Chronicles Of The Keeper - The Long Hot Summoning Part 49

"Yeah?"

"Skip ahead."

Okay. There was a 3,000-year-old mummy and the archaeologist who'd freed her from her cursed existence in the guest house with Dean and Austin. Given the type of clientele the guest house attracted, this was in no way surprising. A pair of Shriners and their wives, yes. Reanimated Egyptian n.o.blewomen, no.

But Lance believed that Meryat was dangerous, that she would suck dry the lives she came into contact with until she regained her former power, that she would then use that power to take over the world. He also believed that Dr. Rebik was under some kind of mind control that kept him from seeing Meryat as she really was and that the beach was her initial attempt to bury the world under the sands of ancient Egypt.

Just because he was wrong about that last point, did that automatically make him wrong about the rest?

Claire glanced across the cabana at Lance; currently making entries in a PDA he'd pulled from a belt pouch. She wanted to believe he'd spent way, way too much time in the sun, but the fact was that here he was.

Dean obviously hadn't believed Lance's story, or he wouldn't have sent him on his little elevator ride. As Dean gave pretty much everyone he met the benefit of the doubt, he had to have doubted Lance more than Meryat and Dr. Rebik.

Conclusion; Dean and Austin were in no danger. Lance was merely a Bystander who'd applied a Sat.u.r.day Afternoon Movie explanation to his first contact with the metaphysical.

And he'd spent way, way too much time in the sun.

Since they knew they were being hunted, she couldn't come up with a reason for the mummy and Dr. Rebik to stay at the guest house for more than one night. As soon as they were safely away, Dean would be up to retrieve Indiana Lance from his sand-castle of delusion.

Although the thought of seeing Dean made her heart beat faster, and she missed Austin with an almost physical ache, she had to get back to the mall. She'd left an eighteen-month-old cat guarding an Immortal King, her little sister was out scouting the darkside, and, if not stopped, the post-segue owners would not be exaggerating when they advertised the "sale to end all sales."

If this was the Otherside, then she could lift the stack of extra towels and find a pen and piece of paper tucked beneath them. Holding that image in her mind, she lifted the towels. Three tiny bones, a catnip square, and what looked like the spleen of a small animal. Either Austin had found something to hunt on their last visit, or he was casting auguries again. Either way, she didn't want to know.

Claire let the towels drop and turned to Lance who was stowing his PDA in its pouch. "I don't suppose you have a pen and some paper? I need to leave a note."

"Better!" He crossed the cabana in two long strides, holding out a small black book and a pencil. "When you're on a dig at Karnak, you need a writing implement you can fix with a knife!"

"Do you have a knife?"

"I have a pencil sharpener."

"Okay."

She'd entered by water; she'd have to exit by water. Unfortunately, that meant a sudden and total immersion with no thoughts of vicious not-a-squids waiting for her below the surface.

"Where are you going?" Kicking out a fine spray of sand, Lance hurried to catch up.

"To the headlands."

"Great idea! The high ground will give us a chance to see where Meryat's hiding. She's sneaky, but there's got to be a palace around here somewhere."

Claire sighed. He was consistently delusional at least.

Eventually, after embalming, ancient Egyptian magic, and the tracking of the risen undead had been thoroughly explained, the soft sand gave way to pebbles and then to the ridge that jutted out into the water. She winced as a sharp rock dug into the bottoms of her feet.

"I bet you wish you had shoes on!"

Actually, she was trying very hard not to wish he'd fall and break his neck.

The rock smoothed out on the top of the ridge and she was able to move quickly out to the end. They were twenty, maybe twenty-five feet above the water.

"Long walk back," Lance observed, one hand shading his eyes as he gazed toward the distant cabana.

"Not necessarily."

"The sun hasn't moved!"

"It never does."

"I don't see Meryat's palace."

"As Diana would say, 'Quel surprise. Not.'"

"Who's Diana?"

"My sister." Who needed her. In the mall. Not standing here trying to see past reflections to what might be lurking below the surface. Fortunately, she didn't need to convince herself that there was nothing there, only that it didn't matter. She wasn't jumping into water; she was using the change, the line between air and water like a door. "Go back to the cabana and wait for Dean."

"I think I should keep searching for Meryat."

"Whatever." This Bystander, at least, was not her responsibility. Stepping back half a dozen paces, she ran for the edge of the rock and jumped, folding her knees tightly against her chest, arms holding them in place in order to cross the line as simultaneously as possible.

Just before she hit the water, she heard: "Cannonball!"

"Lance!" Dean moved a little farther away from the propped-open door of the elevator and yelled again. "LANCE!"

"Maybe Meryat ate him."

"Not funny, Austin."

"Not joking."

"He's not answering and I don't see . . . Austin!"

"I know, I know." Austin stepped off the path and began digging a new hole. "Just because this place looks like the world's biggest litter box doesn't mean I should yadda, yadda." After checking depth, he stepped forward, positioned himself, and glared up at Dean. "Do you mind?"

"Sorry." Ears red, Dean headed for the cabana. "I'll be after checking if Lance is inside."

"Yeah, you be after doing that, then."

There were a suspicious number of footprints around the cabana's flap. A large bootprint, Dean dropped to one knee and measured it against his hand, probably belonging to Lance, and a small bare print that appeared to have come up from the water.

"Hey, Claire's been here."

"Claire?" Heel, toes, instep; still anonymous to him. "How can you tell?"

"I'm a cat." Flopping down, Austin rolled over on his back, sunlight gleaming on the white fur of his stomach as he rubbed his shoulders into the compacted sand. "And I'm generally a lot closer to the ground than you are."

Hard to argue with. Leaping to his feet, Dean grabbed for the canvas. "Claire!"