“My name is Fifi,” I answered. “And I’m in Ashington at the Black Bat bar. I’m with your sister and I’m pretty sure she’s been roofied by the guys she was with and we’re going to take her to the hospital here, in town.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Can you meet us outside the hospital and admit her yourself, since you’ll be able to answer their questions better than we can?”

  “Yes, I’m actually a nurse and I work at the Urgent Care here in town. We don’t have a hospital in Ashington.”

  “Okay, perfect. What’s the address?”

  “74 Boons Ferry Avenue. I’ll be outside waiting for her. Thank you,” she said as her voice cracked. “Thank you so much.”

  I hung up the phone and put it back in Alice’s purse. “Alice, do you know the names of the men you were with?” I asked, hoping the answer was ‘yes’ so she could press charges against them. She nodded, then shook her head and appeared confused again. I looked at Bea and she nodded.

  “I’ll go in and swipe their identification,” Bea answered my unasked question. What she meant was that she could move incredibly quickly—so much so that she wouldn’t be spotted by the human eye. And that meant she could swipe the men’s identification without anyone being the wiser. Bea disappeared a second later and I returned my attention to Alice. She was completely out of it and I wondered if she’d even stay conscious for much longer. I was likely the only thing keeping her from collapsing into a heap on the sidewalk at this point.

  “I can’t believe those douche bags did this to her,” Bea said, when she returned, handing me a handful of drivers’ licenses. “She’s lucky we were there to help her.”

  I accepted the licenses and unzipping Alice’s purse, placed them inside. “Give these IDs to the police, Alice,” I said. Alice just looked at me and nodded dumbly.

  I had a half a mind to go back into the Black Bat and teach those men a lesson they soon wouldn’t forget, but I had Alice to worry about and her safety was top priority. So, the police would have to take care of the rest.

  “Let’s get her to my car and back to her sister,” I said as Bea nodded.

  “Shoo are you?” Alice asked, her words slurred and barely audible as she looked at Bea through half-open eyes.

  “Your knights in shining armor,” Bea answered as I gave her a smile, because I kind of liked the title.

  “Oh,” Alice said, glancing at me. “You’re sho prrrettyyy.”

  “Thanks,” I managed as we reached my Toyota 4Runner and I immediately unlocked it as we both helped Alice into the back seat.

  Bea and I climbed into the front seats of the 4Runner, and once I started the engine, Bea looked over at me. “Well, this night didn’t go as I’d planned.”

  “Nope, but I can’t say I’m disappointed.” I glanced into the rear view mirror as I pulled into the empty street and noticed Alice was now singing something as her eyes wandered around the interior of the SUV. At least she was still awake.

  Bea smiled while she entered the address for the Urgent Care into her phone and the directions started pouring out in a woman’s voice, complete with an English accent.

  “Maybe we should make this our side gig?” Bea asked.

  I laughed and shook my head, glancing over at her quickly. “What, like becoming superhero crime-busters?”

  She nodded. “All we need are some masks and capes and maybe… name tags.”

  “Name tags?”

  She giggled. “Yeah, I can be ‘Crime Busting Bea’ and you can be ‘Ferocious Fifi’.”

  I shook my head again. “I’m not sure I like my title.”

  “‘Fear-Killing Fifi’?”

  I laughed. “Why don’t we both just stick to being really good realtors?”

  Chapter Three

  I was proud of the changes I’d made to what was once Hallowed Realty and was now Hallowed Homes.

  The old gray cubicles and generic art were gone. In their place was a spacious, open floor plan, decorated with colorful paintings of Haven Hollow landmarks that really livened up the place. Upon entering, you’d find yourself viewing a painting of the old Courthouse that dated back to the early 1800s. Down the hall was a painting of the wooden covered bridge that led to Haven Park (also known as Cemetery Bridge). On the opposite wall was the town center of Haven Hollow and at the end of the hall was Tayir Mansion.

  Hallowed Homes might have been in the macabre business of selling homes to monsters (and some humans), but our office didn’t have to look like a Vincent Price movie set.

