Odd Job Jane by Lorette C. Luzajic

Mission: to rid winter of imps and karakondžula. I had no idea what the sign meant, but I applied. I needed work. That was how I found myself hunting domovoi with page markers and highlighter. Until I began dismantling maps and old books that smelled like caraway and cabbage, I believed it was all imagination. After a few failed stakeouts, I turned in my first capture, handing my boss a djinn in an old apothecary bottle. I thought these were only stories, I said, pocketing my pay. He tossed my kill into the heap of history, all squirming bugaboos and scuddling things, barely looking up. You’d be surprised, he said.

Lorette C. Luzajic reads, writes, publishes, edits, and teaches flash fiction and prose poetry. Her own has appeared in Ghost Parachute, The Disappointed Housewife, Bending Genres, Unbroken, Trampset, The Citron Review, Flash Boulevard, NFFR, and beyond. She won first place in a flash contest at MacQueen’s Quinterly. She is the author of two collections of small fictions, Pretty Time Machine and Winter in June. She is the founding editor of The Ekphrastic Review, a journal of literature inspired by art. Lorette is also an award-winning neoexpressionist artist, with collectors in more than 30 countries. She is also passionately curious about art history, folk horror, ancient civilizations, artisan and tribal jewelry, and culinary lore, to name a few.