"We will find another way to catch them," Eskina assured me.
I looked around at the shop. Most of the displays had been torn down by the hysterical crowd. The dressing room had been destroyed. What was left of the merchandise was scattered across the floor. Acrid smoke rose from the burning rack near the door. The place was ruined.
"What the hell else could go wrong?" I asked.
"Hello?"
Marco Djinnelli floated through the buzzing doorway.
"What happened here?" he asked, sympathetically.
"A riot," I replied, shortly. "It's gonna be a while until we can give you the second half of your money."
"Understandable, understandable," Marco agreed, soothingly. "We are friends. But the first half, as we agreed? I have come for that."
"What?" I demanded. "We paid you."
"No, of course not," Marco demurred politely. "All on credit, I ordered all these items for you. So beautiful they were." He kissed his fingertips. "Alas for such destruction!"
"No," I corrected him. "I mean, we paid you the first half of what we owe you about an hour ago."
"No, no! An hour ago I was enjoying a cappuccino with my cousin Rimbaldi at the Coffee House. The divine Sibone sends her best to her beloved Aahz." Marco narrowed his eyes at us as we all stared at him. "You are telling the truth, aren't you?"
"Marco," I began slowly, "what kind of credit account do you use?"
"Gnomish Bank of Zoorik," Marco replied. Light dawned on him as he studied our faces. "No. No, it is not true."
"I think it must be," Chumley rejoined. "How closely do you scrutinize your statements, Marco?"
Marco waved a hand. "Oh, you know, debits and credits come and go—but you are saying that I am being stolen from, in my very own account! I must go and look. What a terrible thing!"
The Djinn flew off, muttering to himself.
"What do you think, Green Genius?" Massha asked.
I frowned. "I think that the rat we captured wasn't carrying cards for all the bodies they can change into. They probably have hundreds each, maybe more." I crunched across the debris on the floor. "Let's lock this place up. We need to question the rat and find out where the rest of them are, and how many different identities are circulating."
TWENTY
We couldn't get near the Will Call office. Yellow tape stretched across the corridor, and the guards bustling back and forth behind it refused to let us through. I showed the Flibberite sentries the IDs that Moa had issued us.
"Look, we've been deputized by Captain Parvattani," I argued. "We have to talk to his prisoner."
"We haven't got a prisoner, sir," the guard replied stoutly.
"Fine," I grumbled. "Have it your way. Use whatever politically correct term you want. Detainee, intern, person helping you with your inquiries."
"I mean, sir," the guard corrected me, his eyes forward but his cheeks glowing blue like a cheap television screen, "that the person you seek is no longer in our keeping."
"The hell he's not! Where's Parvattani?" I pushed past the guard station. Chumley, Massha, and Cire followed in my wake, plowing forward like "his" and "hers" and "his" humvees.
"Please, sir, sir, madame, stay behind the line!" the guards squawked. They didn't have a chance. "I'm busy!" I bellowed back.
"I'm with them," Eskina stated perkily, trotting along behind us.
Parvattani greeted us, rings under his eyes as deep as the ours from a sleepless night.
"I should have-a sent word," he apologized, showing me the empty cubicle where the mall-rat had been sequestered.
It was furnished like a studio apartment, with a convertible sofa bed, a bookshelf and a reading light, probably used most of the time by hamsters waiting to be picked up.
"But it has taken all my attention."
"No problem," I assured him. "We've been having the day from hell ourselves. Any signs of forced entry?"
"Magikal," Parvattani replied. He held up a translucent gel in a frame. We looked through it at the temporary cell. The whole thing danced with deep violet light. "A huge expenditure of very powerful magik, like-a we have not seen here before. Much too much to undo a single locking spell, such-a as held this room shut. The Djinns are very worried."
I was, too. It had to mean that Rattila had sprung the prisoner, either before or after he paid us that little visit last night. He must be feeling pretty cocky, to expend a ton of energy on, as Par said, a cheesy little B&E job.
One of the guards ran up and saluted.
"Here is the crystal ball, sir," he snapped out. Parvattani took it from him.
