"Hey, pal, I might say no to you, but I'll do anything for your sweet lady." Guber tipped back his can and took a big swig. He grinned as the carbonation fizzed in his sinuses and the sweet intoxication swept down to his toes. "And maybe if we succeed in this, she'll find another cool chick among her Star Trek friends who'd be interested in me and won't get her brains fried by finding out Fae are real."
"If you're lucky, she'll kidnap you and take you home to study for a few weeks," Kevyn said, and raised his can in a toast to him.
"I should be so lucky."
* * * *
"Safety in numbers, right?" Epsi said under her breath. She leaned back against the wall and watched the friendly insanity transpiring in the community theater building where Lanie's Star Trek club held their monthly meeting.
In the last week, she had made many new friends, thanks to Lanie including her in her ramblings and activities around town. She had met Maurice's Holly and been talked into reading to the children during afternoon story hour at the library. She had tagged along with Lanie's childhood friends, Felicity and Kurt, and Kurt's sweetheart Jane, who ran the local spa. All of them had unusual gifts, and a mutual goal of unraveling the mystery of where they had come from, how they came to Neighborlee, and how they were born with their strange gifts. They also had a bizarre, fun sense of humor and outlook on life, and weren't above using their talents to play nasty tricks on the bullies who ran across their path.
And now Lanie shared her Star Trek friends with Epsi. That took a lot of trust, because they were a wild, slightly crazy, and fun bunch. Take for instance the current activity.
It was a game that remotely resembled Tag and took place mostly in the dark. She gathered that the object was to move around the room as quietly as possible, and for one person to sneak up behind all the others, whisper, "You're dead," and then move on to the next "victim," while the person just tagged would "die" in as loud and as dramatic a fashion as possible. Those who were just slightly more insanely creative than the others managed to take down tables and/or chairs or tumble down flights of stairs when they collapsed.
Since Epsi could see in the dark, and really didn't know how to turn off that particular talent, she elected to stay on the sidelines and observe. Harry, another Fae visiting Neighborlee, joined her while his fiancée, Bethany Miller, participated with gusto.
Epsi reflected that Bethany was guaranteed to have fun. She was part Fae, way back in the past, and part whatever Lanie, Felicity, Kurt and Jane were. That heritage combined to give her the almost unfair ability to move without even disturbing the air. If she hadn't seen the popular young actress stumble over a backpack left lying on the floor, Epsi might have accused Bethany of being able to see in the dark. She was the current "murderer," and she wore an expression of almost unholy glee as she sped around the room, "killing" one victim after another. At this rate, the game would be over before the last ice cube melted in the soda in Epsi's cup.
"Look at it this way," Harry muttered. "Lots of witnesses, lots of defenders. No matter what happens."
"Oh, you're a big help." She turned to him and they exchanged grins.
Finally, someone stumbled over one of Bethany's victims and shouted the ritual call of "Body!" which allowed the few "living" participants to turn on the lights. Epsi giggled with the rest when the living--numbering five--struggled to haul the "dead"--numbering twelve--into the little anteroom of the community building, which had been designated the "morgue."
"You need to appoint a new District Attorney," one of the corpses lying on the floor announced.
"Huh?" Epsi looked over at Harry, asking for an explanation.
"The DA is the only one who can question the suspects, and the Murderer must answer honestly. The DA only gets one question per round," Harry added, while Epsi was still framing her retort that it wouldn't take long to go through the suspects.
"If I didn't think I'd get targeted right away, I'd volunteer," Lanie offered.
Epsi never saw who finally took the job, because she realized Bethany was lying on the floor among the dead, and she was busy trying to process this development.
"Isn't that against the rules?" she whispered to Harry, as the lights were turned off and the group moved back into the main room to continue the much-reduced game.
Someone among the dead made that same comment, when Bethany slipped out of the anteroom.
"Nobody's ever changed the rules to prohibit it," Harry offered. "Oh, great, here they go again. I wish they'd find a new one. It's getting monotonous."
