by Rick Ellrod
“Right. I’m going that way myself.” They rounded a bend and the view opened up in front of them. Ahead was the Tobago River; the city sprawled on the opposite side. The road took them down a slight slope, and across the bridge.
“Not the best side of the city we’re seeing,” Dana said. “Or is it just the dreary light?”
“No, this area’s gone downhill in the last ten-twenty years.” Traffic was heavier on this side of the river. Jeff paused a moment to concentrate on avoiding lunatic drivers. “Okay, can you see what exit you need to get off on?”
Ten minutes later, Dana said, “Here. We want Post Road south. Hope I’m not taking you too far out of your way.”
“Actually, I was going to get off at this exit anyway.”
“Oh—convenient. Where does your friend live?”
“Kennington. That’s out Route 25—you take Post Road about a mile and a half…” Jeff turned down the exit ramp.
Dana’s eyebrows drew together. “Really. That’s where I’m heading, too.”
“You are? What part of Kennington?”
“Just beyond the park,” she said, consulting her GPS again. “You turn into Rockwell Glen…”
Their routes matched too closely for coincidence. A wild conjecture possessed Jeff. Pendragen had implied Jeff was the only guild member he was sending on this mission—or had he? Jeff abruptly pulled over to the curb and braked the car to a stop, then turned to face Dana. “Where exactly are you going?”
“Hey! Next time give me a minute’s warning.” She gave him a startled glance. “What’s it to you?”
“Uh—We’re getting pretty close. I should know where I’m dropping you off.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “Okay. 4355 Jasmine Street. Going to see one Garth Rogan. Close enough for you?”
Jeff fell back in his seat with a whoosh of expelled breath. “Close enough. So am I.”
She gazed at him suspiciously. “Sure, right. It makes perfect sense. You just happen to be dropping in on the same guy?”
“Not exactly happenstance.” Jeff rubbed his face with his hands. If they were really here for the same reason, then who was she? He had an awful feeling he knew. “A mutual friend asked me to look him up. Where do you know him from?”
“You’re very curious all of a sudden. Where did you meet him?”
He sighed. “An online game.”
Dana jerked upright as if an electric current had transfixed her. “What do you mean? Uh…what game?”
Jeff whistled the first few notes of the Heroes’ Calling intro music. “Sound familiar?”
“No! I mean, yes, but—Pen, the rat, he didn’t tell me anyone else was coming!”
“Pendragen didn’t tip me off either.” He looked her in the eye. “Who are you?”
Her eyes were huge. “Rosmara. And who are you?”
“You can call me…Badon the Brave.”
****
She sagged back against the seat. “You can’t be!”
The immediate response stung. “Why not?”
“Well—Badon is—You’re not—You’re not anything like him.”
Jeff tilted his head and frowned at her. “So you say. And how do I know you’re Rose, for that matter?” What was he supposed to be missing in person that made him so unlike Badon? Other than about a hundred pounds of muscle and mayhem, of course. Surely Rosmara knew him well enough to see through the physical difference. But…now that he thought about it, Dana was pure Rosmara, wasn’t she? Her brisk manner, the suggestion of a swagger in her walk, the sure self-assurance she wore…most of the time.
“Oh, you’re making this up. Did he put you up to this? Pen asked you to come, too, and you got Badon to—” Dana pushed herself back against the door, as if trying to inch further away.
“Oh, no. That would be the easy answer.” How could she know he was who he said he was—and vice versa? “Let’s see. You remember when you went to the barber shop and had Rosmara recast as a redhead? I said I liked her better as a brunette. And by the next session she’d reverted to the original color.”
There was a hint of pink in her cheeks. “Uh-huh. Did he tell you that?”
“I never told anyone that. It was just between us.”
“That’s what I thought.” She paused, gnawing her lower lip. “And when we were trapped in the Cloister of the Blue Death, I said it reminded me of my hometown church…” She waited.
“And I said it would be a good place for a wedding, if it weren’t for all the zombies.”
