The access corridor was just as she remembered it, an empty concrete tunnel; although a little darker and a little smellier and the stains seemed to be from something a lot less pleasant than merely urine. Going left would take them back into the mall. Right would take them behind the construction barrier.

Which was where they needed to go.

Touching Kris lightly on the arm, Diana pointed to the right. The mall elf nodded and moved out in front, silently indicating it was the best place for the person with the missile weapon to be. Given that the alternative would be the perfect setup for a shot gla.s.s in the back of the head, Diana decided not to argue.

Moving silently, they slipped along the wall and around the corner. Unfortunately, the meat-minds were waiting just as silently.

The shot gla.s.s thudded into the middle of an approaching body without slowing it down.

"Run!"

It wasn't meat-minds behind them, cutting them off. Meat-minds didn't move that quickly or look that dangerous.

Hanging from the taloned grip of her captor, Diana shot a glance at Kris who had finally worn herself out and was dangling quietly. Nothing they'd been able to do had had any effect on the grip of the long legged, multijointed, vaguely buglike bad guys, so she'd stopped struggling early on and tried to memorize the path they'd taken down past the construction barrier and into this ornate and, frankly, overdone throne room. Walls of etched gold, a floor of polished marble, the heads of various creatures displayed on wooden plaques, torches, who used torches in the twenty-first century?

Her nose was bleeding again. All she could do was let it drip.

Claws skittering against gleaming black stone, the two bug things carried them toward the ma.s.sive jeweled throne and the silver-haired man who sat on it, one elegantly clad leg crossed over the other. He smiled, showing very white teeth as they were dropped unceremoniously to the floor, and then leaned forward with pale hands spread in a mock welcoming gesture.

"I knew you would come to me eventually, Keeper."

Diana bunked, took a second to make sure Kris was moving, and sat up to find cold, corpse-gray eyes staring down at her with triumphant familiarity. "Right," she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "Who are you?"

Chapter EIGHT.

"You ask who I am?" The silver-haired man with the corpse-colored eyes leaned forward. "I am your worst nightmare."

"My worst nightmare?" Diana repeated. She hauled herself up onto her feet, hoping Kris realized that, as much as she wanted to spend the next ten minutes doing nothing but rea.s.suring herself that the other girl was okay, duty called. "Dude, you've never been to high school. You've never had that 'sitting down to a final exam and realizing you never actually went to the cla.s.s' dream, have you? Or had your bladder haul up the 'I really have to pee, but the only toilet I can find is in the middle of the main hall and cla.s.ses are changing' scenario. Or done the 'scenes from the most boring Canadian short stories ever written start coming to life in freshman English.' Oh, wait . . ." She frowned, wiping her b.l.o.o.d.y nose on her sleeve. ". . . that last one actually happened. But the point is ..." Arms folded, she met the eyes of the man on the throne. ". . . you are so not my worst nightma . . ."

The front pincers of her buglike captor smacked her behind the knees, and she went down hard.

Ow. Ow. And OW! Marble floors didn't get softer with repeated impact. Hissing with pain as she propped herself up on a bruised elbow, she gave the enemy her best "get over yourself" expression. Six months with Sam had made it pretty effective. "If it means that much to you, you can be a bad dream and work your way up."

He smiled almost pleasantly. "I recognize bravado when I hear it, Keeper. Brave words from a little girl in way over her head."

Diana sighed. "Look, seriously, I really don't know who you are. If you want me . . . us," she corrected as, beside her, Kris struggled to her knees, "to cower in terror, it would work a lot better if we knew to whom we were cowering. So, if you could, please tell us your name."

"Please?" His snort was elegant, aristocratic, and dismissive. "Did you honestly think so simple a magic would work on me?"

"Can't blame me for trying."

"I could kill you for trying," he pointed out reasonably. "And if you do not know my name, I am not so foolish I will give you the power of it."

"Okay, but head bad guy? Nasty number one? So not terrifying."

"Not," Kris agreed, and Diana flashed her a pleased smile for being willing to play. If they could get the guy's name, if they could find out anything about him, she might be able to do something. Given that she wasn't allowed to access the possibilities, she wasn't sure what, but something. She was fairly sure her subconscious agreed his a.s.s needed serious kicking. Unfortunately, at the moment, her subconscious was busy having mild hysterics about the giant bugs.

"If you want terrifying, Keeper, I'm willing to oblige, but, for now, there are only two things you need to know." Sitting back, he flicked a pale finger into the air. "The first is that you live now only because I have not ordered your death. The second . . ." A second finger joined the first. ". . . is that you have failed. You have not shut down the segue, and the darkness will gain entry through it to your world."

"Okay, one . . ." Diana flicked the second finger on her right hand back at him. "... I haven't failed yet, and I'm not the only one fighting you."

"If you speak of your sister, we can defeat her as easily as we have defeated you. More easily, I suspect, as you have by far the greater power. It was your Summons; you were your world's best hope, and here you are. If you speak of your little friend ..." He inclined his head graciously toward Kris and then jerked it back a lot less gracefully as she spat a mouthful of blood almost into his lap. "... her companions, or the Immortal King, they are even now being dealt with. The Immortal King will die and after, as always happens, the fellowship of those he leads will not survive his death. That is, after all, in the Rules."

"What's he talking about?" Kris demanded.

Diana touched her lightly on the arm. "I'll tell you later."

"You may not have a later."

"Up yours."

A brilliant and speculative smile. "Perhaps."

Was he hitting on her? He was. .h.i.tting on her. Eww.

"But for now, let's have a look at the weapons you brought to the battle."

"What weapons?" Diana demanded. "Your bugs totally trashed Kris' slingshot and dumped her quiver back in the access corridor when they grabbed us."

He shook his head and pointed at ...

She couldn't stop herself from looking down.

. . . her belt pouch. So much for subterfuge. Still, in order to take it off her, he'd have to come close enough to grab. It was possible that direct physical contact could work in her favor, darkside and lightside canceling each other out until only the more powerful remained. While willing to admit that finesse was not her strong point, Diana was fairly sure that in a contest involving raw potential, she'd be the last one standing.

Unfortunately, it seemed that she wasn't the only one who thought so.

The bug shoved one of its smaller serrated legs between the strap and her waist. A quick sawing motion and it caught the belt pouch in its pincer as it fell. A quick twist scattered bits of the pouch and her defensive possibilities over the base of the dais.

"A few keys. Some seeds. Thread. A watch face. All primed and ready to be used. Such a shame if these fell into the wrong hands, Keeper." He laughed at the wand which looked even more pink and plastic than usual against the black marble. "Oh, wait; you also brought a toy sent out to spread discord amongst the great unskilled." He shook his head. "You thought you could defeat me with this?"

Since it seemed to be a rhetorical question, Diana settled for glaring. He would have felt the power discharge when she defeated the dark elf, but he clearly didn't realize the wand had directed it. That might give them an advantage later. If they had a later . . .

Frowning, he looked down at the last item, a white, paper-wrapped cylinder that had bounced away from the rest. "And what," he demanded, "is this?"

"You don't want to know."

Kris snickered.

"On the contrary." A gesture brought a meat-mind out from where it had been lurking, the torches throwing its shadow around the room as it moved. Another gesture had it bend and pick the paper cylinder off the floor. "Do you tell me, or do I have my minion use it against you?"

Diana sighed. "It's a tampon."

The meat-mind blinked, looked down at what it was holding, and dropped it, shaking its fingers free of any contamination.

"Oh, please. It's not like it's been used."