Chapter 5
I figured the easiest way to find a supernatural that had been around as long as the Count was to check with Wormby. Nobody knew more about supernaturals than he did. Even if he couldn't direct me to another supernatural that was really really old, he had access to the darknet, which was the part of the Internet that most supernaturals used.
Maybe I could hire a supernatural assassin that would be willing to take a crack at the Count, although I doubted if they'd have much success. Three supernatural assassins tried to kill me and failed, so the odds of them killing the world's oldest vampire probably weren't very good.
It was close to midnight when I reached Wormby's place. His pawnshop was closed, no big surprise. Gnomes had this abnormal fear of vampires and rarely went out after dark. For all I knew, Wormby had already made good on his pledge to leave town.
All he had to do was pop out. Poof. One second he was here. The next he was in Panama. Maybe he had another home down there. Wormby and I had a relationship, but it was a business relationship, we weren't friends. We didn't invite each other over when we barbecued. I wasn't even sure if gnomes barbecued.
Wormby's shop was located in a two story brick building a couple of blocks from the beach. He owned the building and kept an apartment on the second floor. The door that led to Wormby's shop was in the middle of the building. There was a second door on the right hand side of the building. Behind it was a staircase that led to the second floor. Another door was located at the top of the stairs, it led to a short hallway at the back of the building. You hung a left at the end of that hallway and you found yourself in a longer hallway, one that ran the length of the building. There were three doors on each side of that hallway, each leading to a different apartment.
Wormby's apartment was on the right, at the front of the hallway. I pounded on the door then squatted. The peephole in Wormby's door was located in the bottom half, at gnome level. If you wanted him to see your face, you had to squat, otherwise he would be staring at your crotch.
“What do you want?” Wormby said from behind the door.
“I need your help.”
“Come back tomorrow.”
“I'm sort of on a deadline. Would you open up. Please.”
“How do I know you're not a vampire?”
“Because I've never been a vampire.”
“Did you meet the Count?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe he turned you into a vampire and sent you here to kill me.”
“Even if he did turn me into a vampire, what are the odds that he'd send me out to kill a gnome that he doesn't even know exists?”
“Maybe you told him about me.”
“Why would I tell him about you?”
“Why wouldn't you tell him about me?”
“Because you're not that important.”
“If I'm not important, why are you here, asking for my help?”
“Wormby open the damn door before I kick it down.” I stood up, so Wormby would know I was serious. One advantage of having such dense muscle tissue is it makes us extremely strong, strong enough to rip the door off a big heavy safe.
I heard a lock unlatch, and then a second, and then a third, and then a fourth. When the door finally opened, Wormby tossed me a bulb of garlic. “Eat this.”
I looked at it and tossed it back to him. “Only if you grind it up and sprinkle it on a big plate of spaghetti. Besides, garlic doesn't affect vampires, you and I both know that's an old wives tail.”
“Maybe,” Wormby said. “But if you had been turned into a vampire, you wouldn't insist I grind this up and sprinkle it on a plate of spaghetti.”
“Cause everybody knows vampires don't eat spaghetti?”
“Or any other kind of food.” Wormby opened the door wide and stepped aside. “Come in.”
Wormby's apartment was surprisingly tasteful. White walls, a white ceiling, polished oak floors, polished oak window frames, with oak blinds covering the windows. The paintings on the walls were all originals, famous originals, expensive originals. The only thing that made it different was the furniture. It was scaled down to fit a gnome, which made me feel like a giant, an out-of-place giant.
“I take it you met the Count,” Wormby said. He was wearing pajamas. They contained alternating horizontal stripes that were green and purple in color. A blue sleep cap with yellow moons on it covered his bald head.
“And you were right, I should've avoided him.”
Wormby moved to a gnome sized sofa made out of white leather and sat. There were no normal sized chairs so I remained standing.
“Tell me about this deadline you mentioned.”
“I've got forty-eight hours to find the Count a playmate, otherwise he's going to kill Savanna and Titus.”
“What kind of a playmate is he looking for?”
“Someone that won't bore him. Someone that's been around as long as he has.”
