I was soaked through and chilled to the bone by the time our three-story brick building finally came into view. I spotted a tall, dark-haired figure getting out of a blue Jeep Cherokee farther down the street. My father looked up, and his smile became a frown when he took in my appearance. I didn’t need a mirror to know I resembled a drowned rat.
“Don’t ask,” I grumbled when he met me at the steps. One thing I didn’t do well was lie to my parents, and I really didn’t want to tell Dad I’d gone to Manhattan and gotten my money stolen.
He chuckled and followed me into the building. “That good, huh?”
I glowered at him as Mrs. Russo came out of her apartment the moment we entered the small lobby.
“Patrick, the pipes in my bathroom are making that noise again,” said the eighty-year-old widow, her messy updo at least five shades redder than my ginger curls.
Dad rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Russo. I’ll look at them tomorrow if you can wait until then.”
“That’ll be fine.” She smiled warmly at him, and then her gaze narrowed on me. “Child, are you trying to catch your death, running around like that?”
I was saved from answering by the arrival of a stocky, gray-skinned dwarf with scruffy black hair, who came through the front door behind us, pushing a bicycle. He stopped when he saw the three of us and lifted a hand in greeting. “Evening,” he mumbled in a guttural voice.
“Hey, Gorn,” I said as he propped his bike against the wall beneath the mailboxes and opened his box.
He grunted and flipped through his mail. With a curt nod in our direction, he grabbed his bike and wheeled it to his door, which was directly across from Mrs. Russo’s.
If he were human, Gorn’s behavior would seem standoffish and rude. But as far as dwarves went, he was downright sociable.
“Such a nice boy.” Mrs. Russo gave an approving nod. “Never has much to say, but he always takes out my garbage for me.” She patted my father’s arm. “You’re a good man, Patrick, for letting his kind live here.”
Mrs. Russo spoke with the candor of someone who had lived a long life and felt they had earned the right to say whatever they wanted. But we knew she didn’t have a racist bone in her body. When she said “his kind,” she meant lower faeries, not just dwarves. Many landlords refused to rent apartments to lower faeries, and they were not required by law to do so. That meant most faeries, like Gorn and the quiet elf couple on the second floor, were forced to live in slums and pay exorbitant rents.
I was proud to say my parents were nothing like those landlords. Our building might be a little dated, and something usually needed repairs, but anyone was welcome as long as they weren’t criminals. Not that the criminal element was stupid enough to come around here.
Dad and I stayed for another minute to chat with Mrs. Russo before we climbed the stairs to our apartment on the third floor. The unit across from us was home to Dad’s best friend, Maurice, when he was in town. He traveled a lot for work, so his place was empty at least nine months out of the year. That meant we mostly had the floor to ourselves.
The mouthwatering smell of meat loaf greeted us as soon as I opened the apartment door. Mom’s meat loaf and mashed potatoes was one of my favorite meals and the perfect way to make up for my crappy day.
Mom was in the kitchen when we entered the apartment. Her hair, the exact same shade as mine, was pulled back in a ponytail, and her glasses were in their usual spot on top of her head. If I wanted to know what I’d look like in twenty years, I only had to look at her. Except for the blue eyes I’d inherited from Dad, I was a carbon copy of Mom, right down to the dusting of freckles across my nose.
“Great timing. Dinner’s almost ready,” Mom said before her eyes landed on me. “Jesse, you’re soaking wet.”
I grimaced as I kicked off my Chucks. “I’m fine. Nothing a hot shower and your meat loaf won’t fix.”
She laughed. “Call your brother when you’re done.”
My wet socks left a trail behind me as I walked to my bedroom, which overlooked the street I’d lived on my entire life. My room was small, but I made the most of the space. The walls were a cream color, and my twin bed was covered in a pretty patchwork quilt that brightened up the room. On one side of the window was my desk, and on the other side was a stuffed chair that had seen better days. Next to the chair, my old acoustic guitar was propped against the wall.
Grabbing a change of clothes, I went down the short hallway to the bathroom. Three people sharing one bathroom wasn’t the most convenient arrangement, but we made it work. And my parents were great about giving me privacy.
As chilled as I was, I would have loved a prolonged stay under the hot water, but hunger had me rushing through my shower. I left my room twenty minutes later, dressed in a long-sleeved T-shirt and warm fleece pants.
In the living room, I went over to the small tree house in one corner of the room. A narrow ladder ran from the floor to the house, which was nearly hidden behind the flowering vines that covered it.
“Finch, it’s dinnertime,” I said to the tree house.
The vines moved, and a round, blue face framed by bright blue hair appeared. Large lilac eyes blinked at me, and a devious smile was the only warning I got before he leaped at me.
“Gah!” I yelled, even though I should have expected the attack. I tripped over my feet and fell backward onto the couch, making sure not to crush the little monster in the fall. My reward? An evil, twelve-inch-tall sprite tickling the crap out of me until I begged for mercy.
“Finch, stop torturing your sister,” Dad called from the dining room. “Mm-mmm these fresh blackberries sure are tasty.”
Finch was off me and out of the room before I could blink.
Grinning, I got to my feet. I followed him into the dining room where he was already sitting on the table beside his plate, stuffing a fat blackberry into his tiny mouth. Juice dribbled down his chin, but he was blissfully unaware as he devoured his favorite food.
“How did it go today?” Mom asked Dad as he helped her set the meat loaf and potatoes in the center of the table.
“Phil and I caught that banshee he’s been after, so we’ll get half the bounty for that one.”
“That’s great!” She sat across from me, looking pleased. “I spoke to Levi earlier, and he said he might have another level Four for us this week. He’ll know in a day or two.”
“November might be our best month this year,” Dad said with a smile.
I dug into my food while my parents talked shop. Most kids listened to their parents discuss their office jobs or something else equally mundane at dinner. I’d grown up hearing about bounty hunting.
The Fae presence in our world hadn’t come without complications. Suddenly introducing faeries and magic into the human realm caused a whole slew of problems. Crime increased, and our police force was not equipped to handle the nonhuman cases. The Fae Enforcement Agency was established to police and protect the Fae, and to regulate the use of magic. But even the Agency couldn’t keep up with it all.
That’s where my parents came in.
The Agency contracted out the overflow of their cases to bond agents, who, in turn, gave the jobs to bounty hunters. I didn’t know all the ins and outs of the business, but I’d heard enough from my parents to know that bounties were classified by threat level, and the higher the threat, the bigger the payout. There were five levels that I was aware of, and a level Four job carried a nice fat bounty.