Chronicles Of The Keeper - The Long Hot Summoning Part 2

"Less chicken, more fish," Sam told her.

"Fish gives you cat food breath."

He looked up from licking his b.u.t.t. "And that's a problem because . . . ?"

"Good point." She made the change, pulled the small litter box and a bag of litter out of the broom closet and packed them as well. "I think that's everything. Now I just need to leave a note for the 'rents."

"Make sure they can see it." A few moments later, his pupils closed down to vertical slits, Sam stared up at the brilliant letters chasing themselves around the refrigerator door. "That seems a little much."

"Well, they'll be able to see it."

"Yeah; from orbit."

"Some cats are never happy." About to pick up the pack, she paused. "You want to get in now? Our first ride'll meet us at the end of the driveway."

"Might as well." He flowed in through the open zipper, and the green nylon sides bulged as he made himself comfortable. "Hey . . ." Folded s.p.a.ce distorted his voice. "What's with the rubber tree and the hat stand?"

"They're holding open the possibilities." Zipping up all but the top six inches, Diana swung the pack over her shoulders and headed for the road.

Their first ride took them into Lucan.

Their second, to London.

In London, they got a lift from a trucker carrying steel pipe to Montreal. Diana spent the trip strengthening the cables that held the pipes to the flatbed, a little accident prevention, and Sam horked up a hairball on the artificial lamb's wool seat cover. Which was how they found themselves standing by the side of the road in Napanee, a small town forty minutes east of Kingston.

At Sam's insistence, they stopped for supper at Mom's Restaurant . . .

"No, that's not a cat in my backpack. It's an orange sweater that just happens to enjoy tuna."

. . . where they met someone willing to take them the rest of the way.

Her back to the West Gardener's Mall parking lot, Diana waved as the metallic green Honda merged into Highway Two traffic. "That was fun. I don't think I've ever heard 'It's Raining Men' sung with so much enthusiasm."

"My ears hurt," Sam muttered, jumping out onto the gra.s.s.

"I suppose you'd rather have angelic choirs?"

"Are you nuts? All those trumpets, it's like John Philip Sousa does choral music." Carefully aligning his back end, he sprayed the base of a streetlight. "It's all praise G.o.d and pa.s.s the oom pah pah."

"I'm not even sure I know what that means, but just on principle, please tell me you're kidding."

"Okay, I'm kidding."

She turned to face the mall. "Now say it like you mea . . ." And froze. "Oy, mama. That's not good."

The circles of light that overlapped throughout the parking lot had all been touched with red, creating a sinister, although faintly cliched, effect. At just past nine, with the mall officially closed, the acres of crimson-tinted asphalt were empty of everything but half a dozen . . .

"Minivans. It's worse than I thought."

He had stood at this door, at this time, every Friday night for the last twenty-one years. There had been other doors in the long years before, but there would be no other doors after. He would make his last stand here. The door was open only to allow late shoppers to exit; he, a human lock, protected the mall from those who would enter after hours.

He watched the girl stride toward him. His lips curled at the sight of bare legs between sandals and shorts. His eyes narrowed in disgust at the way her b.r.e.a.s.t.s moved under her T-s.h.i.+rt. He snorted at her backpack and her youth.

Were it up to him, he'd never let her kind into the mall. He knew what they got up to. Talking. Laughing. Standing in groups. Standing in pairs. Pairs tucked away in Bozo's School Bus using lips and hands.

He stiffened as she stopped barely an arm's length away.

"The mall is closed. It will reopen tomorrow at nine a.m."

Pink lips parted. "Please move out of my way."

Twenty-one years at this door. "The mall is closed. It will reopen tomorrow at nine a.m."

Dark brows rose and dark eyes tried to meet his, but he stared at the drop of sweat running down her throat to pool against her collarbone and refused to be drawn in.

"Okay, fine. We'll just have to do this the hard way."

"The mall is closed. It will reopen tomorrow at nine a.m."

"Yeah, gramps, I got it the first time." His eyes burned and he blinked, only a single blink, but when his vision cleared, the girl was gone.

Good. It was good that she was gone. Gone with her shorts and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and all her infinite possibilities.

Diana stopped just the other side of Bozo's School Bus, set her backpack down on the yellow plastic kiddie ride, and waited while Sam climbed out.

"That was creepy," he muttered, licking at a bit of ruffled fur.

"Very. And aren't people that old supposed to be retired or something?"

"Or something," the cat agreed. "Hey." Front paws on the Plexiglas window, Sam peered into the bus. "This thing has seat belts. They don't take it out of the building, do they?"

"Uh, no."

"Then why seat belts?"

"I have no idea. But you know what's really whacked? My bus, the one I rode down potholed dirt roads at a hundred and twenty klicks every morning and afternoon with a whole lot of very small bouncy children, no belts." Swinging her pack back onto her shoulders, she headed for the main concourse. "Stay close and no one will see you."

Sam fell into step by her right ankle. "Considering what that thing smelled like, I can think of one reason for seat belts. This place is huge. How are we going to find the Erlking Emporium?"

"Easy. We find the you-are-here sign. It's probably at the end of this side hall."

It wasn't.

Although the side hall and one of the huge anchor stores spilled out into the main concourse at the same place, there was nothing to help mall patrons find their way through the two-story maze of stores they now faced.

"Maybe someone from the Otherside took it," Sam offered when it became clear they were directionally on their own.

"It's possible." Motioning for Sam to be quiet, Diana froze as a final shopper slipped through the partially barricaded Kitchen Shop storefront, clutching a cheap manual can opener and trailing the ill wishes of the teenage clerk like black smoke behind her as she hurried down the side hall. "She feels like the last one in here. We'd better get moving before that creepy old security guard heads this way."