Long Hot Summoning

One of the torches sputtered, almost went out, then began to burn steadily once again. They could hear nothing but their own hearts beating. Smell nothing but themselves and each other.

“What’s your mother like?” Kris threw the question out like a challenge.

“What?”

“Your mother. You said she was into that psychological shit. What’s she like?”

Diana shrugged as well as her position allowed. “She’s a Cousin.”

“Your mother’s your cousin? That’s got a whole unexpected squick thing goin’.”

“Not my cousin. A Cousin. It’s kind of an auxiliary Keeper. Less powerful.”

“You’re more powerful than your old lady?”

“I’m more powerful than the entire lineage. All the Cousins. All the Keepers.”

“And how’s that workin’ for you?” Kris snickered.

Bugs. Chains. Torture. “Not real well.”

“You look like her?”

“Not really, Claire and I both look like our dad which is kind of funny in a way because Claire’s so little and he’s n…”

“He’s what?”

Diana chewed on her lip. She almost had it. “You’ve been fighting the darkside in this mall for a while now, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you seen any women, human-looking women, fighting on their side?”

“No. Sexist bastards. They think a sister can’t be evil enough? They never met my Nana, that’s for sure.”

“Do they ever take any of the elves prisoners?”

“No.”

“So if they’re going to chain something up, they’d be chaining up their own guys.”

Kris glanced up at the chains, then back at Diana. “Okay, but why would they do that?”

“They’re evil.”

“Right.”

“And all of their guys are a lot bigger than we are.”

“Yeah.”

“And these manacles are two solid halves of iron. Not adjustable. In order to hold their guys, they’ve got to be a certain size.” Diana folded her thumb in against her palm and slid her right hand free. “They’re too big to hold us.” Sliding out her left hand, she beckoned to Kris. “Come on.”

“But…”

“I’m out, aren’t I?”

Frowning, Kris worked at her lower lip with her teeth and slowly slipped both hands free. “So how come they were holding us?”

“Because we believed they would.” It was twistier than that, but not really by much.

“If that’s a Rule, it’s a fuckin’ stupid Rule.”

“So not arguing here.”

They stepped out of the alcove together, but as Diana began to turn right, Kris’ fingers closed around her arm, dragging her to the left with a terse, “Come on.”

Diana dug in her heels. “No. We need to go the other way.”

“Delusional much? We need to get back and warn the others.” Her grip tightened. “That guy, he said they were being dealt with.”

“Except that we don’t know how time’s running in that end of the mall. They might’ve been dealt with days ago.”

In the barely adequate light from the torches, Kris’ eyes looked completely black with no differentiation between iris and pupil. “Then it might not have happened yet.” She gave Diana’s arm an impatient shake. “We need to get back and help them! I’m Arthur’s captain. I need to be there.”

If anyone could understand the pull of responsibility, it was a Keeper. Still…“There’s nothing you can do. You…we, have to trust that Claire handled it. Can handle it. Will handle it.” She wanted to sound comforting but suspected she sounded as though she were trying to convince herself. “Besides, she has Sam with her.”

“And what’s he supposed to do?”

“Probably nothing, but that’s not the point. The point is I have to go on. The anchor’s that way and unless we at least get a look at it, we don’t know any more than we did when we left.”

Kris shook her head. “We know there’s an old white guy in charge—big surprise—and he’s got bugs.”

“But that tells us nothing.”

“It tells me I should be hauling my ass—and yours—out of here.”

“No. You can haul your own—I can’t make you come with me—but I’m going farther in.” Diana pulled her arm free and half turned; enough to make her choice of direction obvious but not enough to turn her back on the other girl.

“It would help if I knew…” Kris drew her lower lip in between her teeth; the most vulnerable move Diana had seen her make. “It would help if I knew if he was still alive.”

“Look, whatever the processed cheese spread of evil out there is planning, it definitely hasn’t gone down because if Arthur was dead, things would be happening.”

“Things?”

“Things. Bad things.”

Kris’ gesture covered the alcove, the chains, and the general dungeonlike tone of the décor. “Worse than this?”

“Much. Season finale of Buffy kind of worse.”

“Which season?”

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not.”

Right or left, the passage looked identical; equally grim, equally foreboding.

“Look at the bright side,” Diana offered after a moment, “When they discover that we’ve escaped, they’ll never think of searching for us deeper in their territory. They’ll assume we headed out.”

“That’s because they’re not as stupid as they look and we are.” She drew in a deep breath, slowly releasing both it and Diana’s arm. “Fine. Let’s get going, then. Standing around ‘looking at the bright side…’”

She had the most sarcastic air quotes Diana had ever seen.