Chapter 6
“You need a what?” the girl said, pretending she didn't understand me.
“An elf. Preferably one that's powerful enough to take on the world's oldest vampire.”
The girl didn't seem to know what to say, so she looked at a man sitting by himself in front of the shop's main window. He looked a little older than her, maybe ten years. He wore blue jeans, a red shirt, and black cowboy boots. His hair was short and black. Unlike the girl's hair, the color didn't seem to waiver, which told me that his magic, or glamor, or whatever you wanted to call it, was more powerful than hers.
“Forget what I said.” I grabbed my latte and donuts and headed for the man in the red shirt. I set them on his table and grabbed the chair across from him. “I take it you're somebody important around here.”
“Jim,” the man said. “Jim Smith.”
He had been reading the local paper, but he folded it up and set it off to the side.
“Really?” I said. “You couldn't come up with anything more original than Jim Smith?”
The man smiled, his face was similar to that of every other face in the place, except for myself of course. He had a long narrow face, with a sharp chin, high cheekbones, and a small mouth with full lips. He was clean shaven. I'm not sure he could've grown a beard if he wanted to. I couldn't see a single whisker on his face and I'm a mermaid, which means my eyes are designed to see in the oceans dark hazy depths. I didn't know if he was an elf, but he definitely wasn't human.
“You would prefer I call myself something else?” His voice was very melodic, like that of an operatic tenor.
“You look more like an Elron to me, or maybe an Elrod, or even an Elward. You definitely don't look like a Jim Smith.”
“Then I guess I'm going to have to change the name of my nursery from Smith’s Nursery to, what, Elrod's Nursery?”
His eyes were pale blue, but occasionally they would darken, making me think that masking the color of their eyes was harder than masking the shape of their ears or the color of their hair.
“I've never understood why non-humans try so hard to hide who they are.” I didn't want to call them supernaturals. Supernaturals descended from the Nephilim, and from what Wormby had said, elves weren't descended from the Nephilim, they were around long before the Nephilim came into being. Non-humans seemed to be the best term.
“You don't try to hide who you are?”
“I'm a mermaid. We're not what you would call shy.”
Elrod, I just couldn't bring myself to call him Jim Smith, looked at what I was wearing. “No, you certainly aren't.”
“Just for the record, this isn't my normal dress, I'm operating on a deadline and I didn't have time to change.”
“What sort of a deadline?”
“The world's oldest vampire, a guy that calls himself, the Count, is going to kill two of my friends if I don't find him a playmate.”
“A playmate?”
“Someone as old and as powerful as him.”
“How old is he?”
“His grandfather was Nephilim. I assume you remember them.”
“Unless they bought some plants or fertilizer from me, I'm probably not familiar with them.”
I didn't say anything. I just took the lid off my latte and took a sip. It was good, really good. I pulled one of the donuts out of the bag and took a bite. It was even better. “So, were these baked in a hollow tree?”
Elrod smiled. “What makes you think we're elves?”
“You're definitely not human.”
“Because?”
“You don't smell human. And you're having trouble masking your eye color. All of you are. A human probably wouldn't notice. Most supernaturals probably wouldn't notice, but I'm a mermaid and my eyes are designed to see in the ocean's dark murky depths. Plus, I'm a trained detective. I notice things that others don't.”
“Let's assume for a minute that I am an elf. Why would I want to help you?”
I polished off one donut and started on a second, taking a minute to decide how I wanted to approach this. I could plead, appeal to his good side. I could threaten, force him to help me. In the end, I decided to take a third route, I decided to be my irresistible self.
“If you help me, you’ll get to hang out with me. Who wouldn’t want that?”
Elrod laughed, watched me polish off a second donut, and start on a third. “How many of those are you going to eat?”
“Like all mermaids, I have an extremely fast metabolism. If I don't eat at least seven thousand calories a day, I'll lose weight.” I took a couple of bites of my third donut and washed them down with a sip of my latte. “So, are you going to help me or not?”
“Tell me about this Count? You said he's looking for a playmate.”
“He's bored. I guess that happens when you're five thousand years old.” I paused to see if Elrod would disagree. “But I guess you would know that better than I would.”
“I take pleasure in the little things,” Elrod said. “The sound of the birds chirping, the feel of the grass beneath my bare feet. Perhaps if this Count learned to do that, he wouldn't bore so easily.”
“Why don't you come with me and tell him that. Maybe you can show him how to be less of a homicidal prick.”