“How long has he been around?”
“Five thousand years, maybe longer. His eyes are black orbs.”
Wormby sat up straight. “He's Nephilim?”
“No, but he's only a couple of generations removed.”
“I told you we should've left town. I told you. I told you. I told you.”
“And I already admitted that you were right. But the fact is, he's got Savanna and Titus, and if I don't find him a new playmate, he's going to kill them.”
“If you're thinking of making me his new playmate, you can forget it cause it ain't gonna happen. No how. No way. And Titus is a vamp, as far as I'm concerned there are already too many vamps in the world, way too many.”
“You could care less about Titus, I get it. But what about Savanna? She's one of the few people on this planet that actually likes you. She even thinks you're kind of cute.”
Wormby's head perked up. “She thinks I'm cute?”
“Kind of cute, but she also thinks that clowns are adorable, so don't let it go to your head.”
“So what do you want from me?”
“Like I said, I've got forty-eight hours to find him a playmate, someone that won't bore him, someone that's been around as long as he has. I figured if anybody can point me to somebody like that it would be you.”
“Sounds like you need to find an elf.”
“Elves really exist?” I know. I know. It was a silly thing to say, especially when you considered it was coming out of the mouth of a mermaid.
“They're around, but finding one. That's the hard part.”
“Because?”
“They use glamor to hide.”
“I don't know what that is.”
“They have the power to make people see whatever they want them to see. That's how they hide their true appearance. Instead of seeing the pointed ears, dark blue hair, and dark blue eyes, you see another human.”
“So they hide in plain sight.”
“They do.”
“Why would an elf be a challenge for the world's oldest vampire?”
“Because they're immortal.”
“They can't die?”
“They can be killed, but they can't die.”
“Meaning?”
“They don't grow old, nor do they get sick, but if you rip out their heart or cut off their head, they will die.”
“Otherwise they're immortal?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” Wormby asked.
“Why are elves immortal?”
“They're not like you and I. We're descended from the Nephilim, which were the sons of women and fallen angels. Elves are a completely different species. Less powerful than angels, more powerful than humans. They walked the earth long before man appeared.”
“So they're older than the Count.”
“Way older.”
“How do I find one?”
“Now that's the problem. If they don't want you to recognize them, you ain't gonna recognize them.”
“Could you post a notice
on the darknet? Elf wanted?”
Wormby chuckled. “I could, but I doubt if elves pay attention to the darknet. The darknet is used by supernaturals and humans dealing in illegal activity. Elves aren't supernaturals, they're a completely different species.”
“So you don't know where to find one?”
“I know where you're not going to find one.”
“And where is that?”
“Right here in the city. Elves are what you might call country folk. You want to find one you need to get out of the city, find yourself a small town where everyone is tall and thin and looks like they used to play basketball.”
“Elves are tall?”
“Everybody wants to confuse elves with fairies. Fairies are small and have wings, elves are tall and don't have wings.”
“Any suggestions?” I said.
“Regarding?”
“Where I should start looking?” I figured if Wormby knew this much about elves, he probably had some idea as to where they lived.
Wormby sighed. His way of letting me know that I was going to owe him for dispensing such information. “There's a place about two hundred miles southeast of here, in the mountains, a small town called Woodlawn. If I were you, I'd check there.”
I didn't ask him why I should check there. I learned a long time ago, that when Wormby suggested you look here, or there, then that's where you should look. Plus, I was on a deadline.
“I don't suppose you could transport me there? I could save a couple of hours if you could just pop me on over.”
Wormby held up both hands. “I've already said more than I should.”
I nodded and left. I climbed in my emerald green Honda Del Sol, used my phone to find the quickest route to the town of Woodlawn, and took off. I like to drive fast, but Woodlawn was tucked away in the mountains, on a back road that was hard to find. The town was so hard to find that it made me think they didn’t want anyone to find it.
It was a small town, maybe a thousand people, at the most. It had a single stoplight, right in the center of town, where the main north-south route intersected with the main east-west route. It had a turn of the century look to it, turn of the twentieth century, not the twenty-first.
