by Tanya Huff
The corridor was still empty. But then, why wouldn’t it be? Why would the darkness bother running patrols this deep inside their own territory? They were a lot safer here than they’d been out in the lower concourse.
“I’m going to take a closer look.”
“We’re going inside?”
“We have to. We haven’t actually learned anything yet.”
“I’ve learned that you got no sense of self-preservation. I’m not going in there.”
“Good. You keep watch.” She was out from under the bench on her hands and knees before Kris could stop her, then quickly crawled across to the window for a careful glance inside. The window display was pretty much as she remembered it and so was the stock beyond. In the back corner…She shuffled forward just far enough to get a better angle. In spite of other changes, the mirror remained the Otherside edition, thick silvered glass in an antique wooden frame. She couldn’t see any indication of Jack but figured he was probably watching the other store.
Dropping back below the window ledge, Diana crawled to the edge of the open door and, lying down, peered around the corner. No troll. Not even the shadowy suggestion of customers. Better still, no wards keeping people from entering—although the exit wards were still in place and would need to be dealt with later.
She flashed a quick thumbs-up back at Kris—who did not look happy—and slipped over the threshold into the store. The fairies on a stick had been marked down and the frogs in military uniforms had been joined by newts in science fiction costumes.
Who buys this stuff? she wondered crawling toward the back. The newts were a little weirder than even she could cope with. Skirting the rubber snakes, she sat back on her heels and peered up at the mirror. “Pssst, Jack!”
The blue-on-blue eyes appeared almost instantly. “Where the hell have you been?”
“At the other end of the mall.”
“Doing what?”
“Getting caught in time distortions and fighting off a pack of traveling meat-minds. It’s not like I forgot you or anything; this is the first time I’ve been able to get back.”
“They know you’re here.”
“Here, here? Like here and now? Or just in the mall here?”
Faint blue frown lines appeared as he worked that out. “In the mall.”
“Well, gee, that alarm we set off probably had something to do with that.”
“You th…Who’s that?”
Diana jumped as Kris’ hand came down on her shoulder. “You’re talking to a mirror?”
“You’re turning into an elf?”
“Yeah. Okay. Fine. Your point.”
“I thought you weren’t coming in?”
“You were taking too long.”
“Hey!”
Both girls looked up.
“You want to save that? This is not a place you should be hanging around.”
Diana nodded. “You’re right. We’ve got to go farther in.”
Jack’s eyes widened. “Are you nuts?”
“Exactly what I keep asking,” Kris muttered. “But she’s not answering me.”
“Look, both of you, we’re on a scouting mission, trying to find out who or what we’re dealing with darksidewise, and so far, we have found out nothing. There’s nobody around. Nobody lurking. Nobody skulking. Nada. I keep going until I get a look at something. No farther…” She raised her hands as both Jack and Kris began to protest. “…so I don’t cut off my escape route. Unless…” Locking eyes with Jack. “…you’ve got new information for me.”
“About who’s behind this?”
“Well, yeah.”
“No. He’s never come out this far, but I have heard a compelling kind of voice coming out of the storeroom, so he could have been there.”
“A compelling kind of voice?” Diana repeated. “What does that mean?”
“A voice that compels. A voice belonging to the kind of guy who could put all this…” His eyes rolled around the mirror. “…in motion.”
“If not the big cheese; one of?”
“That’d be my guess.”
“Okay, I’ll check the storeroom for residual energy.”
“Be careful. If you access the possibilities, they’ll know exactly where you are.”
“Really?” She frowned at the mirror. “I never would have remembered something so crucial to my own survival.”
“Well, excuse me for being concerned.”
“Sorry. It’s a polarity thing. They’re bad, I’m good. Opposites attract. Good can, therefore, track evil, no accessing of the possibilities necessary.” Turning to Kris she nodded at the storeroom door. “You coming with?”
“Not so fast.” The mall elf held up a cautioning hand. “Good can track evil?”
“Yeah.”
“Then evil can track good. Can track you.”
“Only if they know I’ve been there. But unless they walk in while I’m there, why would they know that?”
“You make it sound so easy,” Kris snorted. “And we both know it isn’t.”
“Well, yeah. But why make it harder than it has to be? You don’t have to come…”
“Right. Again with the ditching as things get tough; not going to happen.”
“Good.”
“Yeah, good.”
Still on her hands and knees, Diana headed for the storeroom, not entirely certain if anything had actually been resolved.
The storeroom seemed empty of anything relevant although it was difficult to tell with all the basilisk sculpture stacked along the walls. She walked to one end then zigzagged her way back. Nothing. No sign of major evil. No minor evil. Not even a hint of metaphysical PMS.
“Where is everyone?” she demanded, yanking at the locked drawers of the filing cabinet. “This is nuts!”
Kris snorted, leaned back against the door, and folded her arms. “Stress much? Look you’ve got to get a bit more relaxed.”
“No. I’ve got to get farther in.”
“Yeah.” The mall elf sighed. “I knew you’d say that.”
