Elfed In New York: Riicathi

By Erik Schubach

Copyright © 2022 by Erik Schubach

Self publishing

P.O. Box 523

Nine Mile Falls, WA 99026

Cover Art © 2022 Pavel Novikov / iStockPhotos.com license

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties.  Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited.  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, blog, or broadcast.

This is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

FIRST EDITION

Chapter 1 – Identity Crisis

Have you ever had one of those days?  The kind you felt as if your life was spinning out of control and everything you thought you knew about yourself was thrown out the window, the pages torn away by a racing hurricane outside?  Yeah, I've been having that day for the past two weeks, ever since I learned with the rest of the world that I, Killishia Renner, was an elf when I Elfed on live television at the tree lighting festival at the Rockefeller Center here in New York City.  It was the first Elfing caught on television since the Reveal.

Maybe I should give you a little background about the Reveal. Just over twenty years ago, I was just four at the time.  I remember the mix of excitement and fear from all the adults in the neighborhood when Evander Laun and Natalia Havashire went on the air throughout the world on nearly every news channel simultaneously to reveal to the human race that Elves walked among us. It happens to be the most-watched historical event in modern times.  In school, we had to study it in Social Studies.  I must have seen the clip a zillion times which everyone at first thought was some sort of publicity stunt by the CEOs of the two most powerful corporations in the world when before our eyes, their ears lengthened to points and eyes deepened to that almost glowing blue right on the air.

There were varied reactions to this, most were skeptical and thought it was simply digital visual effects, but as some governments and militaries started to react and mobilize in ways that told the world it most certainly wasn't just a corporate stunt from the two companies that rivaled each other.  And when more and more people stepped forward with those pointed ears and blue eyes, all mesmerizingly beautiful, the panic began.

The press releases that were circulated by Laun and Havashire explained that Elves and Homo-sapiens have lived side by side forever.  We were just different branches off the Homo-erectus tree, like the Homo-neanderthalensis, only the Homo-Aelftus continued to thrive after the decline of the Neanderthal.

There was a good deal of forethought given to the Reveal prior to its execution.  By making themselves known to all, it was impossible for the government to keep the lid on it as some people panicked while others celebrated the discovery.  And of course, there was the fact that the governments of the world made the realization that the companies that supplied over forty-five percent of all the arms and sixty percent of all consumer goods in the world were owned by the emerging Elvish families, which stopped any talks of rounding them up until the threat could be properly assessed.

It seems that not all the Elvish families wanted the Reveal, as the complex hierarchy of their sociopolitical society is still not entirely clear even after almost two decades.  Whether the outliers still wished to evade discovery from homo-sapiens, or the influence of larger Elf families, they remained hidden after the Reveal.

They haven't shared how they've eluded discovery all these thousands of years, when it was clear, with their pointed ears and unnaturally blue eyes that they weren't entirely like the majority of the population.  Hell, we still didn't know just how many of them there were in the world, but estimates put them at a population of around a hundred million, or roughly ten to twelve percent of the world's population.

There was speculation that they somehow possessed some sort of magic to hide their obvious differences from the rest of the population, though scientists dispute that theory, saying there has to be an answer in science and biology.  Their genetic makeup is so close to Sapiens that it is almost indistinguishable.  Closer even than Homo-Sapiens are to neanderthal.

Though we've learned over the years that the tiny shift in their genetic makeup gives Elves better strength, reflexes, and senses, especially hearing, than the rest of us, and because they have much denser telomeres they enjoy not only a lifespan of almost three times longer than non-elves but appear to be all prime physical specimens... that last assertion I've learned recently isn't fully true.

The children of the families who remained hidden after the Reveal have sometimes reached their physical maturity anywhere between sixteen to twenty years old at inopportune times, causing their Elvish traits to manifest in public view instead of them being confined to Elvish campuses children had been confined to in the past before the Reveal.  And most never shared their heritage with their children, so it was a shock to even them.

Over the past nineteen years, seemingly random young women and men would spontaneously manifest elvish ears and eyes.  And with the now overwhelming popularity of Elves in our society, they are treated like celebrities or royalty.  It is viewed and celebrated almost like winning the lottery.  The term people have adopted for this public manifestation was called being Elfed.

I Elfed just before my twenty-fifth birthday and have what some elves are calling defects.  My new pointed ears, which seem to have a mind of their own as they pivot toward the sound, are a little shorter than normal Elves, and my eyes are a crystalline green instead of the blue all other elves have, but they aren't defects.  I found that I am only half-elf, the only Halfling in existence as my father is Sapien and my mother Aelftus.

Only two other Halfling children survived over the eons, and because the Elves were terrified of being discovered by the Sapiens, who vastly outnumbered them, even today, had killed the Halfling babies and their parents so it couldn't happen again.

But now, after the Reveal, and my public Elfing, the fear of the same thing happening to me and my parents is negligible.  Though the leaders of the Havashire and Laun houses have told us not to reveal what I was in fear it would cause a different kind of panic.  So we have to hide it from the rest of the International Elf Council and everyone else and play off my differences as the ‘defects’ people see them as.  I may or may not have already broken that agreement by telling the daughter of Evander Laun the truth, since Tana was going to find out eventually anyway and I didn't want to have to lie to her.

I just learned that mother and I are the last two of her family line, and they have hidden from the Council for almost three hundred years.  Mom won't talk about it, having hidden it her entire life, and lost her parents to that same secret, so I don't push.  Not that I've had the time to catch my breath and have more than a couple of conversations with my parents about this whole thing.

The two opposing head families hold equal voting shares between their own, the proxy votes they control by contracts with the lesser houses or by alliances with the senior Council.  And have been in an endless stalemate for as long as any can remember.  But Tana has informed me of her fear that the Elves are heading toward a civil war in eight short years, when the voting shares, less than two-thousandths of one percent, of a missing family who were some sort of servants to the Council, are freed up by a rule of law that if a family is missing and presumed wiped out after three hundred years, their shares are returned to the council.  And since neither the Launs nor the Havashires would allow the other to absorb them, then Tana believes the truce will devolve into war.

The Council was pressuring us to declare our family name and alliances, something that was put off due to a near-death experience I had, but the time of reckoning was upon us.  If we still refused to provide our clan name and allegiances, then they were going to assign us to a family.

And here we were today, with me just hours out of the hospital in the sub-basements of Laun Tower, at the doors of the International Elf Council on the eighty-third floor.  My dad had just shared that mom had decided it was time for our own family to come out of the dark, but she believes that I, as the last of our line, should lead our clan.  So he put the iron ring of our clan on my finger, and the grey and black sash around my waist.

“What is mom's family name?” I asked him.

He smirked at me. “You'll see. You won't have to announce it, Itty Bit.” Then he told me to go face the Council, that he would catch up in a minute.

Tana, who was assigned as my ambassador, or Ráquen, to help me assimilate into Elvish culture until a family claimed me and my parents, was at my side as we approached the huge Council chamber doors, and the security guards stood aside when the hidden electric motors started swinging those big doors out.  Tana stopped just one step inside and I looked back at her, she just shooed me like a child and my crinkle nose glare caused her to silently chuckle.

Even with her punk rocker vibe, her black hair sort of a reverse rooster tail flowing forward across half her face, she looked flawless, all her piercings seemed to glitter as much as the humor in her crystal blue eyes.

I'm glad I amused the Elfy wench.  Why did this feel as if I were marching to my doom?

There was a collective gasp as I walked between the two raised platforms as I moved toward the podium.  My steps faltered as I spun around, looking at all the now frantic Council members as the place erupted into shouts and shocked exclamations.

Dimitri Havashire's voice carried above the others, just a single spoken word... “Riicathi.”

And chaos reigned in the chamber as the world dropped out from under me as I recognized the name.  Son of a bitch, Riicathi was the name of the missing family.  The family with the most insignificant amount of unassigned voting shares in the Council. I could hear my blood rushing in my ears as I got dizzy, experiencing the third existential crisis in the past two weeks that had me standing there in the middle of a room of shouting Elves not knowing who I was.

Someone whispering in my ear had me almost jumping out of my skin, gleeping and lurching forward into the lectern in the middle of the floor where I stood, knocking the microphone from the stand but catching it on my foot with screeching feedback, caused everyone including me to cover our ears. “Welcome to the Thunderdome, Killy.”

I had just about crapped platypus kittens, Tana had joined me and she looked like a child filled with glee at the unrestrained pandemonium around us as Evander Laun and Natalia Havashire were pounding their gavels on either side of the aisle, calling for order.

Without realizing it, I heard myself telling her in a wavering raspy tone, my hands shaking from the panic attack that was my life, “This is like a normal weekday for me.”

I couldn't stop my smile when she snorted then burst out into an unrestrained laugh.  She looked so... free?  And I realized that it was calming me to see at least one person in the chamber hadn't lost their mind.  Oh... she was grasping my hand.  I used that as an anchor to find strength from and I calmed my breathing and stood tall.

Then the oddest thing happened.  A voice that sounded as old as the mountains called out in almost a wheezing tone, “Ah yes, Riicathi.  That name is in the rolls.”

All the shouts and arguments and accusations just trickled to silence as one at a time, the shouting Elves turned to look at the ancient Elf sitting at an equally ancient, little secretary desk by the huge entrance doors.

Claude, the oldest elf in the western hemisphere at three hundred and one, adjusted his overly thick glasses on his nose as he squinted at a parchment in his hands.  When the room was so silent I could hear the heartbeats of the people around me and everyone breathing,  Marcillia Laun smiled sweetly at the Council recorder and historian. “What was that, Claude dear?”

The man beamed at her and stood, his bones creaking like old leather as he stood, slightly hunched, and he held the parchment up for all to see, and to my surprise, I could read it from forty feet away.  “Riicathi.  It is on the rolls, unlike Renner.”  He squinted at the paper. “It says presumed fallen.”  His eyes widened, looking stricken. “Oh my.  How tragic, who will claim our dead then?”

But his eyes widened as he looked my way, then pulled an honest to goodness feather quill from an ink well, a smile on his face as he crossed something off the parchment with a flourish, then he said to the two families, looking from one side of the chamber to the other, “It looks to be in err, as a Riicathi stands right before us.”

Natalia Havashire said with the kindness of true compassion in her voice, “Yes Claude, we can see that.  Thank you.”

The man smiled at her then to me, looked around for a second as if to gather his bearings, then sat back down, wheezing and bones creaking.  Then he picked up a LaunPad tablet and typed something on it.  I had to grin that he used an odd conglomeration of ancient and modern technologies to take notes of the proceedings.  He inclined his head at me. “Welcome home, Killishia Riicathi.”

Then the council started to get riled up again, but this time quieted when Dimitri Havashire called out, “We will have order in the Chamber and these proceedings.”  The other three leaders were looking around, showing a united front in maintaining the tenuous order.

One woman called out from the minor family risers at the end of the chamber as the last of the murmuring ceased, “How do we even know she's Riicathi and this isn't some trick of one main house or another to gain majority vote control?”

Dimitri Havashire looked that way, clearly not amused, his eyes narrowed as he tried to determine who had spoken.  All of the leaders of the minor non-voting houses seemed to move back slightly under his gaze, looking almost afraid, but nobody indicated who had voiced the perfectly valid question.

Marcillia was making her way down to the floor, then she walked toward me as I murmured, Tana at my back preventing me from running... again, “I didn't even know I was Elf...”  Was my family this missing Riicathi family?  I felt Tana's hand on my shoulder giving it a reassuring squeeze as her mother reached me.

I flinched as she started to reach out to me.  She looked genuinely concerned at my reaction.  I was in full-on flight or flight mode... yeah I said flight twice, I'm pretty convinced I don't have a fight mode since the one time I tried it I broke my hand and thumb, thus the cast on my left hand.  “Oh child, there's nothing to fear here.  May I see your family seal please?”

Blinking at her in incomprehension as I tried to normalize my breathing, my mind rebelling at that moment, Tana whispered, “Your ring, Killy.”

That snapped me out of it as I growled without much conviction, bordering on a whine, “Don't call me Killy.”  I tugged at the iron ring on my left index finger but it was stuck, I may have uttered some embarrassing squeaks before I surrendered and just held my hand up to Mrs. Laun.

The woman looked as if she were trying to hide amusement.  By the Great Spaghetti Monster in the Sky, I was dweebing out, wasn't I?  And in front of the entire Elf Council.  I wasn't that bad was I?  My cheeks burned in a blush as she held my hand gently and slid the ring off with ease.  What the actual heck?  Just shoot me now.

There was a pregnant silence as she looked at the inner band then turned to look between either side of the aisle. “It bears the mark of Augustin of the Haitian Forge.  It is no counterfeit.”  She curled my fingers around the ring then reached down to run her fingers against the sash I wore at my hips.  The flat charcoal greys and black silks barely reflected any light.

She looked back up and said with authority, her voice carrying well, “The senior council will investigate this further then reconvene, but at this time we have no cause to doubt she is indeed Riicathi.”  Then to me, she said so low I wouldn't have heard it before I Elfed, “You are certainly one surprise after another.”

Dimitri Havashire tapped his gavel once, saying, “The Council will adjourn.  We will reconvene when we determine the veracity of the fledgling's claims.”

The place erupted into chaos again as the council members stood and started filing out, staying clear of me because Marcillia was with me as I whimpered to myself, “But... I didn't make any claims...”  The two Laun women chuckled and the elder Laun said to her daughter, “I can see why you like this one.”  My cheeks burned.

Then the co-leader of the Laun family turned from me, her eyes scanning when all of our ears swiveled toward someone speaking low, “What of the voting shares?”  This seemed to be a touchy subject for both the Launs and the Havashires.

Evander joined us with Dimitri and Natalia, and prompted, “Allow us to investigate as Tanaliashia is her assigned Ráquen?”

Natalia chuckled and said, “As if it is really necessary, we already know her DNA is no match to any of the known families.  It is but a formality.”  The woman winked at me.  I couldn't help but like her.

Dimitri said a little more gruffly as other Elves were looking back at us, listening in, “For complete transparency as this is going to have serious repercussions until she contracts with one of our families.  There can be no question.”

Evander looked at me then at dad who was standing at the doors watching me with concern on his handsome face and said, “Killishia, can you please retire to the waiting room until I join you?  I need to discuss things with your father.”  He signaled dad, who inclined his head and started walking into the chamber.

I nodded and Tana looped her arm in mine and started dragging me away, saying in plain hearing of her parents and the Havashires, “That... was epic, Killy.”

Dad gave me his cocky wink as we fist-bumped when we passed each other, then Natalia called out, “Tanaliashia?  A quick word?”

Tana looked back then at me and gave me a pained smile.  “Sorry.  I'll be right there, you know the way.”  I nodded and watched her hustle back to the others.  My eyes may have lingered on her swaying hips longer than was professional.

I turned and gleeped as I almost ran over Claude, who was standing right in front of me.  I bled off my momentum by pivoting around him to prevent from breaking the old elf and wound up on my tiptoes behind him.  We both turned around, and I swear I heard his bones creaking as he just smiled up at me, his eyes huge in his thick glasses as he offered an arm. “I can escort you, young Riicathi.”

He was so gallant and so very wrinkled.  But I guess three hundred years of life would do that to anyone.  It was amazing he has lived the theoretical maximum lifespan of Elves that they... that we were afforded by our densely packed telomeres.  I smiled and placed a hand on his offered arm gently, afraid to break him.  And he patted my hand and led me to the waiting room... very... very slowly.

Once the door was closed, he activated the privacy on the door panel and he looked up to see the blue light start to glow as a curtain of white noise enveloped the room.  Then the man stood taller, out of his hunch and strode gracefully to one of the cabinets on the wall, and asked in a clear tone without the wheezing as he revealed a little well-stocked kitchenette, which I hadn't known was there on my last two visits here, with a thermal coffee carafe on a tray, “Coffee?”

My eyes widened in disbelief as I pointed at him and accused him, “You total faker!”  Which elicited a sly smile from the old elf.

“It is useful for everyone to believe me the harmless and senile doddering old man, you'd be surprised what they say around me.  And information is power, young Killishia.”  He held up a coffee mug in question as I just stared at him, gape-jawed.  “I wished a moment to counsel you before the others unleash a shitstorm upon you.”

Chapter 2 – Riicathi

I moved to the small conference table on the far side of the space with a coffee mug warming my hands, my eyes on the big old faker McFaker from Fakerville as he smoothly took a seat, noting his bones did creak as he did so.  He motioned with a hand for me to sit.  Claude looked endlessly amused when I sat on the far opposite side of the table instead of the chair he indicated beside him.

“I like you Miss Renner... or Riicathi as it were.  You've a rebellious streak.”  He pondered aloud to himself. “Likely why I wish to impart a word of advice to you before the senior Council starts bullying you.”

After taking a sip and savoring the rich flavors of the blend, I squished my lips to one side and asked, “Ever since I Elfed, everyone and their pet llama has been giving me advice, so what might that be, sir?”

He waved me off. “Claude, please.  And it is simple.  I wish to let you know that you 'always' have a choice.  Don't let anyone bully you into anything or take any deals you don't want.  And to hell with any talk of tradition or status quo, this is a new world they have us living in after they did the Reveal, so there are no precedents to stand upon as we try to figure out our place in these modern times.”

I cocked my head and asked, “I always have a choice?”  He was nodding and I smiled in memory as I shrugged and said, “Tana Laun gave me that same advice.”

He nodded, grinning like the Cheshire cat.  “Where do you think she got it from?  The two of you are destined to turn the Council upside down, which is why I chose to speak plainly to each of you.”

Oh... Tana knew about Mr. Faker here?  I narrowed my eyes. “Wait, destined?  Are you clairvoyant or something?  Like some sort of Elf magic?”

The old man snorted, his ears twitching in what I assumed was amusement.  “There's no such thing as magic.  I've just been around a long time and have seen more than a lifetime of machinations of both Elves and Sapiens.”

Drat, I thought at one time that maybe the Elfing process or the way the elves hid among the rest of the world's population had been some sort of ancient magic, but Tana burst that particular bubble by letting me know it was a physiological survival mechanism, so biological not mystic... just too many movies and fantasy books in my diet.  But I keep expecting something like old magic to pop up since, well since Elves had been just a fairytale twenty-one years ago, and now my ears are pointed.

I squinted an eye in embarrassment, feeling my cheeks heat as he winked.  Then my mind jumped to another track and I asked in a whisper even though the blue privacy light was glowing and pulsating above the door, “Can you tell me anything about the Riicathi?  Besides the whole thing about some sort of voting shares, why had my family hid itself the past three hundred years?”

He sighed and opened his mouth but shut it again when there was a knocking on the door, he hunched over his coffee cup and the door opened, Evander, Tana, dad, and since we had to keep up the charade that dad was Elf too, his huge mobile mountain of a Ráquen, Bruce, walked in.  It still amused me that they were intimidated so much by my dad's imposing size, that they had chosen Bruce as his ambassador.

As my dad made a beeline to me, Claude looked up and spoke in his quavering rasp, “Ah, good, everyone is here.  I ahh... this is so embarrassing, I can't seem to remember why I called this meeting.”

It was all I could do from cocking an amused brow.

Tana hid her knowledge of his little deception well as she spoke softly to him while she stepped up to him and took his hand to help him stand, “You didn't Claude, hon.”  She looked back over her shoulder to the Elf mountain by the door. “Bruce, can you see Claude to his apartments so he can rest up please?”

The big guy looked just as fond of the old man as the rest of the Council when he almost rushed forward. “Of course, Aryon.  Please Claude, this way.”  He took the man's arm like it was made of spun glass and moved toward the door.

Claude called out to Mr. Laun, bowing his head slightly, “Minya...”  Then to the rest of us, he said, “Aryon, Riicathi,” before shuffling slowly out with Bruce who was taking almost silly small steps beside him.

I called out, “Goodbye, Claude, thank you.”  I gave Tana a look that had her looking between me and the door, brow creased in thought.  Good, she can do some guessing for once.

Evander turned his attention back to me. “What were you thanking him for?”

I tapped my coffee cup. “He showed me where you hide the coffee in this room, and kept me company while I freaked out about not knowing what in Cthulhu's name is going on with this.”  I indicated my clan ring and sash.

I added, trying hard not to smirk. “He's a sweet old man.”

“That he is... that he is.”

Dad was about to say something when I blurted to Evander, “Who are the Riicathi?  I know nothing of my clan.”  Dad winced, knowing his and mom's secrecy was a sore spot with me.

The Elf inhaled deeply like he was choosing his words as he made an inviting motion with his hands for us all to sit.  We did, and I was pleasantly surprised when Tana sat on one side of me and dad the other.  “We had already had suspicions as to your family name when your DNA results came up empty, with no known match from any living band, indicating no modern record of your clan.  And there are only one of the families known to be wiped out that is marked as presumed fallen.  The Riicathi.”

His eyes widened, and so did dad's when I deadpanned, “Especially since the Launs and Havashires knew they weren't fallen.”

Tana looked at her unsurprised father accusingly, keeping her eyes on him as she prompted me, “What do you mean, Killy?”

I shrugged and explained to her as I watched her father too, “The little my parents have shared with me is that mom's family came to New York seeking asylum just after she manifested.  They were being pursued by Elvish black ops.  So it stands to reason that someone knew the Riicathi were still out there if the equivalent of Elvish military intelligence were hunting them.”

This had dad cocking a brow and turning toward Mr. Laun, asking, “Evander?” at the same time Tana was asking, “Is that true, dad?”

He looked perturbed as he almost snapped, “Nobody was being hunted.”  His calm assuredness returned as he clasped his hands on the table to recenter himself. “The Council has been trying to locate them... you, ever since they ran off all these years back.  We simply wished to return them to the fold, where we could protect them.  Together we are stronger.”

I muttered, “Tell that to my mom's parents.  Now, mom and I are the last of the Riicathi.”

He looked quickly, almost panicked between me and Tana.  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know why she's got the most adorable little ears and green eyes.  I'm not stupid, dad.”

Liar, liar, pants on fire. She hadn't known until I told her I was a Halfling when I was laid up in the medical wing downstairs, recovering from the Elf targeting neurotoxin.  But she and her father got along like oil and water, so I'd give her this one.  Wait?  Did she just call my ears adorable again?  Was it getting hot in the room? I absently tucked a rebellious red lock behind my ear.

Evander looked equal parts annoyed and proud of her before he turned his attention to me.  “It is surprising your parents...” He looked over at dad. “Haven't given you the Riicathi family history yet.”

Dad, who didn't show deference to Evander, one of the four most powerful and influential Elves on the planet, shared bluntly, brow cocked in a challenge. “The decision to reveal Killishia's bloodline was made just hours ago, and it isn't like we've had any privacy in which to discuss it and other sensitive topics since she manifested.  What with the Elves you had posted, listening in by our house since then.”

Evander looked surprised. “You know about them?”

“Thanks for confirming our suspicion.  We don't appreciate being spied upon.”

The handsome, middle-aged Elf with his ten thousand dollar suit appraised dad again, looking him up and down, a gruff expression on his face before he smiled ever so slightly.  “I must say, Cyrus, I can't help but find I enjoy sparring with you.  It's refreshing to be reminded there are intriguing Sapiens out there, you can understand why we believed you were Elf.”

Dad smirked. “There's a line to stand in for that.”  Ok, dad was funny, especially since grandma and grandpa had adopted him thinking he was Elf like them too.  And we weren't sharing that particular tidbit with Evander since we didn't want to out my grandparents until they decide to come out of hiding themselves.  But Gran believes there are still hidden families to help, so it won't be anytime soon.

I'm pretty sure Tana has pieced that together though, since my loose lips in the medical wing may have implied dad was raised by an Elf couple.  I'm positive she has some sort of superpower that has me sharing too many secrets with her.

Then Mr. Laun shared, “They are not there to spy on you, contrary to what you believe about us, but to make sure Killishia here doesn't come to harm until she and her family are placed and have more secure surroundings.  Elves take care of their own.”

“We want them gone.  Aren't the two Russians tasked to her when she is in the City enough?  I can assure you she is quite safe at home.”  Then his tone went cold. “And Elves taking care of your own?  Go ahead and tell her the truth of that, what you made the Riicathi do, and to those just like her... Evander.”

I was feeling the friction that last part caused between the men like a physical thing, making me swallow.  Tana's hand on my shoulder grounded me when I was on the cusp of standing and backing off.  I swear that if anything accidentally went between them, it would be crushed by the intensity of it.

To my surprise, Evander blinked first, deflating and looking down at his hands pressed on the table hard enough his fingertips were white.  “Fine, it is the shame of the Council, but needed to be done, the world was a more dangerous place then.”

Tana had keyed in on something he had said and gasped slightly, causing me to turn to her as she looked between me and her father, a stricken and incredulous look on her face, her eyes widening.  He held a hand up patting the air as he closed his eyes, bidding her to remain calm.  It was all causing my anxiety to spike, and I blurted, “What?”

The man seemed to center himself then started, “As you know, the three branches of the Homo-Erectus tree are the Neanderthal, Sapiens, and Elves.  Where the larger brow ridge was a physical difference from the Sapiens, just as our ears and eyes were.  The Sapiens, who had greater numbers, hunted those who they saw as different, and even though both the other branches were physically stronger than Sapiens, their greater numbers and pack hunting wiped out the Neanderthals and nearly all the Elves.”

He motioned to his silver ear shields protecting his long pointed ears.  “So nature did as she always has, and we developed a physiological adaptation that allowed us to suppress our Elvish traits and live among the growing Sapien society undetected.”

The man stood to retrieve the coffee carafe and tray, moved back to refill my mug, and offered mugs to dad and Tana, then took one himself, warmed his hands on it before sipping. “Even as our numbers recovered from the brink of extinction, the Sapien population exploded, leaving us even more outnumbered than before, so it was vital that we remain hidden.”

“Problems arose as civilization grew, great cities being erected, with more and more people in smaller places.  Upon death, the Protoelastin enzyme in our blood which dampens our physical Elvish traits breaks down quickly, revealing our elvish Heritage.”

He sighed looking to recall teachings from his youth. “From time to time, a clan wasn't able to get to the body of a fallen loved one before their body exposed their ears.  People thought them demons or witches or some sort of abominations, and their families were hunted down and run to the ground.  Their bodies showing the same abnormalities, making the Sapiens feel righteous in their kills.”

“More and more frequently this would happen, and our birth rates weren't keeping up with the deaths.  That is when the Council was first formed, in a very crude form, when all the Elf families banded together to form a mutual defense pact.  Giving exposed families a safe place to hide out until the pursuers gave up the hunt.”

He looked over at me with a sad smile. “The smallest, and least influential family of Elves, the Riicathi, had an odd adaptation that none of the other families possessed.  An evolution of our defense mechanism if you will... and that was the ability to control their Protoelastin levels in their bodies, manifesting or muting their Elvish traits at will, without having to build up sufficient levels of the enzyme for another dump.  It had the added benefit of their bodies not displaying their Elvish physical traits until seven or eight days after death.  By which time they would be buried and no-one would ever know.”

The man didn't look proud of the next. “So... the Council pressed them into service, against their own will.  Being the smallest family, they couldn't stand against the combined families.  So the Riicathi became known as the Pallbearers, always watching from the shadows, retrieving the bodies of fallen elves before they could be discovered.  Trained as assassins to deal with any Sapiens who may have seen, or who learned of the existence of the Elves.”

I swallowed, my eyes slowly widening as my intuition told me why Tana had reacted the way she did at what Dad had said.  I was willing the man not to say it, but I had to know.

He looked defeated as he shrugged and admitted, “They were treated as servants of the Council, always denied when they wished to move on and not do what they said was the Reaper and the Devil's work.  And one day, the Riicathi were tasked to deal with a young family.  An Elf and a Sapien woman had a child who survived birthing.  The first hybrid child to have survived, and that risked our exposure to all.  The leader of the Riicathi begged us to not make them take the life of an Elf and a baby, they were again denied.  The two in the hunting party sent out that day took their own lives in the Council chamber for the unforgivable sin.”

“Almost half of the Riicathi clan were killed in an uprising when they revolted after being forced to break their one oath, to protect all Elves.  But that revolt was quashed quickly, the Riicathi brought back in line.  And for centuries, performed their task, never again speaking a single word to another Elf as they did so, that silent rebellion made most of the Council look down upon them in disdain.”

I wiped a tear from my cheek as I listened in horror, knowing it was my own family who had killed the halfling children before me, and their families.  I pushed into the safety of dad's side when he wrapped one of his big arms around me protectively while Evander went on.

“It was just less than three hundred years ago when again, the unthinkable occurred after an Elf woman fell in love with a Sapien, and their love created a child who had survived birth.  When the Council came to the Riicathi and tasked them again to take Elvish lives, a battle ensued, where all but seven Riicathi perished, along with most of the Elvish security forces, fifty-seven Riicathi had defended against four hundred soldiers and very nearly succeeded.  And when it was over, and the seven remaining Riicathi cowed, they were sent out to do the deed.”

The man looked shaken and stricken, holding his hands out as if holding a child. “My grandfather, the next morning, found the body of the halfling baby on his doorstep, the Riicathi nowhere to be found.  The lookouts at the harbor reported the last of the Riicathi had boarded a ship heading out to the New World early that morning.  Before he passed, my grandfather told me of the great shame of our family, of the Council, and how broken inside he felt holding the lifeless form of the most innocent of us all.”

Then he sighed. “And when rumor reached the Council forty-five years ago, of a sighting of a Riicathi family, I took it upon myself to send out teams to search for them, to reunite them with the Elves, and to make reparations for what the Council, what my family had made them do for all those centuries.”

He chuckled without any humor. “The closest we came was a sighting right here in New York City, but nothing came of it... until you, Killishia Riicathi.”

I whispered, “Renner,” as I was glaring at the man through tears, while I stood, clenching my fists and wincing when I forgot I had a cast on my hand.  Tana and Dad stood with me and the younger Laun put an arm around my shoulders and started walking me to the door on wooden legs.  “Come on Killy, let's get you some air.”  Then to dad, she said, “I got this, sir.  I'll get her home.”

Dad looked hesitant before looking at me and giving a sad smile before nodding once, then placing a hand on Evander's chest, physically stopping him from rushing to us as the Elf said, “We're not done here, we need to discuss the formalities of...”

“Dad!  Grow some empathy or buy a clue.  She's done, that other bullshit can wait.”

When the man tried to push past dad, he looked surprised the slightly enhanced strength of elves wasn't enough to budge my dad's hand.  Dad was looking at some spot on the floor when he said in a low tone that sounded like a danger gift wrapped in a tidy threat, “Don't...”

And I was dragged out of the room, the guard down at the Council Chamber doors looking our way as she spirited me to the elevators.  As the doors closed, a detached portion of my mind was dwelling on the fact that for how anti-elf-on-elf violence all the Elves seemed to tout, that they had no problems killing members of mom's... well, of my clan when we revolted, twice.

Chapter 3 – Repository

It was a few minutes later I found myself sequestered in Tana's rooms in the penthouse, yes, I said rooms, it was like a little apartment or suite of its own... along with her sister Sonia sitting cross-legged upon a sinfully fluffy couch.

I was just taking the space in again, I've been here on many occasions since I Elfed, but this is only the second time Tana had let me see her rooms, we usually sit in the large family room slash entertainment space outside her doors.  So this was where the ironic punk princess of the Laun family slept.  Don't tell her I called her a princess, she hates that and I'm sort of scared of her sometimes.  But her Aryon title, or heir, sort of implied princess didn't it?  Not that her parents were royalty or anything and I've been talking about this too long.

