Chronicles Of The Keeper - The Long Hot Summoning Part 26

"We'd be pleased to eat with you," Claire said while Diana swallowed an inconvenient mouthful of saliva cased by the rising scent of eleven different herbs and spices deep fried to an extra crispy goodness. "But as we mentioned before, we can only eat the food we brought with us."

"I understand." He sank down into his chair, a gold brocade wingback; the legs having very likely gone to fuel an earlier fire, and waved the two Keepers into the s.p.a.ce on his right, empty but for two cus.h.i.+ons, their packs, and a saucer.

"Sam couldn't wait." Claire kicked off her sandals, crossed her ankles, and descended gracefully. "I fed him while you were out."

Diana dropped and sprawled, one hand digging in her pack for food before her b.u.t.t hit the cus.h.i.+on. "I figured. I also figured a full stomach was the only thing keeping his fuzzy head out of the chicken."

"It's not actually chicken." Both Keepers turned to stare at the cat. Backlit by the fire, his fur looked more red than orange. "I'm not even sure it's some kind of bird."

As one, the Keepers turned to stare at Arthur who shrugged and pulled out a wing that was just a little too large and folded one too many times. "It tastes like chicken."

"What doesn't?" Diana muttered, biting into her tuna salad sandwich. Chewed. Swallowed. Sc.r.a.ped her tongue against her teeth. "Oops. My bad."

Claire flicked a coral-colored fingernail through her chicken-flavored carrot sticks and sighed. "Try to be more careful." She offered one to Sam who turned up his nose at it.

"I don't care what it tastes like," he sneered, "it's still a carrot."

On the other side of the fire, bodies leaped and twirled, flames burnis.h.i.+ng hair, and skin, and jewelry. The more elfin the dancer, the wilder the dance although even Jo, whose ears had barely begun to point, moved with both grace and abandon to the pounding music. It wasn't the kind of dancing Diana was used to, that was for sure.

"Your face wears an interesting expression. What are you thinking?"

Her attention drawn back across the fire, Diana glanced up to find both Arthur and Kris watching her. The guard captain had settled a little forward of the Immortal King's left hand in order to see around the edge of his chair. "Interesting?" she asked, trying to figure it out from the inside. There were, after all, a limited number of ways two eyes, a nose, and a mouth could combine.

"Speculative."

"Okay." It seemed to have something to do with eyebrows. "I was just thinking how much these guys would have livened up one of my high school dances. You know, the kind where the DJ's playing a dance mix from when he was in school so the music's all at least three years old and almost no one's dancing and the jocks stand with the jocks and the geeks stand with the geeks and someone always shows up drunk and pukes in the hall and half the kids who think they're taking ecstasy are really taking baby aspirin and actually . . ." She frowned. ". . . so are the other half because that's why the 'rents force me to attend these things in the first place and the one guy who's out on the dance floor grooving to the beat is being made fun of by the other guys. The air is heavy with angst and hormones and there's enough hair spray in the girl's can to open a new hole in the ozone layer."

"It sounds . . ."

"Like major suckage," Kris supplied when Arthur seemed stuck for a word.

He nodded. "Indeed. And you think my people could help?"

Diana took another look. Feet planted, Will undulated hips and arms and scarlet braid in time to the music. "They sure couldn't hurt."

"But in your world, my people would have no reason to dance."

Street kids, CSA kids . . .

"Sure they would." She answered Arthur, but her eyes locked on Kris. "Dance to escape. Dance to forget. Dance to lose yourself in the way your body works; it's the one thing in your life a bunch of overworked bureaucrats can't control."

Kris made a sound somewhere between a snort and a sigh. Not exactly agreeing but not dismissing the observation out of hand.

Arthur glanced from one to the other and then back at the dancers, nodding thoughtfully. "Here, they dance to celebrate their victory over the dark forces."

"It's only a temporary victory," Claire reminded him grimly. "The dark forces will be back and they won't stop until you're all destroyed."

"Way to be a downer," Diana grunted, fis.h.i.+ng a nectarine from her pack.

"Ignoring the problem won't make it go away," the older Keeper insisted.

"Jeez, Claire. Hair s.h.i.+rt much? They're not ignoring the problem, they're recharging so they can continue to fight."

"Well, we don't have that luxury. We have to deal with this segue and in order to do that, we have to know what's happening at the other end of the mall."

"And in order to do that, we'll need their help. The food court's at the other end of the mall," Diana continued before Claire could voice one of her usual "Keepers do it alone, yadda, yadda" protests, "so they obviously know a way to get in and out again." She wiped nectarine juice off her chin and glanced at Kris, who nodded.

"We do."

Her gaze s.h.i.+fted from Kris to the King. "So we need to set up some kind of a recon mission. I suggest that Kris and I wander down for a quick look. She takes care of the navigating and any necessary bad-a.s.s whupping, and I handle the metaphysical stuff."

Sapphire eyes narrowed in confusion as Arthur leaned forward, arms braced across his thighs. "Bada.s.s whupping?"

"She means, sire, that I can smack any meat-minds we run across," Kris explained, grinning broadly. "But don't ask me why she's talking like that."

"Don't ask me either," Diana muttered weakly. She could only a.s.sume that the thought of spending time alone with Kris skulking through a dark mall had cut the circuit between her brain and her mouth. Claire was looking less than pleased with the suggestion and Sam . . . Sam was buried so deep in her backpack that only his b.u.t.t and his tail showed. Grateful for the distraction, Diana tossed the nectarine pit into the fire, turned, and hauled him clear.

"Hey! I was just checking to see if you packed my hairball medicine!"

"You don't have hairball medicine." She pulled out a second tuna sandwich. The wrapping had been holed and a fair bit of the tuna excavated. "You have your own food!"

"Yeah? So?" He licked down a bit of ruffled fur. "You going to eat that? I mean, since it's kind of covered in cat spit ..."

Diana sighed and handed over the sandwich.

"You shouldn't let him get away with that kind of behavior."

As Sam retreated to the edge of the firelight, she turned a pointed look on her sister. "Like you're the expert. Austin totally runs your life."

"Austin and I have an understanding."

"Yeah, that he runs your life."

"A reconnaissance mission has merit," Arthur announced suddenly. From his tone, Diana a.s.sumed he'd done some thinking about it while she'd been dealing with Sam. "But are either of you well enough to go? Both of you were injured in the recent battle; perhaps two of my scouts . . ."

"No." Claire was using her don't-even-bother-arguing-with-me voice. "It has to be one of us. Your people can't see what we need to know."

"And I'm fine," Diana broke in. "Headache's mostly gone, I had a nice nap, I have two working arms ... it has to be me."

Claire nodded agreement. "You're right."

"And Claire obviously got hit on the head and we never noticed."

Arthur turned an anxious expression on the older Keeper, but she waved him off. "Diana's just trying to be funny."

"Now is not the time."

Apparently a sense of humor was not a requirement to be an Immortal King. "Sorry." The apology slipped out before Diana remembered that Keepers never apologized.