by C. Gockel
Another car honks, and Tara winces. He’s going to get himself killed. Does letting a genius wander into traffic and get hit by a car count as manslaughter? It’s not like she could stop him.
Speaking of not being able to stop someone …
She looks down the street toward her Greystone. Everything looks normal. Elf Guy was sound asleep when she left. If he leaves, and her neighbors report him, she’s decided she’ll claim she knew nothing. She bites her lip. But then they might investigate her home, find a white-blonde hair, analyze the DNA, and discover he’d been in her guest room. Maybe she should come up with a better alibi? “He was a one-night stand, Mr. FBI Agent! I never noticed he was an elf, just that he was a little short!”
How does one go about getting a one-night stand? She’s actually never done it … in theory, it’s supposed to be easy for a girl. But it involves going into a bar and being friendly with strangers, and if they cross-examined any of her friends or family, they’d learn that around strangers Tara tends to turn into a clam. Also, she is a lightweight and doesn’t drink.
She huffs and adjusts the readout on the digital tablet she’s holding. Stupid elf should have picked the house of a more exciting person to get shot behind. “I should have tied him to the bed to make sure he stays there,” Tara mutters to herself, and then scowls. That would be the most exciting thing she’s done with a man and a bed in a long time.
“What?” yells Dr. Eisenberg.
And how is he hearing that, and not all her pleas to get out of the damn road?
“Nothing!” she calls. “Just talking to myself.”
He gives her a merry smile as a car zips by him with a honk. “I do that all the time,” he calls back.
Tara nods. Yes, he does.
Across the street she sees her neighbor Betsy glaring out the door at Dr. Eisenberg. Tara waves and smiles, trying to convey, “The crazy white man isn’t going to cause any harm.” Another car slows down, honks, and goes around him. Betsy’s eyes narrow at her, and Tara touches her throat. He might actually cause a traffic accident.
“Dr. Eisenberg,” she calls, holding up the tablet. “When I analyze your readouts on the app, I’m not seeing any magical activity. Maybe we should call it a day?”
“Dark Energy signatures, not magic!” he corrects her. “I think the rain must have washed them off.”
“Dr. Eisenberg,” Tara says, striding out onto the street. “You’re going to get hit by a car.”
“They’re not going fast and I have lots of padding,” he says, not looking up from his little gadget.
“Dr. Eisenberg—” Tara begins, but she’s interrupted by the blip of a police siren.
She looks up just in time to see a squad car pull to a halt to her left. Dr. Eisenberg doesn’t seem to notice.
“What’s going on here?” an officer says, stepping out of the car.
Pushing his glasses up his nose, Dr. Eisenberg says excitedly, “This young lady saw some of your men in an altercation with elves here last night and I am looking for a dark energy signature.”
“What?” says another officer, coming around.
“Magic,” Tara clarifies. “He’s looking for magic.”
“None of our officers had any altercations with any elves last night,” says the first officer. He’s a burly man, taller than Tara, with short, light brown hair. His sunburned face is wide and he has a broken nose. He’s wearing a bulletproof vest. Chewing gum, hands on hips, a scowl etched between his brows, he looks so … human.
Tara’s jaw drops. “Maybe not,” she says, thinking about how the officers she saw last night looked dainty, and had no lines etched between their brows. They had all looked so … perfect.
“And she saw them beat a little elf boy,” Dr. Eisenberg adds distractedly.
“That did not happen!” the burly officer retorts.
“Heard some reports of gang activity here last night,” the second officer says. “But by the time we got here, they were all gone. When asked, all the neighbors said they didn’t know who it was.”
“Like always,” drawls the first and Tara hears the unspoken accusation. You people never cooperate. Her neighbors would say the cops don’t really care, and if you call them for help, you’re just as likely to wind up in trouble yourself.
“Are you trying to start something?” the first officer demands, his eyes on Tara.
“No,” says Tara, shocked.
Dr. Eisenberg finally looks up from his gadget. “Officers, there’s no reason to be rude to her!”
