Free Dragons & Dwarves by S. Andrew Swann

place to get involved in this. You know that.”
    “I know.” Another sigh. “It just meant a lot to me.”
    “Is this Chris a good guy?”
    “Yes,” she sounded surprised at the question. “Of course he is.”
    “Is he a smart guy.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Does he like you?”
    “What are you getting at?”
    “I’m just saying that a good, smart guy who really likes you would, I think, scalp the tickets that you can’t use and save the money for another concert—or at those prices, ten or fifteen movies.”
    I heard her try to hide a chuckle. “I’ll tell him that.”
    “Good.”
    “If you don’t mind, I won’t tell him about the pennies.”
    At that point in the conversation drifted to less critical matters. I got to tell my daughter about all the weird things I was writing about in Cleveland, and I got to hear more about this Chris guy than I wanted to know. At least, more than I wanted to know when I was thousands of miles away from doing spot checks on the guy.
    All in all, though, small price to pay.
    After an hour-long talk with my daughter, I fell asleep dreaming about pro wrestlers named Chris.
     
    Now, the guys who woke me up would not have made the WWF All Stars. Much too scrawny. However, the nine-millimeter Glock in the short one’s hand made up for anything they lacked in the physical intimidation category.
    “Mr. Maxwell,” said the tall one. “I think the time for sleep is over.” The tall one was tall , NBA territory—if the NBA could be conned into holding all their games at the Gund Arena. The guy, all eight and a half feet of him, was an elf.
    I was still waking up, and trying to get the scene to gel into some sort of sense.
    The TV was droning on in the background showing some sort of hyper-testosterone extreme-sports broadcast involving snowboards, dog teams, and a gasoline fire. Elf One, the eight-footer, sat on the edge of my couch, just within arm’s reach—his, not mine. Elf Two, the middle one, stood off to the side where—due to the shotgun design of my condo—he could watch both entrances at the same time. Elf Three, the shortest at about six-five, stood between me and the burning snowboarders, holding the Glock pointed roughly at the half-eaten container of Kung Pao chicken between my legs.
    “Mr. Maxwell?” spoke Elf One. The accent is somewhat hard to describe if you’ve never heard it. Very cultured, soft and breathy, and higher in timbre than it should be coming from someone that tall. An Oxford-educated Jamaican recovering from a blow to the groin. “Are you awake now?”
    I doubted feigning sleep would serve any purpose. I nodded and slowly sat up.
    The trio were dressed in cheap suits that hung wrong on their nonhuman frames. That and the Glock made me think “cop.” Any other elves that would do armed home invasions would have the resources to get their suits tailored, and since the gun probably cost more than the clothes, it almost had to be department issue.
    Elvish cops carried nine-millimeter Glocks because of their biological problem with iron. The mostly ceramic weapon not only didn’t set off metal detectors, but the steel content was small enough to suffer repeated handling by elvish hands.
    Though everyone here, including the guy with the Glock, was wearing gloves.
    “Not that I mean any offense,” I said. “But you mind telling me what the fuck you’re doing barging in here . . .” I almost said, “without a warrant,” the cop smell was so strong. But these guys weren’t flashing badges, and disclosing my suspicions might not be the best thing to do right now.
    “No offense taken, Mr. Maxwell.” Elf One’s face was gray in the light from the TV. Its true color could be anything from powder blue to pastel rose. His eyes were metallic, with no discernable iris or pupil, nothing in them but a slightly gold-tinted reflection of myself. The face was ovoid, too angular and narrow, and surrounded by a mane of hair that—even cut short—was