Tanya Huff - Keeper's Chronicles 3 - The Long Hot Summoning

Throwing her backpack over one shoulder, Diana raced out the front door and

rocked to a halt at the sight of the orange tabby crossing the front lawn. Or more

specifically, at the sight of what dangled from the cat’s mouth. With one of its

disproportionately long arms barely attached and dragging on the grass, and

something that looked like intestine wrapped around one bare ankle, the bogey was

unquestionably dead. An eyeball bounced gently against its bloody forehead with

every step. “Nice catch,” she noted, half her attention on the approaching bus. “Where

did you find it?”

“Ood ‘ile,” Sam told her proudly, his voice distorted by the body.

“You know you can’t eat it, right?”

Amber eyes narrowed, he let the bogey drop and fixed Diana with an

incredulous glare. “Do I look like an idiot?”

“No, but you haven’t been a cat for very long . . .” Six months ago, he’d been

an angel. Angels didn’t concern themselves with the small things that slipped

through the possibilities. “. . . and you know how my mother feels about that whole

puking on the white wool rug thing.”

“Once! I did it once!”

“Yeah, so did I, and she’s never let me forget it either.” With a scream of

abused brake linings, the bus stopped more or less at the end of the driveway. “I don’t

have time to bury it now, so try to leave it where Mom’s not going to trip over it.”

Turning, she took two steps and turned again, pulled around by the weight of Sam’s

regard. “Oh, right. Sorry. You are a mighty hunter. Your skill with tooth and claw is

amazing. Fast. Deadly. I stand in awe.”

“Hey! Sarcasm.”

“Not sarcasm,” Diana protested hurriedly. There were any number of

imaginative places the dead bogey could be left. “But I’ve got to go. Mr. Watson

won’t wait forever.”

“I’m amazed Mr. Watson stops at all.”

“Yeah, well, need provides and all that. Remember, I’ll be home early,” she

added, trotting backward up the path, “just in case there’s anything you don’t want

me to catch you doing.”

A presented cat butt made his opinion of that fairly plain.

Mr. Watson looked more nervous than impatient. He nodded a silent reply to

Diana’s cheerful good morning, closed the door practically on her heels, and jerked

the bus into gear. Had Diana not already been reaching into the possibilities, she’d

have landed on her ass as he burned rubber trying to outrun half-buried memories.

Fully burying them would have messed with his ability to drive, so only the less

likely edges had been fuzzed out, leaving him in a perpetual state of nearly

remembering things he’d rather not. Which was actually a state fairly common among

school bus drivers.

Diana tried not to resent his attitude, but it wasn’t easy. This semester alone

she’d stopped a black pudding from devouring an eighth grader, saved Chrissy

Selwick from a three-headed dog attracted to the aconite in the herbal body mist she’d

been given for Christmas-might as well have had “eat me” tattooed on her forehead-

and prevented a Gameboy™ from taking over the world. Handheld computer games

were more competitive than most people thought.

She’d also stopped Nick Packwood from hanging a second grader out the

window by his heels, but since she still wasn’t entirely certain the kid hadn’t deserved

it, she usually left that particular incident off her “reasons Mr. Watson should thank

his gods I’m on the bus” list.

Making her way back through the rugrats, Diana noticed without surprise that

the last six rows-the rows reserved for the high school students on the route-were

nearly empty. On this, the last day of the high school year, only two freshmen had

been unable to find alternative transportation. “My brother was going to give me a

ride/‘ said the first as she passed. ”But he had to go to work really early.“

“Yeah. I was going to ride my bike, but I had, like, an asthma attack,” the

other explained, holding up his inhaler for corroboration.

Diana ignored them both. First, because a senior acknowledging freshmen

would open up all sorts of possibilities she had no desire to deal with. Second, as the

youngest, and therefore most powerful Keeper, as one of the Lineage who maintained

the mystical balance of the world, as someone who had helped dose a hole to Hell and

faced down demons, she didn’t need to justify her reasons for taking the bus.

