a8eb54fe2a7e7ca192cef2761fb9d6c0

“Unless this is the original and the other one’s the shadow.”

“Not important right now!” Claire had both hands pressed flat against the wood. “We’ve got to get through this.”

“How? There’s no door!”

“Then want to get through harder!”

“I am!” Diana scanned the barrier for any kind of a seam, but all she could see were the warning signs and the ubiquitous,Kilroy was here.“Oh, sure, but he’s not here now. The obnoxious gnome owes me ten bucks.”

“What?”

“Nothing!”

Claire smacked the barrier with the palms of both hands, then backed away.“We’re going to have to use the access corridor to get behind it!”

“I hate this, but you’re right!”

They turned back toward the store, but before they’d taken a single step, the door to the storeroom crashed open and half a dozen misshapen bodies in badly fitting navy blue track suits charged through. Essentially bipedal, they looked like someone had crossed a rhinoceros with a hockey player.

“Great! Not wantingthem doesn’t seem to be working either!”

“What are they?”

“Who cares?” Diana grabbed Claire’s hand, yanked her around until she was facing down the concourse, and gave her a shove. “RUN!”

Sam was already almost at the food court.

The Tailor of Gloucester had become The Tailer of Gloucester with a number of samples hanging in the window. Diana would have liked a closer look at the multicolored fog swirling about inside the travel agency, but something slammed into her backpack as she passed the store and she decided that maybe concentrating on running would be the better plan. Fortunately, here on the Otherside, concentrating on running was enough to lend new speed to her feet.

“What are they throwing?” Claire demanded as they began weaving through the tables in the food court.

Something buzzed past Diana’s ear with an almost overpowering scent of gardenias, dented one of the metal chairs, and bounced out of sight.

“I think it’s scented candles!”

“Oh, that’s just great! Those things are deadly!”

“Only in enclosed spaces!”

On the far side of the food court, they followed Sam to the right; the crashing and banging of their pursuers through the tables and chairs drowning out the distant sound of the sirens.

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know!”

“Hey! Up here!”

Both Keepers skidded to a halt and squinting up through the hexagonal opening to the upper level trying to make out the features of the person leaning over the edge.

“Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” the spiky silhouette demanded.

“We’re not…” Claire began but Diana drove an elbow into her side.

“Good witches!”

“Then haul ass to the stairs! We’ll hold them off.”

“We’re not…”

Diana grabbed Claire’s hand again. “Close enough. Shut up and follow Sam!”

Something whistled through the air behind them as they pounded up the concourse after the cat. The escalators were insubstantial, but the stairs were much as they’d left them. Except for the piled barricade at the top and the half-dozen teenagers standing behind it.

Sam scrambled up and over but as the Keepers neared the top step, a genuine wood finish laminate armoire was rolled back out of the way. The packs made it a tight fit, but they both squeezed through and collapsed panting to the floor.

Candles pounded the barricade, hitting with enough force to slam through a display counter and into the piled barbeques behind it. The tempered steel rang like a gong but held.

The whistling noise was defined as the teenagers fired ceramic cherubs from heavy duty slingshots.

“Did you want these guys?” Claire murmured.

“I wanted rescue,” Diana admitted, “but I don’t think either of us had anything to do with this. It’s too…”

“Clich?d?”

“I was going to say too real, but strangely enough, too clich?d also works.”

“They’re hitting the things,” Sam reported from the top of the barricade. “It’s stopping them, but they don’t seem to be taking much damage.”

“Nah, they never do,” explained the teenager next to him, aiming and releasing again. “But if you hit them in the head, the bits of broken ceramic get in their eyes and they totally hate that. Damn! I don’t know what you guys did to get ’em so worked up ’cause usually they got a zero attention span.”

Another volley. And then another. And then a cheer went up.

“And we win again. The meat-minds’ll mill around for a while, then they’ll head home.” She tossed long, mahogany dreadlocks back behind her shoulders and stared down at Sam. “You talk.”

He shrugged.“So do you.”

“Good point.” Holding her bow across her chest, she turned to face the Keepers. “I’m Kris, Captain of the Guard. Who are you?”

“Too real?” Claire whispered.

Although Kris and the other archers were dressed in combinations of clothes obviously pulled off the rack, there could be no mistaking the pointed ears or the great hair.

Elves.

Except, of course, that elves didn’t actually exist.

FOUR

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