There were four doors in the main room, one door went to her bedroom, and one to a bathroom.  I knew the other door I had wondered about was a connecting door to Sonia's rooms because she tiptoed in when she heard Tana's and my voices.  The twelve-year-old was overly cute like that. Her facial muscles relaxed, the outer corners of the eyes pointed slightly upward, and her blonde hair hung down to her slightly hunched shoulders around her short neck.   All symptoms of her Kerricyn Syndrome, which is similar to Down Syndrome in Sapiens.

She wants to be a writer one day to write urban fantasy books like the Back Alley Conjurings, which were Tana's favorites.  So I've been helping her out by lending the writing workbooks I started with on my ongoing journey to become an investigative reporter at Channel 3.

I was taking in how super organized everything was in the room when I had expected... well I don't know what I expected.  Some sort of Hello Kitty meets Dawn of the Dead like the way she dressed.  But everything seemed to be lined up too precisely, not even one of the multitude of picture frames covering one wall even a little crooked.

Blinking, I forgot for a moment why I was so emotionally wrought when we came in here.  Instead, I was grinning and swinging my gaze to her. “Aha!  You're a neat freak, Tanny!”

She cringed at me using the nickname her family has for her, but defended weakly, “I am not.”

Sonia told me, “I'm not supposed to tell anyone about her OCD, Kia.  I can keep a secret real good.”  She held a finger to her lips.

“Hey!  I don't have OCD you little tattler.  I just like things just so.”

Oh, this was juicy stuff.  I was learning more about her just then than she has shared in the weeks we've known each other.  Her tough-girl persona made sense now.  She liked to be in control of all aspects of her own life when her future had already been chosen for her by her bloodline and her parents.  She alluded to that before with me in the rare moments she shared anything personal with me.

I just said, “Huh.”  Then smiled at the woman.  She looked away, was she blushing?  I added, “So these are your rooms?  Your Fortress of Solitude?”

“You're such a geek, Killy.  You're lucky you're cute.”  It was my turn to look away, using all my willpower to stop brushing my hair behind my ear again.  Then she sobered a bit. “So, you ok?  That was a hell of a truth bomb dad dropped on you.  I only knew parts of it, just that there was a missing family called the Riicathi, and what your seal and sash looked like.  The rest... we were never taught... they were treated so... and nowhere is the part of the revolt in our histories.”

I growled out, “Elf on Elf violence?”

She nodded her face souring. “Of course.  They don't want anything tarnishing their illusions.”  Then her brow pinched. “And there are only two elves left alive who would have witnessed it all.  Claude and Netra Susanti in Thailand.  They can bury the sins of the Council when the elders pass, and none would be the wiser.  Of course, they don't want it out.  I wonder just how many of the Council know about it.”

I exhaled long and hard as I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Can we change the subject?  I've had enough gloom and doom.”  I turned to Sonia who was busy carefully folding a piece of paper.  “Want to read the next chapter?  I'm dying to hear what happens next.”

She gave us her lopsided smile, then handed me the paper origami bunny she had just folded and ran back into her rooms, coming back a moment later, sneaking again, and hopped up on the couch and opened the advance copy of the latest volume of Back Alley Conjurings she had been reading to me and Tana every day at my bedside while I was recovering down in medical.

My best friend, Lisa, would kill me if she knew I already knew the plot of the next book.  Sooooo I haven't told her.  That's Kia Survival 101.  Sonia looked at the little cat head and heart she drew on my cast before opening the book and reading, allowing me to escape from my new chaotic reality for just a moment and into the story Tana's sister narrated so well, with unique voices for each character.

When she reached the end of another chapter and closed the book, I noted Tana and I had been so engrossed in the story, leaning toward Sonia and hanging on her every word, that we hadn't noticed Tana had her chin on my shoulder to watch as her little sister read.  I froze for a moment, trying to center myself.  I was still trying to deny the room-sized crush I seemed to have on the raven-haired rebel.  My cheeks burned as I tried to keep my breathing steady.

A thought occurred to me and I glanced toward the door, brow furrowing.

“What's up, Renner?”  I looked from the door to her, momentarily distracted when she used my actual last name instead of Riicathi, glad I was still the same person to her.

I pointed at the door. “Is it me or is it weird nobody has tried barging in?  The Council and your dad seem pretty intent on complicating my life even more.”

She chuckled.  “They've been coming in and out of the living space out there, listening in on us since we came in here.  I'm surprised you didn't hear them, the docs say your hearing is as good as any Elf's, just at the lower end of the spectrum.”

Oh.  I defended, “I'm still trying to figure out how these things work.”  I pointed at my ears. “They have a mind of their own and there is so much to hear all the time it's a little overwhelming.  So I do what you and my parents tell me and try to concentrate on one thing and let the rest become background noise.  I really hate hearing personal conversations.”

“Touche.  I forget what it was like when I was a fledgling.  The ear shields help a lot, which makes sense, otherwise, why would we all wear them?”

She winked, I smiled, absently reaching up to touch one of the silver ear shields she gave me, just to clunk my cast upside my head.  “Ow.”

Tana chuckled and Sonia shared, “It's best to use caution when you do things so you don't hurt yourself or others, Kia.”

It was my turn to chuckle.  “Yeah, I got that, kiddo.”  It sounded as if she were reciting one of the rules her parents have for her.  I held a fist up and she bumped it, then froze, seeing Tana's eyes on us, her head cocked.

I lamely gave her a little wave, she shook herself out of some thought, then rolled her eyes as she made finger guns toward the door a moment before someone knocked.

She sighed and stood, causing me to follow suit, then Evander's voice called out, “Tanaliashia?  Natalia Havashire is here for Miss Riicathi.”

We both called out together, “Renner.”

Then the door opened and he ushered Natalia into the room.  Sonia hopped up, hugging the book to her chest, and scurried past them, head down as if to hide from their notice as she entered her rooms and closed the door.

The woman gave me a concerned look.  Even though she was one of the leaders of the two most powerful clans of Elves, and thus one of the heads of the Elf Council, I liked her.  She's always been a straight shooter with me and hasn't tried to sell me a load of goods or shovel three-day-old unicorn crap my way.  “Are you alright, Killishia?  I know that got a little intense back there in the Chamber.  Knowing... your family.”

Ah, I didn't have to be an ace detective to determine she was in the know just like Evander.  And the look they just shared conveyed that he had told me everything.  “What happened with the Riicathi was unconscionable.  We've already informed the others we've verified your lineage so you don't have to go through that a third time.  But we need to get you to the Repository, to register your family for your Arwë draw.  I will accompany you, and your Ráquen of course.” She inclined her head to the younger Laun. “Tanaliashia.”

“Mrs. Hava...”  She took in the expectant look of the older Elf. “Natalia.”

I said slowly, “Dad already went home, should I...”

Evander shared, “This is pretty straightforward, and you are the head of your clan, signified by the clan ring on your hand.  But if it makes you feel more comfortable, we can send a car for him or your mother.”

I almost snorted.  The day they get my mother to show up here is the day a Wookie is elected mayor.  And don't judge, I can make Star Wars references, as I've let my geek flag fly long ago.  I looked at Tana, and she straightened and Ráquen'd out, shrugging and sharing, “It's fine.  It is straightforward, there aren't any maneuverings or gotchas at the Repository.”

I've heard something about the Repository before, I think they tried contacting me right after I Elfed, along with everyone else.  And from what she shared before, the Mírë is the collective wealth of the Elves, and percentages of that somehow equated to the voting shares in the Council.

I prompted her, “So this Arwë Evander mentioned once to me is the same as this Mírë?”

She waffled her hand. “Sort of, they're related.  Gah, just let's go and everything will be more apparent at the Repository.”

Natalia sighed. “Really Evander?  You haven't shared all of this with the fledgling yet?”

Tana held a stopping hand to her dad as he looked about to bluster. “No, this is my bad.  I've never been assigned as a Ráquen before, and I forget she was never taught this stuff... hell, the poor woman didn't even know she was Elf.  There's lots of stuff I take for granted being raised in our culture.”

I cocked a brow as Mrs. Havashire relaxed.  Tana was diffusing an argument between the woman and her father before it had a chance to begin.  They are famous for going after each other's throats in arguments over everything, but I've only seen them being mostly cordial to each other, almost seeming friends who quipped occasionally.

“Right.  That would pose a difficulty, now wouldn't it?”  Then she looked at me and said mostly rhetorically, though not in an accusatory manner, “I don't understand why some families still insist on hiding from the Council, though in your instance it is completely understandable.  Shall we girls?”

Evander led us out, I waved at the connecting door, which was cracked open just slightly, and grinned at the stage whispered, “Bye, Kia.”  And I replied, “Bye, Sonia, thanks for reading for us.”

Now right there, I caught that slight smile on Natalia's face at my interaction with the youngest Laun.  For mortal enemies, these people sure confused the stuffing out of me.  I cocked my head at a thought.  I wonder if they'd let me interview them for the station about the rivalry between the clans.  Probably not, as they had a united front trying to project this perfect unity and harmony of the Elvish culture.

When Mr. Laun didn't join us in the elevator, I asked, “You're not joining us, sir?”

Natalia snorted as the man shook his head, looking perturbed as the elevator doors closed, and I was surprised when Mrs. Havashire touched the pad and it recognized her, and another set of controls illuminated on it.  She selected SL7-M displayed right above SL7, the medical sublevel... and why was it not listed on the main controls?

The budding reporter in me noticed. “What is sublevel 7-M?  Is it another medical level or something?”

The woman smiled like the Cheshire cat. “It is the Mezzanine of Sub 7.  A tunnel under the road and subway to Havashire Spire.”

Tana blinked, looking as confused as I felt.  “What?  I know this building like the back of my hand, there's no tunnel... that... connects...”  She trailed off.  “Son of a bitch.  So that's where mom and dad and you and Dimitri disappear and wind up arriving at either building without people seeing?  All this time?”

The woman looked at her fondly, as the doors opened to a small room with six heavily armed Elves pointing those heavy arms at us, causing me to squeak and put my hands up in surrender, classic Kia defensive move.

“You would have been told about it when you become the leader of your clan when your parents retire, Tanaliashia, dear.  Only voting council members... leaders of their families, are privy to the information.  And as Killishia is the head of the Riicathi clan, and you are her Ráquen, sworn to not divulge any of her business as you perform your duties, are now privy to it as well and cannot disclose it.”

I didn't move when they just started walking toward the Elves with military-style rifles in their black riot gear, Tanny paused and looked back at me with my hands up, she rolled her eyes and stepped back to lower my hands, almost sighing out, “Stop that, you look silly.”  Then she steered me from behind, right past the men as they pivoted, guns still trained toward us until Natalia hit a few things on controls glowing on the surface of the smart desk.

“Natalia Havashire.”  A chime went off.  Then she said, “Authorize two.  Whiskey alpha six six five zed.”

The speaker chirped out, “Voice encode individual one.”  She indicated Tana, who called out, “Tanaliashia Laun”  Then the automated voice confirmed, “New authorized individual, Tanaliashia Laun.  Confirm?”

Natalia said, “Confirmed.”

“Voice encode individual two.”  They looked at me and I said shakily as I looked at the guards, “Killishia Renner... umm... Riicathi?”

They both rolled their eyes as the smooth voice repeated, “New authorized individual, Killishia Renner Oom Riicathi.  Confirm?”

The woman eyed me as she said, “Cancel.”  The glass tabletop went blank as she looked at me in question.

“I didn't know if I was supposed to use my name or the Riicathi name.”

Before she could instruct me, my punk rocker Ráquen prompted, “Who are you?  What name are you most comfortable with?”

I nodded then looked at the older woman who was cocking a brow at Tana like she would a misbehaving kid, then sighed and nodded once and repeated the initialization of the process.  This time I said clearly, my voice cracking from the nerves of the weapons leveled at me, “Killishia Renner.”

“New authorized individual, Killishia Renner.  Confirm?”

Natalia said, “Confirmed.”  Then she showed us how to voice verify ourselves explaining that the Council guards who had no allegiance to either family weren't expected to recognize the faces of the one hundred and seventy-two heads of the clans with voting stock, so until the system verifies them on both sides, weapons would be trained on anyone until they are, even if they do recognize you.

Ok, got it, very scary until... “Tanaliashia Laun.”  A chime went off and I hit the smart surface and said, “Killishia Renner.”  A chime sounded and all the weapons were snapped to the guards' sides as they stood at attention, staring straight ahead without looking at us.  Holy military precision, Batman.

Then Natalia opened one of a set of large, eight-foot-tall doors, and lights flickered to life in an extremely long corridor that looked like it belonged inside any of a thousand different hotels.  Artwork, on the walls, was displayed all along the length.  With my improved vision, I could just make out a mirror of the doors at the far end.  Ok, I had been expecting a dark and creepy tunnel... not just a hallway.  I needed to stop watching suspense thrillers with mom before bedtime.

We reached the other end and when the door opened, I had already steeled myself but it was still unsettling when six more guards had their weapons trained on us as we stepped into a room underneath the building across the street, Havashire Spire.

Once we were cleared, Natalia said as she ushered us onto an elevator and selected sub-level ten, “Welcome to my home, Miss Renner.”

“So the Repository is here?”

She nodded, “For the next fifty years, then it will move to Laun Tower, we alternate every hundred years.  And this is more just the operations end, only a small portion of the Mírë is physically here as it would be unwise to store it in one location.  The Mírë is split up in dozens of locations across the globe, and in these modern times, the bulk of it is electronic, and stored in various offshore accounts.”

She shrugged. “We only have a few hundred million in assets on the premises.”

I almost choked as I blinked, squeaking and coughing as Tana rubbed my back, looking concerned, “A few hundred million?”  I calmed and prompted, “Just how big is the Mírë?”

They both shared an amused look before turning to me and saying in unison, “Vast.”

I huffed, feeling ganged upon. “No shit.”  Which got the two women chuckling, causing me to grin involuntarily.  Whatever, they were being wenches and it was amusing.

Natalia stopped at the door, but she motioned to Tana with her chin to the hesitant woman.  I prompted, “Aren't you coming in?”

“I can't.  Only one person can be in the Repository at a time. Tanaliashia is exempt right now as she is your Ráquen and will be expected to explain anything to you as you take your Arwë.”

I opened my mouth to ask about the Arwë, but Tanny said offhandedly, “Which is why dad didn't come.  He couldn't go in, so he didn't want to just stand around...”  She trailed off squinting an eye in mock pain.

Natalia was grinning hugely as she finished the thought. “With me.”

“We have a winner.”  Then to me, she said, “Let's get this over with, Killy, and I can drive ya home.”

I held a finger up. “But Lisa...”

“Is waiting for you at the station to drive you home.  We'll grab her too.”

I felt sheepish then glurked when she tugged me through some heavy steel doors which had Repository stenciled on them in gold and black paint, with two more heavily armed elves flanking them.  I had to admit, I was a little excited to see what was on the other side.

Chapter 4 – Crime Wave

As I lay on my bed at home on my belly, with Tana and Lisa, we watched the news on my LaunPad, my giant shaggy sheepdog, Barney, laying across all our legs, pinning us down as he snored and slobbered.

Tana looked back at him when he snorted an aborted snore, and teased, “I thought woolly mammoths were extinct.”

Lisa defended my boy. “Hey now, Elfette, don't dis the free heat generator, he's a good dog.”

“Easy for you to say, you don't have the slobbering end.”

“You haven't...”

I sighed. “Girls, don't make me stop this bed.  I will.”

Lisa snorted and the Elf in our midst, well, the other Elf, assured me, “You are so weird, Killy.”

With the stink eye aimed at the two, I said, “Shush, here it is.”

One of the prime-time anchors of our station, WTRL Channel 3, Mary Garcia, started repeating the special report.  “This is exclusive security video from Visentine's Jewelers, showing one of a rash of simultaneous robberies that occurred just over an hour ago, that confirms reports that the perpetrators in all five robberies were Elves.  The New York Police have not confirmed any of the facts of the case as it is an ongoing investigation.”

We just stared at the fairly clear security video, and there they were, three Elves strode into the store, one female and two males.  They didn't say anything to the customers and employees who at first looked thrilled to see three Elves in the store, and just went to various display cases and broke the glass with the sort of percussive metal pin devices used to break the car windows in an emergency.  Then they grabbed handfuls of jewelry, diamonds, and gold, stuffing them into bags, then strode right back out the door into the early night of winter.

Holy bold and beautiful.  When we heard at the station when we picked up Lisa, they didn't have the video yet, and I was discounting the reports of an Elf crime wave.  Elves went out of their way to not break laws, which helped the well-crafted facade that they were a more enlightened culture than Sapiens.  But here we were, watching one of the robberies, and there they were, Elves in all their glory, with high sweeping ears, and those crystalline blue eyes like Tana's which almost glowed.

As Mary reported on the other places that were robbed at the same time, they replayed the video.  My eyes narrowed, something was off, but I couldn't put my finger on it.  And it wasn't that the female wasn't wearing ear shields like the other two... and virtually every Elf on the planet.

Lisa noted the intensity as I looked intently at the video.  “What up Buttercup?”

I shook my head, not looking at them as I rewound thirty seconds to watch it again, muting the sound.  “I don't know.  Something seems off.”

Lisa offered, “Besides the fact they're an elf looting squad?  Elves out in the open?”

Tana paused the video on my LaunPad and turned to her, a brow cocked. “There's Elves out in the open everywhere, there are over a hundred thousand in New York City alone.  Most of us don't travel in groups outside, and prefer to stick to the vetted, higher-end establishments, and Elvish nightclubs, because of the crazy Stanners out there.”

Lis was blinking, her grin wide.  “Wait, wait, wait, go back.  There are Elvish nightclubs?”

Tana chose not to engage my semi Elf Stanner best friend, and instead looked at the screen with me.  Pointing she noted, “The woman is wearing a Laun sash, but I can't tell if I know her with the scarves they have over their lower faces.  And that guy is wearing a Havashire sash, there is no way they'd be working together.  Is that what you mean?  And that third sash isn't a family I recognize, it isn't any on the Council, so it has to be one of the thousands of non-voting families.”

Blinking and shaking my head, I mumbled, “No, it's not that.  It's just something is off.  Gah!  I have to stop watching it or I'll go into brain-lock trying to force it.  It will come to me what it is when I get a moment to settle my thoughts.  My mind is still blown about the Repository.”

Lisa looked at me as I shut off the tablet.  “Oh yeah, spill, lady.  You said you'd tell me later since everyone at work is so nosy.”

Snorting, I pointed out, “Being nosy is the business, we are a news agency after all, oh wise-ass... I mean wise one.”

My ears swiveled at the sound of a car door closing across the street, I removed an ear shield for a moment and heard it was just Mrs. Clemens, the excessively nosy widow across the street who always watched everyone on the street at all hours of the day or night, usually in suspicion, arriving home from the grocery store if the crinkling bags were any indication.

I put the ear shield back on then turned my attention to the girls again, my ears swiveling their way.  I hesitated at that, then looked at my blank LaunPad a moment, my mind trying to tell me something.  Tana smirked at me, “Eavesdropping Miss Renner?  Tisk tisk.”

I crinkled my nose in indignation at being caught.  Usually, I found hearing everything all the time annoying and felt like some sort of voyeur, but I liked to keep tabs on my neighborhood.  Well pigeon poop, was I as bad as Mrs. Clemens now?  I relaxed and exhaled in relief when she added, “Just messin' with ya, Killy.”  Then to my eternal embarrassment, she looked around at my room, adding, “Who would've thunk it?  You're a bit of a slob, Renner.”

I pointed at Lisa who shoved Tana by proxy for me, then teased, “A place for everything and everything in its place, like your room?”

The woman blushed and Lisa held up a halting hand. “Wait, wait, wait.  Rewind again, You've been in her bedroom?”

Before I could reply she was blurting, “Tell me all about it.”

Tana was growling. “She's not going to share my personal...”

I cut her off as I looked at my Latina best friend. “Do you want to hear about that?  I thought you wanted to hear about the Repository, at least the things I'm allowed to share.”

She looked from me to Tana, then the ceiling as she looked about ready to burst. “Ok, we're circling back around to this, but I wanna hear about the treasure room, where is it, were there mounds of gold coins and jewels piled up all over?”

“One, you watch too many sword and sorcery movies, they don't just have mountains of jewels in a huge cavernous space.  It's not a dragon's horde.  I'm not allowed to disclose its location.  And seriously, I may have been expecting the same as you, but... it has to be the biggest letdown of being an Elf so far.”  I wiggled my brows.

“I stepped through the door of the Repository to find a pretty nondescript office.  The two guards inside that matched the two outside the door were the only things out of place from any old office in the city.  Cold linoleum floors, annoyingly buzzing fluorescent lights, and a single grey steel desk which looked like something from the mid-nineteen hundreds.”

I brightened. “Though I did meet the one person who held more power than the combined Elf Council.”

This piqued her interest as Tana snorted beside her.  This was her first visit to the Repository too since she wouldn't be able to do it on her own until she became the head of the Laun family and empire.

I looked past Lisa to say, “Hey, just like Amara said.  She who controls the purse strings holds power overall.”

She nodded in capitulation, there was that, and the Elvish families, for the most part, strive to grow their fortunes over all else.  Look at the business empire her own family has grown to one of the two largest and most influential companies in the world, worth trillions.

I went on, “As I said, I stepped through the door, and was initially let down, seeing a single desk, no other furniture in the cramped space with the two of us and the guards who may as well have been mannequins as they stood there unmoving, staring straight ahead.  It was only the fact that they were breathing and I could hear their slow resting heartbeats that marred the impression.”

Tanny looked at me past Lis who was listening intently. “I never thought of the Council guards that way, but it fits, they're always so serious, standing at attention like that.”

“Anyway...”  I shot her a look of mock indignation for interrupting. “Behind the desk, in a creaky old metal chair that matched the institutional antique, with worn canvas seat cushions that had duct tape repairs on it, was an older elf woman.  She had that look you associate with insane amounts of competence, and I got the impression she was also a dangerous woman.”

Our Elvish friend... huh, she was becoming our friend wasn't she?  She shared, “She is.  She's one of the most accomplished hand-to-hand fighters in the Dojo.  Sixty-eight years of  Mahta-cambë, martial arts experience.  She trained your guards, Ivan and Pietor, and is my instructor.  The Council wouldn't just put anyone in charge of the New York branch of the Repository, only our most dangerous fighter.”

I sputtered out, “What?  Sixty-eight years?  She only looked around forty.  And a good forty, tone and fit, in that form-fitting business suit.  I didn't see any wrinkles marring her ebony complexion.”

Lisa chuckled at me and I scrunched up my face at her, she explained, making me feel dense.  Was all this new stress in my life dulling my mind?  I swear I'm more perceptive than this.  “Um, Elf.  Hello?”  Yeah yeah, I got it, she's an Elf.  Assuming she started training around sixteen or seventeen, she'd be in her mid-eighties, which equated to around mid-thirties for Sapiens.

I pointed past her and she obliged and shoved the shoulder of the overly amused-looking Elf beside her.

“Hey, what did I do?”

“You were snickering.  Now, where was I?  Oh yeah, I had no clue what to do as I stood there, looking at the woman looking expectantly at us.  The glib one there had nudged me forward and we stepped up to the desk and our intrepid Miss Laun there introduced me and explained that we were there to do the Mírë paperwork for the Riicathi clan and make our Arwë draw.”

“What's that?  Everyone has heard rumors of the Mírë.  The Elven treasure trove, but what's an Arwë?”

I was grinning like a loon as I reached down to the floor where I dropped my bag beside the bed to pat it to reassure myself it was still there, feeling self-conscious and exposed with what was inside.

Tana said with a smirk that made me curl my toes as I tucked my hair behind my ear, “When the Mírë was conceived, it was a place to hide the combined wealth of all the Elvish families.  So that when they could no longer work, they could draw from the Mírë to support them in their final years.  Twenty-five percent of the earnings of each family was placed in it each month.”

Lis nodded. “So like an early Social Security?”

Tana nodded.  “It started with pelts, grain, livestock, and handmade wares.  But as metals and gems became valuable to mankind, and coins were struck as a means for trade and wealth, the Mírë adapted.  And soon, Greece, Rome, Egypt, and Ancient Babylon among others started rudimentary banking systems.  Then in more recent centuries, investments, stocks, and other interest gathering mechanisms caused the already huge value of the Mírë, and multiplied it almost exponentially.”

“That is also when the group of the largest Elf families who were charged with the stewardship of the Mírë from the beginning, that everyone referred to as the Council of Elders, proposed a new paradigm to the Elvish population.  It was put forth that with the newfound wealth of the doubling and redoubling of the fortune, that by a percentage of funds invested, each year each family could take an Arwë, a draw of half the accrued interest in any given year, and distribute it to each adult in their families.”

“This gave each family additional wealth without touching the principle they would draw upon in retirement, and their investments would still be growing even as they enjoy the benefits through their adult lives.  And no more monthly tithe was required from the families for the Mírë to grow.”

She rolled her hand in the air. “Of course, everyone liked the idea of a yearly stipend, so they ratified the idea.  That is when the Council was made official, with each family having the same voting shares in what to do with the Mírë as their family had contributed.  Over the years it became the Council as we know it today, where all the affairs of the Elves are dictated by Council vote, not just the monetary considerations.”

Lisa shimmied, getting her legs out from under Barney, and she sat up, her legs under her as she almost blurted, “Slow your roll, Elfettes!  You mean my work wife here is loaded?”  She spread her arms wide and fell back gently onto Barney who stopped snoring, turned his shaggy head to her, licked one of her spread-out arms, then closed his eyes and went back to snoring again.

I chuckled and said, “Are you going to let me finish now or what, ladies?”

They both quieted and I went on from where I had left off. “There must have been a dozen forms, and I wondered why they just didn't have a form online for me to fill out.  The response made sense.  If hackers ever gained access to a system that controlled the Mírë, it could be catastrophic for Elves all around the world.  There was still a lot of electronic dealings with investment firms, banks, and the like, but nothing centralized.”

Now I couldn't stop my smile as I looked toward my window where dad's food truck, Gertie, sat below at the curb, with her smashed-up front end, and broken drive-train from where he had driven her through a warehouse rollup door to save me.  Mom and dad had emptied their bank accounts to get her towed here.  They were wondering what to do now, without the truck, we wouldn't be able to pay our already past due bills, and dad was considering a night watchman job a friend at a junkyard had offered him since dad is big, muscular, and imposing to men, even though most woman swoon over his Hollywood looks.

I glanced at my bag again, smiling, knowing we'd be ok now.

I grinned like a loon when I shared, “When it was over, Amara Badu filed the paperwork in an actual file cabinet after making copies on the copy and fax machine behind her desk for the other branches.  Yes, fax machine, talk about a Luddite setup.  Then she pulled out a LaunPad to calculate the Arwë, I had half expected her to use an ancient desktop calculator or something, and she winced and explained as she worked when she ran her finger down a list on her desk.”

I smirked. “The woman said, 'Oh my, I'm sorry, the Riicathi has the smallest percentage of all the families, two-thousandth of one percent, but it had compounded itself while your family was missing the past three centuries.  Each family member won't receive much Arwë.'  She had just sighed in apology and pulled out a business checkbook with a ledger, and started writing a check.  I think that's when my mind caught up to me and realized they were giving us money... our family's money.  And they would do it each year.”

Tana looked full of mischief as she added, “I shared with Amara that there was just the tw... three of them.”  She corrected herself before she spilled the beans about my disposition with only one Elf parent.

I picked up the thread. “And the woman had bobbled her head a bit, sharing that it still wouldn't amount to much.”

Now I was giving my bestie a toothy grin that just served to frustrate the excitable woman, “So?  How much was it?”

I held a finger to my lips and nudged my eyes to the floor, indicating my mom could hear us and I wanted to surprise them when we were alone.  It should be enough to fix both Gertie and mom's old Volkswagen Beetle, and pay off our bills, with a few thousand left over to put in the bank for a rainy day.

Pulling my bag up to us, I extricated myself out from under Barney, placed my bag on Tana's back, and dug in it.  She complained, “What do you have in there?  Bricks?”  I rolled my eyes at her then pulled out the check for almost two hundred thousand dollars and held both ends of it, displaying it to my best friend with both hands.  And we'd get one just like it every year!

Lisa and I squeed and danced on the bed.  She knew just how bad off my family was financially at the moment, and she also knew I wouldn't accept any of the gifts, jobs, or monies the various clans had been offering... but this was different, as it was my family's money, not some sort of bribe from the Elves.  And it was a godsend just then.

Tana looked amused as she slipped out from under Barney's head and his head flopped on the pillow while he continued sleeping after opening one eye.  I gave her a challenging look and she covered her smile with a hand.  She had almost balked at the check at the Repository, saying it was so small.  I could imagine how much her family drew each year, being a Laun she probably cleared millions, making me feel self-conscious again.

Life-changing means different things to different people.

I smirked as I tucked the check back away, then dropped some bait. “I did get a chance to see the fortune they had in the vault behind Amara's desk though.”

Lisa pointed. “I'll bite her if you leave me hanging there, Killishandra.”

“Hey, you were closer that time, it's Killishia, Einstein.”

Tana blurted, “Why bite me?”

“Kia's had her rabies shot already.”  Lis could deadpan one-liners like a boss, and it left the ebony-haired Elf blinking in confusion.

I sighed then grinned.  “The room and desk weren't exactly as they seemed.  She waved us around the desk and the front panels of the desk had smart surfaces which displayed three camera feeds.  The hall outside, us in the Repository with her, and the portion of the Mírë liquid assets and emergency fund at this particular branch.”

“You know what three hundred million looks like?”

She shook her head, eyes glittering, and I deflated and admitted, “It was sort of a letdown.  There were two small pallets with some bars of gold on them, only like three bars deep, then a single shelf unit with a few stacks of bills, what looked like some bearer bonds, and a little stack of silver.  It would all fit in Gertie with room to spare.”

She deflated too.  “Oh.  So no piles of jewels and gold with Puff the Magic Dragon sitting on top it?”

I shook my head in apology as she whined, “Aw, man.”

Tana snorted. “You two are so weird.  And that wasn't silver, brainiac, it was Rhodium.”

Ok, now I blinked in surprise. “As in the rarest metal on Earth, the precious metal worth six times the price of gold per ounce?  That Rhodium?”

“That Rhodium.”

Gleep.

She smirked at the reaction then looked at me expectantly and pointed at her ear shield with a wink to us. Her new shields were Rhodium?  Son of a bitch!

Chapter 5 –  Florgled

It was possibly the best weekend I've had since I Elfed, with the only bit of drama occurring before Tana left later that night.  We were starting to wrap things up, ready to say our goodnights at the door, Tana was telling my parents at the front door, “Thanks for dinner tonight.  Your cooking is beyond mouth-watering, Mr. Renner.”

Mom beamed and overshared, “One of the two main reasons I married him, the other is how good he is in...”

“Mooom!”

Everyone shared a chuckle at my expense, and Lisa said, waggling her eyebrows, “You go, Mrs. Renner.  You got some fine fishing skills.”

“Everyone, just stop talking about my dad... please.”

And we all paused when there was a light knocking at the door.  It was eight o'clock and my family was already here, dad was actually up a little late since he normally woke up at around four in the morning to prep the food truck and drive into the city for a good parking spot... something he hasn't done since Gertie's untimely demise.  And we didn't get many visitors because of his odd hours.

I looked at Tana. “Your detail?”

She shook her head and waggled her cell then started to turn it back on as I went to open the door, “No, they're probably still circling Soho trying to locate my spoofed GPS location.”

I opened the door and froze for a moment at the twenty-something Elf at the door.  Geoff Havashire, the number two most eligible bachelor in New York blinked, his hand raised to knock again.

Before I could say anything, Tana slipped up beside me, looking embarrassed, prompting the Elf she was having a maybe, maybe not relationship with, “Geoff?  What are you doing here?  I told you I couldn't make it tonight and changed the reservations at La Rue Fontaine for tomorrow.”