Settling into her regular seat, she thanked any gods who might be listening

that this would be the last day she’d ever be at the mercy of public education.

Frowning, Diana crossed the main hall toward the stairs, trying to get a fix on

the faint wrongness she could feel. It wasn’t a full-out accident site; no holes had

been opened into the lower ends of the possibilities allowing evil to lap up against

closed doors leading to empty classrooms, but something was out of place and, as

long as she was in the building, finding it and fixing it was in the job description.

Actually, it pretty much was the job description.

As far as Diana was concerned, all high schools needed Keepers. Nothing

poked holes in the fabric of reality faster than a few thousand hormonally challenged

teenagers all crammed into one ugly cinder-block building. Unattended, that was

exactly the sort of situation likely to create the kind of person who developed an

operating system that crashed every time someone attempted to download an Amanda

Tapping screen saver.

The sudden appearance of a guidance counselor actually emerging from his

office and heading straight for her nearly sent Diana running toward the nearest

washroom. She didn’t want her last day ruined by yet another pointless confrontation.

Fortunately, she realized he felt the same way before her feet started moving. Fuck it.

What’s the point? flashed into the thought balloon over his head and he slid past

without meeting her gaze.

The thought balloons had appeared back in grade nine when, after half an hour

of platitudes, she’d wondered just what exactly he was thinking. An unexpected

puberty-propelled power surge had anchored the balloons so firmly she’d never been

able to get rid of them and she’d spent the last four years finding out rather more than

she wanted to about the fantasy lives of middle-aged men.

Pamela Anderson.

And hockey.

Occasionally, Pamela Anderson playing hockey.

Some of the visuals were admittedly interesting.

The wrongness led her up the stairs, through the first cafeteria and into the

second-weirdly, the hangout of both the jocks and the music geeks- empty now

except for a group of girls who’d laid claim to the far corner by the northwest

windows. A flash of aubergine light pulled her toward them. The senior girls’

basketball team, Diana realized as she drew closer. Probably hanging around in order

to remain the senior girls’ basketball team. Over two thirds of them were graduating,

so once they stepped out the door, they’d be a team no longer.

“... so I said to him, I’m not putting that in my mouth.” Tall, blonde, ponytail-

Diana didn’t know her name. “First of all, I don’t know where it’s been and secondly,

this lipstick cost twenty-one dollars.”

“And what did he say?” asked one of her listeners.

“Oh, you know guys. He took it so personally. All like, ‘you would if you

loved me.’ ”

“So what did you say?”

“That I loved my lipstick more.”

In the midst of the laughter and catcalls that followed her matter-of-fact

pronouncement, Blonde Ponytail looked up and spotted Diana.

“Did you want something?” she asked icily.

“Uh, yeah.” Diana leaned a little closer; trying to get a better look at the heavy

bangle Blonde Ponytail wore around her left wrist. “Please tell me where you got

your bracelet.”

“This? At Erlking’s Emporium in the Gardener’s Village Mall. I got it last

weekend when I was visiting my father in Kingston.”

Great.

Kingston. Where there used to be a hole to Hell.

Oh, sure. It could be coincidence.

“It’s silver, you know.”

Well, it was silver colored; the broad band embossed with large flowers each

centered with a demon’s eye topaz. It was quite possibly the ugliest piece of jewellery

Diana had ever seen. “No, it isn’t. It only looks like silver.”

“What? You mean that troll lied to me?”

Troll.

With any luck, that was a colorful exaggeration rather than the mystical

version of a Freudian slip.

Diana didn’t feel particularly lucky. Stretching out a finger, she lightly

touched the edge of one metallic petal.

A much larger flash of aubergine light.

A moment later, Diana found herself pressed face first into one of the

cafeteria’s orange plastic chairs discovering far more than she wanted to about the

olfactory signature of the last person sitting in it. Then she realized she was actually

under the chair and heaved it to one side.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. Just a little bruised.” Accepting the offered hand, she pulled herself to

her feet. “Static electricity,” she explained, trailing power through the basketball

team. “I must have completed some kind of circuit.”

