by J. C. Diem
“I’ll pick somewhere suitable,” I said, striving for patience. “This isn’t my first rodeo, you know.” With that, I climbed out and locked the doors. He grinned at me nastily, then vanished. At a glance, he would look like a toddler that had been left in the truck. The last thing I needed was for a concerned citizen to call the Sheriff’s Department and notify Cindy Callahan about child abuse.
A couple of hours later, I climbed back into my truck with the keys to a farmhouse in my pocket. I’d used a small amount of magic to cut through the red tape and had bought what seemed like the perfect house. It was a ten-minute drive from town and was surrounded by twenty acres of land. Best of all, it was ringed by woods on three sides. It would be private, secluded and just what we needed. The only downside was that the house needed a lot of work before it would be habitable.
Rudy reappeared in his booster seat just as I pulled into the long dirt driveway of our new home. He wrinkled his nose as the ramshackle three-story house came into view. “Couldn’t you have bought a house with an intact roof?” he complained. Birds were using a large hole just above the front door as an access point.
“Holes can be fixed,” I said, assessing the condition of the ancient building. It was huge, with six bedrooms, four bathrooms, a powder room and random other rooms I was sure we could put to good use. Built in the eighteen-eighties, it had probably been grand back then. Tragedy had struck a hundred years later. Several people had died during a party in the nineteen-eighties. The realtor had been bamboozled into telling me everything good and bad about the place. He didn’t know the details of the party, just that four men and two women had been gunned down.
“I’ll bet you fifty quid that the house is haunted,” Rudy predicted and slid me a sly look.
“I know better than to bet against a leprechaun,” I said with a grin. He grumbled beneath his breath and crossed his arms sulkily.
Up close, the house was even worse than it had appeared in the photos. The yellow paint was peeling off the walls and the boards on the porch were warped from the weather. A huge crack nearly split the front door in two. Most of the windows were broken and shards of glass littered the ground. The building had been abandoned after the disastrous party. No one wanted to buy it, so it had sat here, forlornly waiting for a new owner to be suckered into buying it.
“What a hovel,” my sidekick complained, wrinkling his nose again. “The inside is probably even worse than the outside.”
I had a hunch he was right and wondered what I’d gotten myself into. We climbed out and surveyed the entrance. I tested the three steps leading to the porch and found them to be spongy. Two boards were missing directly in front of the door. “This house would be a deathtrap at night,” I said. In the darkness, it would be easy to not see the missing boards. A person could snap their leg falling into the hole.
“Allow me,” Rudy said. He pointed at the door and tried to open it with a spell. Instead of swinging open, it fell off its rusty hinges. It disappeared into another, far larger hole in the floor just inside the hallway and landed in the basement with a loud bang. Birds that were pecking at grass that had grown in a clump of dirt in the hallway burst into flight. They streamed out through the hole in the ceiling, leaving a few feathers and terrified droppings behind. “Oops,” the leprechaun said sheepishly.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “Everything is going to need to be replaced anyway.” We weren’t even inside yet and I knew this job was going to be a big one.
“You’d probably be better off just bulldozing it and building a new house,” Rudy suggested.
“Over my dead body, honky mahfa,” a disembodied male voice said from somewhere inside. “Or over my pile of moldy old bones, anyway.”
“I told you it was haunted,” my sidekick said, forest green eyes blazing in triumph.
“You heard me, little man?” the phantom said as he drifted into the doorway. In his thirties, he had dark skin and close-cropped hair. He wore a purple suit and matching fedora. A jaunty peacock feather jutted up from the band of his hat.
“Don’t call me little,” Rudy said with a glower.
“I hate to tell you this, honky, but you are little,” the ghost shot back.
“Aye,” Rudy said grumpily. “But at least I’m not dressed like a pimp from a nineteen-eighties movie.” The ghost’s eyes cut to the side as he looked everywhere but at us.
“Are you a pimp from the nineteen-eighties?” I asked incredulously.
