Page 16 of Your Final Resting Place

They both fell silent, thinking, until Zee said, “Agent Fae would have said if there were traps. Probably.”

“Elion may not be aware of that information either way,” Victor said. “Vermin traps wouldn’t be on any building plans.”

An uneasy feeling wriggled inside me. Had we just marched our not-so-innocent gremlins into a trap?

Victor must have seen the concerned look on my face because he replied, “Experience has taught us that gremlins are proficient at avoiding traps.”

“There’s Jimmy!” Zee said, squinting over the steering wheel. “He’s coming over.”

Sure enough, Jimmy was zipping back toward us, bobbing and weaving like a large erratic firefly, weighed down by something half his size in his tiny hands.

“What’s he got there?” Zee squinted harder.

“That’s not a pendant,” Victor said.

I looked at Victor’s face, and saw the grimace. That couldn’t be good.

Jimmy made it to Zee’s open window and flung the wrinkled, fleshy, three-inch-long appendage inside. The chubby dick-shaped item landed in Zee’s lap. Zee let out a high-pitched scream and poofed to the back of the van, blasting us all in multiple waves of purple sparks.

Victor plucked the flaccid uh . . . member off the seat and grimaced harder.

“Is it a dick?” Zee had plastered himself to the back of the van. “It’s a dick. He brought us a fuckin’ dick. He’s fuckin’ unhinged. I have fuckin’ trauma from Victor’s cock on a cushion and Jimmy brings us a fuckin’ severed dick?”

“Finger on a cushion,” Victor corrected, lifting the as-yet-unidentified thing. “Not my penis.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t fuckin’ know that, and I don’t know what the fuck that is. Is it a dick? Just tell me. Imma pass out.” He draped the back of his hand across his forehead. “It’s getting darker. There are drums in my ears. I can see the light.”

“Zee . . . It’s alright.” I wasn’t sure what it was, but I was fairly certain it wasn’t a dick. “It is alright, isn’t it?” I asked Victor.

“It is unlikely to be alright for the previous owner of this . . . I suspect, finger.”

Jimmy hovered outside the window—wings buzzing, grinning. Was that blood on his chin?

“Are pixies carnivorous?” I asked.

“I would have thought that was obvious from your time in the meat freezer,” Victor replied, still eyeing the chubby severed finger.

“So wait, it’s not a dick?” Zee asked from the back.

“No.” I tossed Zee a smile. “You’d think with your vast experience with dicks, you’d know a dick from a finger.”

“Ha ha.” Zee clambered through the row of back seats and sat himself down next to me. “I have PTSD from Victor’s penis.”

“Not a sentence I’ve ever heard before,” Victor remarked.

“Yeah, we get it, you’re old.” Zee leaned forward, getting a closer look at the chonky finger. “It’s a thumb! I see it now. Okay. I’m good. Fuck. Jimmy, you freaky little pixie psycho!”

Jimmy fluttered innocent eyelashes.

“What does it mean?” Victor asked us all.

“It means someone is missing a thumb,” Zee said.

“Thank you for stating the obvious, Zodiac,” Victor drawled. “I’m uncertain I’d have guessed that without your vast intellectual input.”

Zee grinned. “You’re welcome.”

“Jimmy,” I scooted into the driver’s seat. “Thank you for the uh . . . thumb, but did you find the pendant we talked about?”