She shook her head as if to clear it. “My God, it does fit. All that ancient history. Badon was supposed to be named after some kind of battle in King Arthur–”
“The battle of Mount Badon,” he said. “Possibly a real place where a historical Arthur fought.”
“But Badon doesn’t lecture like you do. He doesn’t sound like a professor.”
“Have you ever tried to lecture in a hundred-twenty-eight-character chat box? In the middle of a fight?”
He stared at her, trying to put the dashing rogue he knew online together with this no-nonsense mechanic. To be sure, Rosmara was pretty no-nonsense, too. But he had never thought of her as anything like this slim, deft, decisive girl. Or had he? Didn’t that describe Rosmara to the inch? Was it just that his inchoate imaginings about Rosmara’s player had never crystallized into a definite mental picture at all?
“I can’t believe it,” Dana said, staring out the windshield. Then she turned back to him. “I guess I have to believe it. You’re Badon of the Northern Lights Guild.”
“One and the same.” He tried out a wry smile.
“I suppose Pendragen asked you to come and see what was wrong with Rogann and Evanesce—Garth and Renee—too?”
“Right. He hasn’t been able to reach them by phone or e-mail.”
“And that’s where you’re going.”
“Where we’re going, it appears.”
She rolled her eyes. “I guess we’re stuck with it.”
****
Dana stood two careful feet away from Jeff on the doorstep as he rang the bell. She was trying fervently to remember exactly what she had said, how far she had gone, talking with Badon online. Would Jeff expect her to, well, flirt with him the way she did with Badon? It wasn’t fair if he supposed she’d exchange provocative remarks with any guy just because she had talked that way, very mildly really, with Badon. But no, wait, it was Jeff she had been flirting with when she chatted so breezily with Badon. Her head was beginning to hurt.
The man who opened the door was in late middle age, with greying hair, a slight stoop, and a weary face. His eyebrows rose slightly at the sight of two strangers on the porch of his neat suburban home. “Can I help you?”
Dana relaxed a little. This had to be Rogann, alive and well.
Jeff’s inflection made it a question. “We’d like to speak to Mr. Garth Rogan?”
“Yes, I’m Garth Rogan.”
Jeff reached out to shake hands. “Mr. Rogan, I’m very glad to see you. We’ve met before, but not in person. My name is Jeff Stanton. But you’ll remember me as Badon, from Heroes’ Calling.”
The eyebrows rose all the way. “Oh. I see.” Rogan seemed to make an effort to focus. “And you would be—?”
“Dana Roland,” she said, “Rosmara.”
“Well. I hadn’t expected—Do come in.” Rogan shook hands with Dana as well, then showed them into a comfortable, sedate living room.
At Rogan’s gesture, Jeff sat down on a beige-striped sofa.
Dana perched on the seat of an armchair. She felt embarrassed. Now that they were here, with Rogann obviously alive and well, their concern seemed a bit silly. And she was still trying to get her head around the fact that Badon the Brave was the earnest young Professor Stanton.
Jeff took the initiative. “Mr. Rogan—Garth—we don’t want to intrude, and we appreciate your letting us talk to you, arriving without warning like this.”
The ice being broken, Dana
found she could speak. “Pendragen, the guild chief, asked us to come and see you. We weren’t sure you were okay. We hadn’t heard from you or Evanesce—Renee—in a couple of weeks. He said he wasn’t able to reach you by phone either, or e-mail. So we were getting worried about whether something had happened to you.”
“You were?” Garth Rogan sat opposite them in a light-colored chair with mahogany legs. He ran a hand through his hair. “You haven’t heard anything from either of us, for the last two weeks?”
Dana frowned a little. “No, that’s what I was saying. None of us have.”
Jeff said, “Forgive us if we’re imposing, but we just wanted to make sure everything was all right.” He smiled. “It’s against guild rules to leave a comrade in the lurch.”
“Ah. I thought—I hoped—” Garth stared at them, one after the other. His shoulders slumped. “But I must have been mistaken.”
