Chronicles Of The Keeper - The Long Hot Summoning Part 46

Arthur shook his head. "Too convenient a conversion, I fear, but we'll speak again later."

"I saved you from that shadow! You owe me."

"I do."

"And this is how you repay me?"

"The two are not connected."

Sam watched the Immortal King head out of Pet Supplies and searched for a sufficiently scathing last word. Unfortunately, nothing came to him. One paw braced on a crossbar, he rose up on his hind legs and studied the latch. It could only be opened from the outside.

"Hey, little furry dude. What're you in for?"

Sighing, he dropped back down to all fours and glanced mournfully up at Stewart. "I wouldn't promise Arthur I'd stay in the store."

"Oh, for crying out loud; what part of 'lying' did you not understand?"

Oops.

"Couldn't lie to him, eh? Yeah, I know how it is. He's the kind of guy you can't lie to because this little voice in your head just kind of chimes in and says he deserves the truth."

"The little voice in my head keeps calling me kibble-for-brains."

"Harsh."

"Yeah, but cats are supposed to be good at lying. And they're supposed to only think of themselves, but I can't stop worrying about Diana. And Claire. And you guys."

"Us guys? Hey, we're fine."

Sam swept an amber gaze up one side of the mall elf and down the other, getting full mileage from the disdainful expression Arthur hadn't seen. "No, you're not. The only person I'm not worried about is Dean, and that's because he's got Austin with him and Austin knows what he's doing. He can keep bad things from happening. I can't." The stripes on his forehead folded back into a worried frown. "I just haven't been a cat long enough."

"Yeah?" Stewart picked up a tiny purple mouse on a scarlet string, looked at it thoughtfully for a moment, then began attaching it to a braid. "What were you before you were a cat?"

"An angel."

"An angel? A real angel? No s.h.i.+t?

"Not until I got a body, then it came as a bit of a surprise."

"Okay." Reaching into a birdcage, the mall elf pulled out a tiny mirror. "Why do you suppose birds want to look at themselves?"

"I have no idea."

"Are they just, like, really vain? Or do they think the mirror's some kind of, I don't know, magic window to another bird?"

Mirror's some kind of magic window.

Magic mirror.

Sam padded over to Stewart's side of the crate. "Can I have that?"

"The mirror?" He finished checking the position of the purple mouse, flipped the narrow braid back over his shoulder, and shrugged. "Sure."

That was easy.

"Can you unlatch the crate?"

"Sorry, little furry dude, not unless Arthur says it's okay."

Oh, well. Worth a try.

Back in the Emporium, Austin had used a mirror to talk to the magic mirror and then used the magic mirror to connect to him. Well, technically, Claire; but the basics were the same. If he could use the budgie mirror to contact the magic mirror, then he could find out where Claire was and if Diana was okay. Sam ran through that one more time, just to be certain it made sense, then had Stewart hook the mirror over the crossbar. Ignoring the dangling bell and bits of fake feather, he stared at his reflection.

His reflection stared back.

Apparently, there was a trick to it.

He leaned closer until his breath fogged the gla.s.s. Leaned a little closer until there was less than a cat-hair's width between his nose and the mirror. He was not in the mood for tricks. "HEY!"

Blue-on-blue eyes snapped up out of nowhere. "I'm not deaf! Or I wasn't," Jack added petulantly as Sam jumped back. His eyes slid from one side of the mirror to the other, then widened. "Okay, this is new. Hold it!"

Sam froze, one paw in the air.

"Don't move your reflection off the gla.s.s. It's all that's holding me here. Not that it should be holding me here. Or that I should be here at all." The eyes narrowed speculatively. "Who knows, maybe our earlier connection left some residue or something. So what do you want?"

"Information."

"Yeah? Well, I'm a mirror, not a database."

"Information on Claire and Diana."

"You lost both Keepers?"

Sam really didn't like the way that sounded. "You know something."

"Not about Claire, I haven't seen her since you guys crossed over, but ..."

Jack's pause suggested all sorts of horrible possibilities. "But what?" Sam demanded, surging back toward the mirror.

"Diana was in the store; her and some elfin cutie. They stopped and talked, I told them what I knew, and they went into the back room. I don't know how to break this to you, kid, but from the buzz I picked up later, they got caught."

"By the bad guys?"

Blue-on-blue eyes rolled. "No, by the Publishers' Clearing House prize patrol. Of course by the bad guys!"

"And?"

"Sorry, kid. That's all I know."