Long Hot Summoning

by Tanya Huff

  Old man.

  They’d been gone for—Dean glanced down at his watch—just over two and a half hours. In that time, Dr. Rebik had aged a good thirty years. Actually, a bad thirty years.

  He blinked rheumy eyes. “What’s in the bag?”

  “You know, word was, Dean McIssac couldn’t lie to save his life.”

  “Well, it’s uh…”

  “Personal,” Austin snapped. “Just a little cat business Dean’s helping me out with.” He stalked past the professor, tossing an imperious, “Let’s go, Dean,” back over one shoulder.

  Dean shrugged apologetically, picked up the bag, and started to follow, his eyes flicking back and forth from one shadow to another. If Dr. Rebik was here, the obvious question became, where was Meryat?

  Right on cue, she stepped out of the shadows, blocking his way. He could push past her, even though she looked significantly less dead than she had, he was still twice her size. But that would be rude. Clutching the handles of the hockey bag in suddenly sweaty hands, he stopped.

  “You seem distracted, Mr. McIssac.” She smiled. Her lips went almost all the way around her mouth. “Were you looking for me?”

  * * *

  “What’s he looking for?”

  “Us.” Teemo squirmed a little farther into the shadows, only stopping when Kith squeaked a protest. “Well, not like totally us. But, you know, us.”

  Claire frowned and peered out past the elves at the elderly security guard. “He’s not even in this reality.”

  “Doesn’t matter. He’s got this kind of…”

  “Teenager sense,” Kith finished. “It’s like he hates us, and that helps him find us.”

  “Really?” She could feel her eyes narrowing all on their own.

  “Yeah. Really. He’s the freakiest thing in here, and that’s saying something.”

  But exactly what it was saying, Claire wasn’t certain. Had the old man been changed as the mall changed? Over the years, had he allowed his job to define him until he became his job and the job became his definition of reality? Was there darkness enough in him that the darkside had been able to hire him to work the segue as well as the original mall?

  Using hire in the broadest sense of the word.

  “Fuck, he’s coming this way!”

  He was. Then he paused and turned and stared into the shadows where Arthur’s army was hiding.

  Trying to hide.

  There were too many of them for the nooks and crannies of the concourse to hold, so they stood and silently watched the old man approach. As the beam of light swept up, three of the skateboarders sped out from under the stairs.

  Drawing his fire.

  As she watched them cut the concourse into wild patterns, staying inches ahead of the light, she realized, for the first time, that the good guys might stand a chance. This was their mall now and although they were going to take on the darkside with skateboards and baseball bats, they believed they could do it. On the Otherside, belief was everything.

  Two of the boarders went over the beam. The third went under.

  Now, she believed they could do it.

  Given who she was and where they were, that might be enough.

  And it might not, but the point is they’re farther ahead than they were…oh no.

  Someone zigged when he should have zagged. Golden hair blazed out under the edge of the helmet as the light caught one of the elves, holding him in place six inches off the end of the metal bench. Stewart. Half a heartbeat later, both Stewart and the old man were gone.

  “Where…?”

  “We think he’ll go back to the other mall.” Kith sounded very young as she stepped out of the shadows. “But we don’t know for sure.”

  Across the concourse, Arthur’s army began to move out.

  Claire looked for Sam but couldn’t see him in the crowd. She did see Jo raise her bat to the place Stewart disappeared. From the look on her face, the security guard should thank any gods willing to listen that he wasn’t in this reality and that Jo could never cross back.

  But I can.

  Claire added another note to her mental to-do list—after rescue Diana and save the world but before pick up dry cleaning.

  “Come on.” A hand on skinny shoulders got her escort’s attention. “Let’s do this.”

  * * *

  IT BEGINS.

  The declaration jerked Diana up out of her slump, spilling Kris’ head off her shoulder. “What does?”

  WHAT DO YOU THINK? IT!

  “Right.” It. The battle. Her diversion. She shuffled around toward Kris, using the motion to cover an attempt to move the wand a little farther up her leg. “You okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, fuckin’ great. I wasn’t asleep.”

