
She faced me with a scowl. “You need to toughen up, or people like that will always see you as an easy target.”
“Gee, thanks,” I retorted, feeling the sting of her words.
“Don’t get bent out of shape. You might be a walking encyclopedia, but you need more than brains in this business.”
I crossed my arms. “Dad taught me self-defense, and I’m working with a trainer now.”
“That’s a start.” She waved a hand up and down my body. “But you still look like a high school senior. I bet that at least once a day someone asks if you’re really a bounty hunter.”
I opened my mouth, but I had no rebuttal because she was right.
Kim continued. “You can’t do anything about your age, but sometimes a little attitude goes a long way. You’re too nice. And don’t let anyone intimidate you.”
It was my turn to scowl. “I wasn’t intimidated by them.”
She nodded. “Good, because they won’t be the last assholes you’re going to meet before this whole ke’tain business is over. The damn city is being overrun by hunters, and some of them will sooner slit your throat than give you a hand.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“What do you mean we’re not allowed inside?” one of the Texans demanded loudly.
I looked behind me to see an agent escorting the two furious women down the hall toward us. I stepped to the side to let them pass.
The brunette pointed an angry finger at me. “Why is she allowed in?”
The agent frowned at me, and I realized he didn’t recognize me without the coveralls. I held up my white ski mask. “I caught the verries.”
He nodded and looked at the Texans. “She’s here on a job. The rest of you will have to wait outside.”
“This is bullshit,” Blondie ranted, but the agent ignored their protests as he nudged the two women through the door.
Kim didn’t look happy either, but she slapped my shoulder before she followed them. “I guess I’ll go see how much I can piss off the cowgirls while we wait.”
I grinned. I would love to be a fly on the wall out there to hear the exchange between the three of them after the door closed.
Two agents were scouring the office, so I peered into the kitchen where a male agent was going through the cabinets. In one hand, he held a ke’tain sensor while he used the other to open the doors and drawers. He moved quickly, not bothering to close the doors when he was done.
“I don’t suppose you found a nixie or a drakkan hiding in one of those cabinets?” I asked him from the doorway.
He frowned, clearly annoyed by the interruption, and went back to work. “No.”
Remembering Agent Ross’s orders, I stayed where I was until the man finished his search and left the kitchen. I didn’t think he could have missed a faerie in the room, but I went through it all the same. It wasn’t like I could search the other rooms yet anyway.
As I�
��d expected, I found nothing. A glance into the hall told me the agents weren’t finished searching the other rooms on the main floor. At this rate, it was going to take forever to complete my job.
It was another thirty minutes before I was able to enter the office, which looked like a small bomb had gone off inside. I studied the scattered papers and open drawers and thought back to the day Agent Curry had shown up to my apartment wanting to search it. If he’d had a search warrant, our office probably would have looked like this when he was done.
I stepped carefully around the papers on the floor, even though I already knew neither the nixie nor the drakkan was in here. If I had to put money on it, I’d say they were hiding upstairs in the darkest corners they could find. But the Agency had raided this house because they thought the ke’tain might be here, and I’d be an idiot not to take advantage of this opportunity to do a little snooping.
Sadly, it looked like the agents had taken anything of interest, including the computer. All that was left were household bills and miscellaneous items they’d deemed unimportant. I picked up a crumpled piece of heavy linen stationary and saw it was a handwritten invitation to a black-tie New Year’s Eve party from someone named DW. I thought back to my New Year’s Eve spent in the hospital with my parents, and I tossed the note away in disgust.
It took the better part of three hours for the agents to finish their search of the house. I followed in their wake, checking every spot where a small faerie could hide. In the second-floor hallway, I found a busted window and a few red and gold scales on the floor beneath it. The drakkan was long gone, and I had no intention of going after him. The job had been to round up the creatures in the house, and that was what I would do.
After an exhaustive search, I finally found the terrified nixie curled into a ball in an old lamp shade in the attic. It took me another hour to coax her out of her hiding place.
I’d seen pictures of nixies, but none of them came close to capturing the beauty of the delicate, nine-inch tall faerie with golden hair and shimmering wings. It was like looking at a real live Tinkerbell, which was one of the reasons they fetched a high price on the black market. The other reason was their angelic singing voice. Mom had told me once that she had saved a pair of nixies from a dealer, and they’d sung to her. It was so beautiful it had literally made her weep with joy.