"This-a was planted in the ceiling. It will show everything that-a happen during the night."
We all bent over it to watch. Par tweaked the spell so the night unfolded before our eyes in a matter of moments. Most of it was black, except for a burst of blinding light. He ran it back and started it over, much more slowly. The glare, when it came, illuminated not one but two bodies silhouetted against it. Two thieves, breaking open the Will Call box where the mall-rat had been staying. Then a face filled the globe's surface. There, thumbs in ears so all the fingers could be waggled at us, tongue stuck out to the roots and eyes squeezed shut in playful disdain, was Skeeve's face. My blood pressure shot through the roof. "I want this guy's hide!" I roared.
"My loyal subjects," Rattila announced to the cheering mall-rats. "Our company is complete again."
Mayno twirled his long black whiskers as he bowed low before the Throne of Refuse.
"Thanks to our gran' patron," he declared. "To be freed from such petite quarters eez a plaisir. Zere was nozzing to steal in zere. It was boi-ring."
Garn was the last to return to the Rat Hole. He had been spying on the visitors.
"You should've seen them," he gloated. "Running around in circles trying to figure out how we did it. How did we do it?" he asked Rattila.
"Stupid!" the Ratislavan sneered. "My new power exceeds everything they have at their disposal!"
He threw out his paws, and lightning sprang from them, ricocheting around the room. The mall-rats threw themselves to the sweating floor. Piles of clothing and baby toys burst apart, showering them with plastic shards and fabric tatters.
"Just think what it will be like when my talent is complete!"
"Uh, Ratty, you gotta get some control on there, dude," Strewth mentioned, from the foot of the throne.
"DON'T call me Ratty!" Rattila raged. Fire burst out of his mouth in a torrent. It splashed against the nearest heap of luxury goods and set it ablaze. "Say, I like that. When I am angry I am much more terrible." He loomed magnanimously over Strewth. "You may call me Ratty when I tell you to."
"Sure thing, R—I mean, Master."
"In the meantime, you will recite my titles, all of them!" He glared at all the mall-rats.
"King of Trash, Marquis of Merchandise, Collector of Unguarded Property, Magikal Potentate Extraordinary, Rightful Holder of the Throne of Refuse, and Ruler of All Rats and Lesser Beings."
Rattila's eyes slitted with pleasure. "Again." Strewth sighed and repeated the litany. The others joined in. "Good. Now, we celebrate!"
With a mere flick, Rattila drew enough power from the lines of force that crossed over The Mall to draw a nearly clean white damask tablecloth out of the bag where it had rested untouched for two years. Candlesticks came from every quarter of the Rat Hole and set themselves in the center. Candles inserted themselves into the sockets. Rattila lit them with a thought. He almost laughed at the ease with which he created fire. This was the life! This was worth five long years of gleaning power from mundane, pedestrian shoppers. And he had the visitors to thank. If Aahz and the others had not drawn attention to Skeeve, Rattila would have treated his card like all the others, not delving deeply into the knowledge that the Klahd had amassed over the years. What advantages he had missed!
Bottles, cans, baskets, and boxes assembled themselves on the cloth, with Rattila conducting them like an orchestra leader. The
mall-rats' eyes were wide with amazement and greed at the sight of sweetmeats, sausages, jellies, biscuits, and condensed cream of tomato soup. They gathered around the cloth, rubbing their paws together.
"And now," he announced, with a sweep of one claw, "we feast! First, the caviar!" At his direction the tiny jars opened, and their jewel-like contents spread themselves onto round crackers, which dealt themselves out to the assembled mall-rats. They all exchanged nervous glances.
"Uh, Rat—Rattila, we don't like caviar," Strewth ventured.
"You have to like it!" Rattila boomed, his red eyes gleaming. "It is expensive. Think of all the poor mall-rats who don't have caviar!"
"Oh, okay, dude," Strewth replied, resignedly.
With a shrug to the others, he took a bite, trying not to gag. The others followed suit. Rattila could feel their distaste. He rather enjoyed it.
