Long Hot Summoning (7 page)

“That was an
accident
.”

“Maybe
the first
time. I can’t hear anything moving in the storeroom.” She turned to her sister. “You?”

“Nothing. Wait here. I’ll go back for Austin.”

“No need.”

“Sam!” Claire glared down at the younger cat. . .

. . . who ignored her, his head raised, his eyes locked on the back corner by the ceiling.

The mirror on the Otherside was a sheet of thick, silvered glass, about half a meter wide by a meter long, in an antique wooden frame. It was currently reflecting the store they’d just left. The troll flirted with the two teenage girls standing by the counter, a woman pushed a baby stroller out into the concourse, one of the rubber snakes disappeared under the pile of stuffed toys, and Austin stared down at them from beside a basket of tiny plastic music boxes.

“He’s all right.” Claire released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Thank God.”

“You’re welcome.”

Diana rubbed her hands over the goose bumps texturing her arms. “Uh, Claire, ixnay on the anking-thay odgay while we’re erehay. Attracts the wrong kind of attention.”

“I know.”

“I know you know. You were just relieved to see, you know.” She nodded toward the cat in the mirror.

“What’s he trying to ... oh. Dean. He’s going to go to Dean.” Eyes narrowed, Diana peered up at the ceramic name plate Austin had pushed out into the aisle. “Are those mice eating a pixie?”

“What? No, they’re eating a straw . . . Okay, that’s really, really gross.” Then they were staring up at themselves.

“Hey!” Claire folded her arms and stomped one foot-which would have been a more effective protest had the tar residue not temporarily attached her heel to the carpet. She jerked it free, caught hold of a display shelf as her backpack shifted suddenly, threatening to topple her over, and snapped, “What happened?” The blue-on-blue eyes managed to look slightly sheepish. “Sorry. Lost the signal.”

“How?” Diana demanded. “You forgot to disable call waiting?”

“No, it’s a hardware problem-those newfangled convex mirrors distort everything. Look, I’ve got to get back on duty, but don’t forget what you promised.” She nodded. “To get you out of here before we shut the place down. I remember.”

“You remember now,” the mirror acknowledged. “Harder to remember when you’re pinned down under enemy fire.”

“What enemy fire?” But the eyes were gone and her reflection looked as annoyed as she felt. “What enemy fire?” she repeated in her sister’s general direction.

“What difference does it make? Stop thinking about it!” Diana blanched. The Otherside built substance from the subconscious of its inhabitants and she was suddenly unable to think about anything else. Distraction, distraction . . . “OW!”

Looking smug, Sam removed his claw from her foot .

“So I’m suddenly less convinced that mirror’s on our side.” Dropping to one knee, she licked her finger and dabbed at the blood. “What do you think, Claire?”

“About what?” She forced her gaze off the mirror. “Sorry. I’m worried about Austin all alone in that mall.”

“Austin’s older than most of the weekend staff,” Diana reminded her. “And it goes without saving he’s smarter. I’m totally sure he’ll have no problems getting back to where we left Dean.”

“We’ve been here a while. What if Dean’s not there?” His biggest problem was going to be getting out of the Emporium unseen.

Capture out in the mall would mean, at most, a few unpleasant hours until he escaped custody. Capture in the store would mean mustard. Trolls put mustard on everything they ate. Usually, to kill the taste. Occasionally, to kill the food. Austin had no intention of dying by condiment.

Concentrating on keeping his tail close, he crept along the floor using every bit of cover an eclectic array of merchandise provided and trying not to notice what he was creeping through. Trolls weren’t known for the cleanliness of their carpets and some of the merchandise was eclectic in ways that stained. A little over a meter from the door, he ran out of things to hide behind.

No customers remained to distract the troll.

Even at this distance, the wards around the door stroked energy into his fur. If he read them right, which went without saying, they needed only a single word to close them down and create an impenetrable barrier. Given that he had to cross directly through the troll’s line of sight, it would take luck as much as speed to ensure he was on the right side of the barrier when that word was spoken.

Okay.
He drew his legs in tight to his body, weight to the back, ready for powerful haunches to launch him forward.
Remember, you’re only as old as you feel.

