I stepped "past" the surface of the escalator and found myself in a little maintenance or machinery room in an unpainted section of the store customers are not supposed to see. There was a loading dock off to my left and a bare concrete corridor off to my right.
Now I reached "down" into the flat plane of three-space with a number of limbs made of motes of light, like tendrils of music, if music were made of solid energy-forms.
One group of motes diverted the mass-relationship leading from the guitar to the center of the Earth, to make it lighter in my hand; a second group folded my stray bills and slid them "past"
the surface of my purse into its interior; and a third group superimposed the purse on the interior of my pocket. To me, it looked much like putting a paper cutout of a purse inside a pocket-shaped line drawn on a plane. Since the purse actually (now that I could see it from more than 180
degrees at once) looked too large to fit through the mouth of the pocket, I would have to use the same means to get it out again, or resort to knifing open the pocket seams.
A fourth group of motes reached "into" my pants pocket and tilted the switch-hook of my phone into the fourth dimension, so that it popped "up." The mere fact that the lid of the phone was shut no longer engaged the off button. In effect, this took the cell phone off the hook without actually opening it.
A fifth group of motes folded the tiny area of time-space around my pants pocket to hold it against my ear.
I am not sure what this might have looked like to outside three-dimensional observers. Maybe they would have seen me bend at the waist at an impossible angle to put my ear to my hip. Maybe they would have seen or heard sound waves being teleported out of my pocket through a wormhole directly into my ear.
A manipulation set up a second distance-negating space-fold between my mouth and the cell phone's cunningly made little mouthpiece.
Maybe an outside observer would have seen me twisted like a Mobius pretzel to have my mouth and ear both pressed up against the same convex surface in a way spherical heads cannot. I prefer to think they would have seen a second wormhole opening between my head and my pocket, without any gross distortions. After all, the limited three-dimensional light would have followed the space-time curve as if it were flat, right? Outside observers surely would have seen a pretty girl with little firefly glints in a complex halo around her head. Hope so, anyway.
Multidimensional continuum control is a fine superpower-there is none better-but no girl wants a paradigm she cannot use without looking icky.
Vanity's voice came over the phone speaker: "Amelia! Amelia! Oh, God, please answer!"
"I'm here."
"Something just saw you. Something powerful and terrible. Then another group of somethings joined in. There is a crowd looking at you."
I looked left and right. Bare walls. Loading dock with empty trucks. Behind me was a space filled with a diesel engine, calmly purring. I ran the few yards, down a set of metal stairs, and eased open a rear door leading to the loading bay. Outside was a short alley leading to a nighttime street, neon-lit. There were people on it, couples walking, perhaps headed to the club just down the way. No one stopping to turn and look toward the store.
I opened up eyes in the fourth dimension. There was a blaze of utility from the music section of the store overhead, but now I saw it was not useful to me or Colin; the supply of instruments was very useful to someone else.
That same light sent out a streamer of moral obligation like a spiderweb. I traced the strands.
One bundle went toward Deimos, who was sitting in a glassed-in office high above a dancing floor of many dazzling lights. He had his harpoon in his hand, facing the direction of the store, as if the intervening walls and buildings were no barrier to his dread weapon. The threads there ran from him to Archer, who was on the street between the store and the club. Deimos was acting as a sniper, a friendly one, ready to strike down anyone who threatened his brother. Had he been watching the whole exchange between me and Archer? Probably not, or Vanity would have sensed his eyesight. No-something had startled him into a warlike stance, a warning that his oath to protect his brother was about to be challenged.
I saw a second bundle leaving him and leading back to me. He had made a promise to me to show my card to Archer. It was a dim connection, but enough that Deimos could sense a threat to me as well. If I were killed, he could not keep his promise.
I am lucky Deimos had made that promise, because I could see through his tangle of moral connections something I could not see radiating from myself.
A final bundle had reached down from a point immensely remote in space, right to my position, glowing, shivering, and crawling with motes and flickers of communication-purpose. It was as if the line was shouting to someone, HERE! SHE IS HERE!
"Damn!" I breathed.
Wives of the Psychopomp
"Do you see anyone?" asked Vanity over the phone.
"The money. I spent the money..."
I could dimly hear, in the background, Quentin's voice saying, "It's ap Cymru. Amelia's in debt to him now. That's why they gave her such an absurd amount of money. The obligation was not actual before, because she herself never spent it. Tell her to throw away whatever it is she just bought..."
Vanity: "Did you hear Quentin?"
"Yes." I tossed the sleek black guitar into a Dumpster filled with packing material. And immediately: "Didn't work," I said. The obligation lines continued to lead to me, not to it. Oh well.
I picked up the guitar again. No reason to throw away a perfectly good guitar.
I said to Vanity: "Which floor are you on?"
Vanity said: "I am not in the store anymore. I led the boys into a secret elevator behind the jewelry department when I felt someone find you. I am hoping it will lead down to a sewer or-Listen! Get to the docks, get to the shore. Or to the nearest body of water. I am ordering my ship to go find you."
Vanity shouted over the tiny phone speaker: "Do not dare tell me you are going to lead them away! What if we get attacked by Dr. Fell and you are not there? What if Mrs. Wren attacks you, and it is something Quentin could save you from by saying the name of a fish? We are all in danger if you are in danger! Don't you dare run off on us or be brave, or so help me God, I will never forgive you, Amelia Armstrong Windrose!"