Suzume snorted. “Oh, give it a rest, halfsie.” She rolled her eyes at me, as I continued to attempt to puzzle out what exactly was happening. “If it wasn’t for the level of patchouli funk in this place, I would’ve smelled it earlier.” At Lilah’s persistent hair groping, Suze gave a rather mean smile and said, “Don’t look so horrified. You didn’t flash an ear. Let’s get this thing rolling. I’m”—she pointed at her chest—“a kitsune, and he’s”—now the finger went in my direction—“a vampire.”
I choked. Apparently all secret identities were off.
It didn’t seem possible, but Lilah got even paler and shuffled backward. “Chivalry Scott?” she squeaked, like she’d just been introduced to the boogeyman.
Trying to recover myself, I hurried to correct her. “No, no, that’s my older brother. I’m Fortitude Scott.” I paused, then added lamely, “Everyone calls me Fort.” The statement hung there in the air for a long minute.
It did have the positive effect of returning some of the color to Lilah’s face, and she sounded surprised as she said, “Oh, I didn’t know about you.” Then she realized what she’d just said and scrambled to cover it up, talking quickly and in the tone that girls use when they’ve implied that a guy has a small penis. “But I don’t know much about the vampires at all. I mean, Tomas is the one who handles the store tithes.”
“Tithes?” I asked. Clearly my brother had left something out.
Suzume gave another eye roll. “Fifteen percent of earnings off the top go to Madeline Scott, Fort. Jeez, I thought Chivalry was filling you in on this shit.” She leaned back across the counter and said to Lilah, in a very loud faux whisper, “Don’t worry about him—he’s still new.”
In an almost normal tone of voice, Lilah said, “Huh. I never really thought of vampires as new.”
I smiled reassuringly, hoping to reclaim our earlier rapport. “That’s because the rest of my family qualifies as antique.” She smiled back at me, amused.
Suzume looked from me to her, then gave a very blustery sigh. “Good grief.” She shook her head, then pushed back to business. “Anyway, something killed Fort’s buddy last night. We don’t know what, but it wasn’t human.”
“God, that’s awful,” Lilah said, then looked over to me and said, with almost charming earnestness, “I’m so sorry,” and actually sounded like she meant it.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out what happened.”
“Of course.” Lilah nodded, then frowned, clearly thinking very hard. “The blond, I mean Gage, he was there for the whole event. The speed-dating ended at seven-thirty, and people left really quickly. I remember that Gage was at the merchandise table and looked things over, but he didn’t buy anything, and I’m pretty sure that he left on his own.” The frown deepened. “I didn’t talk with him . . . No, I just don’t remember.” She looked back at me. “I’m so sorry. There were just too many people.”
“Was there anyone there who wasn’t human?” I asked.
“Me, of course, and Tomas—he’s like me.” Here she stumbled a bit, then blushed. Apparently this wasn’t a usual conversation topic for her.
“Yes, yes, halfsie,” Suzume said impatiently, making a Go on motion with her hand.
Lilah glared. “We prefer to be called the Neighbors,” she said stiffly. Then she gave a small shrug and her glare dissolved into a self-mocking expression. “Not that it really matters to you. But, yeah, we’re both half-bloods. Tomas is a first-generation; I’m second.”
“Second generation?” I was confused. I’d had one brief encounter with a half-breed elf before, and both Suzume and my brother had given me a sketchy background on the species, but this was like trying to go from a Psych 101 course to a graduate seminar—I was lost on most of the terminology.
“Both my parents are half-bloods,” Lilah explained, then shrugged again. “It doesn’t really make a difference, but you know how people are. When my parents were little, all of the half-bloods had human mothers. But then there were enough that they could marry each other, and now, with people my age . . . The Neighbors make a big deal about the ones who had human mothers.” She sighed. “It’s all Gilded Age snobbery, really. Like the millionaires whose parents had made money looking down on the nouveau riche.”
