Iron Night (13 page)

“No, I'll be staking the parlor out, though. I took a look at it today—it's across from a coffee shop, so I'll be parked in the front window, keeping an eye on you. Don't worry.” And here he gave me one of those old, familiar, Uncle Mattie looks. “I'm not going to let anything happen to you.”

“I know that, Matt.” Knowing that he'd be across the street during my look around a potential monster den left me relieved, and I couldn't help but poke him a little. “Even though you said that before the swinger party, yet I still had my ass pinched so many times that I had bruises.”

“Hazard of the job, Fort. It was important to stay in character.” Matt smiled, his shoulders relaxing as he thought back to our old halcyon days. Then a shadow crossed his face and he stiffened again, turning away and making a show of taking the photos from me and tucking them back in the folders, leaving me the discount flier. “Anyway,” he said gruffly. “Ten a.m. sharp, okay? When you're done come over and buy a cup of coffee. There's a booth in the back where we can talk and not be seen from the parlor.”

The moment of détente over, we said an awkward good-bye, and I left.

Back in my Fiesta, I paused for a moment before turning the ignition, reviewing all the information I'd just learned.

“Shit,” I muttered, and dug in my pocket for my phone, punching in Suzume's number by rote. As soon as I heard her sleepy “Hello” I was off and running. “Suze, I know it's after midnight, and I'm an asshole and I'm sorry, but I need you to come by my apartment tomorrow morning. Matt found something, and I don't think that whatever killed Gage was just roaming through.”

There was a second while that clearly processed through her sleep-fogged brain. Then she made a small, frustrated sound.

“Forget tomorrow morning—I'll be right over.”

•   •   •

The benefit of driving at that hour was that most of the traffic lights had been set to blinking yellow for the night, and I made great time back to my apartment, arriving before Suzume. Inside, I dumped my coat, toed off my work shoes, and put the glossy Iron Needle advertisement on the counter. A glance at the clock assured me that I had a few minutes before Suzume would arrive, and I took a quick shower to remove the worst of my work-related hair gel, having no desire to be subject to Suze's arsenal of speakeasy jokes this late at night.

I finished up and threw on a pair of sweatpants and a shirt just as I heard Suzume's familiar “Shave and a Haircut” knock at the door. As I went to let her in, the card on the counter caught my eye again, and for a second I wondered what kind of tattoo I'd get, assuming I ever got a tattoo. Not that I wanted a tattoo, of course, but I wondered how much it would cost to get a Tron ISO tattoo on my arm. Given how long my projected lifespan was, I would certainly get good use out of it.

Suzume had apparently saved time by not changing out of her pajamas, since I clearly remembered the pair of red argyle lounge pants that she was wearing when she walked in. Paired with an eye-searingly bright yellow hoodie, it should've looked bizarre. But as fiendishly clever as ever, Suze had put her hair into a set of pigtails, which somehow made the whole thing look intentional. I was starting to wonder if there was anything in the world she could wear that wouldn't add a kick to my heart rate.

I took my mind off of Suze's continued string of fashion triumphs by filling her in on what I'd learned. After I'd finished, she sat and absorbed it for a long second before delivering her thoughts, phrased with her usual grace and delicacy.

“Well, that certainly shits the bed on our working theory, doesn't it?”

“Yeah, I—”

She glanced sharply away from me. “Is that the card you were talking about?” she asked, pointing to the advertisement.

“Yeah.” She got off her stool and went over to pick it up and studied it closely. When she didn't respond, my mouth suddenly took on a life of its own and started filling the silence. “It's something, right? Some graphic designer did a good job. I don't know if it's the font or the colors, but that is the best-designed circular I've ever seen in my life. I mean, I look at that thing and I actually start thinking that a tattoo is a good idea.” I paused, but she continued to mutely examine the flier, so I continued. “It wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea, right? It would be like going really undercover. How do you think I'd look with a tattoo? Like, the crest of Hyrule on my right shoulder blade?” She finally stopped her examination and, with great deliberation, lifted her eyes to meet mine. Then, very slowly, she raised one terrible, feathery black eyebrow. I froze for a moment, then added, “If you don't know what that looks like, hold on: I have it on a T-shirt.”

