Long Hot Summoning

“Stop thinking.” He stood, stretched, smacked the hockey bag again, and put his paw on Dean’s thigh. “Look, you’re just a Bystander and you should never have had to deal with anything stranger than laundry instructions. That said—although I’ll call you a liar if you ever repeat this—you’re dealing with it admirably. Just keep dealing with it and you’ll be fine.”

“I don’t look like a man who’s in over his head…OW!”

Austin retracted his claws and muttered, “You look like a man with blood on his jeans and a basilisk in a hockey bag. Get over yourself and let’s get on with this. I’m hot, I’m hungry, and I’m missing Oprah.”

*   *   *

The guest house was cool and quiet as Dean pushed open the back door. With the curtains pulled across the dining room’s big windows, the sun hadn’t had a chance to heat things up. And that was good because the air outside was rapidly approaching dry roast. He wasn’t so sure about the shadows, though; they made the place look mysterious, spooky even and, all things considered, that wasn’t exactly reassuring.

Grunting as a tail or a foot or a wing or something caught him in the stomach, he heaved the hockey bag up onto the dining room table. Then grabbed it as the basilisk’s struggles sent it skittering across the highly polished surface. Okay, maybe he had gone a little overboard with the wax.

“Dean.”

Heart in his throat, he whirled around. “Jaysus, Dr. Rebik, don’t be sneaking up on me like that!”

The old man managed half a smile. “Sorry.”

Old man.

They’d been gone for—Dean glanced down at his watch—just over two and a half hours. In that time, Dr. Rebik had aged a good thirty years. Actually, a bad thirty years.

He blinked rheumy eyes. “What’s in the bag?”

“You know, word was, Dean McIssac couldn’t lie to save his life.”

“Well, it’s uh…”

“Personal,” Austin snapped. “Just a little cat business Dean’s helping me out with.” He stalked past the professor, tossing an imperious, “Let’s go, Dean,” back over one shoulder.

Dean shrugged apologetically, picked up the bag, and started to follow, his eyes flicking back and forth from one shadow to another. If Dr. Rebik was here, the obvious question became, where was Meryat?

Right on cue, she stepped out of the shadows, blocking his way. He could push past her, even though she looked significantly less dead than she had, he was still twice her size. But that would be rude. Clutching the handles of the hockey bag in suddenly sweaty hands, he stopped.

“You seem distracted, Mr. McIssac.” She smiled. Her lips went almost all the way around her mouth. “Were you looking for me?”

*   *   *

“What’s he looking for?”

“Us.” Teemo squirmed a little farther into the shadows, only stopping when Kith squeaked a protest. “Well, not like totally us. But, you know, us.”

Claire frowned and peered out past the elves at the elderly security guard. “He’s not even in this reality.”

“Doesn’t matter. He’s got this kind of…”

“Teenager sense,” Kith finished. “It’s like he hates us, and that helps him find us.”

“Really?” She could feel her eyes narrowing all on their own.

“Yeah. Really. He’s the freakiest thing in here, and that’s saying something.”

But exactly what it was saying, Claire wasn’t certain. Had the old man been changed as the mall changed? Over the years, had he allowed his job to define him until he became his job and the job became his definition of reality? Was there darkness enough in him that the darkside had been able to hire him to work the segue as well as the original mall?

Using hire in the broadest sense of the word.

“Fuck, he’s coming this way!”

He was. Then he paused and turned and stared into the shadows where Arthur’s army was hiding.

Trying to hide.

There were too many of them for the nooks and crannies of the concourse to hold, so they stood and silently watched the old man approach. As the beam of light swept up, three of the skateboarders sped out from under the stairs.

Drawing his fire.

As she watched them cut the concourse into wild patterns, staying inches ahead of the light, she realized, for the first time, that the good guys might stand a chance. This was their mall now and although they were going to take on the darkside with skateboards and baseball bats, they believed they could do it. On the Otherside, belief was everything.

Two of the boarders went over the beam. The third went under.

Now, she believed they could do it.

Given who she was and where they were, that might be enough.

And it might not, but the point is they’re farther ahead than they were…oh no.

Someone zigged when he should have zagged. Golden hair blazed out under the edge of the helmet as the light caught one of the elves, holding him in place six inches off the end of the metal bench. Stewart. Half a heartbeat later, both Stewart and the old man were gone.

“Where…?”