Epsi was about to ask what he meant when the muttering and giggling among the dead turned into humming and then singing. She clapped both hands over her mouth to stifle giggles of her own when the song turned out to be multiple choruses of, "Them Bones, Them Bones, Them Dry Bones." Appropriate, at the very least.
Just then, a communication globe shimmered into view in front of her. She didn't worry immediately because she knew no one but the magically gifted could see it. A moment later that reassurance fled. Considering that she was in Neighborlee, where the weirdness quotient for the town nearly matched the combined level for the surrounding five states, chances were good more than a few people could see or at least sense something.
Epsi signaled the globe to follow her as she slipped out the door and down the front steps, to stand in the front parking lot. Harry followed her, in time to hear the official summons to return to the Fae central Enclave and prepare to be sequestered.
"Sequestered?" he said. "For what? How long?"
"Time is undetermined," the globe's synthesized, unidentifiable voice responded. "All those being sequestered will be unable to use magic outside the boundaries of the holding area, so all possessions that might be needed for a stay of a week or more must be brought in at the time of entrance."
Epsi was as stunned by that limitation on her magic--and the entire concept of having to plan ahead instead of just magically fetching whatever she needed--as she was by the realization that the globe had answered Harry. Usually, official summons globes only acknowledged and interacted with the ones they were sent to.
"You must be pretty powerful," she said, when the globe had vanished.
"It helps to have a whole lot of powerful advocates in the family," Harry said absently. His brow furrowed in concentration, and little fizzing sparks whirled around his ear points, indicating the intensity of his thoughts. "I know you told me about the chocolate and the carob and the whole stupid situation. It's not good that you've got a lot of purple blood--that makes you an automatic suspect. But the fact you're even remotely related to Theodosius, who has to be the top suspect, that's going to count against you, taint the whole thing even though you're innocent. But to be sequestered? They're having trouble already, and it's getting worse."
"But why did they wait two weeks before they sent for me?"
"Two weeks here. Maybe a day back home. Depends on how the time currents are flowing." Harry shook his head as his frown deepened. "I'm going to send for some help. If you don't mind?"
"Thanks. I'll take all the help I can get!" She flinched when he conjured up a small recording globe. Then she understood, and was grateful for Harry's foresight. He had her verbally confirm her wishes, and then press fingertips of both her hands against the globe to record her identity when she named his cousin Kevyn, and by extension all the advocates of Kevyn's bloodline, as her legal representatives.
"Are you sure all that firepower is necessary?" she had to ask.
"When you don't know what ammo the other side is bringing to the battle, it's better to be prepared for global thermonuclear war and have it end up being a squirt gun fight, rather than the other way around."
"Oh. Yeah."
She tried to use his words to comfort her as she hurried back to Lori and Brick's house. She packed up her belongings and scribed a message saying thanks and good-bye to her friends, who were at Playhouse Square that evening. Epsi stepped through the dimensional gate and went home
to gather up everything she thought she might need for the next three or four weeks--just in case.
The thought that she might have over-planned and over-packed was comforting, in a way. She would rather be embarrassed to show up for sequestering with enough luggage for a month's holiday, and not need any of it, than to run out of books to read, music to listen to, and crafts to finish, and then start going stark-raving mad with cabin fever.
She couldn't get the image of global thermonuclear war out of her mind. What if it ended up that all the advocate firepower she had lined up, thanks to Harry's connections, turned out to be squirt guns in comparison to what the governing council of the Fae enclaves brought to the battle?
There had been a lot of trouble from the group that wanted to reinstate hereditary royalty when Theodosius was taken out of office. What would they do now that Mellisande had died? Had they been involved in the poisoning?
That disturbed Epsi, until a more disquieting thought arose and made her feel a little nauseous. She immediately contacted Harry to pass her new theory on to him, and to his cousin, Kevyn.
