Long Hot Summoning (15 page)

“Right. And that’s . . . ?”

“Beats the fuck out of me, but it’s not a squid.”

“What happened to the puppies and kittens?”

“I’m guessing it ate them.”

“Of course it did.”

They reached the hall without further incident. Narrow and lit by every third bank of fluorescents in the dropped ceiling, it went back about thirty feet, ending in a cross corridor. Diana could just barely make out two signs on the back wall. The first read: Elevator to Rooftop Parking and included a red arrow pointing left. The second: Baby Change Room; arrow to the right. What the babies changed into was anyone’s guess. The closed door to the security office was about a third of the way up the hall, on the right. That far again was a small water fountain.

No
shunk kree
. No advancing armies of darkness.

The only sound was the hum of the lights.

Like it would kill them to learn the words?
Diana wondered as Kris began moving faster and she hurried to catch up.

Both walls were covered in crayon portraits that shifted. A great many of them seemed to be of a dark silhouette, horned and cloaked and possessing glowing red eyes. None of them were particularly good.

Although the eyes seem to be following Kris,
Diana realized.
Are following
Kris,
she amended as a pair of crimson orbs plopped out of a portrait and rolled almost to the mall elf’s heels. An emphatic poke turned Kris around as a pointing finger directed her gaze to the problem.

Kris rolled her own eyes and took a quick step back.

A sound like bubble wrap being popped.

A bit of waxy residue on the floor.

A quick glance at the rest of the portraits showed them all pointedly looking in different directions. Whatever dark power controlled them, it wasn’t strong enough to overcome basic self-preservation.

Passing the security office, Diana worked at remembering trig formulas and other useless bits of high school math rather than merely trying not to think about the old man opening the door. In this situation, getting caught up in the old “try not to think of a purple hippopotamus” problem could have disastrous results.

At the water fountain, Kris indicated she needed a boost.

Diana dropped to one knee, let Kris use the other as a step, and watched amazed as, standing on the edge of the fountain, she reached up and shoved one of the big ceiling tiles off the framework. Were the elves keeping supplies inside the dropped ceiling?

Kris braced her hands and smoothly boosted herself up and out of sight.

Okay, that’s not poss . . .
Biting the thought off before Kris crashed through acoustic fibers and aluminium strapping that couldn’t possibly hold her weight, Diana sat in the fountain, drew her feet up next to her butt and, pushing against the side walls of the alcove, stood. Apparently, she was supposed to follow.
No matter how
imposs . . .
She bit that thought off, too, and concentrated instead on doing the mother of all chin ups. Sneaker treads gouging at the wall, she managed to hook first one elbow behind a cross brace and then the other. A little involuntary grunting later, her upper body collapsed across the dusty inner side of the ceiling. Strong hands pulled her farther in and dropped the open tile back into place.

For no good reason, there was enough light to see a path worn through the dust. It headed off to the right on a strong diagonal. Southeast, Diana figured after a moment. Directly toward the food court. They were going to reach the food court by traveling inside a dropped ceiling-something it looked as though the elves did all the time.

Even though it couldn’t be d ...

It could be done.

It had been done.

A lot.

Hold that thought,
Diana told herself as she crawled after Kris.
Don’t even
consider thinking about how stu . . .

Fortunately, crawling after Kris provided its own distraction.

Her knees were raw and the lump on her forehead where she’d cracked it on a pipe was throbbing when the path stopped at the edge of a concrete block wall. Kris motioned for silence. Diana tried to ache more quietly.

Another tile was lifted carefully aside and, after a moment, Kris dropped down out of sight. Her head reappeared almost instantly and then one arm, beckoning Diana forward.

They weren’t in the food court.

They were standing on the sinks in the women’s washroom.

Together, they replaced the tile and one at a time, jumped down.

“This is the way you always go?‘ Diana asked quietly.

