by Tanya Huff
When Diana could see again, the pit was closed.
Someone, she thought it might be her, threw themselves forward, pounded bloody fists against solid rock, and screamed “No!”
There were Rules to follow, after all.
* * *
The problem was, Sam couldn’t just run. The Rules said he had to engage in battle or he wasn’t actually answering the challenge. The problem was, although he had more pointy bits, he was fighting a Shadowlord with a great big sword.
He zigged.
The Shadowlord zagged.
A great big sword and opposable thumbs.
Dangling by the scruff of his neck, Sam struggled to fold himself in half and get a claw into the hand holding him. Shrieking defiance, he felt the sword begin to descend.
Flash of silver.
He felt the impact reverberate through fingers buried painfully deep in his fur. Hissed and spat as he was thrown aside.
Twisting in the air, he landed on his feet. Tail lashing, singing his challenge, he spun around.
“Let it go, Sam. I am permitted to intervene at the last instant in order to save the life of my champion.” Arthur stared over his blade at the Shadowlord. “Let’s get it on.” When his opponent looked confused, he sighed and translated. “It’s our fight now.”
Not quite human teeth flashed in a brilliant smile. “I have always killed you.”
“Yeah, yeah. That was then.”
“Fear me.”
“Bite me.”
Sam had to admit the dialogue was less than archetypal. Maybe, hopefully, possibly that would be enough.
Or not.
As swords clashed overhead, hilt caught on hilt, body slammed against body. Eight inches from the floor, his angle unique, Sam saw the Shadowlord pull the dagger from his belt. Saw a black-clad elbow pull back. Slam forward.
My bad.
His failure.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
Then the world turned pink.
Really, really, really pink.
When he could see again, the Shadowlord had vanished and Arthur was standing with Excalibur over his head, hips canted back, staring down at a hole in his chest protector.
The circle of mall elves seemed frozen in place as Sam crept forward. “Are you…? Did he…?”
Holding his position, moving only his left arm, Arthur slid a finger into the rent.
Pulled it out again.
The tip was red.
A strangled cry from a dozen throats.
“No, no, it’s okay.” Excalibur’s point clanged against the tiles, as Arthur relaxed. “He barely pricked me.”
They were all still too close to the edge for cheers.
Then someone sighed, “Close one, dude.”
In the joyful chaos that followed, Sam lifted his tail and sprayed the place where the Shadowlord had been standing.
* * *
“Enough of this!” Meryat rose from the edge of the bed and locked Dean in place with a pointed finger. “These games no longer amuse me. I will take your life now and face your Keeper stronger because of it!”
“Not so fast.” Austin crouched at the edge of the wardrobe and stared down at the mummy/Dean tableau. “If I’m not mistaken, which I’m not, so don’t go there, the Rules state you, as the villain of the piece, have to brag about how you defeated us before you administer the coup de grace. That’s the finishing stroke,” he added for Dean’s benefit.
Dean’s expression suggested he didn’t appreciate the translation.
“The point is,” Meryat sneered, the missing piece of her lip adding further scorn to her expression, “you have been defeated. What difference will bragging about it make?”
Austin shrugged. “Well, I personally could care less, but if you break the Rules, we get to break the Rules.”
“You? What can you do?”
He licked his shoulder at her.
“Fine! I’ve waited three thousand years; I can wait a few more minutes.”
FIFTEEN
“COME ON, DIANA, you’ve got to run. This whole place is coming down!”
Diana twisted free of Claire’s grip and headed back toward the center of the cavern. “We’ve got to get her out!”
“We can’t.” Claire hooked her fingers into the waistband of Diana’s pants and yanked her to a stop. “You know as well as I do that there’s a hundred ways to go to Hell—hand baskets, good intentions—but we can’t use any of them if we’ve been crushed under a pile of…” She threw herself sideways, taking Diana with her as a piece of the cavern ceiling crashed down. “…rock.”
