Forest Moon Rising (43 page)

I left Sean in front of an array of used classic SF books and movies. Starshine’s crystals and minerals brightened the back corner. She’d turned on mini black lights to make some of her specimens glow.

On close inspection I could see fading bruises beneath her heavy makeup. I’d never seen her wear makeup before.

Her eyes darted about, warily searching every shadow.

“Oh, hi, Tess,” she greeted me in a lackluster whisper.

“Starshine, I need you to know that a certain object is safe,” I replied cryptically. “And the men who tried to take it from you are also taken care of.”

Her face brightened a bit. “You’re the first to know that everything on the table is half price after noon tomorrow. I could give you the discount a little early.”

I raised my eyebrows in mute question.

“This is my last show. I’ve sold the business. Retiring.”

“I’m sorry. I know you love working with the minerals. Who bought it?”

“Her.” Starshine pointed to a tall woman, dressed in flowing red draperies that disguised her broad hips, striding gracefully toward us. A white streak ran from each temple the full length of her long black hair flowing down her back. No neat chignons or twists today. No business attire either.

She looked more natural, happier, and . . . beautiful.

“Doreen Cooper.”

“You know each other?” Starshine asked. She slithered back behind her tables and off to one side, leaving the gap between them open for Doreen.

“Her brother was my deceased husband,” I said.

“So that’s why she entrusted the artifact to you,” Starshine said.

“Yes. How do you two know each other?”

“We met at a flea market where we both tried to buy that artifact,” Doreen said. “Starshine got to it first.” She swept past me, her gaze taking inventory. I was sure she knew to the penny the exact value of each item and the total.”

“Semiprecious stones and minerals are a bit out of your usual merchandise, Doreen. Dill would have loved them though.”

“I got bored with furniture.” She turned defiant and angry eyes upon me. “I got tired of working for the parents rather than managing the business so they could retire. I got tired of working with the rather questionable employees they took in from . . . from homeless shelters in the forest. And their sons and friends.”

I didn’t flinch, much as I wanted to.

“This won’t be nearly as lucrative,” I hedged.

“I won’t need the money. Donovan Estevez and I are getting married on Thanksgiving Day.” She flashed a large but ordinary solitaire. Easily two carats in a simple setting that demanded one look at the stone and only the stone.

The antique ring Donovan had offered me, the one I’d sent back to Faery where it belonged, had a stone just as large, square cut, surrounded by an elegant filigree. That ring demanded one look at the whole and gape in awe at the beauty and power contained within. The stone and setting belonged together, were incomplete alone.

So that’s why he hasn’t been sniffing around lately
, Scrap giggled.

Did you know about this?
I asked him.

A week. The night I asked him to forge birth certificates for the girls. True to form, Donovan hopped into bed with someone else the moment I rejected him.

Or he was already in bed with her.

“Get a good pre-nup from him,” I warned Doreen.

“Done. I drew it up. No loopholes. He stays faithful to me or he loses half of everything. And if I die in unusual circumstances half of everything he owns goes to our children in an unbreakable trust with my surviving brother as executor. If he predeceases me, you are executor. Neither of us wants to tangle with you.”

“Sounds like you don’t trust him any more than I do.”

“I trust him to be who he is and loyal to his own best interests. He’ll grow out of his teenaged self-absorption sooner or later. He’s still a good man at heart.”

I saluted her. Not a bit of jealousy ate at my bones. In fact, I felt enormously relieved. Maybe now Donovan and I could be friends without the sexual tension that had brought us together in the first place. I trusted him with my life, just not my heart and soul.

“I hope Donovan is here at the con to support her and not for his own agenda,” I whispered to Scrap. Donovan’s agenda always revolved around finding a home world for half-breed demons, like Doreen.

A
T THE BOOK DEALER, I succumbed to a signed first edition of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s
Mists of Avalon
. I’d read it, of course, had a trade-sized paperback of it around somewhere. But a signed first edition hardcover of this classic couldn’t be left behind for someone else. It made a dent in my revived checking account, but nothing too serious.

Strangely, Sean passed up a number of out of print classics I suggested for him. I hoped his passionate reading hadn’t waned.

“Do you need time to prepare for your panel?” he asked as we wound our way out of the dealers’ room.

“Not really. I’ve presented workshops on the topic before. I have good co-panelists. We’ll wing it.”

“But isn’t that unprofessional?”

“That’s the physician in you talking. This isn’t a major research presentation. Though Gollum will come prepared with reference books, illustrations, and possibly a power point presentation. A con is casual and unrehearsed. It’s more about spontaneous fun than serious education. Lighten up, Sean.”
And let me think about Sophia.

“Okay,” he said reluctantly. “Let’s peek in on the girls. We want to make sure they are safe.”

“The girls are safe. And having fun.” A little bubble of mirth behind my heart told me that. “But I’d like to make sure I know where the gaming rooms are and who they are with.”

Teenagers faced human predators as well as demons.

