Suzume laughed again. “Nothing, you dummy. Like the foxes give a shit about the operation you have going here. We were just curious. Have your witch patch up my vampire and I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Um, excuse me,” I cut in. “But what exactly is she doing?”
“Oh, sorry, Fort. I forgot that you need the Junior Reader version.” I gritted my teeth as she continued. “The elf population was in the crapper even before Christianity washed up on their shores, thanks to a few good wars in antiquity, then a few more wars just for good measure, and then they inbred so heavily that most of the younger elves were sterile before Rome was even mildly concerned about Visigoths. Visit an elf outpost and you practically hear the banjos in the background.” Lulu gave a sharp huff, but didn’t interrupt. “Full-blood elves might not die of old age, but they sure liked to kill each other, and when you mix those two together with sterility you end up with the same thing that happened to the dodo bird. So they had to start breeding with humans, which for them was kind of like you making it with a sheep.” Suzume’s grin was wicked. “Big superiority issues for elves. Big sociopath issues for elves. I mean, seriously, dudes like a body count, but mainly there’s the superiority problem. The thought of extinction finally got them in the mood, but not enough to actually form relationships with those repellently lower forms of life. This resulted in a long and idyllic period where males would seduce a human woman, then check in nine months later to see if things worked out. If they had, they stole the baby. Easy-peasy. Then, though, the real tragedy happened.” Her voice dropped, and she whispered, “The pill. Suddenly those seduced maidens weren’t getting knocked up like they should’ve, and then add safe and legal abortion to the mix and you have a huge problem for a teensy-tiny population that not only relies on one-shot knock-ups, but breed true pretty rarely.”
Suzume paused and seemed to do a mental count, then said, “Lulu, I counted twelve babies on your wall of triumph that had crappy glamours on them. You’ve got, what, like a five percent success rate on breeding halfsies?”
“Seven percent,” Lulu snipped.
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” I said slowly. “Seven percent of the women who come in here get a shot of elf semen?”
“Idiot,” Suzume said affectionately. “All of them get it.”
“Okay, I’m lost,” I admitted.
Finally having enough, Lulu sat up straight and jumped in. “It’s very simple, Fort,” she said. “Elf genetics are difficult. Inseminate a woman with elf semen, and you have a small chance of getting an active hybrid. Usually, though, all you end up with is a human with some latent genetics that we’ve never figured out how to trigger. You can even try breeding two latent half-breeds, and all you’ll get is another latent. Only hybrids that are active at birth will ever carry the traits that those of us who are part of the elf community value. The women who come to my clinic have usually had multiple rounds of in vitro and other treatments with other doctors, with no success. They are desperate for a pregnancy, and I can offer them a guaranteed success. I won’t be using their husbands’ semen, but for women in the middle of reproductive hell, that’s an entirely workable deception. There is a very small possibility that their child will not be entirely human, but since I’m the one who delivers them I can place a solid”—her calm sales pitch broke for a minute and she glared at Suzume, who smiled condescendingly—“glamour on the infant. The baby is left with the family until it begins approaching puberty, and then a false accident is arranged that leaves the child with the elves and the parents none the wiser.”
I stared. “That’s horrible.”
Lulu looked surprised, and shot a confused look at Suzume. “Are you sure this is a vampire? He sure doesn’t sound like one.”
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Suzume said conversationally. “You’d think that his mother had fucked Jiminy Cricket. And I’m serious, Fort, what is horrible here? These women have a ninety-three percent chance of that never happening.”
“But some of them will think that their kid has been killed!”
“Only seven percent of them. And that’s a kid they never even would’ve had without Lulu.”
“If they’d gone to another doctor—”
“Fort, these women are infertile. No science is going to get them pregnant. It took magic. And”—she turned back to Lulu—“not that story hour hasn’t been fascinating, but am I going to get a shot at this witch of yours?”
“What’s in this for me?” Lulu asked.