  My old boss, Ophelia, had preferred the drab confines of Hallowed Realty. She’d said blandness in decoration kept the focus on the properties instead of the decor, but I wanted to foster a friendlier environment for my employees and customers. I didn’t like how Ophelia had kept us all isolated—separated by our cubicles, into squares of despair. She’d wanted to inspire competition among us, not camaraderie or teamwork. It was every man or woman for themselves, each of us at one another’s throats.

  It wasn’t surprising that Ophelia liked things that way. Ophelia was a night hag, after all. That meant she thrived on chaos, enjoyed causing all the misery she could create. In fact, she fed off it, finding joy in others’ pain.

  Now that she was gone (done away with by Wanda, the Blood Witch), I planned to do things differently. I preferred to provide my employees with incentives to sell, rather than relying on fear to motivate them. I wanted everyone who worked for me to be happy—to really feel like they could make a name for themselves at Hallowed Homes.

  I used to be one of those who slaved away for Ophelia, terrified of what failure might mean if I displeased her. And I’d had more than my fair share of punishment, because Ophelia had considered me a constant screw up. She’d always compared me to my brother, who was a very successful realtor (mainly owing to the fact that he used his incubus powers of seduction on his clients). In Ophelia’s mind, I should have followed my brother’s example—I should have used my powers as a succubus to entice our male clients into doing exactly what Ophelia wanted them to do.

  Sure, I could have gotten what I wanted from them too, eliminating any competition within the office, but I just didn’t have it in me to ruin the lives of mostly married men who had no control over themselves when under my power. It wasn’t fair or right in my book.

  With Ophelia gone (she was now a stone statue that stood in front of Wanda’s duplex), I’d already made numerous changes to the Hallowed Homes building and those changes went beyond just decor. Aside from my brother, my staff still included some of the old guard from Ophelia’s brutal reign, such as Glenn, a recently widowed werewolf and a Beta in the local pack. Ivan was a Romanian dragon shifter and then there was Willow, a dryad who embraced her love of trees by landscaping many of our properties. Willow had been instrumental when Ophelia owned the realty office because Ophelia had a… negative effect on anything living. The last of the leftovers from Ophelia’s time was Ramona, a wraith.

  Ramona was over six feet tall, pale, and unbelievably thin. No one could be sure of her age, but she appeared to be around sixty, with blue-gray hair and permanent dark circles beneath her eyes. She was a chain smoker and actually resembled a living cigarette. In her wraith form, Ramona became a shadow being and was terrifying. Well, at least that’s what I’d heard about wraiths. I’d never actually seen one and hopefully wouldn’t ever see Ramona in her wraith form. As I understood it, a wraith only took their true form when feeling threatened or if they had nefarious actions in mind. Luckily, Ramona was every inch the quiet and retiring old lady type, so I didn’t imagine any of us would ever have to come up against her shadow side.

  Truth be told, I was surprised Ramona had stayed on after Ophelia died because the two of them had been friends… well, as friendly as someone could be with Ophelia. Night hags aren’t exactly known for being sociable or pleasant. But, surprising though it was, Ramona had stayed on and as far as I could tell, she was happy to still have her position.

  Then there were the new hires… Bumblebee (Bea for short) was a faerie from the Spring Court, and she was my closest friend. My most recent hire (whom I’d hired only a few days ago) was Elizabeth Blackburn, who went by ‘Libby’. Wanda had raised Libby as a zombie and Libby was still very much stuck in a 1950’s mindset. The only reason Libby had come to me, looking for a job, was owing to the fact that Wanda had insisted she and Darla (a ghost Wanda had made corporeal) needed to start fending for themselves. And ‘fending for themselves’ = getting jobs. While Darla was still trying to find her career path, I was only too happy to hire Libby—I needed all the help I could get.

  Because Libby didn’t believe women should compete with men in their work lives, she had no interest in becoming a realtor. Instead, she insisted her place be behind a desk as my secretary. And that was fine with me because I didn’t have anyone to manage the phones or take care of other office responsibilities.