“And back on the topic of why we’re here . . .” Suzume hinted loudly. I winced a little as Lilah blushed. I’d been interested in what Lilah was saying, but at the same time, Suzume was right. We were here about Gage, not for cultural anthropology.
“Uh, yeah,” Lilah smiled apologetically, then concentrated again. “As far as I know, the only people there who weren’t human were me and Tomas. But”—she spread her hands helplessly—“it’s not like I’d know if someone wasn’t. I don’t have a fox’s nose.”
“You wouldn’t know at all?” I asked.
“Just if it was another of the Neighbors, and only because I’d see their glamour.”
“You all have one?” Okay, maybe there was a little time for my inner anthropologist.
“For some of us it’s small,” Lilah said. She glanced around almost reflexively, but the store was just as deserted as when we’d come in. Reassured, Lilah leaned across the counter toward me, then pushed her braid up slightly, exposing her right ear. I looked, curious, but it was a perfectly average ear. There was a short pause while Lilah closed her eyes and bit her lip, concentrating, then something changed. It was almost like the kind of heat shimmer I’d seen on pavement on record-hot days in the summer, but for just a moment that round, average ear became sharply pointed. It was thinner at the base than a human ear, and along the back of it there was the slightest hint of fur that matched her copper hair, reminding me of a cat’s ear. Then I blinked and it was a regular human ear again, but there was something wrong with it now. Now it was as if that round ear was just a wispy front, and if I concentrated I could almost see that real ear again.
Lilah tugged the braid back into place, covering up most of her ear again. She smoothed it nervously with her hand, in the kind of reflexive motion I guessed she did hundreds of times a day. I looked back at her face, feeling oddly like she’d just accidentally flashed cleavage and we were both aware of it and now trying to ignore that it had happened. She patted her hair again. “For most of us, that’s all we can do,” she said, and met my eyes. I was struck again by how brilliant her eye color was, and I wondered what part of her ancestry had supplied it.
Suzume broke the moment when she asked, very slyly, “A few of you need something more, though, don’t you? More than just a little ear muffling.”
“What do you mean?” Lilah looked nervous. I reflected that she was probably not a great poker player.
“Don’t play dumb,” Suzume scoffed. “There are more than half-bloods running around.”
Lilah nodded reluctantly. “It’s not a secret; we just don’t talk about it much to outsiders.” Suzume snorted loudly, apparently taking issue with Lilah’s use of the term much.
“Lost? Really lost?” I complained, feeling irritated at being left out. Apparently spending a summer with Chivalry hadn’t brought me nearly as much up to speed as I’d assumed.
“I thought the vampires knew,” Lilah said, looking surprised.
“I only got involved in this kind of stuff a few months ago,” I explained. “I’m picking some things up as I go.”
“Oh, well—” Lilah paused at a small tinkling sound, and a moment later the beaded curtain behind the counter below the prominently displayed Employees Only sign rustled. A woman emerged—around the same age as Lilah, maybe a little younger, since she looked like she would be carded every time she ordered a drink. Her hair was very curly, cut just above her shoulders, and the kind of brilliantly glossy gold that should’ve been the result of coloring products but somehow seemed like it wasn’t. It took me a second to look beyond her hair, just from the sheer visual impact of i
t, but glancing at her face made me recoil slightly. There was a severe sharpness to her features that a runway model would’ve envied, but it was more than just the angles themselves—there was something that made me think of big predatory lizards, and her thin lips were pressed together in a way that reminded me strongly of the way that my mother sometimes held her mouth to carefully conceal her fangs. The last thing I noticed was probably the first thing I would’ve on any other woman: her giant, heavily pregnant belly. I didn’t spend much time around pregnant women, but it was clear even to me that she was ready to drop at any time.
Lilah looked over at her and asked, “Allegra, do you need something?” Her voice confirmed the age difference—the tone and familiarity made me wonder if she’d been Allegra’s babysitter at some point in years past.
