Long Hot Summoning

by Tanya Huff

  “There’s our answer!”

  Dean scanned the headlines and frowned. “The waterfront renewal project?”

  “No. The life-sized stone statue found at the mall!”

  “The mall?”

  “The very one! And you know what a life-sized stone statue means.”

  “Bad garden art?”

  “Basilisk! We go to the mall. We capture it. We turn Meryat to stone!”

  “Claire…”

  “You want Claire coming home to find Meryat waiting for her.”

  No. He didn’t. “How do we capture a basilisk without turning to stone ourselves?”

  Austin stared up at him in disbelief. “Do I have to think of everything?”

  TWELVE

  WHILE KEEPERS SPENT pretty much their entire lives fighting to keep the world safe, they didn’t usually get involved in actual fighting of the hand-to-hand, teeth-to-arm, knees-to-groin variety. And no matter how many Saturday afternoons got wasted watching badly dubbed kung fu movies, it didn’t help.

  Diana realized this about ten seconds into the fight. She couldn’t reach the possibilities, she’d lost her prepared defenses, and she had no idea how to disable her opponents with a shopping cart. Not that there was a shopping cart handy.

  Running, while the intelligent response, had got them exactly seven paces closer to the throne before two of the giant bugs—moving in that creepy, skittery, fast way that giant bugs had laid claim to since the old black-and-white movie days—had cut them off. Diving out of the way of a flailing forearm, or foreleg, or sixleg or whatever it was called on a bug, Diana smacked her head against the floor and, just for an instant, heard the voice of Ms. McBride, her last biology teacher.

  “…size to mass ratio…”

  Yeah. That was helpful.

  Fortunately, her belief that the meat-minds were too clumsy to simultaneously walk and breathe made them an avoidable threat for the most part. The bugs were the problem. Just as the bugs had been the problem in the access corridor.

  “Diana, are you listening?”

  Apparently not.

  She caught a quick glimpse of Kris going up and over a meat-mind, her black hightops digging into knees, thighs, hips, chest, and shoulders like they were part of her own personal jungle gym. As the mall elf leaped clear, the pursuing bug knocked the meat-mind ass over tip and got itself tangled in the sudden barricade of flailing arms and legs. Diana wasted a moment imagining what Kris could do with a shopping cart, then, at the last possible instant, dropped flat and slid under a descending carapace.

  And let’s hear it for polished marble floors! she noted as her slide put her considerably closer to the wand. She could see it, lying all pink and plastic on the steps of the throne, but she couldn’t…quite…reach…

  The bug’s leg caught her a glancing blow, skidding her a couple of meters in the wrong direction.

  “This will be on the final exam.”

  What will?

  She’d written her final biology exam only ten days ago. You’d think I’d remember more of it. Which was either a scathing indictment of the public school system, or she should start worrying about her short-term memory.

  Curved, swordlike mandibles cut through the back of her sweater and hoisted her onto her feet.

  Mandibles. Maxillae. Labium or lower lip.

  Her final exam’d had an entire section on bugs. Class Insecta. A useless spewing of information she assumed she’d never need again—her present situation having been unanticipated at the time. Evidently, a little shortsighted of her.

  Insects. Nearly a million known species.

  Every kind of land environment supports a flourishing insect population.

  “So, Ms. McBride, if bugs are so great, how come they aren’t taking over the world like in them old movies?”

  Diana smiled and mentally thanked Daryl Mills. The bug holding her shuddered as its exoskeleton cracked in a dozen places with a sound like cheap wineglasses hitting a concrete floor. She jumped clear as it collapsed under its own weight. Most of a sperm whale’s weight was supported by water. Elephants had evolved massive bones and muscles to deal with their bulk. Size/mass ratio.

  Giant bugs were impossible.

  So there.

  The sound of breaking glass filled the throne room and pieces of chitin buzzed around like shrapnel. The Shadowlord shrieked like a hockey mom after a bad call.

