Still suitably serious, Arthur nodded. "Then, as you request, Kris will accompany you. She has been into enemy territory many times and is therefore your best chance to not only get in but get out again."

"Out again, that's the tricky part," Kris muttered.

"When should this . . ." He stumbled a bit over the shortened word. ". . . recon mission take place?"

Claire held out her good arm. The hands of her watch continued to spin wildly. "As soon as possible."

Kris rose fluidly to her feet. "I'm good." She raked a critical gaze over Diana's clothes as the younger Keeper stood. "You'll have to change. Dark colors, nothing to catch the light."

"I brought jeans."

She gestured back into the store, her rings glittering in the firelight. "We'll find you something better."

"You should have been there last night, Austin, those guys kicked tall a.s.s!" Dean stepped back from hanging a signed picture of the team on the wall of the office and turned to grin at the cat. "You missed a great game."

"I also missed being smuggled into the arena in a gym bag," Austin muttered without lifting his head from his front paws. "Pa.s.s."

Before Dean could answer, the phone rang.

"If it's three bears," the cat announced as Dean's hand closed around the receiver, "tell them we're full. That one only ever ends well for the bears."

Black leggings, black tank, black zip-up sweatshirt, black socks, black canvas f.a.n.n.y pack, black leather driving gloves, Diana wore her own hightops and drew the line at using a black lipstick as camouflage paint. The line stayed drawn for about fifteen seconds.

"So you're not as pale as your sister . . ." Finished wrapping the last of her dreadlocks up into one long tail, Kris reached for the tube. ". . . you'll still show up in the shadows."

"I'm a Keeper . . ."

"And I know what I'm doing. Hold still."

"I'm sorry, Sam, but you can't come."

His eyes narrowed, flaying Diana with amber scythes. "You're ditching me so you can be alone with your new friend, aren't you?"

"No!" She dropped to one knee and beckoned him closer. "Look, I'm really worried about Claire. She's not used to being without Austin. I mean, one of those meat-minds actually hit her with his little concrete bag thing. How weird is that? Claire never gets hurt. I'm afraid of what might happen to her if there's no cat around at all."

Sam snorted. "What a load of c.r.a.p."

"Fine; I need someone here who can remind Claire that she's not always right, that this was my Summoning. I'd rather you were with me, but I don't want her s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g things up from this end."

He thought about it for a moment. "Okay, that one I'll buy. Be careful."

"You, too. Remember, she gets cranky when she's crossed."

"Please, if Austin can handle her, how hard can it be?"

They took the first set of stairs down to the lower level, past a pair of elves standing guard who might have been fifteen in the outside world but here were becoming ageless.

"It's sort of neutral territory between these stairs and the next ones," Kris murmured as they descended toward the lower concourse. "The meat-minds never go much farther than the stairs they chased you and your sister up, but that doesn't mean there isn't some nasty s.h.i.t hanging around. There're a few storefronts you don't want to get too close to."

"In a way that's a good thing."

"Yeah? I doubt you'll think that when the pieces start rolling out of the Body Shop."

Pieces. Body Shop. Evil was remarkably literal-minded at times.

"You smell something like a seaweed emulsion," Kris continued, "you haul a.s.s. You hear me?"

"What's a seaweed emulsion smell like?"

"Dead fish and seagull s.h.i.t."

"Okay." Diana took a vigorous sniff but could only smell the perfume/plastic mix of the lipstick smeared all over her face. And maybe, just maybe something warm and spicy and slightly intoxicating rising off Kris which she was going to work very hard at not thinking about until they were safely back in King Arthur's Court.

King Arthur's Court. A legless armchair at a metaphorical fire. Somehow, and she had no idea how, that wasn't as lame as it should have been.

Two more steps. "Looking at the bright side, continuing weirdness means there's still some time before the segue. The more normal this place is, the closer the bad guys are to success."

"Yeah, well, if it's all the same to you, I'm gonna worry about what's going down before the muzak starts play . . . f.u.c.k." She spat the profanity between clenched teeth.

"What?"

They were standing at the west end of the lower concourse. Behind them, what should have been another entrance to the department store the elves had claimed was, instead, a solid wall of gla.s.s. Diana could barely make out the barricade beyond it. To their right, a Mr. Jockstrap. Sporting goods. She tried to remember if the original mall held a store by that name but couldn't. In a world with Condom Shack franchises, she supposed it was possible. The lights were low, the only sound the ba.s.s beat of a fast hip-hop track pulsing down from the upper level. Nothing looked particularly dangerous.

"It's night."

"Okay."

"He's here at night."

"Who?"

"Some old security dude."

Diana felt a chill run down her spine and really hoped it was a gust from the air-conditioning. "Walks with a limp? Kind of weaves his head from side to side like a snapping turtle? Mutters things like lithe and lissome?"

"I never seen a snapping turtle, but that sounds like the guy."

"But he's not in this mall, he's in the other mall. The real mall."

"Yeah? Well, he gets around. Don't let him catch you in his flashlight beam. He nails you with that and you're gone."

"Gone?"

"Gone." Kris rolled her eyes impatiently. "Speak English much? Gone. Not here. Now come on, we got some distance to cover."

They stayed to the darker shadows of the kiosks and the potted trees; Kris leading, Diana half a pace behind doing her best to mimic the other girl's economical movements. Their path led down the center of the concourse until they neared the second set of stairs when Kris began to veer left. She tucked into the rectangular shadow of the last storefront before a side corridor and motioned for Diana to join her.

"Shoe stores are safe," she whispered in answer to Diana's silent question, her mouth close to the Keeper's ear. "What's gonna come out? They watch these stairs," she continued, softening her esses. "It's why we couldn't use them. We have to get to that hall up there. Where the sign for the security office is."