“I bet you do,” Suzume said, with volumes of subtext. “But it's not the font. Or the tool with the dragon tattoo.”

“What do you mean?” I stole a glance at the flier. No, the dragon still looked badass, even better than I'd remembered.

Suze held it up. “This card is glamoured.”

It took a second for me to tear my mind away from visions of exactly how well I could pull off a tattoo to focus on what she'd just said, but once it started to penetrate the unusual fuzziness of my thoughts it cast a very harsh light on my recent monologue. “Glamour,” I said slowly, practically tasting the word. “Like what the elves use to hide their ears and look human?”

Suze nodded. “Exactly. I don't know how many halfsies can do it, but I know that full elves can put glamours on objects to make them more attractive. Just like this.” She wiggled the card, and when I looked at it again I could now just see the hint of the heat shimmer I remembered from when Lilah had broken the glamour on her ear for me.

I shared a grim look with Suze. “Elves running the speed-dating event that Gage disappeared at. Now elf glamour on the promotional card. Starting to look like a pattern.”

“Sure looks that way, Fort. I'll ride along with you tomorrow to Iron Needle.” That eyebrow went up again, and I knew with a sinking feeling that it would be a long time before I heard the last of my proposed crest of Hyrule tattoo. “With how you were reacting to that glamour, I'll have to keep an eye on you. Otherwise the next time I see you, you'll probably have a
Doctor Who
tramp stamp.”

For one awkward second, I realized that the only way Suzume could possibly look hotter to me was if she had a tattoo of the TARDIS on the middle of her lower back. I was profoundly grateful in that moment that the kitsune were unable to read minds.

•   •   •

After far too few hours of sleep, I rolled out of bed and picked Suzume up at her house, and the two of us drove over to the Iron Needle.

A lot of legends revolved around iron being the one weakness to elves and similar fairy folk. I'd asked Chivalry about it over the summer at one point, when we were driving up to Boston to deal with a nest of kobolds that had taken Madeline's permission to eat stray dogs and cats and decided to apply it to people's pets. After Chivalry had read an article about a sudden rash of dogs being snatched out of gated yards, he had thrown me into the car for a quick lesson in diplomacy, and the topic had come up in conversation. He'd told me that there actually wasn't any true weakness to iron—the seriousness of the inbreeding and population crunch among the elves had become undeniable around the dawn of the Iron Age, and had reached truly critical mass just as the Industrial Revolution hit, resulting in a false correlation for the humans who came into contact with elven offspring so disease ridden and diminished compared to their parents that the humans had credited their sudden ability to overcome them with the availability of iron weapons. Which, in all fairness, probably helped a bit as well. I'd asked Chivalry why none of the humans who were telling the stories had picked up on that. With a rather exhausted sigh, he'd pointed out to me that these were the same kind of thoughtful scientific minds that had embraced bloodletting and treatments involving cow dung.

The neighborhood we ended up at was one that was in a slow state of deterioration. Two grocery stores were empty and boasted large For Lease signs. The small shopping plaza I pulled into had old and cracked asphalt, the kind where people's cars got stuck in the winter. Four businesses with grimy signs huddled together in one squat gray building that was crumbling at its edges. The Iron Needle was at the far right side, and its three neighbors made a perfect trifecta: a bail bondsman, a liquor store, and a check-cashing business.

“You take me to the nicest places,” Suzume said.

“I can't believe Gage got his tattoo here.” I mused, trying to picture Gage choosing this of all places to get inked. The front window of the tattoo parlor was blacked out, and the neon sign displaying its name was failing to light up two
n
's and an
e
. “This place looks like an invitation for hepatitis.”

“I'm feeling some begrudging admiration for whoever set that glamour.” Suze was frowning. “For elf magic, that was packing some heat to get anyone through that door.”

“You mean you weren't feeling respect last night, when it totally made me its bitch?” I felt moderately insulted.