The officers blink, as though seeing him for the first time. First Cop chews his gum louder.
“This is a matter of scientific inquiry,” Dr. Eisenberg insists. “And the Dark Energy signatures only last for a limited amount of time.”
First Cop turns back to Tara. “You just said you saw a cop beating a civilian.”
“I didn’t say that!” says Tara.
The cop continues, the volume of his voice rising with every word, “And you say maybe you didn’t see anything … Are you trying to get attention?”
Tara can feel her back get prickly with sweat underneath her winter coat, and her heart is racing. Is she going to be arrested for not making a false alarm? “I didn’t call you!” Tara finds herself shouting back.
“We have real problems!” bellows the officer.
Waving at Dr. Eisenberg, Tara says, “I told my boss, and he’s investigating, and we’re not doing anything illegal!”
“You’re blocking the road!” he shouts.
“You move him!” Tara retorts.
“Is there a problem, officers?” Dr. Eisenberg asks, looking up from his gadget.
In the squad car, the radio starts to crackle, and the second officer says to the first, “Why don’t you get that, Frank?”
Chewing his gum loudly, Frank storms away.
The second officer is also a white guy. He’s got hazel eyes and sandy blonde hair. His nose is not broken and his cheeks aren’t sunburned. He looks younger, and not as on edge. He eyes Dr. Eisenberg, gives Tara a sort of sympathetic smile, and in a respectful voice calls to the doctor, “Sir, you’ll have to move. You’re obstructing traffic.”
“But …” Dr. Eisenberg protests. Striding over, the officer takes his arm and guides him to the sidewalk. Eisenberg stops short and his eyes get wide. “Ooh…” Head bowed over his tablet, he begins to pace down the walk.
The second officer says to Tara, “Frank had a rough day yesterday, ma’am.”
It occurs to Tara that if what she saw was real, that might lead the police to her house, and that would lead them to Elf Guy. “I’m sure it was just me being too tired, and it was late, and raining, and—”
“I used to work in the Financial District, ma’am,” he says.
Tara gulps. He’s calling her ma’am … not madam, and the other guy had barked at her just now, not “insisted” that she get off the road. She’d never thought she’d find hostile cops vaguely reassuring.
“They can make you see anything they want you to see,” the second officer continues.
Tara thinks of the little boy bleeding on the pavement. They wanted her to see that? She swallows. After the invasion, there was a revival of interest in legends of elves, sidhe, fae, the fair folk, Seelie Summer, and Unseelie Winter courts. There did seem to be a common thread of trickery in all the legends …
“If you see anything around here that looks odd, you tell us right away,” says the second officer. “We’ve got special cells downtown and special airplanes to take them straight to Gitmo where they won’t hurt anyone.”
Tara blinks. They’re not sending the man in her guest room to Gitmo; he’s hurt. She bites her lip. Of course, Ted Bundy pretended to be hurt, too. Then she thinks of him falling into bed, unable to lift his head for a drink. The elf-as-a-serial-killer idea goes poof.
From a few blocks over comes the sound of gunfire. In the car, Police Officer Frank shouts, “Jim, we gotta get a move on.”
Jim give
s her a nod, jogs to the squad car, and seconds later, they’re taking off, siren blaring.
Dr. Eisenberg walks back over to her, head bent over his tablet. “You didn’t imagine anything,” he says, and goes off into a little monologue about fluctuations too regular to be explained by random occurring distortions. Tara’s not really paying attention because she has an elf in her guest bedroom and knows she wasn’t hallucinating. She just isn’t sure who exactly she saw.
“If you see anything else, call me first,” says Dr. Eisenberg, jolting her from her musings.
“What?” says Tara, not sure if she’s heard right.
Dr. Eisenberg adjusts his glasses. “Don’t call the cops.”
“The elves are our enemies … we probably have to call the cops, or we’re committing a crime like treason … aren’t we?” Tara asks carefully.
“Um …” he says. “I hadn’t considered that.” He stares at her another beat longer, searching her eyes as though looking for something, and then says, “I have to go now. Why don’t you take the day off?” With that, he spins on his heel and trots to his car.