“Firstly, I’ll start giving your business card to all our rich customers who have wives with infertility issues. So that’s some cash down the road for you. Secondly, I won’t tattle to Madeline Scott about the operation you’ve got going here, because I just know that you haven’t been forking over a cut of your profits. But more importantly, if you let me use your witch I’ll take the judgmental bloodsucker away and you can get back to squirting elf juice in vajayjays.”
“I really hate you,” Lulu said, those stunning green eyes slits of malevolence.
Suzume smiled. “I almost believed you that time.”
Lulu took Suzume’s offer, and we were stuffed into a small examining room that was covered with yet more photos of kids. These ones were a lot older than the ones in the waiting room. Apparently Lulu’s clients were encouraged to keep sending in birthday photos, and the painted words on each wall noted the ages. I was kept company by HAPPY THIRD BIRTHDAY! HAPPY SEVENTH BIRTHDAY! and HAPPY THIRTEENTH BIRTHDAY! There was a noticeable drop in cuteness between those last two age groups.
Lulu’s witch was a short man in his late fifties with a receding hairline, an impressive beer gut, the vocabulary of a particularly foulmouthed sailor, and a general attitude of being extremely put upon. He had me strip down to my underwear, which was accompanied by many unwelcome observations, wolf whistles, and encouraging “woo-woo” noises from Suzume, who was slowly spinning herself around in a little wheeled stool, and then I was liberally coated in a pastelike substance that was orange and smelled very sharply of fish guts.
“Is this seriously magic?” I asked when he also told me to drink a clear concoction that had the consistency of ketchup.
“What, you think I’m wasting my time with useless potions?” the witch asked, very offended. “Do I look like some Gaia-hugging twat with a Coexist bumper sticker on the back of my Saab? Man up and drink the fucking potion. Buddha’s balls, kid, doing fertility spells all damn day might be goddamn-ass boring, but at least the fucking women don’t mouth off when they’re told to drink something. You tell those broads that it’ll get them a baby, and they will put that potion back so fast that you would swear that they had a damn beer bong implanted in their jaw.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, and started to choke down the drink under his gimlet glare. I gagged a little. “Maybe you should serve this with a spoon,” I suggested. With a few more snarled curses, the witch stormed out with a shouted “And don’t wipe that stuff off for twenty goddamn minutes or I’ll mix up one that has to be taken in suppository form!”
The door slammed.
“Witches take it pretty personally when you insult their potions,” Suzume said mildly.
“How was I supposed to know that?” I asked. Suzume’s expression spoke volumes, so I poked at some of the orange gunk currently hardening on my face and changed the subject. “So, what’s an elf glamour?”
“Third-rate illusion magic. Pretty much all that most of the halfsies can manage. Just enough to make a kid’s pointy ears look round.”
“And your illusion magic is…?”
Suzume snorted. “Awesome. Seriously, have you checked me out while I’m working? I should have my own daytime show.”
“What’s the difference?” I asked, fascinated enough that I was willing to enable Suzume’s ego trip.
“I give the mind a nudge and let the brain fill in cracks. Elves try to wrestle brains into submission. Much less effective. Consider my kick-ass job w
ith Phillip last night. If there had been a dozen of those Keebler wannabes there, putting all their sissy mojo together, they still would’ve failed completely, because they would’ve tried to make the body invisible. All it takes is one person tripping where he shouldn’t, or two people who keep bumping into something that isn’t there, and they start looking closely. And the moment someone starts looking closely, an illusion will start unraveling. You need to give the mind something that it will accept and even work to maintain. Crazy homeless man dead in alley? Check. Guy carrying drunk girlfriend? Check. An elf glamour spends its time screaming, Round ears, not pointy ears, round ears! If I pulled fox magic, mine would just say, Of course these ears are normal. You know, all Obi-Wan. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for is a lot more effective and easy than these droids are completely invisible.”
“What about the night you scared off my muggers?”
“Oh yes. Good times.” Suzume smiled nostalgically, then winked. “If a trick just has to work long enough to scare someone off, then it’s not as important for it to hold up. Their minds were working the whole time to tell them that what they were seeing couldn’t exist, but they were too focused on running to stop and listen.”
