Chapter 21
I couldn’t see Gladrielle from where I was standing, which was in the parking lot of the International House of Pancakes, but I figured she must be around. If she had rededicated herself to killing me, like she claimed, then she needed to keep an eye on me.
“Listen,” I said, talking in a normal voice. If Gladrielle was around, I figured those big pointed elf ears would be able to hear everything I was saying, at least I was hoping they would be able to hear everything I was saying. “That little blond that showed up with the cops is a siren. An evil siren that wants to kill you, which means we need to get you out of town. And since you don’t have clothes, let alone a car, you’re going to have to hitch a ride with me. So what do you say we call a truce, just until we can get away from the cops and the siren and everybody else that wants to kill you.”
I climbed behind the wheel of my emerald green Honda Del Sol, fired the engine up, and sat there, waiting and hoping that Gladrielle would join me.
I didn’t have to wait very long because a minute later, she slipped into the passenger’s side of my two seater. Her long black hair was still a tangled mess. Her eyes were still two black orbs. And she was still buck naked. Although with her immortal body and flawless elf complexion, she was probably one of the few people that could pull off the buck naked look. Being a mermaid, I was of course one of the others.
“This truce is only until we can get away from the siren and the cops,” Gladrielle said. “Once we’re out of their jurisdiction, I’m going to kill you for what you did to Eradu.”
“Understood,” I said. I put the car in gear, pulled out of the parking lot, and headed south. “How did you managed to hide from the cops?”
“I used glamor,” Gladrielle said. “Made the cops believe that they couldn’t see me. Same way I made you think that I was human when we first met.”
“There’s a bag behind your seat,” I said. “Should be some clothes in it. Help yourself.”
Gladrielle found the bag behind the seat, pulled a pair of tan cargo shorts and a red tank top out of it, and squirmed into them. “You always carry extra clothes in your car?”
“I’m a private detective. In my line of work, you never know when you’re going to have to slip out of town with a naked elf.”
Gladrielle looked around. “Where we headed?”
“South.”
“Where south?”
“I’m taking you home.”
“No!” Gladrielle said, her voice rising in a panic.
“You can’t spend the rest of your existence running around the city naked. Suppose you succeed in killing me, what do you do then, where do you go?” She had no answer to that question, not that I thought she would. “It’s time to go home, time to go back to your bed and breakfast, to your ferns, and your flower garden, and your friends.”
“I can’t go home,” Gladrielle said. There was no bitterness in her voice, no anger, no hatred for me or anybody else, there was only sadness.
“Why not?”
“You know why. I’m a dark elf now. I took the life of another sentient being. That means I’m evil.”
“You took a life trying to protect someone you cared about. Caring about someone doesn’t make you evil, nor does trying to protect them.”
“Look at me,” Gladrielle said. “Look at my eyes, my hair, look at what I’ve become.”
“It’s not real,” I said.
I caught Gladrielle off-guard with that statement, because she responded with a surprised, “Huh?”
“I said it’s not real. It’s an illusion.”
“You’re saying I’m using glamor on myself?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“You’re crazy.”
I had been thinking about this for awhile, asking myself the question: what if none of this was real? What if Gladrielle was masking her true appearance, not just from the rest of us, but from herself as well. She wasn’t a shape shifter, like me, so being able to change her appearance made no sense. Unless she hadn’t really changed her appearance.
She believed that if she took a life, she would turn into a dark elf, she would turn into something evil. What if her appearance and her actions over the last couple of days were nothing more than a self fulfilling prophecy, caused by the remorse she felt, not to mention what she believed.
“You’re not evil,” I said.
“And you know what evil is?”
“In my line of work, you see evil a lot, and that’s not you. If I thought you were evil, really evil, I wouldn’t try and save you, I’d just get out of the way and let the cops kill you. Maybe I’d even help them.”
“But I hurt those cops.”
“You singed them a little, you didn’t really hurt them.”
“I hurt you.”
I smiled at Gladrielle. “Do I look hurt?”
Gladrielle sat back in her seat and sighed. Then she changed. Her tangled black hair became sleek and shiny and dark blue in color. The black orbs that had been passing for eyes, became real eyes, with whites, and pupils, and dark blue irises.
“Thank you,” she said. Her voice changed, going back to her normal voice, one that didn’t sound like fingernails on a chalkboard, or like she was trying to seduce someone.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You didn’t give up on me.”
“It’s like I said, I know evil. I know what it looks like, I know what it sounds like, I know what it acts like.”
“Eradu was evil.”
I nodded. “Which is why he had to go.”
“What about the vampire, the one I killed?”
“Titus.”
“Titus.” She paused for a few seconds, then she asked the question that I knew was coming “Was he evil?”
“He was a vampire, they’re leaches by nature. And he was a thousand years old.”
“So, you’re saying he was evil.”
“I’m not sure there is such a thing as a good supernatural. It’s like your people said, we’re abominations that shouldn’t even exist.”
“You don’t seem evil,” Gladrielle said.
“I’ve got more human blood in me than most supernaturals, maybe that gives me a conscious, something most supernaturals don’t have.”
“What about the cops? Will they still come after me?”
“Be kind of hard considering they don’t know your real name, let alone where you live. They don’t even know what you look like.”
“And Jim hasn’t told anyone about what I did, about what happened to me?”
“Elrod said that as long as nobody asked, he wasn’t going to say anything.”