“Yeah, mahfa,” he declared, going on the offense. “So what? Is that a crime?” He must have been one of the people who had been gunned down during the disastrous party.
“Yeah, actually. Prostitution is still illegal almost everywhere,” I told him with a grin. “I’m Jake Everett and the little man is called Rudy.” My sidekick glared at me in annoyance at being called little again.
“I’m Leroy Lacrosse,” the ghost said with a bow. “How the hell can both of you mahfas see me?”
“We’re not human,” Rudy replied. “I’m a leprechaun and he’s half fae.” He hiked his thumb at me.
Leroy gaped at us both. “Say what now?”
“You’ve missed a lot during the past six months,” I told him.
“Honky, I’ve missed a lot during these past few decades,” he shot back. Rudy sniggered and the phantom gave a pleased smile. “Don’t just stand there, white boys, you might as well come on in. Mind where you step, though,” he warned us. “It’s a hell of a fall to the basement.”
Chapter Five
“What are honkies and mahfas?” Rudy asked before we attempted to enter the ramshackle house.
“Honky is a word black people use to describe white people and mahfa is short for mother fecker,” I told him, using the Irish pronunciation of the swearword.
He let out a giggle. “The eighties must have been a colorful period for language.”
“They were, mini honky,” Leroy confirmed.
Gauging the size of the hole, I was pretty sure the floor would collapse if I tried to jump over to the other side. “Can you take us inside so we can see the extent of the damage?” I asked my sidekick.
“Is the floor stable anywhere in the house?” Rudy asked the ghost.
“Do I look like a carpenter to you?” Leroy replied. He thought about it, then shrugged. “The living room doesn’t have any holes in the floor. It’s through there.” He pointed at a doorway to the left of the hall.
“Brace yourself, lad,” Rudy said, then teleported us both inside.
The floor was spongy, but it held as we appeared in the living room. Dirt, dead leaves and animal bones littered the floor. Something carnivorous had made the house its lair a long time ago. There were no signs that humans had used the place to shoot up drugs, or to squat here.
“It’s worse than I thought,” I said, examining the faded, peeling wallpaper, stained ceiling and general disrepair.
“If you think this is bad, wait till you see the kitchen, honky,” Leroy said dryly. “It’s a real eyesore. Come on, I’ll give you folks the guided tour.” With a wide smile that revealed a gold eyetooth, he drifted back into the hallway and turned left. “That there is the dining room, gentlemen,” he said, pointing at the opening directly across the hall and affecting a prissy, lecturing tone. “You’ll note the rather large access point to the basement that matches the one in the hallway,” he added.
We peered across the expanse of the hole in the floor in the hallway to see a far larger hole in the dining room. It sat where the dining table would have been.
“Right this way, gents,” the phantom added, then floated further down the hall. “The kitchen is to the right,” he said, sweeping his hand at the next door. Rudy teleported us over the hole in the hall to a section that looked like it might hold us. My foot went through the spongy wood and I stumbled back a step. “Careful,” Leroy cautioned me. “There’s all kinds of junk in the basement. You could land on something sharp and impale yourself. You might end
up haunting this wreck just like me.”
“I bet a bulldozer is starting to sound like a good plan by now,” Rudy muttered.
“We all know the kitchen is supposed to be the heart of the home,” Leroy said, affecting his lecturing tone again. “But this one is more like the butthole of the home. It’s dark, nasty and no one wants to go there.” He cackled at his own wit and received an amused snort from the leprechaun.
Carefully leaning through the doorway, I saw a warped floor covered in torn, stained brown linoleum. The cabinets were missing some of the doors and the counters were cracked brown laminate. “You’re right,” I said. “It’s an eyesore.”
“Told you, mahfa,” the ghost said in satisfaction. “Wait till you see the bathrooms upstairs. They’re a real treat.” He gave us another toothy smile, then continued down the hall. We glanced inside a few more rooms that were just as empty and decrepit as the others. The powder room had been gutted and nothing remained. The laundry was at the back of the house near the exit. It was also empty.
