Death by Chocolate (5 page)

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.

Theodosius saw Braccy and nearly flew across the common room to land on him. For a
moment, Epsi thought he would hug the newcomer. From the dawning, trembling smile on
Braccy's face, he thought the same. He opened his arms, reciprocating the open arms of
Theodosius--and stood there, arms open, while Theodosius descended on the pile of luggage that
came through with him.

"You have got to have a copy of the most recent
Magical Mumbler
,"
Theodosius snarled, after opening half of Braccy's bags and tossing most of the contents out onto
the floor. Epsi was impressed to see Braccy had a valet spell in effect, immediately putting
everything back into the bag as soon as Theodosius tossed it aside. "What good are you, showing
up without it?"

"You didn't place an order with him, did you?" Epsi snapped, and stepped up to put
herself between her cousin and Braccy, who had started to collapse into himself, trembling.
"How was he supposed to even know he'd be put in the same holding dimension with you?
Hmm? Neither of you got passing grades in prognostication class, so how could he know?"

"Epsibellah." Theodosius attempted a smile, which was more along the lines of
straightening the downward curve of his mouth. "How wonderful to see you here, dearest
cousin."

"Sixth cousin, five times removed," she reminded him, and gestured behind her for
Braccy to move backwards. From the shuffling sounds, he was alert enough to notice and
comply. "I've got the feeling the main reason I'm here is because I'm related to you. Should have
surgically removed the connection centuries ago."

Several people tittered or sputtered, and a couple laughed outright. Those were the brave
ones who didn't care if Theodosius knew how much they despised him.

"I'm surprised you're here. I would have expected you to be in the holding dimension
with those who have three strikes against them, not two. After all, you went to the academy with
our late, lamented queen. And you gave her chocolate."

He kicked aside the luggage he had disemboweled, sniffed, and sauntered off to a corner
of the communal living area that looked like he was trying to turn it into a throne room or Mafia
don's office, whichever came first.

"Thanks," Braccy whispered. He caught up the tethers of his luggage when it finished
reassembling itself and levitated for easier transport to his temporary quarters.

"You're just as innocent as the rest of us." Epsi patted his shoulder. She smiled thanks to
several former school chums who gathered around to welcome the timid little man.

"What did he mean, about three strikes and two strikes?" Dulcibella chirped, as their
small group escorted Braccy to the cubicles that were still open for occupation.

"That's the newest thing in this investigation." Braccy gave them all an apologetic smile,
as if he thought the news was his fault.

Epsi felt another flicker of guilt. Braccy and others like him thought everything was
their fault because selfish, power-hungry bullies like Theodosius pounded the idea into their
minds. And also because people like her, who wanted nothing to do with schoolroom fights,
avoided confrontations and didn't think to stand up for the poor downtrodden souls until it was
too late.

"They're sequestering all those who are under suspicion, and ranking them according to
how many marks they have against them. I guess it's logical," Braccy said. "The ones with the
most reasons or opportunities for killing the queen get investigated first. Those of us with less
reason have to wait."

"So the really innocent ones have their lives disrupted the longest?" Dulcibella snorted,
rolled her eyes and shook her head. "That's the bureaucratic mind for you. Thoroughly
logical--backwards, of course."

"So how come I'm not in the three strikes holding dimension?" Epsi asked aloud. She
counted off on her fingers. "Related to ugly Theo, school chum, big boatload of chocolate. How
many of us imported chocolate from the Human realms for our coronation gift? Should that be
counted against us, too?"

"Why would Human chocolate be any more suspect?" Beauregard asked. His voice was
just as resonant and rich as it had been once it stopped breaking.

Epsi had just finished sharing Will and Phill's revelation about carob--and how Humans
used it as substitute chocolate in a ridiculous effort to convince themselves they were being
healthy--when a communication globe shimmered into being directly in front of her. She had two
seconds to read the message that she had visitors and was to report to the visitation dimension.
The next moment, she blinked and found herself in the visitation dimension. It was a good thing
she hadn't been taking a bath or changing her clothes or eating or something else that would put
her in an embarrassing light.

"Harry?" She looked around the room, essentially featureless, with slowly churning
lavender and pink walls and floor, and a conference table and chairs that oozed up from the floor.
She was alone with her three visitors--Harry, and two Fae men who looked familiar in that "I've
met you before, maybe centuries ago in a really, really crowded party" way.

One was dark-haired and handsome, polished in the hereditary advocate style and
wearing the Fae knock-off of Armani. The other wore Army fatigue pants, and a baggy purple
T-shirt with the Tasmanian Devil slavering on it. He had shaggy, dusty brown hair, a beaked nose
and slightly bugged eyes. Despite that, there was something charming and little-boyish about
him that had her smiling as soon as his gaze locked with hers. She liked his slowly dawning grin
and the blue and green and gold sparkles in his big, chocolate-brown eyes.

Right now, she hated all mention or thought of chocolate, but she definitely liked this bit
of chocolate in her life. Not that that made any sense.

"This is my distant cousin, Kevyn. He's an advocate," Harry said, pointing to the
immaculately groomed one as they settled around the table. "And this is his buddy, Guber."

"Guber!" Epsi was so glad to remember him, she nearly leaped over the table to hug
him. It had been years since she had seen him. If she remembered correctly, he had stood up to
Theodosius with some really clever, messily nasty tricks. That made him her hero, even before
the realization that he was probably here to help Harry in her defense.

