They were heading toward the large department store at what had been the west end of the mall. Cosmetic counters had been stacked on their sides to make a solid wall across all but a small section of the store’s wide entrance. A nod of Kris’s head and Will lounged in the opening.
“Just so you know,” Claire said, delivering a speaking look to her sister, “you can’t hold us.”
Kris shrugged. “Just so’s you know, I’m not planning on it. But I believe in coverin’ my ass, just in case.”
“Of what?”
“Whatever.” She led Diana, Claire, and Sam into a large open area where the faint, antagonistic scents of a dozen different perfumes lingered, told them to wait, and disappeared between two racks of plus size winter coats.
“You know they might be able to hold us,” Diana murmured, with a quick glance at Will’s back. “This being the Otherside and all. If there’s enough of them wanting us held…”
“You were the one who wanted to see their leader. I just think we should go in from a position of strength.”
“They had to rescue us from walking cat food throwing scented candles,” Sam pointed out, tail lashing as he paced the perimeter. “Oh, yeah, that’s a position of strength.”
Claire glared at the cat.
Diana punched her lightly on the arm. “Missing Austin?”
Claire shifted her glare up and over. After a moment, she sighed. “Yes. A lot. I hope he’s all right.”
“Don’t worry, he’s with Dean. On second thought, worry about Dean.”
“Very funny. I’m sure Austin will be a huge help to Dean at the guest house.”
“You’re delusional. You know that, right?”
Claire smiled tightly. “It helps when you work with cats.”
They watched Sam explore nooks and crannies they couldn’t see and listened to the distant sound of someone beating a drum kit to death with a couple of guitars and an electronic keyboard.
“So, Arthur,” Diana said at last, rubbing her nose and moving away from a particularly strong patch of Phobia™ for Men. “He came in from outside the mall to bring them together and make them strong.”
“The name could be a coincidence.”
“Oh, please.”
Claire sighed as deeply as the weight of her backpack allowed. “They needed a leader; he’s what their subconscious created.”
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
