"The question is if offering carob as a possible murder weapon and avenue of investigation would put you in good with the Ministry of Explanations and Investigations, or just put you on the short list of suspects," Will said.
* * * *
Before it left Epsi, the communication globe spat out a tracking band that attached itself to her wrist. It would report her if she tried to leave the boundaries of Neighborlee, either by Human means or by slipping through the dimensions. As if that weren't enough, she had to report every other day to Angela, the proprietress of Divine's Emporium, who had been drafted to act as her monitor. Epsi almost laughed when she heard that part of the conditions of her interim freedom, because Divine's had been the only place she had visited since coming to the little town. Chatting with Angela, who was human, but with enough magic wrapped around her to grant her status and respect among the Fae authorities, would be no problem for Epsi.
As an added bonus, she enjoyed the idea of seeing Maurice on a regular basis. He was from one of the upper echelon families among the Fae, so they had run into each other often growing up. Being shrunk down to five inches tall, with shrunken magic and burdened with glittery, fluttery, rainbow-psychedelic wings had made him a much more thoughtful, sensitive person. He had always been a champion for the underdog--at least, when he wasn't playing tricks on someone. His changed circumstances had just brought out the knight errant qualities in him.
Epsi found it rather amusing, in a bittersweet way, that she could have fallen for Maurice as he was now, in his second year of exile and punishment. However, he was unavailable and totally out of her reach, even if she had gone into Need. Maurice had fallen in love with a young woman who had her own kind of magic; the variety generated by the mind and the imagination. And the fact that she had been living in Neighborlee all her life made Holly the librarian a little higher on the magical endowment scale than ordinary mortals. Epsi didn't know what Holly and Maurice would do if they couldn't finagle things to let the two of them be together forever, once his punishment ended.
She wished them well. When she finally did go home to the Enclaves, maybe she should just dedicate some of her time and energy and connections to doing some research of her own, to help them. After all, she reasoned, this whole mess over the death of Administrator Queen Mellisande had reminded her of her own purple-tinged blood. And that reminded her of just how much influence and "pull" she had, just because of who her ancestors had been. Maybe it was time Epsi used her genetics on someone else's behalf.
"That would be very kind of you," Angela murmured, when Epsi shared her idea the next morning.
The two of them sat in the garden behind Divine's Emporium, perched on the slope above the Metroparks. The big old Victorian house-turned-shop sat at the top of the hill that formed the western edge of town, looking down into the river valley and quarries that had been turned into parkland some time in the last century. Angela's garden was a haven in all weather, but Epsi found it especially glorious now, in the spring.
"Don't tell Maurice, though. Since I'm under suspicion, my having royal blood, no matter how diluted, might work against both of us. I wouldn't want to raise his hopes and then disappoint him," Epsi said, thinking too late to look around to make sure Maurice hadn't flown outside to join them.
"My lips are sealed." Angela tipped her head to one side and that soft, wry smile lit her face. "He's grown up quite a bit since he landed here, and I'm beginning to think he's having a wonderful, maturing influence on every Fae he's encountered so far."
"Is that your way of saying I'm a selfish twit?" She laughed, even as she felt her ear tips warm up. Any moment now, they would shoot off sparks, signaling her churning feelings and deepening her embarrassment.
"Hardly. But I do believe that seeing Maurice in his...predicament...has given others pause for thought. They re-examine their own lives and don't need the harsh lessons he had to learn. Would you have considered helping a mixed marriage smooth out their path, before you met Maurice and Holly? Before you saw how happy Lori and Brick are together?"
"Ummm, no. Honestly, I never even considered the thought. I mean, we're definitely taught that mixed marriages can be good, fresh blood, bringing in Human magic and all that, but I've never met anyone who considered it, until now. Suddenly there's an epidemic of it." Epsi sighed. "If I could find a great guy like Brick, I'd certainly go for it."
"Some people mature faster than others."
"What's that supposed to mean? You mean, like emotionally or something else?"
