Free Death by Chocolate by Michelle L. Levigne Page A

aiming at their faces now that he could see them.
    To a man--or a woman, in the case of two of them, he found out later--they all licked
their lips as they cleaned their faces. He shot more warmed, adulterated chocolate at them, taking
his ammunition from the seventy-five percent carob bin, and made facial masks. Just like he
thought, and like he would do if someone insisted on slapping soft chocolate practically into his
mouth, they all ate some of it.
    Several--and he made mental/magical note of which ones--reacted to the taste, showing
some shock. That marked them as more sensitive and alert than the others, and probably the
brains of the operation.
    Then someone screamed and started clawing at his face. Guber nodded in somber
satisfaction and finally pulled the alarm that would bring in the Council's security forces. A
moment later, he called for the medical team that had been on hand to take care of any industrial
accidents during that day's work.
    The medics arrived before the security forces, and they had all nine Erasers subdued and
spluttering in the decontamination showers. At the same time, they started administering
Benadryl intravenously to three who had puffed up like Violet Beauregard in both Willy Wonka
movies.
    Kevyn and two of his advocate cousins showed up about five minutes later. He thought
of administering a genetics tracking test to the ones who showed the most violent reactions to
carob.
    It was like frosting on the cake for Guber, when one Eraser learned he had ninety-four
percent royal blood. His anguish turned to terror when he looked around and saw four of his
cohorts giving him that easily interpreted look: You swore to destroy all claimants to the
throne. Do your duty, starting with yourself.
    "The problem with those one-track minds of theirs is that they realize one big glitch--if
they start with themselves in purifying the gene pool," Kevyn said with a smirk, "they won't be
able to continue with anyone else." He settled back in the lounge set aside for the testing team
and raised a half-empty beaker of diet cherry cola in toast to Guber. "Have you ever thought of
going into security systems for a living? You're a one-man destruction zone."
    "Thought about it. Then I realized I was basically lazy, and fighting for my life is too
much work." Guber was surprised to see that the level of celebratory liquid in his beaker was
only down about two swallows. "It'd make a great video game, though," he offered, more to
distract himself than Kevyn.
    He couldn't evade the thought that had just occurred to him: Epsi had a large percentage
of purple blood, too. Not as strong as his, but enough to make her a target. What if some Erasers
had managed to infiltrate themselves into the detention dimension where she was staying until
the investigation cleared her of suspicion?
    "How soon until we meet up with Epsi again?" he asked, in as casual a manner as he
could manage.
    Then he realized that was a mistake, because he had never mastered the art of fake
casualness in anything. Kevyn sat up straight in his thick, puffy-cushioned lounging chair, put
his beaker down on a side table that materialized about half a second before he let go of his
drink, and narrowed his eyes at Guber.
    "So that's what it is," his friend muttered. "I was wondering."
    "Wondering what?" He winced when his voice cracked.
    "Don't worry. My folks thought of the danger to the purple-bloods under sequestering
right after the Heredity group made contact with you. They have round-the-clock monitoring."
He chuckled when Guber relaxed and sank back in his chair--and guzzled half his beaker of diet
cherry cola without thinking. "You and Epsi aren't exactly two of a kind."
    "Yeah, well, you know what they say about--" Guber choked when he realized he had
been about to say "in-breeding." Which meant he had been thinking about breeding. And all the
preliminaries. Including dating and courtship and commitment.
    Yeah, but this is Epsi you're talking about