a8eb54fe2a7e7ca192cef2761fb9d6c0

Leaning over the Lucite barrier, he pointed down the left side of the lower level.“It’s not too far past the bottom of the stairs ’cept you go along the other hall.”

“It’s on the darkside?”

“Arthur says it’s sort of territory we both claim, but yeah.”

“Do you know if it works?”

“The security office?”

“The elevator.”

“No friggin’ idea, Keeper.”

“Okay…” This was very bad. “They could come through the skylight. You’ll have to watch up as well as down.”

“Through the skylight?” Daniel repeated, glancing up again.

“Yes.”

“That kinda sucks.”

“Yes. It does.” Pivoting on one heel, Claire headed for the department store and nearly tripped over Sam.

“I’ve been thinking.”

“Good. Think and walk; I have to warn Arthur.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about. Assassinating the Immortal King makes sense—cut the head off the snake and the snake dies.”

“What do snakes have to do with anything?”

“Sorry, angel leftover. We…they…use snake analogies a lot. You know,up there. Occupational hazard.” He jumped up onto the edge of a planter and hooked all five claws on one front paw into Claire’s skirt, dragging her to a halt. “If I was the darkside, and if this whole segue thing meant enough to me, I’d drop an assassin in during the battle when no one would notice. If the dark elf wins, the assassin helps the meat-minds pick off the mall elves. If the dark elf loses, then it finds a place to lay low until it gets its chance. Bada bing, bada boom.”

She pulled her skirt free.“Another leftover angel thing?”

“No, I’ve been watchingThe Sopranos with your dad. Look, it makes sense for the darkside to kill Arthur, but it doesn’t make any sense for them to drop an assassin in now after the battle when all the elves are on full alert.”

Claire looked back at Teemo and Kith on the barricade. At Daniel. Were there more shadows on the upper concourse than there had been?

It was definitely too quiet.

“You’re right,” she said. And started to run.

Sam jumped down and raced after her.“At the risk of sounding last millennia; duh.”

*

Sunlight streamed down through the skylight into the food court, bright enough to wash away the light spilling from the bulbs over each table. Bright enough to wash away the shadows.

Kris frowned.“There’s never been sunlight before.”

“It’s probably coming through from the real world. This end of the mall’s almost totally matched up. We haven’t got much time.”

“Is this the sort of stuff you and your sister need to know?”

“No. This is the sort of stuff we pretty much already knew. We have to go deeper in. We need to seewho more than what.” Diana dunked her face into a filled sink, trying to rinse away the soap she’d used to remove the lipstick camouflage.Man, that stuff could remove freckles! When she surfaced, Kris was waiting with a paper towel.“Thanks.” The towel was only marginally less destructive than the soap, and they were both an exact match for supplies in women’s washrooms worldwide. Diana made a mental note to check the supplier when they got home. This could be a foothold situation that the Lineage had missed for years. And the toilet paper was definitely Hellish.

“So,” Kris grunted, leaning against a stall and watching Diana in the mirror, “what now?”

“Now, unless we open the door and there’s a power-of-darkness coffee klatch happening close enough for us to eavesdrop on, we need to get to the Emporium. It’s as close to the anchor as we’ve ever come.” She tossed the damp paper in the wastebasket and turned to face a skeptical mall elf.

“It’s where you two came through. They’ll be guarding it.”

“You’ve taken me as far as we agreed. You don’t have to go on.”

“Like I’m supposed to go back to the other wizard and tell her I ditched her kid sister just when things got tough? Fuck you.”

“Okay. I mean, you’re right,” Diana corrected herself hurriedly, hoping the flush she could feel would be taken as the result of strenuous exfoliation. “Then if it’s just meat-minds on guard, we’ll go around them. If it’s something else, thenthat could tell us what I need to know. I wish I’d been able to get a look under that dark elf’s helm.”

“Before you slagged him?”

“Not much point after.” She glanced toward the washroom door. “There’s not going to be a lot of cover out there.”

“No shit. You’d think they’d leave all that sunshine for the end. Doesn’t evil usually prefer darkness and all?”

“Common mistake. Evil doesn’t care. The thing you’ve got to remember about evil,” she murmured, falling into step just behind the other girl’s left shoulder as they headed for the door, “is that it’s an unapologetic opportunist. It’ll move in wherever there’s an opening.”

The smell of fresh coffee wafted up the short hall.

The black clothes made them stand out against the pale green tiles like…

…like licorice in mints, like cow patties in the grass, like Goths in a flower shop, like the wipeout from the wand caused permanent brain damage. What’s up with Analogies R Us?

Diana forced herself to pay attention just as Kris said,“I don’t see anyone…anything. Let’s go.”