As I spoke, I toyed with the jewel in my pocket. The jewel I had found among rotting foodstuffs and the items from Kurt Campbell’s car, and the jewel I suspected belonged on the spear that Jonah had been stabbed with. I was telling Detective Shuler that I would share everything with him, and yet the jewel stayed firmly in my pocket. It wasn’t that I was playing the police. I just didn’t want to look like an idiot. I didn’t want to explain where it came from, and I didn’t want to deal with the pitying look I’d get from Shuler if I was wrong. I decided, then and there, the jewel was staying with me until I could somehow get a look at the analog spear.
But my prevarications went unnoticed by the detective.
“Just be sure to share them with me,” said Shuler. “And not Maddocks.” He eyed my work with the magnets in front of me. “And for God’s sake, show some respect for Michelangelo’s David.”
CHAPTER NINE
Sure enough, Kurt had heralded my coming, because a great many of the Horizons had arrived to meet me at World’s End Tavern when I logged back in. This was not strictly necessary; I could have spoken to them perfectly well just on the vent server, but even with fake avatars, it’s nice to see who you’re talking to.
Also, they all had scads of glimmering weapons and whatnot, and I suspect they wanted to show off.
There were altogether too many Horizons—more than a dozen of them in the guild—but even though I was pretending just to be an online funeral planner, I really didn’t want to waste my time with folks who couldn’t use the spear. I was looking for a thief, and Kurt had a point. Why steal something that’s useless to you? I had cross-referenced a list of guildies with classes that could use the spear, and that left me with just three names. That’s manageable, right? Tambras—who I’d spoken to already—a human healer named Clemency, and a catfolk Fatespinner named Threadwork. Yeah, I didn’t know what “Fatespinner” meant either.
But as soon as I was in the bar, I was set upon by a Horizon I didn’t want to speak with. Most particularly, there was a giant tree—or I suppose treant—who was easily twice the size of everyone else in the room and had to bend down to get into the bar in the first place. She was all face, this tree—a huge nose made of bark and yellow-green leaves that twitched about as she spoke. And there was no escaping her. She wanted to talk to me, and when a giant tree wants to have a conversation with you, you listen.
“Oh, it’s been so dreadful. We’re all in shock. You’re the funeral planner, yes? I loved Jonah so much, and it’s been such a terrible situation. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
To make the affair slightly more strange—that is, stranger than a greeting from a tree squeezed into a dilapidated bar—the treant—Orchardary, as the letters above her head told me—spoke in a musical Indian American accent. It was a pleasing voice, the sort of voice that made you glad to be speaking on a vent server and not just typing, but I don’t know if I could have picked anything more incongruous.
At first I just sort of stared at her. “Sure,” I said, double-checking that she wasn’t on my list of spear-users. “I’ll get back with you on that.” I could just spot the blue-gray fur of a cat-man sitting at the bar behind her, and musical voice or not, I’d just as soon use my time productively.
“Interesting line of work,” said Orchardary, who now blocked the path between myself and the bar. “How did you stumble into being a online funeral planner? Do you have a website?”
I hadn’t given my cover story a lot of thought. “No,” I said, “I’m more of a friend of the family.”
“Oh,” said Orchardary. “What’s your name?”
Pushy, this Orchardary.
“Dahlia Moss,” I told her, trying still to walk around her, which took some doing because she was wide like a sequoia. “Did you know Jonah personally?”
And Orchardary sort of bobbed at me, as if she thought this question were ridiculous. “He lived in Saint Louis. Who knows anyone in Saint Louis? But I knew him well for never having met him, if that makes any sense. A wonderful man.”
You couldn’t have known him that well, I thought, although maybe I was being bitter about that Saint Louis crack.
“Do let me know if I can help,” she repeated, although now in a more slightly bored tone. I had just finished circumventing her when she took off altogether, not even saying good-bye. She just made like a tree and leafed.
