First thing she said was, "I'm here to kill you." That's how I knew I was in trouble. Not the death threat — that's hardly rare — but the way she said it. Most folks'd say something like, "I'm gonna kill you." But elves can't lie. Not ever. So they also can't make predictions, just in case they won't come true. So this woman, in a blue jacket, blue jeans, and a baseball cap, was probably an elf here to kill me, and that scared me.

Either way, I figure the death threat justified emptying my gun at her. The couple rounds I know hit her didn't slow her down, proof enough of my fears. Then she threw me against the wall of my office. It smashed my framed newspaper mention to pieces, and after it took me three years to frame it in the first place.

"Wait!" I said. "Answer me one question before you kill me!"

"Fine," she said, standing over me. "One question."

"Thanks." I sat up. "Might take a while to think of one. Sixty, seventy years, maybe."

That got me an angry glare. But she didn't kill me, so I counted that as a win.