“Fort,” Suze gave me a very patient look. “Convincing you to get a dorky tattoo can't be that hard.”

“What do you mean by that?” Trust Suze to refuse to leave me at
moderately
when she could take me all the way to
completely
insulted.

“Your ex-girlfriend convinced you to go vegetarian. And you're still vegetarian, even after you dumped her for cheating on you.”

“I have plenty of other reasons,” I defended. It was even true. While my decision to eschew eating meat had been primarily driven by my desire to date Beth, the choice to continue that had been because of what I'd discovered about the diet. It had helped quiet some of my less desirable, more predatory instincts. Since cutting out meat (other than the force-fed mouthfuls from Chef Jerome and some periodic backsliding, usually involving bacon), I'd found it far easier to ignore a few stimuli that had usually had my vampire side sitting up and taking notice. Feeding regularly from my mother had also helped, but I wasn't about to abandon any useful element.

Suzume rolled her eyes expressively, and I very pointedly turned away from her and looked across the street. The Starbucks looked like a lone outpost of the Roman Empire against Visigoths, and Matt was seated front and center beneath the green logo on the glass window. His favorite stakeout Red Sox hat was pulled low, and an open newspaper was providing cover for him, but I knew his methods from many years of exposure. I wondered briefly how the increasing shift to notepads and tablets would affect the private detective methods of camouflage, but shrugged it off as not my problem.

The inside of the Iron Needle showed the same highly questionable sanitary conditions as the outside, with a cheap vinyl floor that hadn't been mopped since the early years of the Clinton presidency, and a waiting area that looked furnished mainly with living room furniture rescued from the dump. There was a long counter that separated the front of the shop from the back, where the tattooing chair and equipment were set up. With the front window blacked out, the only illumination came from a set of rickety office ceiling lights, which were flickering ominously. A few half-full containers of rubbing alcohol and fat binders sat on a shelf behind the tattoo chair, beside an assortment of needles and many containers of inks. The walls were covered in layers of tattoo designs that ranged from the surprisingly delicate to the profoundly disturbing, with a distinct overrepresentation of the disturbing. In rare gaps between the pictures, knotty pine wall paneling was revealed. In the back was a half-closed door labeled
EMPLOYEES ONLY
.

There was a long silence after Suze and I walked in, as we both looked around and took in our surroundings. We were the only people in the shop.

“Okay,” Suze said under her breath, finally looking impressed, “whoever made that card was
amazing
.” Then, louder, she yelled, “Hello? Paying customers!”

The Employees Only door creaked open wider, revealing a man sitting in a wheeled office chair. From his ripped jeans, unraveling wool hat, and disturbingly soiled and frayed wife-beater undershirt that matched the general décor (which Matt's home-decorator office mate would probably have labeled Miasma of Despair), I deduced that this was probably the owner of the store. From the long and incredibly detailed arm-sleeve tattoos revealed by the undershirt, I assumed that this was also the tattoo artist.

From the hypodermic needle protruding from the inside of the man's arm and the glassiness of his stare, I could safely state that this man was a junkie of the first order.

“I hope we're not interrupting,” I said automatically. Immediately after the words left my mouth I began mentally kicking myself. Years of Chivalry's pestering had ingrained social inanities that trotted out at the most insane moments.

“Nope,” the man said, and pushed the plunger on the needle. I was relieved to see a look of profound disgust on Suzume's face that matched what I was sure was plastered over my own. “I'll be out in five. Look through the sample sheets if you want.” With no visible change in his deadened expression, the man walked his wheeled chair backward again and closed the door.

There was a significant pause.

“He must have very reasonable pricing,” I offered at last.

Suzume nodded. “And offer discounts.”

Another large binder sat on the counter next to an aged and yellowed cash register, helpfully titled
SAMPLES
. I opened it up and started flipping through the plastic insert pages while Suze prowled behind me, conducting her own investigation with a few muffled sniffs. I'd turned only a few pages before I found what I was looking for, and I gestured Suze over. When she was at my shoulder, we both looked down.