“Mistaken about what?” Jeff shifted in his seat.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter.”
“Is Renee here?” Dana asked, hoping to change the subject. “I’ve always wanted to meet her.”
Garth’s eyes shifted away. “Ah. Actually, no, she’s not. That’s why—you see—I guess I might as well tell you. She’s run away.”
****
Garth was a middle-aged man trying to explain a teenager’s attitudes, and making heavy weather of it. “It’s been harder since her mother died, but in the last couple of years she’s gotten really withdrawn. I guess it’s pretty typical for a seventeen-year-old…”
“Pretty much.” Jeff sounded diplomatic. “I see a lot of them about that age.”
“She was all right sometimes, but she spent a lot of time listening to edgy music, on Web sites she didn’t want to share, chat boards she didn’t want to talk about.”
“That must have been about when she took up Heroes’ Calling.” Dana tried to remember whether it was before or after she had met Badon—then castigated herself for being diverted by irrelevancies.
“Yes. It turned out to be something we could do together. Of course I wasn’t on as much as she was.”
“Was she playing too much?” asked Dana.
“No, it wasn’t that,” Garth said, rubbing his forehead. “I wasn’t sure at first about the people she was playing with. There was a guild called Night Stalkers…”
“I remember them.” Jeff nodded. “A sketchy bunch. Gankers and griefers.”
“You do get some sleazy types online.” In the interest of fairness Dana added, “Like anywhere, I guess.”
“When we signed up with Northern Lights, I was relieved. You people actually seemed like a good influence.”
“Thank you,” Jeff murmured.
“But of course I didn’t really know any of you.” Neither of them ventured a response. After a moment he went on. “She kept playing, but after a while she resented having me tagging along.”
Dana nodded. She had picked up on that point.
Garth’s shoulders were slumped now, forearms resting on his thighs, hands hanging limp. “I let her go on by herself a lot, just to keep from being too pushy. I thought a video game was at least safe.”
“What happened?” asked Dana gently.
“She got involved with other people. I think now it must have been at school. Through some of her school friends, anyway. Gothic types, a lot of makeup, dark eyes, tattoos.” He paused a moment, thinking. “They always seemed to be angry about something. But I could never make out exactly what. She started seeing them elsewhere, at parties, at friends’ homes…” He trailed off.
They waited. After a moment Garth resumed. “About two weeks ago she went out for the evening and didn’t come back. She left a letter. I have it around here somewhere…” His eyes searched the room vaguely. “She said she was going to go live with the ‘Thalemanni.’ I don’t know what she meant by it.”
Dana sat up straighter. “It’s a game reference. The Thalemanni were people we met on the Bloodgem Makers quest. Humans, I think.”
Jeff nodded. “I think you may have been out for that one, Garth. Evanesce was along, though.”
“Ah.” Garth stared blindly at his hands. “Maybe it meant something to her. Not to me.” He shook his head. “I tried everywhere I could think of. Talked to her classmates’ parents. Her skaters’ group. I went by cafes, shops, places she liked to go. Nothing. Nobody’s talked to her since she left. Nobody will say they’ve seen her.
“The police talked to people, too. They sent out alerts, but there are so many missing children…I went all over town and put up posters.” He waved at a stack of large sheets on an end table.
“I even tried searching online. I thought, she must still be playing, somewhere—she was so into Heroes’ Calling.”
Dana said, “How come you didn’t ask us? We would have helped.”
Garth did not meet their eyes. “I didn’t—uh, I didn’t know who I could trust. I said some of the gamers were pretty unsavory types. But how much did I know about anybody in the game? For all I could guess, any—anybody we knew might have been—well, in on something. Stalking. Kidnapping.”
Jeff looked startled, then outraged for a moment. “Well, I understand what you mean.”
Garth gave a harsh laugh. “I didn’t want to tip anyone off. I made a new character, someone nobody would know. I checked the different regions for Evanesce, or her alts. I never saw any of them. I went to game places she knew, hunting for a character that might talk like her, or act like her.
