Back and forth across the top of the shelves that defined the open court around the fire pit. He couldn’t stop pacing.
The unmistakable of sound of a two-fingered whistle echoed through the enclosed space, instantly silencing the babble of conversation. A dozen heads of exotic hair turned toward the sound.
“Dudes! Listen up.” Red braid swinging across the broad shoulders of his hockey pads, Will nodded toward Arthur, who stood beside him on a chair pulled away from a kitchen set in home furnishings. “Our fearless leader’s got something to say!”
The Immortal King looked out at the crowd, his blue eyes sweeping from face to face, refusing to be hurried. Under his black leather jacket, he was wearing an umpire’s padded breastplate. In his left hand, he held a pair of heavy leather gauntlets from gardening supplies. In his right, he held Excalibur.
It was so quiet Sam could hear only the faint creak of plastic padding. It was almost as though the mall elves were holding their breath, waiting for their leader to speak.
The ringing crash of the aluminum bat bouncing loudly across the tiles spun everyone around. They watched in unison until the bat finally hissed to a stop under Kith’s raised boot. Then they all looked at Sam.
He hadn’t even noticed the bat before he knocked it off the shelf.
Ignoring the pounding of his heart, and pretty sure he’d just lost the first of the alleged nine lives, he sat down and wrapped his tail pointedly around his front paws. Given the overwhelming, all encompassing level of noise, he didn’t think he could pull off the classic “I meant to do that” expression, so he settled for the slightly less difficult “What?” aimed directly at Arthur. Unable to help themselves, the elves turned again, searching for what he was staring at.
Poets knew that cats looked at kings because poets were no more immune than anyone else when it came to discovering what cats were staring at.
Arthur sighed.“You called me here,” he said after a moment, “to make you one people. To stop the bickering that made you easy prey for the darkside. To teach you how to hold the line against the darkside and say, this far you shall go and no farther. This I have done. You are one people. You act as one against the darkside. You hold the line. But it is no longer enough. The darkside has taken one of us and one of the Keepers who came to set us free. We cannot just hold the line while Kris and Diana are in the hands of our enemies. It is time we take the fight to them!”
“Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Caught up in the rhetoric, it took Sam a moment to realize why the response made him so edgy. He’d seen much the same thing on a grade-school playground while waiting for Diana to close an accident site under the slide.
Tossing back his hair with one hand, lifting Excalibur above his head with the other, Arthur yelled out,“Who is with me?”
All the hair lifted along Sam’s spine and in the second between the question and the answer, he shouted, “Wait!”
*
“Ow! Where are we?”
“In a refrigerator.” Bent nearly double, Claire reached for the door, hoping it was still open. “I’d have told you to duck, but I didn’t want to end up on an extended visit to Donald, Daisy, or Howard.”
“So, Meryat’s not in here?”
“No. Meryat’s not in here.” There was focused and then there was obsessive. Lance had crossed the line some time ago. “Hands off!”
“Sorry! There’s not much room!”
“Well, it’s arefrigerator,” she muttered, flicking the edge of the egg tray and trying to remember if it was on the door in this particular model. They had more than the actual room available but not by much.
“Would this be a good time to tell you that I’m a little claustrophobic?”
“No.” Okay. That was the butter thingy. Had to be the door. Both hands against it, Claire pushed.
“We need to get out now.”
“I’m working on…Hey!” Those were hands where they had no business being. Not that Lance seemed to notice as he began to throw himself against the sides of the fridge. “Careful! You’re going to…”
Too late.
The fridge went over, the door flew open, and Claire spilled out into Large Appliances wrapped up in a panicking grad student. She slapped him purely for medicinal reasons.
Rolling free, she found herself staring up at a pair of worried amber eyes, cinnamon nose nearly touching hers. No mistaking the tuna breath.“Sam! Ow!” Half a heartbeat later, she had an armful of marmalade cat and a row of bleeding puncture marks along her collarbone. “Oh, baby-cat, you have no idea how glad I am to seeyou.”
The ecstatic purring stopped. Sam squirmed free and backed up until all four feet were each applying approximately ten pounds of pressure to Claire’s chest. “Baby-cat?”
“Term of endearment.”
“Baby-cat!”
“I’m sorry. I was caught up in the moment. It willnever happen again.”
Whiskers bristling, Sam stared at her with such intensity, her eyes started to water.“See that it doesn’t,” he snorted at last and walked away muttering, “Baby-cat? I’d like to see what’d happen if she tried that on Austin. He’d remove her spleen…”
Claire smiled and sat up. It was good to be back.
“What’s with the elves in hockey gear?” Lance demanded, bouncing up onto his feet, panic forgotten.
Actually, that was a good question.
White, plastic shoulder pads gleaming under the store’s florescent lights, the mall elves pushed their way between the washers and dryers and surrounded the open area in front of the toppled fridge. Whatever they’d been doing, it had certainly got them worked up; Claire’d never seen them so excited. They were in constant movement, all talking at once. Half a dozen hands reached down to lift her to her feet.
“Thank you, okay, that’s great, I’m fine, yes it’s good to be back…Hey!” An elf she didn’t recognize backed away, hands in the air. Sure, hecould have just been smoothing down the back of her skirt and shecould have just spent a couple of hours with the gods of ancient Egypt.Oh, wait…
“They’re happy to see you!” Lance pointed out, accurately but unnecessarily.
“He’s not Australian?” Stewart asked, shooting a disbelieving glance up at the taller blond.
“Not so that you’d notice.”
“Weird.” He handed over her sandals. “You left these here.”
Claire thanked him, bent to slip them on, and straightened as the surrounding babble rose in volume.
Lance’s fingers closed over her shoulder. “Meryat!”
She sighed.“Arthur.” And stepped forward to meet the Immortal King.
He clasped her wrist in a warrior-to-warrior move Claire’d only ever seen performed in old movies. It was moderately reassuring that he hadn’t changed enough from his basic parameters to greet her with a high five. “I am truly glad to see you back, Keeper.”
“I’m truly glad to be back.” She glanced at his chest. “Decided to have a sports day while I was gone?”
“We are armored for battle.”
“Battle? The darkside is attacking?”
“No.” Blue-black hair fell over his eyes as he shook his head. “We take the fight to them.”
It seemed like she’d managed to find the mall just in time. “No, we don’t…”
“Your sister, the Keeper Diana, and Kris, my captain, have been captured.”
“Yes, we do. How do you know this?”
“A budgie mirror gave the news to Sam.”
“Okay, then.” That was just ludicrous enough to be a reliable source. She waved toward the various bits of surrounding padding. “Can I assume you were about to leave?”
“We were.”
“Just let me get my stuff…”
“Claire?”
Right. Lance. Her own personal albatross. Except that an actual albatross would be significantly less annoying. Still…Bystander. Keeper. Responsible. Yadda. “Lance…” She reached back, got a good grip on his sleeve and dragged him forward. “…this is Arthur. He’s in charge of the elves.”