He looked genuinely surprised and... guilty as he rubbed the back of his neck.  Lisa slipped in front of us, virtually vibrating in restrained excitement, holding her hand out.  “You're Geoff Havashire. I have a poster with...”

I pulled her back behind me, giving her a scolding look. “Sorry about her, we'll leave you two to it.”

The boy looked like he was standing in the Dean's office, trying to figure out how to explain the scorch marks on the wall by the waste bin.  What?  That happens, and not because of malicious mischief.  Maybe someone had a paper they received sub-optimal feedback from the professor on.  And I should stop talking...

He said, still scratching the back of his neck, squinting an eye as he spoke to her, “Umm... yeah, Tan, I tried calling a few times tonight.  The Council... umm, my parents... I'm here to talk to Killishia actually.  The Council assigned me for a joining alliance, my parents insisted I make contact right away, but Killishia wasn't answering her phone either.”

Our phones... were off... while we chilled in my room.

Now I've seen a lot of facets of the rebellious Laun already, but fire and anger weren't on that list until now.  I was stunned and in shock, speechless that the Council thought I'd ever let them force me into some sort of strategic marriage, especially with someone sort of dating one of my friends.

Before my mind could complete thinking 'What the actual f- -', Tanny was pushing him back on the porch and poking his chest with her finger as she looked between him and me, a stricken shadow of hurt in her eyes one moment replaced with fire in the next as she went off on him. “What the hell, Geoff?  I thought we were testing the waters?  And you're actually entertaining the archaic joining alliance bullshit that should have died in the stone age?  There's a word called 'no' that you should try using instead of letting your parents...”

She held up a halting hand. “You know what?”

He sputtered as she spun him and pushed him along we just watched while she dragged him down the steps and to the road where she chased him into his Bugatti Chiron as we all just watched dumbly from the doorway.  The boy sped away, and Tana just stood there, her back to us.

My brain finally rebooted and I hustled out onto the porch we shared with our neighbors who were peeking out a window at the ruckus.  “Tana.”

She just held back a hand, and she said, her tone hoarse, “Not now, Killy.”  Then she got into her car and drove off, my eyes following her car the whole time until she turned at the end of the block.

Then I was stumbling backward over a tricycle when Lisa said from right beside me, “Elf drama, am I right?”  I tripped on a hula-hoop when I tried to recover and wound up teetering on one toe over mom's rose bush she had wrapped for the winter.  I pivoted and tip-toed between the bush and the birdbath she had wrapped as well as I used up the last of my momentum stopping myself from falling.

“Holy panic dance Renner, you're high strung!”

I glared at her. “Don't sneak up on people like that.  I think my heart almost exploded.”

“Yeaaaah, I didn't sneak.”

Mom, always helpful, not, shared from the door where dad stood behind her, his hands on her hips, “She didn't, sweetie.”

Lisa, looked me up and down. “I still don't get how clumsy you are but always make it look so graceful.”  I pointed at my ears in explanation and my eyes drifted back to the end of the block.

I pulled out my cell, powered it up and sent a quick message to Tana. “I'm sorry.  Are you ok?”

Almost immediately, as if she had been waiting for it, she responded, “Yeah, that was some fucked up shit.  I just need to clear my head and wrap it around this.”

“You sure you're ok?  I can come over.”

“No, it's all good, we're good.  We got more stuff to do tomorrow to get you all set up for seating you on the Council.  See you then.”

“Huh?” What?  The Council?

There was a long pause, making me think she wasn't going to before her response came. “You knew that already right?  You're the head of your clan now, and your clan has voting rights not contracted away or proxy given away.  So you'll be seated at the Council.  It's going to shake up everything.”

I sent a duck emoji as I blinked in incomprehension.

“Oh my god, you didn't.  I love that about you, Killy.  I'll call once I've calmed down.”

I sent a Vulcan salute emoji on autopilot since my brain wasn't working just then, just to get back, “You are so odd, woman.  Laun out.”  That made me blink, as she and I have co-opted Lisa's flashy exit phrase.

Part of me was afraid Tana was mad at me for the whole joining alliance debacle, but later that night, as Barney joined me in my bed, arranging himself as my breathing pillow as I watched the developing story of the Elvish robberies, my cell buzzed.  I may have been a little too happy as I answered in a hushed tone, “Tana?  Hi.”

And we talked the night away until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore.  We talked about anything and everything except the two taboo subjects we agreed upon by not talking bout them.  Anything to do with the Elf Council, and Geoff.  The whole time I was wondering just how big an idiot Geoff was to not see how great of a thing he had in her.  Was he that afraid to go against his parents?

I was up early, well early is relative since the mornings when I helped dad with the food truck on weekdays it was usually around four in the morning, so weekends he'd sleep in until around seven.  Mom said it was refreshingly odd to have him up late each morning since Gertie was put out of commission.

I still feel guilty about that since the only paychecks coming in right now are from mom's work as a seamstress down in the tailoring co-op in the warehouse just a few blocks away and my less than stellar paycheck at Channel 3.  The late notices were stacking up and my parents were on the verge of facing some really hard decisions since the banks denied an equity loan on our house.  But that was all about to change.

We were eating one of dad's breakfast specialties, pancakes stuffed with scrambled eggs, onions, peppers, and cheese.  He calls them four-squares for some reason, and we've never bothered asking since we were always too busy wolfing them down like penguins in a mackerel storm.  He's a wizard in the kitchen.

As I stuffed another bite of the drool-worthy meal into my designated pie hole and tried not to grin like a loon as I slid the check across the table with one finger for mom and dad to see, I said around the fork, “We should call Miguel down at the garage to come to take a look at Gertie for an estimate... and get mom's Beetle fixed too.”

Mom picked up the check, her eyes bulging wide.  I hadn't had a chance to tell them of the happenings after dad and I parted ways since we hadn't been alone long enough to sit down to discuss things.  And I wanted to surprise them.  “Kia? What is this?”

“A check.”

She dropped her hands holding the check between them to the table, cocking an eyebrow sardonically. “We can see that, little miss funny pants.  This is a hundred and ninety-three thousand dollars.”  She paled as she showed it to dad as if he hadn't already read the numbers on it himself. “You didn't accept any offers from any of the families, did you?  Oh lord, you didn't sell off our voting shares?”

I mirrored her cocked brow, causing dad to look between us and chuckle.  “No mom, I'm overwhelmed, not brain-dead.”

It was dad who realized what was happening and his eyes went wide. “The Mírë...”

Mom looked from dad to the check and she whispered, “An  Arwë.”

Almost bouncing in my seat I nodded and shared, “And we get one just like it every year.  The Riicathi share of the Mírë may be tiny when compared with the senior families, but for us, tiny is huge... ly... ish...”

Mom winged a thumb my way as she squished her lips to one side and said to dad, “Didn't she spend six years in college to be able to articulate better than that?  She's your progeny, Cy.”

“She did, maybe a refund is in order?”

“Meanies.”

They chuckled at their poor inarticulate daughter, then their smiles dimmed as they looked at the check again, and mom shook her head and slid it back toward me with one finger, Dad saying, “This is for your future, Itty Bit.  We'll get things sorted out here in...”

I blurted, “No.” I bunched my good hand into a fist and thumped it down on the table, causing the plates to jump a bit, and Jurassic Park-like ripples to appear in our coffee mugs.  Maybe Tana is right, I must be a geek, making an observation like that.  And I said through gritted teeth,  “No, it isn't.”  I pinned them with my eyes as I used the fancy articulation afforded me by the six years it took me to get my four-year broadcast journalism degree.  “Grr.”

Then I added, “I may be woefully unprepared for my entry into Elvish society and know only the bare essentials the Elves shared with the general population of the world about Elvish society, but I had a crash course in the florgled up history of our family, and of the Mírë.  This Arwë draw is for the Riicathi family, to be divided up among each member every year, not just for one person to claim.  The last I checked, we Renners here in this house now are the last of the Riicathi, so I put it to you that your assertion of the disposition of the funds is lacking in validity, and therefore in err-ish-less-ly.”

Before they could speak, I inhaled since I sort of forgot to breathe anywhere in my loquacious tirade. “We can get caught up on the bills, and get Gertie back on the road so you can get back to work, dad.  And mom, your car is just gathering rust, it's weird to go grocery shopping in a food truck, no matter how much you like tormenting people in the parking lots who start lining up when you do.”

Dad looked at mom and seemed to deflate a little as he asked, “Florgled?  She's your daughter.”

Mom nodded in mock resignation and I blurted, “That's what you took from that?  I said florgled because I can't say fucked around my parents without feeling like I need to wash my mouth out with soap.”

My smartass mother placed her hand over her heart. “Good heavens, stars above, such language.”

“Where do you think I learned it, mom?  You swear like a Russian sailor every time you call customer support for one thing or another.”

Dad blinked and mocked, “Scandalous.”

Then before I could sputter out some retort, dad got serious and sighed then said as he looked to mom for agreement, “Fine, on one condition.  After we get caught up and things sorted with the vehicles, we put the rest away in the rainy day fund.”

Mom and I nodded our agreement and said in unison, “After we get a few new outfits.”

We grinned at each other then beamed at dad who looked at the ceiling then over at Barney who was licking his plate clean on the floor.  “Even though it's two against two, it seems the women of the house have us outnumbered Barney old boy.”

I said, “Lisa's coming to give me a ride into the city to deposit this in our household account then have a girl's day out.  I wanted to show the check to you two first.  I'm sure they'll hold the funds a few days until the check clears, but we can at least get the ball rolling with Miguel now.”

Dad nodded and cocked his head, looking at me with... pride?  He told mom, “Good call in making her the head of the Riicathi clan, Abi.”

Then mom and I looked at the check then at each other and we squeed and grabbed dad into a family hug, since sure, it wasn't world-changing money for our family, but it was a well-needed windfall that would keep us above water and give us a chance to catch our breath.

Chapter 6 – Decompressing

The bank was a trip and a half.  They were open only until noon on Saturdays, and when I walked in, covering my face as Lisa shooed away a couple of Elf Stanners trying to get a selfie with me by the doors, all eyes turned to us.  I noted my shadows, the Cookie Twins, Ivan and Pietor idling in their obvious black SUV across the street.  They were assigned to be my bodyguards by the Council.  Hmm... they were only supposed to be with me until my family was named and placed, why were they still guarding me?  At least my chastising has them keeping their distance so I don't feel smothered.

I sighed.  Ever since I Elfed, I couldn't go anywhere without people staring or getting excited that an Elf was in their midst.  You could take a walk anywhere in the city, especially around Central Park and Fifth Avenue, and pass at least a dozen Elves or so while you were out since as Tana said, there were around a hundred thousand living in New York City.

Sure they avoided being out in groups or higher crime areas and traveled in the upper crust circles, but they weren't getting as much attention as I was, being a curiosity because of my green eyes. The only green-eyed Elf, though most people wouldn't know that since Evander Laun had spread falsehood in a press conference. “Of course, there are elves without the blue eyes most associated with our people. It is just an extremely rare occurrence,” he said when asked about the green eyes.

I held up the green-eyed banner alone in my head... at least until another halfling is born, something the senior Council doesn't want the general public to know, Sapien or Elf.

A woman who appeared of possibly Egyptian descent came rushing out of an office when I got in line for a teller, while Lisa circled the block.  Her hand shot out toward me as she spoke quickly with a British accent, “Miss Renner, I'm Neema Sayed, the assistant manager of this branch. I contacted the manager, Michael Lewis, the moment we saw you walk in.  He insists on dealing with you himself.  He lives just a block away and should be here in just a minute.”

She knew who I was?  Wake up Kia, of course, she knew, you only Elfed before a million or so viewers live on television. I accepted her hand and shook, with what was sure to be a confused look on my face.  She shook heartily, covering our hands with her other. “Umm... I'm just depositing a check.”

Her eyes brightened at that. “Michael is going to be thrilled you chose to bank with us.  Not many Elves choose to bank outside Elf-owned financial institutions.  I can start the preliminary paperwork for an account now while we wait, will this be a personal or business account?”

Ok, I got what was happening now.  “I think there's been a misunderstanding here, Ms. Sayed, my family already has a business account here... Renner Food Services.  And I have a personal account.”  I held up my debit card and a deposit slip in my other hand the check as she shut the door behind us when she led me into a lavish office filled with all kinds of hardwoods in the desk and bookshelves and display cases that were a stark contrast to the modern chrome and steels in the lobby.

I pointed back the way we came as she stopped at some high-end chairs in front of the huge black walnut desk.  “I was just going to stand in line and make a deposit.”

She looked taken aback. “Our exclusive clients do not need to stand in line, you can come directly to me or Mr. Lewis.  My office is the one just on the left.”

It was everything I could do to stop from exhaling audibly in frustration.  I sure wasn't one of their “exclusive” clients a few short weeks ago before I Elfed.  And mom and dad certainly weren't when they denied them a home equity loan just days ago.  This had everything to do with me being an Elf now and nothing to do with who I and everyone else believed I was before my ears got their points.

This was the sort of elitism that I found distasteful about Elves before I joined their ranks.  It was like they got special privileges and a different set of rules than everyone else.  It was sort of the reason I wanted to be an investigative reporter, to expose the entitlement and elitism I've observed in the Elvish community, and I had no want nor desire to contribute to it.

So before I could engage any semblance of tact or restraint, my mouth was working as she sat down and motioned to one of the other chairs.  “My parents didn't feel too elite when you couldn't give us a second mortgage this week to save our business.”

She went positively pale at that, grasping the chair's upholstery like she was on the verge of panic.  “That has to be a mistake, Miss Renner.  I'll look into it personally and...”

I held up my hand to stop her, which looked absurd to me with my cast which had maybe a few too many hearts and cats drawn on it.  “We've banked here for over twenty years, and stayed loyal to you even when your service fees and overdraft fees almost crippled us during some rough patches.  And now the red carpet treatment?  Because of these?”  I pointed at my ears, my Renner Rage heating my blood.

She seemed at a loss for words as she stood again when I didn't sit.  Then a look of relief washed over her tight expression when the office door opened and a rather short but fit, bald black man strode in, looking dapper in a stylish charcoal suit and ebony tie.  His mustache and goatee were neatly trimmed, and he looked as though he was trying to control his breathing, like he had just been running and attempting to look aloof.

Ms. Sayed blurted in relief, “Mr. Lewis, this is...”

He extended a hand as he reached us, confidence rolling off of him as he gave a charming smile as I absently shook his hand. “Killishia Renner.  Of course, everyone knows who you are.  I'm Michael Lewis, the bank manager here, but please call me Michael.  Please, have a seat, Miss Renner, and what can New York First do for you today?”

I didn't sit as he chose to stand in front of the desk instead of sitting behind it.  I held up the check and deposit slip lamely. “I just want to make a deposit and get on with the rest of my day.”

It was as if I could see the dollar signs lighting his eyes as they widened in delight. “We'd be honored.  Very few Elves choose to bank with human establishments.  I can personally set up an account for you and... will others of your clan be using our services as well?”  I winced at his use of Human.  I had been guilty of the same thing just a short time ago, inadvertently excluding Elves as something different, outside of humanity.  But both Sapiens and Aelftus were just different branches of humans of the Homo-Erectus tree.

I corrected him, “We're all human here.  And my family already has an account here.”  I waggled the deposit slip.  “And I have a personal account too.”

He looked shocked, then turned to Neema who looked moments from wringing her hands.  “Someone set up the accounts without informing me?”

Was it lame that I felt almost like raising my hand, feeling out of place as I answered before she could? “We've been with NY First for decades.  All I want to do is make a deposit.  My friend is waiting on me... Michael.”

He reached out with a prompt of his chin. “Of course, I can do that for you.”  I handed him my card, the slip, and the check.  I almost snorted as he looked at the check as he moved around to sit at his desk to use the computer.  His brow furrowed.  That's right pretty man, a couple hundred thousand was nothing compared to the kind of sums most Elf families probably sling around.

He tapped a few keys, looking at the deposit slip as I stepped up to the front of his desk, Ms. Sayed shadowing me, hands behind her back, looking the epitome of professionalism.  Then his brow furrowed more as he looked from the screen to the deposit slip, then to me.  “Just a moment, I've put in the wrong information.”  He typed it in again before looking befuddled as he said in confusion, “This account is overdrawn by five hundred dollars.”

I nodded brightly. “Thus the deposit to square everything up.”  Then felt sheepish, like I had to defend myself as I pulled my LaunPhone out to pull up my banking application.  “But I have money in my personal account.”  I looked at the screen. “All twenty-nine dollars and forty-three cents of it.”  I gave him a toothy grin, wanting to just bury myself in the sand to wait for the Great Spaghetti Monster in the Sky to come get me.

The man paused, then ran the check through a scanner with the deposit slip.  Then stamped the back of the check and printed out a deposit slip for me, handing it and my card back.  “Here you go, Miss Renner.  Will your clan also be opening accounts?”

I dashed his hopes on the treacherous rocks of disappointment. “We're it, the whole clan.”  Then I asked, “When will the funds be available to us?”

He looked distracted and seemed deflated as he waved that off. “You can draw upon the funds immediately, that check is from the International Elf Council general holdings.  By the treaty and federal rules, Elvish funds cannot be held and are bonded and insured by the Council itself.”

I grinned and said, “Thanks Michael, Neema, my ride is waiting.  Have a great day.”  I almost didn't feel guilty as I left the two thoroughly confused individuals behind me as I left the office.  Making a beeline to the lobby doors, I double-checked my banking app, and it was all I could do from gleeping in excitement, seeing that indeed, the deposit already showed there, and it wasn't marked as held.

Then I almost had a heart attack, as I turned around and ran directly back into the glass doors with a clatter when someone spoke right beside me when I was looking across the street to the Cookie Twins. “Mind if I tag along, Killy?  I'm bored out of my... Kia!  Are you ok?”

“Ow...”

Tana chuckled and steadied me by holding my arm. “Damn, you spook easy, lady.  Seriously, are you ok?”

I rubbed my nose as I turned to the gorgeous Elfette. “Stop sneaking up on me.  Usually my 'run away, run away' reflex doesn't do me like that.”

She cupped my cheek and it was all I could do to stop from leaning into it. “You poor baby.  Want me to kiss it and make it better?”  Ok, my mind blanked as I reached up to tuck my unruly hair behind my ear.  She chuckled at the reaction as my cheeks burned.  “Just messin' with ya Killy.”

“Word got to me that you were seen going into the bank here.  You know we have banks with better interest rates don't you?” she said.

I sighed, shaking my head. “No, because nobody is telling me anything.  There has to be like Cliff's Notes cheat sheet, or an Elfing for Dummies book, for surviving in the Elvish community or something.”  Then I pointed across the street at a thought. “Are the Cookie Twins snitching on me?”

She looked genuinely surprised at the question. “The Korsivair's?  Really?  They'd like, literally die before they disclosed info about their charges.  Nah, I have my ways.  So...”  She looped her arm in my good arm and asked, “...where to?”

I prompted with one eye squinted in apology, “The whole Geoff debacle?”

She shrugged. “I'm over it.  Well until I lay into mom and dad tonight more about it.  Right now, I just want to hang with my favorite green-eyed Elf.”

Her favorite... I chewed my lower lip and tried hard not to squeak as I almost stuttered, “Oh... ok.”  Then I shook my head to clear it and said as a little horn beeped. “And that would be our ride.  And hey, wait, I'm the only green-eyed Elf you know.”  I got a smug look from her in return.

Lisa said as Tana stuffed herself into her cramped back seat, “You picked up a stray, Kia?”

I nodded. “She has all her shots and is potty trained, can we keep her?”

“Junior always wanted a Tana to play with.”

When said Elf just cocked a brow at us, it is entirely possible I may have snorted, which turned into a chuckle when she just shook her head, saying,  “You two are so weird.”

I shared with my bestie, “She showed up after I got the Elf preferential treatment in the bank.”

This got the Laun in our midst furrowing her brow as she prompted, “Elf preferential treatment?”

“Yeah, you know, where just because of these.” I pointed at my ears. “Suddenly the bank manager is running in from his home to deposit a check instead of me waiting in line at the tellers... which would have been much faster.  They were bending over backward to 'open' an account for me, even though they never gave me or my parents a second look or any consideration with the accounts we've had at that branch for the last couple of decades.  They didn't even realize we had any accounts with them.”

The silence from the back seat spoke volumes.  She was well aware of my opinion of that sort of preferential treatment and privilege Elves seem to enjoy over the rest of the population.  Lisa had her lips curiously zipped on the subject as she kept glancing at me and Tana in the rear-view mirror.

We had a blast in town the rest of the day, just having a girls' day out.  We did some Christmas window shopping.  I put a couple of gifts on layaway for mom and dad that I'd pick up on Tuesday, payday.  I couldn't believe that it was a week until Christmas.  It seems like just yesterday I Elfed at the Tree Lighting ceremony.

I ignored a few calls from 'blocked' numbers and a few I've been adding to a group contact I have labeled Council.  They've sort of been monopolizing my time and even pulling me away from work before I was hospitalized in the medical wing below Laun Tower.  It was good just doing normal things for a change.  Just having fun with friends.

We only drew too much-unwanted attention twice, since Lisa had us wearing knit caps with big snowball puffs on them to cover our ears, and sunglasses like I've seen many Elves wearing around town.  Now I knew why, since the flashes on phones of people trying to get pictures of me whenever I'm out, caused piecing pain in my head because my eyesight was more sensitive than before I Elfed.

The first time was just a group of teens who recognized Tana and started Stanning, then realized who I was and the pictures started.  With just a minor movement of her hand, Ivan and Pietor quickly crossed over to us and herded the kids back from us.

The second time had Tana grinned like a loon when a couple of tourists in gaudy Christmas sweaters with I heart New York emblazoned on them, recognized me first.  The woman was squealing to the man who had a matching wedding ring.  “It's her, Trevor.  That Killishia Elf from the Internet.”

Her tall, gangly husband was all grins as they both pointed toward me and said in unison, “Son of a son of a son of a bitch!”  I wanted to jump into an open manhole at the realization they were referring to one of the hundreds of memes I became the subject of, immortalizing my embarrassment for all time, since the Internet doesn't forget.  That particular meme they were acting out had over forty-three million hits... so far and was the bane of my online existence.

Since Tana was no help as she looked two seconds from a giggle fit, Lisa had just smiled with the people and said, “Yes, hilarious, the most terrifying and confusing moment of her life is great fun in the corn fields in the Midwest.  “  Then her smile was replaced by a blank stare at them as the woman looked surprised and a little sheepish while her man's smile became something hard.  Sorry buddy, most people don't like being called out like that.

Lis broke and offered them a high five that was ignored as Trevor led the woman away quickly.  I shoved Lisa's shoulder. “Thanks for the assist, but that was a little harsh wasn't it?”

She shook her head. “Nobody gets to mock you with those memes but me, Emo-Elf there, and your parents.”  Then she was holding up her cell. “You need to see the one I posted of you last night, the picture I took when you had crawled onto the top shelf in the Morgue to get a file box at work.”

I placed a hand over her phone, rolling my eyes.  Tana had my back.  “Oh, I've seen that one.  Styled like an inspirational poster feel, labeled 'Elf on a Shelf'.”

“I hate you both.”  Why was I grinning at the two jerks when they looped their arms in mine and we headed to lunch?

We hung out the whole weekend, except for Sunday morning when my parents and I sat down to work out our finances.  I could see it was a huge and crushing weight off their shoulders to be able to get us current on all of our bills.  The strain they tried to hide in their smiles was gone now.  Mom didn't think I noticed the mortgage payment was three times more than normal.  Had we been that far behind?  That close to losing the house?

I was happy that they were happy.

Miguel was going to bring the wrecker to tow the vehicles to the garage first thing Monday.  He said it would be the better part of three weeks, depending on parts acquisition for Gertie, and said mom's was straightforward, and he'd likely have it ready for her on Tuesday or Wednesday.

When all was said and done, we had used over half the Arwë, but that left us with a nice nest egg for emergencies and even some fun money with the other half.  My account was now sporting six hundred dollars.  And mom went with us girls on a discount store and thrift store shopping spree for some new outfits.  I was pleasantly surprised Tana hadn't looked down on our choice of shopping establishments.  I still haven't got a good read on her yet, and it was driving me batty.

I ignored all the incoming calls on Sunday too.  Tanny pointed out, “It's the heads of all the clans wanting to ally with the Riicathi, or contract with you to proxy your shares.  Mom and dad have approached me twice already asking if I knew your intentions.”

Mom had prompted her, looking moments from reaching into her bag and pulling out the air horn she had there to blast the punk princess, “And what did you tell them?”

Said princess informed us, with a look of pure coy mischief, “That I had no clue, but since we were talking about Killy, I'm sure it will be equal parts unexpected and disruptive.  Someone needs to give the hidebound Council a swift kick in the nethers.”  She added like it were the cherry on top. “They were not amused.”

We enjoyed the rest of the day.  I admit I was sad to say goodnight to Tana after dinner, Mom and Dad had warmed up to her, seeing she was nothing like her control freak father.

I had frozen on the porch when she had called down to Lis, hopefully, putting her thumb out, “Hey Lisa, give a girl a ride into the city?”  Then she leaned in and gave me a quick peck on the cheek, her hot breath causing tingles to shoot through me down to my toes, causing my ears to heat to supernova.  “Catch ya on the flip side, Killy.  Laun out.”

And no, I didn't just give a little wave lamely from my hip... for long, as she gracefully navigated to the Rodriguez-mobile.

What a fun weekend.

Chapter 7 – Assignment

Monday rolled around, and I resigned myself to my first full day of work since I was hospitalized.  I arrived for the morning briefing at the station, feeling conspicuous as I hastened in hugging my LaunPad to my chest and took a seat at the big conference room table.  All eyes were on me and all the conversations had stopped.

I almost sprang back out of my chair when Mr. Klein called out, “Where's my coffee?” since I had been a glorified coffee runner for my two-year internship here at Channel 3.  That and I took notes of the morning briefings and story assignments to the various reporters.

It wasn't until just before I was laid up for a bit that I realized, there had been more to it than that, especially since one of Mr. Klein's many assistants who usually only lasted a month or so, took the official notes even though he insisted I did too and email them to him.  I had learned a heck of a lot in these meetings about the journalistic process, and I think that was the point.

One of the three newest interns came scurrying in with both hands full with people's coffee orders.  The boy looked harried as he rushed up to our station manager, set one of the cardboard drink carriers down, and pried a cup from it.  “Ristretto with two pumps of raspberry, sir.”

Mr. Klein took it mumbling absently without looking up, “Thanks, Kia,” and took a sip, then looked at it.  “Not a double?”

The kid who looked to be of middle eastern heritage, and whom I hadn't been introduced to yet, sputtered out, “Oh no, I'm sorry sir.  I'll get it right next time.  And it's Ryan, sir.”

“Don't expect me to learn your name.”  He looked down at his tablet, reviewing his notes until the stragglers showed.

I recognized the deflated look the intern wore and tried not to smile since I had worn that same look for two years.  He passed out the coffees diligently, and when he was motoring on over to my side of the table to give our sports anchor, Scott Jones, his industrial-sized coffee, he noticed me for the first time.

He came to a halt so fast two of the coffees unseated themselves from the drink carrier and flipped over the edge as his eyes widened in shock at seeing an Elf in the conference room I assumed.  He lurched in an attempt to prevent the disaster in progress.

One of my hands shot out and caught one of the potential coffee bombs just as it started its downward trajectory, and my foot whipped out to catch the other just inches from the floor.  Unfortunately, my other hand darted up to steady the drink carrier before he dumped the other two coffee adjacent drinks on me, and… I forgot about my cast... again.

I winced as I missed when my cast impacted the carrier and the remaining coffee cups got pinned between it and his chest, his eyes twice as wide now, but luckily, by the grace of Cthulhu, the lids stayed on.  I set the cup down and retrieved the one balancing on my foot as I blurted, “I'm so sorry!”

I grabbed the other two cups before they decided they'd live out the remainder of their lives soaking the kid's nicely pressed white shirt.  I absently slid them down the table to Scott and Mary as I took the empty tray from Ryan and took his free hand to place on his other drink carrier.

He squeaked out as I sat and hunched, wishing to be invisible with every fiber of my being. “You're... an Elf.”

My wish hadn't worked since Scott chuckled, winking at me. “Outstanding reflexes, Kia.”  My cheeks were burning.

I looked up to see the Intern still hadn't moved.  I nudged my eyes and mouthed  water to him, which snapped him out of his shock as he quickly delivered the last coffee from the other tray and then brought the pitcher of water and glasses on the tray from the sideboard to the table as he whispered to himself, “Killishia Renner.”

He jolted when Mr. Klein said impatiently, “Yes, we've an Elf on staff, stop gawking and remember to take notes this time, Todd.”

He stood straight, then virtually dashed to the corner I always hovered in while taking notes, pulling out an Android tablet instead of a LaunPad as he offered, “It's Ryan, sir.”

I almost snorted, knowing now it was all part of Tobias Klein's method of training interns, weeding out the chaff, as he looked around the table for affirmation. “That's what I said.”  The others nodded in agreement.  This was shameless, but there I was, not correcting the boss either.  I had joined the Dark Side and it made me heat up inside in pride.

Then to my utter self-shame, I pulled up my pad to prepare to take notes too... but at least this time it was for myself.  It was an odd feeling, being on this side of things, and I sort of felt like an impostor.

The meeting began and I still felt out of place since technically I worked in the morgue, the archives room in the basement by the mail room.  It was where the more intense fact-checking occurred than up here in the Pit.  If the proofers and cursory fact-checkers needed to verify more obscure or complicated facts, they send a request down to the Morgue, then I, Azu, and Renny would dig up the corroborating information or disprove a fact laid out in a story one of our reporters is working on.

I, however, was raised by my mom, and struck a shameless bargain with Mr. Klein, allowing me to cover stories with a heavy Elf slant to them, since I had an in now, in exchange for the station shamelessly plastering my face on every bit of advertising, flaunting the fact that they had the only Elf reporter outside of ENN, Elf Network News... and I have to do a five-minute segment twice a week sharing the experiences I can as I adjust to Elvish society.

So Tobias thought it would be prudent for me to keep attending the morning briefings, only this time at the conference table with our various anchors and reporters.

I just sat there taking notes like I had done a million times, as progress on stories was discussed, and new assignments were handed out.  Just as things were winding up, I felt as if I were back in school again as I lamely raised my hand, perhaps a little timidly.

Mr. Klein looked my way, an odd expression on his face as he prompted, “Yes, Kia?  You don't need to raise your hand.”

A chuckle rippled around the table and I shot them all the stink-eye as my cheeks burned.

I looked around and asked, feeling small under the eyes of all the people who have succeeded in the field I was still just breaking into. “Aren't we... you know, going to cover the coordinated rash of smash and grabs perpetrated by those groups of Elves on Friday?”

I realized the man was biting the tip of his tongue and trying hard not to smile.  I pointed at him, eyes wide. “J'accuse!  You didn't mention it on purpose!”

He chuckled, causing the others to follow suit, and he didn't look repentant in the least as he said, “Of course we are.  We've reported on what little the police have shared, just like all the other stations, but since the Elves are stonewalling and insisting their security works with federal investigators as is laid out in the treaty, no new information is forthcoming.”

He groused, hmming, “If only we had someone on the inside who could press for more information on the story.”

“You're shameless, sir.”

“Accurate, though I've been accused of worse.”  Then before I could respond, he said, “Renner, I'm putting you on this one with Mary.  You have the legwork, and she'll refine your story before doing the broadcast.  Let's set a deadline of three days or so, for Friday primetime.”  He looked around. “Ok, why is everyone sitting around for?  Go go go.”