. . .
ready for powerful haunches to launch him forward.

And I feel like I’m going to be eighteen in August.

. .
. launch him forward.

Eighteen’s old for a cat. If I was a dog, I’d probably be dead. Of course, if I
was a dog, I’d want to be dead.

. . . forward.

Oh, crap.

His first leap took him nearly to the threshold. He heard the troll yell “Cat!”, then he heard him yell “Endoplasmic reticulum!”, saw a flash of aubergine light, smelled the unmistakable odor of burning cat hair, and was in the concourse under the bench, patting out the smoldering end of his tail. Fortunately, his fur was long enough so that no actual damage had been done.

Another flash of aubergine light and an impact that set his whiskers vibrating.

Heart pounding, he turned toward the Emporium.

The troll lay flat on his back just inside the door. Apparently, the wards were set to keep everything in.

“Idiot,” he muttered, and washed a triumphant paw.

“Kitty!”

His attention had been so completely on the store that the toddler squatting down and peering under the bench, his diaper nearly touching the tiles, one chubby hand reaching for Austin’s head, came as a complete surprise.

“Are you
trying
to give kitty a heart attack,” he gasped when he could catch his breath.

“Pretty!”

“Don’t touch that!”

“Come on, Brandon.” A woman’s feet came out from behind a massive stroller. Large hands tucked themselves into the child’s armpits and hoisted him out of sight while ducky sandals kicked futilely in protest. “Let’s get you home while you’re still in a good mood.”

Austin inched carefully forward until he could get a good look at young Brandon’s destination. The stroller not only had plenty of room for hitchhikers but a large flat canopy. When the back rack was full of bags-which it was-the adult pushing couldn’t actually see the seat. He waited while the seat belts were secured, waited while the woman went around to the handle, then, just as the stroller was about to move, he leaped.

“Kitty!”

“No kitties this trip, big fella,” the woman corrected, adding with some pique,

“and next time we’ll stay away from the pet store.” He hadn’t been seen and Brandon already had a cover story in place. “Way to go, kid,” he murmured into a chubby ear. “Hey! Arm does not go around kitty’s neck.”

“Kitty soft.”

“Yeah? Well, baby smelly.” Tucking legs and tail close to his body in an attempt to look as much like a stuffed toy as possible, Austin settled back to enjoy the ride.
If they turn left once they’ve crossed the food court, I’ll have to bail.

The stroller turned right.

What are the chances, they’ll head for the upper level . . . ?

The stroller’s front wheels bumped against the escalator.

“You okay in there, Brandon?”

“Okay!” The stroller tipped back and began to rise. “Kitty?”

“I’m good. And do
not
put that in your mouth, it’s attached!” At Sunshine Records, his luck ran out.

“Just going to make a quick stop, kiddo, then we’ll head for the parking lot.” With the stroller stopped, someone in the record store would be sure to do that

“make faces at the baby” thing that adults found so impossible to resist. After a lifetime of similar faces looming over him, Austin had a strong suspicion the babies weren’t as thrilled by it. As they began to turn, he murmured a quick good-bye and jumped clear, racing for a planter and the cover of a plastic shrub.

No hue and cry.

Now to find out exactly where he was.

It looked good. Ten meters of main concourse, then the short side hall to the doors where they’d left Dean. A little exposed until he got to the side hall, but if he remembered correctly-which, of course, he did-once there, he’d have plenty to hide behind.

Play the skulking music, boys.

Checking that no one was looking his way, he jumped down and began moving along the clear Lu-cite barrier that kept the careless, the stupid, and the carelessly stupid from falling through a hexagonal opening to the lower level.

Clear Lucite barrier?

“Hey!” The shout came from across the concourse. “There’s a cat over there!

Let’s get it!”

Oh, crap.

Wondering how much longer he was going to wait, Dean tried to find a comfortable position on the metal bench and picked up his last remaining section of the Saturday paper. He’d read the comics, the sports pages, the wheels section-which was pretty much the newsprint version of infomercials but about cars so that was okay. He’d read life, and entertainment, and even the report on business. There was nothing left but the actual news.

