Chronicles Of The Keeper - The Long Hot Summoning Part 3

Sam b.u.t.ted his head rea.s.suringly against her leg. "You can take him."

"Well, yeah. But I'd rather not. Come on. Blonde Ponytail said . . ."

"Who?"

"The jock with the bracelet. I never got her name. She said the store was on the lower level, so let's find some stairs."

Behind reinforced gla.s.s or steel bars, the stores themselves were places of shadow.

Unless the bracelet was the only piece of the Other-side they were selling, Diana should have been able to sense the Emporium, her Summons directing her like a child's game of Warm and Cool where the parts of "Warm" and "Cool" were played by "I Can Live With the Headache if I Have to" and "Shoot Me Now." Unfortunately, the Summons was unable to poke through the interference from the back rooms where a hundred part-time teenagers counted up a hundred cash drawers and ninety-seven of them came up short. By the time the cash had to be counted for the third time, the emanation of frustrated p.i.s.siness was so strong Diana couldn't have sensed a trio of bears if they were sneaking up beside her.

"Hey, Rodney River has orange polyester bell-bottoms on sale for $29.99."

"Is that good?" Sam wondered.

Diana shuddered. "I can't see how." Pleased to see that the escalators had already been turned off, cat on escalator equaled accident waiting to happen, she led the way to the stairs.

Only the emergency lights were lit on the lower level, and the footprint of the mall seemed to have subtly changed.

"There's too many corners down here. And if I can smell the food court, why can't we find it?"

"I don't . . . Someone's coming." Scooping up the cat, Diana backed into a triangular shadow and wrapped the possibilities around them both half a heartbeat before a flashlight beam swept by.

"I know you're here." One shoe dragging shunk kree against the fake slate tiles, the elderly security guard emerged from a side hall. Ma.s.sive black flashlight held out in front of him, he walked bent forward, his head moving constantly from side to side on a neck accordion-pleated with wrinkles.

Diana would have said the motion looked snake, like except that she rather liked snakes.

Shunk kree. Shunk kree. "I will find you; never doubt it. I know you've hidden your lithe bodies away in the shadows."

Sam twisted in Diana's arms until he could stare up at her. His expression saying as clearly as if he'd spoken, "Lithe?" She shrugged.

"Long, loose limbs stacked unseen against the wall." Shunk kree.

Who was he looking for? It couldn't be her and Sam, he thought they were gone.

The flashlight beam flicked up, caught the pale face of a store mannequin, and stopped moving.

"Can't run now, can you?" He shuffled past so close to her hiding place that Diana could almost count the dark gray hairs growing from his ear. "Can't run with your muscles moving inside the soft skin."

Diana gave him a count of twenty, then prepared to slip out and away. She had a foot actually in the air when cool fingers wrapped around her upper arm and held her in place.

Shunk. The security guard pivoted on one heel, turning suddenly to face back the way he'd come, flashlight beam exposing circles of the lower concourse. "Not too smart for me with your young brains," he muttered, turning again and shunk kreeing his way toward the mannequin.

The cool fingers were gone as though they'd never existed. Since Diana was certain she and Sam had been alone in their sanctuary, the logical response seemed to be that they never had. That they'd been a construct of self-preservation. Her own highly developed subconscious holding her back from discovery. On the other hand, logic had very little to do with possibility, so Diana murmured a quiet thanks to the fingers as she left the shadow.

Cat in her arms, staying close to the storefronts, she raced down the concourse toward a side hall they hadn't tried, at least half her attention listening for the shunk kree following behind her. After weaving through a locked-down display of hot tubs, she sagged against a pillar, adding its bulk to the s.p.a.ce she'd already put between them and the old man.

"Okay," she whispered into the top of Sam's head. "I am officially squicked out. Where did they find that guy? He's like every creepy, cliched old man rolled into one wrinkly package and wrapped in a security guard's uniform. I mean, I know he's just a Bystander and I handled him at the door, but, Still what?"

"You know, still."

"If I knew, I wouldn't have asked," Sam pointed out, squirming to be let down. "And by the way, we've found the food court."

Only six of the seven food kiosks were currently occupied. Directly across from them, a poster on plywood announced the future site of a Darby's Deli. At some point, a local artist had used a black marker to make a few additions to the poster's picture of Darby Dill, creating a remarkably well hung condiment. Tearing her gaze away from the anatomically correct pickle, Diana spotted yet another hall on the far side of the food court, the rectangular opening tucked into the corner between Consumer's Drug Mart and a sporting goods store.

"It's got to be down there."

"Why?"

"Because it isn't anywhere . . . What are you eating?"

Sam swallowed. "Nothing."

As they entered the hall, the tile turned to a rough concrete floor. The bench and its flanking planters of plastic trees, although outwardly no different from other benches and other trees, had a temporary look. Only three stores long, the hall ended in a gray plywood wall stenciled with a large sign that read, "Construction Site: No Entry." The last store before the wall was the Emporium.

Tucked into another convenient shadow, Diana studied the storefront through narrowed eyes. "I can't sense a power signature, so I'm guessing the power surge only went one way."

"If they'd known you were coming, they'd have baked a cake?"

She stared down at the cat. "Something like that, yeah. Who . . . ?"

"Your father."

"Well, do me a favor and don't pick up any more of his speech patterns because that would be too weird."

"Why?"

"Sam, you sleep on my bed. Just don't, okay?"

He shrugged, clearly humoring her. "Okay."

Diana turned her attention back to the store. "They're not being very subtle, are they? If any of the Lineage had ever window-shopped their way down here, the name alone would have given the whole thing away."

"The Lineage is big into window shopping?"

"Not my point."

"Okay. But I think Erlking Emporium has a marketable ring to it."

"Marketable? First of all, you're a cat; marketable for you involves a higher percentage of beef byproducts. Second; do you even know what an Erlking is?"

Sam shot her an insulted amber glare, the tip of his tail flicking back and forth in short, choppy arcs. "According to German legend, it's a malevolent goblin who lures people, especially children, to their destruction."

Which it was. "Sorry. I keep forgetting about that whole used-to-be-an-angel-had-higher-knowtedge thing."

"Yeah, you do. But I learned that off a PBS special on mythology."

"While I was where?"