Considering where they were, the light bulb wasn’t entirely unexpected. Claire batted it out of the way with her good hand as Diana surged up onto her feet.
“We’ll go after her!”
“Yes, but…”
“But nothing.” Diana’s hand closed around her wrist and yanked her up. “Let’s move!”
It seemed that their presence alone had been maintaining what little stability the cavern still had. As they crossed the threshold, the rest of the ceiling crashed down. Coughing and choking in the billowing clouds of faintly pink stone dust, they ran faster, the tunnels collapsing behind them.
Which is certainly better than in front of us, Claire acknowledged as they raced toward the throne room…
…only to find the entrance blocked.
“Is there another way out?” Mouth close to Diana’s ear, she still had to shout to be heard over the roar of falling rock.
“This is the only one I know!”
“Oh that’s just great!” One-handedly fighting the zipper on the belt pouch open, she found Diana there before her. “What are you doing?”
“If we don’t get out, we can’t save Kris. So we’re getting out!” Snatching out the folded piece of paper, Diana knelt and stuffed it between two of the rocks that blocked the door.
“Diana, that won’t work! Rocks can’t read!”
“I’ll read it for them.” Yanking Claire out of the way, she pointed back toward the oncoming destruction and yelled, “Move!”
The paper released the possibilities it held.
The rocks moved.
They moved as though they knew full well they’d be pounded to sand if they didn’t.
The black marble floor had cracked and buckled and the wall behind the throne had canted inward at an impossible angle, but structural integrity was being maintained. Provided the definition of both structural and integrity was less than precise.
And then, lungs burning, they were running on concrete, not stone.
Almost out…
They missed the turn that would have taken them through the construction zone and found themselves in the access corridors instead.
The troll was waiting at the back door of the Emporium.
Before Claire could stop her, Diana grabbed him by the tie and shoved her face up into his, snarling, “Your choice, Gaston! The Otherside’s a big place. You can lose yourself in it, or you can deal with me.”
His eyes widened, showing pale yellow all around the gray. “But…”
“Billy goats but as you very well know. I’m counting to three. One…”
On two, he chose to leave the tie in her hand and pound farther up the access corridor into the mall.
Diana dropped the piece of pale leather and swiped her hand against her thigh, moisture drawing darker lines through the pale pink dust. “Eww.”
“Definitely,” Claire agreed, using the moment to catch her breath. Not the way she’d have handled it, but since it worked…“What are you doing?”
“This is where we came in. This is the best place to cross back!”
Bad hand cradled against her chest, she stepped between her sister and the steel door. “We’re not done.”
“The Summoning ended when that hole closed; I’m done!” Dark brows drew in, their challenge plain. “And I’m going after Kris!”
Claire had her choice of half a do
zen good arguments. She used the only one that would work. “What about Sam? He’s still in the mall. I left him guarding Arthur.”
“You left him,” Diana snapped. “You go…you…” She blinked. Swallowed. Scrubbed her hand across suddenly wet eyes. “Sorry. I just…”
“I know.”
“You can’t know.”
“Dean…”
“Didn’t go to Hell for you! I’m sorry.” She scrubbed at her eyes again. “But he didn’t.”
“I know,” Claire said again, because it was pretty much the only thing Diana was willing to hear at the moment. She jerked open the steel door with her good hand. “Let’s go get Sa—” A crack opened suddenly in the concrete floor. Somewhere, not very far away, a steel reinforcing rod snapped with an almost musical twang. “Not good!” Shoving Diana into the storeroom, she slammed the door shut with her shoulder and locked it.
It sounded like someone was playing a steel guitar in the access corridor. Playing it badly.
“How far do you think the destruction will come?” Diana demanded as they charged through shards of broken garden gnomes toward the store.
“It’s already come farther than I thought it would.”
“Great.”
