Page 59 of Kissed the Mark
The Bounty Hunter'sDuty
GOING BACK TO “NORMAL” WAS anything but normal. Themundane world tugged on me, needing me to pay my rent and bills,reinstitute my standing with the guild, assuage any tempers runninghigh with my mother and the Unseelie court. I walked through thenext few days in a total blur, unable to process the things thathad once come so naturally. So many things had happened to merecently, and I wasn’t viewing the world the same way I had just afew mere weeks ago.
And I was jumpy. I thought Patricia’s goonswere going to leap at me from every fluttering curtain in Mayfairwhenever I walked home. I thought every tap on my window wasLeandra returning, to tell me she couldn’t leave without me. Everytime I thought this was tinged with guilt that I hadn’t just joinedher in the first place. She’d given me the out. I’d taken it. And Ifelt awful about it every day. What would my life look like if Ihad followed her? Where was she now? Did the fact that I missed herso much mean I cared for her more than I’d thought?
Coming home to my apartment instead ofrunning around town constantly, eating the same Chinese food I’dhad for years from The Jade Spirit, and sitting on the couchbinging shows with Yuki on my lap were things that didn’t come backeasily. I found myself rewinding constantly, not noticing untilthirty minutes into the episode that I’d already seen that one,even for the really highly rated ones. My mind drifted elsewhere.It was almost boring how little me nearly running away to Austriawith a vampire who sought immortality by killing herself couldimpact my current day-to-day routine. But I often asked myselfwhether this was preferable to being in danger all the time(assuming I wasn’t now, which might be assuming a lot).
The Bounty Hunters’ Guild had changed in alot of ways. For one thing, I had somehow gained a position in therankings when the third-place hunter eloped with a lich, orwhatever it was, and then immediately lost third place by not doinganything for the guild for too long, or so Allie called to informme with maybe too much pleasure. She wouldn’t tell me what myranking was now; she said I had to see it for myself. The first twodays, I walked past The Bluebird bar’s entrance, thinking aboutgoing in and then not being able to. There was something finalabout going back in that I feared, and it was most likely that itwas the last step I had to take to fully return to normalcy.Normalcy was good, though, or so I kept trying to tell myself.
On the third day, I finally entered thebuilding, but on the bar side.
There was a grubby human—not Mac,thankfully—scrubbing the floor in The Bluebird. He barely glancedup at me. The humans who worked there were especially used to ourodd appearances, though most of us just came and went through theBounty Hunters’ Guild entrance. I scooted past tables that were tooclose together, the upside-down chairs set on them rattling like mynerves. My goal was to take the back door and make a quietre-entrance into the career I’d chosen for myself that had been soseverely sidetracked lately.
There were a lot of people inside when Ipushed through the hallway connecting The Bluebird to HQ. More thanI would’ve expected to be there, but maybe it was a weekend—I’dstopped keeping track of what day it was after I passed the vampirequeen’s deadline without incident. Well, mostly withoutincident.
Someone reached out and yanked me asidealmost the second I walked in the door. Allie. She sneered at me inperson now, her lips raised in a way that made her look morevulpine than witchy.
“Check the ranking board,” she said withoutany semblance of a greeting.
I could hardly see it over everyone standingaround. I took a chocolate chip cookie from the refreshments tableand had a nibble of it. “I don’t care that much,” I said.
“Are you sure?” Alice asked. “There’s quitea lot of rumors going on about you right now.”
Maybe that’s what everyone was talkingabout. Oh well. They’d be onto the next big dramatic thing in aweek, much like the Unseelie court. “What are they?” I asked,chugging down my cookie with a glass of chilled milk.
“Is it true you drank vampire blood?” shesaid.
“Maybe.”
“Is it true you’re…you’ve…?” Her eyes gaveher away. I always knew Allie wasn’t a malicious person—justsomeone who had to put up a front. Her curiosity was winning outover animosity.
“I’ve what? Dropped in the rankings? Iassume so, since you gleefully told me about it already on thephone.”
Allie licked her lips, glancing around asthough she was scared of being overheard. “You hadsexwitha vampire?”
“Probably lots of people have,” I said,suddenly feeling weariness at the conversation. Too closelyresembled high school gossip. But then, the contest for best bountyhunter was a lot like high school, too, and Allie ate that up. “Ishould get a better view at the ranking board. Gonna have to startworking again if I want to be fourth-best again.”
It wasn’t hard to push past people to therank board, because you could look at it once and know who waswhere. They didn’t change all that often—usually, anyway. Recentlyeveryone had gone up a rank once when Tammy left, and then somepeople went up a second time when I dropped down.
The board read: eighth place. Out of maybefifty. It was not impressive.
Allie poked my side, almost playfully, asthough hoping for a bigger reaction. “I guess you’ll have to changeyour business cards,” she said.
“Funny,” I said, feeling petty. “I thinkeven having the highest bounty hunter ranking in one of the leastpopular supernatural towns wouldn’t be anything to call home about,but maybe that’s just me.”
Allie’s expression soured immediately.“Jackass.”
“Why’s everyone congregating by the bountyboard?” There was a whole crowd of them—a majority of the people inthe room—around the board with the posted targets, whispering tothemselves.
“We have a new mark,” she said, her eyesshimmering with exhilaration. “Would you like to take a look?” Herfingers traced the spiral of her hawthorn-and-silver stake. If Iwas in the bounty hunting business for the thrill of it all, Iclearly wasn’t having half as much fun as Allie Godden.
“Any easy ones I can get some quick cash offof?”
Alice waved her hand at me. “That’s smallfry stuff. We have something bigger.”
The bad feeling crept in before I couldprocess what she was implying. Would the council work that fast?“It’s not me, is it?” I asked lightly.
“If it was, I’d already have youhandcuffed,” she said, winding her fingers around my wrist to takeme closer to the bounty board. “Oh, don’t get any ideas, youpervert.”