I nodded. That actually kind of made sense.
“So, why didn’t you try to trick Phillip last night?” I asked.
Suzume snorted. “Yeah, why didn’t I also try to stop and juggle?” I raised an eyebrow, and she explained. “Fox magic is a little like calculus. I can do it if I have a minute to think it over, but if I had to do it in the middle of a fight, my answers would be really off. And last night, every time I was starting to stop and take a breather, you thought it was a great idea to become Phillip’s punching bag.”
This time it was my turn to roll my eyes. “All my fault. Suuuuure, Suze. That headfirst trip you took into a brick wall had absolutely nothing to do with that decision to keep trying the love bite approach to stopping a fight.”
Suzume stuck her tongue out at me, then pointedly turned around and began ransacking through the medical supply cupboard. I couldn’t hold back a grin.
I looked back at the walls. There was something kind of creepy about being surrounded by all those kids with posed smiles. It was the kind of décor that belonged in a Stephen King movie.
“For a place dealing with infertile women, don’t you think it’s kind of, you know, insensitive to plaster pictures of kids on every wall?” I asked.
“Yes.” Suzume had just found the tongue depressors, and was laying them out end to end across the floor.
“Then why do you think they’re doing it?”
“Because it’s insensitive.”
“That makes no sense, Suze.” I propped up and looked at her.
“Haven’t you ever bothered to learn anything about the wider world, Fort?” Suzume asked.
“Let’s assume that I haven’t, and that you’ve already made a few more condescending remarks, and skip to the part where you just tell me the answer.”
Suzume gave an offended sniff. “As if I’ve been anything but a patient instructor.” That her pants didn’t spontaneously combust at that statement was complete proof that there is no higher power. “It’s for the witch.”
She paused, and I made a little go on gesture.
“Witches need payment that’s more than just cash. More than half the reason Lulu’s success rate is so high is that she’s using women who have spent so long trying to have a baby. Their desperation feeds into the witch’s magic and makes it stronger. The pictures”—she gestured at the wall—“are like waving a red flag in a bull’s face. It keeps all those emotions stoked, probably with a nice dollop of envy and a little soupçon of resentment. All good stuff if you’re a witch cooking up a brew.”
“You mean this is black magic?” I looked in horror at the now-empty cup of sludge that I’d just finished downing. It had a chililike aftertaste.
Suzume laughed, cutting me off before I could stick my finger down my throat. “Black magic, white magic, that’s all New Age horseshit. It’s just magic. Witches learn magic like a lawyer learns the law. It’s all the same stuff that goes into it. Witches are bad or good like lawyers are nice or douches—it’s all in how they’re applying it. And I don’t know about you, but helping sterile women get buns in their ovens and patching up whiny vampires isn’t exactly a rain of toads.”
“Oh, okay.” Silence fell for another moment, broken only by the sound of Suzume playing with the tongue depressors. Another question had occurred to me, and I gave the conversation another poke. “So, have you seriously been spying on Lulu?”
“Googling someone’s name every once in a while isn’t spying, Fort. It’s just keeping a cautious eye on the neighbors. And you should be grateful we’re bothering, which is more than your mom and siblings have managed lately. Lulu might come off well, but she’s like all the other halfsies. A piece of work with daddy issues. Considering how closely she works with the full-bloods, she’s got to be carrying around some serious head trauma.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t let her ‘those of us who are part of the elf community’ bullshit fool you. The full elves still kicking around and jerking off might spend all their time trying to make halfsies, but they never let those halfsies forget that instead of immortality, they’ve got Mommy’s life span. Instead of the magic that had Druids planning Stonehenge, they get a few basic parlor tricks. Worst of all, no amount of crazy breeding is ever going to bring back the world that those elves lost. They’re like dinosaurs trying to pretend that they aren’t doomed by saying that the platypus now counts as one of them. It’s not going to really help, plus they still hate everything with fur.”
“Okay, that does sound like the holidays would be awkward.”
