Hands on Kris' hips, Diana snorted in the general direction of the pit. "It's not always about you, dude."

The kiss had a touch of desperation about it, the odds were extremely good this would be one of their last, after all, and things heated up a little past the point where brain cells started to fry. Somehow, Diana managed to keep a small fraction of her mind on something other than the way Kris' lips felt under hers and got them turned around until the mall elf's body was between hers and the pit. Chewing along her jaw, Diana sucked the lobe of a pointed ear into her mouth and murmured, "Slide your hand down the back of my pants!"

And let's hear it for enthusiasm.

"Farther . . . oh, yeah ... no ... down the leg." Diana squelched a sudden desire to giggle at what sounded like bad p.o.r.n dialogue. "The other leg."

As Kris' fingers touched the top of the wand, she stiffened, suddenly realizing what this was about. From the way she began to pull back, she wasn't entirely happy about it either.

Diana tightened her grip and yanked their bodies into even closer contact. Licking her way around the inner curve of Kris' ear, she sighed, "If I survive this, I promise I'll make it up to you."

Kris' answer was an emphatic wriggle.

Probably trying to get a better grip on the wand.

Probably . . .

She could feel the wand begin to move up her thigh, toward her waistband and couldn't resist. "Oh, yes! Yes! That's it!"

OH, FOR . . . GET A ROOM!.

Staying close to Arthur wasn't easy. The Immortal King moved through the battle with archetypal skills and the flexibility of a teenager. Sam did the best he could, and if he took a few detours to avoid being pounded into marmalade-colored kitty paste, well, he figured he was ent.i.tled. Squashed flat was not a good defensive position.

The trick was to see the pattern of the battle and then become a part of it.

The trouble was that his part of the pattern took him across the concourse at the same time Arthur's brought him face-to-face with the tall redhead in the so cliche black armor. Who was very definitely not a meat-mind. And who looked vaguely familiar.

The hair rose along Sam's spine.

He leaped a fallen elf and darted between two ma.s.sive legs. He had to get to Arthur before . . .

"What say you? Your sword against mine. Let us leave the young and the stupid out of what we both know is our battle." The redhead's voice filled a lull in the fighting; everyone froze for a heartbeat, then dark and light turned to face the middle of the concourse.

Sam raced up and over a planter and found himself peddling air as Will grabbed him and clutched him tight against his hockey jersey.

"Put me down!"

"Shhh, it's a challenge."

"I know it's a challenge! I have to . . ."

"You have to wait," Will said, cutting him off. "When a challenge has been made, everything stops until it's been answered."

The mall elf didn't add that it was a Rule, but then, he didn't have to. Sam could feel the Rule holding elves and meat-minds both in place. Fortunately, he was neither.

"Put me down, or I'll add a few new piercings to your nose."

"What?"

A claw hooked into the inside of Will's left nostril.

"Right."

And Sam was back on the floor.

"So, do you accept my challenge?"

Arthur's back was to him. Sam had no way of knowing what his answer would be, but something in the redhead's pale eyes suggested he was about to get the response he desired. Too far away to stop Arthur from speaking, Sam did the only thing he could. "I accept!"

Everyone blinked in unison.

The redhead recovered first. "I was not speaking to you, cat."

"Should've been more specific, then." Sam walked out into the open s.p.a.ce between the two, sat down, and washed his shoulder.

Arthur shook himself and took his eyes off the redhead for the first time since the battle had brought them face to face. "Sam, you can't . . ."

"And I won't!" the redhead snorted.

"I can and you will." Sam stood and stretched, b.u.t.t in the air. "The challenge has been made and answered. You can deal with him ..." A jerk of his head toward Arthur. ". . . later, but the Rules say you have to deal with me first."

"The Rules . . ."

"You break them, we get to break them. Up to you, crud for brains, but you know who's here and you know what she's able to do if you give her the chance."

The redhead frowned and suddenly squatted, peering into Sam's face. "I get the feeling we have fought before, you and I. A long time ago, before all..." His gesture managed to encompa.s.s the elves, the meat-minds, the mall, Arthur, and their own bodies. ". . . this."

"Well, at least one of us has come up in the world," Sam snorted. "We gonna fight, or were you planning on talking me to death."

"When I kill you," the redhead purred, straightening, "I will have my name. I will use the subsequent death of the Immortal King to gain the kind of power that will cause whole kingdoms to tremble before me!"

"Subsequent death? You pick up that word-of-the-day toilet paper at the Emporium?"

"No, at the stationery shop."

"Ah."

"Sam." Arthur stepped forward, Excalibur a gleaming silver line across his body. "I can't let you do this."

"You have no choice," the redhead snarled, shifted his weight, and swung.

Sam leaped left. Then right. Then left. Then up and over another planter.

"d.a.m.n it, cat! Hold still!"

"You think I'm going to hold still because you want me to?" Sam ricocheted off a meat-mind and folded back on himself. "You're not only evil," he snorted, raking his claws across the redhead's wrist as he rocketed by, "you're not too bright. . . ."

"You, turn on the lights." As Dr. Rebik stretched a palsied hand toward the switch, Meryat sat down on the edge of the bed. "You, put the bag on the floor and open it."