Page 37 of Tidal Creatures

“Legalities and the speed with which they get applied are two different things,” says Anna, as they step out of the dorm lobby and into the late morning air. The day is maturing beautifully, with clear skies and the sort of crisp, sharp chill that only flirts with the idea of becoming actually cold.

California won’t be like this forever. It’s gotten warmer even since Judy moved here, the crisp falls fading in a matter of weeks when they used to linger for months, the summers going from unpleasant to sweltering. But here and now, it’s very close to perfect.

Anna glances at her as they start across the lawn. “Any idea where to start?”

“You’re the hunter, not me,” says Judy. “If I were a hunter, I think I’d want to start with someone who’d actually seen where the killing took place, though. I’d want to talk to Máni.”

Anna looks at her again, eyes flashing green as she focuses on Judy. It’s uncomfortably like having the full attention of some massive predator, and Chang’e stirs beneath the surface, very nearly stepping up to defend her avatar before Judy can nudge her back down.

“Do you know where to find him?”

The question is soft, mild, even, with nothing behind it to indicate that it might be a threat. Judy still feels her heart sink, pulse quickening at the harmonics in Anna’s tone. The other woman hasn’t stepped up, she knows that, but she feels as if maybe, when hunting, Artemis never really steps all the way down.

Anna is someone who would always bleed silver, if anyone could ever make her bleed.

“He’s on the football team,” says Judy. “I’d start with the locker rooms, if I really wanted to catch him. His daylight name is David.”

“David,” says Anna, rolling the name in her mouth like she can taste it. Maybe she can, somehow: maybe this is how she gets the scent of him. “Take me there.”

“Sure,” says Judy. “Not like I have classes to teach today or anything. Not like I was doing something with my time.” But she’s protesting out of habit as much as anything else. She’s normally so reliable that an absence is unlikely to inspire anything but concern that something’s happened; she has copious notes for the other TAs, who will cover all her classes for the day. She can always plead food poisoning, if she has to.

In fact, better to do that ahead of time. Pulling out her phone, she sends a quick message to her advisor, copying the department admin. She’s not feeling well, she says; she needs to go back to bed and sleep it off. There’s some risk there, since she’s still going to be on campus, but the chances of either of them going out among the student body voluntarily are very slim, and a little risk is unavoidable.

She turns back to Anna, who’s watched all this without comment. “You ready?” she asks.

Anna nods, and the pair strike off across campus.

“You’re going to have to talk to Diana eventually,” she comments, once they’re safely alone on a bike trail, with no one close enough to overhear their conversation.

“Am I?” asks Anna.

“She’s the senior Lunar in the area. It’s polite, if nothing else.”

“But there’s no rule.”

“Well … no, there’s not a rule,” admits Judy. “But it’s how things have always been done. You introduce yourself to the senior Lunar in the area.”

“I did. I sent her an email.”

Arguing further won’t do any good; Judy can tell that already. So she sighs and shakes her head, asking, “Why are you so against meeting her?”

“Did she tell you to look into Aske’s death?”

Did she? Of course she did. Judy tries to recall the specifics of her conversation with Diana, allowing Chang’e to rise just far enough to supply the fragments Judy wasn’t present for, and realizes that technically, no, she didn’t. She told Judy to find out who escorted Aske to the gate, but that was all. And she’d been oddly calm about the thought of needing to hide a body, hadn’t she? Maybe it was already knowing about the other deaths, but it feels like more than that, suddenly.

It feels like a riddle. Unlike many lunar gods, Chang’e has never been particularly fond of riddles. They waste time, and while she’s immortal, that doesn’t mean time isn’t precious, isn’t worthy of being saved and savored whenever possible. Her avatars aren’t immortal, after all. Take their peaches away, hurt them badly enough, and they die like anyone else does.

Chang’e isn’t mortal. Judy is, and Judy very, very much doesn’t want to die.

“She asked me to find out who escorted her to the gate before she died, but that was all,” says Judy. “She also wanted me to warn Abuk when she came for the handoff—which, where’s Abuk, by the way? I was so worried about finding a corpse hanging out in the everything that I didn’t realize you weren’t supposed to be my escort.”

“Oh, I ran into Abuk yesterday morning and told her she didn’t need to come,” says Anna.

Judy eyes her dubiously. No Lunar passes up the chance to shine above the City, especially not in a field as crowded as this one. Their turns don’t come up often enough to give one away. “How did you do that?”

“I told her I really, really needed to meet the peach lady before my next track meet, and she could have my next two shifts if she’d trade with me just this once,” says Anna.

That’s believable, at least. A new Lunar wanting to meet Chang’e made enough sense that Abuk wouldn’t necessarily have questioned it—and she’s an English major; she doesn’t question anything that isn’t written down—and two trips across the City for the price of one was a pretty good enticement.