I was so excited I stood, intending to leave a sonic boom behind so I could get to work on the story but stopped short when Mr. Klien called out, “Renner.”  I turned slowly then sat back down as everyone streamed out.  Then my boss looked to the corner. “Lewis, what are you still doing here?”

The intern almost jumped then hustled to the door. “It's Ryan sir.”

Tobias looked at me. “Isn't that what I said?”

I winked at the poor boy as I corroborated the big fat lie. “Clear as day, sir.”

Then as the door was closing, he called after him, “I expect those notes organized and sent to me at the end of the hour.”  He turned to me a slight smirk on his face.

I may have been mirroring it as I prompted, “Wasn't Todd the Intern before me who quit because of the pressure?  And Lewis?  As in the Lewis Carpenter Whiskey ad on the magazine in front of you?”

He cocked a brow, looking amused. “Observant.”

I pointed at myself.  “Investigative journalist.”

“Probationary.”

“That's what I said.”

“Don't get cocky, Renner.”

“Sorry, sir.”

Then he looked at the door.  “They get younger every year.”

I almost pointed out that that was axiomatically wrong as it was just him getting older so they looked younger, but I decided I quite liked my job.  Instead, I followed his gaze to the door. “That's what you were doing to me the whole time.  I got a complex thinking you really couldn't remember my name the first couple of months.”

His smirk grew three sizes then he got serious.  “I hear you stopped by yesterday and were gone before I could get down to the pit to see you.  You're ok now?  Full recovery?”

I nodded as I waffled my hand. “They just let me out of medical on Friday, then I had to face the Council.  My muscles are still a bit shaky and tired all the time, but the docs say I'll work it out of my system, the Reaper neurotoxin did a number on me.  I was just lucky my...”  I paused realizing I had almost revealed the Sapien half of my genetic makeup had saved me from an agonizing death.  Not that surviving the neurotoxin, I pivoted my explanation, pointing at my eyes. “...my defective chromosomes saved me.”

He nodded. “And why your father survived as well since he passed the genes down to you.  And don't call it a defect.”  My eyes widened ever so slightly in surprise, going with the official Elvish story, my differences were simply genetic defects from the precious perfection they like to peddle to the general public.  I was a halfling and was starting to be proud of the fact rather than embarrassed by it, so I hated when I had to hide it like this.

“Yes sir.”

He inhaled through his nose then exhaled as he studied me. “You do look a little paler than normal, you sure you're ready to return?”

“I was going stir crazy in medical.  If I had to watch another episode of Wheel of Fortune on the television, I may have cracked.  I'm ready.”

He nodded slowly, likely weighing my words. “I haven't seen you since they let me in on your birthday, and I had to sign the non-disclosure agreement about the location of that secret fucking hospital of theirs.  And you looked like death warmed over then.  Was a week enough to recover?”

I nodded and shared, “They say there may be some long-term effects, and some things will take weeks, months, or years to recover fully.  My equilibrium is a little off when I'm tired, and I have a dead patch on my skin where the toxin entered me, and there was nerve tissue death that could take months to regain feeling.  Overall, I'm at like eighty percent and just want to immerse myself in work.”

He nodded slowly, brow creased, obviously not believing my assertion that I was fine.  It struck me that he didn't seem worried because of the Elf asset the station could have lost, but he seemed to be honestly worried about my well-being.  The man was contradiction after contradiction.

“Well, then you better get to it.”

I nodded excitedly as I stood. “On it.  I want to review the surveillance videos, something seemed off to me and...”

He stopped me, holding up a halting hand.  “After you help the Ghouls out at your regular job in the Morgue.  They got used to having you for half days and are swamped with requests since you've been out.”

But... I tried not to sound like a beat puppy. “But, you only gave me three days for the story and...”

“Are you saying you can't hack it, Renner?”

“No sir.”  I stood taller in defiance, marshaling my whole height, coming up to his shoulder blade.  “I'll get on it after lunch.”

He smirked and nodded, then cocked his head in question. “The Council.  For that naming ceremony, you missed?”  I inclined my head in affirmation then his eyes widened slightly. “So which clan wound up claiming your family?”

I shrugged. “None.  We have our clan, the Riicathi.  I can't say much more on that but to say I still go by Renner for multiple personal and family reasons.”

“Riicathi?  I'm not familiar with that clan.  Are they...”

“Is this an interview, Sir?  I'd appreciate you not sharing it.”

Chuckling he waved me on, and we stopped at the door, his hand on the handle before he paused again. “Something was off on the surveillance videos?  I must have watched them a few dozen times and didn't see anything amiss except the fact Elves were perpetrating smash and grab.  The Elves are stonewalling the police as I shared.”

I smirked ducked under his arm and pushed on the door, pulling it from his grasp as I slid through, “Mr. Klein, are you trying to scoop my story?  Shame on you.”

I listened to his chuckle as I made a beeline for the stairs to head down to the Archives, as he said in a normal tone, knowing I could hear him easily as I headed down, “Touche, Miss Renner.  And Ryan hasn't gotten my coffee right once.”

That... was funny.

I looked through the little glass window of the mailroom door as I passed and made a goofy face at Lisa who was sorting with the small army of workers, prepping carts to deliver to the various offices in the building.  She made an even sillier face when she noticed me there.

I skipped down the hall to the next room and slid on in arms wide doing a jazz hand with my good arm.  “I'm baaaaack!”

Renny and Azu looked up from where they were buried in files at their desks in front of their computers.  Their eyes shot wide and their smiles bloomed as they stood up quickly, but trying not to look over-enthusiastic.  They failed as Azu blurted, “Kia!  They let you out!”

Renny was trying to look casual as he attempted leaning first on the desk which was too low, then a box of files on it that promptly fell to the floor, spilling its contents.  I squatted to help pick up the papers as he blushed profusely.  I winked at him and said as I made a swooshing motion with my hand, “Smooth.”

Then I sighed and shared, “I missed you two.”  I looked at their overloaded desks and the overflow they had stacked on my desk, rolled my neck, cracking it as I limbered up. “Let's tackle this, we'll be caught up in no time.”

Then I called out in a raspy voice, “Release the Kraken!”

They responded in unison, “Hells yeah!” giving me awkward high fives.  I sighed in resignation, we were hopeless geeks, weren't we?

Chapter 8 – Elfy Love

Tana joined Lisa and me for lunch.  And I had shared my excitement with them, “Mr. Klein assigned me the Elf robbers story.  Well after teasing me about it.  After lunch, I'm heading out to all the locations that were hit to see if there is more video the police aren't sharing with the public.  Then to talk to your mom or dad, Tana, for help identifying that sash you didn't recognize.”

She snorted.  “Good luck with that, they're being all hush-hush about it.  It is already giving us Elves a bad name, nothing like this has happened since the Reveal since most everyone is afraid of my parents and the Havashires.”

“Did they know the woman wearing the Laun sash?”

She shook her head and was about to respond when Lisa finished chewing the walrus size bite of pizza she had been working on and swallowed.  “Zhou.”  She licked her fingers as we turned to her.  She shrugged. “I know the sashes of all hundred and seventy-two Elf families in the Council, and their family seals.  Well, hundred and seventy-three now, Kia.”  She winked at me.

We both just blinked at her and she defended, pointing her half-demolished pizza slice at us, “Hey, some people collect rocks, I collect Elf trivia, sue me.  And when I saw a sash I didn't know, I knew it wasn't one of the council families, so that left one of the minor houses, what do you Elflings call 'em?  Non-voting houses?”

Tana answered carefully, narrowing her eyes slightly, likely wondering just how much Lisa knew and how much I have shared with her, “Yes...”

Lisa bobbled her head, looking smug. “So I did my own digging.  I hit all the Stanner sites and forums and found some massively incomplete lists of these 'non-voting' Elf houses, and over on Insatsnap, I found pictures of the sashes of some really obscure Elf Houses in China.  And there it was, the Zhou clan, only thirteen members according to the posting.  That thread seemed pretty popular, over five hundred thousand views.”

I was still blinking at her as I tried to form words, were my brain's blink pathways shorting out or something? I sputtered, “You were going to share that tidbit with me when?”

She took another gargantuan bite of pizza, shrugged, and talked around the slice, “I thought your Elven arm candy here already shared it all with you.”

I gleeped out, “She's not my arm candy,” at the same time Tana blurted, “I'm not her arm candy.”  Then she shot a wicked grin at me, wiggling her brows suggestively, which inappropriately aroused me in the corner booth of Vinnie's with all the other customers in the booths around us all staring and trying to listen in.  Two elves in a dollar slice joint were unheard of, and I was getting tired of the whispers Tana and I could hear plainly and all the cellphones snapping pictures of us.

As my cheeks burned under her gaze, I looked down and made a little fist when I realized I was going to tuck some hair behind my ear... something Lisa tells me is my 'tell', and it broadcasts my interest in the beguiling punk princess to all.

She leaned in and whispered, her hot breath on my neck, doing unspeakably delicious things to me, “Just messin' with ya, Killy.”  Then she lifted her hand and wiped the corner of my lips with a thumb, “You got a little pizza sauce, just there.”  Then she licked it off her thumb and sat back all innocent as I tried hard to remember how to breathe... I mean it's overrated, right?  Breathing?

Lisa rolled her eyes. “Good god you two, just kiss and get it over with, you're about to melt the vinyl seats here.”

“What?  I... she... god I hate you.”

“Too bad.  Love ya.  Work wives are forever, like a plague, or a fruitcake.”

“Grr.”  Wait, fruitcake?

I paused, noting Tanny hadn't said a word.  I looked at her and she looked like a deer caught in headlights until she saw my eyes on her, then she relaxed and slipped back into her aloof persona.  “So back on track, my parents and the Havashires won't talk to you about an internal Elf matter.”

“But I'm Elf.”

“The Council is on information lock-down on this until internal security finishes their investigation.”

I cocked my head and pointed at my ring. “I thought I was on the Council now.”

She sighed. “Sorry, I guess everyone is just used to my family and the Havashires running our affairs.  And technically you're on the Council, but won't be in the loop until they confirm your seat on  Friday... Christmas Eve.”

I sighed. “Aww, man.  I gotta be there again on Friday?”

She chuckled. “You should have gotten an email.  Council meets every Friday.”  Whaaa?  I looked at my cell, accusingly, then pulled up my email.  Nothing.

Then my cheeks burned when I looked in my spam folder, where I had put all the contacts from the various elf families that had been trying to woo me over to name them as my clan before I found out my House.  Ah, there were already five emails about Council business waiting for me to read.  “Heh.  Yeahhh, I guess I shouldn't be blocking these anymore.”

Lisa giggled as Tana just rolled her eyes at me.  I shrugged mightily in my defense, then squinted one eye at a thought. “You didn't recognize the Laun woman?  How many people in your family?”

She sat back and exhaled. “Around nine hundred, but only sixty-eight in New York City, but I didn't recognize her, so she must be from out of town.  And the man wearing the, what did you say?  Zhou House colors?  Well, he most definitely wasn't Chinese, so probably married into their clan.”

I picked up the thread.  “So two out-of-towners, and I'd bet my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy first edition that the Havashire thief is too.”  I chewed on my lower lip in thought. “And there was just something hitting me wrong about the video, I can't quite place what it is, besides the fact that Elves are on a crime spree.  I mean, you're all well off, some more than others.  What do they need with jewels, electronics, and cash?”

Tana shared, on the same train of thought, “That's what has dad in such a tizzy, he can't figure out why they would do it and chance destroying the image he and Natalia have carefully crafted about us.”

Lisa looked between us when our ears swiveled toward a pizza pan crashing to the floor in the restaurant's kitchen. And offered as she licked her fingers clean, “I would have thought they were just some Stanners out for a thrill if it weren't for the ears.  I mean, the hardcore Elf worshipers have their ears surgically altered with points, but they look nothing like real Elf ears.  Even your cute little ones are easily three-times longer, and more graceful, Kia.  The one lady wasn't wearing ear shields, and those were elf ears, almost as long as Tan-burger's here.”

“Don't call me Tan-burger.”

“Fair enough, sounded much better in my head anyway, Elfette.”

Ears.  Yeah, the ears, why was my inner alarm going off again, and why couldn't it tell me why instead of just playing the harp with my intuition?  Hmm... “Do Elven ear shapes vary from family to family?”

Tana chuckled. “What, like fingerprints?  No, of course not, though more elves with your adorable little ears would be fun.  But the helix, antihelix, tragus, and antitragus of each ear are unique by Elf just like Sapiens, though not along the lineage.”

I ignored her attempt to make me blush again with the quip about my smaller ears as I tried to erect some fragile Tana armor, saying brightly, “What are parts of the outer ear for a thousand Alex?”

Lis chimed out, “Ding ding ding.”

Then to the Laun in our mix who was looking at us with wide eyes, I said with a heavy sigh, “You're not the only one to ever take biology, lady.”

She just held a hand up in surrender with a grin plastered on her face.  “I keep forgetting how huge of geeks you two are.”

Lisa looked like a wild woman with a psychotic grin as she assured her, “Guilty as charged,” while I whined out, “Hey, you knew too so that makes you a geek too.”

My cell chimed and I slipped out of the booth, “And that's lunch.  Time to get the pumpkin back to the ping pong match.”

Lisa bounced up against Tana, trying to force her out of the booth faster as she pointed at herself. “I'm the pumpkin.”  Then she paused as the Elf lady slipped out gracefully to allow my best friend out.  “So, you never said, Tan, what do you do for a living?”

She snorted. “According to my parents, I try to undermine them at every turn.  It's pretty much a full-time gig for me.  They're 'grooming' me to inherit the house of cards they built in the eye of the hurricane.  I volunteer in a few places, but for the most part, I have to talk to an endless stream of advisers telling me about the family business and Council strategy and decisions.”

I nodded sadly, knowing this already, and also knowing there was a war looming in eight years that... I blinked.  Wait.  The powder-keg the Elvish divide was sitting on was the outstanding voting shares that were about to be relinquished to the council by the missing Riicathi House.  But we weren't missing anymore... did that mean the coming hostilities between the Elf factions was averted now?

Looking up when someone said my name, I blinked, Tana was saying, “Earth to Killy, you in there?  I asked what was your first move in your investigation for your story?”

“Oh... umm.  Just getting any video or witness testimony the NYPD hasn't released, but then I have someone to talk to about this in your neck of the woods.”

She looked pained, one eye squinted as she shook her head. “Nobody is going to talk to you about this.  As I said, there's a gag order.”  Then she smirked. “And if word of your independent investigation gets to my parents, I want a front-row seat to watch dad's head explode.”

I smirked. “Oh, I think I know someone who would help me right there in Laun Tower.”

Then she moved in, her lips right next to my ear, and she breathed out so quietly, I wouldn't have been able to hear it before I elfed, “Look me up when you get there, I'd like to be a fly on the wall.”  A shiver of delight went down my spine, then she whispered again, nudging her head to the customers who were all recording us now, likely to share on social media, “Let's give them something to talk about.”  Then she gave me a quick peck on the lips and said in a normal tone, “Laun out!”  Then almost sauntered away and out the door.

Lisa steadied me as I felt dizzy, tucking my hair behind my ears as I touched my lips.  My bestie looked at me in disbelief, then asked, “Did your Elfie just steal my tagline?”

I nodded before I realized it then shook my head to clear it and schooled the goofy smile on my face as people all around us were babbling as they frantically typed on their phones, tablets, and laptops.  A table of teens I hadn't noticed in the other corner was all but squeeing while I grumped under my breath,  “She's not my Elfie, and we all stole it from you.”

Winking I said to her as I left her behind to get out fast before we were mobbed by Stanners, “Renner out.”

“Hey!  Wait for me!  And you two owe me a royalty every time you say that.”

After bidding Lis goodbye, I pulled up my notes on my LaunPad and did an about-face, looking toward Soho.  Imperial Pawn and Jewels was one of the four other places hit at the same time as  Visentine's Jewelers by another group of Elves.

I squinted an eye, my family has used Imperial a couple of times during lean times, getting loans against what few valuables we had, but we always paid off the pawn tickets in time.  And the owner Jay Lieberman went to high school with dad, so maybe he'd be willing to speak with me, so that would be my first stop.  I almost skipped toward a subway entrance, but just as I was about to go down the stairs to the station below the streets, a sleek black sedan pulled up, double parking.

I glanced over to see the man assigned as my driver, Clifford, who had a shit-eating grin on his face.  I narrowed an eye at him as a car behind him honked, then I looked around and spotted Ivan and  Pietor idling in their black SUV at the end of the block.  I shot them a chastising look, they didn't look impressed as the big men just grinned and waved from the car.

Grr.  I didn't want to abuse resources like this just because I Elfed.  I know a lot of Elves felt they were entitled to this sort of thing, but I was not one of them.  The car horns started to get more incessant, causing me to wince as the sound tore at my ears even with my silver ear shields on.  Most Sapiens don't understand how debilitating sound can be to Elves.

Sighing in defeat, I dashed toward the sedan, and Cliff met me at the rear passenger door.  I gave him a defiant look as I opened the front passenger door instead and slipped in, calling to the thoroughly amused Elf as I fastened my seatbelt, “Come on, sunshine, we don't have all day!”

The tall, fit, chuckling man slid into the driver's seat with the fluid grace all elves, except apparently me had.  “Did you just quote Jessica Moon to me?  Television will rot your brain, Kia.”

“You wouldn't recognize pure genius dialogue if it slapped you in the face, pretty boy.  Now put your seatbelt on if you insist on driving me.”

“Yes, mom.”

I shoved his shoulder as he buckled up, and we both winced at the horn which started blaring nonstop behind us now.  As he started driving, I said to the air, knowing the Cookie Twins would hear me through Cliff's earbud, “And don't think I won't get you two for this over protectiveness.  I'm not made of spun sugar, and I've survived New York my entire life without you.”

I winced, squinting an eye and feeling immediate regret for my words, as the last time the boys shadowed me through the city, I had almost died on their watch, so I guess I understood.  They felt responsible even though it wasn't remotely their fault, so now they don't want me to take any unnecessary chances.  So if it meant me avoiding the subway when they couldn't join me, I'd let Cliff chauffeur me with around four hundred and fifty pounds of pale, muscular Elf mountain trailing us.

Cliff still looked amused as he headed uptown.  I prompted, “Well at least I'm relieved you aren't reading my mind, Wrong Way Corrigan.”

This did catch him off guard. “One, you're an odd one Kia, first quoting a pop culture show, then citing ancient aviation history.  And two, Corrigan was Elf by the way.”  He smirked at my raised brows, then shared, “We assumed you were ignoring the Council memos about not interfering in Council Security's investigation into this Elvish crime wave and were going to talk with the people at the jewelers.  Mrs. Havashire said you'd ignore everyone and make some waves anyway.”

Natalia Havashire was one I couldn't quite make head nor tails of.  Like this revelation that she knew I was going to investigate regardless of whatever this memo I'll have to dig out of my junk mail said, but she didn't warn me against my current course of action.  She keeps telling me she finds my brand of bumbling chaos refreshing, even if it messes with the carefully crafted illusion of idyllic Elvish culture she and Evander Laun had worked so hard to project.  She says it is delightful to see Evander flummoxed.

I looked over at Cliff as I started to fiddle with the radio. “Well I thought I'd start with some of the other victims, and maybe I can sweet talk them into sharing what they did with the police.  I want to start with Imperial Pawn.”

He nodded as he tapped on the nav screen on the dash, then nodded again when the route popped up.  I cocked a brow. “I thought you knew where everything was in the city, Cliff.”

He snorted and rolled his eyes at my teasing.  “I'm not familiar with establishments like that.”  He left out that no self-respecting Elf would be seen in a pawn shop.

I eyeballed him, then reached out and swiped his chauffeur's cap... yes he wore one, and I pulled it down over my head, grinning like a loon at him.  “Well, I am.”

Just to mess with him, I stopped tuning the radio on a bubbly pop song that almost made my ears bleed, but it was so fun to mess with the poor man.  He seriously looked to be in pain as the singer demeaned the guy who dumped her in a bright and cheerful manner.

He was wise to me though as he kept his mouth shut, stole his cap back, then dutifully ignored me as he navigated the packed Manhattan streets to our first destination.

My cell chirped and I looked down at a link Lisa just sent me blazing away.  It was a Jitter link.  The only thing accompanying it was a little devil emoji and a heart.  I looked at it, taunting me even though I knew it likely wasn't something innocent like a picture of two puppies cuddling.  I squinted an eye in pain, then held the phone at arm's length, turning my head as if it would explode on me and tapped the link.

All the way to the pawn shop, Clifford was chuckling as he kept saying, “Again.  This is so much gold, Kia.  The rest of the Council has to be having kittens.”  I growled at the man then tapped the link again, for the tenth time.

Just how the hell do people get these memes made so fast, and why was there already over three thousand views when it was time-stamped five minutes prior?  We added to the view count as my ears burned in embarrassment at an inspirational poster design labeled “Elfy Love” framing a video of Tana giving me a peck on the lips, forward and backward in a loop as a voice-over said, “Elfing it New York Style.”

That's when my cell started to ring off the hook.  I already knew who was calling and I just turned off my phone, not wanting to deal with Council members... specifically Tana's parents.  I noted the meme had already been shared by dozens of people including ElfGold371... Lisa?  Really?  Why did my bestie hate me so?

I made a hasty retreat from the car when we pulled up to the pawn shop, ignoring Cliff's grinning tease, “So you and the Aryon huh?”

Just kill me now.  But I was smiling a little inside, touching my lips in memory of her quick kiss.  I curled my toes then steeled myself as people on the street saw an Elf was on the sidewalk with them and I motored to the door of the shop.

Upon entering the establishment, everything seemed to grind to a halt, with the seven or eight customers perusing the showroom looking my way.  The new silence got the line at the pawn counter to turn and then gawk.

I waved awkwardly from my hip to the man, my dad's age, behind the bulletproof divider of the second counter.  His eyes widened and he looked around and even through the thick plexiglass with the speaker off, I heard him say, “Quinn, finish this up for me.”  A younger man, about my age, took over, it was easy to see the family resemblance between Jay and his son, though Quinn was tall and lean whereas Jay was developing quite the pot belly.  I always saw him as a jolly sort, with his receding hairline with its severe widow's peak.  He was always impeccably dressed since they catered more toward the gold, silver, and jewel buying clientele than people like my family pawning our television for thirty days.

I glanced back at the showroom, and the various glass counters in the back that were covered with sheets as contractors were going about installing new glass in one.  That was where they had all their higher-end jewelry, watches, and the neat little displays of gold and silver bullion.

The man joined me, looking around at all the attention on us.  “Kia?  Kia Renner?  I heard but.  God damn, you really did Elf.  Umm... what can we do for you?  Oh man, you're not with those Elf assholes that kept asking questions about the theft and refused to leave until I called the NYPD, are you?”

Of course, Elvish special ops got here before me.  I felt a burn on my cheeks, embarrassed that I sort of was there to ask questions too, just not the way they did.  “Umm... hi Mr. Lieberman,”  I repeated my lame wave from my hip.

He glanced at my cast as he made an ushering motion to a door labeled 'Office', “You're hurt?”

I just shrugged sheepishly as he closed the door behind us and I gathered my nerves to do the first interview of my investigation.

Chapter 9 – Investigation

It didn't take long to get into it after answering the man how dad was doing.  He shook his head as he looked at me, angling his head a bit.  I sighed heavily, knowing what he was looking at, and removed an ear shield, still amazed at how much louder the world was without them.

He shook his head slowly as I replaced the shield. “Little Kia... you really did get yourself Elfed.  I mean, I saw it on TV and all, I just...”

I nodded. “I was just as surprised as everyone else.”

“So those pointy-eared assholes... no offense... think sending someone I know will make me give in to their strong-arming?”

The man sat on the corner of a utilitarian desk that had honest to goodness stacks of gold and silver coins and ingots next to a digital scale and a book.  I was still surprised at my improved vision, being able to read the handwritten numbers, seeing it was a ledger cataloging the gold.  Trading in precious metals and jewelry was the main source of income for the shop.

I was shaking my head, looking at the ingots. “Oh crap, did they get your stockpile too?”  Then I looked back at him. “And no... I'm not with them, I mean us, I mean... you know what I mean.  I'm actually investigating the Elf robberies for a story on Channel 3.  The other Council members aren't going to be too happy with me.”

“No shit?  Wait, other Council members?”

Why I felt so embarrassed I don't know as I looked down at my hands.  “Well, mom and dad sort of didn't tell me we were from a clan with voting rights in the Council, so I'm sort of part of it now.”

He tapped the desk with a fingertip as he studied me then snorted, grinned like a loon as he said, “Those sons of bitches have to deal with a Renner now?  What I'd give to be a fly on the wall when they realize how bullheaded your family can be.  You should have seen your dad back in the day.  When he got his head set on something, a charging buffalo wouldn't stop him.  Hell, it'd probably bounce off the man, he's always been huge.  And he was cool as a cucumber until you push him too far, then...”

I was grinning now and offered, “Renner Rage?”

This got his eyes twinkling as he slapped his desk, the sharp sound making me wince as the sound was like an ice-pick to my brain. “That's it!  That's what he called it.”

I nodded and shared, “It's a thing.”

He started to nod then froze.  “Wait.  If you're an Elf then... Son of a bitch, is that why your pops was so strong and popular with all the girls?  You know, there was this one party that he...”

As amusing as it was to hear, especially since Dad isn't Elf, I stopped him, “Mr. Lieberman, please, I don't want to know about my dad's dating life.  I mean, eww.”

He put up a stalling hand, looking amused at my reaction, then said, “Jay, please.  I mean you’re a full-grown adult now.  What are you, twenty now?  Twenty-one?”

“Twenty-five, Jay.”

This took him aback as he said in a melancholy tone, “Damn, where does the time go?”  Then he seemed to shake himself out of a memory and then looked at the metals he was inventorying.  “Nah, they only got the display ingots in the showroom.”

He cocked his head. “You're really not with the ass nugget Pointies, no offense, who tried to get the surveillance videos?”

“Really, I just want to do a story on this since Elvish smash and grab bandits are unheard of, and I don't want the Council sweeping it under the rug, citing treaties and sovereignty.  The people need to know the truth.”

He nodded slowly then smirked. “There it is, you've got more than a little of that Renner Rage from your pops.”

Feeling a little pride at that, I pulled out my LaunPad and held it up. “So may I?  Ask some questions?”

He just relaxed back, propping himself on his desk with a hand flat on the surface, pointing at a chair with the other.  “The police said not to talk to anyone, especially the press about it while they investigate.  But since when does a Lieberman roll over and show his belly?”

We exchanged a look of like-minded people, then he shared as I sat and started to record him with the 4k camera of the pad.  “They were very efficient.  They just marched in, and by the time we even realized it was happening while everyone was surprised to see Elves in here, they started smashing the cases, filling satchels, and then just walked right out the door into the dark before I could get out there with the shotgun we keep behind the cash counters.  When I got outside they were gone, poof, vanished into thin air or something.  Do you Elves really have magic as some people say?”

I actually rolled my eyes so hard I think I heard them. But then realized I had asked Tana the same thing when we first met.  So I assured the man, “No, there's no such thing as magic, Jay.”  He looked a combination of relieved and disappointed at the same time, probably the same look I had when Tana broke the news to me too.  I asked, “Did they say anything, can you describe them?”

He shook his head. “They were Elves.  You know, two females and a male, they never made a peep.  One was like you.”

“Like me?”

He nodded, pointing two fingers at his eyes.  “Yeah, like, you know.  Want to see the video?”

I blinked at that, my confusion put aside. “The police didn't confiscate the tape?”

The plaintive look he gave me already had me feeling embarrassed before he asked, “We aren't Luddite dinosaurs here you know?  Everything is digital these days, in the cloud on the InterServer doo dad.”

I snorted.  “Ok, you almost had me there.  Internet, not InterServer doo dad, Jay.  I take it Quinn set it up.”

“Smartass kids.  None of ya have respect for your elders.”  He winked and I chuckled as he affirmed, “Yes he did, all the while grousing about the stone wheels and chisels our old security system resembled.”

“And you're not that old, Jay,” I said to the man.

“Ah, flattery will get you everywhere.”  He shook his head.  “Little Kia Renner, who would have thunk it?”  He waved me over as he went behind his desk, then with a big sweep of his arm, pulled all the precious metals into the top desk drawer and shut it as he accessed his computer.

Joining him, he clicked a link to a secure video site and tried a couple of passwords, getting frustrated.  He was muttering, “God damn it, Quinn.  What's the password?”

He started to reach for the phone on the desk, but I tapped his shoulder then pointed at a Post-it note attached to the bottom of the screen with 'Password: CzB43-goblin!' written on it.  The man nodded. “Oh yeah,” then he looked at my LaunPad and took the Post-it down.

I assured him, “I'll be sure to blur it, and it would be smart for Quinn to change it after I leave anyway.  This is just for my investigation.  The anchors will interview you if they feel my story has merit.”

He looked disappointed.  “You won't be reporting it?”

I sighed forlornly. “I just finished my internship at the station, I have to earn my way before I get airtime.  Well except my little segment two nights a week I was blackmailed into by the station manager.”

“Huh.  You'd think they'd want you on air as much as possible.  I mean, nobody but ENN has Elf reporters.”

I held up a halting hand. “They tried, but I don't want to be exploited just because my ears happened to grow, I'm going to earn my way.”

He again said, “Huh,” as he nodded slowly in appreciation of my words.  “Yeah, there's a lot of Cyrus in you.”

Then he scrolled down a list of dates, finding the time stamp and clicking a video.  And I watched as it unfolded exactly like the Visentine's robbery.  They just marched right in like Jay said and went directly to the high-value items and did the smash and grab.  The two women had ear shields on, but just like Visentine's, one Elf, the man, wasn't wearing any, and his sweeping pointed ears were almost as long as Evander Laun's.

They didn't even try to clean out every item from the cases, they just smashed the glass, grabbed the most valuable items, tucking them into satchels as customers ran and a woman screamed, then they turned and exited just as I saw Jay charging out of the cash room brandishing his shotgun.  He paused as he stepped out the door, looked around, then came back inside.

Something was off as I watched the Elves, but just like the other robbery video, I couldn't quite place why.  And each one wore different sashes, meaning members of even more families were involved somehow.

Mr. Lieberman had camera views from four different angles, and I watched them all, in the last clip I reached over and put my hand on top of his to click the mouse to pause the video.  My eyes were wide in shock as I looked at the incredibly tall, pretty woman who had her lower face hidden behind a scarf, her brilliant green eyes looking directly up into the camera.  Another halfling?  Was that possible?  How many of us were there that the Council didn't know about?

He nodded and pointed at her eyes. “Yeah there, see?  Green eyes, like you, instead of blue like most Elves.  That Havershire woman and Evander Laun said Elves have many different eye colors just like humans, but it is just extremely rare.  I'm sure that will help track the bit... the woman down.”

I was getting so tired of hiding what I was, but I had to go along with the fabrication so people didn't find out it was possible, no matter how astronomically rare, for an Elf/Sapien paring to have a child.  “It could.  And it's Sapiens, Jay, we're all humans.  The NYPD has these videos?”

He nodded. “Bastards came at me with a warrant instead of simply asking like civilized people.  Questioned all the staff like it was some sort of inside job, and asked me about the shop's insurance like I was in cahoots with the thieves or something.”

“Is there any way I can get a copy of these?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yeah, I can email them... somehow.  I just have to figure out...”

I smiled and butt scooted him over, causing his chair to roll sideways as I gave him a wink and highlighted the group of recordings, selected send from the menu, and entered my email address.  He muttered playfully, “Smartass know it all kids.”

