Part One
Mayfair Mayhem
Chapter One
Welcome to Mayfair
MAYFAIR IS A STRANGE LITTLE town, and most peoplethink we’re in a cult. Really we’re just a bunch of displacedsupernatural creatures mooching off the energy of nearby St. Louis,but the cultish appeal is there. We’re featured in “extreme belief”documentaries, for crying out loud. A town that consists of bunchof people who thrive during nighttime with wings, horns, fangs,etc. is easier to pass off as a cult than the truth. And it’s mucheasier to hide in plain sight than have our otherworldly appendagessawed off surgically for the sake of human comfort.
My name is Olympia Carter. I’m a bountyhunter in Mayfair. We have a central government here, with a few“mayors” from each major species (and sometimes multiple when itcomes to interspecies drama, like between the Seelie and Unseeliefae), but it’s by necessity a place that lives without a lot offederal scrutiny, and as a result, it can be a real cesspit ofcrime, and we have all kinds of critters from outside who come inlooking for trouble. You’d think it’d be a completely lawless land,but I’m officially registered with the Guild, which has a fewoccupations that don’t typically exist in human-dominatedcommunities—i.e., me, the fourth-best ranking bounty hunter they’vegot, which is less impressive when you realize the town isn’t asbig as typical suburbia by other major cities.
What I do is this: I track down and capture,kill, what have you, the supernatural gone rogue where it concernsour little town for a profit. Sometimes it’s not as exciting asyou’d think—every single mark is approved by the Mayfair gov, forexample, so I’m not just hunting down random passersby in thestreet who I see doing wrong. And it doesn’t always turn up a bigprofit, either. The last time we had some excitement was in ‘87, afew years before I was born, when we had this big exposé publishedby some investigative journalist that brought a lot of unwelcomeattention. These days we mostly have captures or occasionally“drive-aways” as we call them informally in the Guild. Most peoplewe get will be brought to the governing council and they’ll handlethem, but sometimes it’s preferred that we just scare them out oftown. Repeat offenders might, maybe, be killed, but oftentimes whenthat’s the case we have to go even higher up the chain to thenational level of our government, and, well, it just doesn’t happena lot.
The thing about me is I’m part Unseelie andwe thrive off of chaos. So if the poor profits of bounty huntingmean I have to live in a tiny apartment above a Chinese restaurantrun by e gui, at the very least I’m getting a thrill when I capturesomeone that doesn’t equate to violence against humans, which isstrictly forbidden in our culture or we’d have been run out withpitchforks a long time ago.
The official Guild headquarters are in theback of a literally underground nightclub called The Bluebirdfrequented by humans. I think the idea is that the humans can getoff on the strangeness of the town in the nightclub, and it’s not aplace where we would be likely to get away with anything becausethere are so many witnesses. We have our postings there, can pickup assignments, pick up payments, you name it. It hasn’t gonedigital quite yet because they haven’t figured out a way to avoidleaving a footprint where prying eyes would be able to spy the truebizarre nature of us. The real place to go, where I find most of mystupider marks, is The Scale & Ale, a seedy bar that’s onlyopen 2 AM until whatever violent fight shuts it down for the restof the day. People assume that it’s under the radar because it’swedged between a chain supermarket and an inconspicuous stationeryshop, so that’s where they all go. Very stupid indeed.
That’s where I found myself holding a skeevyhuman custodian by his ankles, upside down, in the men’s bathroom,the top of his balding head grazing the mildewy tile.
“I didn’t see him today, honest!” he wasshouting, but since it was a bar where fights and rabble werecommon, and Mac’s reputation preceded him, no one came to hisaid.
“Mac,” I said, swinging him around with thesupernatural strength being a fairy gave me. “Oh, Mac. When willyou learn?”
Part of me wondered if he liked being beatup by us. Mac had worked at The Scale & Ale for over a decadenow, and you could often see him scribbling down in tiny notebooks,presumably about us. He was for sure a voyeur of our culture,enough that he was willing to make pennies scrubbing toilets towatch us.
“I was paid good money not to shareanything,” he sputtered. His face was getting redder and redder bythe second.
“What good does that do you if you’redead?”
Mac knew I wouldn’t kill him. We’d beenthrough this dozens of times and I wasn’t about to violate our pactwith humankind over a few hundred bucks. “Okay, okay! Put me backright side up.”
I dropped him on the floor. Anunidentifiable puddle began to seep into his ratty work shirt as hecaught his breath. “I’m listening.”
“He was here yesterday.” Mac licked hischapped lips. “Talking to Matt Rivera.”
“Mateo Rivera was here?” I asked, genuinelytaken aback. “How often do you get vampires?”
“Almost never,” he said. “Almost never.Almost—I think you gave me a concussion.” I didn’t miss when hiseyes strayed to the pointy ends of my ears, cataloging them forlater documentation.
“You’ll be fine. What were they talkingabout?”
I leaned down to hear him better, throwingmy braid over my shoulder so it didn’t also get wet with themystery liquid. My combat boots squeaked against the tile.
“Matt said he had to leave. It seemed likethe other guy was trying to deliver a message to him. The guy isfrom the Chicagoland area, so…”
“…so probably a communication from the vampcommunity there.” But the mark was supposed to be a werewolf, andthe two rarely dealt with each other. The reason he was on theGuild’s radar was because there had been a transformation—a humangirl had come to one of the businesses here during the full moonwith obvious wolf-like bites, and when she was taken in by one ofthe Mayfair packs for observation, she’d turned. She had describedthe suspect in great detail and even had a picture of him in wolfform on her phone, which was majorly unhelpful at least 28 days outof the month, not to mention whenever the werewolf chose totransform. You couldn’t attack humans unprovoked in Mayfair withoutconsequences.
“Guess you’ll be holding vampires upsidedown next,” Mac said. “They sleep that way.”
“No, they don’t.”
I felt a spike of revulsion as he untuckedhis notebook from his back pocket to take down a note. “Alright,Mac, clean yourself up and get out of here. Go see a doctor foryour head if you really think you’re concussed.”
He muttered something to himself, but I wassure he was just being dramatic. Whether he’d written down vampiresleeping habits or some theory about why a werewolf would berunning messages for vampires, and also biting people, I was onlyinterested in the latter. Even if it meant I’d have to speak to asnooty vampire to figure it out.
Chapter Two
Vampire Shenanigans