“Not really. I was wondering, last time you used the wand, it knocked you flat. This time…”
“I think Kris’ sacrifice caused a backlash. I got—I don’t know—refilled. I’m feeling…” Diana flashed half a pain-filled grin and straight-armed the door out into the Emporium. “…in the pink.”
Claire managed a nearly identical smile. “We’ll get her back.”
“I know.” Easily clearing the fallen T-shirt rack, Diana lengthened her stride and raced for the concourse. One foot out the door, she stopped, turned, and ran back.
“Where are you going?” Claire figured she had grounds for sounding shrill. From behind them, one small room away, came the unmistakable sound of a steel door buckling.
“Promises to keep.” Dragging a wooden crate of resin frogs under the antique mirror, she climbed up, and slapped the glass. “Jack! Hey! Time to go.”
The blue-on-blue eyes popped into view so fast they came accompanied by a faint boing. “The whole place is falling apart!” Jack also sounded a little shrill, Claire noted. “What did you do?”
A green glass ball fell from a shelf and shattered. Something hissed and scuttled away.
“We won. Sort of.”
“How do you sort of win?”
“I don’t want to get into that right now.”
“Yeah, but…”
A muscle jumped in Diana’s jaw. “I said, I don’t want to get into it.” She ducked her head behind the edge of the frame. “Is this all that’s holding you on?”
“How should I know?” Shrill had given way to slightly panicked. “I don’t have eyes in the back of my glass.”
“Fair point. Claire…”
No time to argue. Claire reached up, noted somewhat absently that much of her left hand seemed to be purple, and grabbed the lower edge of the carved and gilded wood. “I’ve got it.”
Jack was a lot heavier than he looked. They dragged him past the writhing box of rubber snakes, past the toppling display of scented candles, and reached the concourse just as the windows started to shatter. As the first triangular piece of glass whistled past, Claire spun him around, his back to the store, and pushed Diana down behind him.
“Claire, we haven’t time…!”
“To get cut to ribbons? You’re right.”
“Hey!” Jack’s eyes were as wide as Claire’d seen them. “Get me farther away! I’m breakable here!”
Barely enough room for them both but barely was better than the alternative. “Calm down. You’ve got a wooden backing.”
“Calm down? That’s glass breaking! Lots and lots of breaking glass! Do you know how that makes me feel?”
“Do I care?” Claire snapped. As Jack’s eyes fled to the far corner, two tiny blue pinpricks deep in the glass, she sighed. “I’m sorry. I do care. We’ve just had a…bad time.”
“Sort of winning?”
“Yeah.”
Sort of…Diana lifted her head out of the shelter of her arms and stared into the mirror. She didn’t look any different. She should have looked different. Wasn’t that the sort of thing that changed a person?
It took her a moment to realize that the mall was totally silent. No more crashing. No more breaking. No more dying. Apparently, this was as far as it went. “Claire?” She almost didn’t recognize her voice. She sounded about seven. “Why did she do it?”
Carefully brushing aside broken glass, Claire sat down cross-legged on the floor. It wasn’t quite a collapse. “I don’t know. I guess she didn’t want you to die.”
“Yeah, but it’s part of the whole ‘saving the world’ thing. It’s in my job description. Our job description.”
“And it seems that saving you was in hers.”
“I didn’t want her to.”
“She didn’t ask you.” Claire reached out and wiped away a tear with her thumb. “We’ll get her back.”
“Because you promised?”
“Because it’s part of our job description.”
“Right.” Diana dragged her sleeve under her nose, leaving a smear of darker pink across one cheek. “Time to sit around and sob about things later! Let’s get Sam and…” She paused, half standing, and cocked her head. “Is there a reason you’re flipping me the finger?”
Swelling had moved the second finger on her left hand out from the rest. “It’s broken.”
“It’s what?”
“Broken.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“When?”
“Before!”
“During our copious amounts of spare time? While we were running for our lives, saving Jack, or trying not to be julienned?”
“Yeah, then.”
