Long Hot Summoning (14 page)

Unable to use the possibilities, even in the minimal way she had in the original mall, Diana was left feeling like she imagined Bystanders must feel all the time.

Helpless. Angry. Vaguely pathetic. How did they manage? Kris’ back pressed hard against her, warm and comfortingly solid. It helped. The cold glass and dark store behind her didn’t.

Shoe store,
she reminded herself as the light swept through the shadows under the stairs.
What could possibly come out of a shoe store.

Actually, she could think of a few things.

None of them good.

All of them the
last
thing she should be thinking about right now.

skunk kree, shunk kree.

She was listening so hard to the sound of the security guard shuffling down the concourse that she didn’t hear the music start inside the shoe store. By the time she noticed, it had already reached the chorus.

These boots are made for walking . . .

And over the faint, tinny music, another sound. Heels. Rhythmically hitting cheap carpet.

Diana winced.
That can’t possibly be good.

Claire watched Diana follow Kris past the guard and almost instantly disappear into the shadows of the concourse. She should have been visible longer, even dressed like a department store ninja, but this was the Otherside and the usual rules of perspective and perception didn’t always apply. Their farewells had been short . . .

“Remember you’re only gathering information.”

“My Summons, Claire.”

“Just be careful!”

“Well, duh.”

. . .
and now all she could do was wait. And gather what information she could from talking to Arthur’s scouts. And help secure this end of the mall against another attack. And find an exit that could show her what was happening outside because there might be something there she could use. And check the lock Diana had set during the battle. And lock any of the other storefronts the elves didn’t actually use; the damage had sounded extensive, but the travel agency could be up and running again at any time.

But mostly, wait.

For her little sister to return safely from enemy territory.

Claire envied the other Keepers-
all
the other Keepers-who had no siblings and would never know how it felt allowing the person who’d taken their first steps with chubby fingers wrapped around yours to walk blithely into danger when every in-stinct screamed,
“Stay here where it’s safe. I’ll do it.”
no matter who logic declared was the better choice for the job.

If something happened?

She had a brief, horrid vision of explaining the situation to their parents.

Infinitely worse than trying to explain how she’d only turned her head for an instant and two-year-old Diana had eaten the entire tube of yellow poster paint.

And vomited it up on the white wool rug.

So nothing
would
happen. Nothing bad. This was the Otherside; all she had to do was hold tight to that belief.

Holding tight, she returned to the fire and sank down on her cushion beside Arthur’s empty chair. First, she’d talk to the elves who’d raided the food court earlier in the evening. They’d have the most recent information about that end of the mall.

Arthur would know who they were.

As though her thoughts had called him, he appeared, walking around the fire with the loose-limbed self-confidence of a young man who’d never been called geek, who’d never had a girl turn him down for a date, who was captain of both the football team and the debating club .. . Claire shook her head and rewound the thought. He was walking with the confidence of a young man wearing a huge, mythical sword strapped to his back. A huge, mythical sword he knew how to use.

“I have sent word to Bounce and Daniel that you wish to speak to them.” Arthur sank into his chair and flipped his hair back off his face. “They’ll be here shortly.”

“Are they out scavenging again?”

“No. They’re taking advantage of the darkness to . . .” He finished the sentence with an incomprehensible gesture.

“To?” Was he blushing? He was. The Immortal King had turned an uncomfortable looking shade of deep crimson. Suddenly, Claire got it. “Oh. To . . .” She repeated the gesture. “They’re being safe, right? I mean, these kids didn’t come from the best of backgrounds and you have no idea of what I’m talking about, do you?”

“They’re in no danger.”

“Okay.” Probably best to leave it at that. Feeling, well, old in the face of Arthur’s embarrassment, Claire searched for a less loaded topic. “So, the darkness-I’m a little surprised it’s lasted this long. Time’s been moving fairly quickly up until now.”

“The darkness last as long as the fire does.”