Abandoning the files, Diana crossed to stand in front of Kris, her eyes narrowed. “You don’t have to…”
“…come with, I knew you’d say that, too.” She straightened, then leaned slightly forward, capturing Diana’s gaze with hers and holding it. “Now, what am I going to say?”
Hopefully not “get your hands off me you lezzy pervert.” Their faces were so close together, their breath mingled.
Diana moved just a little bit closer.
As first kisses went, it was kind of a nonevent, but no noses ended up out of alignment, no teeth got cracked, and Kris seemed, if not enthusiastic, at least receptive. Diana would have considered it a promissory kiss except she knew the danger in foreshadowing.
“You’re thinking,” she said quietly, “that you’d rather be with me than waiting here in the storeroom all alone.”
Kris nodded, her expression confusingly noncommittal. “Close enough.”
Reminding herself that closing the segue and saving the world had to remain at the top of her to-do list, that she and Kris were now literally from two different worlds, that she was an idiot, Diana stepped back, turned, and cracked open the door to the access corridor. Her line of sight was limited, but she couldn’t hear anyone—or anything—hanging about. When Kris moved up close behind her, a crystal shot glass in the B cup of her slingshot, she opened the door the rest of the way.
The access corridor was just as she remembered it, an empty concrete tunnel; although a little darker and a little smellier and the stains seemed to be from something a lot less pleasant than merely urine. Going left would take them back into the mall. Right would take them behind the construction barrier.
Which was where they needed to go.
Touching Kris lightly on the arm, Diana pointed to the right. The mall elf nodded and moved out in front, silently indicating it was the best place for the person with the missile weapon to be. Given that the alternative would be the p
erfect setup for a shot glass in the back of the head, Diana decided not to argue.
Moving silently, they slipped along the wall and around the corner. Unfortunately, the meat-minds were waiting just as silently.
The shot glass thudded into the middle of an approaching body without slowing it down.
“Run!”
It wasn’t meat-minds behind them, cutting them off. Meat-minds didn’t move that quickly or look that dangerous.
* * *
Hanging from the taloned grip of her captor, Diana shot a glance at Kris who had finally worn herself out and was dangling quietly. Nothing they’d been able to do had had any effect on the grip of the long legged, multijointed, vaguely buglike bad guys, so she’d stopped struggling early on and tried to memorize the path they’d taken down past the construction barrier and into this ornate and, frankly, overdone throne room. Walls of etched gold, a floor of polished marble, the heads of various creatures displayed on wooden plaques, torches—who used torches in the twenty-first century?
Her nose was bleeding again. All she could do was let it drip.
Claws skittering against gleaming black stone, the two bug things carried them toward the massive jeweled throne and the silver-haired man who sat on it, one elegantly clad leg crossed over the other. He smiled, showing very white teeth as they were dropped unceremoniously to the floor, and then leaned forward with pale hands spread in a mock welcoming gesture.
“I knew you would come to me eventually, Keeper.”
Diana blinked, took a second to make sure Kris was moving, and sat up to find cold, corpse-gray eyes staring down at her with triumphant familiarity.
“Right,” she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Who are you?”
EIGHT
“YOU ASK WHO I AM?” The silver-haired man with the corpse-colored eyes leaned forward. “I am your worst nightmare.”
“My worst nightmare?” Diana repeated. She hauled herself up onto her feet, hoping Kris realized that, as much as she wanted to spend the next ten minutes doing nothing but reassuring herself that the other girl was okay, duty called. “Dude, you’ve never been to high school. You’ve never had that ‘sitting down to a final exam and realizing you never actually went to the class’ dream, have you? Or had your bladder haul up the ‘I really have to pee, but the only toilet I can find is in the middle of the main hall and classes are changing’ scenario. Or done the ‘scenes from the most boring Canadian short stories ever written start coming to life in freshman English.’ Oh, wait…” She frowned, wiping her bloody nose on her sleeve. “…that last one actually happened. But the point is…” Arms folded, she met the eyes of the man on the throne. “…you are so not my worst nightma…”
The front pincers of her buglike captor smacked her behind the knees, and she went down hard.
Ow. Ow. And OW! Marble floors didn’t get softer with repeated impact. Hissing with pain as she propped herself up on a bruised elbow, she gave the enemy her best “get over yourself” expression. Six months with Sam had made it pretty effective. “If it means that much to you, you can be a bad dream and work your way up.”
He smiled almost pleasantly. “I recognize bravado when I hear it, Keeper. Brave words from a little girl in way over her head.”
Diana sighed. “Look, seriously, I really don’t know who you are. If you want me…us,” she corrected as, beside her, Kris struggled to her knees, “to cower in terror, it would work a lot better if we knew to whom we were cowering. So, if you could, please tell us your name.”
“Please?” His snort was elegant, aristocratic, and dismissive. “Did you honestly think so simple a magic would work on me?”
“Can’t blame me for trying.”
“I could kill you for trying,” he pointed out reasonably. “And if you do not know my name, I am not so foolish I will give you the power of it.”
“Okay, but head bad guy? Nasty number one? So not terrifying.”