Elrod laughed. “Are all mermaids as blunt as you?”
“Yes.”
“Can't you take this Count on by yourself?”
I shrugged my shoulders, finished my third donut, and washed it down with a swig of my latte. “I prefer to avoid face to face conflicts where I don't know what the outcome is going to be. Don't get me wrong. Ninety-nine percent of the supernaturals I go up against, I can handle by myself, but this guy . . . .”
“Falls in the other one percent?”
“I spent ten years working as a cop, alongside humans, the one thing that taught me is it never hurts to have backup.”
“And you want me to be your backup.”
“I want the most powerful elf in this village to be my backup. If that's you then great. If it's somebody else, I'd appreciate it if you pointed them out.”
“Let's assume I am an elf. What do you think I could do to this Count?”
I shrugged my shoulders, started in on a fourth donut. “Use your elfin magic on him?”
Elrod laughed. “My elfin magic? I think you've seen too many movies.”
At least he had stopped denying that he was an elf. That was progress.
“You expect me to believe the only power you have is the glamor you use to hide your real appearance?”
Elrod didn't say anything, but he did let the glamor drop. His hair color went from black to dark blue. His eyes went from pale blue to dark blue. His ears went from rounded to pointed, his skin became so pale that it was almost translucent. It was also flawless, there wasn't a wrinkle, mole, or blemish on him.
“I take it the jig's up?” the girl behind the counter said.
“She's a mermaid,” Elrod said. “She won't give us away.”
“Not if you help me,” I added.
“Just because we've been around a few centuries doesn't mean we have powers,” Elrod said.
“I'm not asking you to kill the guy. Just come and meet him. Maybe the two of you will hit it off. You can talk about the good old days, back when Ramses the Second ruled Egypt. If nothing else, you can sell him on the joys of walking barefoot in the grass.”
“In the moonlight?”
The elf made a joke, which was nice to hear. Most supernaturals didn't make jokes, mermaids being the main exception. Vampires, werewolves, gnomes, bogeymen, wisps, and every other supernatural I met took themselves so seriously. Too seriously in my opinion.
“A real businessman wouldn't pass up an opportunity like this,” I said. “This guy is loaded, travels with an entourage and everything. Imagine the amount of fertilizer he could purchase from you.”
“You're not like most of the supernaturals I've met,” Elrod said. “Most supernaturals don't go out of the
ir way to help others. They're mostly concerned about themselves.”
“Sounds like you haven't met too many mermaids.”
“We're forest dwellers, not too many mermaids live in the forest.”
“One of the people the Count is threatening to kill is a mermaid that grew up in Montana.”
“I thought mermaids had to live near the ocean.”
“We prefer to live near the ocean, for obvious reasons, but we don't have to live there.”
“I'm afraid we've never paid much attention to the other species on this planet. We prefer to keep to ourselves.”
“Well, here's your chance to reach out, make new friends.”
“It's not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“To help you out, I'd need to get approval from the council.”
“The town council?”
“You could call them that.”
“What do you call them?”
“The elf council. We have rules, laws, if you will, that we're required to follow, just like humans. To interact with another species, at least on the level you're requesting, requires council approval.”
“So, let's go talk to the council.”
“They only meet once a week.”
“I think I mentioned this, but I'll mention it again, I'm sort of on a deadline here. Can't you call an emergency meeting or something? The way the others in the building have deferred to you, I'm guessing you're somebody halfway important.”
“A long time ago, they referred to me as the elf king, today they just call me the mayor.”
“Are you the king of all elves, or just the ones that live around here?”
“Just the ones that live in this forest. Although king might not be an accurate term, since it implies absolute power and my power has never been absolute. We have laws, everyone is required to follow them, even the king.”
“Which is why you need to call an emergency meeting of the council. Preferably right now.”
Elrod nodded. “There's a bed and breakfast on the south end of town, why don't you get a room, change into something less . . . noticeable.”
“You think that will make a difference?”
“My people are set in their ways, some of them view supernaturals as . . . polluted. If you show up dressed like that, it will just confirm what they already think.”
If he expected me to argue, he was going to be disappointed. When you're descended from fallen angels, you kind of are polluted.
I grabbed my last two donuts and latte, climbed in the Del Sol, and headed off in search of the bed and breakfast. I found it on the south end of town. It was a white clapboard house, two and half stories high, with a wraparound porch. Like everything else in town, it looked like it was built early in the twentieth century. A small sign in the front yard identified it as Claire's Bed and Breakfast. When I say the sign was small, I mean it was small, almost as if Claire was trying to not attract customers.
