"She's not here, hormone-boy. Look there, the same footprints heading out. She's been and gone."

"How long ago?"

"About thirty-one minutes. She was walking quickly, carrying a ham sandwich, and humming The 1812 Overture."

"You can tell all that from her footprints?"

"No, you idiot, I can't. But I'd be just as likely to know the last two as the first." Shaking his head, the cat slid through the break in the canvas.

Because he couldn't think of anything better to do, Dean followed. "Still no Lance." But there was a note on the beer cooler. "Just pa.s.sing through. Still working on the mall. I agree with your a.s.sessment of Lance. Austin, you're eating the geriatric cat food and that's final. Love you both. Claire." He folded his hand around the paper.

"Are you going to do something sappy, like hold the note up to your heart?"

"No." Not now he wasn't. "Do you think she took Lance with her?"

Wrapping his tail around his toes, Austin looked thoughtful. "They definitely headed off together, and she said she trusted your a.s.sessment of him."

"Well, after hearing Lance's story, it wouldn't be hard for Claire to figure out that I sent him up here to get him safely out of the way."

"So maybe she took him with her because this place is no longer safe."

Dean's brows drew in and he studied the cat. "Facetious comment?"

"Experienced guess."

Fair enough. "And if this place is no longer safe . . ."

". . . we should go." Austin finished, jumping down and running for the cabana's flap.

Dean caught up to him halfway back to the elevator. "Did you know there was a back way into this beach?"

"Sure."

"You lying to me?"

"You'll never know."

"It's like a f.u.c.king maze down here. What do they need all these tunnels for?"

"Nothing. It's what we expected to find." Specifically, it was what she'd expected to find, unable to shake the feeling that they couldn't just go straight to the anchor, way too easy. About to suggest they stop wandering and start coming up with some sort of a plan, she snapped her mouth closed as Kris raised a silencing hand.

Voices.

Angry voices.

Not very far away but bouncing off the rock.

Head c.o.c.ked, ears fanned out away from her skull, Kris slowly turned in place. Barely resisting the urge to make beeping sounds, Diana waited. After a long moment, Kris pointed to the left. "That way."

"I guess Chekhov was right."

"What does Star Trek have to do with this?"

"Not that Chekhov. The Russian writer, we studied him last year in English."

"You studied a Russian in English?"

"Yeah. Go figure. He said that you never hang elf ears on the wall in act one, unless you're going to use them in act three."

"You're not making any f.u.c.king sense. You know, that, right?"

The tunnels to the left slanted away on a slight downward angle, just enough to be noticeable. Heading down toward evil ... it was annoyingly clinched and beginning to make Diana just a little nervous. She'd cop to the maze but not the slope, she just didn't do symbolism that blatant. Which meant something that did was in control of this part of the Otherside.

The voices grew louder, and Kris pointed to an inverted, triangular-shaped fissure in the rock.

And this is why I get the big bucks, Diana reminded herself, kicking the toe of one sneaker into the bottom of the crack and heaving herself up into the pa.s.sage. It took her a moment to figure out how to tuck herself inside, but she finally started inching sideways toward the distant argument. Rocks jutting out from the sides of the fissure sc.r.a.ped across her stomach, laying out what she was sure would be a fascinating pattern of bruises, and there were one or two places where she was positive she lost chunks of her a.s.s. Memo to self: lay off the ice cream and thank G.o.d I don't have much in the way of b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

She didn't expect Kris to climb in after her but couldn't do much about it since she'd reached a spot without enough room to turn her head.

Stretch out left arm, stretch out left leg, anchor both, and shimmy sideways.

And then she ran out of fissure.

Dipping her left shoulder, Diana forced herself close enough to the outside edge to get a look around.

They were in a crack about twenty feet up the wall of a huge circular chamber.

The generic nasty from the throne room was standing just off center.

In the center, in the exact center, was a hole. Not a metaphysical hole, an actual round hole. Like a well.

Before she could follow that new information through to any kind of a logical conclusion, a piece of shadow fell screaming from the ceiling. Shuddering, she had to admit it had reason to scream. Reasons. Reasons that started with the baby doll pajamas, worked through the lopsided braids, and finished at the residue of melted marshmallow, chocolate, and graham cracker crumbs.

No Name Nasty didn't seem to have much sympathy for it.

"I don't care how many boxes of cookies you have to sell! You're pathetic. You were sent to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Immortal King . . ."

Diana felt Kris' gasp by her right ear and managed to wrap a hand around the other girl's arm. Now was not the time.

". . . and you failed!"

There. It failed. Good news.

"YOU HAVE BOTH FAILED.".

Diana stiffened. "Oh, h.e.l.l."

"I thought you weren't supposed to swear," Kris muttered.