So.
What would Austin do?
“The trick in getting them to listen is making sure you’ve got their attention before you start.”
“But how?”
Austin stretched out a front leg and flexed the paw. His claws sank a quarter inch into the sofa cushion. “Use your imagination, kid. That’s what it’s there for.”
Well, if a cat could look at a king, he supposed it was only a small step from there to leaving scars. Feeling more confident, he began memorizing the places Arthur’s padding didn’t quite cover. Just in case things got unpleasant.
“Did you have a pleasant time at the shopping mall, Dean?” Meryat’s voice was low and musical, her movements graceful, even considering she was still more than half corpse.
Dr. Rebik stared at her in open-mouthed fascination.
Dean stared in horror.
Austin seemed to have disappeared.
“You seem to have done some shopping,” she continued, her eyes following the movements of the hockey bag. “Is it another kitty?” Her arm whipped forward with snakelike speed and one finger poked the canvas. The answering squawk was more indignant than pained. “No, not a kitty. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d bought yourself a chicken.”
Dean really didn’t like the way she’d emphasized If I didn’t know better…His grip tightened around the straps of the bag, the wrapped canvas growing damp under his fingers.
“Why don’t you show me?”
Okay. He thrust the bag toward her. Austin’s plan had involved getting Dr. Rebik out of their room, leaving the bag outside the door for her to find, assuming she’d go after the life force of whatever was in it. She’d drag it inside, and open it, never suspecting a Bystander capable of delivering a mythological creature capable of turning her to stone. The threat of life sucking would be over and the basilisk would be safely contained until Claire came home.
Still, as long as he closed his eyes and got Dr. Rebik to close his eyes and assumed that Austin was somewhere safe, this should do as plan B. Given that the basilisk had been hiding out in a shopping mall with minimal statuary happening, it clearly preferred hiding over stoning. Stoneage. Turning people to stone.
Meryat pushed the bag back toward him. “You open it.”
That would make things a little trickier.
Meryat was a foot shorter than he was, slim, and not entirely alive. If he shoved her out of his way, could she stop him? If he shoved her into the wall, was she still brittle enough to break?
“You can’t, you know.”
Dean swallowed and found his voice. “I can’t what, then?”
“Just charge past me.” His eyes widened and she smiled. “No, I’m not reading your mind; I’m reading your face. Everything you’re thinking, everything you’re feeling is right out there.”
“You don’t ever hit someone smaller than you.”
“What about Brad Mackenzie? He’s smaller than me, but he’s plays for St. Pat’s, and if I don’t hit him, we’ll…”
His grandfather sighed. “All right, fine. You don’t ever hit someone smaller than you unless they’re wearing hockey skates.”
From the way Meryat was smiling, that had shown on his face, too. He was some screwed because he’d never get her into hockey skates.
“Every hero needs a fatal flaw. Now, for the last time, Dean, open the bag.”
“And what if I’m after saying no?”
“Then I’ll suck my darling Dr. Rebik dry, right in front of you.” A gesture brought the archeologist around to her side. She slid a slender arm through his and smiled. “Your choice.”
Dean set the hockey bag down on the kitchen counter and began fumbling with the zipper. “She’s killing you, you know!”
Dr. Rebik matched Meryat’s smile. “I die of love.”
“Yeah, right…” The bit of basilisk he’d caught back in the food court was jamming the zipper closed. If he kept his eyes shut…
Would Claire be able to fix him if he was turned to stone?
If she couldn’t, would she put him out in the garden?
Would pigeons shit on his head?
It’d be sea gulls back home, so he supposed pigeons would be an improvement.
“Are you stalling, Dean?”
Dr. Rebik moaned low in his throat and a patch of hair fell out, slid down the curve of his head and off his bowed shoulder to the floor.
“I’m going as fast as I can!” he cried, yanking at the zipper and fighting the urge to go for the whisk broom and dustpan. “It’s stuck!”
“I see. We’ll just have to…”
Out in the office, the phone rang.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m after answering…”
“No.”
“But this is a business,” Dean protested indignantly. “You can’t be letting the phone ring!”
“I can and I will.”
Four rings. Five. Six.
The machine should have picked up on five. As it didn’t…“Look, it’s Claire’s mum. As long as there’s someone here, it won’t stop ringing.”
Meryat frowned thoughtfully. “Is the Keeper’s mother also a Keeper?”
“No!”
Seven rings. Eight.
The frown lines deepened with a faint crinkling sound. “Then how does she know there’s someone here?”
“Claire’s her daughter!” Which was the absolute truth. Maybe not the whole truth but the truth, so with any luck at all, that whole lousy lying thing wouldn’t come into it.
Nine rings. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
“This grows very annoying. Go!” A fingernail flew off with the expansive force of her gesture. “Answer it!”
Dean took two grateful steps toward the office.
“Mr. McIssac, aren’t you forgetting something?”
Biting back a curse, he returned for the hockey bag.
Thirteen rings. Fourteen. Fifteen.
Closely followed by Meryat and Dr. Rebik—too closely followed as far as Dean was concerned—he set the bag on the desk and reached for the phone.
Sixteen.
“Elysian Fields Guest House.”
“Dean, it’s Martha Hansen. I’ve got this terrible feeling that the girls are in trouble. Not that the girls being in trouble is ever a good feeling, but this is remarkably strong considering that they’re still on the Otherside and I’m worried. You haven’t heard from them, have you? That’s not why you were so long answering?”
“Uh,
