Page 25 of Did It Have To Be Gnomes?! (Carry A Faerie #1)

Chapter Eighteen

Miles

T he car parked beside my truck was the shittiest thing I’d ever seen. Honestly, I had no idea whatsoever how it was even running at all. It was covered in rust and looked about a million years old.

Which was the opposite of the kid who stepped out of the driver’s seat. And he was most definitely a kid.

There was no way he was eighteen. I’d guess fifteen, maaaayyyybe sixteen, tops. How the hell was he running a business, and a necromancer one no less, if he wasn’t even a legal adult?

Would he even be able to help us? Weren’t teenagers usually still coming into their powers or figuring them out? Was he powerful enough to break a curse? Was he even allowed to help us? Like, could we get in trouble for hiring a fifteen-year-old necromancer?

Maybe he was older than he looked.

Regardless of his age, he certainly dressed the part. All black clothes, black vest, black ass-kicker boots, rings on his fingers—several with skulls—some long silver necklaces around his neck, and even his hair was black, dyed if I had to guess.

The only non-black thing on him were his eyes. They were bright green and seemed to sparkle in the sunlight.

His skin was pale, he was short, maybe five-six, and he was so, so, so skinny. I had a feeling it wasn’t because he had a great metabolism. I was pretty sure the kid hadn’t had regular meals in years.

A flash of dirty blond hair and brown eyes flickered behind my mind’s eye, and pain lanced my heart so suddenly, it took my breath away.

I had to freeze and suck in a lungful of air, then slowly blow it out before I could continue on my trek to the car.

Just like it always did, thoughts of that sweet girl made the sorrow so strong, it was difficult to carry on.

But I couldn’t let that stop me right now. She wouldn’t want it to stop me.

So I pushed all those thoughts and feelings away and concentrated on the too-skinny boy in front of me.

It was the middle of the school year, wasn’t it? Didn’t they serve up free lunches to all the kids?

I froze for a brief second. If the only food a kid got was his free school lunches, what the hell did he eat on the weekends?

Like today.

It was Sunday. Oh my god, schools were closed tomorrow too.

Had the kid eaten anything since Friday?

I couldn’t stand seeing kids suffering like that.

I glanced at Winter. He’d invited me out for a lunch date—well, he’d said lunch or dinner—I was going to have to ask if we could do dinner. Hopefully, he wouldn’t mind, but I had to get some food into this kid. I had to.

As soon as I stepped within ten feet of the teen, I was hit with a well of emotions.

Nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, pessimism, despair, but most of all… I could tell the kid felt really, really alone.

Perhaps as alone as I’d been before this weekend.

He must’ve been feeling his emotions rather strongly for them to hit me out of nowhere like that. Perhaps it had something to do with his magic or something.

I heard Lyric whisper, “Holy shit, he’s powerful,” behind me, so I supposed that answered my question on whether or not the kid could do the job.

“You think we can hire him? Like… is he old enough?” I murmured to Winter.

Winter studied the teenager as hard as I had, and after a moment, he gave a nod. “I don’t think he’d be here if we couldn’t.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but Lyric must’ve heard us because they called over, “Hey, kid? How old are you? You old enough to work?”

I wanted to face palm, but the kid gestured at his crappy car. “I drove here, didn’t I? Want to see my license?” The kid pulled his wallet from his back pocket, yanked out a card, and held it out.

Lyric grinned. “Nope, just checking.”

Well, I suppose that made sense about the driving thing. He had to be at least sixteen, and kids could get a job at fourteen, so I suppose this would be okay. Plus, I could make sure the skinny teen ate today.

Taking a breath, I steeled myself to ignore the strong emotions coming from the kid and said, “Hey, thanks for making the trip. I’m Miles.”

As he replaced his wallet back in his pocket, he sent me a smile I could only describe as a smirk. The kid looked like trouble, but all he said was, “Nice to meet you. I’m Chaos.”

Who in their right mind would want to be called Chaos?

Ignoring my own feelings about it, I gave him a nod. “Good to meet you, Chaos.”

For some reason, my response seemed to amuse him, but he only continued smirking at me.

I pointed to my companions, saying, “This is Winter and Lyric.” I could tell Lyric was about to say something snarky, and since I wanted this kid to help us, I shot them a glance.

They stuck their bottom lip out at me in a fake pout, and I had to hold in a snort as I refocused on Chaos.

“I’ve never worked with a necromancer before, so I’m not sure what you need from us. ”

“No worries.” He looked past me toward the mansion. “Wow. That’s a huge house—more like a hotel or something. You said the cursed item is in the basement?”

“Yep. There’s a door around back.”

“I’d like to check it out first before I decide what supplies I need so I can give you an accurate quote.”

“Sounds good.”

Winter waved the kid forward. “Follow me.”

As the two of them walked off, I went to follow, but Lyric stepped up beside me and started whisper-yelling at me. “Holy shit, My-my! Did you see his car?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, it’s a piece of shit. So what?”

They waved that off. “No, no, no. Not the car itself. Inside the car. He has a fucking chicken just sitting there on his back seat.”

That made me pause mid-step. “A chicken?”

“Yes!”

“On his back seat?”

“Yes!”

“Why the hell does he have a chicken on his back seat?” Now I sounded almost as panicky as Lyric.

Chaos abruptly turned around to face us, started walking backward, and called over, “It’s in case I need to make a sacrifice to break your curse.

” He mimed slicing the chicken’s throat and, like, shaking out its blood or something, and I thought I might be sick.

“Luckily, I don’t think we’ll need any virgin sacrifices or anything.