Were it not for the implications of that statement, his relief would have been amusing. Claire glanced down at her watch. The second hand lay motionless over the two. “Great.” Once Diana reached the area controlled by the dark forces, she’d be moving in a totally different time.
At
a totally different time? Prepositions just weren’t set up for this sort of thing. According to her watch, Dean and Austin weren’t moving at all. On the bright side, that should keep them out of trouble.

Austin poked Dean’s rigid arm with a paw and snorted. Walking around the phone, he took a closer look at the watch on the wrist below the hand holding the receiver. Stopped.

“Fortunately,” he said, trotting to the end of the counter and leaping carefully down, “time waits for no cat.”

And with any luck, the fridge door would be open.

The weight of a constant regard between her shoulder blades spun Claire around. “What?”

Sam blinked. “Nothing.”

“Well, stop it.”

The weight didn’t change. She turned again. “What did I say?”

“Weren’t you listening either?”

“Did Diana tell you to watch me?”

“Why would she do that?”

“Are you watching me?”

He licked his shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“A cat may look at a king,” Arthur observed, grinning.

“Yes . . .” Claire shifted emphatically on the cushion, feeling a bit like a butterfly on a pin. “... but he’s not looking at
you.”
shunk kree, shunk kree.

You can’t see me. You can’t see in . . . us. You can’t see us.

Diana repeated the mantra silently, hoping it would be enough. She could make it enough. The smallest act of will would slide that flashlight beam right on by.

But the smallest act of will would break the Rules, strengthen the bad guys, and get her in major shit with Claire and the rest of the lineage.

So all she had was hope.

Hope, and Kris’ warm body pressed tightly against her as they squeezed into the darkest part of the shadow.

Okay. The situation wasn’t
all
bad.

The glass behind her shivered at a sudden impact, but the beam never wavered and the step/drag of the old man’s approach didn’t change. How had he not heard that?

“I know you’re here. Soft, round flesh not to be touched.”
shunk kree, shunk kree.

Maybe he hadn’t actually crossed over. Maybe he couldn’t hear the music and the boots banging against the glass because he was walking the borderland between the world and the Otherside.

“Pliant, flexible, heated limbs. Can’t hide forever. I will find you. Oh, yes.” Maybe he was a freakin‘ fruitcake and not the good kind of fruitcake either.

No icing. The kind of dried fruit that either broke fillings or curled tongues. Cake dense enough to pound nails with . . .

And I’m so totally babbling.

She’d faced demons, disasters, and Hell itself with more composure. What was it about this guy?

For that matter, what
was
this guy?

The circle of light swept up the underside of the staircase, then flicked across the concourse to illuminate the window of a gift shop where a line of porcelain dolls sat with their eyes squeezed shut. Hard to tell for sure at such a distance, but they looked much the way Diana felt. The old man couldn’t possibly be seeing the Otherside contents of the stores or he’d have surely reacted to the rude gesture being made by a well-dressed teddy bear propped up behind the dolls. First teddy bear Diana’d ever seen with articulated fingers.

If he followed the path of the light, if he kept it pointed in the same direction, he’d be heading away from them, down one of the short arms that turned the lower concourse into a weird kind of enclosed
“y.”
He’d be heading into territory controlled by the dark side. Diana wondered how
they
coped, if his light had any effect or if his overlap only included the elves.

Did it include Keepers?

Something about the way the hair lifted on the back of her neck suggested it did.

Standing motionless, listening, he kept his flashlight beam trained on the gift shop window. Let them think the useless pieces of pretty debris held his attention. Let them grow complacent and move. Or better yet, let them grow afraid as they waited.

Let their muscles tense and their limbs begin to tremble. Let breath catch in their throats and their hearts flutter as they tried to make no sound he would be able to hear.

Let them finally break from cover, unable to stand still any longer.

He would have them then.

Not sneering, not laughing. Hard/soft bodies caught and held.

They had no business being in the mall after closing.