Finished with the tour of the ground floor, our guide led us to two sets of stairs that were in an alcove about halfway along the main hallway. One led to the upper floors and the other would take us to the basement. I was more interested in seeing the upstairs than downstairs, so we proceeded upwards.
All six bedrooms were in fairly bad condition, but the bathrooms were in dismal shape. At least the master bedroom had an ensuite. It was at the back of the house next to a smaller staircase that took us close to the back door. Not that we actually had a back door. It was just a gaping hole.
We stepped out through the opening to take a break from the house. The woods were a couple of hundred yards away to our left and even further away to the right. A gigantic grassy field stretched for a few hundred yards dead ahead until more trees boxed it in. The attic was next on our list to survey, but the stairs were in such bad shape that they would be dangerous for us to climb.
“The previous owner should have paid you to take this wreck off his hands,” Rudy said, shaking his head at the turkey I’d just bought. “It’s barely worth the land it’s sitting on.”
“What sorts of things are stored in the attic and basement?” I asked Leroy.
The ghost was hovering just inside the doorway. He was bound to the house and couldn’t leave it. “Junk, mostly,” he said with a shrug. “Some furniture, broken wardrobes, boxes of toys, old paperwork and other stuff that no one wants.”
“Not that you’ve looked,” Rudy said dryly.
“What the hell else am I gonna do with my time, honky mahfa?” Leroy demanded, glaring at the leprechaun. “It’s boring being dead.”
“How did you die?” I asked. The realtor had said four people had been gunned down, but I wanted to confirm the truth of that story.
“I was shot in the back during a party.”
“By one of your prostitutes?” Rudy asked slyly.
“No ho would dare shoot me,” Leroy said arrogantly. “It was a drug deal gone bad. The dealer tried to charge me too much and I took exception to it. I told that honky to go to hell and the next thing I know, there was a shootout and I’m standing over my dead body.”
“Do you hate white people because one of them shot you?” Rudy asked.
“Nah. I don’t hate white folks. I just call you all honkies out of habit.”
“You’re not from Texas, are you?” I asked. His accent strongly hinted that he was from elsewhere.
“I’m from Chicago initially,” Leroy confirmed. “I had to vacate the Windy City due to an unfortunate incident with a mob boss. Texas seemed like a safer place to be until after things calmed down back home.”
“I guess not, since you got shot in the back,” Rudy said.
“Yeah and now I’m stuck here, haunting this crap hole,” the phantom agreed, mood turning sour.
“I know of a way for ghosts to leave their haunting places,” I told him.
“Don’t mess with me, mahfa,” Leroy warned me. “What is this way that you speak of?”
“Powerful witches can cast spells to bind spirits to an object. Whoever carries the object can take the ghost with them wherever they go.”
Eyeing me mistrustfully, Leroy tilted his head to the side so his peacock feather jutted into the air. “What’s the catch?” he asked.
“Smart question,” Rudy told him. “Whoever holds the object can order you around like a slave.”
“I ain’t never gonna be no man’s slave, mini honky,” Leroy said in a dangerous tone. Dark shadows gathered around him as he shifted to the verge of turning into a poltergeist. His purple suit and hat turned a few shades darker as well. Some of the bright colors leeched out of his feather.
“My foster daughter is a witch and she’s bound three ghosts to objects now,” I informed him. “None of the spirits are treated like slaves. They’re valued friends and colleagues.” I could tell he didn’t believe me, not that I blamed him. We were the first people he’d had contact with in decades and it took time to build trust. “No one is going to force you to become bound to anything,” I told him.
“Neither of us can perform a spell like that anyway,” Rudy added. “We’d need to find a witch who has enough power to pull it off. Or I could bring Ari here to do it herself. The lass could probably cast that spell in her sleep by now.”
“Why don’t you honkies let me get used to the idea that supernatural creatures exist before you decide my fate for me?” Leroy suggested. The shadows dispersed and his suit, hat and feather regained their usual brightness as his anger died down.