“I got Kirk’s messages, yes. But I didn’t dare answer. If he was—If whoever was hiding her knew what I was doing, I’d lose what little chance I had.”
“We know Kirk well enough to know he wouldn’t do anything like that.” Jeff’s expression was carefully neutral, but there was censure in his eyes.
“I suppose you’re right. When you showed up at the door—I don’t see why you’d be here if any of you had Renee.” Garth scrubbed at his eyes. “Pardon me. I haven’t been getting much sleep.”
Dana hated to see the man so distraught. She tried to think of anything else to suggest. “Did she take her cell phone with her?”
“I think so. But she left the charger here.” Garth grimaced. “I don’t think it’s working. After all the going around the barn and back with the cell company trying to get them to cooperate—Kelsey’s Law—they couldn’t find the phone.”
“Can we see her picture?”
“Oh. Of course. You wouldn’t have seen what she really looks like.” Garth got up heavily, took a pair of posters from the stack, and handed them to Dana and Jeff.
Renee would have been attractive had her expression been less sullen. Her eyes were dark, skin tanned or darkened. Beneath her fair hair hanging forward she was wearing large black earrings. At the edge of her shoulder part of a tattoo was visible.
“Take them with you.” Her father’s voice trembled, and he rubbed his eyes. “Take more if you like. I’m starting to feel like there’s no point. She left, and she isn’t interested in coming back.”
Jeff’s brows rose with sympathy. “I’m sorry to have made you talk about this. I know it’s hard. But we needed to know what was happening.”
“And if there’s anything we could do. We’ll give you our numbers and addresses. I don’t know how we could help,” Dana’s voice wavered a little, “but if we can…”
Garth shook his head wearily. “Thanks. But I’m out of ideas. I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do.”
Chapter 6
By unspoken agreement they wanted to be back out of Marien before the overcast dusk turned into night. They paused only briefly to pick up fast food before getting back on the road. Jeff glanced at the lowering sky and turned his attention to the traffic, still heavy on the part of the highway running through the city.
“You’ve heard of this Goth style, or mind-set, or whatever it is.” Dana inspected a hamburger soberly and bit into it. “Do you know what Garth was talking about?”
“A little. They call it ‘acid’ these days.”
“You mean drugs, like the ’60s?”
“No, this is something else. Acid, as in a corrosive substance that destroys normal things. It’s another variation on angry-young-personhood, or nihilism, I suppose.” He pulled around a car poking along in the middle lane and picked up speed again. “Personally, I always thought it has a lot to do with resenting your parents, or their lifestyle, or their dull everyday habits. If you can make it into an ideological disagreement, it seems a lot more grown-up. And dramatic.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. So these folks favor breaking off from your family, running away?”
“I’m not an expert. But I have the impression acids think it’s more real to go off and live with people who share their beliefs, or at least their attitudes.”
Dana sighed. “I wish we could do something to help.”
“I suppose we could try spreading the word to everyone we know in the game. Our own personal Amber Alert. But people are so scattered geographically it probably wouldn’t help much.”
“I don’t know if Garth really wants us blabbing this all over the Internet, even if he was willing to tell us.”
“I knew there was something else we should have been asking.” Jeff frowned, annoyed at himself. “We didn’t find out who we should tell. Well, we’ll have to say something to Kirk, at least…”
Dana sat up straight in her seat. “Jeff, get off here.”
They were almost upon an exit ramp. Jeff jerked the car onto the ramp and stamped on the brakes, the engine coughing at the abrupt change in speed. He checked belatedly to make sure there were no vehicles bearing down on them, straightened the car out and said, “What’s up?”
“This exit–” She pointed up at the exit sign. “Crystal Port, it says.”
“Yes, it’s a fairly seedy district nowadays, down by the river. Wait a minute–”
Dana was nodding. “It was ‘Crystalsport’ on the Nairn River where we fought the Thalemanni. They were pretty dark and edgy, too. Think that connection would have occurred to Renee?”