The front page shared space about equally between a doom-and-gloom prediction of an economic slowdown caused by consumer inability to realize the need for more electronic crap and the continuing disappearance of Kingston’s street kids.

“Look, the day you can keep track of three hundred and ten cases and not lose a few of the mobile ones, you let me know. Until then, get off my fucking back!” a social worker was quoted as saying. Dean couldn’t decide which impressed him more, the social worker for saying it or the paper for actually printing it.

The Children’s Aid Society requested that anyone with news contact them at any time, day or night,

where any time actually meant between eight and four Monday to Thursday, and eight to noon Fridays because of government cutbacks.

“Okay, now I’m depressed.” Folding the section neatly, he piled it with the rest. Claire’d told him that they’d be inside for a couple of days; maybe it was time he went . . .

Paws drumming on glass.

Paws?

Leaping to his feet, he ran for the doors.

Up on his hind legs, his stomach fur a brilliant streak of white, Austin pounded to be let out. As Dean yanked the door open, he fell forward, hit the concrete running, and disappeared into the parking lot before Dean could get a question out.

The trio of teenage boys in hot pursuit made at least one of the questions moot. They rocked to a halt at the edge of the asphalt, stopped as much by the heat as the sudden disappearance of their prey.

“Lose something?” He had four or five years on them and a couple of inches as well as a lot of muscle on the biggest. If it came down to it, Austin was in no real danger.

“You let the cat out, man. We were trying to catch it!”

“Why?”

“Why?” The speaker exchanged a clear but silent
“Dude’s an idiot”
with the other two. “ ‘Cause there’s not supposed to be cats in the mall.” Dean glanced pointedly out at the parking lot.

“It’s not in the mall now ‘cause we chased it out of the mall.” Eyes narrowed.

“It’s not your cat.”

“I know.” Austin considered Dean one of his ambulatory can openers, but that was beside the point.

“If it’s anyone’s cat, it’s our cat. We saw it first.”

“I don’t want the damned cat, man.” One of the other boys hauled up the shorts falling off skinny hips and looked longingly back toward the air-conditioning.

“Come on, it’s hot out here.”

Under the shadow of a scruffy teenage mustache, the first boy’s lip curled.

“So we just let the cat win?”

The third boy sighed and scratched at the growing damp spot under his arm.

“Cats always win. One way or another.”

“Oh, yeah, hiding under a parked . . .” Narrowed eyes widened. “. . .

minivan.” He shifted his gaze across the nearly uniform rows of family vehicles until it returned, eyes wide, to Dean. “You find the cat, man, you can have it. We don’t want it.” Hands shoved deep into his pockets, he turned on one heel. “Come on.”
Does
everybody
know about the minivans?
Dean wondered as the three boys slouched back inside the mall. He waited until he heard the doors close, then he waited a few minutes more, just in case. Picking the folded newspaper up off the bench, he walked out to his truck.

As he stepped off the concrete pad and out of the building’s shadow, the heat hit him like a warm, wet sponge. By the time he had the driver’s door open, his Tshirt was clinging damply to his back.

“Took you long enough,” Austin panted, crawling out from under the truck bed.

“Sorry.” Scooping the cat up in one hand, Dean dropped him gently on the seat and slid in after him. “What happened, then?”

“The possibilities wouldn’t let me through, but the others are fine, so don’t sweat it.” An emerald eye turned briefly toward Dean. “That was sort of a joke. Is there any water in here?”

After their last visit to the vet, Claire’d begun keeping a bottle of water and a small bowl in the glove compartment. It was tepid, but Austin drank almost all Dean poured.

“Are you okay?”

“Give me a minute.” The cat sat up, rubbed a paw over wet whiskers, and sighed. “Ever notice how much a group of teenage boys resembles a dog pack?”

“Uh, no.”

“So that was some other guy doing all that alpha male posturing?” Dean thought back over the encounter and frowned. “I didn’t . . .”

“You didn’t sniff their butts, but other than that, it was all big dog, little dogs.

Don’t get me wrong.

If it weren’t for my whole dogs-are-an-accident-of-nature belief system, I’d have been very impressed.“ He folded himself into tea cozy position. ”Well?“

“Well, what?” Dean asked, still working his way through the dog thing.