At the bar, not only was a cat-man named Threadwork looking at me expectantly, but suspect number two was there as well, with a drink in her hand. They made quite a pair—she looked like a Pre-Raphaelite beauty dressed for a wedding—lace everywhere and actual flowers in her hair—and he looked like some sort of dapper pirate cat. Puss in Boots, but sexy.
“Oh, thank God you’re here,” said Threadwork, in a voice that I first mistook for sarcasm. “Now we can finally talk about something other than babies.”
“I’ve barely mentioned the topic to you,” said Clemency. She had a voice that was a little huskier than her avatar would suggest. “You’re so touchy on this subject.”
Threadwork picked up a oversized pipe and blew a smoke ring at her.
It was a weird place to enter the conversation, but here I was. I felt like I had interrupted some kind of quarrel—and particularly a quarrel that was none of my business—and so I cut straight to the chase.
“So,” I said brightly. “I’m here to put something together for Jonah’s funeral in Zoth. I was going to ask you for advice—I don’t suppose he had any favorite zones?”
“I love that you don’t open with an expression of grief, or asking about our well-being, whether we’re in shock, that sort of thing. I find your mercenary attitude completely refreshing.” Threadwork’s cat eyes looked at me. I honestly couldn’t tell if he was being genuine or sarcastic.
“Don’t mind him,” said Clemency. “He’s in a disagreeable mood.”
He was right; it probably was bad form. In my defense, they hadn’t seem particularly broken up when I entered the conversation. But my bedside manner could use some rethinking.
That said, Threadwork went on in a tone that was more magisterial than grief-ridden. “Besides which, I don’t know if favorite zones are the way to approach it, my child, because Jonah’s favorite zone was probably the Pit of Yagwath. It would be an extremely distasteful place for a funeral, in that it looks very much like hell.”
Clemency giggled at this. Threadwork, who clearly loved the sound of his own voice, kept right on talking.
“The floor is mostly lava, there are walls of flame, and frequently little red devils scamper about with pitchforks. That’s not even mentioning the sacrificial altar of Alt’thum.”
“The devils are really very cute,” said Clemency. “It’s not like they’re scary.”
“While that’s true,” said Threadwork, “I think it would certainly send the wrong message. Besides, my favorite place is Arby’s—I don’t want to be buried there.”
As Threadwork spoke, his accent drew increasing attention to itself. It was, quite plainly, a put-on. It looked great coming out of his avatar—this great puffy Ian McKellen/Alec Guinness affectation—but its consistency left a lot to be desired. There was something particularly off about “the floor is mostly lava,” which came out a bit less old England and much more South Boston. Still, it was fun.
“Well,” said Clemency. “What about the Zinnia Jungle?”
“Too much foot traffic,” said Threadwork. “And Jonah would have hated it. All those bees!”
“I feel like we should ask him,” said Clemency. At first I thought she was referring to more Ouija board nonsense, but then she explained, “It doesn’t seem real that he could be dead.”
Threadwork was genuine, I think, for a very brief moment. “No,” he said, dropping his accent. “It doesn’t.”
Clemency was about to volunteer another location when I cut her off. The truth of it was that I wasn’t particularly vested in a final resting place of digital
Jonah Long. What I wanted was a spear. Or more to the point, I wanted the thief.
“Also,” I said, stealing an idea from Emily, “Jonah’s parents would like for the Bejeweled Spear of Infinite Piercing to be buried with him. You don’t know anything about it, do you?”
“Are you asking if we stole it from Jonah?” said Threadwork disdainfully.
I hadn’t expected such a frontal assault, so I stumbled a bit. “Me? What? No! Was it stolen? Where did you hear that?”
“Tambras was saying so,” said Threadwork. “Apparently Jonah had been telling new people that it had been taken from him. He never mentioned it to me.”
“Really? I hadn’t heard that at all,” said Clemency. “I suppose it would make sense.”
I couldn’t reconcile why no one in the guild seemed to know that the spear had gone missing. Why would Jonah care enough about it to give a stranger $1,000 to hunt it down but not enough to mention it to anyone else? Jonah had seemed sure that the thief was Kurt—had he been trying to save his ex-roommate from embarrassment?
