Long Hot Summoning

The old man came closer. The puddle of light spread until Kris was standing with her heels together and her toes splayed almost a hundred and eighty degrees apart. Feeling her begin to totter, Diana slipped an arm around the guard captain’s waist. They were pressed so closely together their hearts began to beat to a single rhythm. Why that rhythm seemed to be reggae when the boots were still banging an old Nancy Sinatra hit on the other side of the window, Diana had no idea.

Then, finally, the light began to move on down the mall; east, the way they had to go. But better to have the ancient nutbar in front of them than behind.

shunk kree, shunk kree

As he passed, his head slowly turned, and he peered into their rectangle of shadow. His eyes narrowed. His grip shifted on the flashlight.

You can’t see us…

And he passed on by.

They listened to his footsteps fade. They took their first breath in unison. Then their second. Then Kris murmured, “He’s gone, Keeper. You got reasons for hanging on that I should know?”

“No.” Because, you feel so good wasn’t really a reason Diana wanted to get into right now. She dropped her arm and tried not to feel bereft as Kris stepped away. “What should we do about the boots?”

“Do?”

“They could come right through the window.”

“It’s summer, there aren’t a lot of them and even if they break the glass, the security cage’ll keep them in.” She reached back and wrapped her hand around Diana’s wrist. “Come on.”

The feel of cool fingers on the skin between sleeve and glove was familiar.

“That was you, Friday night. You held Sam and me in the shadow so we didn’t get caught in the beam when the security guard flashed back the way he’d come.”

“Yeah. That was me. Now do me a favor and never use the word flash in the same sentence as that scary old dude again.” Her lip curled, showing a crescent of teeth. “Bad image frying the wetware.”

Diana caught the image and shuddered. “Eww.”

“Big time.”

“But how did you…” She looked down at Kris’ hand, still around her wrist, and then up at the other girl’s face. “We weren’t even in the same reality.”

Kris shrugged. “Reality’s what you make it.”

“True enough. You got reasons for hanging on I should know about?”

“No.”

It was a familiar sounding no. Diana grinned as she followed Kris back out onto the concourse. Hey, Sam, I think she likes me.

It wasn’t difficult to imagine Sam’s response.

“And what am I, chopped liver?”

“No, I mean she likes me.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

What was she going to do about it? And should she even do anything? And when? Actually, that last question was a no brainer.

Not now.

“Remember, stay low, move fast, and try not to look like a person. We’re in the bad guys’ fuckin’ territory.” Kris dropped into a crouch and scuttled across the side corridor, one arm crooked over her head.

She looked exactly like a person in a crouch with her arm over her head, but Diana figured she knew what she was doing, so she folded herself into a mirror image of the position and scuttled after. Shadows spilled out of the far end of the corridor, but they came with no accompanying feeling of being watched—a faint feeling of looking ridiculous but that passed as she reached the storefronts on the opposite side and straightened.

Tucked up tightly against the wall, Kris moved steadily toward the short hallway leading to the security office.

Security office?

Oh, great. What’s wrong with this picture?

Grabbing the back of Kris’ waistband, Diana dragged her to a stop. “What if he’s in the security office?” she hissed.

“What if he is? We still gotta go that way. It’s the only safe way to the food court.”

About to ask what definition of “safe” Kris was using, Diana jumped almost into the guard captain’s arms as a thick, purple tentacle slapped the glass beside her. “I didn’t do that!”

“Of course you didn’t.” The dumbass was silent but clearly implied. “It’s the pet store.”

“Right. And that’s…?”

“Beats the fuck out of me, but it’s not a squid.”

“What happened to the puppies and kittens?”

“I’m guessing it ate them.”

“Of course it did.”

They reached the hall without further incident. Narrow and lit by every third bank of fluorescents in the dropped ceiling, it went back about thirty feet, ending in a cross corridor. Diana could just barely make out two signs on the back wall. The first read: Elevator to Rooftop Parking and included a red arrow pointing left. The second: Baby Change Room; arrow to the right. What the babies changed into was anyone’s guess. The closed door to the security office was about a third of the way up the hall, on the right. That far again was a small water fountain.

No shunk kree. No advancing armies of darkness.

The only sound was the hum of the lights.