Then my eyes widened at a thought.  “Oh!  Crap, I'm so new at this.  Hang on.”  I still wasn't used to all the station information-gathering procedures.  I pulled up a release form.  “Can you sign a release for the videos in case the station uses them in the story?”

He actually chuckled and signed the screen with his finger. “It'll give the NYPD a conniption fit seeing them on air since I'm supposed to keep it all hush-hush until they finish their investigation.  Icing on the cake.”

Then after a few more questions, my mind on the other halfling, I said my farewell as he walked me out and to the door.  Quinn was pounding on the glass at the cash counter, my ears swiveling toward the sound, he was looking at his dad and wiggling his cell in the air in a prompt as he mouthed something.

He sighed heavily.  “My kid is always harping on me to be more proactive in promoting the shop.  He wants photos of any famous people who come in to make us look like we have more sophisticated and higher class clientele.  Mind if I...?”

He left it hanging, I tucked some hair behind my ear and sighed in resignation. “Quid pro quo.  Sure, you're good people and helped my family out a couple of times.”

He held his cell out, fiddled with it as he held it out above us, then I chuckled and took it from him. “Luddite.”  I held his cell out and laid my head on his shoulder, being sure to display a pointed ear, and took the selfie.  I showed him and we grinned at each other and I held a finger up and texted it to mom, dad, and myself before handing the cell back to him.

He said as he held out a hand, “It was really good to see you again, Kia.  Don't be a stranger.”

I ignored the hand and gave him a quick hug.  “Will do, Jay.”

“And say hi to your pops for me.”

I nodded as I waved to the window and Quinn waved back.  Then I stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked around as I filmed the street with my tablet.  Imperial Pawn and Jewels was in the middle of the block, with really nowhere to run to quickly enough to just vanish.  Curiouser and curiouser.

Chapter 10 – Source

The next two places stonewalled me, citing the ongoing police investigation and insurance investigation  The final place flat out refused to speak to me, saying that first 'my kind' had robbed them, and now wouldn't stop pressuring them for information.  Adding that they told them the next time they showed up at their business they would call the police, and yet there I was.

I politely said to them, “Umm... I'm, uh, not with them.  Sorry, I'll leave.”  Run away, run away!

After rejoining Cliff, I checked the time because night was falling.  It always felt weird that sunset was around four in the afternoon in December.  I still had just enough time to head to Laun Tower to meet with the one person who might shed some light on a couple of things for me.

I noted we hadn't pulled away from the curb yet, instead, Cliff was just craning his neck to the sky through the windshield.  I was about to ask what was up when I was reminded about one of the few gifts of my newfound Elfdom and the absolute favorite thing I have experienced since being Elfed.  The sun sank below the horizon and sheets of dazzling and mesmerizing fire rolled across the sky.

Tana had brought me to the roof of Laun Tower to show me how Elves, with our more sensitive eyesight, experienced sunset.  She says it was her first experience when she had manifested her Elvish physiology for the first time.  And it is her favorite thing too, and the wistful smile on her face, while she shared the experience with me, was spectacular as well.

Once the light show was over and the world around us dimmed slightly, most colors washed out a little as our night vision adjusted.  Sometimes it is hard for me to tell the difference between night and day now if there is any light source around, and it's that muting of the colors that let me know.  And now I know why mom has always slept with a sleep mask on.  She says that even with her repressing her elvish traits, things are still a little loud and bright for her.

That thought made my brow furrow.  Mom didn't have to hide anymore, now that us Riicathi are out.  I wonder why she hasn't just let her Elf side out.  I've only seen it once, on the night I Elfed, and unlike all other Elves, the Riicathi can repress or exert their physical Elf traits at will.  All other Elves can only repress their elvish side by triggering a Protoelastin enzyme dump into their system, but it takes around a month to burn out of their system as more enzyme is built up and stored.  It is how they stayed hidden among Sapiens all these eons.

The Riicathi can regulate how much of the enzyme runs through our bodies, which is why mom was able to change twice in front of me in one night.  I needed to learn how to do that, it would make my life easier in a lot of ways.

Cliff looked over at me and shared, “Sorry, Kia, I just never tire of the sunset display.”

I nodded with a grin. “Me either.  Laun Tower?  Then I'll just walk back to the station when I'm done.”

He nodded and pulled into moderate rush hour traffic that would be close to gridlocked in just a few more minutes.  The man kept his eyes plastered forward as he fought a smile, asking, “Meeting with the Aryon?”

I slugged his arm.  “No!  You're just as bad as Lisa.  We're just friends.  She was just messing with some people at the pizza parlor we were at today.”

“Whatever you say, Miss Renner.”

“Grr.  I'm going to see the Council historian, Mr. Funnyman.”

“Oh, Claude?”  He looked thoughtful. “You might check with the assistants in the historical department for any answers, the man needs his rest.  He's the oldest among us you know.”

I almost snorted at the man, Claude certainly had everyone snowed, and I thought it sweet how they all protected him and seemed to admire him.  “Oh, I'm sure he'll see me before he takes a nap.”

He gave me a dubious look then shrugged.  “Don't be surprised if the guards turn you away.”

“I'm not the droids they're looking for.”

“You're lucky you're so cute, because you're such a geek, Kia.”

“Maybe, but you recognized the reference... again.”

Before he could throw the banter back my way my cell buzzed.  I sighed, preparing to send it to voicemail.  Evander and Natalia had been calling incessantly the past two hours.  I wasn't looking forward to having to explain the latest meme that has now reached over a million views.

I hesitated and answered when I saw NYPD displayed on the screen.  Ummm.  Oh, ok.  I answered, “Hello?”

A woman's voice replied, “This is Detective De Luca with the NYPD, is this Miss Killashandra Renner?”

I sighed heavily, my name isn't that hard to pronounce.  “It's Killishia or Kia.  Killashandra is the name of the Crystal Singer in the Anne McCaffrey books.”  If I were a betting Elf I'd say the woman reads sci-fi fantasy books, since Killashandra Ree is both an obscure yet popular science fiction character.

“Sorry, Miss Renner, it's just an unusual name.  I was wondering if you could come down to meet at the 19th precinct.  We have a couple of questions we were hoping you could help us out with.”

Cliff was frantically waving me off as I almost automatically said yes.  Of course, he heard her even without my phone on speaker.  He was mouthing something slowly.

I said just as slowly as I was trying to work out the words, “Umm... I'd like to, it's just... oh.  I'm at Laun Tower.”  Which wasn't a lie as we pulled in at the porte-cochère at the main entrance of the skyscraper.  “Could we speak there in accordance with...”  I made an exaggerated confused look at Cliff, trying to make out a word, “...oh, in accordance with the Reveal Accords?  Um with my...”  I screwed up my face at Cliff, asking him, “Why do I need a lawyer?”

She sounded exasperated and put out, trying to maintain a professional tone, “I don't know Miss Renner, why would you?”

“Sorry, wasn't talking to you, Detective.”  Again Cliff, now giving his patient look, mouthed, with me repeating, “Uh... because it is stipulated in the Accords, and my um...”  I covered the mic. “What?”

He mumbled, “Remind me never to have you on my team for party games.  Constitutional rights.”

I grinned like a loon, the uneasiness of the police wanting to speak with me washed away in my amusement as I repeated into the phone, “And my Constitutional rights.”

She sighed heavily. “I'll be there in ten minutes.”

I looked at Cliff who was over exaggerating two words, I waved the smartass off and said, “The 'front desk' will escort you when you arrive.”

“I know the drill.”  And I even heard the, “Unfortunately,” she muttered under her breath to herself.  I felt sorry for the woman since it was this sort of thing I wanted to expose, the double-standard that existed between Elves and everyone else.  And here I was, doing the same thing and feeling a little sick about it.

She disconnected without another word and I looked from my cell to Cliff.  “She just wants to ask some questions, why do I need a lawyer?  I haven't done anything wrong.”

He sighed and said, “Whether you are Sapien or Aelftus, never ever, snever speak with the police without a lawyer present, whether you've done anything wrong or not.”  I heard the Cookie Twins in his earbud, Ivan told me, knowing I could hear, “The legal staff will intercept and turn her away.”

I blurted, “No!” before I even thought of speaking.  I growled out more calmly, “No.  I have no problem speaking with her.  If a lawyer has to be there, then fine, but I'm not going to add to the wall of pointy-eared silence that separates Elves from the rest of the world.  It will just add to the animosity building between some of the general public and us, who believe we see ourselves as somehow, better than them.  News flash, no matter how much Evander and Natalia try to make people believe that, it isn't true.  And you three know it.”

Then I looked at the man who had the decency to look a little sheepish, “And 'snever'?  Who's the geek now?”  I said, “Shush you two,” to the deep basso chuckles in his earbud.

He slipped out and I raced to get the door open before he dashed around to open it for me.  I just grinned as I stepped past the amused Elf.  Then I waved awkwardly at the female doorman as she opened the door for me.  She said as she inclined her head, “Miss Riicathi.”

I looked back and corrected, “Still Renner, Ursula.”

Then as I turned around, I ran right into a fit black man in an immaculate, multi-thousand dollar suit, alligator skin shoes, and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache, letting out a squeak of surprise, my hands shooting up and my cast impacting the briefcase he held, knocking the lid open and papers fluttered out everywhere as the other contents plummeted toward the floor.

My hand shot out to grab the case as it started to spiral away, as my foot shot out the other way to catch a falling laptop from making an expensive mess on the polished stone floor of the lobby.

The man nimbly caught the cellphone and tablet that were about to suffer the same fate with his Elvish reflexes.  But the papers fluttered down upon us like we were in the middle of some sort of office paper-storm.

I looked at the impeccably dressed Elf and smiled sheepishly, squinting an eye in pain as I stood stretched out there, “Umm, hi Aldrich.  Sorry?”  A lawyer from house Ingels who worked for the International Elf Council and held no allegiance to anyone's house.  All the people who worked for the Council worked only for the Council and held no political affiliations.  Neutral in all.

He sighed as he retrieved the precariously balanced laptop so I could put my leg down, “Hello, Miss Renner.”

I asked as he accepted the briefcase from me, and we bent to pick up the papers, “You're here for me, Mr. Ingels?”

“Kia.  I understand why Styles looked smug when I was called down here.  Never a dull moment.”

“Hey, at least I don't have any neurotoxin this time.”

I got a small tick of a smile on his lips as he shared, “Small miracles.  I hear the NYPD wishes to speak with you.  We'll send them away, just go about your business.”

“No, I want to speak with them.  You can be there to make sure I don't say something stupid.”  I pointed at the man in a warning. “And hey, get your tongue out of your cheek, I'm not that bad.”  Is it ever a good thing when a lawyer is amused by you?

He sighed long and hard.  “And I doubt I can talk you out of this course of action?  We can have a senior Council member attend.”

I blurted, holding up a hand, “No!”  I centered myself. “I mean, no thank you.  I haven't done anything wrong.  I'll speak with the detective.”

He tried one last time. “Prisons are filled with people who haven't done anything wrong.  So unless a traffic stop or felony is involved, the local police have no jurisdiction over us.  Only federal police can enjoin Elvish citizens.”

“Aren't we all US citizens?”

“It's complicated.”

“Doesn't need to be.”

The man sighed again, knowing I could do this all day, I get it from my mom.  And why do people keep sighing in resignation at me?

He stood as he closed his case on the now disorganized mess inside.  “Very well, the Senior Council is going to have my ass for this.  We'll have the detective brought to a conference room in Legal.  This way, Kia.”

I said primly before noticing all eyes were upon my bumbling display, “Thank you, Aldrich.”

There was an entire two floors of the tower dedicated to the legal department, I had expected an office the size of the one at the news station, with a handful of talented lawyers and some support staff, not an entire legal army.

We hadn't completely settled in, a legal aide bringing in fresh coffee roasted onsite, when Aldrich's cell buzzed.  I heard the front desk saying, “The New York City detective and two uniformed officers are here to speak with Miss Riicathi.”

I muttered, “Renner,” to myself as he said, “Send her on up, the uniforms will have to remain in the lobby or go down to the police substation down by the subway terminal.”

I looked a question to him as he hung up, and he explained, “The lobby and access to the public spaces in the sublevels... notably the subway terminal, NYPD substation, and public utilities are in their jurisdiction, the rest of the tower is sovereign territory, like an embassy of a foreign nation.  We're inviting the Detective up as our guest, but she holds no authority here.”

Oh.  I knew the Reveal Accords and Constitutional amendments resulting from them made the Elves a 'landless sovereign entity', so the whole embassy analogy made lots of sense.  Then I narrowed an eye at him, “That's why you wanted to do this up here.  It's not like she's going to grab me or something.”

“We don't know what she wants, thus the precautions.”

I rolled my eyes, it wasn't like some sort of suspense thriller we were living in.  I asserted, “You watch too much TV.”  Then I took the moment we had to savor a couple of sips of the sinfully good coffee.  One of the few gifts of being Elf was my heightened olfactory sense and taste.  I moaned into the cup.  For the most part, my heightened sense of smell was annoying and sometimes disgusting, but the aroma of coffee was almost like a drug to Elves as it was both scintillating and strong enough to wash out some of the less agreeable smells, and the taste was so much more nuanced and full.

We both stood as we heard the elevator doors open down the hall in a bullpen-like space with multiple workers, a woman asking, “Just what do you feed your security force?  I'd guess you were all linebackers if they allowed Elves to play in the league.  Still nothing?  Can you even speak?”

And I sighed heavily when a quite fit, dark-haired woman with sharp brown eyes was led to the open door by a familiar set of cookie-cutter Russian Elves.  Of course, they'd jumped at the opportunity to watch over the meeting.  When they stepped inside as we stepped up to meet the woman, she held out a hand, “Detective  De Luca with...”

I stepped past her, holding a finger up. “Sorry, just a moment.”  I stopped eye to chest with Ivan and looked up as I pushed against his rock-hard abs, my feet churning in place on the hardwood floor as I said to the immovable man, “Out you two.  You can be all guard-y out there.”

The man patted the top of my head and I looked up at him again and said in a well-articulated argument, “Grr.”

He chuckled and looked at Pietor. “We are bested by a field mouse.”  They retreated to stand on either side of the door in the other room.  “We'll be here if you need us.”

Ok, I had to close the door on them before I smiled.  “Stay.”  The men chuckled, they were so bad, I wonder why the rest of the Council has never taken the time to get to know them, Tana had even thought they may have been mute.

I turned back around to the detective who had a brow cocked. “So they 'can' talk.  They did a good impression of walking mountains until just now.”

Mr. Ingles started to reach past us, and I slapped his hand down playfully and then hit the controls on the pad by the door.  A blue light started to glow above the door as a curtain of white noise fell around the room, isolating us and I almost sighed in relief when the sound pressure around us was lifted.

I jutted out a hand. “Hello, Detective, Kia Renner, just call me Kia.  And this is Aldrich Ingles with the Council's legal department.  What can I do for you, and can I ask you some questions in return for a story I'm investigating for Channel 3?  And don't worry, nobody can hear us, I engaged privacy mode for the room.”

She blinked twice at me, then shook my hand and then Aldrich's.  “Miss Renner, Mr. Ingles.”  I made an ushering motion to the table and she waited for me and Aldrich to sit before taking a seat on the opposite side of the table.

Ingles supplied, “Be aware that we've advised Miss Renner not to answer any questions you haven't submitted in writing.”

I said, “We don't even know what she wants, what is it with lawyers and making simple things... not... well, simple?”  I swear I'm usually more articulate than this.  “I don't have any problems answering any questions for her.”

“Miss Renner...”

“For Cthulhu's sake.”  I ignored his protestations as I asked, “Coffee?  It is sinfully good, I'd never afford a blend like this at home.”

She hesitated, looking at me like she was trying to figure me out. “Cthulhu, as in H.P. Lovecraft's ancient god of evil?  And it's been a long day, coffee would be nice.”

I poured her a mug and slid it to her, she set a folder on the table, she sniffed at it experimentally and took a sip, then smiled and nudged the cup toward my arm.  “You're injured, I thought Elves couldn't be hurt.”

Before Aldrich could say anything I just shrugged. “Bullshit propaganda slung by the Council, just like pretending Elves can't get sick.”  She cocked a brow but did not look surprised.

I returned the glare the lawyer was giving me and I defended, “Good god man, she already knows.  Do you think she made Detective by being dense?  You're a lawyer for goodness sake, you know about baseline questions, reporters like me use them too.”

She said plainly to me after taking a deeper swig of coffee, “I came in here knowing I was going to hate you, Miss Renner, that you'd be just like all the other stonewalling Elves I've had to deal with in the past... but I'm not so sure now.  You're not like other Elves are you?”

“And you're not like other Detectives, otherwise they wouldn't have you speaking with me knowing that the Council would likely throw up the pointy-eared wall of silence.”  Why was I enjoying this?  It was like a dance.

She held up a halting hand. “Fair enough then, I just need to ask a few questions.”

Aldrich interjected, “About what, Detective?  You still haven't said why you're here besides 'questions'.”

She opened the folder and spread out some pictures in front of me.  “I'm in charge of the investigation of the series of robberies perpetrated by Elves on Friday.  We have reason to believe that Miss Renner has information pertinent to them.”

He started to stand. “This interview is over, Detective De Luca, the NYPD can submit any further questions to...”

She muttered, “McLeary told me it would be a waste of time coming down here.”

I put a hand on his arm to interrupt as I assured the lawyer-y man, “No, it's fine because I have questions of my own for her about the same thing.  Maybe actually sharing resources and having a real dialogue can be beneficial to both parties.”

He gave me a warning look.  And I started to turn back to De Luca before a stray thought had me asking him, “Hey, why does your cellphone work on this floor when mine doesn't?  Don't I get one of those unblockable phones as part of the Council now?”

The man sighed, “Keep on task Miss Renner.”  Oh, right.  I turned back to De Luca, noting she had discretely checked her cell, the slight crease between her eyes telling me hers was blocked too.

She asked, “Do you recognize any of the Elves in these pictures?”  I looked over the black and white photos, they were from the robberies.  I nodded and slid six photos back toward her as I looked at the other nine pictures, wishing they were in color so I could see their family sash colors, though I suspected they were from all different houses.

“I know these six, the others not so much.”

She looked to stiffen slightly like she wanted to stand, “And how do...”

I shrugged. “They're the Elves in the security video.”

Exhaling in frustration she looked at me, likely wondering if I were messing with her.  And to be honest, I have a lot of mom in me, so I think maybe I was a little.  My mom messes with everyone, she's such an awesome mom.

I cocked a brow in a challenge. “I know what you were asking, and no, I don't have any clue who these Elves are.  Hells, I don't know many Elves period.  I haven't even known I was one for very long, since I found out when the world did.”

Then I got it and I sat back in my chair, feeling the nice lumbar support in it, dang, it was nicer than any chair I've ever sat in, and it was just a conference room chair.  “You're here because of the green-eyed elf.”  I stabbed the picture of the tall robber from the pawnshop.

She seized on that and prompted as Mr. Ingles gave me a warning look, “How do you know she has green eyes?”

I exhaled long and slow.  “I'm an investigative journalist assigned to the story of the Elvish smash and grabs for Channel 3.  So I investigated.  I saw the video.”  Then I smirked, realizing my assumption about her line of questioning was spot on.  I was grinning like a loon as I blurted, “Wait, wait, wait.  You think just because I have green eyes, I know every other green-eyed Elf in the world and we must be related?  I mean, we all have to know each other right?”

She started to open her mouth to get control of the conversation again, but I was my mother's daughter, and Renner Rage was bubbling just below the surface.  The implication was borderline racist. “By that thinking, are you related to every brown-eyed felon detective, or every left-handed murderer?”

She absently looked at her left hand where she was writing notes on the pictures with a pen.  I notice things, I'm not as bumbling as I look... I mean I am, but I have a functional brain.

“I wasn't implying...”

“Yes, you were, whether you meant to or not.  And the answer is no, I have no clue who she is.”

She paused, tapping her pen on the photos, looking to reassess her line of questioning before she looked up. “You're right.  We don't know enough, or virtually anything at all about Elves and Elf culture, since your Council keeps everything behind a wall of silence.  I made assumptions without questioning myself as to why I made the assumptions.  I apologize.  Anything you can share that shed some light on things would be better than the denial we've been getting while speaking with your people.”

I asked, “Do you have color photos of these nine?”  I pointed at the robbers I hadn't seen yet.  “I can probably help a little if you do.  I've only seen the Visentine and Imperial Pawn videos so far.”

Anger colored her tone. “We told everyone not to share with the media, we're supposed to be on investigative lock-down.”

I shrugged in apology. “The owner of Imperial Pawn is a family friend, and NYPD's finest haven't been very cordial with him about the robbery.  You're creating your image problem by steamrolling and being accusatory toward the victims instead of simply asking.”

She exhaled and sat back in her chair a bit, then shook her head. “I can't share information about an ongoing investigation.  But if you have information you are withholding we can...”

Again,  Aldrich stood. “That's it, this meeting is...”

I cut him off as I pulled up my press pass, dangling on a lanyard under my shirt as I said, “You can do nothing.  You can't compel the press to divulge information from our sources without a long, drawn-out legal battle.  But... if you are willing to share, so am I.  Otherwise, you'll learn what I have along with the rest of the world on the six o'clock news.  Quid pro quo.”

I looked from my press pass, which I loved so, to the door, indicating her choices as I gave an unapologetic toothy grin.  She looked moments from growling before she calmed herself. “Damn, I hate that I like you, Renner.  Anything I share can't be released to the public until the NYPD closes the case.”

I was about to agree, but then my eyes widened. “And an exclusive interview with you at that time.”

“Blackmail is...”

“What makes the world go round.”

Aldrich was dragging his hand down his face and looked seconds away from a coronary.

The woman chuckled and held out a hand.  I shook but she didn't let go of my hand as she said, “But if you have nothing, the deal is off.  Not my first rodeo either Miss Renner.”

I nodded and she let go of my hand as she asked, “So what do you have?”

Squinting an eye and tucking some loose strands of hair behind my ear I said, “Not a lot yet, but what I do have could be helpful identifying one of the robbers.”

She just looked at me expectantly. “This guy here.  He's wearing a family sash in the colors of the  Zhou clan from China.  He's not Chinese so I figure he married into the clan.”

She was scribbling notes on the picture, and she shrugged. “It's a start.”

I stopped her thought. “You'll think it's better than a start when I share a tidbit about the Zhou family.  It is almost as small as mine, with only thirteen members, so identifying him should be a snap.”

She nodded thoughtfully at that and shared, “Unless the Chinese authorities are not forthcoming with the names and locations of the thirteen members of course.  Unless your Council would be willing...”

I snorted loudly at the same time as Mr. Ingles said, “The International Elf Council does not divulge personal information about our citizens unless compelled to do so through the proper federal channels according to...”

She finished for him, “The Reveal Accords, I know, I know, we've been through that wringer.”  Then she looked from the photos to me nodding her head in thought as she postulated, “That's why you want color photos.  To identify the other family sashes.  We already know a few of them, Laun and Havashire were the most recognizable.”

I nodded and tapped the side of my nose.

She said, “I can arrange that, was that everything you have?”

Nodding slowly and shrugging, I shared, “Besides the nagging feeling that something is off on the videos that I just can't put a finger on, that's all I have... this is just my first day investigating the story, I'm sure I'll figure out what is bugging me as I speak to more sources.”

“Something off, like what?”

“If I knew, it wouldn't be nagging at me now would it Detective?”

“Touche.”  Then she smirked. “The entire precinct pointed at you the moment we saw the green eyes on the security video too.  But a quick check of your driver's license dispelled that, and now seeing you in person...  you're a tiny slip of a woman, not six foot tall like the Elf in the footage.”

I dug in my shoulder bag and pulled out a business card and handed it to her. “If you can just send the pictures to my email, I can check with my source to see if I can identify the other family sashes since I know the Council won't share with me knowing I'm doing a story against their wishes.”  I gave Aldrich a fierce nose crinkle in defiance and he just rolled his eyes.  That's right Elf-boy, no power in the 'verse can stop me. I grinned internally that my Elf-stanning work wife was a 'source' now.

She stood, handing both of us her cards, and she said, “Thank you for your time today, Miss Renner... Kia.  It's refreshing to hear something other than 'no comment' from the mouth of an Elf.  So yadda yadda yadda, don't leave town, et cetera.”

We walked to the door and I hit the controls, then the moment the blue light extinguished, Aldrich's cell buzzed as I opened the door.  He said, “Hold on a minute,” before we stepped out to hand her over to the Cookie Twins.

He tapped something on the smart surface of the conference table and the back wall sprang to life, making me realize it was just one massive screen.  And the WTRL Channel 3 anchors were reporting on another rash of simultaneous Elf smash and grab robberies at several locations across town.

Detective De Luca and I chimed out together as we watched the report, “Son of a bitch.”

Chapter 11 – Crimewave

The entire city and the world were abuzz with this apparent Elvish crimewave in New York City.  Five places were hit while I was in the meeting with Detective De Luca, and five more the following day.

I spent most of my time on Wednesday interviewing witnesses who popped up everywhere when I posted a reward for credible witnesses on the Channel 3 social media pages.  Most just wanted to speak to the green-eyed Elf, but some were actual witnesses in the establishments which were robbed.  But the perpetrators lost themselves in the flood of pedestrians on the crowded sidewalks upon exiting, and nobody seemed to know where they went.

With my deadline approaching, I was coming up empty, except for being convinced they were purposefully trying to cause chaos in both the Elvish and Sapien communities.  They weren't just doing this for the thrill of it, and Elves don't need the money.  If they were truly doing these smash and grabs for gain, then why even let anyone know they were Elves?  They could easily have worn hats to hide their ears, sunglasses to hide their eyes, and not worn their sashes that were advertising their clans.

And I think they chose the sashes to sow more chaos since I shared with the Detective what I learned from my 'source' later was that the Elf wearing the Zhou sash, wasn't even from that clan. Since before leaving the Tower after that meeting with the detective, I went up to the upper floors where the guest suites were and approached Claude's rooms, which I had to wrangle the location of from the Cookie Twins.

I found I hadn't even had to do that since once I stepped off the Council elevator onto the proper floor, there was only one room with two guards radiating almost as much menace as mine, outside the door with a blue light illuminated over it.  Everyone loved the old faker.

Once we arrived, the two men just stared straight ahead, not even acknowledging our presence.  When I reached toward the door to knock, I knocked on a chest of hard muscle instead when one of the guards stepped in front of me.  “Claude is resting, make an appointment.”

I squeaked and stepped back, into Ivan's bigger and broader chest. And a feeble voice sounded over a tinny intercom speaker, “I'll see our dear, young Riicathi, Stewart. Let her in.”

The guard grudgingly moved aside, warning me quietly, “He needs his rest, do not be long.”

I nodded and said seriously, doing all I could to keep the tongue-in-cheek sarcasm from my tone, knowing the old goat had them all snowed.  “Of course, old guys are like that.”

I moved to the door and hesitated, wondering if I should knock or just go in since Claude said to let me in.  I raised a hand hesitantly and knocked thin air where the door should have been.  I gleeped as Tana stepped into my personal space. “Was wondering when you'd finally show, Killy.  Get in here.”

With a huge grin on her face, she grabbed both my hands and tugged me in.  As she started closing the door behind her, Stewart sputtered out, “Aryon, how did you get in there?”

She slipped back out to pat his shoulder. “You're doing an exemplary job out here, Stewart.  Keep up the good work.”  Then she slipped back in front of me, grinning like a loon as she shut the door behind her, then she locked the door and checked the screen at the door that displayed the corridor and the Cookie Twins virtually squaring off against the other guards, the breadth of the corridor between them.

She said in an ironic tone, “They'll all just stand there without a word.  It's a little unsettling don't you think, Killy?”

I finally got my wits about me. “Tana, what are you doing here?”

She said as she led me into a lavish suite that looked to have antiques and artifacts spanning centuries in it, “Thought I'd keep your mysterious source from my 'neck of the woods' company until you finished up with the establishments who were robbed.  We didn't expect the delay of the Detective speaking with you.  Dad is going to flip out that you spoke with the police.”

“How did you know I'd be talking to Claude?”

“There are only three people who would break the gag order of the Council on the subject.  And since it isn't me or Dr. Ahmed, the only one with the fortitude would be...”  She made a presenter's sweep of her hand, palm up, to a grand seating area with a fireplace burning next to a huge television that was displaying a half dozen security camera feeds below a Price Is Right rerun.

Claude shot me a grin which matched her wickedness, waved from a couch, one hand stretched out to a chessboard. “Hello, young Killishia.  We've been expecting your visit.”  He moved a lone pawn on one side of the board and said with mock sorrow, “And this would be checkmate, dear  Tanaliashia.  You've been playing most distractedly all afternoon.”

I looked from her to the door then asked, “How did you get past the guards?”

She shrugged. “I could have used the front door, but where's the fun in that?  Then my guards would know where I was.”

Claude chuckled. “Always so brash and mysterious.”  Then to me, he said, “She used my private entrance into my rooms from the restricted section of the historical archives next door.  As Aryon she has access.”

I nodded as she looked vexed he was breaking her air of mystery, she narrowed an eye playfully at him. “Hey old man, I keep all your secrets, and you just go blabbing mine out loud?”

He ignored her as he asked while motioning me to sit,  “Coffee?  I hear you're stirring the pot again, Killishia, going against the Council in pursuit of the truth.  I knew the moment I saw your sash that you were just what the Council needed to be reminded of who we Aelftus are.  A swift kick in the teeth and moral reckoning.  There is never a dull moment when a Riicathi steps foot in the ring.”

This derailed me as I found myself asking, “You would have been young, around nine before my clan went to ground, but did you know the Riicathi?”

He nodded as I sat next to him, Tana sitting right next to me, distracting me with her proximity, and I didn't mind one bit.  “Yes, I was there with my mother as she chronicled the whole disaster, it was a defining moment in Elf history that almost broke the alliance, causing a rift in the Council that still burns today.  The loss of the Pallbearers meant that each elf family had to face the horrors and sorrow they had foisted upon one clan without a thought.  All the non-voting families and half the contracted minor clans had given the majority shareholders a vote of no-confidence.”

Shaking his head again, he seemed lost in the memory. “Turbulent times.  Can you imagine?  They treated your house as servants to the Council, asking of them what they wouldn't do themselves, then forcing them under threat of death if they didn't perform the most heinous act against the most innocent of us.  Elves do not hurt Elves, it is our tenant, yet they punished the Riicathi for daring to uphold that tenant above the orders of the Council.”

Then he looked past me to Tana. “It has haunted the heads of the Launs and Havashires for three generations.  Indeed, both Evander and Natalia have come to me late at night, woken by nightmares and guilt over the acts of their ancestors, and the culpability of their families in the travesty.  I point them to the histories in the restricted section of the Archive.”

This seemed to surprise the woman wearing the same Hello Kitty shirt she had worn the first time I met her, an ironic contrast to the punk rock princess look she wore oh so very well.  Claude assured her, “Your parents and the Havashires aren't as heartless as you believe, Tana, life is sometimes a little over-complicated.  Indeed they both expressed a combination of joy that the Riicathi still lives, yet a resignation that our Killishia here is already proving to be just as chaotic as her ancestors.  I think they like our young trouble magnet here, which gives me hope for Aelftus's future.”

I looked to the door if just to assure myself the blue light was still glowing.  I had about fifty-three trillion, four hundred million, five hundred and twenty-one thousand questions for him, but that could wait as I was feeling the pressure of having virtually no leads on my story.  How was I supposed to prove myself to the station that I could do this, that I could be an investigative journalist if I only came up with a heaping helping of nothing?

“I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions about the people perpetrating the smash and grab robberies around town, Claude.”

