Page 5 of Did It Have To Be Gnomes?! (Carry A Faerie #1)

Chapter Three

Miles

B y the time I made it home, I was wiped out and ready to shower, eat dinner, and decompress. Of course that would have to wait until I set up all the bird crap I stopped at the store to buy after Indigo gave her a clean bill of health.

I wasn’t planning on keeping her, but I needed at least one safe place for her to perch on while she was in my home.

She’d been an angel at the vet, which made me think she was used to people handling her. I grimaced at the thought as those memories ran through my mind’s eye again.

Pushing them away, I turned in my seat to stare at the cage for a moment. “Alright, we’re here, pretty girl. You better be nice to my cat.”

With a sigh, I got out of the car and walked around to her side to grab her and carry her into the house. The second I walked in, I was greeted with lots of meows and a cat rubbing against my legs and trying to trip me.

“Hey there, Odin. Who’s a good boy? Huh? Who’s my good boy? Is it you, Odie?”

I set the cage down on my dining table and picked Odin up, cuddling my one-eyed orange tabby to my chest and giving him kisses while he purred.

He was a rescue kitty who’d been found on the street with such a bad eye infection the rescue had to remove one eye.

Luckily, his other eye was treatable, and since I’d adopted him, he hadn’t had any problems with it at all.

His one-eyed-ness didn’t stop him from doing anything.

He was the cutest cat to ever live, and his missing eye only made him more adorable.

After only a few seconds of giving attention to Odin, my new friend started chirping, like she was afraid I’d forgotten about her.

With a chuckle, I walked over and removed the blanket. Those big golden-brown eyes blinked at me for a few seconds before she moved her gaze over to Odin.

My cat stared back, and I was waiting for a hiss or a growl or something from him, and I half expected the firebird to start squawking again. But they both just… stared. Neither seemed to have their hackles up.

Gingerly, I set Odin down right in front of the cage so they could sniff each other and get used to one another for a few minutes.

Odin gave a sniff, and the firebird lowered her head down to him, examining him closely.

They stared for a few more seconds before Odin let out a little purr, rubbed his whole body against the cage, and started headbutting it like he wanted me to let the firebird out so he could rub all over her.

The firebird surprised me by trilling happily and rubbing her cheek against the side of the cage where Odin was. She was a wild animal, yet she was acting like she’d been a pet in the past and that she liked cats. At the very least, she acted like she knew what cats were.

The cat-firebird lovefest continued as I stared with my mouth agape.

Huh. Well, I guess they like each other. That was a relief.

“I have to get your stuff out of the truck, but I’ll be right back.”

She let out a strange sound, and I sighed.

“I can’t let you out yet, but I will after I put your perch together, okay?

” There was no way I was about to trust the two of them without the cage barrier while I had to run to my truck, even if I’d be gone for less than a minute.

It wasn’t worth the risk because I absolutely did not want to make another trip to the vet today if I didn’t have to.

Quickly, I ran out to the truck, opened the bed, and pulled out the bags of toys, the dishes for food and water, treats, and food. Then I stared at the large perch with a frown. I could carry that too, couldn’t I? Surely, I didn’t need to make a second trip.

I pushed all the bags onto my left arm and hand, weighing me down and making it feel like my whole arm was gonna fall off. Then I tugged on the perch with my right hand.

As I pulled, I heard a strange noise, so I stopped moving it and glanced around. Nothing was out of place, so I tugged it again. The strange little meep sound came a second time, and I froze for a beat, my heart in my throat, before I pulled again. Sure enough, there was another meep .

“What the fuck?” I breathed out, disgust making me not want to look.

Because I recognized that sound. I knew exactly what creature made it.

I shuddered in horror. “Please don’t be there, please don’t be there, please don’t…”

I sucked in a breath, then quickly twisted the perch to the side so I could get a good look at what was under it.

“Ahhhh!” I screamed the second I saw it.

A gnome.

The gnome looked at me, then let out a scream of its own, its voice high-pitched with terror.

The thing was naked except for the turquoise hat on its head.

Wait. That… that hat looked familiar.

Before I could get a closer look, the thing jumped into my pile of tools, burying itself in them and touching everything with its gross hands and naked ass.

A shudder racked my body, and I grabbed the perch before running away from the gnome and from my truck. After I deposited everything inside, I rushed back to my car to take care of the gnome.

How the hell could an exterminator have a stowaway gnome in their truck?

That sounded like the start of a bad joke.

When I reached my truck, I stared in dismay for a few seconds before diving in. That thing was not going to scare me again. No way. I was prepared this time, and I was going to catch it, put it in a holding cage, then drop it at my regular sanctuary tomorrow.

I pulled out the tools it had dove behind, but it wasn’t there, so with a sigh, I started removing everything… until there was nothing at all left in my truck. There was no sign of the gnome.

It must’ve hopped out when I’d taken everything inside.

What a pain in the ass.

With no patience left, I put everything back in the truck bed, shut it, and locked it up tight. Hopefully that little gross creature had scurried far, far away from me and my house. I shuddered at the thought of it coming inside. Blech .

If it tried, I was sure Odin would eat it. Or possibly the firebird.