"That, and other considerations. If you could find your true love, your soul mate, before Need throws you into panic mode, would you?"
"Heck, yeah! I mean, I've seen Need-bonded couples, and they're always happy, so one-mind, sometimes it's scary. But I'm jealous, too, even when I get the oogies over the idea of somebody being inside my head all the time, without conscious effort." Epsi shivered for emphasis. "But then I see people who bonded without Need, like Will and Phill, and Lori and Brick, and I think, maybe it's worth more because they have to fight for it. And I think sometimes, if it was just handed to me, 'the one' picked out for me by powers beyond my control... Maybe sometimes, at the back of my mind, way down deep where I'm not even conscious of it, maybe I'd feel trapped? And then I'd worry if the guy felt trapped, even if he was blissfully happy with me. And I think... I want a guy to choose me because he wants me, and not because some insane spell created by the far-distant ancestors, to ensure effective breeding and total partnership, chose us for each other. Does that made sense?" she ended on a sigh.
"Perfect sense." Angela chuckled and gracefully rose from the swing where she and Epsi had been sitting and drinking iced mochas. "I think you might enjoy talking with Lanie. She's the commodore of our resident Star Trek club."
"Huh?" She followed Angela into the house. "What does Star Trek have to do with Need?"
"Pon Farr. And other alien lifemate-choosing conventions in science fiction. Lanie's brother did a paper on it for his psychology class in college, and she helped him do a large amount of the research, so she knows a great deal herself."
"Talk with a Human about Need?"
"I assure you, Lanie is not your ordinary Human."
"Got that right!" a cheerful voice responded, as the two of them approached the front room where the counter and cash register for the shop were situated. A young woman seated in a sleek, electric blue wheelchair, turned from the counter to face them. She wore cut-offs and a dark purple Klingon Battle Academy T-shirt, "Did I hear somebody taking my name in vain?"
"Epsi, this is Lanie Zephyr." Angela gestured between the two of them as she stepped behind the counter.
"Everything all set?" Maurice fluttered down from his usual perch on the shelf behind the counter, and came to rest on Angela's shoulder. "Lanie was just getting my help plotting evil tricks to pull on her shipmates at the spring rites."
"Spring rites?" Epsi decided if Lanie could see Maurice and talk to him, and Angela recommended the two of them talk about a touchy subject like Need, then she definitely wasn't an ordinary Human. Even without the natural four-wheel drive of her wheelchair.
"My Star Trek club's annual spring picnic. We go out to the quarries and have a treasure hunt and war games among the pits and streams. Maurice suggested a tug-of-war battle with the rope stretching across the river, which is such brilliance, I'm surprised nobody every thought of it before." Lanie tipped her head to one side and narrowed her eyes. "Okay, I know nobody would have a Trek convention in the area without contacting my ship, so you must be another visiting Fae."
"How could you tell?" Epsi glanced at Maurice and Angela for clues.
"The ears give you away big-time." Lanie grinned and raked her long-fingered hands through her tangled mane of dark hair. "What brings you to town?"
"Epsi is house-sitting for Lori and Brick during their honeymoon," Angela said. "I thought the two of you might hit it off."
"Might be fun. I could get the lowdo
wn on Maurice, at the very least. All the deep, dark, dirty secrets he hasn't spilled yet." She stuck her tongue out at Maurice, who responded by shooting a streamer of green sparks that turned her hair and skin green for a few seconds.
Epsi stared, fascinated and a little stunned by the easy teasing between them.
"When are you free?" Lanie continued, not reacting at all as her coloring faded back to normal. "I'm on my lunch break. Got to get back to work soon."
"Epsi's along your route. Why don't the two of you walk together?" Angela suggested. "Don't say it," she added quickly, and shook her finger at Lanie.
"Say what?" Epsi asked, after the two of them had made their farewells and headed out the front door. She had been fascinated to learn that Lanie had some telekinesis. She opened the front door of the shop by "remote control", and used it to slide her wheelchair down the shallow steps of the front porch of Divine's Emporium.