“Of course.  Once is a fluke, but twice, is the beginnings of a pattern.”

“What pattern?”

“I said beginnings, dear Killishia, two data points do not a pattern make.”

Nodding slowly, I paused then looked between the two then back at the blue light, “Wait, they just occurred, how did you two know about...”

Tana, looking amused, turned from me to the television, and made jazz hands.  “Really, Killy?”

“Shush you.  Fine whatever, woman.”

Then I dutifully ignored that amusement of hers and asked the amused old Elf... was everyone amused by me? “I was wondering if you could tell me anything about this man here, he's wearing a  Zhou family sash.  I'm told their family is almost as small as mine, and since you do the rolls...”

He said almost feebly, “It would be against Council policy for me to disclose any information about any Elf.”  I almost deflated until he added, “Fuck the Council.”  This had me blinking in grinning shock at the man as I exchanged a look with an equally amused Tanny.

I pulled out my LaunPad and powered it up and then growled.  “Gah! Why are all my devices blocked in this stupid building?  Aren't I like, supposed to be part of the Council or something like that?”

Tana's crystal blue eyes widened for a moment, then they twinkled like her various piercings as she held up a finger. “Ah!  They'll handle that soon, they still haven't gotten you for a full Council session without you causing a kerfuffle.  It should have already happened, but here.”

She tapped a few things on her cell, screwed up her face cutely, then noticed I was staring at her, causing her to pause and look up long enough to wink at me with the damn cocksureness that looked so dang good on her, before doing a few more things on her screen, ending in a flourish with the last tap.  “There, you should be good to go until they figure out the bypass when they go to set you up in your new capacity.”

I looked down to my tablet and saw I had a signal, just as my cell started buzzing.  I glanced at the screen, oh Fruit Loops on a stick, it was her dad.  I sent it to voicemail and noted he had called four times since I showed up in the tower, and so had Natalia.  I didn't want to hear them telling me I couldn't investigate my story.  I held the screen up with all the missed calls throughout the day, Evander and Natalia being the predominant contacts.

We both looked over when Claude chuckled as he squinted through thick glasses at my screen, “The twins were always so precocious even as children, young Tana, it's a wonder your grandparents kept their sanity.”

She chuckled at him as my brain processed his words, and then my mind hiccuped, those same words not making any sense.  “Wait... hold the presses.  Back up.  The twins?”

The Tanaburger smirked and said, “Of course, Natalia is my aunt.  She married Dimitri Havashire a decade after his first wife died in childbirth.  It's common knowledge... well, to Elves, so that's probably why this is a surprise to you, Killy, your family never taught you Elvish history.”

Oh... oh!  That would explain why they seem to get along so well for adversaries.  Heh, a Laun marrying a Havashire, now I've seen everything.  It was like Tana sort of pseudo-dating Geoff before they tried to marry me off to him and... My eyes widened and I pointed at her with a sour look on my face, “Eww, eww, eww!  You and Geoff?”

She rolled her eyes. “Slow your roll there, red, short, and adorable.  We're not related by blood, nowhere even close.  He's the child from  Dimitri's first marriage, he survived, his mom didn't.  Besides, it was worth causing mom and dad conniption fits when Geoff showed an interest in me before he screwed the pooch the other day.  Natalia loves him like her own son.”

Umm.  My head hurt.  A detached portion of my brain had me asking, “And kerfuffle?  Are you an eighty-year-old man?”

She burst into laughter as Claude beamed at me.  He pointed a finger at me, shaking it in humor, “See, I knew I liked you, young Riicathi.”

I blew some errant strands of red from my face, then with one eye on Tana, letting her know I had so many more questions for her.  I pulled up the pictures of the man wearing the Zhou family sash.  What you could see of the upper portion of his face that wasn't covered, was his western features.

I showed them to Claude who studied them closely then shook his head as he shared while typing on what I had thought was an antique wooden coffee table beside the chessboard, and a smart screen bloomed on the smart surface.  I was geeking out over it, I had just thought it was a glass top resting upon the rich-toned wood.

He said as he logged into a secure database tagged as the official International Elf Council historical archives, which was an interactive census file from the looks of it, “We won't find him.  The Zhou family is extremely particular about who they let into their ranks, which is why they are such a small family and keep their numbers low by design.  They only allow powerful and influential Elvish figures from the Zhejiang province to marry into their line.  They are the most prestigious of all non-voting houses, simply because they had amassed their power base and wealth before the Mírë was formed, so they never sought to be a part of the Council nor receive a piece of the Mírë.”

He motioned for me to look as he pulled up thirteen entries, the entire Zhou family, displaying the pictures of some of the prettiest men and woman I've laid eyes upon, and all most certainly Chinese.

Tana voiced my thoughts, “He's not one of them, so why the sash?  To throw off Elvish security?  Sew discord in the Elvish ranks and the Council?”

I shrugged and added one, “To throw off Sapien police?  I've been asking these questions over and over and this new development just adds to the same questions.  And one that just sticks in my head, is that most Elves are wealthy, so why to do something like this, and not even hide they are Elf?”

She offered as Claude rubbed his chin in thought, “The thrill of it?  Of pulling it off and not getting caught?  Of spitting in the face of everything expected of us in the well-crafted image the Council wants the Elvish community to project?”  I felt as if it may have been a lot of her thoughts sublimated in those words.

I shrugged and said, “And it almost doesn't matter at this point, but there is still something bothering me about the security videos, I just know it is important and it's driving me crazy because I just can't figure out what it is.”

Claude said with the wisdom of a man who has seen more than any living person in this hemisphere, “You need sleep, rest, and look at it with new eyes and a sharp brain instead of forcing it.”

Then we all turned to a knocking at the door.  He wiped the screen clear and tapped an icon, and the security feed of the corridor bloomed on the surface.  Collectively, our eyes widened a bit.  Claude affected a distracted, feeble tone, “Ah Natalia, Minya, am I late for the Council meeting?”  He wiggled his brows at us as both Tana and I rolled our eyes at Faker McFakie from Fakersville.

She responded over the speaker, making me realize just how good the private white noise screens were in the Tower since I couldn't hear her right outside the door if it wasn't for the intercom, her tone warm and loving, “No, dear sweet man.  There is no meeting today.  I'm told Killishia Renner is here, I need to speak with her, she's causing a problem for the Council with her recent activities.”

He pointed to a door, winked at us, and stood to walk toward the door, affecting a hunch and slow shuffle as he said while Tana grabbed my hand and dragged me through the other door into a huge room that reminded me of the Morgue at the station, with rows of shelves with boxes of records filling them.  “Killishia Renner?  Ah, sweet girl.  Did you know she is Riicathi?  They were thought lost to us.  Is she coming to visit me?”

Just as the door closed, he started to open the door to his suite.  I couldn't hear anything after that as we had stepped through the white noise curtain.  I realized we had to be in the restricted section of the Elf Historical Archives.  I said in a distracted tone as I glanced longingly at all the boxes of history just begging me to peek, “That old man is so bad.”

She nodded, eyes twinkling in mischief. “You gotta love him.  Let's make our escape, grab Lisa, and I'll treat your family to carry out tonight.  I have a sudden hankering for Chinese.”

It had been another fun girl's night and a fond memory.

There was another set of robberies Tuesday just after sundown.  The thieves were bold, just doing the same thing day after day, and the media was eating it up.  The feds were mobilizing, and were offering to set up a joint task force with local authorities since Elves were involved, which meant at any moment they would take over and the manhunt would get messy.  And still, I was just treading water with my deadline rapidly approaching.

So here I was on Wednesday, after running down witness statements and sharing another security video with Lisa and the boys in the Morgue, which I obtained from a watchmaker on Fifth Avenue who was hit in the Tuesday robberies.

The assistant manager there was a hardcore Elf Stanner and was fanning her face as she excitedly spoke with me about the robbery.  She said the police instructed them not to share any information about the robberies to the press or the Elves, but, “When those four dreamy Adonis type Elves came to us right after the police left, I shared the video with them.  I mean, Elves, you know?”  She made a flutter over her heart then continued without taking another breath, “Of course you know, you're an Elf too.  I mean you know you're an Elf and why am I still talking, you're famous!  I saw when you Elfed on television, and... oh, you must get this all the time.  I love your eyes.  I can't believe Killishia Renner is in our shop.”

She had stopped, just blinking at me with puppy dog eyes.  I paused a moment to make sure she wasn't going to explode into word salad again, then smiled at her which made her go weak in the knees as she had to sit when she swayed.  “Would it be possible for me to get a copy of the security video too?”

She stood then sat then stood again and turned toward her computer then looked back at me, “I already gave it to your people.”

“I'm not with them, like I said, I am investigating the robberies for a story for Channel 3 news.”

“Of course.  The girls are not going to believe I spoke with you.  You and Tanaliashia Laun make an adorable couple.”  My cheeks were burning and I didn't have the heart to burst her bubble by telling her Tana and I weren't a couple, she had just been messing with people at the pizza parlor.  The assistant manager pulled up a file as I handed her my business card, and she typed in my station email address and sent it.

“Thank you so much.  Is there anything you can tell me about the Elves who did this?”

She shook her head. “We get Elves in here from time to time for high-end timepieces.  We are the watchmakers to the stars after all.  But never in a group.  We were too stunned to see multiple Elves in here to even realize it was a robbery until they smashed the Rolex and Piaget cases.  They took just a few, and then walked back out into the foot traffic and vanished.”

Again, just being absorbed by the crowd... and nobody saw where they went.

After entertaining the woman by being in a selfie with her, I made my way back to the station.  We pulled the files up on Azu's computer, and we watched the robbery.  It was identical in execution to the ones we had already watched, hell, I even recognized the group because of the tall green-eyed Elf woman.  “This was the same group that hit Imperial Pawn.  The only difference I see is she is wearing her ear shields this time, and the short guy isn't.”

Renny shook his head.  “That's not the only difference.”

Lisa patted his shoulder saying, as she leaned on her mail cart, “Yeah, I saw it too, Ghoulmeister.  They're all wearing different sashes this time.  The same ones, just a different order.”

I blinked and looked at the freeze-frame.  Oh, they were right.  What self-respecting Elf would wear the wrong family sash?  I mean, it wouldn't bother me, but a lot of the Elves I've met have sticks shoved so far up their posteriors they'd shit green bricks if they wore someone else's sash.

“Wait, can you zoom in on her wrist there?”  Renny looked at me like I had just asked him to sprout another head.  Then he grinned and lifted the monitor and held it closer to my face.  Trying hard not to smile and fail, I told him, “I know you're just being a smartass, which by the way is a good look on you, but this helps.”

He looked at me sheepishly. “It doesn't work like that, if we try to 'zoom in' the image will just pixelate and you wouldn't be able to see anything.  You watch too many SciFi shows, umm, Kia.”

I smirked. “You could have just said that, and there is no such thing as too many SciFi shows.”  I pointed. “She has a tattoo on her wrist just there.  Is that a frowning face?”

The three of them crowded in their faces besides mine, all squinting.  Lisa asked, “That smudge?  Face it, Kia, we don't have your enhanced vision.”

Azu perked up at that. “Wait, enhanced vision.  Elves can see in slightly different wavelengths and spectrums.  He adjusted the contrast ratio on the screen and it was even sharper for me and the others nodded.  Lis said, “Oh yeah, there it is.”

Then I asked as Renny set the screen back on the desk, “How can three Elves walk out of a shop into busy rush-hour foot traffic and nobody sees a thing?  I mean, Elves, hello?  No witnesses on the streets have stepped forward that I know of.”

Renny affected a decent Brooklyn accent, “I didn't see nuttin?”

Well, there is that, people in New York mind their own business more often than not,  Not wishing to get involved, but someone always talks.

Lis said distractedly, her brow furrowed in thought, “Maybe they don't.  Get seen that is.”  She shoved Azu aside, his chair rolling until it hit a stack of boxes, and she took over at the computer and watched the other two videos.  Hmming.

I was about to burst when she pointed. “Well look at the doors on these two videos from different days.  The one with the tall, svelte Kia.”  I shoved her shoulder.  She paused the two videos at the point the Elves left the buildings.  And outside we could see all the foot traffic virtually blocking the doors.

Grinning like a loon she said, “Sapien accomplices.  They didn't need to disappear into a crowd, they brought their own.”

What was she talking... oh.  I saw it.  Of the five or six people visible, two of the people walking past were the same.  They were at two different robberies, days apart.  Did they really bring their group to disappear into?  Or was it something else?  I looked at the boys.  “Flash mobs... exactly how does one organize one?  I know participants aren't always privy as to the goal of them, and some just attend as many as they can.”

Their eyes widened and started nodding, they slid over to Renny's computer to start doing what they were born to do.  Research.

Then I started watching all the videos again, trying to figure out what was bothering me so much about them.  Someone called out from down the hall, my ears swiveling toward the door, “ Rodriguez?  God damn it, where has she gotten to now?”

I looked at her expectantly.  She shrugged. “Hey, I finished my shit an hour ago so I could hang in here.  I'm the best they have, so let Oliver look for me.  We're off in an hour anyway.”  She was so bad.

I looked at the wall clock then turned to the monitors on the wall.  She prompted when I switched each to a different news station, “What is it, Kia?”

I pointed at my wrist, to an imaginary watch. “Sundown was a couple of minutes ago.”

“Ah!”

All of us just sat there, staring at the monitors as the anchors reported the news.  Any second now.  Any second.  Fifteen minutes went by, then twenty, and no new robberies were reported.  Huh.  Well, that was disappointing.  Or good I guess that there weren't any new victims.

Mr. Klein decided at that time to call down to ask about my progress on the story.  I shared everything I had, including the promise of an exclusive interview with the Detective assigned to the case in exchange for the sharing of information.  “I have more security video and images from the police and another victim.  I can share the videos I procured without them, but the other stuff I can't until the police solve the case.  And we thought of another angle down here in the Morgue that I need to check out, but I don't think I'll make the deadline, but I can do this..  Don't give it to someone else, I'm making headway, slowly, but...”

He interrupted, “Run with it.  Get the security video you can share with McGuire to write some copy for it on air.  You have until Monday to wrap all this up.”

Then he hung up.  Umm... ok.  I was all grins after that as I sent a screenshot of the tattoo and pictures of the pedestrians outside the businesses with the same individuals circled, to Detective De Luca with only, “Flash mob or accomplices?” attached to the email.

Chapter 12 – Your Boys In Blue

Somehow, Tana talked me into joining her for some last-minute Christmas shopping on Friday, Christmas Eve, before I had to suffer through a full Council meeting.  Ok, when I say talked me into it, she may have just asked while looking me up and down appreciatively, and I said something like, “Oh... ok.”  As I melted under her gaze, chewing on my lower lip.

“Great, it's a date.”  A date?  I wish.  Oh god, did I just think that or did I say it out loud?  She was so far out of my league I'd need to travel twenty-seven light years to be in the same zip code.  Then there's the little problem that she likes boys.  Stupid crush.

If my crush wasn't bad enough, I had to deal with Marcillia Laun finally cornering me at the Station since I had been ducking calls from the Launs and most of the Council all week.

She was sitting at my desk in the Morgue Thursday morning, in an outfit which likely cost a year or two of my salary, looking so elegant and sophisticated, her long sweeping ears capped by the most delicate of ear shields which had the warm luster of Tana's new ones, making me believe they were Rhodium.  The chains were a work of art the way they seemed to make almost a veil over her lower ear.  She was as always, class incarnate and as scary as standing outside on the ice planet Hoth in nothing but a bikini.

“Kia, rumors online have been circulating about you and our daughter.  Since you've been obstinately ignoring all attempts of Evander and me to contact you, and Tanaliashia has been stubbornly refusing to speak on the subject, I decided to address you directly.”

“Umm... hello, Mrs. Laun.  I'm fine, and yourself?”

Azu and Renny were both frantically typing trying their best to look as if they weren't listening in on my conversation with one of the richest and most powerful women alive.

The woman closed her eyes and seemed to recenter herself, then started again, “Hello, Killishia.  I'm well, I trust you are the same.”

I grinned like a loon to her even though I was scared shitless, praying I would remain the master of my bladder as her eyes bore through me while she smiled with the practiced ease of a politician, or someone who could buy small nations after lunch.

“I umm... well, what has Tana said?”

“She is reticent to discuss the topic.  I've not been able to have a decent conversation with her since she started her rebellion.”

I looked from her to the boys, then my smile dropped as I said, “Hey Ren, Az?  Can you go check with Lisa in the mailroom to see if we have any deliveries today?”

Azu started to say, “But we already...”

They both had their eyes on us now until they caught the glare I was shooting their way.  They stood together as Renny blurted, “Umm... yeah, the mailroom.  Maybe there's a late delivery, Right Azu?”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Renny gave a weird little bow, with an aborted salute or something as he squeaked out, “Mrs. Laun, ma'am.”  They hit the door at the same time, jamming themselves together before Ren pushed Azu through.

We listened until we heard them enter the mailroom down the hall, then she said, a crease between her eyes, “A flighty couple, aren't they?”

I nodded. “Not a lot of human interaction down here in the Morgue.”

She nodded slowly as she seemed to take the space in even though she had already been sitting here, waiting for me to arrive.  “And you chose to work here?”

I nodded, trying to figure out if she was looking down her nose at it or not.  “I refused to be given a better position just because I Elfed.  I'm going to work myself up through the trenches like everyone else.  You wouldn't believe how much history is in the stacks just there.”  I indicated the rows of file boxes on shelves with reverence.

She seemed to contemplate it, then nodded slowly. “I'm beginning to understand you a little more each time we speak.  A sense of your character.  And besides your bullheadedness, I think I appreciate you and what drives you, Miss Riicathi.”

“Renner.”

“Renner.”

She clasped her hands, relaxing, but it by no means made me relax.  She was an apex predator, and I was a mouse with a cheese fetish and a predilection for warm socks.  “Now, about my daughter.”  Doh!

“Do you like warm socks?”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Sorry, my mouth does its own thing when I'm nervous or stressed.”  I was trying to wring my fingers but found it hard to do with the cast so instead, I shifted on my feet uneasily as I chewed my thumbnail.

The woman took me in again, critically as she shook her head. “Really, Killishia, you don't have to be so afraid of me.”

I pointed vaguely her way. “You say that, but my flight or flight instinct isn't listening.”

“You mean fight or flight?”

“Not so much, I tried the whole fight thing before...” I held up my cast. “It didn't work out so well.”

The woman chuckled a little, shaking her head slowly. “I can see what Tana sees in you, you're adorably awkward.”

Grr... why does everyone use adorable?  There are plenty of other perfectly serviceable adjectives they can use, like, fierce, or determined.  “I get it from my mom.”

She said a little drolly at that, “Yes, we've yet to meet her.  Does she still need to hide from the Council?  You've already thrown us into turmoil with the re-emergence of the Riicathi.”

I silently made jazz hands to her, immediately wanting to bury my head in the sand for the lame display.  But to my surprise, she chuckled again.  Was she not the cutthroat businesswoman and strategist that had CEOs of rival companies quaking in their boots?

Then her smile was gone and I was swallowing.  “This fling or whatever it is between you and  Tanaliashia has to stop now.  There is already talk of the Aryon consorting with a minor house among the voting members.  Pictures are circulating everywhere online.”

I paused at that and cocked my head, chewing my thumbnail again.  She was upset it looked bad politically her daughter seeing someone of a lesser house, not that I was female?  I stopped and looked at my thumbnail and put my hand at my side, I didn't need to get into that habit, it was just hard to figure out what to do with my hands until I get the damn cast off.

I reassured her, “Nothing is going on between us.”  I blinked at how disappointed my voice sounded.  “She just gave me a peck on the lips to mess with some people who were gawking at us at a pizza parlor.”  Then I added, squinting an eye in mock pain, “And it was a bonus if it vexed you and Evander.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose, shaking her head in exasperation.  “That girl.  We don't understand this whole rebellious phase she's going through.  She's going to inherit the Laun empire one day, and she needs to be ready to lead.”  She sat on the edge of one of the desks, looking perplexed and deflated.

Again my mouth was bypassing the brain mouth filter thingy that most people had installed at birth as I blurted, with more than a little acid in my tone, “You don't know?  Why would she want to inherit an Elvish civil war from you?”  Then I covered my mouth, saying, “I'm sorry.  That was... it isn't my place...”

She stood and looked at me, brow furrowed. “An Elvish civil war?  That's ludicrous.”  I saw her contemplating the words, but no surprise lingered in her expression.

I put my hands together and held them up to my lips, remembering the cast this time, as I said, “Have a seat, Mrs. Laun.  Please.”

I pulled two rolling chairs between us and I noted her hesitation as she instinctively looked up at the door, I knew to see if there was a blue light... the force of habit I suppose.  I assured her, “We're the only Elves in the building unless your guards are here.  I make the boys wait outside across the street in their car.”

She nodded slowly and sat.

I contemplated if this was my place or not, but I've seen firsthand the pain and even guilt in Tana's eyes about this subject.  I inhaled deeply and took the plunge.  “Have you asked yourself if your daughter wants to inherit a house at war?”

“Where is this coming from?  There isn't a war.”

I sighed, wondering if she was just in denial? “So you haven't noticed the unrest building since the Reveal?  All the minor houses and even the major houses knowing the deadlock in voting is coming to a head?  With voting shares of a missing house becoming available in eight years?  If Tana has heard the whispers on the wind about it, and what was going to happen when the Launs and Havashires fought over the shares, then you have to have picked up on it.  Civil war is inevitable because neither house can compromise.  It is apparent since the two houses have only voted in agreement once in the past couple hundred years.”

She blinked at me, weighing my words, and likely wondering how I knew so much about it since I was so ill-informed about everything else in Elvish society, being a fledgling still who was never taught of my heritage.

“Things would never have gone that far.”

“Really, so you would have let Evander's sister have the shares?”

She snapped out, “Of course not.”  Then she looked surprised, either at her outburst or that I knew Natalia Havashire was Evander's twin.  Then she centered herself, taking a calming breath. “Something would have been worked out.”

I shrugged. “Maybe... it would be a long shot, but the consensus and growing fear of the Elvish community is that both sides would be unbending, and the number one tenant of your culture, that Elves looked out for Elves, would come crumbling down and Elf on Elf violence would ensue.  And how do you think the Sapiens and the governments of the world would react to the threat of an Elvish war?”

I put my hands out palm up, moving them to indicate all the nothingness between us. “Why would a young woman with so much love for life, want to inherit that?  And possibly the end of all Elves?  That is her rebellion, that is her pain.”  I reined in the accusation in my tone as I closed my eyes.

She whispered, “That's why she changed?”

“She never changed.  Tana is who she is.  And doesn't want to be who she'd have to become in that scenario.  But now, that future has been pushed off for a few more decades.  The Riicathi, my family has re-emerged, my mother and I, and those voting shares won't be up for grabs in eight years anymore.  But the Riicathi will be gone upon my death as I won't have any children of my own, and mom can't, I almost killed her... well she did die for a bit when I was born.  Then the whole thing will begin again because two families would rather see their world destroyed than compromise.”

The woman just looked at me, an unreadable expression on her extremely pale face.  “It would never have come to that...”  She didn't sound as if she believed her own words.

I shrugged.  “It doesn't matter now, an aberration, a defect, a halfling is giving you all a reprieve for a time.  Maybe that time can be used to mend broken fences?  The Elves deserve better... Tanaliashia deserves better.”  The last three words came out in an inadvertent hiss and I pushed away whatever odd emotion caused it.

Then I looked down, chewing my lower lip, then said in an embarrassed tone, “Sorry.  It wasn't my place to...”

She stood and lifted my chin with a finger as she smiled, wiping a tear from her cheek with her other hand. “I do see it now, why she's drawn in like a moth to a flame.  I thought you too timid, to tell you the truth Kia, but you have that fire spoken of in the old texts of the Riicathi, in their defiance of the Council.  You are so much more than you appear, and wield more insight than your years should have.”

Then to herself, she whispered aloud, “So this is why we've lost our daughter?”

“You haven't lost her.”

Then the woman chuckled and said, “And I don't suppose you can be talked out of pursuing the investigation of the Elf crime wave in the city?”

My cheeks were burning as I shook my head, then the part of me I got from mom said in the almost meek challenge as I stood, “And I'm going to be a disruptive voice in the Council if given the chance.”

She chuckled in amusement.  “Of that, I have no doubt, Kia, and that may be just what we need.”  Then she looked at the door then at me. “I should be going, my security team is likely going into apoplexy since I had them wait at the curb.”

I grinned at that and said, “You and Tana have more in common than you might think, Mrs. Laun... I mean Marcillia.  I hope the rest of your day is filled with less drama.”

She smirked at me, and I had to blink as it was a mirror of her daughter's.  “Why did I think you were going to say something like, 'Sokath, his eyes uncovered'?”

My jaw dropped and I pointed at her, stunned and unable to speak after her Star Trek quote.  She chuckled again. “Goodbye Killishia.  I look forward to what fresh turmoil you'll bring us on Friday at the Council meeting.”

Marcillia Laun watched Star Trek?  She was a closet geek?  Oh, wait!  “Umm, goodbye, ma'am.”

Lisa and the boys likely left a sonic boom in their wake as they exploded into the Morgue so fast after that, with a billion questions that I... didn't answer.  Lis seemed to know my mind as always and sort of just gave the slightest of nods and stopped pressing.  I heart me my work wife.

Later, Tana showed up out of the blue at four.  She just waltzed into the Morgue like she owned the place, and I noted that like her mom, she didn't wear a visitor's pass.  How were they getting past the front desk?  Because they're extremely powerful women, and hot Elves, Kia, duh.  I'm usually smarter than this.

She prompted with a dramatic grin, “Where's Lisa?” as the boys froze like deer caught in headlights.

A moment later, a mail cart came thumping through the door.  “I thought I saw Elf ears pass by the mail-room window.”  I snorted at the wild look on Lisa's face as I pointed at her as if to indicate where she was to the punk princess Elf.

Tana rolled her eyes.  “Come on, finish up girls, I'm stealing you tonight, there's a Christmas party at the Strip tonight.  We have to cute you up beforehand.”

Lisa almost fell over as she took a step back, her eyes so wide I was worried her lids couldn't contain them.  “The Alfetus Strip?!  The Elf nightclub in Soho?”

I was blinking too, my grin partly because of the glee that seemed ready to explode my friend into a million squeeing pieces, and partly because, the Strip!  It was one of the high society nightclubs where all the hot single Elves went clubbing, and the richest of Elf Stanners went to hang out with the pretty Elves they idolized.  The cover charge alone was two hundred dollars a person, and if your hot factor was below a twelve, you couldn't even make it in the door.

I've seen Elf Society pages that highlighted the Strip, only the who's who of the New York Elves partied there, and here Tana was offering to take us there like it was just like going to Chuck E Cheese or something.

Lisa babbled out as she shook my arm with both hands, “I'll beg off the last hour, you can take off early Kia, you're Klien's golden girl.  The Strip, oh my god, this is so going all over my social media.”  Then she was glomming onto an extremely amused-looking Tana Laun, who just patted her back as she chuckled.

I was about to say something when Renny said in a meek tone, actually holding up a hand, “Umm, Kia?”  When I looked his way, he pointed at his computer screen with his free hand.  “They're back.”

What?  We all rushed over and crowded around his monitor, seeing our news anchors reporting on robberies in progress along Fifth Avenue.

He switched the other monitors to various news stations and we watched the reports.  It was the same as the others.  I was murmuring to myself, “So it isn't over.  Why are they skipping days?  Is it to throw off the cops?”

Azu said as he was wheeling a chair over for Tana to sit on, “Almost like a reverse Broadway schedule.”

The poor clumsy boy had knocked over a box pushing the chair up, and both Tana and my ears swiveled toward the cacophony as we winced.  Lisa giggled a little as she said, “That has to be weird as shit, the way your ears have a mind of their own.”

I looked at her as I raised a hand slowly to my ear, something inside of me clicking as I blurted, “Renny, pull up the robbery videos again.”  When he looked at me with his head cocked I started snapping and I grabbed his shoulders and turned him to his computer again.

Was this really what had seemed so off to me?  Was it this simple?  Tana was asking, “What is it Kill...”

I put a finger to her lips as I studied the videos, my smile growing wider and wider.  I hopped up and down then hugged Lisa and kissed the top of Azu's head, causing the poor guy to blush profusely as he took a step back, rubbing the back of his neck, just to trip over the box he had knocked over.  Both my and Tana's hands shot out to stop him from falling on his ass.

I told the two, “You're geniuses.”  I hip-checked Renny, sending his chair rolling along, spinning slowly while I searched online, virtually vibrating in excitement.  Finding what I needed I grabbed my cell and a card from my shoulder bag.  Yes!

Azu asked, “What is it, Kia?”

I held a finger up and dialed the number on the business card, telling the girls with a pained look on my face.  “I'm going to have to take a rain-check on the Strip tonight, I just...”  I turned from them when a familiar voice answered.  “Umm... hi, Detective De Luca?  This is Killishia Renner.  Yes, hi.  Yes, I know your busy right now with the new robberies, but I've figured it out.”

I noted Tana was standing straighter, her ears cocked my way, listening as I said, “No... yes... You're going to want to go to the seven o'clock showing of August Sun with me tonight.  No time for a date?”  I grinned at my audience and faltered a moment at the dark look in Tana's eyes.  “It isn't a date.  Though I do have a weakness for women in uniform.  But you're going to want to bring a few of your boys in blue.  Yes... no, I can't expound, I'm only like eighty-five percent sure.  Ok, I'll meet you at the will-call window at six forty-five.”

When I hung up, Tana asked coolly, “So you're blowing us off tonight for a date with that Detective.”

“It's not a date!”  I whined.  “I think I figured it all out, but I can't be positive until I check something out.”

Lisa prompted in a teasing tone, glancing sidelong at Tana, “Is she hot?”

“Yes, no, I don't know, she's a cop.  I was too busy playing referee between her and that lawyer, Aldrich, to notice.”

“Ooh, she is.”

“Knock it off, it isn't a date.  I have to get home to get dressed appropriately for the theater.  I'll call you ladies when I'm done.  Maybe I can catch up to you at the Strip if you're still there?”

Tana's eyes still looked dark and my own eyes widened slightly, was she jealous?  The Elf in question straightened, then her demeanor changed as she stepped up to me, right into my personal space, causing me to look down and tuck some hair behind my ears, making me feel self-conscious again that I'm always doing that around her.

She leaned in to whisper hotly in my ear, warming the ear shield with her breath, and causing pleasant arousal to shudder through me, making me ball up my toes.  “Well have fun on your 'not a date', but I guarantee she's not as good a kisser as me.”

Then white-hot fire tore through my body from my lips when she pulled back slightly then captured my lips in hers.  I was partially aware that Lisa was squeeing only because my ears swiveled as the rest of my attention was on the lips of the woman kissing me, her tongue darting out just enough to caress my lower lip, letting me feel her tongue piercing before she released me.

She had the smuggest of smirks I could make out barely through the happy daze she left me in.  She was toying with me again.  I touched my lips as I staggered toward the door, and promptly ran into the door frame as I squeaked out a question, “Just messing with me?”

She shrugged as I found the door this time. “Maybe later, Killy.”

Oh.  Ok.

Wait a minute.  Was she messing with me?  Or... I touched my lips again as I scurried down the hall, walking a little funny and looking back at the Morgue as I went.

Chapter 13 – Musical

I was still thinking about that kiss when I arrived on Broadway for the show.  I felt ridiculous driving mom's VW in a dress.  Miguel down at the garage had got the puttering steel relic running again earlier in the week, and when I was ready to head out, she had insisted I take the bucket of bolts.