  “Okay.”

  “I was just…you know.”

  Looking for an excuse to cuddle. Diana grinned. “Okay.”

  Kris flipped her dreads back off her face and sighed. “You have to sound so smug?”

  “Pretty much, yeah.” Keeping her back against the wall of the cavern, she got to her feet and held a hand down to the elf.

  “So this where all Hell breaks loose?”

  Someone had to say it, Diana reminded herself. It wasn’t exactly a Rule. Some things didn’t have to be. “Not yet.”

  With any luck, not ever.

  Leaning out around the quartet of meat-minds left to guard them, she watched as the Shadowlord came into the cavern—not walking, striding, and being pretty da…darned obvious about it, too. Over the whole black-on-black wardrobe, he was wearing greaves, vambraces, and a polished breastplate. Also in black. He pulled his sword—not black, Diana was happy to note, although it wasn’t like he hadn’t already beat the theme to death—and knelt by the edge of the pit.

  “Is it time?”

  IT IS. ARE YOU READY?

  “I am.”

  “Who writes their dialogue,” Kris muttered as the Shadowlord stood, his blade lifted in salute.

  Diana had a witty comeback ready, but it slipped off her tongue. The Shadowlord’s hair, definitely blond on all other occasions, was looking more than just a little red. It might have been reflected light from the pit, but she had a horrible feeling he was about to earn a name.

  Given who he’ll be fighting, three guesses as to what name and the first two don’t count.

  * * *

  Sam trotted along at Arthur’s heels, vaguely aware that this wasn’t the first time he’d gone to war—Angels being soldiers of the Lord and all that. He just wished he could remember more of his life before he became a cat. Well, he remembered the few days he’d been essentially a human teenage male, but since that had mostly involved being confused, hungry, and obsessed with genitalia, it wasn’t a lot of help.

  He would rather have been with Claire, rescuing Diana. He would rather have been with Diana right from the start, but no one ever listened to him.

  This made his ability to stop Arthur from doing a little one-on-one whacking with the Big Bad just a little suspect. The access to higher knowledge he retained in this form was no help at all.

  So.

  What would Austin do?

  “The trick in getting them to listen is making sure you’ve got their attention before you start.”

  “But how?”

  Austin stretched out a front leg and flexed the paw. His claws sank a quarter inch into the sofa cushion. “Use your imagination, kid. That’s what it’s there for.”

  Well, if a cat could look at a king, he supposed it was only a small step from there to leaving scars. Feeling more confident, he began memorizing the places Arthur’s padding didn’t quite cover. Just in case things got unpleasant.

  “Did you have a pleasant time at the shopping mall, Dean?” Meryat’s voice was low and musical, her movements graceful, even considering she was still more than half corpse.

  Dr. Rebik stared at her in open-mouthed fascination.

  Dean stared in horror.

  Austin seemed to have disappeared.


  “You seem to have done some shopping,” she continued, her eyes following the movements of the hockey bag. “Is it another kitty?” Her arm whipped forward with snakelike speed and one finger poked the canvas. The answering squawk was more indignant than pained. “No, not a kitty. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d bought yourself a chicken.”

  Dean really didn’t like the way she’d emphasized If I didn’t know better…His grip tightened around the straps of the bag, the wrapped canvas growing damp under his fingers.

  “Why don’t you show me?”

  Okay. He thrust the bag toward her. Austin’s plan had involved getting Dr. Rebik out of their room, leaving the bag outside the door for her to find, assuming she’d go after the life force of whatever was in it. She’d drag it inside, and open it, never suspecting a Bystander capable of delivering a mythological creature capable of turning her to stone. The threat of life sucking would be over and the basilisk would be safely contained until Claire came home.

  Still, as long as he closed his eyes and got Dr. Rebik to close his eyes and assumed that Austin was somewhere safe, this should do as plan B. Given that the basilisk had been hiding out in a shopping mall with minimal statuary happening, it clearly preferred hiding over stoning. Stoneage. Turning people to stone.