My link led me unerringly to the three connected rooms at the end of the conference wing. E.T., her new friend, Adam, and another girl slightly younger occupied stools in front of a computer terminal. Each of the kids had a game keyboard in front of them. Gone were the simple joysticks of my youth. Now they needed a full array of high-tech remotes.

Phonetia was a little more difficult to locate in the midst of an intense board game filled with multi-sided dice and arcane figures. With her head bent in concentration, she blended in with all the others.

How could she figure out complex dice combinations in moments but still be puzzled over simple numerals and addition problems?

Funny, I’d never noticed the green streaks in her hair brought out by the fluorescent lights. Or maybe her intense concentration thinned the boundaries between her human body and her native guise.

Something to remember. E.T seemed to have embraced her humanity a lot more readily than her older sister.

I wondered if Phonetia needed to maintain a bit of dark elf in her makeup to justify to herself the sexual abuse she’d endured. Elves didn’t consider it wrong. Humans did. E.T. hadn’t been sexually abused by the Nörglein or his tattooed minions. Yet. She approached puberty rapidly. I’d gotten her out just in time.

“Okay, time to check in to the Green Room to see if my other two panelists are there before going to the programming rooms.” I dragged Sean away from a fascinated study of the gaming process.

Should I leave him there?

“I find this counterculture amazing,” he said, holding my hand as we trekked back the way we had come. “To think I never knew it existed right under my nose.”

“A lot like the Kajiri demon culture. It’s out there in the least expected places, alive and thriving, though very few even believe it could exist and turn a blank eye when they do see it.”

As we passed the garden café I noticed a familiar figure engaging Lady Lucia in conversation. Squishy, or Pat, the psych nurse. And beside them, her elegantly frail companion played peek-a-boo with Sophia.

“Um, maybe we should just go straight to the programming room. The other panelists will find us.”

“What’s wrong, Tess?”

Sean looked suddenly alert, scanning the knots of people for signs of trouble.

“Someone I don’t want to talk to just yet.”

“You sure?” He looked at me with concern and affection.

“It’s okay. A personal difference of opinion that has nothing to do with my problems with the tree boys or their father.”

As long as my babe takes her time wandering through the courtyard I can run interference and check in with my spies.

“Report,” I demand of the parrot.

“Awk, all quiet. All quiet. Only humans. Two, tall enough to perch on. Smell like humans.”

“Gotcha.” I spot the pair wearing stilts. “Keep your beak looking for anyone that smells like a plant.”

“Awk, lady left got roses on her skin.”

I fly over to the wide female swathed in about ten yards of Gypsy red and purple with bells and beads and bangles all over her hips and head. Nothing weird in a demon way about her. Just con member normal weird. She’s got a perfume that fills the air with the scent of roses in a ten-meter aura.

More than one sensitive nose explodes in cascades of sneezes as she passes.

Mine too. I’m surprised the parrot hasn’t developed sinusitis.

Time to check in with the black pug wearing the lovely harness accessory. She wiggles her entire body in ripples of skin from tail to squashed nose. I wonder if she can smell the artificial roses through her wheezes and snorts.

“Report!” I bark at her.

She yips and wiggles some more.

“No one I want to widdle on,” she sighs. “But I could use a walk on that nice patch of grass around the arena. My leash won’t stretch that far and my person is too interested in flirting with the Klingon showing too much cleavage to notice my needs.”

“No problem, friend.” While her person, a slender man wearing a shapeless and sagging stretch shirt that’s supposed to look like a TV spaceman’s uniform, has his eyes superglued to the alien’s boobs, I untangle the hot pink leash from his belt clip. It’s barely looped in a slip knot. The stupid dog stops tugging at the first point of resistance. She doesn’t realize that a bit of a yank would release it.

It takes me a bit of manipulation to come into this dimension enough to wiggle the knot. Then I slap the dog’s wrinkled butt. She dashes toward the grass and shrubs in their redwood tubs.

With an audible sigh of relief she squats right beside a spindly tree in a redwood tub. It’s trying to imitate a Norfolk Pine but looks a lot like a grand fir sapling.

A distinctly human foot extrudes from the trunk and kicks the dog away. She yips and scoots back to her person, tail between her legs. As much as a pug with a cropped tail can drop her appendage. Her person greets her with an admonition for obedience.

The dumb dog cowers against his leg, accepting his reprimand gladly.

I flit up to Tess’ shoulder and whisper in her ear.

She whirls to return to the gaming rooms.

“Not yet, babe, let them call you.”

“That may be too late!”

“Let them learn to trust you a bit. Hey, where’s the boyfriend?”

“Sean went back to look at books. The folklore panel doesn’t really interest him.”

Huh? I understand his fascination with books, the way he read through Tess’ list so quickly. But not interested in folklore? Half of what SF/F is about is folklore.

“Let me circle about and see what’s up.” I hadn’t told her that for a while I had to keep her in sight.