It was Easton Paruth.
I hadn’t heard her approaching. She must have entered the alley while I’d been moving the dumpster away from the wall.
“You’re following me?” I asked.
“I had Darla hide a bit of tracking technology in one of your shoes.”
“What?”
She didn’t answer my question. “Do you mind if I take a look?”
I stepped aside so she could get a better view.
“It’s beautiful,” she said as she stepped forward and placed her hand on the triangle in the middle of the wall.
“You’ve seen this symbol before,” I said.
Easton continued to run her hand along the wall.
“A circle atop a pyramid is a familiar sigil in the world of the game. It’s something we refer to as The Moonrise,” she said.
The strange symbol from my elevator dream suddenly had a name.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. But it’s deeply connected to the game. It’s something that normally appears as a marker—a sign that you’re on the right path.”
I nodded toward the wall. “Are you going to take a picture?”
“I do believe I will, thank you.”
She took about a dozen photographs from a few different angles.
“Why are you following me?” I asked.
Easton finally stopped taking pictures and put away her phone.
“Let me buy you a coffee. I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Are you Murmur?”
“Coffee,” she said.
She helped me push the dumpster back against the wall, and then started walking back toward the entrance to the alley.
I ran after her. There was no way I was going to let her out of my sight without some kind of explanation.
* * *
—
Easton took off her jacket and placed it over the back of her chair. She was wearing an elegant orange-and-blue top cut at an angle across her shoulders. She had a significant collection of metal bracelets on her wrists and huge golden hoops hanging from her ears.
“So, I’m sure you have some questions for me, and I promise I’ll try to answer them to the best of my ability, but do you mind if I ask you a couple of things first?”
We were sitting across from each other at a low table in a coffee shop. It was still fairly early, but the locals were beginning to file in for their morning fix.
“What would you like to know?” I replied, then burned my tongue as I nervously sipped at my coffee, which was still way too hot to drink.
“Is it true that Alan Scarpio asked you for help?”
I stared at Easton for a moment. I couldn’t decide what to say. It was clear she already knew or suspected that I’d spoken with Scarpio, but she wanted confirmation for some reason.
“Will you answer one question first?” I asked at last.
She nodded slowly—not an affirmation, but rather, an indication that she was thinking about it. “That depends, I suppose.”
“Are you the player known as Murmur?”
She smiled for a moment, then finally nodded.
Shit. Easton Paruth just got a whole lot scarier.
“How long have you been playing the game?”
“That’s two questions,” she said, “but that’s okay. I’ve been playing the game for a long time.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant.”
She smiled. “You’d like to know how long I’ve been playing the eleventh iteration?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to tell you about my experiences, K, but lately people affiliated with the game have a habit of…disappearing or turning up deceased.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. There was no reason for me to share the fact I’d been hearing the same thing—at least, not yet.
“Several players I know personally have recently died or gone missing, and there are rumors that the worldwide numbers are much, much higher.”
“What do you think is going on?”
She shrugged. “I know I have something of a…reputation for playing a little outside the rules, but it really is getting dangerous out there. You should watch yourself, K. There aren’t that many of us left.”
“Do Darla and the others have any idea that you’re using them to help you play Rabbits?”
“Not talking about the game is still an important part of it. You would do well to remember that.”
A threat—or hint of a threat—from Murmur wasn’t something that could be taken lightly, but I was tired and, frankly, at this point, I was almost beyond caring. “We’re talking about it now, though, aren’t we?”