Kris nodded and pulled her bound dreads back with one hand, bending to drink from the taps. “Meat-minds have never caught on,” she said proudly when she finished drinking. “It’s like they can’t wrap their tiny fucking brains around the idea.” That’s because acoustic tiles and aluminium strapping could barely hold the weight of a full-grown mouse and certainly couldn’t hold a couple of full-grown elves. Or even mostly grown elves. Definitely not an elf and a size twelve Keeper.

People, or in this case, elves, who believed that a dropped ceiling provided a secret highway between distant destinations got their information from bad movies and worse television. The meat-minds, who watched neither, knew that no one could travel by way of dropped ceilings. No wonder they couldn’t wrap their tiny brains around the idea.

Believing seven impossible things before breakfast was pretty much standard operating procedure on the Otherside, but even in a place where reality depended on definition, some things were apparently too much.

Diana said none of this aloud. Had no intention of ever mentioning it.

The certainty of the mall elves that it
could
be done because they’d seen a hundred heroes and an equal number of villains do it, had created the passage. She had no intention of messing with that certainty. Certainly not while they still needed it to get home.

Only the full toilet paper dispensers in every stall and the lack of graffiti scratched into the pale green paint suggested this wasn’t the actual women’s washroom in the actual mall-another indication of how close the segue was to completion.

Kris opened the door just wide enough for the two of them to slip through.

Moving quietly from shadow to shadow, they peered out into the deserted food court.

Diana’s nose twitched at the smell of freshly brewed coffee. She must have made a noise because Kris grinned and murmured, “Starbucks.”

“You mean an Otherside corruption of Starbucks.”

“Is that what I said? I mean an actual Starbucks.”

“Man . . .” Diana shook her head in reluctant admiration. “Those guys are moving in everywhere.”

Claire yawned, rubbed her eyes, and realized that the lights had come back on in the department store. The fire had gone out. She checked her watch; the second hand was revolving at significantly better than normal speed. Time had become relative again. When she glanced up, the fire pit was gone and one of the mall elves, a dark-haired petite girl who looked capable of precision kneecapping, was sweeping up the ashes. Jo, Claire remembered after a moment.

“You done with us, Keeper?”

Daniel was lounging back against the few remaining cushions, one long, denim-clad leg draped over Bounce’s lap. The other boy had his eyes closed, a glistening line of drool running from the corner of his mouth and down the side of his chin. They hadn’t been able to tell her much; only that the food in the food court was a lot less weird than it had been and as the food got more
normal,
the meat-minds patrolled more frequently.

“And at certain times of the day, there’s like a bazillion old people hanging
around.”

“Are they eating?”

“Listen, much?”
Daniel had snorted.
“I said they were hanging around. Kind
of dropped down from the ceiling like big old wrinkly spiders.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“Nah, just a big fat pain to get around.”

“Keeper?”

“Thanks, guys. I’m done.” A little sleep would be nice, Claire thought as she watched Daniel rouse his friend and the two of them disappeared into the depths of the store, but she couldn’t risk it. The first year she was on active duty, a Keeper had fallen asleep on the Otherside; fallen asleep and dreamed. He’d woken up at his old high school . . . naked. Fixing the resultant fallout had definitely been one for the history books. Chapter seven. Right after the Riel Rebellion. Some nice black-and-white pictures, too. They’d pulled all the copies from circulation, but Claire knew a couple members of the Lineage who’d kept personal copies, allegedly for research purposes.

Arthur touched her lightly on the shoulder as someone carried away his chair.

“I must attend to the business of the realm. If you require me . . .”

“I should be guarding you.” Claire stood and smoothed down her skirt. “They could send an assassin.” It would cost them a lot, single travelers always paid a premium, but she didn’t doubt for a moment that if they could pay, the darkside wouldn’t hesitate. Kill Arthur; destroy the united defiance raised against them.

“They would kill the Immortal King?”

“Don’t get too attached to the label,” she told him acerbically. “Just because you never stay dead doesn’t change the fact that you die and kingdoms fall every time you’re removed from the equation.”