“Not,” Kris agreed, and Diana flashed her a pleased smile for being willing to play. If they could get the guy’s name, if they could find out anything about him, she might be able to do something. Given that she wasn’t allowed to access the possibilities, she wasn’t sure what, but something. She was fairly sure her subconscious agreed his ass needed serious kicking. Unfortunately, at the moment, her subconscious was busy having mild hysterics about the giant bugs.
“If you want terrifying, Keeper, I’m willing to oblige, but, for now, there are only two things you need to know.” Sitting back, he flicked a pale finger into the air. “The first is that you live now only because I have not ordered your death. The second…” A second finger joined the first. “…is that you have failed. You have not shut down the segue, and the darkness will gain entry through it to your world.”
“Okay, one…” Diana flicked the second finger on her right hand back at him. “…I haven’t failed yet, and I’m not the only one fighting you.”
“If you speak of your sister, we can defeat her as easily as we have defeated you. More easily, I suspect, as you have by far the greater power. It was your Summons; you were your world’s best hope, and here you are. If you speak of your little friend…” He inclined his head graciously toward Kris and then jerked it back a lot less gracefully as she spat a mouthful of blood almost into his lap. “…her companions, or the Immortal King, they are even now being dealt with. The Immortal King will die and after, as always happens, the fellowship of those he leads will not survive his death. That is, after all, in the Rules.”
“What’s he talking about?” Kris demanded.
Diana touched her lightly on the arm. “I’ll tell you later.”
“You may not have a later.”
“Up yours.”
A brilliant and speculative smile. “Perhaps.”
Was he hitting on her? He was hitting on her. Eww.
“But for now, let’s have a look at the weapons you brought to the battle.”
“What weapons?” Diana demanded. “Your bugs totally trashed Kris’ slingshot and dumped her quiver back in the access corridor when they grabbed us.”
He shook his head and pointed at…
She couldn’t stop herself from looking down.
…her belt pouch. So much for subterfuge. Still, in order to take it off her, he’d have to come close enough to grab. It was possible that direct physical contact could work in her favor—darkside and lightside canceling each other out until only the more powerful remained. While willing to admit that finesse was not her strong point, Diana was fairly sure that in a contest involving raw potential, she’d be the last one standing.
Unfortunately, it seemed that she wasn’t the only one who thought so.
The bug shoved one of its smaller serrated legs between the strap and her waist. A quick sawing motion and it caught the belt pouch in its pincer as it fell. A quick twist scattered bits of the pouch and her defensive possibilities over the base of the dais.
“A few keys. Some seeds. Thread. A watch face. All primed and ready to be used. Such a shame if these fell into the wrong hands, Keeper.” He laughed at the wand which looked even more pink and plastic than usual against the black marble. “Oh, wait; you also brought a toy sent out to spread discord amongst the great unskilled.” He shook his head. “You thought you could defeat me with this?”
Since it seemed to be a rhetorical question, Diana settled for glaring. He would have felt the power discharge when she defeated the dark elf, but he clearly didn’t realize the wand had directed it. That might give them an advantage later. If they had a later…
Frowning, he looked down at the last item, a white, paper-wrapped cylinder that had bounced away from the rest. “And what,” he demanded, “is this?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Kris snickered.
“On the contrary.” A gesture brought a meat-mind out from where it had been lurking, the torches throwing its shadow around the room as it moved. Another gesture had it bend and pick the p
aper cylinder off the floor. “Do you tell me, or do I have my minion use it against you?”
Diana sighed. “It’s a tampon.”
The meat-mind blinked, looked down at what it was holding, and dropped it, shaking its fingers free of any contamination.
“Oh, please. It’s not like it’s been used.”
“Guys,” Kris snorted.
“Really.”
“Perhaps,” snarled the man on the throne, his lip curled in disdain, “you’ll find the situation less amusing after a little torture.”
“With a tampon?”
The disdain became confusion. “What?”
“You’re going to torture us with a tampon?”
Became distaste. “Stop saying that!”
“Saying what?” Diana asked. “Tampon?”
“Feminine hygiene product?” Kris offered.
“Maxi pad?”
“Cramps.”
“Bloating.”
“Clotting.”
“Yeah, I hate it when that happens.”
He stared at them for a long moment, eyes wide and disbelieving. “Nice girls do not talk about those kinds of things!”
“But torture, that’s okay?”
“Double standards of the patriarchy,” Kris growled.
His grip tightened on the arms of the throne to the point where already pale knuckles whitened. “Get them out of here!”
* * *
Diana yanked at the chains securing her wrist cuffs to the wall and sighed. “I hate to say it, but the nameless nasty was right; this is already less amusing.”
“Are they really going to torture us?” Kris panted, hanging limp and exhausted. It was fairly clear they wouldn’t be able to kick, twist, or thrash their way to freedom.
“Probably.” If she only had the wand. It was times like this, chained to a wall by the nameless evil who planned to use a shopping mall to take over the world, that a few hours of unconsciousness followed by a little puking started to look good. “First they’ll leave us here to think about it for a while.”
“You know what? I’m thinking about it. And you know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking I don’t want to be tortured!”
“Who does?”