“Not so much. That was after ending things for me.” He lifted her down off the counter and steadied her while she slipped her sandals back on. “Just so I’m clear on this; strangling your sister is not an option, then?”
“If you want to strangle my sister,” Claire told him as they left the lobby, “you’ll have to wait in line.”
“I hope you guys postponed instead of finishing,” Diana snorted as they entered the kitchen, “because if that was it, Claire should file a complaint. I mean it’s not like I’m an expert on these things,” she continued, assaulting a leftover roast with the carving knife, “but someone’s getting left a little short. No offense.” She grinned up at Dean.
“And yet, I’m offended anyway.” Grasping her wrist with one hand, he confiscated the knife with the other and jerked his head toward the dining room table. “You sit. I’ll do this.”
“I don’t know, Dean. I like my sandwiches made slowly and with care.”
“And you might want to reconsider further commentary,” Claire interjected from the dining room, “since he’s eight inches taller than you and holding a knife.”
“Please,” Diana scoffed, grabbing a bottle of juice from the fridge and coming around the counter that separated the two rooms, “Dean’s a pussycat.”
“Now,I’m offended,” Austin muttered.
Sam looked up from his cat food and frowned.“I thought you liked him.”
“Yeah. So?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re not supposed to,” Claire told the younger cat comfortingly. “Let it go and move on.” Pulling out one of the antique table’s dozen chairs, she folded a leg up onto the red velvet seat and sat, indicating that Diana should do the same.
Diana didn’t so much sit as gang up with gravity to assault the furniture.
Claire winced as the chair protested, but hundred-year-old joints and wood glue held.“You said something about a shopping mall taking over the world?”
“I’m amazed you heard me.”
“You have a talent for attracting attention. I assume this concerns your first Summons as an active Keeper?”
“Got it in one.” Smiling her thanks at Dean for the sandwich, she waited until he sat down and pulled his seat up close behind Claire’s before she continued. “It all started this afternoon on what was, thank God, my very last day of school…”
When the story arrived at the mall, Claire interrupted.
“You should have called me.”
“Chill, uberKeeper. You weren’t in Kingston, and until I actually got to the Emporium, all I had was a piece of ugly jewelry. I’d have been further ahead closing down the Home Shopping Network. Unfortunately, once at the Emporium, I discovered we’re talking about a little more than a mere accident site—according to the magic mirror they’re using for security…”
“Magic mirror?” Dean leaned forward, one hand on Claire’s shoulder. “Like in the fairy tales?”
“Just like. Well, not exactly like,” Diana amended after chewing and swallowing the last mouthful of sandwich. “He’s a little pissed about being yanked out of retirement by Gaston the Wondertroll and is willing to do what he can to close the whole thing down.”
“Troll?”
She nodded.“They’re not just under bridges anymore.”
“According to the magic mirror,” Claire prompted, poking her sister with a Tahiti Sands-tipped finger.
“Ow.”
“Diana…”
“Okay, fine. According the mirror, whose name is Jack, it’s a segue.”
“A segue?” When Diana nodded, her expression making it clear she wasn’t kidding around, the older Keeper ran a hand up through her hair. “I have a sudden need for profanity.”
“Yeah. That was my reaction. That mall’s got to cover at least four acres. Maybe as much as six.”
“Segue?” Dean asked, dragging his chair around far enough to see Claire’s face.
“A metaphysical overlap intended to displace reality.”
He switched his attention to Diana.
She scratched thoughtfully at her left elbow and tried to come up with an explanation he could understand.“You know how the Otherside is neither here nor there? That everyone—good guys, bad guys, the Swiss—can all get in but can only get back out into their own reality, the one they left from? Well, in a segue, someone, or something, matches up a piece of the Otherside to this reality and blends them together until enough of the copy occupies the space of the original whereupon the copy takes over. That puts a piece of the Otherside inside this reality so that anyone can enter it from their reality and exit here. The Erlking Emporium is anchoring the biggest segue I’ve ever heard of.”
“The biggest?”
“Well, you can’t count Las Vegas, that’s a metaphysical heritage site. All that bad taste in one place put a real strain on reality.”
It took Dean about half a heartbeat to decide that was one of those comments he didn’t need to understand. “But how did the segue in the mall get so big without you guys noticing?”
“Hell,” Austin answered before either Keeper could. He put his front paws up on Claire’s knee and she lifted him onto her lap. “They hid a smaller bad inside the noise of the biggest bad. They probably set the anchor last fall while we were closing the hole and after that, it was just a matter of keeping things moving ahead, slow and steady.”
“And they are?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Oh, wait. No it isn’t.” He paused and licked at the quarter-sized bit of black fur on his front leg. “For simplicity’s sake, let’s just call them the bad guys.”
“But the Otherside isn’t necessarily bad.”
“Doesn’t matter; with a segueanything can cross over. Bad, good…”
“Hey!” Sam protested, coming out of the kitchen. “This world could use a little more good in it. I ought to know.”
Austin sighed.“Yeah, yeah. Light. Angel. Cat. Yadda. We all know the story and you’re missing the point. A little good is fine. A lot of good isn’t.”
“Keepers maintain the balance, Sam. A functional segue could tip it in either direction, and if they’re using trolls, well, I’m guessing we’re not heading for hugs and cheesecake.” Claire rubbed her thumb gently over the velvet fur between Austin’s ears. “Shutting them down is a tricky business,” she added thoughtfully. “It can’t be done from this side; I’ll have to cross over and go to the source.”
Diana rolled her eyes.“You’ll have to? Trywe’ll have to. If I can’t close something this big on my own, you certainly can’t—Basic Folklore 101, the younger sibling is always more powerful. I have the power, you have the experience. United we stand, divided we fall, yadda yadda. So I suggest you get over yourself, drop the whole I’m-the-only-one-who-can-save-the-world crap, and recognize thatwe’ve got trouble.”
“Right here in River City,” Sam added.
“Show tunes?” Austin glared down at the orange cat. “You have got to be kidding.”
“I have three words for you, Austin.” Diana leaned a little closer to Claire’s lap and flicked up a finger for each word. “Andrew Lloyd Webber. But that’s so not what we’re talking about. We need to get back into that mall and close that segue. It’s going to take some time, so I suggest we start tonight.”
“Ignoring your less than flattering opinion of my character,” Claire muttered darkly, “I agree.”
“I don’t.”
“Listen much, Dean? Segue bad. Keepers good. And I don’t know where I was going with that, but the sooner we get the sucker closed down the better.”
“Not arguing,” Dean told the young Keeper calmly. “You said it’s going to take some time—that means you’ll be there for a while?”
Diana shrugged.“Yeah, but…”
“So you can’t just rush in all unprepared.”
“I guess not.”
“You’ll have to pack.”
Claire twisted around until she could see his face.“We have everything here…”