Arthur looked confused, but both women ignored the feline non sequitur with practiced ease.
“Dean has nothing to do with this, Diana.” Eyes narrowed, Claire punctuated her protest with a stabbing finger. “I agreed to exchange information, but I draw the line at bringing Bystanders any further into our business.”
“First, it’s my Summons, so it’s my line. Second, this is totally their business. This is their world now, they’ve changed too much to go home, and they have a right to defend themselves. Their best defense…” She spread both hands. “…and I’m willing to bet that it’s their only defense—is helping us to close this thing down before the bad guys make their move. Considering how complete things look—time shifts or no time shifts—that move can’t be too far off.”
“My scouts have reported more activity in enemy territory,” Arthur allowed.
Diana jerked around to stare at him.“You havescouts?”
“Not the scary kind,” he reassured her. “No shorts, no apples.”
“Good.”
*
“Where were you?” Austin demanded as Dean closed the front door.
“Where I told you I was going, playing ball with some friends. Just like I do every Sunday afternoon.” Tossing his glove onto the counter, he headed for the kitchen. “The answering machine was on, and you were asleep.”
“Well, I woke up and I was hungry.”
“I left you a bowl of dry.” Something crunched underfoot and Dean noticed the kibble spread evenly over the floor. “Which you obviously found. You think you could have caudled things up any more?”
“This is a big place,” Austin reminded him. “But before you start looking, how about feeding me.”
*
Head to one side, hair falling attractively, Arthur studied the Keepers.“If we have battle coming—which I’d be a fool to deny—why should I split my strength by helping you?”
“When we remove the anchor and close the segue,” Diana told him, peeling her bare thighs one at a time off the leather and scooting to the edge of the sofa, “we’ll be able to influence the other end of the mall. Our influence could save your butts.”
“Even though our influence would betotally subconscious,” Claire added.
Diana waved off the warning.“And besides, you said it yourself, it’s part of your original raisin of the day—you make one people out of a number of warring tribes and then you lead them out to face a common foe.”
“Raisin of the day?”
“I assume she meansraison d’etre.”
“Hey, I’m trying to keep the French out of it. We don’t need Arthur’s baggage finally making it through customs.”
Arthur glanced around uneasily.“Could that happen?”
“Keepers. Otherside.” Diana shrugged. “Anything could happen.”
A siren shrieked out on the concourse.
In the heartbeat of silence that followed, Claire and Sam turned to stare at Diana.
“What? I didn’t do it!”
On his feet and running full out between one moment and the next, Arthur charged past them, clearing Electronics in three long strides and disappearing between the racks of winter coats.
“You know that question about us being a catalyst?” Claire snarled, swinging her pack up onto one shoulder. “This answer it?”
“Unfortunately!” Grabbing her own pack in both hands, Diana pounded after Arthur, Claire behind her, Sam taking the high road over the furniture to end up leading the way.
Chaos filled the concourse. Meat-minds, some wearing a fine dusting of ceramic cherub, lumbered after the more limber mall elves. Arthur leaped forward, shouting orders and using his sword like a baton to direct a reorganized defense. Claire and Diana rocked to a halt in the entrance to the store.
Sam skidded out into the battle, claws scrabbling for purchase against the slick tile floor. When a massive foot slammed down in his path, he let his slide close the distance, bumping up against an enormous instep, sinking claws deep into gnarled flesh. Finally able to control his momentum, he pushed off and raced back to Diana’s side.
“You okay?”
Ears saddled, he looked as though he was trying to back away from his own feet.“Word of advice, don’t stick your claws in those things!”
The meat-mind ignored him, pounding off after the tiny female elf in the PVC corset.
“I thought those things got easily discouraged?” Diana protested.
Claire pointed to a tall, slender figure in black armor. The red plume on his helm bobbed over the battle.“Meet their motivation.”
The figure turned to meet Arthur’s charge.
“A dark elf?”
“Given what the kids are turning into, it almost makes sense.” On one knee beside her pack, Claire rummaged out her bag of prepared possibilities.
“It looks like the barricade at the stairs is intact,” Diana told her, yanking a bulging belt pouch out from under the half a dozen cans of cat food in her pack. “They must have come through another way.”
“The access corridors?”
“No. Arthur said they’re guarded. Someone would’ve given the alarm.”
A pair of charging meat-minds crashed to the floor for no apparent reason. A pepper grinder in one hand, Claire glared at Diana.
“Totally subconscious, I swear; they just lookreally clumsy!” Here and now, she wasn’t going to risk feedback. It was one thing to break a Rule with only her own life hanging in the balance, it was another entirely to risk Claire and Sam and a group of teenagers she’d only just met. With a powerful enemy on site, any power she released would, at the very least, be sucked up and used against them. Definitely embarrassing. Probably fatal.
One of the meat-minds stepped on its own hand as the two she’d dropped scrambled to their feet. It bellowed in pain and swung what looked like a plastic tote bag at its companion, knocking it down again. One of the mall elves darted in, wielding an aluminum baseball bat, and it stayed down.
“You’ve got to like the kid’s enthusiasm.”
“I don’t have to like anything about this,” Claire snapped. “I’m going to try and take a few of those things out. You find out where they’re coming from and close the door!” Waving the pepper shaker, she plunged into the fight.
“How is seasoning going to help?” Sam demanded as Diana buckled the belt pouch around her waist.
“Peppercorns are seeds.” She stuffed the wand into a pocket, just in case. “Seeds carry certain distinct possibilities.” A running dive took her past a meat-mind’s outstretched arms. “Claire has hers rigged for sleep,” she grunted, sliding into one of the plastic wood planters.
“But why pepper?” Sam jumped up onto the planter’s edge.
“Except for the Minute Rice, it was the only seed Dean had in the kitchen and Minute Rice comes with that unfortunate time restriction.” Scrambling to her feet, she joined the cat and took a moment to study the battle. The clash of blade against blade and the distinctly less musical clash of aluminum against meat, echoed under the twenty-foot ceilings. From her vantage point, she could see that the meat-minds in the main concourse were fighting in a random pattern, but by the entrance to the short hall—the one leading to the entrance where Claire’d left Dean way back when—they all faced one way. Into the concourse. Even the bulky body stretched flat at Kris’ feet and being efficiently bludgeoned pointed in the same direction.
Then, between one swing and the next, a meaty hand snaked out and closed around a slender ankle.
Kris’ next swing went wide.
Then the meat-mind was on its feet and Kris was swinging, dreadlocks sweeping back and forth across the floor.
*
Darting into the melee, Claire pounded one of the meat-minds on the shoulder—given the location, it was probably a shoulder. When it turned, she ground fresh pepper into its face. It looked affronted, then blinked onyx eyes, scrunched up its nose, and sneezed, covering Claire in a dripping patina of snot before falling backward to the floor.