They had no business being so young.

There.

He rocked his weight back on one heel, spun to the left, and whipped the light across the concourse.

Diana stifled a gasp as Kris jerked back against her-although whether she was gasping at the sudden increased contact or at the flashlight beam that swept the tiles inches from the toes of Kris’ Doc Martens, she couldn’t say for sure.

shunk kree, shunk kree.

You can’t see us . . .

The old man came closer. The puddle of light spread until Kris was standing with her heels together and her toes splayed almost a hundred and eighty degrees apart. Feeling her begin to totter, Diana slipped an arm around the guard captain’s waist. They were pressed so closely together their hearts began to beat to a single rhythm. Why that rhythm seemed to be reggae when the boots were still banging an old Nancy Sinatra hit on the other side of the window, Diana had no idea.

Then, finally, the light began to move on down the mall; east, the way they had to go. But better to have the ancient nutbar in front of them than behind.

shunk kree, skunk kree.

As he passed, his head slowly turned, and he peered into their rectangle of shadow. His eyes narrowed. His grip shifted on the flashlight.

You can’t see us . . .

And he passed on by.

They listened to his footsteps fade. They took their first breath in unison. Then their second. Then Kris murmured, “He’s gone, Keeper. You got reasons for hanging on that I should know?”

“No.” Because,
you feel so good
wasn’t really a reason Diana wanted to get into right now. She dropped her arm and tried not to feel bereft as Kris stepped away.

“What should we do about the boots?”

“Do?”

“They could come right through the window.”

“It’s summer, there aren’t a lot of them and even if they break the glass, the security cage’ll keep them in.“ She reached back and wrapped her hand around Diana’s wrist. ”Come on.“

The feel of cool fingers on the skin between sleeve and glove was familiar.

“That was you, Friday night. You held Sam and me in the shadow so we didn’t get caught in the beam when the security guard flashed back the way he’d come.”

“Yeah. That was me. Now do me a favor and never use the word
flash
in the same sentence as that scary old dude again.” Her lip curled, showing a crescent of teeth. “Bad image frying the wetware.”

Diana caught the image and shuddered. “Eww.”

“Big time.”

“But how did you . . .” She looked down at Kris’ hand, still around her wrist, and then up at the other girl’s face. “We weren’t even in the same reality.” Kris shrugged. “Reality’s what you make it.”

“True enough. You got reasons for hanging on I should know about?”

“No.”

It was a familiar sounding
no.
Diana grinned as she followed Kris back out onto the concourse.
Hey, Sam, 1 think she likes me.

It wasn’t difficult to imagine Sam’s response.

“And what am I, chopped liver?”

“No, I mean she
likes
me.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

What
was
she going to do about it? And should she even do anything? And when? Actually, that last question was a no brainer.

Not now.

“Remember, stay low, move fast, and try not to look like a person. We’re in the bad guys’ fuckin‘ territory.” Kris dropped into a crouch and scuttled across the side corridor, one arm crooked over her head.

She looked exactly like a person in a crouch with her arm over her head, but Diana figured she knew what she was doing, so she folded herself into a mirror image of the position and scuttled after. Shadows spilled out of the far end of the corridor, but they came with no accompanying feeling of being watched-a faint feeling of looking ridiculous but that passed as she reached the storefronts on the opposite side and straightened.

Tucked up tightly against the wall, Kris moved steadily toward the short hallway leading to the security office.

Security office?

Oh, great. What’s wrong with this picture?

Grabbing the back of Kris’ waistband, Diana dragged her to a stop. “What if
he’s
in the security office?” she hissed.

“What if he is? We still gotta go that way. It’s the only safe way to the food court.”

About to ask what definition of “safe” Kris was using, Diana jumped almost into the guard captain’s arms as a thick, purple tentacle slapped the glass beside her.

“I didn’t do that!”

“Of course you didn’t.” The
dumbass
was silent but clearly implied. “It’s the pet store.”