"What do you-- Oh, you mean Angela telling me not to say it." Lanie gave her wheelchair a hard push and glided for a dozen squares of sidewalk as they headed into the center of town. "What she said, about walking together. I usually shoot off a smart-alec remark about 'don't you mean walk and roll?' And that usually gets me a slap on the back of my head or someone groaning or whatever. Since you're new here, she probably wanted to spare you getting your brain bounced around the room." She pushed again, and this time Epsi felt the tingle of power at work that kept the wheelchair going without physical effort. "That's my specialty, actually. Playing with people's minds. I have a regular gig at a local comedy club, doing a sit-down routine." She gave Epsi a sideways glance, obviously waiting for something.
"Sit-- Oh, I get it. Instead of stand-up." Epsi chuckled with her.
"What did Angela want you to ask me about?"
"How long do we have until you're back at work?"
"I'm just a couple streets over, at the Neighborlee Tattler. Maybe ten minutes at a brisk roll. I usually try to get out of the office on gorgeous days like this and zip around town, just to get my blood pumping. How big is this thing she thinks we should talk about?"
"She said you're the expert on alien mating--"
"I learned a little about Need last winter, when Will and Phill were going through their crisis. Is that it?"
"Kind of."
By the time they reached the door of the local newspaper, Epsi had barely begun explaining her mixed feelings about Need and choosing a lifemate versus having one chosen for her, the pros and cons, the happy couples she had seen on both sides of the question. She didn't know whether to be encouraged or worried that Lanie didn't say anything, just listened and murmured, "uh huh," and "okay, makes sense," a couple times.
They made arrangements to meet for dinner at Lanie's house that evening and parted. Epsi decided she did feel better, just getting her concerns out into the open. There were benefits, she decided, in talking to someone who was unaffected by the situation, but who understood it, albeit from a different and unexpected angle. At the very least, she wouldn't have some old auntie or uncle who had gone through the rigors and terrors and ecstasy of Need insisting that his or her personal experience was the only answer or solution or tactic.
She felt so good, in fact, that she ventured into the grocery store and bought enough supplies to last through the end of Lori and Brick's two-week honeymoon, and into the next month. Just in case she was forced to stay in Neighborlee for a long time, while she waited for the investigative team to make its next move. Most of the groceries were chocolate in one form or another, and two twelve-packs of diet cherry cola, but those could be considered medical supplies.
When she came out of the grocery store with her cart piled high with bags, she realized she had a problem. She didn't have a car, and there were too many people moving around the shopping area to simply pop out and teleport herself and her haul to the house. There were all those meddlesome rules established by the Ministry of Invisibility to Humans, after all.
By the time she got home, after having had to duck into the alley where the delivery trucks parked to teleport unseen, Epsi's mood had dropped from eager anticipation to irritation. She treated herself to an entire can of diet cherry cola, and then lay down to take a nap before going to Lanie's for dinner. She hoped Lanie knew enough about Fae to serve chocolate--dark, and in large quantities.
* * * *
"Cosmic," Guber sighed, watching the Bubblemaniac bouncing around the tiny screen of the handheld video game. "How come they didn't have stuff like this when we were kids?"
"Maybe because when we were kids, electricity wasn't even invented yet?" Kevyn kept his head bowed over the pile of papers he was studying.
"Hey, man, you're really boring." Guber looked around the recreation room in Kevyn and Sophie's home, realized he was hanging upside down in mid-air again, and turned himself right side up. "If Sophie wasn't so cool, I'd say being married did it to you."
"It's called being responsible." Kevyn finally raised his head and tipped back in his chair, stretching his arms out to his side. "And it's called being up to my ear points in pro bono work. You thought it was rough being a Fae advocate? Try earning your parallel dimensions JD degree and passing the bar in four dimensions, as well as in the Human realms."
"Why'd you do it?" Guber tapped the screen and it paused the game. Something it normally wouldn't do in the Human realms, but a lot of laws of reality were twisted into knots inside the spell-woven walls of Kevyn and Sophie's house.