  Three steps and she’d be at the dais. Up two stairs and she’d have the wand. One moment after that, it would all be over but the fat lady singing. Whatever that meant.

  Three steps and…

  Something caught her between the shoulder blades and she went down, hard.

  Epicuticle, she thought muzzily as it bounced and landed about two centimeters from her nose. This isn’t…

  A booted foot pressed hard against the back of her neck.

  …good.

  She swung out as a hand in her hair dragged her up onto her knees but only succeeded in overbalancing and nearly scalping herself. Blinking away memories of grade school ponytails so tight she looked like Mr. Spock’s kid sister, Diana screamed “RUN!” over the Shadowlord’s ultimatum that Kris surrender.

  “What did you listen to him for?” she demanded a moment later as two meat-minds dropped Kris beside her.

  The mall elf got shakily to her knees. “Like I was going to leave you here alone?”

  How romantic. Well, since you asked, not very. “You could have gone for help!”

  “As if. It’s wall to friggin’ wall of meat-minds out there. Couldn’t get past them.”

  Okay. Even less romantic.

  “So I remembered something I was told, way back,” Kris continued. “If you’re going to lose anyway, surrender before they kick your ass—not after.”

  “Arthur?”

  “My mom.”

  “Smart lady.”

  “That time.”

  “Are you two finished catching up?” the Shadowlord snarled.

  “So, ’rents still together?” Diana asked, shuffling around so that she was facing the other girl.

  The mall elf stared at her for a moment, then disbelief disappeared behind a gleeful smile as she caught on. When it seems like there’s no options left, there’s always the option of being a pain in the ass. “Nah, my dad split about six years ago. I’m guessin’ you’ve got the whole happy suburban family thing going down?”

  “Oh, yeah. We’re a walking, talking WASP cliché except for that whole Keeper, Cousin, cat thing.”

  “Silence!” At some point the Shadowlord had retrieved his club, and he was stroking it as he loomed over them.

  “You know if you think that looks threatening…” Diana nodded toward the club. “…you’re so wrong. It’s screaming, ‘hey, girls, look at my big substitute…’”

  She’d been a little worried she might provoke him into actually using the club, but, fortunately, he went with the personal touch. The backhand lifted her off her knees and threw her back over the steps of the dais. Moving around to face Kris had placed her at exactly the right angle—no brainer to figure he’d lash out—and she grabbed the wand as she sprawled over it, stuffing it down into the front of her pants.

  Diana’d seen the same stunt on a television show once. On a seventeen-inch screen it hadn’t looked as painful as it really was. Bells and whistles were still going off inside her skull as a pair of meat-minds hauled her onto her feet and dragged her back before the Shadowlord.

  “Foolish little girl. I should kill you where you stand.”

  “Not actually standing here…Ow!” The dangling she could cope with, but the shaking was a bit over the top. “Besides, you can’t kill me or you’d have already done it. And do you know why you can’t kill me?” For the same reason she hadn’t used the wand the moment her fingers closed around it. “Because you’re not the Big Bad.” She was not wasting their one chance on a flunky. “Killing me would release all sorts of energy down here. Energy you can’t contro
l. That’s why you didn’t kill me…us,” she corrected, glancing over at Kris. “…before. That’s why you can’t kill me now.”

  “I can’t, but that from where I came, can.”

  Diana blinked. Even her eyelashes hurt. “What?”

  “I speak of the Pit. The Darkness. The…”

  “Yeah. Okay. I get it. You can’t. Hell can. It may have split you off, and given you a personality—of sorts—but it still keeps you under its thumb.”

  “That’s not…”

  “Hey, denial; not just a river in Egypt. Face it, Hell’s just using you. In fact, there really isn’t a you at all. You don’t have a name, you don’t have an identity; you’re just an itty-bitty part of a greater whole. Hell doesn’t trust you with any real power.” As the last words left her mouth, Diana knew she’d made a mistake. The Shadowlord had been frowning as he listened to her, clearly not liking what she had to say—possibly not liking it enough to challenge Hell and cause a distraction, allowing her to seal the hole and shut down the segue thus saving the world—but at trust, he smiled.