“Is my garden really as bad as it looked in that picture you showed me?”
“I dried your flowers out, so I could take a picture. Once I had the picture, I gave them their water back and they returned to normal health.”
“What about the siren the police brought in? The one you said wants me dead.”
“The only reason she wants to kill you is because I want to save you. Once you’re gone, she’ll find another way to ruin my life.”
“Sounds like she doesn’t like you.”
I laughed. “That’s one way to put it.”
“Mind if I ask why?”
“She’s a siren. I’m a mermaid. Historically, we’ve been in competition for the same things.”
We rode in silence for the rest of the trip, around noon, we reached Gladrielle’s village.
As far as we could see, it was business as usual. No one pointed and stared or gasped in shock when they saw Gladrielle in my car, although a few people did wave.
“Looks like Elrod hasn’t said anything about what happened to you,” I said.
“Looks like it,” Gladrielle said, waving to a couple of people that were waving to her. “If there’s anything I can ever do for you . . . well, let’s just say I owe you for not giving up on me.”
“You could buy me lunch.” She loo
ked at me and laughed, prompting me to say, “I’m a mermaid, I burn a lot of carbs. And you did manage to interrupt my breakfast.”
“Lunch it is,” Gladrielle said.
We headed to a restaurant on the far end of town. A place called the Whispering Oak. I don’t know if Gladrielle knew Elrod would be there, or if it was mere coincidence, but he was there, sitting by himself eating a giant salad, which worked out well for us. Or so I thought.
“Oh my god! You’re back,” Elrod said when he saw Gladrielle with me. “I can’t believe it.”
I slid into the booth next to Elrod, Gladrielle slid in across from us.
“Is it really you?” Elrod said, staring at Gladrielle in disbelief.
“It’s really me,” she said.
“How did she bring you back?”
“Turns out there was no back to bring her from,” I said.
Elrod wrinkled his brow. “I don’t understand.”
“You guys don’t actually change, you don’t actually turn into dark elves, you just end up glamoring yourselves into thinking you’ve changed. It’s all in your head.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“I thought I had done something evil,” Gladrielle said. “So I saw myself as evil and made sure everyone else saw me as evil. Everyone believed what they saw, including me.”
“You’re telling me there’s no such thing as a dark elf?”
“That’s exactly what we’re telling you,” I said. “There are elves, and there are elves that are feeling guilty over something they’ve done, so guilty that they see themselves as evil and begin to act that way.”
“I just needed someone to tell me that I wasn’t evil, that I was still me,” Gladrielle said. “Not just once, but over and over again, until I began to believe it.”
A waitress approached our table. Gladrielle ordered a salad similar to what Elrod was eating. I did a quick scan of the menu, noticed there was no meat, and settled on an extra large cheese pizza.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Elrod said when the waitress left. “But we’ve got a small problem.”
“Which is?” Gladrielle and I said in unison.
“Susan wanted to know what happened after she left the council meeting, so I told her.”
“Who’s Susan?” I said.
“The council woman that spoke up against helping you.”
I nodded. “The woman in the green track suit.”
“That’s the one,” Elrod said.
“What did you tell her?” Gladrielle said.
“The truth.”
“The whole truth?” I said, dumbfounded.
Elrod shrugged his shoulders and flashed a sheepish grin. “I’m an elf, I’m not used to lying.”
“So you told her the council voted to help me.”
“Which she already knew,” Elrod said. “I just filled her in on the rest.”
“You told her that Gladrielle turned into a dark elf?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“But you said that you weren’t going to say anything.”
“I said I wouldn’t say anything unless I was asked. Susan asked.”
“So the council thinks I’m a dark elf,” Gladrielle said. “So what. We’ll just show them that I’m back to normal.”
“Why do you have to show them anything?” I said. “What difference does it make to them?”
“It matters,” Elrod said. “When I told Susan what happened, she called a meeting of the council and they issued an official banishment.”
Gabrielle gasped. Apparently an official banishment was a big deal in elf land.
“If you can banish someone. Then you can lift the banishment.” I looked at Gladrielle, then at Elrod. “Can’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Elrod said. “It’s never been done before.”
“Probably because no one’s ever come back from the dark side.”
“Perhaps.”
The waitress returned with our lunch, Gladrielle’s salad and my extra large cheese pizza. While we ate, I asked the obvious question. “What happens if they don’t lift the banishment?”
“I’ll have to leave town,” Gladrielle said. “Forever.”
“And if you don’t.”
“They’ll shun her,” Elrod said.
“Shun her. You mean pretend that she’s not here, that she doesn’t exist?”
“They won’t wait on her when she comes into a restaurant like this one. They won’t talk to her when they pass her on the street, they won’t ring up her purchases when she’s at a store.”
“Should you be talking to her now?” I asked.
“She hasn’t been shunned yet,” Elrod said. “Just banished. Even then, the banishment just occurred last night. The information hasn’t even been disseminated.”
“Which is why people were waving at me when we drove down the street,” Gladrielle said.
Elrod nodded. “And why they’re waiting on you now.”
I wolfed down a piece of pizza and looked at Elrod. “Sounds like you need to call another council meeting.”
Elrod nodded. I let him out of the booth and he headed off to talk to the council. While he did that, I ate my pizza and Gladrielle played with her salad. The realization that she might be banished from her home seemed to have stolen her appetite. No big surprise.