"He's a tech wizard. Human tech is his specialty," Harry added.

"We're putting together a carob detector," Guber announced, eyes sparkling, his voice
rich, as if this was all a fascinating adventure he was enjoying immensely.

Epsi kept her mouth pressed in a tight smile, to avoid blurting that he had no business
having so much fun when her life and liberty were at stake. It took a few seconds for her to catch
on to what he was saying, and it occurred to her that Harry couldn't have found anyone better
suited to help her with her problem than someone who was totally immersed in all things Human
and tech.

"A carob detector? Can you do that?"

"Better this way than doing it your way," Kevyn offered with a tip of his head.

"My way? Oh--getting sick. Yeah. Not cool." She decided maybe she was on the verge
of being out of her depth, so she should just sit back and let the experts handle the problem.

At least she had someone helping her on the outside.

Kevyn, she learned quickly, might be a relatively young advocate in terms of years of
practice, but his time spent exploring the Human realms had given him a perspective that stood
them in good stead. He specialized in any areas where Humans and Fae interacted, or problems
that resulted from Fae and Human interaction. She wondered where he had been when Maurice
got exiled to Divine's Emporium. Wouldn't Kevyn have been a good one to have on his
side?

The four of them talked for nearly three hours, exchanging theories. Epsi had gathered
up information from some of her fellow sequesterees. Many of them had imported chocolate
from the Human realms, even if they hadn't gone out personally to do the purchasing. Kevyn
liked her theory that maybe some of the suppliers weren't quite reputable and had adulterated the
chocolate with carob for reasons of their own, especially when it came to elaborate shapes, such
as the boat Epsi had ordered. He left them for a while to talk with the investigators' liaisons to
propose the theory and gain access to records.

Then Harry had to step away to the corner of the visitation dimension to take a phone
call. She was thoroughly impressed with him, that he had a cell phone that could take
trans-dimensional calls.

"So, how does this carob detector really work?" Epsi said, when she and Guber were
alone at the table.

"We had to feed it samples of all the different kinds of carob formulas out there, from
the good stuff that passes for gourmet chocolate to the really wretched stuff people think their
dogs like."

"Who would feed chocolate to dogs?"

"The same people who think that dogs actually like things like chocolate and ice cream.
Y'know, if it ain't the real thing, what makes them think it's gonna taste and feel like the real
thing? And why train your dog to want the stuff if the real thing is gonna kill it? That's just
totally loco, know what I mean?" Guber snapped his fingers and a five-dimensional display
globe popped into being with a shower of multi-colored sparks that shifted through the spectrum
as they faded away, and brought a fresh aroma of pine boughs to the air. "Are you gonna be
bored if I show you what it's supposed to do?"

"I don't know. I've never really been into technical things. Especially Human gizmos.
No time like the present to learn though, right?" She decided for all his sleepy looks, Guber was
kind of cute in an adorable, worn-out-teddy-bear way. And she liked that he actually asked
before he inflicted his technical schematics and demonstrations on her.

As it turned out, she wasn't bored. His globe peeled away the layers of the device as he
explained what it did, so she could see the different elements of the process as they worked. It
totally amazed her when she was able to follow what he said. Even better, when something
escaped her and she asked for an explanation, Guber did so without giving her that "you're
supposed to know something so simple, how could you be so dense?" look that a lot of people
gave her when she was much younger.

Long before she was ready to go back to the holding dimension, the disembodied,
de-personalized voice of the monitors informed Epsi that visiting time had ended. She was surprised
to realize how sore her throat was from talking and laughing with Guber. Despite his rather
off-beat appearance, he was up-to-date and informed, intelligent, and had a wicked, sharp sense of
humor. Besides, he despised almost exactly the same people she did, loved the same Human TV
shows, and belonged to several groups that took episodes from their favorite science fiction and
fantasy TV shows and rewrote them to add new characters or fix major logic holes. Epsi had
been delighted to realize there were people who dared to re-invent sacred cows, and wondered
why she hadn't ever tried it. There were dozens of shows she had wished had gone a different
way, after all.

Even better, Guber promised he would bring her copies of his and his friends' stories
when he came back.

"You will come back?" She blushed and sparks that strobed through green to yellow to
orange to red swirled around her head in lopsided orbit. "I mean, I expect Kevyn to come back,
but you don't have to."

"Oh, yeah." Guber gave her a crooked smile. The whites of his eyes turned green, then
blue, then purple in synch with the expanding corona of his blush.

Epsi muffled delighted giggles. How long had it been since she had made anyone
blush?

"I definitely got to come back. I mean, yeah, I could probably get to work with
everything you told me, but... Don't want to leave you alone in there, y'know?"

"Thanks. You guys are the best." She decided not to tell them that there were several
dozen Fae just in her holding dimension, let alone the other two areas designated for different
amounts of strikes against the suspects.

Epsi took a step back, startled at the sudden impulse to hug him. Then she decided,
Why the heck not?
Just to be safe, she hugged Kevyn first, but she held onto Guber three
times longer. He had a decidedly dazed grin on his face as the two of them stepped backwards
and the transportation portal opened up behind them in the wall.

Epsi was still grinning and blushing as she stepped back into the holding dimension. Her
sparks strobed all the way back to purple and blue and green now, and increased their orbits, so
they crashed into each other. Immediately, her companions clustered around her, demanding to
know what had happened and if she had any news of the progress of the investigation.