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…?”
“We think he’ll go back to the other mall.” Kith sounded very young as she stepped out of the shadows. “But we don’t know for sure.”
Across the concourse, Arthur’s army began to move out.
Claire looked for Sam but couldn’t see him in the crowd. She did see Jo raise her bat to the place Stewart disappeared. From the look on her face, the security guard should thank any gods willing to listen that he wasn’t in this reality and that Jo could never cross back.
But I can.
Claire added another note to her mental to-do list—after rescue Diana and save the world but before pick up dry cleaning.
“Come on.” A hand on skinny shoulders got her escort’s attention. “Let’s do this.”
* * *
IT BEGINS.
The declaration jerked Diana up out of her slump, spilling Kris’ head off her shoulder. “What does?”
WHAT DO YOU THINK? IT!
“Right.” It. The battle. Her diversion. She shuffled around toward Kris, using the motion to cover an attempt to move the wand a little farther up her leg. “You okay?”
“Oh, yeah, fuckin’ great. I wasn’t asleep.”
“Okay.”
“I was just…you know.”
Looking for an excuse to cuddle. Diana grinned. “Okay.”
Kris flipped her dreads back off her face and sighed. “You have to sound so smug?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Keeping her back against the wall of the cavern, she got to her feet and held a hand down to the elf.
“So this where all Hell breaks loose?”
Someone had to say it, Diana reminded herself. It wasn’t exactly a Rule. Some things didn’t have to be. “Not yet.”
With any luck, not ever.
Leaning out around the quartet of meat-minds left to guard them, she watched as the Shadowlord came into the cavern—not walking, striding, and being pretty da…darned obvious about it, too. Over the whole black-on-black wardrobe, he was wearing greaves, vambraces, and a polished breastplate. Also in black. He pulled his sword—not black, Diana was happy to note, although it wasn’t like he hadn’t already beat the theme to death—and knelt by the edge of the pit.
“Is it time?”
IT IS. ARE YOU READY?
“I am.”
“Who writes their dialogue,” Kris muttered as the Shadowlord stood, his blade lifted in salute.
Diana had a witty comeback ready, but it slipped off her tongue. The Shadowlord’s hair, definitely blond on all other occasions, was looking more than just a little red. It might have been reflected light from the pit, but she had a horrible feeling he was about to earn a name.
Given who he’ll be fighting, three guesses as to what name and the first two don’t count.
* * *
Sam trotted along at Arthur’s heels, vaguely aware that this wasn’t the first time he’d gone to war—Angels being soldiers of the Lord and all that. He just wished he could remember more of his life before he became a cat. Well, he remembered the few days he’d been essentially a human teenage male, but since that had mostly involved being confused, hungry, and obsessed with genitalia, it wasn’t a lot of help.
He would rather have been with Claire, rescuing Diana. He would rather have been with Diana right from the start, but no one ever listened to him.
This made his