A new outer-dimensional movement had been rumored for the past century or so, in reaction to the outer fringes of the pro-royalty group. And of course, like any extremist group, they couldn't agree on anything, so dozens of splinter factions with their own ideas for handling the "problem" of royalty among the Fae had emerged. Many of them advocated the forced sterilization of anyone with purple blood, to totally wipe out the chance of anyone re-establishing the throne. More than a few claimed to be more practical-minded: just kill everyone with royal purple blood, and avoid the expense and legal hassle of forced sterilization.
What if those anti-royalty lunatics had killed Mellisande to put blame on the pro-royalty lunatics, and get support for their agenda?
Maybe sequestering all suspects was a defensive move?
* * * *
"Ouch," Guber said, when Harry had finished relating Epsi's situation and her theories to Kevyn and Sophie in their recreation room that evening.
He had writhed a little as the Fae security specialist explained all the details and the little side bars that exacerbated Epsi's situation--getting chocolate from the Human realms, being related to Theodosius, having a strong dose of royal blood, and being a school chum of the dead queen. Guber felt a little guilty, too, over Epsi's situation. He had a chance in basic schooling to settle Theodosius's hash once and for all, and he had tried to be mature and generous and not exercise his rights.
If he had reported all the dirty tricks Theodosius had pulled, including spying and cheating and stealing, maybe he would never have been elected Administrator King. Then he never would have been accused of unethical behavior, never would have been replaced by Mellisande, and she never would have been killed by overindulgence in possibly tainted chocolate from coronation presents she never would have received in the first place. Maybe if Theodosius had been punished and exiled as he deserved when he was younger, he wouldn't be the handicap to his family line that he was now, and Epsi wouldn't be implicated.
Besides, Guber kind of liked her. They had met numerous times, growing up, but because they didn't share the same interests or run in the same circles, they didn't do more than nod and smile at parties and other social events, or when they were invited to each other's distant family celebrations. When he learned that she had resorted to old-fashioned tactics when Theodosius gave her a hard time--popping him in the eye and on the nose and stomping on his foot with spiked shoes--Guber had sent her a bouquet of chocolate roses.
Right now, looking at the recording globe that showed Epsi reciting the entire situation as she knew it, he wished he had followed up on her delighted thank-you note, and spent more time with her. After all, Harry had said he ran into her at a Star Trek meeting. That put her in the top five percentile of women who wouldn't drive him stark raving mad if they were ever caught in a stalled trans-dimensional elevator together.
One big problem to a relationship of any kind: Epsi was an Enclave baby, up until recently. Guber specialized in Human technology, so even if he wasn't hiding from a bunch of lunatics who wanted to keep sliding a throne under his backside, he would have lived almost exclusively in the Human realms anyway. Enclave babies were psychosomatically allergic to realms outside the central Fae realms.
Still, she was cute, and Harry hadn't hesitated to come to her rescue. That said a lot for her.
"Anything I can do to help?" Guber nearly leaped out of his chair in shock when he realized he had spoken. Where had that come from?
"Actually, we could use all the help we can get," Harry said. "Since Epsi's chocolate coming under investigation was made in the Human realms, I'm beginning to think there might be aspects to it that Enclave-only examiners might miss."
"Like what?" Sophie said.
"There's the carob theory that Will and Phill came up with." He sighed and settled down into the far end of the U-shaped seating group. He had chosen to stay on his feet while he delivered his request for help for Epsi. Guber hid a grin and decided Harry was an okay dude, despite being so stiff and bound by ancient rituals that required a messenger to stand at attention.
"Carob theory?" She frowned, eyes narrowing. "You're talking fake chocolate, right?"
"Blasphemy," Kevyn muttered. He snorted, and grinned a moment later when she slapped his hand.
The look they exchanged, teasing and adoring, sent that funny little hot, twisting sensation through Guber's middle. When was he going to find a cool, smart, gorgeous chick like Sophie for himself? She didn't have any sisters or cousins, although her crazy great-aunt, Serena, was interesting. Just not quite to Guber's taste.