"It's the right thing to do." He chuckled and leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table again. "And yeah, because I'm a boring old fogie, now that I'm married and degreed and practicing and responsible. But you know what? It's kind of fun, being responsible."
"Yeah, well, if I had a babe like Sophie looking up at me all adoring and trusting, I'd be responsible, too." Guber thought back to the day he had met Sophie, during a crisis when an academic rival thought she could actually kidnap Kevyn and use him for her doctoral thesis on magic. He sometimes wished he had made a move on Sophie, tried to get her attention and interest. Every time he had that thought, he realized it was a waste of time. Sophie and Kevyn were meant to be together. They were in love with each other long before the fact hit them between the eyes.
"What do you think of the game?"
"Cosmic. So your cousin Glori is into video games now?"
"Her and her husband, Lance. They're devising them with the kids in her daycare. Lance has a talent for stuff like that, now that he's gone through the Changeling process and he's out of the extermination business. What's really cool is the factor built into them to encourage kids who have latent magical talent, reinforce it with subliminal programming, and send out a signal to any Changeling Detection Squad members who might be in the general area. Meaning in the surrounding ten thousand miles. And for the kids who are just ordinary kids, generating the usual magical flow, it channels that energy into a collection grid, for Human realm-dwelling Fae to tap for emergency purposes. It's ingenious."
"So what's the problem?" Guber settled down at the other end of the table and put his feet up on one of the few clear spots.
"Deciding if it's legal. Getting clearance to establish the grid. And the hardest part--setting up a dummy corporation here in the Human realms, along with a fake factory and assembly line and inventory, so whenever they get inspected, they'll pass as the real thing. It's not like you can build such technology in the Human realms without a good boost from magic to get it started."
"Uh huh." Guber grinned, understanding now why his good buddy from their bad old days of running rebellious and hiding from the horrific aspect of growing up, had finally grown up. "You want me to do my thing and try to set up a link between the Fae dimensions and the Human realms, so we can have an actual working factory, and get around all those problems."
"You're the wizard of Human tech."
"Yeah, and I'm also trying to keep a low profile. It really sucks worse than gravity on Jupiter, having to hide from the R
evisionists."
"Did I mention I'm working with a few people who are working on your little problem?" Kevyn grinned.
"Little problem?" Guber shook his head, returning the grin with a wry twist. "It's no fun having a bigger percentage of purple blood than ninety percent of the Fae population in any known dimension. When slimy old Theodosius got tossed, you wouldn't believe how many people tried contacting me, wanting to start up the old saw about re-establishing the hereditary throne. They would have found me, too, if they could have traced the messages that did make it through to me."
"Except you have more rerouting routines crisscrossing through the Ether than a dozen Fae put together." Kevyn snapped his fingers and the refrigerator at the far end of the room swung open, allowing two cans of diet cherry cola to leap out and float across the room, to land on the table in front of each of them.
"Yeah, well, it's a good thing I like being among Humans, and I like adapting the tech." He leaned back in his chair and let out a long, deep sigh. "So I'm kinda not all that thrilled about getting involved in a project like this, no matter how cool, if it might give people a hint how to find me."
"How about legislation being processed right now, despite the death of Mellisande, legally and magically divesting you, and everyone else descended from the former royal family, of your purple blood status?" He barked laughter when Guber fumbled his can and got some liquid up his nose.
"You can do that?"
"Bureaucracy can do almost anything, even if--especially if--it's totally illogical. We technically erase all the legal records, overwrite the historical documentation, and change the registration of the genetic code. Once that's done, it doesn't matter how many samples the Revisionists get from you and anybody within ten generations of you--you're not royal anymore."
"Man, the things you'll do to get me to run some tech for you." He held out his can and the two friends tapped rims in salute.
"Besides." Kevyn shrugged and offered a lopsided grin. "Sophie thought of bringing you in to do the flim-flam for the video games, so even if you said no, I was duty-bound to talk you into it anyway."
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