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with a sigh. She was skinnier than the girl who'd been commiserating with the
"killed" Hunter was dressed about the same. "But she's so uncool it's, like,
crazy making! I had tobeg to get the car tonight and she wanted me home byten
. I mean, nothing evenstarts until midnight. And she wouldn't let me use the
Beamer, I had to bring theVolvo ! But with it snowing like it is, she told me
I could stay over night."
"We all have our problems in life," Timson said, grinning.
"Are you all . . . teenagers?" Barbara asked.
"You mean living at home?" Timson asked, raising an eyebrow. "Most of the
kids at the con are. I'm out of the house, though. I do survey work for a
cable company."
"I go to Virginia Tech," one of the other boys said. "I'm taking computer
engineering."
"I'm going to college next year," the girl next to her said. "I can't wait to
get out of the house."
"Wait until you have to work for a living," Timson said, grinning. "School
sucks so you're prepared for real life."
"You don't like your job?" Barb asked.
"I like it enough," Timson said, shrugging. "It pays the bills. But if I had
my druthers I'd con all the time."
"Thisis real life," one of the boys said, sighing. "We can be ourselves,
here."
"We don't have to deal with stuck up sorority bitches," the college boy said.
"Or professors."
"Try dealing with cheerleaders," the girl said. "I'm sorry, black reallydoes
go with anything,thank you."
* * *
"That was a . . . weird group," Barbara said after they'd left the room and
the group behind. "You really enjoy playing . . . that game?"
"I think of it as training," Janea said. "And Iwas one of those kids when I
was in school. I was the geek in the library with the glasses; I didn't really
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start to bloom until much later. But I'd never heard of cons or Larping or the
rest of it." She frowned and shrugged and Barb realized that she knew a lot
about the people she'd met at the con, their lives and backgrounds. But she
really didn't know much about Janea.
"I suppose you could think of it as training," Barbara replied. "But should
your hobby be this close to your job?"
"I enjoy it," Janea said. "And some of the kids are really bright. I've had
good discussions about the occult with them. You should probably hang out with
them more. Of course, some of them are better than others. Timson's brilliant.
I don't know what he's doing stuck in that job of his. He never finished
college, though. He was working on a degree in anthropology but he said it
just got too boring so he quit. He's one of the ones that can talk about the
occult all day and night. I mean, he knows the sixty seven names of the known
daevas and each of their special powers. He can even read ancient Persian as
well as Aramaic, Greek and Latin. And he'sconversational in ancient Egyptian.
I saw him translate Emily Dickinson's 'I've Known A Heaven' on the fly into
Egyptianand sing it to 'Yellow Rose of Texas.' Nowthat was bizarre."
Barbara blinked at the image and then started at the very real sight before
her. A man was walking down the hallway carrying, over his shoulder, a very
large brown timber. Behind him was another man carrying an identical timber
then a woman carrying a smaller . . . frame perhaps. Then more men and women
dragging, rolling and carrying a variety of large boxes and bags.
"God, the snow's bad!" the man in the lead said, maneuvering past the two
women. "'Scuse me."
"Where are you setting up?" Janea asked, eyeing the second man in the line
who was rather handsome and well muscled.
"Rooms three seventeen through twenty eight," the man said. "But you're not
my type, sorry."
"Pity," Janea said, arching an eyebrow.
Barb waited until the whole group was past and then looked at her "mentor."
"What in that heck was that all about? And what were those big timbers for?
They looked like parts of a cross!"
"They were," Janea said, clearing her throat and for the first time in
Barbara's experience actuallyblushing . "They were for St. Andrews crosses."
"And those are?" Barb asked, suspiciously.
"They're . . . big crosses," Janea said. "And that's all I'm gonna say. But
it's pretty apparent the Black Rose has turned up in force. I know where I'm
going to be hanging out."
"I think I've had about all the bizarre I can take for one night," Barbara
admitted, shaking her head and trying to resist throttling her "mentor". "I'm
going to go see if there are anynormal people around."
"Wait 'til I drag you to DragonCon," Janea said. "You'll look great in a
corset . . ."
* * *
"So what did you think of the Wharf Rats?" a woman asked as Barb walked down a
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second floor corridor.
"They were . . . interesting," Barbara replied, stopping and looking the
woman over. She was about normal height and only slightly plump with a
pleasant face and blonde hair. The fuzzy reindeer horns were the only sign she
was on the outside edge of normality. Compared to most of the people Barb had
been dealing with all night she seemed positively normal.
"Try annoying," the woman said, grinning. "Might makes right and all that."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that they think might makes right . . ." Barbara argued
as a tall man walked up to the woman. He had long, mid-back length, slightly
curly brown hair and was wearing a leather jacket heavy on the studs and
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