  Libby was always very polite to the clients, but hopelessly judgmental. She never insulted or criticized anyone directly, but you just knew she disapproved of them, all the same. Despite her somewhat antiquated way of thinking, she was sort of like the mother hen of the office, checking in on each and every one of us, probably because she didn’t have a husband to care for at home. Instead, she had her roommate, Darla.

  As I arrived at the office, Bea was humming around the indoor plants, making them bloom so they added an outdoor feel to the place. We’d never had office plants during Ophelia’s reign, owing to the fact that every plant she came into contact with withered and died within moments. Even if Ophelia had liked plants, they definitely didn’t like her.

  But back to Bea… she was one of my best employees—not only in her attitude, but also her work ethic. She was always so positive and no matter the situation, she seemed to improve it somehow. The flowers she’d coaxed into putting forth their best faces now made the office smell and look divine. And the little faerie seemed so happy with her efforts, she was actually exuding bright yellow light.

  I walked by her and noted that her shawl had slipped off her shoulders, leaving her wings visible. They flashed up and down a few times, causing a ray of glittering, ethereal particles to sail through the air. The particles reflected the overhead lights, looking like tiny diamonds. Bea’s wings changed color, depending on how the light hit them. Right now, they appeared to be sky blue on top and deep purple on the bottom—the same deep violet as her eyes which, yes, changed color depending on her mood, as well. It was one of the side effects of descending from the Spring Court.

  She caught me looking at her wings and she blushed, pulling her velvet shawl back over her shoulders. The pink shade of her embarrassment spread across her face and dimmed the shine of her yellow glow. It was an odd effect, giving her the appearance of a neon sign that was backlit in a different color.

  “Sorry, hon,” she said, smiling sheepishly up at me.

  “Don’t worry about it, Bea,” I said as I gave her a big smile. “No one in the office cares. Just hide them if a mundane drops in, okay?”

  ‘Mundane’ was the supernatural word for a human, someone without magic.

  “Of course,” she replied as she sauntered toward a stubborn Fichus tree that refused to keep his leaves intact. “Now you stop feeling sorry for yourself,” she said, speaking to the forlorn tree in her happy sing-song voice, as if it could hear and understand her. For all I knew, maybe it could. It did look much healthier than it had a few days ago, at any rate.

  Entering my office at the end of the hall, I dropped my bag into the chair beside the door and then watched as a frail looking little man passed by the window outside and then paused before entering the building. I could tell he was a mundane even from this distance. And though we did occasionally sell properties to mundanes, it wasn’t that often. More so, since I’d taken over ownership—when Ophelia was in charge, she had a strict policy of refusing to sell homes to humans. Ophelia had been waging a one-person war against the unmagical, trying to ensure that only monsters lived in Haven Hollow.

  Now that I owned the place, things were different, but I was still careful to keep up appearances. People without magic couldn’t know about the supernaturals who lived among them—though there were exceptions—like Marty Zach, for example, but he’d signed a contract to ensure his silence.

  While I’d made it my business to sell properties to humans and supernatural creatures alike, I was working on expanding my offerings to include less… traditional properties. There were those types of supernaturals who could live in typical houses, but there were other types of monsters who couldn’t. I called those types of monsters ‘exotics’. For example, most vampires required some type of cellar or below ground area to ensure they were entirely free from the sun. Dryads required homes surrounded by woods and werewolves were particular about doggy doors. Cellars, forests and doggy doors weren’t such a tall order, though. What was a tall order was a house with ceilings high enough for a family of giants. Or a house without floors or concrete foundations so the forest Blights (sentient plant-like beings) could take root in the earth. Or a house with walls strong enough to remain intact during an ogre’s moon rage (ogre PMS was something for the books!) Or a house maintaining a consistent temperature of below freezing, for an ice dragon.