The fact that I was being trailed by a big black SUV made me feel doubly ridiculous, but I wasn't about to call Cliff, I'm not helpless nor do I need an escort.  I had to argue with the Cookie Twins, to begin with, telling them not to accompany me into the theater.  I was finally able to placate them by reminding them I would be accompanied by an NYPD detective.  I still thought it a waste to take two vehicles like this, but it was my compromise with them when I originally had planned to take the subway into Manhattan.  I could have just ridden with Ivan and  Pietor, but I'm stubborn and it was the principle of the matter.

I wore what mom called my Sunday best, even though we didn't ever attend church, but it was the only thing I owned that was appropriate for the theater besides the cheap navy blue pantsuit I picked up at Marsha's, the secondhand shop at the end of the block a couple of years back when I started my internship at Channel 3.  I only had two dresses, and the one I owned for clubbing, which I admit I have only done once, wasn't appropriate for this venue.

I looked down at the simple black cotton dress with white lapels and shifted uncomfortably, wondering if I was more a tomboy since I preferred jeans.

Mom and dad were full of questions as to what I was doing.  “So who is this person you're meeting at the musical?” Mom asked.

“Mooom.  It's for the story I'm working on.”

Dad was supportive. “Well have fun on your date, Itty Bit.  You look great.”

“Daaad.  It's not a date.”

“You still look great.”  He peeked out the living room window.  I could see across the street from where he had pulled the curtain slightly back.  It was all I could do to stop myself from rolling my eyes at the movement of the curtain in the row houses there that matched the ones on our side of the street.

Mrs. Clemens, the excessively nosy widow who lived there always watched everyone on the street at all hours of the day or night, usually in suspicion.  We're sure she suspects all her neighbors to be up to no good.  Though I'm pretty sure she has a thing for dad.

He looked both ways down the street then dropped the edge of the curtain, letting it swing back in place.  “Your shadows are there, and there's movement down at the old Stenson place.”  I nodded.  Ever since we revealed our clan to the Council, someone has been staying at the old burned-out house that was abandoned by the Stensons in mid repair when they ran out of insurance funds.

When I pressed Tana on one of the girls' nights we've been having regularly since then, she had shared, “No doubt it is Council Security, now that your family has voting shares.  They take their protective services pretty seriously.”

At that I had thought, just great, we really needed to get some sort of white noise privacy curtain installed in a room or two in the house so we could have private conversations without Elvish ears listening in, but right now, it was cost-prohibitive, and we weren't going to dip into our new savings for that.  When we needed privacy, we'd visit Gram and Gramps Renner, since they had an entire space that was protected from eavesdropping.

I had to grin at that since I learned they were Elves after I manifested, and they ran what equated to the Underground Railroad for Elvish families hiding from the Council for whatever reasons they had.  That's how mom and dad met when my grandparents took in mom and her parents as they were running from the equivalent of Elvish black ops.  They left their daughter here in New York to draw off their pursuers.  That's how my grandparents on mom's side were lost to us, making mom the sole surviving Riicathi until I was born.

As I was leaving, I shot a quick text to Tana because I was feeling guilty for some reason, then one to Lisa, telling her to behave tonight.  It was like Tanny was bringing her into a candy store and setting her loose.  My bestie was pretty much a restrained Stanner herself, but she deserved to have a night of fun since she dumped her boyfriend, Tommy, because of me, and I still felt terrible about that.

I found myself blushing and grinding a heel at the emoji Tana responded with.  Did she know the connotation of it in pop culture?  She is pretty much the hippest person I knew so she had to just be messing with me again.  The woman was pure evil.  Still, it put me in a great mood.

After mom put an air horn-- I still don't know where she gets those things-- into the purse, she lent me her kitten heels and, my parents followed me to the door and stood in it as I made my way to the curb. Mom waved and said in an old man tone, “Have fun storming the castle.”

Just how cool is a mom who can quote the Princess Bride?  My mom rocks.

I was seriously thinking my original plan of just taking the subway in had been the more prudent and intelligent course of action when I had to pay thirty-five dollars for parking a block from the theater.  Between that and the two thirty-dollar tickets to the show, the little buffer I allowed myself in my bank account after our windfall now had a big dent in it.  Even more, once I fill mom's gas tank on the way home at the station a few blocks from home, it’ll be a bit thinner yet.

Maybe it wouldn't have been a bad thing riding in with the boys since they were following me anyway, but I always felt guilty whenever they or Cliff drove me around.  It felt too much like Elf privilege to me, so if I could avoid taking advantage of it as much as possible, I still felt like me.  I waved at the Cookie Twins when they got out of their vehicle and started shadowing me a half block back as another elf drove away in the SUV.  When did they get the third guy?  Was he one of the ones holed up in the Stenson place they snagged when I relayed what they deemed my 'reckless and inadvisable' plans for the night and I secured their promise not to enter the theater with me?

As I walked backward, waving again, Ivan seemed to exhale in exasperation and waved back and made a shooing motion. “Yeah, love you too big guy.”  I grinned at the snort I could hear plain as day even with the light foot traffic between us.  I turned around and almost ran into the people at the end of the modest line, it being a Thursday showing and all.  My arms went wide and I went up on tippytoes, eyes wide just inches from a man's back.

I shot an extra special finger behind me as I backed up a step when I heard two snorts from behind me that time.  The man and his date looked back at me and their own eyes snapped wide.  They tried to play it cool, but the woman's fingers were flashing across her phone's screen, no doubt sharing with her followers that an Elf was in line with them.

I gave them an awkward, squish-lipped grin as I looked past them to where a limousine pulled up and a woman and man stepped out when the driver opened their door.  They were dressed posh and just strode up to what I was looking for, the will-call window.  The man accepted two tickets and a program as he unwrapped a white scarf from around his neck, then ushered the woman in the maroon sequined dress inside.

With an apologetic look to the couple in front of me, I squished my head to my shoulders and squeaked out, “Sorry,” as I hustled away and to the will-call window.  A woman in an emerald green dress and matching flats under a long, ankle-length, leather duster saw me coming.  Her hair was done up in an elegant sweeping bun.  I stutter-stepped to a halt when I realized I knew the imposing, tall, and athletic woman.

I sputtered out, “Detective De Luca?  I mean, hello.  You look nice, and sort of badass at the same time.”

She snickered at me and cocked a brow at how I was dressed.  My ears and cheeks heated, I muttered with more than a dash of whine in my tone, “What?  It's the best outfit I own.  Not all of us can shop at Amazon Chic like you.”

Shaking her head with an odd look, she said sincerely, “No, you look great, different than at Laun Tower.  Though... you are different than all the other Elves I've met.  I mean, thousand-dollar designer clothing and whatnot, this is sort of refreshing to know there's a little variety in an otherwise homogeneous front your people are always showing.”

“If that's a fancy way of saying I'm broke, then thanks for pointing it out.  And then you won't be disappointed to know the seats are in the back of the balcony since that's all I could afford...  did you know seats by the orchestra pit are over two hundred dollars each?  It's insane.”

She furrowed her brow then looked around and asked in a low voice, “This... isn't a date is it, Miss Renner?  I mean, the mayor is climbing up my ass to solve this case, and I can't take time to...”

I squeaked, “Not a date,” maybe too loudly as people in the other line turned to look our way they the inevitable murmurs began, and someone took a photo, the flash like an ice-pick straight through my optic nerve and buried in the center of my brain.

She moved a half step closer. “Are you alright?”

I held up a hand, waving her off. “It's fine.  I just know why most Elves wear sunglasses even at night.  Bright lights feel like being stabbed in the head.”

She wondered aloud, “You talk about Elves as if you aren't one.”

This made me chance looking up and braving another flash as I smirked. “Hold onto that thought, as it's pertinent if I'm right here, but no I still feel odd after manifesting since it is so odd being one of them now... well I always was, I just hadn't known.”

She studied me a moment with her detective-ish demeanor, “So why have you brought me here?”  She nudged her chin and I followed her eyes to see three NYPD cruisers idling at the curb across the street.  Good, her boys in blue.  This was either going to be epic, or I was going to look the fool with all these cops wasting their time here.

I gave her the cheesiest grin I could and asked, “Where's the fun in just telling instead of showing if I'm right about my suspicions?”

Before she could get any more from me I pulled out my debit card and my driver's license and showed it at the window, rolling my eyes at it since I hadn't had a chance to renew it yet since I Elfed, so it was the old, plain old Sapien me in the picture.  “Tickets for Renner.”

The woman in the booth started to take my ID and debit card when she looked up at me.  Her eyes bugged out and seemed to almost panic. “You're Killishia Renner.”  She was snapping her fingers at one of the doormen and waving him over as she reined in her excitement to affect a professional demeanor.

She typed a few keys on her computer, then furrowed her brow, looking almost frenzied.  “I'm sorry, ma'am, there's been some error with your tickets.”  She typed a couple of things as she just slid my license and debit card back to me without swiping the card in the machine to verify my purchase, and slid me two programs.  “I'm sorry for the mixup, Diego here will show you to the VIP section.”

I started to argue, that our tickets were fine, but De Luca looped an arm in mine to pull me after the pleasantly plump middle-aged usher as she said, “Come along Miss Renner.”

This got me pouting out, “Kia.  And this is the sort of thing I'm trying to open people's eyes about, I want to be part of the solution, not the problem, Detective.”

She said absently, “Sofia.”

“You're tall.”

The woman cocked a brow at me as Diego opened the door and said in a polished tone, “This way, ladies.”  Then lowered his voice he said as we avoided the crowd on the other side of a velvet rope, “And don't worry about Miss Laun or the tabloids finding out, the theater is very discreet.”

Ok, now I was blushing hard as I tucked some hair behind my ear. “Tana Laun and I are not a couple.  And this is an NYPD detective, it isn't a date.”

“Of course, ma'am.”

I muttered to Sofia, “Why does this always happen?”

She sounded far too amused as she said without any sympathy, “Face it, Kia, you're sort of famous, so this shit will follow you everywhere, and any semblance of a private life you had is long gone.”  Then wryly she added, “And I thought you and Miss Laun were an item too... I mean, we've all seen the Elfy Love memes.”

Gah!  Renner Rage rising.

The man led us through a back corridor down a ramp as I explained, “She was just messing with all the lookie-loos, and...”

“Here we are, Miss Renner.” Diego held a curtain aside and ushered us through.  I stutter-stepped as a dozen sets of bright crystal blue eyes turned our way in an area divided from the rest of the general seating that looked to have been added onto the orchestra pit.  Holy great seating, Batman!  This was the area reserved for high society Elves, and I recognized at least one of the couples there as Council members.

There were seats in pairs separated from each other to give a sense of privacy, though with Elven ears there was no such thing.  Only a third of the seats were filled, which made sense since it was still a midweek curtain.  If this were a Friday or weekend curtain, I'm sure the theater would be sold out as always and all these seats would be filled as well with the most prestigious of Elves.

I swallowed and looked to the other VIP area separated from this one and noted the Mayor and a couple of other Sapien movers and shakers were there, and that area was also only about a third filled.  And Sofia muttered, under her breath, “Shit.”

Glancing at her to see what was up as we were seated with a two-seat buffer from another couple, I prompted, “What's wrong?”

She sighed as Diego took my coat and offered to take hers, but she just shook her head and opened one side of her duster, exposing a leg holster with her service weapon and the badge hanging on a clip from an inside pocket of the coat.  The usher and I blinked, probably for different reasons as she closed her coat and sat with me.  Sure she was armed, but she looked really good in that dress.

A couple of women rushed over to a little table in front of our seats and sat down an ice bucket with a champagne bottle chilling, two glasses, and a couple of bottles of Havashire Springs water that would set someone back around twenty bucks a bottle, while the detective shared with me, nudging her chin, “Mayor Declan is here and he saw me.”

I shrugged and paused when one of the women in modified tuxedos asked, “Can we get you and your date anything else, Miss Renner?”  Everyone knew who I was, was getting old.  And... “She's not my date.”

The 'not a date' in question put a hand on my arm and said to them, “No, but thank you.”  Why was she looking so smug?  Did she enjoy my discomfort?

As the three moved back behind the curtain, I looked at all the Elf eyes that were still trained on us, then turned my attention to the Mayor, who had just turned his attention away from us.  I whispered even though I knew the Elves would hear like we were sitting in their laps, “Is that a problem?

She shrugged. “I'm not his favorite person right now, I may have told him to get his head out of my ass and let me do my job when he was pressuring me to close the Elf case as it was starting to give the city a black eye.”

I nodded and shared, “So like a typical Monday afternoon for me recently?”

She snorted and the closest Elf couple shot us dirty looks and feeling a little rebellious, I just cocked a brow and looked down to my sash that surprisingly went well with my black and white dress.  The man still looked haughtily in our direction, but the woman's eyes widened a bit and she elbowed him and turned to look at the closed curtains at the stage as the orchestra filed in.

When De Luca looked at me expectantly, then glanced at my sash, I shrugged, clasped my hands the best I could in my lap, and shared, “It's a long story.”

She exhaled then looked at me critically. “So, are you going to regale me with why we are here if you have as you intimated, solved the case?”

I reached out to snagged a water and opened it to take a big gulp since my mouth was as dry as the Sahara Desert suddenly.  “Umm... I'm not exactly one hundred percent sure, but close.  It's pretty far-fetched so I don't want to make a fool of myself if I'm wrong.  We'll know in just a few minutes.  You got a radio in that duster too?”

She rolled her eyes at me and just held up her cell and wiggled it.  Ah, right.

Then she shared, “We're working the flash mob angle or possibly just that they brought their groups to get lost in after each robbery.  Good catch, none of us had even though to compare the foot traffic in the videos.”

I shrugged. “That was my team.”  Heh, I had a team.  “The rest is my wild-ass conjecture.”

She gave me a scrutinizing look, explaining, “You know, Kia, the more you talk, the more I'm starting to think this is a waste of my time.”

I held up my bottle. “On the bright side, you get what is likely just filtered tap water with an Elf family name on it.”

The woman snorted again and reached for hers and twisted off the cap and took a swig.

She prompted when she noted I was looking at the orchestra setting up their instruments and sheet music on their stands, “You go to a lot of musicals?”

I turned to her and felt my cheeks burn as I admitted, “Umm... the first time.  Can't afford this when living paycheck to paycheck.  I took a big chunk out my savings for parking and the nosebleed tickets, but since it is for the story, I can get reimbursed by the Station.”  Then I added, “But I've always wanted to attend one, like Wicked or Cats or something.  You?”

She got that crease between her eyes again as she looked at me, shaking her head slightly before responding, “A few over the years.”

“New York native?”

“Small-talk?  For someone insisting this isn't a date you sure...”

“Oh stuff it, copper.  Stop messing with me, I'm already hyper-aware of my social awkwardness, I don't need your help piling on when I'm trying to help you... and, umm, also finish my story on the robberies.  Ok, so I'm double-dealing here.”

She grinned and the lights dimmed.  It was an odd experience for me since, besides shadows becoming more pronounced, the only way I could tell the difference was the muting of the colors around me.  Is it weird that I miss the night?  I mean, the darkness of it.  Even at night, the street outside my window at home looks close to daylight with my enhanced sight.  Tana has shared that even camping in the wilderness, the stars are more than enough to light the night.  I absently wondered if she missed the night too.

The crowd silenced and I looked back over the partition to see the theater was about half capacity. Then the orchestra started to play softly, and my world changed.  The string instruments vibrated through the air, bringing the music to and through me, my entire being vibrating in sympathetic harmony with the ebbs and flows of it.  It was as if they were playing on an extension of my very soul as my eyes dilated and I reached up with shaking hands to remove my ear shields to let more of it in.

It was beauty and a promise of peace, washing away all my doubts, fears, and anxiety.  I realized I have never heard music before if this is what it was supposed to be.  A living, breathing organism, wrapping around me to keep me safe and warm.  Music on the radio never affected me like this after my Elfing, so it had to be the rich wood and strings and that vibration that was almost life-affirming.  I thought there could never be something as beautiful as this... and the woodwinds joined in, causing me to gasp, and I felt my cheeks chill as the circulating air in the theater wafted gently across my flowing tears.

I almost jumped when a hand rested on my arm, and Sofia whispered with concern in her tone, “Are you ok, Kia?”

I looked at her and smiled through the tears and wiped them away with the long sleeve of my dress.  I whispered back, my voice breathy, “I've never...”  I pointed at my ears lamely. “...since I Elfed.  The music is so...”  I shrugged and wiped another tear, feeling like a fool.

She just cocked her head at me and glanced at the orchestra as they were winding down as the announcer took to the stage in front of the curtain, made the introduction to the musical, and gave a little context.  I kept looking from her to the orchestra in longing.  I had thought the sunset was the greatest thing that came from my Elfing, but I had been wrong.

I blinked when everyone started clapping when the curtain swished aside and had to cover my ears as I winced in pain over how loud the cheering was.  When they quieted I sighed in relief and rapidly replaced my ear shields.  I looked at the set, which portrayed the inside of a warehouse with workers bustling about with various boxes of produce or bales of hay.

A tall woman stepped forward and looked around, sighing heavily and saying to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, “I've spent my whole life in Sutter's Ridge, like my parents and their parents before, but I have ambition, I do.  I want to go to the city one day or see the world.  This can't be all there is for me.”

Then the music started, and I had to push away the euphoria as she started to sing, quietly at first, but then the workers started joining in.  The troupe was quite good, it was easy to see why the critics were touting  August Sun as the next Guys and Dolls or Our Town.  And it physically pained me because...

I shook my head sadly as my eyes darted around the singing and dancing men and women and dug in my borrowed purse.  I closed my eyes and centered myself, hating this had to be done, then looked through some pictures and exhaled before handing the first photo to the Detective who had her eyes glued to what I was doing as I whispered, “The lead there, Victoria Vandersmoot?  The one there with the tragedy mask tattoo on her wrist...”

She squinted then held the picture down to the lights that illuminated the aisle floor, then her eyes widened, looking from the woman to the picture of the green-eyed elf.  I pointed at the stack, then started pointing at other actors and actresses as she started going through the photos of the smash and grab Elves.

She muttered under her breath, “Son of a bitch.” Then she looked at me in incredulity.

I shrugged and she started to power up her cell and I placed a hand on hers and shook my head, giving her a pleading look. “They aren't going anywhere.  Let them finish, they won't be able to perform again anytime soon.”

The woman's eyes felt as if they were burning through me and then she nodded just once.  I removed my hand and she stood and stepped behind the curtain, my ears swiveled and listened in as she instructed the officers to call for more backup, to cover all exits from backstage, and for some uniforms to enter the auditorium but wait for her signal.  The entire troupe and crew were to be detained when the musical concluded.

I noted one of the people from the foot traffic in the videos standing stage right with a headset on.  Damn, this was going to make me the most hated person on Broadway, wasn't it?  Then I noted all the Elves were looking to the curtain then at me.  I shot them a glare and they pretended not to be eavesdropping as they returned their attention to the stage.

When the officers came in and stood quietly along the back wall at the auditorium doors, Vandersmoot noticed as well as some of the others.  They seemed to know, forgive me for saying this, that the jig was up, but they straightened and continued the musical, and gave what I felt had to have been the performance of their lives.  I guess the show really must go on.

It was bittersweet to me as I realized I loved it, I wanted to see more Broadway plays, but I had just brought this one to an unceremoniously abrupt stop.  As the show was ending, Sofia stood and whispered to me, “Stay here while we detain these people.”

I nodded and shared, “Check the makeup artists, I'm sure you'll find artificial Elf ears and contacts.  And wardrobe for the sashes.”

She looked at me like I was slow.  Ok, fine, she was the detective and did this sort of thing for a living.  I guess you have to be kind of intelligent to do that. I gave her a squished-up face in retaliation.  She snorted and left me with a bunch of judgmental Elves.

Chapter 14 – Aftermath

None of the actors resisted, and it was all organized and almost cordial as they were all detained and cuffed as NYPD transports arrived to haul the entire crew and actors in for questioning.  I heard the whole thing from my seat in the now-empty auditorium.

Victoria Vandersmoot didn't even deny it as she said to Detective De Luca. “This was inevitable, this was the ultimate expression of our art.  And it soured the image of the Elves to the general public.  They took all the leads in theater, I was even being replaced next week by Xian Jericho to bring in more ticket sales.  They have no talent, never having dedicated their lives to the craft, it's just because of those ears and their air of mystery.  Let's see them overshadow our final act now.”

I blinked.  They did all this to give Elves a black eye for them being handed the best parts?  Then I swallowed, wondering if I was that bad in my crusade to shine a light on the unfair business dealings afforded Elves and not Sapiens.  I hoped not.

As she was led out by a couple of uniformed officers, Sofia rejoined me and I stopped recording on my LaunPhone and slipped on my coat.  The woman looked to Vandersmoot as the door closed behind them, then looked at me and asked, “So are you going to share how you figured this out?  I mean fact is stranger than fiction here in this conspiracy.  We even found a trunk back there with all the stolen items, they never even tried to fence them.”

I nodded, but I shared first, “Is it wrong that I feel bad about this?”

She seemed to contemplate it a minute, telling me she did too, but she shook her head slowly and shared, “They broke the law.  It isn't my place to judge.  All any of us can do is to hope our pool of good karma outweighs the bad we accumulate in our lives in the end.”

A deep cop is deep.  Nodding in appreciation, then shrugging, I pointed at the sides of my head. “It was the ears.  That's what was off to me.”

She furrowed her brow in confusion. “Once more for the cheap seats?  Their prosthetics were virtually perfect and fooled all of our experts.”

I chuckled at the woman and started picking at the edge of my cast as I brought a shoulder up to my cheek in another exaggerated shrug. “Well, I'm a new fledgling and have found the most annoying thing about being an Elf is our ears.  I'm still hyper-aware of mine, which is the only reason I even noticed.”  To illustrate, I listened to various sounds around the theater, and my ears swiveled toward each.

“The Cthulhu be damned things have a mind of their own, and swivel toward the sound, Elves can't control that unless they really concentrate, and I haven't found the secret to it yet.  In all the security videos, their ears never swiveled once, even when others were breaking glass.  And none of them cringed at the sound.  There is a reason we wear these ear shields, as moderate to loud noises are so painful they are almost debilitating, but none of them even winced at the crashing.  They couldn't have been Elves.”

She blinked as her smile slowly grew as one of her brows rose.  “That's it?  The ears?  And you figured this all out?”

I shook my head, rolling my eyes.  “No, genius, by investigating.  I'm sure you're familiar with the concept.”

“I like when you're assertive, Renner, it's a good look on you.”

My cheeks and ears warmed as I forged on.  “There were no robberies on days Broadway shows have two curtain calls, and the green-eyed Elf had that tattoo.”

She nodded and mumbled, “The Tragedy mask.  One of the other actors had a matching Comedy mask on his shoulder.”

I forged ahead. “So a quick internet search brought up the casts of the various musicals and I looked for one that had a tall auburn-haired woman.  I couldn't be sure it was her in the group shot, and the picture pixelated when I enlarged it.  That's why I wanted to see for myself before I was sure.”  I shrugged and said, “My eyesight is much better than it used to be.”

She nodded slowly. “Son of a bitch.  Not bad, Renner, not bad.”

Then she said, “Make yourself available in the next few days.  I'm going to have to get a statement from you and... your team.  Soon.  Thanks for this even though I should warn you to keep out of police business, I doubt you'd listen.”

I shot her a toothy grin.

“Yeah, that's what I thought.”  Then she started to leave, saying, “This was oddly fun, Kia.  Now I gotta go face a shitstorm of media in the morning.  At least it will keep the mayor off my ass.  Catch you on the flip side, Renner.”

I cleared my throat as she started to walk off. “Ahem.”  She turned around and I was waggling my cell. “Quid pro quo, detective.”

She looked from me to the curtain. “You're shitting me?  Now?”

“You said it yourself, you're going to be facing a shitstorm of media in the morning.  You promised me the exclusive.”

“Well fuck.”

And that was an exciting six and a half minutes of my life.  My first interview.  True without a cameraman or proper microphone, but almost life-affirming as I was sure that this is what I wanted to do.  I felt I wasn't awful at it, even with her trying to imitate a wall of police silence on some of the questions, which I weaseled out of her anyway.  Just nothing that could jeopardize the case.  I finished by turning the camera my way and saying, “Thank you for speaking with me, Detective De Luca.  This is Killishia Renner with WTRL, Channel 3.  Killishia out.”

I shut off the cell and she chuckled. “You certainly are an odd one, Kia.  And not at all like any Elf I've ever had to deal with in my profession.  I'll call to set up a time for your statement.”

I waved lamely from my hip. “Ok, bye Sofia.”  Then because the gods of chaos like to heap as much awkward upon me as they can, I felt foolish when I realized I had to walk with her to the main doors where I waved again.  Lame, Kia, lame.  And why did she have to look so damned amused at me?  Grr.

Stepping out into the chill night air, I blinked at the poor officer who looked like a clean-shaven boy to me, who was pale as a ghost as he stood in front of two looming man mountains with pointy ears.  They were even paler than him, but not in intimidated fear like he was, the Cookie Twins were so very close to albino in my opinion.

De Luca chuckled and said, “They're with her, rook.  Let them past, disperse all these lookie-loos, and secure the scene.”  Then she waved a hand up high without looking back at me. “Merry Christmas, Miss Renner.”

“Merry Christmas,” I squeaked back.

The poor rookie cop couldn't step aside fast enough.  Ivan was looking me up and down as if checking for injuries. “The NYPD wouldn't let us past when they entered en mass.”  Then his eyes narrowed and he almost growled out his accent thickening, “You've been crying, is everything alright?”  He was shooting a death glare at Sofia's back as she strode off with confident purpose.

I placed a hand on his rock-hard muscled arm. “No, it's ok... it was the music... I never knew...”  His eyes widened and his face softened as he nodded slowly in understanding, saying almost wistfully, “Da.”

Then I froze. “Wait, how did you know I had been crying?”

He shrugged as Pietor said, “We can smell the tears, and your mascara ran.  You don't normally wear any, Miss Kia.”

My eyes widened. My mascara ran?  And I did the interview like this?  Just shoot me now.  I closed my eyes and took three calming breaths, then reopened them.  There was nothing for it now.  I said, “I'm emotionally drained right now.  Can you drive me?  I have to go to the Strip, I promised Tana and Lisa.”

“Da.  Your car has already been returned to your home.”  Grr.

I nodded and they led me to their black SUV which pulled up to the curb.  A Hawaiian-looking Elf stepped out, opened the back door, and just walked away down the street. I slipped in the back with Ivan as Pietor took the wheel.  The muscled Russian beside me reached over and pulled a flap down on the headrest in front of me to reveal a mirror.  I looked at myself and gleeped and went cleaning the dark streaks off my cheeks.  Why hadn't Sofia said anything?  I squinted an eye, she must have thought it amusing, the jerk cop.

When I was satisfied I smiled hugely as I pulled out my cell and forwarded Mr. Klein the interview and the footage I filmed of the arrests at the theater, as well as my story and other resources I had, including my investigatory trail including Lisa, Renny, and Azu's contributions.  There.  My first assignment completed which didn't land me in Elf medical near death.  And it felt... good.  Even if they don't use it.

As we were pulling up to the Alfetus Strip, my cell buzzed and I looked down and squeaked at Mr. Klein's reply, “Holy fucking Peabody Award.  You're shitting me with this Renner.”

It was all I could do to tamp the part of me that I got from my mom and reply that I wouldn't shit him because he's my favorite turd.  She is such a bad influence on me.  Instead, I decided to keep my job by instead saying, “I'll fill you in later, but it is all there in my email.  I have someplace important to be just now.”

He responded, “I'll polish this up and hand it off to our late-night anchors.”  They were going to air my story.  I was so giddy I wanted to dance a jig, but I was in the car so I settled for squeeing and excitedly kissing Ivan on the tip of his nose, with a Mwah then blurting, “They're running with my story!”

The big guy was all smiles.  “Congratulations Kia.”  Then he nudged his chin. “We're here.”

I slid out when Pietor opened the door for me.  Holy crap.  It was almost midnight and the line of Elves and some Stanners mixed in, some with badly augmented ears, stretched down the block.  Well shit, some Kia's not getting in there tonight.  I was a little surprised that I was genuinely disappointed.

Just as I texted the girls that the line was too long, and I'd just see them tomorrow for our Christmas Eve girls' day, someone saw me as the boys flanked me.  “It's Killishia Renner!”  All eyes swung to me, including the big men at the doors with long, sweeping ears as I found myself being herded that way by the Cookie Twins.  The line was bubbling with people talking about me.

The bouncers simply opened the velvet rope when I was moved in front of them by Ivan's huge hands on my shoulders, causing me to blink in shock that they were letting me in.  I stuttered to a halt, digging in my purse in a panic I didn't have the cover charge unless they'd take a dollar thirty-three and an old subway token at the bottom of mom's purse.  Didn't they stop selling those things in the early two-thousands?

When a bouncer just said, turning back to the line and holding up a halting hand to the people crowding the rope, “Enjoy your stay, Miss Renner.” I paused and eyeballed him.  Why weren't they charging me the cover?  I'll never figure any of this out and it stank of entitlement.

I held up a halting hand to the boys, Ivan was about to argue about accompanying me when I gleeped, being pulled back into the building by two squeeing, obviously tipsy, women.  Tana blurted, “Killy, you made it!”  I had to blink when I turned to my friends, noting one of Lisa's hands resting on the arm of an immaculately groomed, skinny as a rail Elf with an awesome clubbing look complete with a lilac dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

I smirked at the way he was looking at Lis as I noted the music was loud but not painfully so, with a deep booming bass made for dancing.  “Who's your friend?”

She patted his arm with her other hand, looking at him hungrily, “What?  This piece of Elf arm candy?  This is Isaac.”  She bit her lower lip to devastating effect, making the boy's eyes widen.

“Isaac, this is my best friend, Kia.”

He held out a hand and I shook. “G'day, Kia.  I've seen you on the telly.”  Holy Australian accent, Batman.  In my personal humble opinion, Australian accents rank just below British as the sexiest accents.

Lis shared as my ears started heating while Tana was giving me a perusal with her eyes, a little smirk on her lips, “He's with the Walker family.  His parents are on the Council.”  She reached up and swept his swooping bangs back.

Tana said to them, “I'm taking green eyes here to the dance floor, see you at the table.”

Lis made an inappropriate Ooooo sound that had me chewing on my lower lip as this uninhibited version of Tana Laun dragged me by both hands into the crowd of pretty Elvish bodies dancing.

My eyes widened in realization, I had been so distracted by her hands on mine that it hadn't registered what she said.  I blurted as I looked around as she raised her hands above her head and started dancing in a decidedly sexy manner, making me swallow and unable to take my eyes off of her, “I can't dance.  It's unbecoming really, like a harbor seal trying to dig for a cookie in the sand.”

She almost cackled, her eyes glittering and smile huge. “You are so weird, Killy.  Just zip it and dance.”  She grabbed my arms and pulled them above my head before releasing them and started dancing around me.  “You look adorable in that dress.”

I swallowed again then started swaying, trying not to dig for that cookie in the sand.  Something in her eyes had my mouth moving and blurting in a squeak, “Do you like warm socks?”  Oh god, just shoot me now.

She smiled and leaned in to whisper in my ear, “I 'love' warm socks,” causing heat to ignite inside me.  She was just being mean now, knowing how she was affecting me.

The song ended and I was about to escape to their table, wherever it might be in this sea of people, when another song started, a slow pop number.  Tana stopped my retreat by placing her hands on my hips.  I glanced toward the deejay nervously to see my evil work wife grinning wickedly our way.

I looked up into Tana's eyes and swallowed again, noting I kept doing that.  We started swaying to the music, and, not knowing what to do with my hands, after a hesitation, I timidly placed my hands on her hips too.  It felt... intimate.