Several heads, probably the ones who hadn’t passed physics, nodded sagely.

The insistent trill of a cell phone broke the tableau.

“Mine,” Diana admitted, digging her backpack out from under the table. Eyes

widened as she unzipped an outside pocket. After the unfortunate 1-800-TEACHME

incident back in the spring of 2001, students were not permitted to use their cell

phones while on school property. Oh, yeah, I’m a rebel, she thought flipping it open,

then added aloud, “It’s my mother.”

When the team seemed inclined to linger, she threw a little power into,

“Everything’s cool. You can go now.”

“Diana? What just happened?”

“You felt that at home?” She headed back toward the other cafeteria as the

girls reclaimed their table, Blonde Ponytail muttering, “What a piece of cheap junk;

I’m going to wring that troll’s neck.”

“Felt it? Yes, I’d say we felt it. Sam’s hanging from the top of the living-room

curtains and the coffeepot’s bringing in radio broadcasts from 1520-apparently

Martin Luther was just excommunicated. I missed part of Suleiman the Magnificent’s

birth announcement as your father called to say he’d felt it in the next county. Are you

all right?”

“I’m fine. I touched a piece of jewelry from the Otherside and there was a bit

of a reaction. Don’t worry, I covered everything up, and the jewelry’s been totally

nullified.”

“Where . . . ?”

“Was the jewelry?” Diana interrupted. “Around the wrist of a fellow student.

How did she lay her hands on a bracelet-and an incredibly ugly bracelet, I might add-

that came from the Otherside? She bought it in a store called Erlking’s Emporium.

Just where exactly is Erlking’s Emporium? Kingston.”

“Oh, Hell.”

“Probably.” Leaving the cafeteria, she headed for the main stairs and the front

doors. “I figure I just blew a crack through their shielding and that Claire ought to be

getting the Summons any minute.”

“Claire’s not in Kingston right now; she’s answering a Summons in

Marmora.”

“Well, if it’s important, I’m sure the id ... powers-that-be will give it to

someone else.”

“You’re not getting anything?”

“Nope, nothing.” There was no one in the main hall. Another fifteen meters

and she’d be out the doors and home free.

“Good. And while I have you, I thought we’d agreed you weren’t going to

wear that T-shirt to school?”

“Sorry, Mom; the school has a ‘no cell phone’ rule. Gotta go.” Flipping the

phone closed, Diana paused in front of her reflection in the glass of the trophy case.

The writing across her chest-red on black- said, My sister’s boy toy went to Hell and

all I got was a lousy T-shirt. She seemed to be the only one in the family who found it

funny.

“Ms. Hansen.”

Phone still in her hand, Diana spun around and smiled up at the vice-principal.

“It was my mother, Ms. Neal. I had to take the call.”

“Yes, I’m sure. But that’s hot what I wanted to speak with you about. You’re

an intelligent young woman, Diana, and while your years here have not been without .

. . incident . . .”

The pause nearly collapsed under the memory of the whole football team

thing. Some changes lingered, even in the minds of the most prosaic Bystander.

“Yes, well, your marks are good,” the vice-principal continued after a long

moment, “in spite of your frequent absences, and I can’t help but feel it’s a real shame

that you’ve decided not to go on to college or university.”

Diana shuddered. More time spent under academic authority? So not going to

happen. “I’m afraid I’m just not the higher education type, Ms. Neal.” Sliding

sideways, she moved a little closer to the door.

“Job prospects . . .”

“I have a job. Family business. Pays well, chance to travel, making the world a

better place and all that.” Also demons, dangers, and the possibility of dying young

but it still beat pretty much any other profession as far as Diana was concerned. Well,

maybe not sitcom star or Hollywood script doctor but everything else. “You might

say it’s the kind of job I was born to do,” she added reassuringly.

From the sudden contentment on Ms. Neal’s face, a little too reassuringly.

“It’s nice to know that at least one of my students will be leaving the school

for a bright and beautiful future,” she sighed. “I’ll never forget you, Diana.”