Perhaps the grand celebration was premature. He should have saved it for when the gauge in the Master Card had reached the top of its potential limit, but it was close. He really felt his power now. It was wonderful. The Massha cards were feeding him nicely.
'The day is coming soon when I shall be all-powerful, omnipotent, all-encompassing!" he informed the rats as he served them pressed pheasant, another costly delicacy. "I lust for that moment."
"Whatever," the mall-rats murmured, shoving unfinished caviar under the tablecloth and hoping he didn't notice.
"It is! It's whatever I say!" He let loose with another blast of power that shook the foundations of The Mall. "You see! I control everything!"-
From a nearby heap he caused a Massha's Secret box to fly to him. The contents spilled out, feathered garters flitting around in the air like round butterflies. Yes, and in his future, butterflies would be round!
"Pretty, pretty!" Oive and Lawsy crooned.
"Yes, they are," Rattila acknowledged.
He squinted at the garters. They were full of magik. It must be his! He reached for them and touched them with the Master Card. The feathers drooped as the power was drained from the garters.
"Awwww!" the mall-rats chorused. "Why'd you do that?"
"What do you care if they work?" Rattila snarled, throwing the silk wisps away from him.
"Well, they're cool that way," Oive argued. "I like the one with the lunch box on it. You can keep a sandwich fresh all day in that little pouch."
"Don't worry," Rattila declared, crushing the last garter in his clenched paw. It burst into flames, but he didn't seem to notice. "Soon all the power in this Mall will be mine, and you will have all the working toys that you could ever want. Everyone's lunch will be yours!" Strewth and a few of the others started to edge backward. They were terrified of him. They thought he was going insane. He caught a whisper of the ringleader's thoughts: Power corrupts.
"No!" he thundered, letting loose a blast of magik that shook piles of merchandise down all over the vast chamber. "Power is good! It can be dangerous, yes. Knowledge is power," he slavered. He started to flip the box aside, then laughed at the name. "Massha's Secret. We've learned a lot of Massha's secrets, haven't we?" he asked, holding the image of the Jahk in his mind.
Lawsy had done a good job of gleaning truths out of her. Honestly, she could have obtained a real credit card with less information than she had unwittingly given Lawsy. Rattila luxuriated in it.
"She doesn't use all the power she has at her disposal, preferring to rely on all that jewelry. If she did, I would be already over the mark. But this will do," he insisted, fondling the Master Card. "This will do nicely. I'll add the Pervert and the Troll to my collection after I have become the most powerful magician in the world. In the meanwhile"—he turned to glare at his trembling workforce—"eat up! There are rats starving in Brooklyn!"
"We can wait until the next Skeeve sighting," Chumley suggested, as I stomped out of the Will Call office.
I didn't know where I was going, but if I had stayed there, I would have started breaking heads, and none of the heads I wanted to break were there.
"What do we do now?" Cire asked, glumly. "Our trap is gone, and so is our subject."
"I don't know. I have to think," I replied, moodily.
I was torqued by the invasion of the tax agents and the disappearance of the mall-rat, but what really irked me was the expressions of deep and sincere sympathy on the faces of the merchants. Our humiliation had become com- mon knowledge. I figured the shoppers who'd been in Massha's Secret when the explosion came had spread the word about the riot. The merchants almost certainly thought we were complete screwups. So much for M.Y.T.H., Inc's reputation.
A plump female Djinnie came sailing out of a shoe boutique and whisked around us in circles.
"Oh, you lovely people," she gushed. "Marco told us all about what happened! He told all of us, and we have told everyone else in The Mall!"
"Yeah, yeah," I grunted, with an embarrassed wave, hoping to stave off the recitation. I didn't want to live through it again.
But the Djinnie and I weren't on the same page.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she beamed, zooming in to kiss me soundly on the lips. She seized Chumley and Cire and planted one on them, too. "We are all now checking for discrepancies in our expenditures! You may have saved many of us from that horrid Rattila!" She hugged Massha and picked Eskina right off the floor. "You are wonderful!"
"Yeah," I agreed, realizing now what she was talking about. I should have guessed. The Djinnie would be a lot more interested in not getting ripped off than in our tax shutdown. I straightened up a little. "We are."