Allegra looked annoyed, but gestured vaguely at me and Suze. “You can finish with them. I just need something off of one of the upper shelves and”—she patted her gigantic belly—“probably not a great idea to climb for it.”
“I’ll be back in a second,” Lilah promised. With a nod, Allegra turned and left, moving with a decided waddle, which only had the unfortunate effect of increasing her eerie resemblance to a komodo dragon. I looked over to Suzume, wondering what her reaction was, and noticed that her eyes were almost slits as she examined Allegra speculatively, and I was close enough that I could see the slight twitch of her nostrils as she sniffed.
When the tinkling sound came again, clearly the result of bells attached to some back door, Suzume spoke. “So, that’s one of your three-quarter jobs. Definitely different. She’s got glamour caked on her like a transvestite’s makeup job, and she’s still barely passing for human.”
Lilah definitely didn’t like that comment, and there was a warning edge as she said, “Allegra is a nice girl, and Tomas’s daughter.” Suzume raised a mocking eyebrow, and Lilah flushed but didn’t back down, clearly protective of the younger woman. “I’ve got to get back to work.” Her tone had a definite snap to it.
I nudged Suzume with my elbow, making her bite back whatever comment she’d been about to make, and inserted my own. “Okay, thanks for your time. If you think of something else, will you give me a call?”
She paused for a long second, assessing my level of culpability in Suze’s comments, then relented and nodded. “Yeah, I can do that. I’m sorry your friend died, but I just don’t know how much help I can be. Whatever killed him, it did it after he left the restaurant.” She handed me a piece of paper and a pen, and I wrote down my name and cell phone number. Lilah took it, glanced quickly at it, then folded it and tucked it into a pocket in her skirt. “Good luck,” she said, but it was clearly a dismissal.
I thanked her and we left.
• • •
Back at the car we both buckled in, but then just sat, lacking a direction. Our last lead on Gage had just gone up in smoke.
Something was clearly on Suzume’s mind. She looked at me thoughtfully, then said, “So, that’s your type, huh? Kinda granola and yogurty? Making sure that her deodorant is earth-friendly?”
I flushed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Suze poked me playfully in the side. “Seriously. It was like I was in the middle of some meet-cute setup. But that’s the type of girl you usually go for?”
Giving in, I considered her question. It was true that my ex-girlfriend Beth had been about as granola as possible, from her very militant veganism to her clothing choices to her enthusiastic support of cannabis laws. I wasn’t sure where Lilah fell on the first or the last, but in terms of clothing she and Beth were probably shopping in the same places. “I guess.” Certainly before Suzume had come over there had been a noticeable level of bantering going on.
“Hm.” Suzume turned to look out the window.
Suddenly getting where the drift of this conversation was going, I immediately tried to cover my tracks. “I mean, not exclusively. Just kind of happens. I mean—”
Suzume gave a little shrug. “No, it’s cool. Everyone has a type.”
With a little desperation, and not actually kidding, I said, “Your hair is really pretty today, Suze.”
That made her laugh, and just like that the weird tension was broken and things returned to normal. After a moment’s silence I asked, “What was all that fuss about a three-quarter something?”
“Just curiosity. There are only a handful of the real elves left—like, think single-digit levels. They’re frantic to breed themselves back up, but all the females are gone.”
“Gone?”
Suzume nodded. “Gone. Don’t know what happened, because they won’t talk. So the elves get it on with human women to make a halfsie. Works okay, but the result is just like what your buddy back there is—pretty weak. She’s a human with a pocket’s worth of glamour and pointy ears. But breed a weak little halfsie to a full elf and you get . . . ”
“A three-quarter,” I finished, comprehension finally hitting.
“Yup. They’re still rare. That one back there is the first I’ve ever seen close-up. I heard a rumor that the first crop of them just hit their twenties. Probably why this one is pregnant. Must be labor-intensive work to breed back a species.” She glanced over to me, a huge smile on her face. She wiggled her eyebrows broadly and nudged me. “Get it?”