  “Of course, Hell doesn’t trust me,” he said calmly. “Hell is me. And I am Hell.”

  “A little-bitty part…”

  “Enough. Your blatant attempt to drive a wedge between me and my origin might have worked were we in the sort of fairy tale where the good guys always win, but we’re…”

  “In the subbasement of an imaginary shopping mall,” Diana finished as dryly as her current position allowed. Oh, great, I’m starting to sound like Claire.

  He stepped forward and pressed the end of his club under Diana’s chin, forcing her head back. “What part of ‘enough’ are you having difficulty understanding?”

  “Well, duh; the part where I do anything you say.”

  “Then perhaps you should consider this…” Had he been breathing, his breath would have caressed her cheek. As it was, she felt a faint frisson of fear spread out from the closest point between them, as though his proximity caused an involuntary physical reaction. “…I can’t kill you, but I can bludgeon you senseless.”

  “Right. Enough; adverb. To put an end to an action.” Clearly she’d been paying more attention in English than biology, and she really really wished he’d back away. “As in enough taunting the Shadowlord. I should stop it. I can do that.”

  “Good.”

  “Is there any particular reason you asked the three-thousand-year-old, reanimated Egyptian mummy that’s been sucking out your life force if there was anything we could get her while we’re at the mall?”

  “I was just being polite,” Dean protested as he turned off Sir John A. MacDonald Boulevard and onto Highway 33.

  “She’s sucking out your life force,” Austin repeated, enunciating each word with caustic clarity.

  “And that’s a reason to be rude, then?”

  “Some people might think so.”

  “Some people might be after jumping in the harbor; that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”

  “So, just out of curiosity…” He hooked his claws in the seat as the truck maneuvered around another corner. “…what would be grounds for rudeness in your book?”

  Dean’s brow creased above the upper edge of his glasses as he thought about it.

  After a few moments, Austin sighed. “Never mind.”

  There’d been discussion about Austin remaining at the guest house to keep an eye on things, but in the end they’d decided it was too great a risk. Without Dean there to snack on, there was always the chance that Meryat would turn to the cat and the cat didn’t have life force to spare.

  “Although it’s entirely possible she can’t feed from me.”

  “Why?” Before Austin could answer, Dean had raised a hand, cutting him off. “Because you’re a cat.”

  “Does there need to be another reason?”

  “Is there ever another reason?”

  The guest house had proven it could take care of itself.

  The mall parking lot was about half full. Fully three quarters of the parked vehicles were minivans, which was disturbing mostly because Dean didn’t know how disturbed he should be. Or why. Just to be on the safe side, he parked next to a white sedan with Ohio plates.

  “I’d feel better about this if I could go in there with you,” Austin muttered as Dean pulled an empty hockey bag out from behind the seats. “Do you remember the plan?”

  “Find a spot by the food court, place the bag on its side with the zipper open, place the dish of cold Red River cereal in the bag, close the bag while the basilisk is eating, only look at it with this piece of mirror.” Dean held up the sideview mirror that had broken off the truck on his first drive to Ontario a year and a half ago. The support had snapped, but the glass was fine, so he’d hung on to it. “You’re sure it’ll come to the cereal, then?”

  “It’s got to be hungry, and that stuff’s close enough to chicken feed it’ll never know the difference.”

  “I can’t believe we’re…”

  “…utilizing local resources to disable a metaphysical threat.”

  Dean stared at the cat.

  Austin stared back.

  “Well, when you put it like that,” Dean said at last. He opened the door and stepped down onto the asphalt. “Try to stay out of sight. The windows are open and you’ve got lots of water, but I don’t want some good Samaritan calling the cops on me because they think you’re suffering.”

  “Nobody understands my pain.”

  “You can say that again,” Dean sighed as he closed the door.

