“Yes, I do.” The return was painless. It was a pity Lance was still out; Claire had a feeling things couldn’t get much more metaphorical than this.
HEY! THIS ISN’T FAIR!
Osiris shot an exasperated look toward the shadow.“Death seldom is.”
SHE CHEATED!
“No one cheats death in the end.”
WHAT, I’M SUPPOSED TO EAT PLATITUDES NOW?
“If you like.”
And you can choke on them, Claire thought as Lance’s eyelids started to flutter. Dropping to one knee beside him, she shook his shoulder. “Come on, big guy. We’re leaving.”
“Going home?”
“Not right away. I’ve got some shopping to do first.”
“I like shopping.”
“Great. Hold that thought.”
It took Anubis and Bast helping to get him to his feet. He swayed slightly and blinked at Anubis.“Hey, who’s a good OW!”
Violence against Bystanders was permitted only in circumstances where it saved said Bystander, or Bystanders, from a greater violence. Claire figured calling Anubis a“good doggie” was definitely in the greater violence category.
“You pinched me!”
“Yes, I did.”
“Okay, then. How did we do?” he asked, rubbing one cheek.
“Neither of you were found wanting,” Osiris answered. He stepped forward, and Claire wasn’t surprised to find the three of them suddenly standing in front of the huge golden doors. Only now the doors were a standard height.
“Hey! We grew!”
Okay. That worked, too.
*
“Dr. Rebik?” The cleaned and ironed chinos hanging over his arm, Dean knocked on the door to room two. “Dr. Rebik, your pants are ready.”
“Maybe they’re having a nooner.”
Dean turned to stare at Austin in disbelief.
The cat shrugged.“Why not? They’re young and in love…oh, wait, my mistake, he’s having his life sucked out and she’s a reanimated corpse.”
“And it’s twenty after ten.” He knocked again.
“I find it disturbing that you’re more concerned with the time than the corpse.”
“I find it disturbing that you know what a nooner is.” About to knock a third time, he lowered his hand as the door opened and Dr. Rebik slipped out into the hall. Dean caught a quick glimpse of Meryat lying on the bed, wrapped arms crossed over her breast, then Dr. Rebik pulled the door closed.
One hand clutching the waistband of a pair of borrowed sweatpants, he stared up at Dean through bloodshot eyes as if unsure of who he was speaking to.“Yes?”
Dean held out the chinos.
“Ah. Yes.” Comprehension dawned slowly. “You were washing them for me.” His hand trembled slightly as he reclaimed his clothing.
“You all right, Dr. Rebik? You’re looking some poorly.”
“Some poorly?” The archaeologist managed a tired smile. “It’s the waiting. It’s hard on Meryat.”
“Looks like it’s hard on you.”
“We are as one in this.”
“Okay. Sure.” Frowning slightly, Dean watched as Dr. Rebik slipped back into his room. Meryat hadn’t moved. If he didn’t know better, he’d have to say she looked dead. As he stepped away from the door, he noticed a worn, brown leather wallet lying on the floor.
The way those sweatpants had been sagging, it had probably fallen from a pocket.
Dean bent, scooped it up, and lifted his hand to knock again.
Austin cleared his throat.
Don’t look at the cat. Just give it back.
As subtlety didn’t seem to be working, Austin sank a claw into Dean’s ankle just above his work boot.
“Son of…” He danced down the hall, collapsing against the wall by room one. “What’d you do that for, then?”
“Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
“About what? Tetanus?”
“About what’s in his wallet.”
“An amulet controlling his will? A note asking us to save him?”
Austin speared him with a pointed gaze.“You didn’t used to be this sarcastic.”
“I didn’t used to live with you!”
“Maybe he dropped it on purpose, did you think of that? Maybe it’s a cry for help.”
“You’re reaching.”
“You’re opening it.”
And he was. He didn’t know what he expected to find, but he found he couldn’t give the wallet back unexamined. Ithad fallen some conveniently.“I can’t believe I’m after doing this.”
“I can’t believe it’s taking you so long.”
Credit cards. Health card. Driver’s license…His eyes widened. If forced to guess, he’d have said Dr. Rebik was in his mid to late sixties.
According to his driver’s license, he was thirty-eight.
And he looked worse than his picture.
*
“I was right.”
“I know.”
“You were wrong.”
“Yeah. I got that.”
“There’s a song, you know. When I’m right and you’re wrong.”
Dean stopped pacing long enough to glare at the cat.“Don’t sing it.”
Austin sat down on the dining room table, stuck a foot in the air, and began washing his butt.
“Very subtle.” The dining room was exactly fourteen paces long. Provided he shortened the last step. “What do we do now?”
“You mean now that you admit I’m right?”
“Yes!”
“Well, we have to stop her. She’s sucking your life force out and what’s to say she won’t get tired of waiting for Claire and start sucking harder.”
“Lance said he knew how to stop her.”
“Which would be relevant if Lance wasn’t off with Claire.”
“Can we use the elevator on her?”
Austin sat up and shook his head.“It’s a little obvious. I suspect she’d sense it. What are you doing?”
Dean paused in the middle of crumpling up a sheet of newspaper.“I’m going to clean the windows. It’s what I do when I need to think.”
The two huge windows in the dining room were already spotless, but he sprayed them with a vinegar-and-water solution and began to rub.
“That’s a very annoying noise.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re not going to stop, are you?”
“No.”
When the paper was wet, he tossed it into the garbage and reached for another sheet. As he pulled it off the early edition, Austin’s paw snaked out and smacked it back down.
“There’s our answer!”
Dean scanned the headlines and frowned.“The waterfront renewal project?”
“No. The life-sized stone statue found at the mall!”
“The mall?”
“The very one! And you know what a life-sized stone statue means.”
“Bad garden art?”
“Basilisk! We go to the mall. We capture it. We turn Meryat to stone!”
“Claire…”
“You want Claire coming home to find Meryat waiting for her.”
No. He didn’t. “How do we capture a basilisk without turning to stone ourselves?”
Austin stared up at him in disbelief.“Do I have to think ofeverything?”
TWELVE
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WHILE KEEPERS SPENT pretty much their entire lives fighting to keep the world safe, they didn’t usually get involved inactual fighting of the hand-to-hand, teeth-to-arm, knees-to-groin variety. And no matter how many Saturday afternoons got wasted watching badly dubbed kung fu movies, it didn’t help.
Diana realized this about ten seconds into the fight. She couldn’t reach the possibilities, she’d lost her prepared defenses, and she had no idea how to disable her opponents with a shopping cart. Not that there was a shopping cart handy.
Running, while the intelligent response, had got them exactly seven paces closer to the throne before two of the giant bugs—moving in that creepy, skittery,fast way that giant bugs had laid claim to since the old black-and-white movie days—had cut them off. Diving out of the way of a flailing forearm, or foreleg, or sixleg or whatever it was called on a bug, Diana smacked her head against the floor and, just for an instant, heard the voice of Ms. McBride, her last biology teacher.
“…size to mass ratio…”
Yeah. That was helpful.
Fortunately, her belief that the meat-minds were too clumsy to simultaneously walk and breathe made them an avoidable threat for the most part. The bugs were the problem. Just as the bugs had been the problem in the access corridor.