I refused to acknowledge the pun, partially out of jealousy that I hadn’t thought of it first, and resolutely turned the conversation back to the topic. “Why is it that every time we talk about elves, we start talking about breeding?”
She snorted. “Because halfsies are head cases and full elves are sociopaths, just like I’ve told you before. I’m not sure where the three-quarter jobs fall, but my bet is farther up the crazy scale.”
I paused for a moment, considering this comment against the way that her normally taunting and borderline antagonistic behavior had taken on a newer, sharper edge against the completely innocuous Lilah. “You don’t like the elves, do you?” I asked.
“I don’t,” she said without hesitation. “I have to deal with them sometimes, but it’s not something I’d go out of my way to do.” Suze eyed me, then said, “When that girl back there calls you for a date, just keep in mind what kind of in-laws you’re dealing with.”
“What? Suze, I just gave her my number because of Gage. I gave my number to the guy at IndiGo too, and I sure wasn’t hitting on him.” I paused, considered the situation, then asked carefully, “Why, did it look like I was hitting on her?”
“Like I said, Fort. Meet cute.” Suzume checked her watch. “So, now that we’re shit out of leads, how about we fumigate my nose? We passed a bakery down the street.”
“Are you always hungry?” Hosting Suzume was already proving to be a drain on my wallet, and I winced.
“I’m a fox, Fort. We’re opportunistic predators.”
“Meaning that you’re always hungry as long as I’m buying.”
She smiled. “We can discuss that further when you get me a cannoli.”
• • •
In a good film noir, running out of leads would’ve resulted in a cinematically significant rainstorm and maybe some ruminating at the bottom of a bottle of whisky, finally punctuated by the entrance of a femme fatale. For me, though, it resulted in finally having to do what I’d put off: I called Gage’s parents to express my sympathy. It was a painful phone call, made more so because of just how very nice they both were to me. They were trying to find some comfort in the fact that Gage’s “killers” had been caught. I didn’t like the lie, but I hoped that it would at least give them a little closure. I knew they were dreading a trial, but at least they’d be spared that. Madeline never let any of her frame jobs go that far—there would be a tragic accident in the prison very soon, to tie up any potential loose ends.
Trying to appease some of my own guilt, I offered to box up all of Gage’s stuff for them,
which they accepted. His parents had moved from Rhode Island down to Key West about three years ago, after his dad retired, and this would at least save them a trip up here. They promised to make arrangements for a moving van to pick up the boxes and Gage’s car in a few days, and after a few more painful minutes of conversation, I said good-bye and hung up.
Suzume was stretched out on the sofa, openly listening to the call, and lifted an eyebrow. “So,” she said, “I guess you’ll need some help.”
I couldn’t help being a little surprised. “I knew you said you’d help me look for Gage’s killer, Suze,” I said, “but if you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to.”
She shrugged, stood up, gave a bone-defying stretch, then smiled crookedly at me. “I meant what I said before, Fort. I’ll help you. Even if it’s boring.”
I stared at her for a long second, trying to read into her inky black eyes. Finally I shrugged helplessly and just said, “Thank you.”
She nodded. “If you give me your keys I can go down to the grocery store and get some boxes. That way you can get a start on sorting things.”
“Thanks,” I said, tossing her the keys. Then I went into Gage’s room and took a long look around, seeing all of his stuff just sitting there. For a moment I felt stuck, unable to take the first movement of breaking down his room and removing the last parts of my friend from my life.
There was a small scuff of a shoe, and I turned to see Suzume leaning in the doorway, watching me. There was so much sympathy and empathy in her eyes that I was almost viscerally reminded of how foolish it was to ever assume that I’d figured her out.
“While I’m out,” she said, very gently, “you should probably take the chance to find and dump your friend’s porn.”
I gaped, and she gave that familiar slow smile. I couldn’t help it—I laughed. At the sound of it, Suzume gave a little my work is done here gesture and sashayed out the front door.
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