“Why would it make sense?” I asked.
“Well,” said Clemency. “He took the spear, but we never actually saw him use it. I just assumed that it was because of bad blood.”
“What bad blood?” I asked.
“He ninja’d the spear,” said Clemency. “It was really terrible. We were supposed to roll for it—high number wins—Jonah, Tambras, me, and Threadwork—and before we even roll, he just takes it.”
“Before you rolled,” said Threadwork. “I rolled an eighty-seven.” He could manage a good Ian McKellen impression when he put his mind to it.
“Were you angry about it?”
“Of course I was angry about it,” said Clemency. “And not just the spear—it’s a huge violation of trust. We are a guild; there are rules for these things.”
“I couldn’t care less about the violation of trust,” said Threadwork. “I was just angry about the spear.”
This was interesting and corroborated what Kurt had told me over dinner. But it didn’t put me closer to finding a thief.
“So what do you think happened to it?” I asked.
“Well,” scoffed Threadwork. “Clemency certainly didn’t take it. She’ll be leaving Zoth in a few months anyway—why bother with a memento?”
“I’m not leaving Zoth,” said Clemency.
“Everyone leaves Zoth when they become parents. Look at what happened with Viper. Look at what happened with FuzzyStigmata.”
“Those guys were pretenders,” said Clemency. “I’ll be back,” she said.
I had two reactions to this: One, Threadwork was probably right, and two, Clemency was remarkably unconcerned with defending her innocence. I figured that meant she didn’t do it or at least didn’t care whether she got caught.
“Anyway,” said Clemency. “Threadwork didn’t take the spear, because he couldn’t stand to keep the secret. We would all know that he had taken it in a few hours because he would tell everyone.”
“I can keep secrets fine,” said Threadwork puffily.
“Why does everyone know I’m pregnant, Threadwork?”
“Who have I told? No one.”
“You told this fairy just now!” said Clemency, sounding exasperated.
“I did no such thing,” said Threadwork. “I made the vaguest implication.”
“Guild mates are sending me booties in the mail, Threadwork.”
And as if on cue, an enormous green-and-black beetle scurried up to the table. Perhaps it’s redundant to say that a giant beetle at a barstool is captivating, but it was. The beetle’s carapace was beautiful, boldly patterned with an iridescent sheen, in a schemata that was vaguely hypnotic. But under the carapace it was terrifying, sharp and furry and ominous.
“Congratulations, Clemency,” said the bug in a friendly plain female voice. “I hear you’re with child.”
“Ugh,” said Clemency.
“I had nothing to do with this,” said Threadwork. “I am a blameless vessel.”
Blameless vessel or not, Threadwork was looking to change the subject, and so he asked:
“Perhaps you could discuss Jonah’s funeral with this fairy—she’s putting something together in his memory.”
And I heard a terrible sort of zzzzzzzrrrpp sound, like feedback from a mic.
“oh crap,” typed the insect after a moment.
“What happened?” asked Clemency.
“i dipped my microphone into this champagne glass. by accident. you know how those long fluted glasses are.”
“Why are you drinking champagne?” asked Clemency. Clemency was generally sunny, but you could hear irritation creeping into the edges of her voice.
“to celebrate your fecundity,” typed the bug.
“I didn’t tell her,” said Threadwork, just as Chtusk typed “threadwork told me.”
“Perhaps I may have hinted,” added Threadwork.
“Booties in the mail,” said Clemency again. “I’m getting booties in the mail.”
This conversation was quickly devolving into a sort of friendly bickering that I wanted to escape from. It made me think of an old married couple, or more specifically, Erik, my ex. I had gotten pretty good about not thinking about Erik in the past few months, although my techniques for doing so had involved excising massive parts of my life. But I was punished for thinking of him now, because the game beeped at me. It was a beep that would signal trouble.
