Elves.

It's always the fucking elves.

Coughing heavily, I heave myself further into the booth, the rattling slam of metal legs sending a jolt of pain slicing up my nerves. I tried to stay away from trouble today, I really did - my first day off duty in months, it feels like, and tucked away in the faux red leather seats at Sally's seemed like just the place where trouble never comes. Yet here they come, the silky purr of some crystal whatever-the-fuck engine settling down outside. Granted, ever since the War finished up, our lot uses their shit too, but this time I can just smell magic in the air.

I have to laugh, thinking about it. Somewhere in the suburbs, those willowy fucks are hit with the tang of ozone and the flat stare of neon lights, holograms stories high, just like their shimmering portals and rippling glades intrude on us, fiddlehead stalks and faerie lights pushing their way up through the cracks in the pavement. Rumor has it they're hooked on our toys more, anyway, slender bodies on ethereal couches convulsing in the grip of LED-laced black, cables twining up to the headsets that promise anything imagined, for anyone, immortal or mortal alike.

"Excuse me. Mister Laszarsky?"

Christ.

It's hard to tell if it's a man or a woman, not that they seem to care - but I'm going to go with she, in my head, given the rain-drenched coat that seems a touch further out in the chest. God knows I've been wrong before.

"I was told you could help me."

I sigh, glancing up and pushing aside my platter of almost-real bacon and grit-laced eggs, a light overhead flickering down onto her silvery hair. It's what they do, really. The magic; it fucks everything up for us. Hell, Sally's probably glitching out now, poor girl.

"Yeah? And what would that be with?"

Shifting my jacket just enough to hide the flash of my badge and the weight of cold iron under one shoulder, I give the girl a long stare. Silvery hair bathed in the ever-changing glow of the billboard outside the window, and unnaturally perfect eyes - violet, almost glowing, her ears like slender knives in the dark. If I didn't know elves, I'd say she's already left her old body behind.

Her lips purse, eyes flicking from side to side as a flush rises in her cheeks. "A murder."

Of course it's a fucking murder. I can't stop from sighing, running fingers through hair that really shouldn't be going grey so soon. She's seen too many of our old movies - the old stuff, the shit they made in the last fifties. No doubt this is some sick game to her, coming down to treat with the mayflies who make all the shiny toys, play a game where there's always that glimmer of darkness in the shining city.

But... something in those incandescent eyes stops me, and I lean back into the booth. Wary, but, as something cold prickles up my spine, just a little bit intrigued.

"Whose."

It's a flat statement, not even a question, as the diner is bathed in blood red, crimson washing through the windows as the advertising opposite shifts to spinning a tale of bedroom synths and finding something real. The girl smiles slightly, thought it doesn't reach her eyes, and she slides soundlessly into the booth across from me, just a hint of a whisper of cloth on skin making my heart beat faster.

"You already know, don't you?"

I do, from the way her motions are just a little too off to be written off as ethereal, the slight tremor in her hands that I recognize from the War, and I don't even need her whispered answer afterward to know I'll take the case. Her words slither through the space between us, quiet and needy, before the world explodes with light and sound.

"Mine-

A cyberpunk noir meets high fantasy - a grizzled cop, an ugly past, and an elven lass who might be anything but honest, colliding head-on with the present and each other as the rain patters on outside.

Kinks: Mystery tales, working in the bedroom possibilities of a strange setting, torrid oral encounters, and, perhaps, butt stuff.

Limits: Blood in the bedroom, all-too-human plumbing, and elven lasses below 180.

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