That put a smile on my face as I headed inside to set up the perch.

I sighed heavily at the direction my day had gone, shaking my head at myself.

T he next day, I was hesitant to leave my house with the firebird out. I hadn’t bought her a larger cage because she wasn’t staying, and those things were expensive. And there was no way I was locking her in that tiny travel cage for the entire day.

So after a lot of contemplation, I put her perch, food, and water, along with a bunch of her toys in my spare bathroom. I also removed the shower curtain, window curtains, and all other flammable items like towels, rugs, and washcloths. Then I locked her inside.

Hopefully, she’d be okay in there. As I left the house, Odin scratched constantly at the door, trying to get inside to her. Apparently, he had a new best friend.

They got along so well last night, but I wasn’t about to leave them alone together for the day without supervision. And since I worked for myself, I decided I’d come home for lunch so I could check on them both. It should be fine.

The first job on my list for the day was, of course, a gnome infestation.

The house in question was in one of the fancier neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city, so when I arrived, I wasn’t surprised to see a huge-ass mansion in front of me.

The driveway even curved around to the front door like I’d seen in the movies.

I kinda liked it. It made me feel like I was in an old-timey movie or something, which was silly, but luckily, no one ever had to know where my thoughts went.

When I knocked on the door, an actual butler answered and waved me into a front sitting room—or whatever the hell it was called. I honestly didn’t know, I just knew it was in the front of the house and there were seats.

After only a couple of minutes of waiting, a woman in her early thirties walked in, looking flustered.

“Hi, I’m Martha Cohen. You must be Miles?” She held out her hand to shake, so I stood and obliged.

“That’s me. I hear you have a gnome problem?”

She grimaced and sat down, so I retook my seat as she spoke.

“Yes. This house was left vacant for a few months after my father died. There were… legalities that I don’t want to get into, but I’m finally able to move in and fix it up.

Unfortunately, the gnomes have sort of… taken over the back half of the house. ”

“When you say taken over, you mean…?”

Impossibly, her grimace got more grimace-y.

“They’re everywhere. Like… absolutely everywhere.

They’re climbing on things, swinging from the rafters in the attic, running around the halls, screaming.

They’re not even trying to hide from me anymore.

I mean, I’ve never seen anything like it.

They’re just—” She shuddered. “They’re taking over, and I feel like every day, a new room is overrun with them. ”

It looked like I’d finally met someone who thought gnomes were as creepy as I did. “That sounds like a bad infestation.”

“It is. It’s… it’s a lot.”

“Alright, do you mind if I have a look? Once I see what’s going on, I can make a plan and get you a quote.”

She nodded and stood, waving me out of the room. “You really don’t kill them, right?”

I turned to face her. “I don’t kill them. There’s a sanctuary that’s in part of the Ringshire National Forest where I’ve been taking gnomes for the past few years. I’ll take them there, so they’ll be safe and happy. I promise.”

She looked relieved and placed a hand over her heart. “Thank god. They’re driving me crazy, but they’re still living beings.”

“That they are.” We started walking again.

She shrugged. “Not to mention, they’re kinda cute.”

I grimaced at that, but luckily, she was walking in front of me and didn’t see.

She waved at a closed door at the end of a long hallway. “This room’s the worst, I think, but I’ve seen them all over the whole house.”

I nodded. “Once they’re inside, they’re usually everywhere.”

After a chin dip from her, she slowly pushed the door open. I could hear them before I saw them. From the amount of meeps coming from that room, I knew this was going to be the worst gnome infestation I’d ever seen. Especially considering how big the house was.

When I stepped into the doorway, I had to hold in the shudder that wanted to come, and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming.

Oh my god, they’re everywhere.

She’d been right. They were so bold they didn’t bother hiding from us. They were running around the room, cutting up clothes to make their hats and garments, climbing on the bookshelf, and chattering away.

Slowly, I backed out of the room before they noticed me and attacked.

Not that gnomes ever did that. Honestly, they’d never attacked me or anyone I knew of—they were peaceful little creepy-crawlies. But my anxieties over them weren’t rational, and they were just so damn freaky.

After I shut the door, I asked, “Can I take a look at the rest of the house?”

“Of course.” She followed me, which was a little annoying, but I was used to clients hovering unnecessarily. “Um… it’s bad, right? Like really bad?”

I didn’t want to lie to her, but I also didn’t want to make her feel bad. “They’ve really made this place their own.” Understatement of the century. “But don’t worry. I’ll get them out for you.”

How the hell one of me was going to capture the hundreds—possibly thousands—of gnomes that were in these walls, I didn’t know.

I’d been thinking about hiring an assistant—and a receptionist—lately, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. So it was just me, and this was a really, really big job, and the longer I was here, the more I realized I couldn’t do it alone.

Maybe I could find someone to help me out.

The weekend was coming up in two days, so I could ask someone to do an extra job over it or something.

It was a three-day weekend, too, so that should work in my favor since the person would still get their two days off, right?

I doubted I’d be able to hire someone who could start within the next few days.

But maybe another exterminator was looking for some side work. I’d pay them well.

If only I had someone to ask.