Barghest charged me with its tail raised in strike position. I parried with my butterfly net, almost managing to catch it before it popped its claws and ripped through half the mesh. Swearing, I tried to net the thing again before I added, “Besides, I have a birthday party to go to after this.”
“The Brown kid, right?”
“Yeah.” Mitch and Stacy’s youngest son, Andrew, was turning four. “I promised to make it in time for cake.”
“You’ll make it.”
“Starting to have my doubts,” I muttered. One of the Barghests was slinking on its belly to my right. I leaned over, whapped it on the head with my net, and swept it into the first box. “Get that closed!”
“Got it.” Danny plucked the Barghest off his leg, bowling it into the box after its sibling before slamming the lid. “That’s two. I’m just saying you could benefit by going out sometimes. Live a little. In ways that don’t involve maybe making yourself dead.”
“But I’m so good at maybe making myself dead.” I whacked another Barghest. “I wouldn’t have taken this job if I’d known it was going to mean playing with poisonous things. Dame Altair thought the pantries were emptying due to theft.”
“Well, they kinda were.” Two more Barghests were industriously worrying Danny’s ankles. A wide smile split his craggy face. “Aw, look at the cute little guys.”
“They’re poisonous monstrosities, Danny. That’s not ‘cute.’”I swung at another Barghest. It scuttled backward, barking at me.
“You get to keep that spiky thing, I get to think Barghests are cute,” he replied philosophically and scooped up both Barghests, cradling them. “You think Her Ladyship would mind if I took one or two of ’em home?”
“Spike’s a rose goblin,” I said sharply. “That’s different.”
“Maybe from where you’re sitting.”
I groaned, swatting another Barghest and sweeping it into a box before it could sting me. “There isn’t a Barghest rescue society. I don’t think Dame Altair is going to care what we do with them as long as they’re gone when we’re done here.”
“Good,” said Danny, dropping his two into a box and sealing it. “I’m taking them.”
“What?” I turned to stare at him, sidestepping a Barghest intent on mauling my shins. “How many?”
“All of them.” He grabbed another one. It twisted in his hands, ramming its stinger against his shoulder. He smiled indulgently. “I think he likes me.”
“Danny . . .”
“I’ll only keep a couple. If there’s no rescue group, somebody’s gotta look out for the little guys.” He dropped the Barghest he was holding into a box, ignoring its ongoing attempts to sting him. “How about this: instead of splittin’ the fee, you pay for my help by letting me take the Barghests.”
“And here I thought my money wasn’t any good with you.”
“Poisonous monstrosities aren’t money.”
I had to laugh at that. “You win.” We’d somehow managed to stun and capture the entire litter without serious injury. Putting my net down on the floor, I turned to peer at the boxes. “Looks like fourteen of them. They’re not happy.”
“You wouldn’t be either,” he said. “What do you think happened to their mama?” Barghests are notoriously protective of their young. A litter without a mother almost certainly meant something had gone wrong.
“Poison and claws don’t protect you from becoming roadkill,” I said. Barghests had an unfortunate tendency to play in traffic. Thankfully the night-haunts were always there to clean up the mess before the humans saw. “She’s lucky she stowed them here, even if they did manage to cause a lot of damage before Dame Altair called me.”
“It’s a whole new world,” he said sadly. There was no way I could argue with that.
A few millennia ago, when Faerie was still in its ascendancy, creatures like the Barghests would have roamed the moors, not afraid of anything but hunting parties and bigger predators. Things have changed since then. With Faerie in hiding and more of her creatures becoming extinct every year, the Barghests were probably lucky to have been captured. At least with Danny looking out for them, they might stand a chance.
Not all Faerie’s denizens have fared as poorly as her monsters. Sure, the Barghests would have been free and happy to do as they pleased,but people like me and most of my friends would have been treated like lepers. Assuming we were allowed to live. As human civilization has taken over much of what used to belong to the fae, changelings have become more integrated into Faerie culture. Call it evolution in action. We’re half-human, but our