The Good Neighbor's Daughter

Chapter 7; The Siren's Declaration

The girl, the bounty hunter, flipped the knife around in her hands. I stared, fixated on the antlers that stemmed from the hilt. Behind her, Spoons looked like he was about to lunge for her, but I shook my head. He rolled his eyes and knocked past her, hissing as he came back to the fire.

    "I'm not here to kill you," the girl said. "At least I'm not here to kill the Halfling. The vampire, I'm not so sure about."

    "The vampire's got a name," Spoons hissed.

    "I sure you do, but I don't really care what it is," the girl said. She walked past me with a confidence in her stride that shouldn't have come from walking past a vampire. She took a seat next to the fire and beckoned for me to come.

    I hesitated, but came to sit across from her, the fire separating us. Spoons continued to stand, leering in the background like a shadow. The girl took a breath and looked down at the knife in her hands.

    "Curious. These are twin knives but yours is different. Feathers and antlers," she murmured. "What is the significance?"

    "Are you going to explain or ask about the weather next?" I snapped. I needed to know.

    "Well, first of all, you weren't the target," the girl said. "We came here for the vampire nest."

    Suddenly, Spoons was in front of me. He hissed at the girl, barring his teeth like an animal. "You're the one," he sneered.

    "You'll have to be more specific," the girl said. She didn't even blink.

    "You killed my pack, my family," he snapped. "You killed Samantha!"

    "Look, Vampy, I don't care about your freaky girlfriend or your demon family. I'm here for the Halfling," she said.

    Spoons was still sneering at her, but she didn't even blink an eye. She just stared, bored of the vampire making death threats. I wondered how often she got this from vampires or Fae. Her confidence was jarring.

    "Spoons, just—" I didn't know how to get him to cool down. I made a move to touch his shoulder but stopped, afraid he'd turn on me. "Let me talk to her. You can rip her head off later."

    After a long second, Spoons finally moved away and went back behind me to sulk. When, I looked back at the girl she was staring at me. Her expression was cold and calculating. It made me want to run and hide.

    "As Vampy so helpfully pointed out, the target was the vampire nest. And yeah, I killed my fair share of vampires." She smirked at Spoons, relishing his misery. "While my dad and I were in town we found signs of fair folk in Harmony."

    "In Harmony?" I asked. I thought of the good neighbor that had flirted with me at the block party. Of course there were neighbors in Harmony. What did I have to do with it?

    "Mostly, fair folk stay in the woods. They lure people out; they don't go in," the girl said. "But we found that there had been fair folk crossing the town line for years. A little less than eighteen years actually."

    "I know I'm a Halfling; that's not news," I said.

    "It's not," she said. "I'm just wondering if you know who your father is."

    I froze. This morning I was supposed to meet my father. Now, because of what had happened, I had nearly forgotten everything, but getting out of this forest and finding my family. I looked at the girl. She looked at me with a stark expression. She knew and the news wasn't good.

    "The Siren Bounty has hit Harmony before," the girl explained. "They were here long before you were born to stop fair folk from crossing the town line. They drew up wards to keep them out, and eighteen years ago someone broke them."