Those are a lot harder to find on the black market. ”

Lyric gasped and grabbed my hand, and I was very grateful I had my gloves on.

And even though I was also freaking the fuck out—this kid was going to sacrifice a poor little chicken?

Did he really make virgin sacrifices too?

—I couldn’t help but take in the kid’s body language.

Something inside of me, maybe the magical part that housed my empathic ability, told me to reach out and get a read on him.

I pushed my empath magic out, ignored Lyric’s freaking-the-fuck-out emotions, and focused on Chaos. It helped that Winter’s dead zone area was right beside the kid, making it easier to concentrate on him.

Chaos was annoyed, amused, and definitely exasperated with us, and perhaps, with life in general.

And he was absolutely, one hundred percent, lying about the sacrifice thing.

Well, lying was a strong word, maybe joking made more sense.

I released my empathic magic and let my shoulders sag in relief and exasperation at myself—and Lyric.

“He’s joking.” I gave Lyric’s hand a squeeze. “He doesn’t sacrifice animals—or people.”

Chaos did a finger gun at me and flipped back around to walk forward. “That would be correct. Not sure how that rumor got started about necromancers, but we definitely don’t have to kill things to work our magic. We’re the ones who’re usually bringing things back, not the other way around.”

“Right.” Lyric blinked up at me but didn’t let go of my hand yet. “He must think we’re idiots.”

I snorted and didn’t deny it. Even I thought we were idiots, so I was sure this Chaos kid did too.

They called over to Chaos, “So why do you have a chicken in your backseat?”

The kid winked over his shoulder at them. “Now, I can’t go giving away all my secrets at once, can I?” He faced forward and asked Winter a question I couldn’t hear, but I was sure had to do with the gnome situation, essentially cutting off Lyric’s questions.

Lyric whispered, “Can you, like, read his mind and see why he has a chicken in his car?”

I snorted again. “If I touched him and asked him about it at the same time, I likely could, but not from here.”

They sighed. “That’s a mystery that will bother me for the rest of my days.”

I laughed at their dramatics and pulled them along so we could catch up to the others.

The four of us stood at the entrance to the basement, and no one said anything for what felt like forever but was probably more like thirty seconds.

Then Chaos said, “If I couldn’t already feel the cursed object from here, I’d be afraid you were going to ax-murder me.”

Lyric laughed, and Winter groaned, saying, “I can’t believe you just said that.”

Lyric said, “I told you the place gave off ax-murdery vibes.”

Chaos nodded. “It really does.” He sighed. “Alright, let’s go in.” Then he reached for the door handle before any of us could stop him and yanked it open.

The sounds of hundreds of meeps filled the air, and I felt my knees go weak. The gnomes were still down there. The gnomes were going to attack us again as soon as we set foot inside.

Holy shit.

I was going to have to face the freaking gnomes again.

Chaos pulled a flashlight out of his back pocket, ducked his head down, and shined the light into the basement, letting out a long whistle. “Wow. That’s a lot of gnomes. Why do they all look so ang—ahhhhh!”

He jumped back and slammed the door shut. A barrage of thump thump thumps made me jump, and Chaos turned wide eyes to me. “So, uh, the gnomes are affected by the curse, huh?”

I nodded. “They’ve been attacking us the entire time we’ve been here.”

He nodded and stared at the door. “Huh. Gnomes are usually so peaceful.”

Winter sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I was really hoping they would’ve moved on to a different spot by now. It’s been at least ninety minutes since we were down there.”

“Right. Okay. Um… let me think.” He continued staring at the door for several beats before nodding to himself. “Okay, let me get a couple more things from the car—”

“Like the chicken?” Lyric couldn’t seem to let that go.

Chaos just shot them a smirk but didn’t answer.

“I can’t examine the cursed object and fight off a billion gnomes at the same time, so I’m going to need you guys to keep them away from me while I take a look, okay?

From what I’m feeling, I’ll be able to take care of this problem for you today, but I want to be sure before I give you a quote.

If you hire me, it’ll have to be under the understanding that you’ll help keep them off me while I break the curse too. ”

My stomach twisted in uncomfortable knots.

I could barely keep my own head above water, so to speak, when it came to those gnomes.

Actually, I couldn’t even save myself since Winter had technically saved me several times over now.

How the hell could I possibly keep this kid safe?

But it wasn’t like I could ask him to go down there alone. I’d never do that.

While I was freaking out inside, Winter answered for me, saying, “Of course we’ll help. I won’t let them hurt you.”

Chaos sent him a small smile, a real one that wasn’t a smirk this time. “Thank you.” He nodded. “Let me go grab some stuff.”

He headed back for the car, and I had a feeling he wanted us to stay where we were, but all three of us followed him anyway.

Mostly because I wanted to get a look at this chicken. Maybe it was a stuffed animal or something that Lyric had mistaken as real. That had to be it, right?

Winter moved to walk beside me, and he whispered, “Lyric and I can go inside with him, and you can stay out here. You don’t need to come in there with all those gnomes.”

That was a sweet offer, even if it made me feel completely inadequate and stupid. I shook my head. “No, I can help.”

To my surprise, Winter didn’t look skeptical or like he was planning on arguing with me. All he did was smile and say, “Alright, but if you change your mind, it’s no big deal, okay?”

I nodded and bit my lip, embarrassed and touched by his thoughtfulness in equal measure—even if I did think it was kind of a big deal. “Thanks, Win.”

He shoulder-bumped me, and we trudged back up to the necromancer’s car.