“I have doubled the guards on all points leading to this level and I will be careful. But if you have nothing better to do than to act as my nursemaid .. .“ He bowed slightly, hair falling into his face and swept up as he straightened. ”. . . then I will be honored by your company. Although I had thought you wanted to take a look outside.“

“I do.”

He smiled and waited. He had a way of waiting that reminded her of Austin.

“All right, I’ll go have a look out the nearest doors, but I want you surrounded at all times by your best.”

“My very best went with your sister.”

“Fine, your second best, then, until I get back. I’ll be as quick as I can. Sam, you coming?”

“Nope. Not even breathing hard.”

Claire stopped, and the orange cat bumped into the back of her calves.

“What?”

“It’s just something Diana says.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“If you actually want me to answer that, I’m going to need more information,” Sam pointed out as they began walking again.

The key locking the optical shop not only continued to hold but couldn’t be moved. Claire pushed against it with one finger, then with her entire hand, then sat back on her heels with a satisfied nod.

“So, what’s it worth to you to have me
not
tell Diana you were checking up on her work?”

She turned her head just enough to spear the orange cat with a disdainful gaze.

“What’s it worth to you for me
not
to tell Diana you tried to blackmail me?” Amber eyes blinked. “You’re assuming she’d care?”

“Good point.”

On the ‘better safe than sorry’ principle, she locked the rest of the stores along the short corridor. Once they defeated the darkside, she’d unlock them and give the elves access to the entire mall but, for now, the last thing they needed was a horde of meat-minds charging out from behind a rack of cheap silver accessories.

The doors at the end of the corridor-the doors they entered the mall through way back whenever- were unlocked. Claire wasn’t sure why. They could have been open because it was now business hours in the real mall or they could have been open because she wanted them to be. She had to be more careful about her desires before they set up a beacon the darkside could use to ... to ... she honestly couldn’t say what the darkside would do, but it went without saying that it wouldn’t be good.

“Sam, you wait in here.”

“Why?”

“Because going through a door on the Otherside can be dangerous; you don’t always end up on the other side of the door and I don’t want to explain to Diana that I lost her cat.”

“Her cat?” Sam snorted. “I am a free agent in the universe.”

“Not until you can open your own cans of cat food, you aren’t.” Without waiting for a reply, she pressed down on the bar latch, and pushed. Her mind carefully blank, she stepped over the threshold. And then again-press, push, blank, step-for the outside door.

She was still on the Otherside. A half turn. She was outside the copy of the mall. All things considered, it wasn’t a bad copy. Some of the edges in the middle where neither the elves nor the darkside held complete control were a little fuzzy, but, even so, it would pass.

The concrete pad was exactly as she remembered it: black metal bench, newspaper box. The headline GFDHK SCGH TPR! was different-most newspapers used at least a couple of vowels-but the hockey scores seemed current. That probably wasn’t relevant. Or no more relevant than the appalling reality of hockey in June. The only things missing were Dean and Austin and they were safe in the guest house.

She didn’t remember it smelling so bad.

Although the edges of the parking lot faded into mist-intent on their segue, the darkside hadn’t bothered to anchor the mall on the Otherside-the lot itself was glossy black, the yellow lines gleaming. And steaming. And bubbling. Claire jumped back as an ebony bubble swelled to iridescence then burst almost at the edge of the concrete.

The parking lot was a very
very
large tar pit. She had no idea how the yellow lines stayed in place, but at least that explained the smell.

On the bright side, there’d be no attacks coming in through this door.

As she turned, she noticed something she’d missed before. A sign and a ramp.

There was parking on the roof.

Frowning, she remembered there were skylights over the hexagonal cuts through the floor. Designed to send light down into the lower level, Claire had a sudden image of dangling . . .

Not
ninjas. Think old people, dangling old people.
Images that were already real.

Trouble was, she remembered looking up and seeing handrails around the skylight.

There had to be a way up to the parking on the roof.