  I wanted to be able to appropriate homes for all types of monsters, exotics or otherwise. I wanted to get into the business of specialized homes, which, in some cases, could get downright weird. In fact, I’d been doing my best to court an exotic client with these exact needs. As such, I was nervous all morning and would have likely hyperventilated well before my morning coffee if not for Bea’s positive vibes that did much to keep me calm.

  I’d be having a conversation with my first exotic supernatural client later today—a grim named Darragh. Grims are spectral, dog-like creatures that haunt churchyards and protect the dead. I was scheduled to talk with Darragh in order to formalize plans to take him on a tour of a potential property tomorrow evening. He was looking for a new graveyard to protect.

  There were two graveyards to choose from in Haven Hollow. The smaller of the two was situated between Poppy and Wanda’s house and was called ‘Hollow Cemetery’. The other was located on the opposite side of town and though it didn’t have a name, the locals fittingly referred to it as ‘No name Cemetery’. Neither was a church graveyard, as Darragh preferred, but he was willing to make do if it meant being able to live in a Hollow. Hollows were unique because they offered their supernatural citizens protection, thus Haven Hollow was in much demand among the paranormally inclined.

  Regarding the cemetery between Poppy and Wanda’s, it was a perfect plot for a grim. As nervous as I was about speaking to Darragh on the phone (because I’d never met a grim before, but understood they could be quite… moody), I was even more nervous about seeing him in person. Grims were known to be very proud and intensely serious. I’d heard they could be quite ferocious, too, if their territory was threatened. Just thinking about the particulars made me nervous. Lost in my thoughts, I jumped like a child encountering a real ghoul on Halloween night when the phone rang beside me.

  I glanced at the clock and took a deep breath, steeling my nerves as best I could before answering.

  “Hello! This is Fifi with Hallowed Homes,” I said while smiling as widely as I could, a trick Bea had taught me. She believed she always sounded friendlier over the phone if she were smiling.

  So that’s exactly what I did.

  Chapter Four

  Darragh wasn’t my first ‘exotic’ call of the week.

  In fact, I’d fielded several calls from other non-humanoid beings since I’d started reaching out to clients of their ilk. Most were still hesitant to get in touch with me on their own, though. Monsters, in general, were a distrustful and dreary lot, and the exotics were even more so. Usually, they sent the fae to contact me as their proxies. While it wasn’t an unusual practice, dealing with middlemen definitely slowed the process. I supposed it wasn’t that different from brokering a real estate deal in the normal world, outside Haven Hollow.

  The fae were happy enough to become delegates, speaking on behalf of exotic supernaturals, in exchange for tithes, the details of which varied greatly from one species to another. Tithes were like I-O-Us—favors the fae could call in at some later time, when they most needed them.

  Regardless, such was how Darragh had initiated contact with me—through a third-party elf called Cranough, but now Darragh was ready to speak to me directly. I almost wished we could go back to the third-party method because I felt much more confident when speaking to Cranough—he was much less intimidating.

  “This is Darragh. I am calling to confirm our appointment details,” a deep voice with a heavy Irish brogue announced from the other end of the line.

  “Hello, Darragh, nice to hear from you,” I responded, trying to sound like the confident woman I wanted him to believe I was, rather than the nervous bundle of nerves I actually was.

  Upon my first introduction to Darragh, I hadn’t spoken one word to him; Cranough had done all the talking for him. Now, it was something of a shock to hear Darragh’s voice. My first meeting with Cranough had been brief, with the elf laying out exactly what Darragh was after. In response, I’d shown him both graveyards and Cranough had taken my recommendation of the cemetery between Poppy and Wanda’s back to his boss.

  Now, hearing Darragh speak for the first time, there was something about his voice that was completely unnerving. It reminded me of Lorcan’s voice somehow, the only vampire in Haven Hollow. Lorcan’s voice had the same deep timbre, but Darragh’s sounded like it was almost more than one voice—like it had been multiplied from some deep, dark place, giving it a sinister, echoing effect. Plus, Lorcan’s Irish accent wasn’t as pronounced as Darragh’s unless Lorcan was overly excited, upset, or drunk—which he often had been before Wanda came onto the scene.