by Tanya Huff
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, shunk 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, I 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.”
“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.
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 aluminum 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 aluminum 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 r
emoved 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.