Harry hurried to explain how Epsi had been scorched by the fumes from a bag of carob-coated candy when she thought it was chocolate. He listed the different reactions to carob that some Fae had, just like they had different reactions to iron and silver.
"Okay, I get it," Guber said. "Most Fae don't know about carob, just the ones who spend any serious time out here in the Human realms. So you need a carob detector. If the investigation ministers even let us near the warehouse of the queen's gifts in the first place. But it definitely has to be built out here, by people who know what to look for, because it's a given nobody who stays strictly in the Enclaves would have even the slightest clue."
"They'd probably just label it as poison and leave it at that. If we can prove it's carob, and we can definitely prove by time-folding that Epsi didn't know anything about carob until she was nearly blinded by it, then if any was in her chocolate gift, it was an honest mistake and accident," Kevyn said slowly. "Guber, my man, how long do you think it'll take?"
"How many different kinds or strengths of carob are there?" Guber stood and rubbed his hands in anticipation of the challenge. "I'll need to program all the variables into the sensor. That's what'll take the most time. I have enough gizmos in my workshop right now, I can cobble something together in a few hours. That soon enough?"
"You guys are life savers," Harry said.
"Let's hope it doesn't actually come to that," Sophie said.
* * * *
There was no justice in the world. Any world, Fae or Human.
Epsi knew that for a fact because she was in the same holding dimension as her rotten slimebag scumsucking cousin, Theodosius, former Administrator King.
Obviously, no one had impressed on him the meaning of "former," because he had been in a royal snit since the moment she walked into the holding area. She couldn't believe his griping because no one granted him the respect and consideration he considered his due. Obviously, neither had anyone ever impressed on him the fact that being Administrator King meant he was supposed to put the needs and desires and best interests of others before his own.
The current-and-dead queen had been the epitome of what a Faerie queen should be. She spent thirty hours of the thirty-six-hour day tending to the problems and needs of the connected Fae realms and Enclaves, not sitting around demanding
that everyone wait on her hand and foot. Sure, she got the silkwyrm clothes and the bottomless warehouse of chocolate, but she had Fae watching her work whenever she was in the throne room--which was actually a glorified, oversized office. Granted, it was supplied with better-than-average coffee and pastries, and the cubicles had actual doors on them, but basically it was an office.
Yes, most silkwyrms were so backed up in producing the much-desired clothes spun without seams that some brides waited ten years so they could be married in an original silkwyrm gown. But did that make up for the fact the late queen had essentially been in the position of being mommy to a sprawling, multi-dimensional nation of temperamental brats who sometimes couldn't find their own noses to wipe them, and then couldn't remember what a handkerchief was for? Epsi shuddered at the mere idea of knowing thousands of Fae could watch her at work at any one time. She would be too inhibited to get any work done, always worried someone would catch her scratching her hair or her nose or burping or yawning or slouching.
Fortunately, Theodosius barely acknowledged her presence when Epsi appeared in the holding area for suspects. Which, she learned when the next person landed in the holding dimension, was a good thing. Her unwanted cousin could have charged over and tried to paw through her bags and boxes and trunks of possessions to help himself to whatever he absolutely needed for survival and hadn't thought to bring--or more accurately, hadn't thought to tell his servants to pack for him. Epsi found a cubicle where she could stash her luggage, put a magical resonance lock on it so no one but her could get in, and set about to introduce herself to the other occupants currently under suspicion and investigation.
After about three hours, she had made a handball date with her old school chum Pippirella, followed by joining in the book discussion group that had formed. And wasn't it a little depressing that people had been there long enough to form a book discussion group? Then the vortex opened again and Braccadocius stumbled through, looking like he was about to burst into tears. That had been his normal expression as long as Epsi could remember, since they had been in the nursery section of the purple blood school, so she wasn't worried.
Death by Chocolate Page 3