“Exactly. And it’s the halfsies like Lulu, trying so hard to win Daddy’s love and approval, who end up going off the deep end. Which is, sadly enough, still only the kiddy pool compared to full elves.”
I was starting to pick up on Suzume’s theme. “Because full elves are crazy?”
“Completely bat-shit.” Suzume pushed a few more tongue depressors around with her foot, then turned back to the supply cabinet.
I poked at the orange gunk again. “I am starting to feel better.”
“My heart quivers with delight. You’ve got ten more minutes with that stuff, so stop poking it.”
I’ve never been very good at not poking at stuff. I was always the kid who had to pull off Band-Aids early, and I have a few scars from where I wouldn’t stop scratching at my chicken pox, no matter how many times Jill and Brian told me not to. I looked back at the wall of thirteen-year-olds to distract myself. Why a series of photos depicting pouty faces, the incipience of acne, and the prevalence of orthodontia would make someone yearn to get pregnant, I had no idea.
“It’s hard to believe that some of these kids are thirteen,” I said, scanning over the photos. “A couple of them look like they still wear footie pajamas to bed.”
“Puberty is an uneven taskmaster, but it catches up to everyone in the end,” Suzume said, her voice lazy as she started in on the cotton balls.
Something in the back of my mind tickled when she said that, and I looked back at the wall of thirteen-year-olds. Something about this had bothered me since I first saw it, and I tried to figure it out, but just as easily it seemed to squirrel away again.
“Say that again,” I told Suzume.
“Puberty is a bitch.”
“No, no, you said something else.”
“Puberty is a variable bitch?”
That was it, that was what was important. I looked back at those photos. All these kids had just turned thirteen, but not all of them looked it. I scanned through them. Birthday parties, cakes, lots of braces…I stopped at one of the photos. A girl was lying down, wearing a tiara that had BIRTHDAY GIRL written on it in rhinestones, faking sleep so that her dog would sniff her mouth. She had a big smile on her face, clearly a
bad faker, but she looked young. Young like…
Young like Jessica had looked last night, lying on the ground of the alley. So that’s what was bothering me, and I started to relax. I hadn’t been thinking of her for a while, and my conscience was probably kicking me for letting Suzume’s constant banter and my aching ribs distract me from her death.
But my eyes pulled back to that photo, and I frowned. No, that wasn’t it. There was something else. Something about puberty. I remembered Chivalry saying something. Except he’d phrased it differently…mature women, that’s what he’d said. I kept picking at it, trying to figure out how my brain was trying to link these things together, and then I remembered when he’d been saying it and suddenly everything seemed to come together in a flash.
“Suzume!”
She looked up from her efforts at creative disorganization and glanced sharply around the room for whatever had gotten me so excited. “What?”
“Suze, girls hit puberty around twelve or thirteen, right? Like, periods and stuff?”
She stared at me, completely flummoxed. “Aroundish,” she agreed slowly, clearly trying to track my conversational non sequitur. “Some a little earlier, a few a little later, but most have it by thirteen. I could lend you my old Judy Blume books if you’re curious.”
“Can you tell?” I asked urgently.
“Huh?”
It was all so obvious suddenly. Why she’d been stolen, then killed. “Luca said that Maria lost usefulness for him when she hit puberty. That he wasn’t sexually interested in her anymore. And Jessica looked really young, but the newspaper listed her age as thirteen. So would she have hit puberty?”
“Oh.” Suzume paused and seemed to think, then nodded decisively. “Yes.”
“You’re sure.”
“She was menstruating. I could smell the blood on her last night, under the rest of it. The blood is different, so the smell is distinct.” She gave a little so what? shrug.
“But don’t you realize what this means? Luca didn’t kill Jessica because he’d planned to all along. He killed her because he thought she was younger and she turned out not to be! But Amy’s nine—she actually is really little!” Suzume’s eyes widened, and I nodded, feeling stunned. “You said you smelled another little girl on Phillip—was that other girl dead?”
Generation V Page 18