Tara watches him go, wondering what that was all about, and then she shakes her head. Her generous, demanding, genius-crazy-boss is a lot of trouble.
She starts walking home, and begins thinking of all the trouble a technology-ignorant elf could get into with a toaster, an oven, a fuse box, or just a piece of wire and an electrical outlet. She breaks into a run.
Lionel is in trouble. Fear haunts his dreams, and when he wakes up with a gasp in an unfamiliar room, it all comes back to him. He told a human she’d saved his life and indebted himself to her. He did the one thing elves are warned never to do. Now she’ll demand a “favor” of him, a pot of gold or a monkey’s paw or some nonsense. He’ll have to find a way to give it to her …
Unless he can figure out her full name. The Einherjar he’s met at the palace don’t understand the power of names for elves; it isn’t a power that other magical races have. With her full name, he will be able to compel her to release him from her debt. His eyes dart back and forth. The room is spacious, the bed opulent and comfortable. She is not of the lowest class despite her skin tone. She probably has papers about, bills of sale maybe … some identification he could use. Not as good as a name given freely, but still, something.
… And anything’s better than a hunt for a monkey’s paw.
He pulls himself up and the effort makes him hiss in pain. He hurts everywhere, not just where he was struck by the bullet. Gritting his teeth, Lionel grasps his key and orders the offending nerves to stop firing. As soon as the edge is off the pain, he makes his way to the door and out into the area beyond. It’s a hallway. It’s not so wide as in a palace, nor as narrow as a peasant’s home. The walls are a shade of off white, and lined with what might be paintings … but they are impossibly detailed and realistic. He would guess they are of family. A bright orange and red carpet covers glossy wooden floors. The home smells like alien flora and lemon.
It’s not what he expected at all. Einherjar from the last great wars had told him that only some humans had running water and privies that whisked waste away. He doesn’t know why, but in the back of his mind he’d presumed that most human domiciles wouldn’t have such amenities and would reek with the smell of bodily fluids. Is his host very rich?
He hears a door open and shut, and footsteps. Lionel steps away from the pictures on the wall and tries to take a step in the direction of the sound—better to make a strong entrance he thinks—and promptly trips and goes sprawling onto the floor. He lands with a jaw-rattling thud.
The footsteps speed up, and he rolls over onto his back just in time to see the woman’s face appear above him. Today she is wearing her hair pulled up in a blue and orange scarf. “You’re awake,” she says. He hears her swallow. “Do you need help?”
“No,” Lionel says, trying to stand, and only managing to sit up. He hurts everywhere. He closes his eyes and magically soothes the nerves that are going off like fireworks until the only pain he’s left with is his pride. He’s indebted to a human, and just fell over his own feet. Elves grow extremely slowly, and they don’t trip after toddlerhood … falling over is not like an elf. His fingers clench on his shins and he frowns. It’s only the injury, he tells himself. That’s all it can be.
The woman shifts on her feet. Looking up, he sees her gazing at him in concern. He hears her swallow. “I’m not sure where you were going, but I don’t think you should go outside,” she says.
Is she trying to entrap him? Does it matter? Lionel thinks of the Dark Elves who’d swarmed through the World Gate the night before. They must have taken control of the fort on the other side of the gate. He can’t go back that way. “No, I cannot,” he agrees. He looks at his legs. “I can’t go anywhere.”
Her shoulders relax a fraction. “There are police and FBI people looking for you.”
“FBI?” he inquires.
“Federal Bureau of Investigations,” she says. The first word is unintelligible to Lionel, but the other two he understands. They must be a group like the Queen’s Inquisitors. He draws his legs in closer to his body. Dark Elves might not be all that he has to worry about.
“If they find you, we’re both in trouble,” she murmurs.
If they are anything like the Queen’s Inquisitors, she has put herself in a great deal of danger. He scowls. He should not feel guilt for someone who has put him in her debt. As innocuously as possible, he asks, “I’m afraid I don’t know your name. Miss …”
Her eyes meet his. “Oh, I’m sorry … it’s Tara. Tara Gibson.”