The buildings were all brick and had that early twentieth century style to them, as did the street lights, which looked more like gaslights rather than those that used electricity. And of course there were a lot of trees, big trees, old trees, their branches formed a canopy over the towns two main streets.
I saw no bars, taverns, or pubs, but there were a lot of cafes, bakeries, and coffee shops. If this town was full of elves, then it appeared they preferred caffeine to alcohol. No surprise there. Alcohol didn't affect me either, if I wanted a jolt, I drank something that contained caffeine. If I wanted a high, I went into my treasure room, turned on the spotlights, and stared at my shiny shiny treasures.
It was morning by the time I reached town, so the streets were busy. The people were all tall and thin and athletic, but none of them had pointed ears or blue hair. I passed a small park, but it contained no playground equipment. Did immortal beings even have kids? In truth I didn't know. Vampires didn't, but I had no clue about elves. My knowledge of elves was extremely limited.
I could tell that the town was different, and that the people that lived there were different. Different enough to warrant my checking the place out. I pulled the Del Sol into a spot directly in front of a coffee shop called Magical Java. The street had diagonal parking, that alone should have alerted me that this place was different.
I climbed out of the Del Sol and headed inside, still dressed in the uniform Titus insisted we wear, the black boots, the black leather short shorts, the cropped tee shirt with the words O Positive printed on the front in red letters that dripped blood. I couldn’t do much to hide my cherry red hair, but aviator style sunglasses hid my mermaid green eyes.
It was my eyes that always gave me away, told people that I wasn’t human. My eyes were bigger, brighter, greener than human eyes.
The coffee shop was small and quaint. The round tables that filled the place were made out of chrome and red Formica, making the place look like something out of the nineteen fifties. The people were all tall and thin and athletic, with broad shoulders and narrow waists. They all had long faces and long narrow noses. They all looked to be in their twenties or thirties. There were no elderly men or women, no teenagers, no little kids.
Whoever these people were, they definitely weren't human. Not all that surprising. A lot of supernaturals preferred to avoid humans. There was a town fifty miles north of the city that was inhabited and run by werewolves. It was a pack town. Although if what Wormby said was true, elves weren't exactly supernaturals. They were a completely separate species, one that had been around long before we came into being.
I attracted a lot of attention from the people in the coffee shop. Maybe it was my outfit, maybe it was my mermaid red hair, more likely it was the fact that I wasn't a local. If these people were elves using magic, or glamor, to hide their true appearance, then they were probably leery of outsiders, and I was definitely an outsider.
The girl working behind the counter was tall. I'm five nine in my bare feet. The four inch heels I was wearing put me over six feet, yet the girl behind the counter was just as tall, everyone in the place looked just as tall as me if not taller. What's more, they didn't smell human.
All supernaturals have a distinctive smell to them, werewolves smell like wet fur, vampires have a musty smell, gnomes smell like sugar, bogeymen smell like citrus. Mermaids smell like sea salt, at least that's what I've been told.
Beyond the coffee, and donuts, and sugar, the people in this place smelled like flowers, and it wasn't because they were all wearing perfume or cologne or aftershave. This was a natural smell, one humans couldn't detect, but supernaturals could. I wasn't sure if these people were elves or something else, but they definitely weren't human.
“You're not from around here,” the girl behind the counter said when I stepped in front of it.
She appeared to be in her mid twenties. Her hair was long and straight and black, or dark blue. One second it looked black, the next it looked dark blue. The same could be said for her eyes. I assumed that was the glamor, the magic, she was using to hide her true appearance.
“Just passing through,” I said.
“What can I get you?”
“I'll take a large caramel mocha latte and six glazed donuts.”
Her blue black eyes widened in surprise. “Six?”
“I'm a mermaid,” I said. “If I don't consume at least seven thousand calories a day, I lose weight.”
The girl smiled and set about fulfilling my order. She put my coffee in a large paper cup and covered it with a plastic lid. She put the donuts in a white paper bag and set everything on the counter in front of me. “Can I get you anything else?”
“Yeah. I need an elf that's powerful enough to take on the world's oldest vampire.”