Considering how the people that lived here were all elves that wanted as little to do with the rest of the world as possible, the bed and breakfast was probably here for appearance sake, and for any stray travelers that happened to wander through town.
I wasn't planning on staying the night, after all, I was on a deadline. But I did need a place to change clothes. I kept an emergency duffel bag in the trunk of my car. Something I learned to do after I started working as a private detective. It contained some extra clothes and money. I also kept a locked box with a gun and some ammo in the trunk, although I rarely used it. When you can control the water that makes up a person's body, you don't really need a gun.
I grabbed the duffel bag out of the Del Sol's trunk and headed into the bed and breakfast. I opened the front door and stepped into a foyer. To the left was a dining room and a kitchen. To the right was a sitting room. At the back of the foyer a steep stairway led to the second floor.
The furnishings were all turn of the century, turn of the twentieth century, not turn of the twenty-first century. Both the dining room and the sitting room contained bay windows with lush green ferns. To my right was a standing coat rack. Next to that was an umbrella holder and a small table with a silver bell. On the wall above the table was a wooden sign that said, ring bell for service.
I picked up the bell and rang it. It had a clear sweet tone, which made me think it had been made by elves. They had a reputation for being superb silversmiths.
A woman, who I took to be Claire, appeared at the top of the stairs, looking more than a bit surprised to find a customer standing in her foyer. She was tall and thin and athletic, like every other person that lived in town. She had a long thin face with a sharp chin. Her long hair was black, her ears rounded, but she was clearly an elf, using elfin magic to hid her true appearance.
“I need a room,” I said. “Not for the night. I just need to freshen up and change clothes before meeting your council.”
“You mean the town council?” Claire said.
“Town council. Elf council, call them what you want.”
“Elf . . . council?” Claire said, playing dumb.
“I'm sort of on a deadline. I don't really have time for this we're not elves, we're just everyday run of the mill humans crap. If you could just show me to my room, I'll be out of your hair as fast as I can.” Claire pointed to the hallway behind her. “First door on the right.”
I sprinted up the stairs, stopped next to Claire, and offered her my hand. “Low Campbell, ex-cop, private detective, mermaid.”
“Claire Smith,” Claire said.
“Got to be honest, you look more like a Gladrielle than a Claire.” Her eyes were dark blue, elf blue. I found it interesting that she wasn't trying to mask the color of them. Masking the color of their eyes seemed to be hard to master, maybe she just couldn't do it, or maybe she thought I wouldn't notice.
The room she pointed me toward was dominated by a king sized bed with a white lace bedspread. White lace curtains covered the room's large window. A lush fern hung in front of the window. Two more ferns on nightstands framed the bed. An old steamer trunk sat at the foot of the bed. In the middle of the opposite wall was a door leading to a bathroom.
I peeled off the outfit Titus insisted I wear and took a quick shower. Then I donned the most conservative outfit in my bag, a black pantsuit and a white silk blouse. One of the advantages to being a mermaid is our hair is always dry, even after a shower or a swim in the ocean.
Gladrielle and Elrod were waiting for me in the foyer, right at the bottom of the stairs. Neither was using glamor to mask their appearance, both had dark blue hair, dark blue eyes, pointed ears, and flawless skin.
“Do I get my meeting?” I asked as I descended the stairs, my bag in my right hand.
“You get your meeting,” Elrod said. “But if I were you, I wouldn't get my hopes up.”
“Because your people prefer not to get involved with polluted species.”
“Some of us prefer to not get involved with anybody. Humans or supernaturals.”
“I just need one person, not the whole town.” I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked at Gladrielle. “What do I owe you?”
“Nothing, you weren't here that long.”
“Shall we go?” Elrod said.
I nodded and led the way out the door. Elrod fell in behind me, Gladrielle followed him. “You on the town council, or the high council, or whatever you guys call it?” I asked her.
“I am,” she said. “So is Jim.”
I wrinkled my brow. “Jim?”
“She means me,” Elrod said. He turned to Gladrielle. “She says I look more like an Elrod.”
Gladrielle laughed. “You don't know a lot about elves do you?”
“Nope, but I'm a quick learner.” I looked at Elrod. “So what are my chances of convincing your council to help me?”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“Slim and none. And if you listen real hard, you can hear Slim riding ou
t of town.”