Iron Night (9 page)

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 it, 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.”