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Head cocked, 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 doesStar Trek have to do with this?”

“Notthat 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 fucking 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 clinch?d 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 passage. 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 scraped 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 ass.Memo to self: lay off the ice cream and thank God I don’t have much in the way of breasts.

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 assassinate 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, Hell.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to swear,” Kris muttered.

“I wasn’t.”

TEN

[Êàðòèíêà: img_4]

BACKING OUT OF THE FISSURE scraped and bruised a number of interesting new places, but given what she now knew, Diana found the pain a whole lot easier to ignore.There’s was nothing like finding yourself right back at a potential apocalypse to put a bruised boob in perspective.

“FEE, FI, FOE, FEEPER…”

That didn’t sound good. She poked Kris, trying to get her to move a little faster. Kris flashed her a one-finger answer.

“Feeper? What’s a feeper?” The guy from the throne room, now positively identified as a Shadowlord, had become a lot harder to hear.

“IF I COULD FINISH!”

“Sorry.”

“NOT YET, YOU AREN’T. BUT YOU WILL BE.”

With any luck, the punishing of the unnamed Shadowlord would distract…

“AS I WAS SAYING; FEE, FI, FOE, FEEPER, I SMELL THE BLOOD OF A NEARBY KEEPER!”

…or not.

Kris dropped down into the corridor.

“We have a Keeper in chains…” the Shadowlord began.

“NO, YOU DON’T.”

“Yes, we…”

“NO.”

“But…”

“YOU’RE AN IDIOT.”

Diana stumbled as she landed, cracked her knee against the stone floor, and told herself to ignore it.“Come on.” Grabbing Kris’ hand, she dragged the mall elf into a run. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Haven’t I been saying that?”

“Yeah, but now I’m saying it.” First, up the slope. Then, when the floor leveled out, she’d follow the signature of her scattered stuff back to the throne room. After that, a fast run through the construction site and into the access corridor. Granted, the last time she’d covered that particular bit of the escape route, she was being dragged by a giant bug, but she was fairly sure she remembered the pattern of water seepage on the ceiling.

As they turned the first corner, Kris leaned in close and said, in an urgent whisper.“Who was that talking?”

“I told you.”

“You said; oh, hell.”

“Close.” A short pause at the second corner to make sure the way was clear. “I said, oh, Hell.”

“And the diff?”

“Capital letter.”

“So that was really…?”