His brow furrows in consternation. She knows nothing about the ways of the elves, giving her name so freely. What was she thinking bringing him in?
“And you are?” she asks.
Snapping from his thoughts, Lionel says, “I am called ‘Lionel of the Southern Vale.’”
“Nice to meet you,” she replies. Light shines from behind her and his vision gets blurry.
Lionel takes a breath, preparing to stand, but the effort of talking has left him drained and in pain again. Every single fiber of muscle, skin, and bone is begging for his attention. Gripping his key, feeling the magic, he tries to push his pain aside. He hears himself huffing. “It’s hardly nice to meet me. It seems I’ve caused you a great deal of trouble and put you in danger.”
It’s so close to declaring his debt … He wonders why his subconscious is sabotaging him.
Tara slides down the wall across from him until she’s sitting on the floor. Pulling her knees up to her chin, she wraps her arms around her legs. “I haven’t saved your life yet. You’re going to have to get out of here without anyone seeing you.”
She’s not even taking credit for what she’s done.
Why did she save him? No elf at the palace would save an elf without expecting something in return, and certainly would not save a human. He blinks, realizing how cynical two hundred years at the palace has made him. Elvish peasants often saved humans before Odin passed his law barring them from coming to Midgard. There are rumors that some peasants still cross over. As a little boy, Lionel had asked an ancient elf why she did it. “They were so pathetic and miserable, I couldn’t help myself,” she’d replied.
He frowns, studying his knees. Miss Tara Gibson, human—least of the races—found him wounded and pathetic in the alley and had taken him in out of pity. It makes him burn with humiliation.
“I saw them crack a little elf boy’s head open.”
Lionel attention snaps to her. She is covering her mouth with her hands.
“Them?” he whispers, sucking on his lips to suppress a wince. “The Fed …” He can’t quite form his lips around the word. “Bureau of Inquisitors?”
“I don’t know … they were so polite, not like the police normally are.” She blinks at him. “They weren’t like you. Their ears were round and they were dressed in uniforms, but you know …” Her head cocks. “Their intonation was the same.�
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“I’m sure it was your Inquisitors,” Lionel says too quickly. The warriors of the queen wouldn’t beat a child, and there aren’t Dark Elf children here. There are only rebels buying guns, like the ones who shot him. She must be mistaken.
“I guess,” she says. “I mean, I’ve heard the feds are more professional. But why were they dressed like police?”
Lionel goes very still. He has a sudden sinking sensation, and a feeling that he might know what “police” uniforms look like. He tells himself he’s being fanciful and paranoid.
The question must have been rhetorical because she says, “Do you want anything to eat?” Her eyes go to his leg. “I can get you some clothes, too.”
He looks down and he notices how bloody his trousers are. It’s probably on the sheets of her bed. He has the odd desire to confess another debt to her for ruining her bedding. That would mean he’d have to replace it, which would mean venturing to the palace and back with proper linens.
His head is starting to swim with pain again. “I don’t think I can eat. I … hurt,” he stammers.
She says something, but the words are a jumble.
“Pardon?” he manages, and, biting his lip, he focuses on his rebellious nerve endings.
“Can you take human medicines?”
“They wouldn’t help me,” he mutters. “Too weak.”
She says something he doesn’t quite catch. His head sags and somewhere someone groans.
“But would it hurt you?” she asks.
“No …” he says. It comes out a moan. He feels the prickle of sweat on his brow. He can’t focus on the particular nerves that are misfiring because they all seem to be misfiring, and his world is narrowing to just the pain. He’s vaguely aware of her rushing away, but he doesn’t look up. He reaches for his magic, loses the thread of it, and the pain makes his head fall to the floor.
A few minutes, or maybe hours later, Tara’s talking to him urgently, but Lionel doesn’t know what she’s saying. She thrusts a hand in front of him with three little white objects, but it’s obvious … He’s going to die.