Diana smiled. “Actually, you’ll forget me the moment I step out the door.”

“I don’t think . . .”

And then the threshold was between them.

Ms. Neal’s brow furrowed. She stared at Diana for a long moment, shook her

head, and walked away.

Although not by nature a bouncy person, Diana almost skipped down the steps

of the school. It was two thirty on Thursday, June the twenty-third, and she was

finally free to be what she’d been intended to be from birth. Crossing the threshold for

that last time had moved her from reserve to active Keeper status.

At two thirty-one, the Summons hit.

Both hands clamped to her temples, she tried to uncross her eyes. “Okay. I

probably should have expected that.”

“Mom? You home?”

“She’s at the Pough house,” Sam told her, coining out of the living room.

“There was some kind of emergency involving ravens and bad poetry. She said . . .”

He paused, stared at Diana for a moment, then rubbed up against her shins. “We’ve

got a Summons!”

“We do.” She told him about the bracelet as they pounded upstairs.

“Kingston?” Sam jumped up on the end of the bed. “Shouldn’t it be Claire’s

Summons, then?”

“No. It’s mine.”

“Yeah, but . . . you know . . . it’s just . . .”

“Austin.” Diana dumped assorted end-of-year crap out of her backpack and

shoved in her laptop, a pair of clean jeans, socks, underwear, and her hiking boots.

There were places Otherside where even heavy rubber sandals wouldn’t be enough.

Actually, there Were places where hazmat suits wouldn’t be enough, but she planned

on staying away from the Girl Guide camp. “You’re afraid to go onto his territory.”

“I am not afraid. But he doesn’t like me.”

Zippered sweatshirt. Pajama bottoms. Tank tops. “He’s old. He doesn’t like

anyone except Claire.”

“He likes you,” Sam protested following her into the bathroom.

“He tolerates me because I can operate a can opener.” Shampoo. Toothbrush.

Toothpaste. Soap. Towel. “Don’t worry. We’ll be in and out before Claire and Austin

even know we’re there.”

Eyeing the toilet suspiciously-who knew porcelain could be so slippery-Sam

jumped up onto the edge of the sink. “You know, a hole big enough to pass physical

objects through might be harder to close than you think.”

Diana snorted, threw in a couple of rolls of toilet paper just in case, and

headed for the kitchen where she packed a box of crackers, a jar of peanut butter, a

nearly full bag of chocolate chip cookies, and six tins of cat food.

“Less chicken, more fish,” Sam told her.

“Fish gives you cat food breath.”

He looked up from licking his butt. “And that’s a problem because . . . ?”

“Good point.” She made the change, pulled the small litter box and a bag of

litter out of the broom closet and packed them as well. “I think that’s everything. Now

I just need to leave a note for the ‘rents.”

“Make sure they can see it.” A few moments later, his pupils closed down to

vertical slits, Sam stared up at the brilliant letters chasing themselves around the

refrigerator door. “That seems a little much.”

“Well, they’ll be able to see it.”

“Yeah; from orbit.”

“Some cats are never happy.” About to pick up the pack, she paused. “You

want to get in now? Our first ride’ll meet us at the end of the driveway.”

“Might as well.” He flowed in through the open zipper, and the green nylon

sides bulged as he made himself comfortable. “Hey . . .” Folded space distorted his

voice. “What’s with the rubber tree and the hat stand?”

“They’re holding open the possibilities.” Zipping up all but the top six inches,

Diana swung the pack over her shoulders and headed for the road.

Their first ride took them into Lucan.

Their second, to London.

In London, they got a lift from a trucker carrying steel pipe to Montreal. Diana

spent the trip strengthening the cables that held the pipes to the flatbed- a little

accident prevention-and Sam horked up a hairball on the artificial lamb’s wool seat

cover. Which was how they found themselves standing by the side of the road in

Napanee, a small town forty minutes east of Kingston.

At Sam’s insistence, they stopped for supper at Mom’s Restaurant . . .