  Meryat pushed the bag back toward him. “You open it.”

  That would make things a little trickier.

  Meryat was a foot shorter than he was, slim, and not entirely alive. If he shoved her out of his way, could she stop him? If he shoved her into the wall, was she still brittle enough to break?

  “You can’t, you know.”

  Dean swallowed and found his voice. “I can’t what, then?”

  “Just charge past me.” His eyes widened and she smiled. “No, I’m not reading your mind; I’m reading your face. Everything you’re thinking, everything you’re feeling is right out there.”

  “You don’t ever hit someone smaller than you.”

  “What about Brad Mackenzie? He’s smaller than me, but he’s plays for St. Pat’s, and if I don’t hit him, we’ll…”

  His grandfather sighed. “All right, fine. You don’t ever hit someone smaller than you unless they’re wearing hockey skates.”

  From the way Meryat was smiling, that had shown on his face, too. He was some screwed because he’d never get her into hockey skates.

  “Every hero needs a fatal flaw. Now, for the last time, Dean, open the bag.”

  “And what if I’m after saying no?”

  “Then I’ll suck my darling Dr. Rebik dry, right in front of you.” A gesture brought the archeologist around to her side. She slid a slender arm through his and smiled. “Your choice.”

  Dean set the hockey bag down on the kitchen counter and began fumbling with the zipper. “She’s killing you, you know!”

  Dr. Rebik matched Meryat’s smile. “I die of love.”

  “Yeah, right…” The bit of basilisk he’d caught back in the food court was jamming the zipper closed. If he kept his eyes shut…

  Would Claire be able to fix him if he was turned to stone?

  If she couldn’t, would she put him out in the garden?

  Would pigeons shit on his head?

  It’d be sea gulls back home, so he supposed pigeons would be an improvement.

  “Are you stalling, Dean?”

  Dr. Rebik moaned low in his throat and a patch of hair fell out, slid down the curve of his head and off his bowed shoulder to the floor.

  “I’m going as fast as I can!” he cried, yanking at the zipper and fighting the urge to go for the whisk broom and dustpan. “It’s stuck!”

  “I see. We’ll just have to…”

  Out in the office, the phone rang.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m after answering…”

  “No.”

  “But this is a business,” Dean protested indignantly. “You can’t be letting the phone ring!”

  “I can and I will.”

  Four rings. Five. Six.

  The machine should have picked up on five. As it didn’t…“Look, it’s Claire’s mum. As long as there’s someone here, it won’t stop ringing.”

  Meryat frowned thoughtfully. “Is the Keeper’s mother also a Keeper?”

  “No!”

  Seven rings. Eight.

  The frown lines deepened with a faint crinkling sound. “Then how does she know there’s someone here?”

  “Claire’s her daughter!” Which was the absolute truth. Maybe not the whole truth but the truth, so with any luck at all, that whole lousy lying thing wouldn’t come into it.

  Nine rings. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

  “This grows very annoying. Go!” A fingernail flew off with the expansive force of her gesture. “Answer it!”

  Dean took two grateful steps toward the office.

  “Mr. McIssac, aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Biting back a curse, he returned for the hockey bag.

  Thirteen rings. Fourteen. Fifteen.

  Closely followed by Meryat and Dr. Rebik—too closely followed as far as Dean was concerned—he set the bag on the desk and reached for the phone.

  Sixteen.

  “Elysian Fields Guest House.”

  “Dean, it’s Martha Hansen. I’ve got this terrible feeling that the girls are in trouble. Not that the girls being in trouble is ever a good feeling, but this is remarkably strong considering that they’re still on the Otherside and I’m worried. You haven’t heard from them, have you? That’s not why you were so long answering?”