“Sorry, next time. Don’t touch it!” She leaned back away from Diana’s questing fingers. “I’ll fix it as soon as we cross back.”
“Does it hurt?” Jack wondered, coming out to the front of the glass.
Did it hurt? There were a number of things Keepers weren’t permitted to say to Bystanders. But since Jack was a metaphysical construct…
“Diana!”
Claire closed her mouth, words unsaid, watched Sam race toward them, and sighed. Probably for the best.
* * *
“…and then, he just vanished!”
“You accepted a challenge from the Shadowlord?”
Sam squirmed around in Diana’s arms. “For the three hundredth time, I’m fine.”
“You could have been killed.”
“For the five hundredth time, I wasn’t!”
Continuing to ignore the post-fight metaphysical analysis going on around her, Diana buried her face in Sam’s fur and held on tight.
“Ow, that was a rib.”
“Sorry.” She loosened her hold just a little and drew in a deep breath of warm cat. He smelled like safety and comfort. Okay, scraping the clump of shed cat hair off her soft palate wasn’t exactly comfortable, but still…She didn’t know what she would have done if she’d lost him, too.
Too.
Right.
As they reached the stairs, the whole procession moving at the snail-like pace of the most seriously wounded elves, she tucked Sam back under one arm and grabbed Claire’s sleeve. “Let’s go.”
“Diana, you have no idea how much I wish we could. While you were gone, I found out that Dean is in danger of…”
“Overfeeding the cat? Stepping on a hairball? Austin’s with him, how much danger can he be in?”
They were facing off at the bottom of the stairs, Arthur’s army breaking into two streams around them. The two elves carrying Jack set him down and leaned on the top of his frame.
“There’s a three-thousand-year-old life-sucking mummy staying at the guest house.”
“A three-thousand-year-old life-sucking mummy
?”
“Say that three thousand times fast,” Sam muttered.
“No.” Diana absently stroked a marmalade shoulder and frowned at her sister. “Since when?”
“Impossible to tell with the time distortions.”
“How did you…”
“Claire!”
Claire nodded toward the sunburned blond starting down through the climbing elves, her pack in one hand and Diana’s in the other, declaiming apologies with every step. “He told me.”
“Who’s he?”
“Lance.”
“A lot?”
Arthur stopped beside them and visibly shuddered. “Fortunately, no.”
“While you were gone,” Claire explained, “I went on a little tour of the Othersides and…”
“The Otherside’s what?”
“The Othersides plural. Long story.”
“Then skip it. You found him…?”
“At our beach.”
“The one in the guest house?”
“Yes. Longer story.”
“Skip it, too.”
“He’s not Australian,” Sam announced as Lance reached the lower concourse and set the packs down.
Diana looked confused. “Why would he be?”
The cat shrugged as well as his current position allowed. “I have no idea.”
“He’s a Bystander. Wait.” She raised a hand cutting off Lance and Claire together. “I don’t care why he’s here, but as he obviously can’t stay, we’ve got even more reason to leave immediately. He’s got to go back, Dean’s in danger, Kris is in Hell—three strikes, let’s motor!”
Without the time to count to ten, Claire counted to three. “Believe me, Diana, I want to, but the injured elves are our responsibility.”
“No, they aren’t.” Diana nodded toward the Immortal King. “They’re his responsibility. We did our bit. The hole’s closed. The segue’s been disrupted, and without an anchor the two malls will continue to drift farther and farther apart. Street kids looking for a place to belong will have to look somewhere else—not necessarily a good thing but a thing. Our work here is done.”
Claire sighed, cradling her left hand in her right. The pain in her broken finger—which was now hurting up her arm, across her shoulders and into her right ear for reasons she wasn’t entirely clear on—made it difficult to concentrate, but Arthur was alive, Hell had been defeated, and the world had been saved from a shopping mall where midnight madness sales meant exactly that. However, while Diana had a point, she’d missed one as well. “Diana, Kris…”
