“Last week… I met an Elf.”

Irene’s car had this peculiar aroma to it. From the moment I’ve entered the front passenger seat, the fragrance pervaded my nostrils and tingled my mind.

I wouldn’t say I particularly disliked it. In fact, the smell was good… perhaps too good. Intoxicating, like I couldn’t get enough of it. In fact, it smelled just like her.

It was arousing. She was arousing.

“If you smell that, ignore it,” Irene said, maintaining her eyes on the road. “You’re one sentence down… Now I wanna hear the rest of the story.”

If she was trying to get me to simply brush it off, it wasn’t working. The smell only seems to intensify with every second. I had to know what it was, it felt like I would lose my goddamn mind if I didn’t. It was driving me crazy – she was driving me crazy!

Thankfully through sheer force of will, I managed to restrain myself enough to calmly ask her about it.

“Is that smell coming from you?”

Irene sighed, and shifted gears.

“Succubus. Roll down a window if you have to – you’ll get used to it. You’re in my car, closed space, it’s only natural… Just try not to assault me while you’re in here.”

The moment I whirred down my window and took in the sweet, sweet breath of fresh air, I started to calm down again, at least composed enough to form another question.

“Succubus? I thought you were a demon?”

“Just how many demon types do you think are there?

“If you had asked me that ten minutes ago I would have said none,” I took in another deep breath. “So you’re really a succubus? What I’m feeling right now… that thing is -”

“Yes, I’m a succubus – yes, you’re probably feeling really horny now – yes, that’s my story. Now can we get back to yours, please?”

“Right, sorry…” I cleared my throat. “So anyway, yeah… last week, I met this Elf in a dumpster…”

It took only ten minutes to recount the story so far to Irene. I told her pretty much everything there was to say. How I met Ash, how she helped sort out my problems, how she suspected vampire involvement in the kidnappings, and how bizarre her appearance was.

When I got to the part about where Ash came from, that’s when we hit a roadblock – metaphorically, of course. Out of all the outlandish things I’ve told her, which, up to this point she accepted without question, this was the one that got her staring at me in disbelief.

“This Ash girl is from a video game?”

It was my turn to be shook, I stared at her with disbelief of my own. “Aren’t you?”

“Don’t know about you, but I seem pretty real to me. If I was from a video game, I think I would have noticed.”

“But… but…” Now I’m sputtering, that’s how befuddled this whole situation has gotten me. “How would you know about the Matriarch, then? Her entire species came from the game.”

“One puzzle piece after another, isn’t it?” Irene shook her head. “Vampires came over from where I did. Kronocia. They’re a subspecies of a race called Elidna. This is a first I’ve heard of a Matriarch passing over to this world though.

Subspecies of a race called Elidna. Now, where have I heard that before?

“The wiki page for the game says the same thing,” I said, pulling out my phone from a duffel bag I stored in the backseat. “Yeah, there it is right there.”

Irene slowed to a stop at a nearby parking lot and took the phone from my hands. She didn’t waste any time in reading the many blocks of texts laid on the screen before her, muttering under her breath as she did.

Meanwhile, I was going absolutely nuts just trying to work out the contradictions in information we were having here.

Ash was from a video game. Irene claims she wasn’t. Ash said Asteria. Irene said Kronocia. A Matriarch had come from Ash’s world, and I believe her on that. Irene said the Matriarch came from hers, and I highly doubt she would lie about something like that.

So just what the fuck was going on here?

“How can a work of fiction have the same description and the same type of species as your world? How is that possible?”

The rumbling of the car engine had died down. Irene had stopped the car.

“We’re here,” she said, flinging the phone back over to me.

“Where’s here?”

I looked through the fogged windshield to find that we were directly across from a small motel that was practically deserted. From first glance it looked as if it was already abandoned, it might as well be, considering appearance-wise it wasn’t exactly five-star material.

“Are you sure you got the right place?” I asked.

Irene, who had already gotten out of the car, merely rolled her eyes at me. “I said I’d find you a place to stay, not treat you like a prince. Get out of the car, let’s go.”

We walked side by side towards the main lobby area, the rotted and decaying wooden door squeaking loudly as we swung it open.

“You got some money for a room?” She asked.

“Really? You’re serious?” I said, staring away at the state of neglect that the entire building was in. “They should be the ones paying me to stay here. I mean, look at that – the paint is practically falling off the wall there!”

“Do you have the money or not?”

“Well, here’s the thing right, I wouldn’t exactly call myself financially stable at the moment, detective.”

She groaned. “Nevermind, forget it, I’ll deal with it,” Her eyes wandered to the side, and spotted a person behind a counter who I surmised to be the manager of the motel. “Wait here,” she told me.

I obliged, so I stood there, watching as she made her way over to him and in the time it took for her to get from point A to point B, I noticed her make some subtle tweaks both to her appearance and mannerisms.

It was a seamless transition the way she did it.

Now, I have seen her march around in my apartment enough times to know that she had this rather disciplined, militarian way of pacing about like she was in a parade or something… not here though.

The way she daintily walked along the hallway, how every step seemed so delicate and brimming with elegance, how her hips swayed so enticingly, it was hard to keep your eyes off her.

Her hair, which before was kept prim and proper in a bun, now cascaded gracefully down her waist in locks of hazel brown. She did the thing too, where you’d place one side of your bangs over an ear, which I’m sure would send any man’s heart fluttering just by the look of it.

And to top it all off, the final touches for a breathtaking view, Irene unclasped two buttons from her uniform, accentuating and drawing much attention to her surprisingly voluptuous breasts.

By the time she got to the manager, he was already red in the face and stammering over his words as he tried to ask her, “C-can I help you?”

In a gaze so sly, in a smirk so devilish, and in a voice so sickly sweet, she answered him, her eyes dazzling red once more.

“Why yes, yes you can…”

“H-how can I – ?”

“A simply tincy wincy little favor,” she said softly, her fingers slowly caressing the side of his face. “You’ll do that for me, won’t you?”

I saw the manager pull at his tie, he was practically sweating bullets right then.

I gulped.

Succubi are damn scary, man…