"Come, choose anything from my shop," she invited, guiding us toward the shoe displays. "Each of you. Please."
"We were just trying to do a job," I argued. "But I noticed how my companions perked up at the Djinnie's gratitude. "Well—okay."
Not that I needed shoes, of course, but the proprietor, name of Tarkeni, had snappy accessories, including belts and personal-grooming kits, one of which was made of scaly leather not unlike my own fetching skin, except in bronze. I found myself turning it over in my hands a dozen times until Tarkeni stuffed it in a bag and pronounced it mine.
"It is the least we can do!" she exclaimed. By the time we left the shop all five of us had more of a spring in our steps.
"You see, big guy?" Massha declared with a wink. "Retail therapy definitely helps."
"This is the life, huh?" Cire asked, admiring his new shoes.
Flippers like his were hard to fit, and the boots the Djinnie had pressed on him must have been worth dozens of gold pieces.
"Rather!" Chumley agreed, enjoying his new ParchmentMan automatic book scroll.
Other grateful merchants were eager to help us recover from our run of bad luck. I hardly had time to think about the Skeeve impostors or our own humiliation as we were dragged out of the corridors every hundred paces by another shopkeeper or booth owner.
"You are good people," a Gourami remarked, kissing us all as she urged us to try on the glass finger and toe rings she sold.
"My mother would want you to have this," a teenage Whelf insisted, pressing a bag of candles on us.
I even found myself wandering around a furniture store with the Djinni owner hovering at my heels promising a deep discount on anything in the store.
"Or anything you choose to order," he added, hospitably, smiles wreathing his broad blue face.
I browsed a selection of recliners to take the place of my burned-out armchair, thinking what pleasure I'd get out of handing Woofle the receipt and insisting he pay the balance.
Thanks to one of Massha's gadgets, what parcels and boxes Chumley couldn't haul floated along behind us on our way back to the hotel.
"If we don't get the alarm to chase a Skeeve-clone, I'm going to take a nap," I informed the others.
Massha cupped a huge yawn behind her broad hand. "Good idea, Short and Scaly," she responded.
"There you are!"Rimbaldi Djinnelli came flying toward us through the crowd. He seized Massha's hands. "I l
ove you even more today than before, you beautiful lady! Come to my shop!" He herded us all along with him. "You must all see the outfit that my wife has designed for this so generously made lady, whose body matches her heart. It will fill you all with delight!"
I caught sight of a familiar quartet of purple eyes on the other side of the hall near an art gallery.
"Hey, is that Chloridia?" I asked, pulling the gang to a halt. "Let me catch up with her."
"Of course!" Rimbaldi boomed. "You shall bring her along, too."
But by the time I turned around again, she'd disappeared into the crowd. I was relieved to see her back in The Mall again. We would cross paths again sooner or later.
TWENTY-ONE
As we entered The Volcano, Jack Frost, elemental building engineer, glanced up from a conversation with one of the Djinnelli cousins to tip us a friendly wave. The store was steaming hot, as was the discussion.
"I fixed this spell yesterday," Jack insisted, his cheeks and nose more than usually pink.
He threw up his hands, and the familiar white cones of cold came radiating out of his fingertips.
"But you feel how it is now?" demanded the Djinn, his face blue with outrage. "It is too hot again! Your spell failed."
"I don't get it," Jack admitted. "It really should not be this hot in here. It's not natural. Hey, Aahz!" He nudged me as we passed. "Sorry about the shop. It was a really nice place."
"Well," I tossed off noncommittally, "easy come, easy go. It is pretty warm in here. Anything wrong?"
"This whole place, she is over a live volcano," the Djinn exclaimed, giving us a distracted nod of greeting. "Of course sometimes it gets too hot! You are failing at your task, and do you know what I say to that?"
Jack blew a cloud of white condensation. 'The elemental under that volcano's a friend of mine. He keeps it down to normal most of the time. Moa and I have already worked out when he can have the next eruption, and it's not for eight years! So, don't tell me I'm not keeping on top of this!"
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