Long Hot Summoning

Fur between his eyes folded into a darker orange “w,” Sam frowned up at them both. “Do you guys know this Arthur?”

“Not this Arthur, but he’s just the sort of opportunistic archetype who’d show up in this kind of story. And you never just get him, do you?” Her own brow furrowed, Diana folded her arms.

“We should be glad they’re not a little younger,” Claire reminded her. “Or we might have been dealing with Peter Pan.”

“Yeah, but they’ve turned themselves into elves. Wouldn’t Oberon make more sense?”

“I doubt this lot’s read much Shakespeare, but you have; you’d honestly rather deal with Oberon?”

Diana considered it for a moment. “Okay, good point. Ass ears; not a great look. But still, that whole Immortal King crap just gets up my nose. Follow me, serve me, love me…gag me!”

“Your opinion aside, Arthur is a nice, classic, archetypal answer to a leadership dilemma.”

*   *   *

Arthur turned out to be a tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped young man in his late teens with startlingly blue eyes and a wild shock of blue-black hair that kept falling attractively forward over his face in spite of a silver circlet.

“Okay,” Claire said slowly as they walked toward him, drawn by the brilliant, perfect white crescent of his smile. “So he’s a nice anime archetypal answer to a leadership dilemma.”

“And we can be grateful they’re becoming elves, not Pokémon,” Diana added.

Dressed in black and silver—jeans, boots, T-shirt, leather jacket, lots of buckles—and wearing a very large sword across his back, he waited for them in the electronics section of the department store. The sword, at least, should have looked out of place. It didn’t.

A burgundy leather sofa and two matching chairs, heavy on the rivets, defined three sides of the space. Under the furniture, was a square of carpet patterned in shades of gray. The fourth side was a massive, rear projection television—its screen a reflective black. The mere lack of accessible electricity wouldn’t have been enough to keep the TV off had enough of the mall elves wanted it on but, subconscious desires or not, the programming would have been beyond their control. Diana had seen a TV in one of the bleaker Otherside neighborhoods that showed nothing but reruns of Three’s Company. Next to the Girl Guide camp, it was as close to actually being in Hell as she ever wanted to get.

There was no sign of Arthur’s usual entourage and although the coffee table had smoothed corners, it could in no way be called round.

“When Kris said that a pair of Keepers had crossed over, I thought the news was too good to be true,” Arthur announced, moving to meet them as they stepped onto the carpet. “And yet, here you are.” He looked so pleased that Diana found herself grinning foolishly in response. A quick glance over at Claire showed she was having much the same reaction.

“Sire? About some us heading out scavenging?”

“Of course.” Arthur nodded toward the Keepers. “If you’ll excuse me.” When he turned his attention to Kris, it seemed almost as though the lights had dimmed.

Oh, great. Diana scowled at her reflection in the television. That’s so not good.

Wait a minute, the lights have dimmed.

She glanced up at the ceiling. The huge frosted squares over the fluorescent tubes were becoming distinctly gray. “Claire…”

“I see it. I think this store is almost real and the mall in the real world is closing down for the day.”

They were right under one of the emergency lights. As the rest of the store filled with shadows, the area defined by the sofa, the chairs, and the television remained, if not bright, at least lit. “But it’s barely midafternoon.”

“A little past.” Claire thrust her wrist and watch into Diana’s line of sight. Six fifteen. The second hand swept around the dial almost too fast to see. Six sixteen. Seventeen.

*   *   *

“Give me one good reason why I should feed you anything different than I would if Claire were here?” Dean demanded, lifting Austin off the table and out of his supper.

“Claire’s not here.”

He thought about that for a moment then cut the cat some cold beef. “Okay. Good reason.”

*   *   *

“But time was running one to one when you checked at the Emporium.”

Claire nodded toward Arthur, who was still speaking quietly with Kris. “I think he’s a time distortion. He’s pure Otherside. Whoever’s running this segue can’t control him.”

“Yeah, but they clearly can’t control the elves either.”

*   *   *

“It’s June.” Austin settled himself in tea cozy position on the coffee table. “Why are they still playing hockey?”

“Because they’re not finished.”

“You know, the world made a lot more sense when I was young.”

Dean twisted the cap off a beer and toasted his reluctant companion. “Oh, yeah, I’ll drink to that.”

*   *   *

“They had no trouble controlling the elves before Arthur showed up. Kris said they were getting their asses kicked.”