  “Uh, no, it’s not.” He had no idea what, if anything a Cousin could do over the phone, but this was his one chance to get help. “You just called at a bad time. There’s…”

  “…no need for further explanations,” Meryat said as Dr. Rebik’s shaking finger came down on the disconnect. “The noise has been stopped, and we have business to conclude.” She glanced around the office, and her eyes narrowed. “Although this is not the best place; we could be interrupted, and that has already happened once too often.”

  Dean suddenly realized she wasn’t talking about the phone. “Lance.”

  “Yes. When my binding came undone, he was partially caught by my counterspell. It seems to have unbalanced him.”

  “He’s not Australian,” Dr. Rebik announced calmly.

  Meryat rolled her eyes. “He might as well be. Now then, I think we’ll take this someplace more private.” Her gaze traveled slowly down the length of Dean’s body and he shuddered. Before Claire and he had…created an angel, he’d never noticed that sort of thing. After, he realized—to his intense embarrassment—it had happened a lot. “Let’s go to your bedroom.”

  Suddenly, being a statue didn’t look like such a bad future.

  He only hoped Claire remembered to dust him.

  * * *

  Claire stifled a sneeze against her shoulder unable to believe the amount of dust in the dropped ceiling. She stopped herself from wondering where it came from before the Otherside provided an answer, and concentrated on crawling after Teemo’s narrow backside.

  Fortunately, Diana had already taken this route, so she didn’t need to worry about securing its reality.

  The drop down into the bathroom was a little farther than she was comfortable with. One foot slid off the edge of the soap dispenser and into the sink, but Kith steadied her as she landed, averting disaster with a steady grip above both knees.

  The room smelled of cleaners and disinfectants, and all at once she missed Dean so badly it was like a physical ache. In fact, it wasn’t like a physical ache at all. It was a physical ache. Austin would do what he could, but a reanimated mummy was a just a little beyond what snark and sympathy could hope to deal with.

  She had to defeat the darkside and return to them before it was too late. Or get Lance to them if that was all she could manage.

  Save the world.

  Save Diana.

  Save Dean.

 
; At least this time, there’d be no nasty surprises in the final inning.

  And that was an unprovoked sports metaphor. Even her subconscious missed Dean. At one time, she’d thought maintaining a relationship would be a distraction. It wasn’t, it was a goal. Something she could use as incentive to charge right through the worst the possibilities could offer.

  Memo to self, she sighed, following Kith and Teemo out into the hall, watch a little less Oprah with the cat.

  They were almost to the food court when a rumble of thunder flattened them back against the wall, Teemo raising an unnecessary finger to his lips.

  No. Not thunder. Meat-minds. A whole herd of them pounding purposefully past the food court in ranks that were more or less even. Claire thought very hard about saving the world; thinking about how clumsy they looked would only set up a chain reaction of vaudevillian proportions and give away their position.

  Bringing up the rear between four meat-minds more defined than the rest was a vaguely familiar warrior dressed and armored all in black. His skin was milk pale and his hair a deep red. Really red. Blood red. Bad fantasy cliché red.

  That couldn’t be good. Claire sent a silent plea that Sam remembered what he had to do.

  On the bright side, if their leader had taken the field, both Diana and the segue would be minimally guarded. Pulling Kith and Teemo closer, she whispered, “From here, I go on alone.”

  “No way, Keeper. Arthur…”

  “…is going to need you. You saw the size of the army he’s facing; pull some weapons from that sporting goods store, and attack from the rear. Remember, as soon as I shut down the segue, the meat-minds will fall apart, so you don’t have to win so much as you have to not lose.”

  “What?”

  Okay. That hadn’t made a lot of sense to her either. “Look, I usually work alone. I clearly suck at motivational speaking. Just be careful.” She put a hand on each of their shoulders, squeezed lightly, then turned and raced down the hall toward the Emporium.

  They hadn’t come through the store. The plywood construction barricade was gone; in its place was a dark tunnel leading down under the mall.

  Only one meat-mind on guard.

  He saw her, turned, and, because she believed he would, tripped over his own feet.

  Getting past him was as easy as dropping a marble on his head.