“You can see it if you open to it enough,” Sharice said. “Hang on.”
She closed her eyes and a moment later started to yawn.
“I tugged at the connection and got tired,” she said. “I’d guess that when we sleep we’ll go back.”
“Isn’t that sort of backwards?” Hjalmar asked. “The astral plane is the world of the ka, the sleeping mind. The world of dream. We go back by dreaming?”
“Which is the dream and which is the reality?” Sharice said, grinning. “But that’s not getting us anywhere. We’ve got money, power, and a mission: Find Janea. Let’s get to it.”
“There’s just one problem,” Drakon said.
“Which is?”
“Are we preregistered?”
“Thor’s left testicle,” Hjalmar grunted. “Would you look at that line?”
Just as the Marriott had backed on the Hilton, the Hyatt backed on the Marriott. And running down the entire block was a line of people. Since they had been directed there to go to registration, they were apparently supposed to get in the line.
A police officer was directing traffic between the two hotels, and as he waved for people to cross, they headed over to the line.
“How long do you think it is?” Hjalmar asked.
“Long,” Drakon said. “One of the reasons I always prereg. Let’s go find the end.”
The end, as it turned out, was around the block, down the end, and nearly to the front of the hotel.
“Dude, I’m so going to preregister next year,” said the guy in front of them, a sallow kid in black clothes.
“Like, totally,” agreed his companion, a shorter guy with a dozen piercings. “Or come in on Thursday.”
“It’s been like this since last night when we opened,” a tall, dark-haired man wearing a headset said, handing them both tickets. “And this is the prereg line. Also day passes. That’s your place in line in case you have to go to the head or something. Line’s about three hours long. You’ll get there eventually.”
“Thanks,” Hjalmar said, looking at the ticket. “I hope that the number on here isn’t our actual place in line. It’s in the millions.”
“Doubt it,” Drakon said, chuckling. “There’s not that many people here.”
“How, by Odin’s eyes, are we going to find Janea in all this?” Hjalmar asked.
“I’ve been to Dragon a couple of times,” Drakon admitted. “Thing is, the way the hotels are laid out, just about everyone comes down the back steps to the Hyatt at one point or another. Most of the programming is in the Hyatt, especially the evening stuff, and it’s where all the parties are. Sooner or later, Janea’s going to pass that point. The thing is…”
“We’re going to have to watch it like a hawk,” Sharice said. “Take shifts. Someone’s always got to be there.”
“That is going to be buckets of fun,” Hjalmar said. “I’ll take first watch.”
“You got it,” Drakon said. “I’ll take second. By midnight or so it’s pretty pointless. We can crash then and get back to the mortal realm to find out what’s happening out there.”
“Since we’ve got the tickets,” Sharice said, “Drakon, go in and find a program so we can get some idea where Janea might turn up. Hjalmar…”
“Go stand by the back of the hotel and watch for Janea,” Hjalmar said.
“Right,” Sharice said as the line crept forward. She pulled out a twenty and handed it to Drakon. “Get us some drinks while you’re at it. I’ll hold our place in line.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Drakon said, grinning. “I know one place we’re definitely going to find her, though.”
“Where?” Sharice asked.
“The Dawn contest,” Drakon said. “It’s got a thousand-dollar prize. That’s power she can use. And she’s a natural.”
“But it’s not until Monday,” Sharice said. “The question is, can she survive ’til Monday?”
As Folsom entered the restroom, a massive black man in a Blade costume nearly ran him down coming out.
“Whoa,” Folsom said. “Nice costume.”
The man paused and nodded as if in thanks, then leaned forward and sniffed several times. He surveyed Folsom for a moment longer, turned to look outwards as if peering through the walls of the bathroom, then nodded and walked out.
Folsom lifted one arm and sniffed. He’d showered no more than an hour ago…
“Hmmm…” he said, looking towards the door. “Try Costuming.”
Doris knew she should be tired, and in a distant way, she was. But mostly she was interested. She’d gotten over to the Hilton early and then sat through four hours of programming on costuming. She was even starting to understand the lingo. An “appliance” was an accessory to the costume: a mask, for example. Raiding was digging stuff out of dumpsters. Since just about anything could be turned into a costume, raiding was an old and accepted practice.
And she knew more about uses of hot glue than she’d ever wanted to know. One of the panelists had at least a hundred suggestions for how to use hot glue. It was like she was hot-glue obsessed.
Most of the panelists were the same people, and by the end of the third panel, she had worked up the courage to go up and ask questions.
Bran Carlson was the head of the track, and while he was only “on” the first panel, she’d spotted him coming in and out of other panels. He came into the meeting room at the end of the third panel, so she screwed up her courage and walked up to him.
“Hi, I’m Doris,” she said, trying not to sound like a frightened newbie.
“Well, hello, Doris,” Bran said with just a shade too much familiarity. “And what can I do for you?”
“I’m not sure if you can do anything for me,” Doris said. “But Folsom said I should talk to you.”
“I must remember to thank him,” Bran said, grinning. “What’s up?”
“I’m…a newbie,” she admitted. “Con and costuming. But so far, three people have told me I should enter the Dawn contest. The thing is…”
“All you have are street clothes,” Bran said, his grin dying. “Right?”
“Right,” Doris said, trying not to wince. The people in the panels, both the panelists and most of the attendees, had clearly spent years, and thousands of dollars, building up their stock of costumes, materials, tools and appliances. What Doris was asking was for someone to simply step in and for no good reason help her out.
“Besides the fact that you’re pretty, why did Folsom suggest I help you?” Bran asked, all trace of flirtatiousness gone. He wasn’t rejecting, he was just suddenly immensely professional.
“I don’t really know,” Janea said. “He’s been talking about, well, finding myself, I guess. It sounds stupid, I know, especially with something like the Dawn contest. He says it better.”
“Oh, God, he didn’t trot out that horrid old Billy Joel song, did he?”
“Something about faces and masks?” Doris asked. “Yeah.”
“The man needs to get a life,” Bran said with a sigh. “But he has a point. The problem is…the problems are…Anita!”
“Yo, Bran?”
The woman was the hot-glue fanatic and on her way out the door, having shaken off the last questioner. Medium height, blonde and pleasantly plump, she was wearing a multi-colored, fur-trimmed robe and a pair of antlers.
“Folsom has seen fit to present me with a challenge,” Bran said. “This young lady is a newbie. A costuming newbie and a con newbie. She has no materials nor tools. She has, I suspect, very little in the way of available funds. Folsom wants me to get her ready to win the Dawn contest. In addition to running this madhouse of a track!”
“Are you going to?” Anita asked.