  The parking lot felt soft underfoot. It wasn’t the heat, even though it was hot enough to paint his T-shirt to his body, and bright enough to light it up like Signal Hill; it was as if the asphalt itself was rising around each boot and trying to drag him down. Not exactly what had happened to Claire and Diana the morning he’d dropped them off since they’d left visible footprints in the tar and he had no actual evidence that this was going on anywhere but in his head. No footprints. No smell of melted tar. Just a feeling. Accompanied by the certainty that things on the Otherside had gotten worse instead of better.

  Things always get worse before they get better, he told himself and didn’t find it very reassuring. He wanted to help. He couldn’t help. All he could do was make sure that when Claire came home, she wouldn’t be facing a life-sucking reanimated mummy. Given the condition of the parking lot, it didn’t seem like enough.

  He found himself walking with an exaggerated, high-stepping gait. And he wasn’t the only one. Across the lot, two kids, one around three, the other no more than five, were walking the exact same way. The funny thing was, their mother—Dean assumed it was their mother although she could have been a babysitter—didn’t seem to notice. Her feet were dragging with the unmistakable exhaustion of someone who’d just spent the morning with two preschoolers in a shopping mall.

  Were children more open to the extraordinary?

  He flushed as he realized the mother—or babysitter—was aware of his attention. Flushed darker when he realized she was staring at his…uh, jeans…and smiling in a way that was making him distinctly nervous. Picking up his pace, he made it to the concrete in time to turn and see all three of them pile into a later model station wagon.

  Not a minivan.

  Which was good; right?

  Feeling vaguely nostalgic for the days when he knew what the hell was going on, he went into the mall.

  The air-conditioning hit him like a dive into the North Atlantic, and the sweat dribbling down the sides of his neck dried so fast it left goose bumps behind. A trio of fourteen-year-old girls burst into high-pitched giggling as he stepped back and held open the door for them, the giggling punctuated by “Oh. My. God.” at frequent intervals as they passed. Dean had the uncomfortable feeling they were referring to the rip in the right leg of his jeans. Maybe he shouldn’t have worn them out in public, but after years of being washed and ironed, they were so thin that they were the coolest pair he owned in spite of ho
w tightly they fit.

  He’d parked by the food court entrance, having a strong suspicion that a man carrying a basilisk in a hockey bag was going to need to cover as short a distance as possible inside the mall.

  By the time he reached the edge of the seating area, he remembered what he hated about these kind of places. He’d seen dead cod with more personality.

  Actually, in this kind of weather, dead cod had personality to spare.

  Only the fact that the forces of evil were using this mall as part of their attempt to take over the world made it any different than a hundred malls just like it. Although not a lot different.

  Austin had been certain the basilisk would be hanging around the food court.

  Dean studied the area carefully, walked over to the ubiquitous Chinese Take-Out, and bought an egg roll and a coffee. He couldn’t just sit down at a table in the food court without food, taking up space he had no real right to; that would be rude. Tray in one hand, hockey bag in the other, he made his way through a sudden crowd of teenagers toward the more thickly filled of the two planters—the perfect basilisk hiding place.

  The good news: the table closest to the planter was empty.

  The bad news: either a chicken-lizard combo smelled like the shallows after one of the big boats had just flushed her bilges on a hot day or the basilisk wasn’t the only thing the planter was hiding.

  It certainly explained why the statue they’d found had been holding a trowel and a bucket.

  He wasted a moment wondering why they’d positioned plastic plants under a skylight, then reached into his bag and took the top off the container of cooked cereal. With the open bag carefully braced between his feet, he set the mirror in his lap, and opened his coffee.

  As he took his first sip, he heard his grandfather’s voice, “Fer the love of God, bai, you don’t go buying coffee from a Chinese Take-Out! That’s why the good laird gave us Timmy Horton’s!”

  Dean put the lid back on his cardboard cup, forcing himself to swallow.

  His grandfather had been a very wise man.

  The egg roll probably would have tasted better if his sense of smell hadn’t gone numb. On the other hand, had his sense of smell still been functioning, he wouldn’t have been able to eat the egg roll, so he supposed it evened out.