CHAPTER TEN
The beep meant an email in-game, which I knew because a little black bird flittered at the corner of a screen with an envelope in its beak. Despite elves, dragons, and a preponderance of mystic portals, there is nothing in Zoth so magical as a smartphone, and when one receives mail, you have to walk it to a mailbox to pick it up.
It wasn’t that I expected the mail I got to be that interesting—very few people at this point knew my username. I suppose my expectation was that it was going to be an advertisement—“Enjoying your first two days in Zoth? Sign up for your next month now and get an extra week free!” Or something of its ilk.
And I had been enjoying my first two days in Zoth. I was feeling downright chipper, actually—it was a strange thing to say about visiting a fantasy world, but the otherworldly climes of Zoth somehow made me feel more like myself. This probably says less about Zoth and more about the sad state of my personal life, but even so. With so much focus on one thing, I had allowed myself to become a Person Who Did Nothing but Fail at Job Interviews, which was no good. Now I was person who was failing at all sorts of things, which was much easier to take. I had diversified my portfolio of failure. Missed clues, a murdered client, and I had been killed in-game by a camel. If nothing else, it’ll give you perspective.
The email was not an advertisement. It was from Atheun—aka Erik, my damned ex-boyfriend. I would have preferred an email filled with wasps. Or that girl from The Ring—I wonder what she’s doing these days? I had entire subsystems dedicated to not dealing with Erik, and this was going to disrupt all of them. I just stared at the letter, refusing to open it but unable to back away. Another new thing to fail at.
The subject heading was “hey,” just like that, with nary a capital letter. He probably put that there just to placate me—with Erik you were likely to get no subject heading at all.
I opened the email, wincing through one eye as I read it. It didn’t take long.
just wanted you to know i wasnt involved. erik
No caps, no apostrophe, and it was missing a “that.” And yet, the damned thing was making me tear up, stupidly. Can you be rational and irrational about something at the same time? It was all so stupid—I knew it was stupid, and yet there was still this part of me, most of me, actually—that felt like it was being crushed. What the hell, right? It wasn’t just Erik that I needed to get over, apparently. I needed to get over myself.
I logged out of Zoth and consoled myself by playing a different video game, one that I actually liked. When enough rude In
ternet boys had been Walrus Punched—this took about an hour of punching, mind you—I came back to the email.
Fortified by Dota, I now had a few questions. Like: How did Erik know RedRasish was me? A lucky guess, possibly, but Erik was not a great intuitionist. And not involved with what? Certainly not that dental hygienist, because he was decidedly involved with her. I was eagerly awaiting their engagement announcement so that I could set it on fire and laugh at the flames.
Still, what was he talking about? Not involved with the spear theft? Well, duh. He wasn’t part of the guild, and as a necromancer, he couldn’t use the spear anyway. Yes, I dated a necromancer for three years. He was good in bed. Sometimes.
Or was Erik saying that he wasn’t involved in Jonah’s death? Did he know Jonah? The message begged for clarification, but I wasn’t willing to reinvolve myself. Besides—and I know that this sounds naive given that he cheated on me for three months while I was living with him—but Erik was nothing if not honest. He never lied to me about the cheating—he just assiduously didn’t mention it. If I had ever asked: “Say, you’re not cheating me, are you?,” he would have folded like a paper umbrella. But I never asked, and he didn’t volunteer. If it hadn’t been for an email from the hygienist, God knows how long that might have gone on.
Redrasish was outside the bar, now sitting cross-legged in front of the mailbox, as I had gone idle. She looked appropriately overwhelmed, which I drew some consolation from. I was still deciding what to do about Operation Erik when Tambras showed up, juggling those knives and looking as snarky as ever.
“Who are you, really?” she asked. “You’re not a funeral planner.”
I’ve glossed over some of the technical details about vent server channels, but I should mention that I quickly moved Ophelia to a private channel. She had caught me deeply unawares, but I was not so lost that I was willing to let other guild mates hear me stammer around.
The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss Page 10