She looked away and said with a tinge of venom in her tone, “How was your date?”

“It wasn't a...”  I just exhaled loudly.

She smirked at me and asked, “So, is she a good kisser?”

I was about to defend myself when I realized I recognized the look on her face and I started smiling as I asked, “Why Tanaliashia Enid Laun, were you jealous?”

She rolled her eyes. “I wish I'd never shared my middle name with you.”  Then she shrugged, looking awkward and embarrassed for the first time since I met her as she shared, “Yes... I was.”  Then she leaned down, her lips almost brushing mine as she inhaled and smiled when I froze, immobile, then her lips were on mine, igniting a fire of need and desperation in me as I kissed her back.  In the back of my mind, I could hear Lisa squee over the music and the sound of the crowd in the club.

I was boneless putty when she broke the kiss with a self-assured smile, and I gasped for air.  I bit my lower lip and brushed some of my unruly hair behind my ear, feeling beyond bashful as I looked back up into her eyes.  She shook her head and exclaimed, “Gah!  You use adorable as a weapon, Killy.”

I just exhaled and laid my head on her breastbone as we resumed our dance.  My mind was stunned as I realized I had just kissed Tana Laun and I think she meant it this time.  And I just savored being there in the moment with her, letting the rest of the world fade away.

Epilogue

Marcillia Laun said to me as she passed by me and Tana into the Council Chamber, “You could at least wear something more appropriate, Miss Renner, you represent your house and the Council now in the chamber.”

Tana rolled her eyes and said to me, “You're fine, don't listen to her,” as she adjusted my sash to hang better on my hip.

I looked at the doors where all the council members were filing in and asked, “So what am I expected to do again?”

She chuckled and said, “They're going to seat you, not much ceremony to it.  They usually just give the chair of a retired family head to the new head.  Then they just go about business as usual.  Lots of boring parliamentary procedure, reading of minutes and whatnot before new business.  Which inevitably requires a vote, and yet another deadlock unless it is something simple that will help all Elves instead of a major shareholder.”

She added, “Since it is Christmas Eve, and about two-thirds of the Council is Christian, they'll want to make the meeting as short as possible.  Usually, someone will make a motion to adjourn early, so you won't need to do much.”

Then she sighed to herself and said quietly even though everyone could hear, “Just vote your heart, don't feel pressured by one side of the chamber or the other to vote a certain way.  Remember,...”

I chuckled and shrugged. “I always have a choice.”

“Damn straight.”

My eyes widened. “Oh!  I almost forgot.”  I dug in my shoulder bag and pulled out a stack of papers and handed them to her.  “I pulled in a favor from the station editors.  Well fine, whatever, I gave them coupons for free shawarma from dad's food truck when Gertie gets back on the road next week.”

She looked at the cover page and her eyes widened as I shared, “Sonia wanted me to look at her first finished chapter in her urban fantasy book, Coven Tales, I thought it was really good so I had the editors look it over for me.  Their notes are on those tabs they stuck in there.  They think it is beyond good, and they were floored by her punctuation and prose, and all her footnotes indicating the rules from the various style guides I gave her that helped to structure various sentences and paragraphs.  She's a perfectionist.”

I bit my lower lip and shared with a little smile. “The name of the outcast witch of the Central Park coven is Enid.”  Then I asserted, “She really idolizes you, you know, lady.”

She was reading the first page with wide eyes and looked up at that, then she affected her cocky attitude, “What's not to like?”

Then she asked, “Is it really good?”

I nodded. “Really.  You should read it before you give that back to her.  I seriously think writing is her calling.”  She smiled at that, looking every inch the proud big sister.

Then I dug in my bag again and looked at my feet, grinding my heel as I thrust a small box, wrapped in shiny Christmas paper with a little bow around it.  “I got you a little something for Christmas.  You can't open it until tomorrow.”

She accepted it, just blinking at it, saying nothing.  Then she blurted, “Thank you!”  Then she grinned and pulled something from the black, studded leather jacket she was wearing today, and held out a little gift of her own. “I got you something too.  But the same rule applies, no peeking until tomorrow.  Is that why you and Lisa told me to make myself scarce for a few minutes while we were shopping today?”

I just flashed her a toothy grin, causing her to smirk and share, “That gave me the time I needed to get this,”  I snorted then covered my mouth with a hand.

I examined the little box and cocked a brow.  At first, I thought it was wrapped in newspaper, but I recognized the corner of a picture and dragged a hand down my face in mortification.  It was today's cover of the 'Daily Rag' a pop culture gossip tabloid that came out every weekday.

Today's edition was mortifying, Lisa had brought a few copies along with her when Tana picked us up in a limo to go Christmas shopping with her.  She just giddily held one out toward us between her hands, looking like a kitten who drank all the cream.  “Feast your eyes upon this and tremble.”

I squeaked in distress at the cover story, with a photo of me and Sofia at the ticket counter at the theater.  I have to admit, the detective looked a combination of dangerous and hot.  The headline?  “Killishia Renner is stepping out on Tana Laun!  Who is the mystery mistress?”

I moaned out, “Just shoot me now.”

Tana schooled her face as she cocked a brow. “She certainly is sexy, you played that down, Renner.”  Oh lord, she was jealous again, and I sort of liked it as it made me feel wanted.

I shrugged. “I guess if you like that tall, dark, and deadly vibe.”

Lisa held up a finger as she gave each of us a copy of the tabloid. “Umm, everyone likes the tall, dark, and deadly vibe, Kiameister.  I speak on behalf of all red-blooded women.”

“Not helping, Lis.”

“Who said I was helping?”  Then she wiggled her brows and said, “It's blowing up the Internet this morning too.”  Tana and I groaned.

Then our Latina friend shared in a bully tone, “I got your backs, ladies, I've been posting pics from the club to dispel the rumors.”  Oh lord.  Tana went pale.  Her parents were going to come down on us harder than they already have been.  Then she had to add, “And that kiss, dayum.”

But to my happy surprise, when we got out of the car to join in the mad rush of people doing their last-minute holiday shopping, Tana took my hand without looking at me, causing my cheeks to heat and warmth to spread from our contact.  We hadn't had a chance to be alone to talk about it yet, which seemed to be the theme of my life since I had Elfed, there never seemed to be enough time.

I tried to shift the topic. “So, Lis, you and Issac?”

She shot us a smarmy look. “Elf-boy is picking me up tonight for Christmas dinner.”  I have to say I'm a little surprised because most Elves didn't associate with Sapiens in the dating scene, but if anyone could woo an Elf, it was Lisa.  She's a force of nature unto herself.

She got a lascivious look on her face and started to open her pie hole but I interrupted before we got some double-entendre about Issac down under or something from her.  “Did you see the report?”

They both nodded.  I was wiped out by the time I got home at two-thirty in the morning, but still went directly to the television when I got home, inadvertently waking mom and dad who came downstairs to watch Channel 3 with me.  Instead of the normal infomercials, they were looping the WTRL exclusive scoop on what the media had coined the Elf Bandits.

Mary reported on how our investigative reporting helped the NYPD crack the case, and how the fake Elves were caught and arrested at the Broadway musical.  Mr. Klein had heavily edited my story, but, there was still enough of it there to make me swell up in pride especially when Mary said, “Our very own Killishia Renner spearheaded our in-depth investigation and saw it through to the end.”

All the time they were showing my shaky footage from my cell and displayed my byline making me have to restrain a squee.  Then I looked on in horror as they played my exclusive interview with the arresting detective, then I turned the camera on myself.  I looked like an extra from the Crow, with my mascara running, giving me the appearance of a goth Elf.  I almost died when scary-me said, “Killishia out.”  Then they went on to rehash the whole story again.

“Great job, we're proud of you, Itty Bit,” Dad said.

“Daaaad!”

Mom looked full of mischief and guile as ever as she asked, tongue in cheek, “So that detective was your hot date?”

“Mooom!”  Then I hung my head and shuffled past them, heading to bed.  “I hate you both.”

The evil parental units just chuckled at my expense.  Aren't they supposed to be loving and supportive, like isn't there a parenting contract or something?

Mom called out, “G'night, love you, sweetie.”

I grinned to myself.  “Love you too.”

Dad added, “Remember not to plan anything on Saturday.”

“I know, I know, how could I forget opening presents with Gran and Gramps Renner?  We only do it every year, Dad.”

“Just reminding you since you seem so busy with all this Elfy Love stuff lately.”

Gah!  “You're just mean.”  Oh lord, they've seen the memes.  But then I paused and relaxed.  I didn't mind now that Tana had kissed me again and we danced the last of the night away, her moves designed to seduce, and it was working, in spades.

And I couldn't wait until after the Council Meeting, Tana wants to get some private time together up in the Laun residence at the top of the Tower.  I'm sure she wants to talk about what happened last night as much as I, and maybe a little exploring the new toe-curling, dreamy dynamic.

So there we were, her smirking at me as I tucked away the present she gave me when a tone sounded.  She bit her lower lip and I heard her tapping her tongue piercing against her teeth.  “That's you, I'll go in first and will be sitting behind my parents for this one instead of standing with you as your Ráquen until you are 'seated' in the Council.  Same bullshit as normal at the lectern.”

I nodded and tucked away some hair, wanting to say something or do something but feeling too awkward to act, and I looked up to seek her eyes just to find she had closed the gap between us, heat in her eyes as she gave me a two Mississippi kiss, her lips lingering.  She wiped my lips with a thumb then winked and just strutted away past the guards and into the chamber, calling back, “See you in there, Killy,” leaving me behind in a happy haze.

I shook my head to clear it, then started walking to the Chamber, past the guards who were almost as big as the Cookie Twins.  I gulped as I stepped inside, and the doors started closing.  I glanced at the controls by the door where Claude was activating the privacy curtain.

Then he surprised me by shuffling up to me and placing my hand in the crook of his arm and he patted it, smiling at me.  Then he started forward, his old bones creaking; at least he wasn't faking that part.  We reached the lectern and he released me and moved up to the out-of-place podium and leaned up to the microphone that was, as always, set up for taller people, “Miss Killishia Renner, head of the Riicathi Clan, to be seated.”  Then he simply stood there and started to buff the wood of the lectern with his sleeve.

Dimitri Havashire called down to him, “Thank you, Claude.  Claude?”

The man looked up, squinting through his thick glasses, and Natalia said in a sweet tone, “Claude, sweetie, you can take your seat now.”

He looked around and feigned surprise that all eyes were upon him.  “Oh... of course.”  Then he turned, shot me a wink, then shuffled back to his ancient secretary desk.  We all watched until with a groan and a creak of his knees, he fell back into his chair then picked up a quill to take notes.

Marcillia looked across the aisle, and Dimitri inclined his head, ceding the floor.  The way the four of them seemed to work so seamlessly for rival houses always amazed me, in at least this, the leaders appeared as complete equals.

I glanced down to stop from smiling at Tana standing behind her parents, smiling down at me.  Marcillia tapped her gavel. “The Council will come to order...”  Then she went about what seemed a structured piece of parliamentary procedure, including giving the date and announcing it as a meeting of the International Elf Council.

She said, “We'll forgo the reading of the minutes from the last meeting as Miss Renner's revelation cut it short before any new business could be addressed.”

Evander took up the thread. “The first order of business is the ceremonial seating of the head of a voting family.”  A murmur circulated throughout the chamber.  Then he said, “I motion the Council seat the rightful head of the Riicathi house.”

He looked around, and one of the majority shareholders from the Havashire side of the chamber called out, “Seconded.”

Dimitri called out, “Those in favor?” and there was a chorus of Aye's.

Natalia then called out, “Those opposed?”  A single voice called out, “Nay.”  A voice I knew from the non-voting families in the bleacher-style seating at the end of the chamber, where all the shareholding families who contracted away their votes or sold their shares to the two ruling families.  The man had caused a ruckus with his questions the first time I was in this room. I still had no clue what family he represented.

Marcillia called out, “The aye's have it.  Killishia Renner will be seated for her family.”

Now Evander stood from his chair and said, “As the Riicathi have never had a seat in the Council, even with their valid voting shares, and they are sworn to nor have allegiances to any other house, there has never been a seat for them.”

A shadow passed over his eyes as he said with a tinge of shame, “The council owes the Riicathi a debt which can never be repaid, as they worked tirelessly to assure the Aelftus remained hidden from the Sapiens, assuring our survival for eons.  Only to be betrayed by this Council and lost to us for almost three hundred years.”

Natalia took up the narrative, a smile on her face for me, she loved how I shook things up without it ever being my intention, “And try as we all might, Miss Renner will neither be swayed to one side of the aisle nor the other.  Indeed she even denied the Council approved Joining Alliance with my son, Geoff.  Killishia even helped solve the rash of crimes thought to be perpetrated by Elves, to restore our honor in the eyes of the Sapien public.  So the solution is simple yet elegant to seat the final voting clan in the Chamber.”

She made a motion to the end of the room where the non-voting families witnessed the Council proceedings for complete transparency to all families.  That's when I noted for the first time since I walked in, the rail in front of the seating had a paneled box with a single seat in it.  “A neutral family should preside over the neutral territory between aisles.”

Dimitri said with all pomp and circumstance in his voice, “Killishia, head of the Riicathi clan, please be seated to complete the Council.”  I glanced up, and the man looked almost proud as I fisted my hands down at my sides to stop myself from scurrying over to sit just to get the eyes off of me.  The overall effect probably looked as if I were being petulant, but I just wanted this over with so people would stop looking at me.

I reached the seat and tentatively pulled at the railing and it swung back to allow me access, and I sat.  I thought it was over until applause and cheers rang out.  Evander's commanding voice was heard over it all, “The Council is complete.”

I dipped my head, feeling the burn of a blush.  Then exhaled in relief when there was a call for new business.  I found the next few minutes fascinating, getting this view of the Council's inner workings... being a part of them.  A vote was called for, for an ambitious project to place more community centers in the major cities that would benefit everyone in those cities, but as it was primarily a Sapien need, I already heard the grumbling and negativity on both sides from the major voting families under the Launs and Havashires.

But... I thought it was a great use of Mírë and Elvish resources, as it would build stronger communities in those cities, and that would benefit all people in those areas, both Sapien and Alftus.  Natalia was starting to call for the vote when the Council Chamber doors boomed and shook from an impact.  The mechanical inner workings clattering inside from the shock.

What the ever-loving heck was that?  The Council members started calling out, chaos building until Evander pounded his gavel loudly, “Order!” and the voices trickled away as the door boomed and rattled again.

Some members moved up to circle the Launs and Havashires in protective rings as we all just stared as the whisper-quiet motors of the doors swung them open.  One of the guards made an oofing sound as he was kicked firmly flying through the doors, to land on his back, sliding to a stop, and tried shakily to get back up.

Two middle-aged-looking elves with long ears that swept up and back strode into the room, a man and a woman with silvering hair and a presence that was pure malice, a warning of extreme violence darkening their crystalline blue eyes.  The woman stepped right up to the guard, and I could see the other guard laying on the floor in the corridor beyond.  She placed a foot on his chest and pushed hard, slamming him back flat on his back.  When he reached up to grab her, she grasped his wrist, pushed it back as she stepped across his body, and I heard a sickening pop as the man gasped out in pain.  Then she kicked the side of his head, finishing her move, and he was out, head bouncing off the polished stone floor.

Many Council members were gasping, some standing or moving to protect others as the two newcomers just scanned the gallery, like they were assessing threat levels of all those present, and they didn't look worried in the least.

Evander was pushing through those protecting him, working his way to the floor below, hopping over the railing as Tana pulled her mother behind her protectively.  Mr. Laun called out, “Who are you, why are you in the Council Chamber, attacking our people?”

My heart was beating so fast I could hear it as well as the blood rushing in my ears.  I realized I was standing as my hands clenched and unclenched.

Another guard came rushing in, seeing the intruders, and started to draw his sidearm from a shoulder holster under his suit coat.  But the male Elf moved in a blur, and somehow jammed the slide of the pistol just as the guard pulled the trigger.  And with a spinning move that tore the gun violently from the guard's hand, he landed a windmill blow with a fist and a leg hook ending in front of the man with the pistol whipping across the younger man's face.

Teeth and blood went flying in an arc as the guard went down in a heap while the dangerous newcomer locked eyes with Evander, ignoring the man he had downed in less than a heartbeat.  And while their eyes were locked, the Elf manipulated the gun with one hand, ejecting the magazine and somehow detaching the slide from the body of the gun and dropping the pieces on the floor.

Holy shit in a pudding factory.

Evander didn't back down and just asked, steel in his tone, “What do you want here?”

The woman joined the man, and I blinked in recognition as the woman growled out in a tone so much like mother's, “We're here for our granddaughter, we won't let our family be subjugated by the Council ever again!  We Riicathi are free.”

I just blinked at the couple I've only seen in pictures, only without the pointed ears, in mom's picture album.  “Grandma and Grandpa Riicathi?  You're alive?”

The End

Killishia's Musings WTRL Channel 3

Umm... Hi there everyone, I'm Killishia Renner, and as you all know and for all of you just joining us, I recently learned along with you that I wasn't who I had thought I was and Elfed on live television.

I do this segment twice a week, to share my thoughts and experiences with you, our viewers, to take you along with me as I navigate this strange new world as, well... as an Elf.  It's still hard for me to wrap my mind around it.

Here is where I explore many preconceptions and even some misconceptions we've all had about Elves, and even Sapiens, many of which I'm finding to be false.  Today I'd like to discuss bias.

I've recently learned that we all have scars that sometimes we feel will never heal, not physical scars but mental.  And we have a habit of lashing out on the most convenient target.  We are all guilty of it as it is part of the human condition whether we are Sapien or Aleftus.  But to heal, we can't lash out to all members of a group just because of the actions of one or two members of that group.  It can poison us and have us acting out of character, changing who we truly are.

I'm first to admit that I've had some preconceptions about Elves from a couple of bad experiences when I was younger.  But now that I'm immersed in that culture that had been so foreign to me, I'm seeing that I may have been hasty in painting all Elves with the same broad strokes.  People are people, both good and bad.  I sometimes sit back to wonder what side of that line I sit on.  And maybe it isn't that simple, maybe that line is so blurred that it is hard to even see to know when we've slipped past what is reasonable.

It is time for me to sit back and look at myself and my dealings with others and chart where I want to be, who I want to be, and how I'll handle the way I react to things a little more closely in the future.

But enough of my rambling introspective, the thing I learned this week on the positive end of the spectrum, is how immersive I've found live music to be now that I've Elfed.  I truly wish there were words to share with our viewers on the Sapien side of things, the feeling of pure joy that touched my very being when I experienced a live orchestra for the first time since my manifestation.  If more of us could experience that sort of peace, if only for a moment, then maybe the world would be a better place for all of us to live in.

It's the little things like this I find along in my journey I need to address to figure out just who I am and navigate the world of Elves that I hope to share with you.

I hope to see you on Tuesday for the next Killishia's Musings here on WTRL News 3.

Killishia out.

Novels by Erik Schubach

Books in the Worldship Files series...

Leviathan

Firewyrm

Cityships

Morrigan

Changeling

Mutiny

Utopia (coming  soon)

Books in the Techromancy Scrolls series...

Adept

Soras

Masquerade

Westlands

Avalon

New Cali

Colossus

Books in the Sparo Rising series...

Blade of Wexbury

Mason of York

Hammers of Flatlash (coming  soon)

Books in the Urban Fairytales series...

Red Hood: The Hunt

Snow: The White Crow

Ella: Cinders and Ash

Rose: Briar's Thorn

Let Down Your Hair

Hair of Gold: Just Right

The Hood of Locksley

Beauty In the Beast

No Place Like Home

Shadow Of The Hook

Armageddon

Books in the New Sentinels series...

Djinn: Cursed

Raven Maid: Out of the Darkness

Fate: No Strings Attached

Open Seas: Just Add Water

Ghost-ish: Lazarus

Anubis: Death's Mistress

Shaytan: The Final Wish

Books in the April series...

Facets of April

Shadows of April (coming  soon)

Books in the Drakon series...

Awakening

Dragonfall

Books in the Valkyrie Chronicles series...

Return of the Asgard

Bloodlines

Folkvangr

Seventy Two Hours

Titans

Books in the Tales From Olympus series...

Gods Reunited

Alfheim

Odyssey

Books in the Bridge series...

Trolls

Traitor

Unbroken

Krynn

Books in the Elfed In New York series...

Intern

Riicathi

Books in the Fracture series...

Divergence

Novellas by Erik Schubach

The Hollow

Novellas in the Paranormals series...

Fleas

This Sucks

Jinx (2021)

Novellas in the Fixit Adventures...

Fixit

Glitch

Vashon

Descent

Sedition

Novellas in the Emily Monroe Is Not The Chosen One series...

Night Shift

Unchosen

Rechosen

Novellas in the Shadow of the Scrolls series...

Hell's Gate

Arcadia

Short Stories by Erik Schubach

(These short stories span many different genres)

A Little Favor

Lost in the Woods

MUB

Mirror Mirror On The Wall

Oops!

Rift Jumpers: Faster Than Light

Scythe

Snack Run

Something Pretty

Romance Novels by Erik Schubach

Books in the Music of the Soul universe...

(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

Music of the Soul

A Deafening Whisper

Dating Game

Karaoke Queen

Silent Bob

Five Feet or Less

Broken Song

Syncopated Rhythm

Progeny

Girl Next Door

Lightning Strikes Twice

June

Dead Shot

Music of the Soul Shorts...

(All short stories are standalone and can be read in any order)

Misadventures of Victoria Davenport: Operation Matchmaker

Wallflower

Accidental Date

Holiday Morsels

What Happened In Vegas?

Books in the London Harmony series...

(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

Water Gypsy

Feel the Beat

Roctoberfest

Small Fry

Doghouse

Minuette

Squid Hugs

The Pike

Flotilla

Books in the Pike series...

(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

Ships In The Night

Right To Remain Silent

Evermore

New Beginnings

Books in the Loft series...

(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

Settling In

Books in the Flotilla series...

(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

Making Waves

Keeping Time

The Temp

Paying the Toll

Books in the Unleashed series...

Case of the Collie Flour

Case of the Hot Dog

Case of the Gold Retriever

Case of the Great Danish

Case of the Yorkshire Pudding

Case of the Poodle Doodle

Case of the Hound About Town

Case of the Shepherd's Pie

Case of the Bull Doggish

Case of the Dalmatian Salvation

Case of the Irish Sitter

Case of the Pom Poms

Sample chapter of my urban fantasy, SciFi, space opera Worldship Files: Leviathan...

Chapter 1 – Irontown

I navigated my hovering Tac-Bike through the streets of Irontown on C-Ring, Beta-Stack.  Another disturbance was reported in the bulkhead corridors.  People moved out of the way as my warning beacon strobed.  Air traffic was light and I considered heading above street level.  This inner ring, like most of the inner rings, was inhabited mostly by Humans and a few unsavories like Sprites, witches, and a few shifters.  Which is why I get dispatched here.

I usually get the shit calls, since I was Human too.  Why should the Enforcers Brigade be any different than anyone else on the Worldship?  Equal opportunity bigotry is the one thing leftover from the old world, that old home called Earth that is just a legend to most of us here on the Leviathan.

I've always thought the stories were just old folktales to keep us lower races in line, that idea that there ever was a place of Open Air, where machines and the ship's oxygen processing systems were not needed to keep us breathing, to keep us alive.  But I have questioned it a few times when I've met a couple of the Old Earth Fae who say they were there on the day five thousand years ago when the Leviathan left the orbit of that dying planet.

And Fae... well everyone knows that the Fae cannot lie.  Which makes them the best deceivers of all the races, they can spin the truth to make you believe anything they wish and not tell a single lie while doing it.  And being in the Brigade, I've seen the outer rings, the lush forests and villages, and rivers that they modeled after Earth.  I can almost imagine what it would be like if those forests went on forever instead of being constrained to just a mile wide strip in the fifty-mile diameter torus of the A-Rings.

It is hard to believe that each of the four A-Rings has almost two thousand square miles of space, four times that of the crowded C-Rings.  Even more than the surface of the seven-mile diameter asteroid encased in the Heart sphere located... well located in the heart of the Leviathan.  The workers and ore extractors there have virtually no gravity, so they can't even come farther out than the small D-Rings without requiring exoskeleton support or magic buffs to support their brittle bone structure in the higher gravity of the spinning rings.

I went past the outer markets then parked and mag-locked my Tactical Bike at one of the many entrances to the labyrinth of corridors, living, and working units of the slums in the bulkhead spaces, assigned to the people who couldn't afford to live outside in the cities and villages crowding the ring's environmental envelope.

An advertisement for cybernetic eye implants was playing across the door, damn taggers with their interactive graffiti were getting so commercial lately.  Whatever happened to simple gang tagging or art expressionism?  Now it was all about making an extra token chit or two.

I tapped a code on my wrist panel, to inform engineering to come out and strip the programmable paint from the structure as I just shook my head.  It's no wonder us humans have such a bad reputation for being slacker trash that's only good for reclamation for fertilizer for the farms, or sucking hard vacuum in space.

It wasn't worth reviewing the surveillance footage to track down the tagger, it was a minor offense and wasn't worth having his or her meal cards set to rationing mode for a month.  That sort of thing just promotes the rash of homeless in the lower rings when they can't eat properly to stay healthy enough to work.  Not everyone had jobs that made enough chit to supplement their meal cards with fresh food if needed.

Sometimes as an Enforcer, we have to choose our battles.  The others from Beta Squad, either call me soft because I let minor infractions like that slide, or null because, like all humans who weren't witches or shifters, had no magic of my own.  Ahhh there's that Leviathan bigotry in action again.

Speaking of... a large tiger saw me step into the bulkhead corridors and it hissed and backed off as it changed to human and slipped into a living unit.  Ok, maybe the Brigade isn't as popular here in the lower rings as elsewhere on the ship, or 'on the world' as we locals say.

I checked my wrist unit again, and muttered, “Oh go suck vacuum, Bulkhead J?”  Of course, it would be the maintenance corridors out by the Skin.  I sighed and started jogging through the semi-crowded corridors, people moving aside as I started the quarter-mile journey.  I should have just taken my Tac-Bike like the entitled asses of the other squads do, siren wailing and forcing people out of the way.

The deeper I went, the fewer people I passed, until it was only the back hall vagrants.  I kicked the hoof of a Satyr just to make sure he was still breathing.  What the hells was he doing down here?  When he groaned and opened his eyes, he started cursing me in Old Fairy.  Who used Old Fairy anymore?

I snapped at him in the same tongue, “Get up, get out, and get sober.”

He staggered to his hooves and took the bottle of spirits with him, muttering, “Fuckin' null.”  Ok, apparently he spoke Ship Common too.

I snorted and sighed, then started jogging toward the reported disturbance.  Could they at least have classified it?  Was it just someone shitting in the corridor or someone threatening to open a breach in the Skin?

On that thought, I paused at one of the massive breach seal blast doors as I passed from the section, at a sound.  I saw flickering lights around the door seams of the emergency manual door release.  I stepped over, shook my head then pulled the small door open and growled out, “Hey, get out of there, now!  I'll pin your wings and haul your little asses in right now if you don't make yourselves scarce.  And hey!  Put that linkage back!  We'd all be sucking vacuum if there was a meteoroid strike and this section decompressed without us being able to operate the door.”

One of the glowing, five-inch tall humanoids with large moth-like wings hissed at me and waved me off. “Get lost, null.”

I muttered to myself, “Sprites.”  Then I said as I pointed back toward the exit, “Out now, you filthy scavengers.”

Two of the trio looked up from where they were trying to pull a linkage free, their eyes shooting from my face to my scatter armor to the badge and guns at my waist.  They looked at their companion then took flight, leaving a trail of that damn itchy wing dust in their wake.

The third called after them in his... or her... or its squeaky voice; I always got pronoun headache with a three sex-species like Sprites, “Cowards!  We can get ten chit for this!”  Then it looked at me, harrumphed, then slammed the little access door in my face.  The cheeky little shit.

I yanked it open again and the Sprite had the balls to cast at me.  I didn't even bother dropping my talisman reinforced visor on my helmet with a thought.  The spell sparked from its finger and dissipated against my scatter armor as it lived up to its namesake.

I reached into the box and grabbed the little ass by the wings, pinching them together as I hauled it out to hold up in front of my face.  What had it been thinking, even without my armor, Sprites were the bottom of the magic community food chain, right below Faeries.  The most it could accomplish against a human is to sting or make a slightly uncomfortable rash with its magic.

I asked as I cocked an eyebrow,  “You want me to add assaulting an Enforcer to the list of charges?  If you're lucky, they'll have you cleaning out grease traps in the food districts instead of the urinals in the D-Ring.”

It swung little fists at my fingers uselessly as it dangled from its wings.  “You're like all the other Bigs.  If I were your size you'd be quaking in your fancy-schmancy boots like every other man.”

“I'm a woman, are you visually impaired as well as stupid?”

It growled, “Man, woman?  All you nulls look the same to me.”

I sighed and said, “You aren't winning any points here.”  I scanned it with my wrist unit and an ID popped up.  Ah, a third gender, a pollinator, I would have mistaken it for a girl, but I could see the feminine androgyny in it now.  “Graz.  No surname?  You're not that old are you?”

The Fae and other preternatural races became known to the humans of Old Earth when they stepped forward to help construct the Leviathan so that all the races could escape the slowly expanding sun.  In those days most preternatural people had only a single name.  They didn't start taking surnames until a few hundred years after the Exodus launch to Eridani Prime, the new world our people will call home at the end of our ten thousand year journey.

We were only halfway there, and I and every Human on board would never see it, only the Fae and the Vampires had the chance of seeing the end of our voyage.  Us Humans were not blessed with long lives, we burned bright for just around two centuries, then died.  So it would still be thirty or forty generations before a human would set foot on the Ground, under Open Air.

It harrumphed and crossed its arms over its chest, and gods be damned if it wasn't cute as hell.  “My parents were traditionalists, living on a farm, and couldn't pronounce grass right.”

Answered like a true Fae, it wasn't exactly a yes or a no, why were they always so evasive?  The lesser Fae could lie, unlike the Greater Fae.

I sighed and said, “I tell you what Graz, I'll overlook your little indiscretions if you just make yourself scarce and promise not to scavenge from critical emergency systems again.  I'm on a disturbance call right now back at Bulkhead J, and don't have the time or desire to deal with you too, besides the paperwork is a bitch.”

The purplish-pink color drained from Graz's face and it said, “Bulkhead J?  The screaming?  You don't want to go back there, it's...”  The Sprite trailed off, shook its head and asked, “Just... it's better to walk away officer...”

I offered, “Shade, Knith Shade.”

“Shade.”

Letting the Sprite go, it buzzed its wings to stay in my face and asked, “You're going back there anyway, aren't you?”  It actually looked scared... even though it was virtually immortal... well as long as nobody killed it.

I nodded. “It's my job.”

The Sprite looked back the way I came as it licked its lips, contemplating my offer.  Then it did the last thing I would expect a Sprite, which were flighty annoyances who looked out for only themselves, to do, and said, “I can show you where the screams came from.”

Then it added quickly, “Not that I care what happens to another Big.  Just if something happens to you, I'm stealing those MMGs you're carrying.”

I snorted and patted my stunners, or Magic Mitigating Guns, as I pointed out, “Like you could even lift one, you flying rat.”

It buzzed up and sat on my shoulder grabbing the edge of my helmet. “You've got a smart mouth for a Big.”  Then before I could retort Graz pointed, “That way.”  Then it muttered, “Shade means nobody.”  I knew that, but like everyone else, we don't pick our own names.

I sighed then started jogging in the direction it pointed.  Gods... I hope nobody from the squad finds out I was taking directions from a Sprite.