“Should we investigate the attic and basement?” Rudy asked.
“We might as well take a look,” I agreed. We retreated back inside to the stairs and headed up to the second floor again. Half of the stairs to the attic were missing. From the bright light that spilled through the stairwell, there were more holes in the roof that we couldn’t see from the outside.
Rudy cautiously teleported himself upwards to test the stability of the floor before returning for me. Leroy drifted through the wooden boards to join us as we stood on the edge of the room to look around. It was a large, open area and it was packed with old furniture and wardrobes just as the ghost had said. “It’s going to be a joy to get all of this junk out of here,” my sidekick grumbled. The floor was mostly intact except where the holes in the roof were. Some of the boards were rotten and the furniture looked on the verge of falling through to the rooms below.
Next, we headed down to the basement. Peering down through a hole in the hallway, Rudy teleported us into the darkness below rather than taking the stairs this time. Leroy came as well. All three of us could see in the dark, so I hadn’t bothered to retrieve a flashlight from my truck. Just as the phantom had said, boxes of junk, odd bits of furniture and old paperwork abounded.
“It’s pretty big,” Rudy mused, peering around at the gloomy expanse.
“Big enough for our purposes,” I agreed.
“What exactly is your purpose, honky?” Leroy asked.
“We’re hunters,” my bearded sidekick told him.
“I’m guessing you aren’t talking about hunting deer or bears.”
“Nope,” I verified. “We hunt down supernatural creatures that prey on humans and put an end to them.”
“Now, that’s the kind of action I’d be interested in,” the former pimp said, gold tooth glinting when he grinned at us. “Maybe I’ll let you chain me to an object after all, mahfa.”
I let out a chuckle, wishing Ari was here to meet the ghost. I barely knew Leroy Lacrosse and I already knew he was going to be an interesting specter to deal with.
Chapter Six
It was going to take time and money to make the house habitable. Fortunately, I had plenty of both to spare. Using my cell phone, I did some research on restoration companies. Choosing one, I arranged for someone to come out and give me an assessment on how much it would cost for the repairs and how long it would take. For now, I couldn’
t live here and would have to continue to stay at a hotel for a while.
I’d booked the guy to turn up at lunchtime tomorrow, so we spent the day hauling items out of the attic and basement. Rudy used magic to teleport the heavier furniture out onto the front lawn. I used brawn to carry out the rest. Leroy watched through the gaping doorway as we searched for anything we could salvage.
“I can get rid of this for you, if you want,” the leprechaun said, indicating the growing pile of rubbish that we had no use for and would be discarding.
“What happens to the things you teleport away?” I asked. I’d known him for over a decade, but I still didn’t know a lot about how his magic worked.
“I send it off into the great unknown,” he replied mysteriously.
“You have no idea where it goes, do you?”
“Nope,” he said sheepishly. “If I’m not concentrating on where I want the items to appear, they just vanish into thin air, never to be seen again.”
“It’s tempting, but I’ll have them hauled away along with the rest of the junk that’ll be stripped from the house,” I told him. Now that I’d chosen a base, I would do my best to turn it into a home. I had a habit of drawing other hunters to me, so it was doubtful Rudy, Leroy and I would be alone for long. It was one of the reasons why I’d chosen a house with six bedrooms. We could always convert the attic into more bedrooms if we needed to.
“I can see the wheels turning in your head, lad,” Rudy said knowingly. “What are you planning?”
“I’m just wondering how many bedrooms we’ll need.”
“Are you expecting company?” Leroy asked.
“Hunters tend to gather together,” the leprechaun replied. “We’ll no doubt run into others like us on our missions. They’ll gravitate towards Jake due to his fae charm.” While sorting through the junk, we’d filled the phantom in on everything that had happened since the supernatural world became common knowledge. He now knew my father was a full-blood Unseelie fairy and that my grandmother had been half fae as well. Her father had come from the Seelie Court. The mix of both courts had given me a bloodline few, if any others, shared.