“No, that’s not a cat in my backpack. It’s an orange sweater that just happens

to enjoy tuna.”

. . . where they met someone willing to take them the rest of the way.

Her back to the West Gardener’s Mall parking lot, Diana waved as the

metallic green Honda merged into Highway Two traffic. “That was fun. I don’t think

I’ve ever heard ‘It’s Raining Men’ sung with so much enthusiasm.”

“My ears hurt,” Sam muttered, jumping out onto the grass.

“I suppose you’d rather have angelic choirs?”

“Are you nuts? All those trumpets-it’s like John Philip Sousa does choral

music.” Carefully aligning his back end, he sprayed the base of a streetlight. “It’s all

praise God and pass the oom pah pah.”

“I’m not even sure I know what that means, but just on principle, please tell

me you’re kidding.”

“Okay, I’m kidding.”

She turned to face the mall. “Now say it like you mea . . .” And froze. “Oy,

mama. That’s not good.”

The circles of light that overlapped throughout the parking lot had all been

touched with red, creating a sinister-although faintly clichéd-effect. At just past nine,

with the mall officially closed, the acres of crimson-tinted asphalt were empty of

everything but half a dozen . . .

“Minivans. It’s worse than I thought.”

He had stood at this door, at this time, every Friday night for the last twenty-

one years. There had been other doors in the long years before, but there would be no

other doors after. He would make his last stand here. The door was open only to allow

late shoppers to exit; he, a human lock, protected the mall from those who would

enter after hours.

He watched the girl stride toward him. His lips curled at the sight of bare legs

between sandals and shorts. His eyes narrowed in disgust at the way her breasts

moved under her T-shirt. He snorted at her backpack and her youth.

Were it up to him, he’d never let her kind into the mall. He knew what they

got up to. Talking. Laughing. Standing in groups. Standing in pairs. Pairs tucked

away in Bozo’s School Bus using lips and hands.

He stiffened as she stopped barely an arm’s length away.

“The mall is closed. It will reopen tomorrow at nine a.m.”

Pink lips parted. “Please move out of my way.”

Twenty-one years at this door. “The mall is closed. It will reopen tomorrow at

nine a.m.”

Dark brows rose and dark eyes tried to meet his, but he stared at the drop of

sweat running down her throat to pool against her collarbone and refused to be drawn

in.

“Okay, fine. We’ll just have to do this the hard way.”

“The mall is closed. It will reopen tomorrow at nine a.m.”

“Yeah, gramps, I got it the first time.” His eyes burned and he blinked, only a

single blink, but when his vision cleared, the girl was gone.

Good. It was good that she was gone. Gone with her shorts and her breasts and

all her infinite possibilities.

Diana stopped just the other side of Bozo’s School Bus, set her backpack

down on the yellow plastic kiddie ride, and waited while Sam climbed out.

“That was creepy,” he muttered, licking at a bit of ruffled fur.

“Very. And aren’t people that old supposed to be retired or something?”

“Or something,” the cat agreed. “Hey.” Front paws on the Plexiglas window,

Sam peered into the bus. “This thing has seat belts. They don’t take it out of the

building, do they?”

“Uh, no.”

“Then why seat belts?”

“I have no idea. But you know what’s really whacked? My bus-the one I rode

down potholed dirt roads at a hundred and twenty klicks every morning and afternoon

with a whole lot of very small bouncy children-no belts.” Swinging her pack back

onto her shoulders, she headed for the main concourse. “Stay close and no one will

see you.”

Sam fell into step by her right ankle. “Considering what that thing smelled

like, I can think of one reason for seat belts. This place is huge. How are we going to

find the Erlking Emporium?”

“Easy. We find the you-are-here sign. It’s probably at the end of this side

hall.”

It wasn’t.

Although the side hall and one of the huge anchor stores spilled out into the

main concourse at the same place, there was nothing to help mall patrons find their

way through the two-story maze of stores they now faced.

“Maybe someone from the Otherside took it,” Sam offered when it became

clear they were directionally on their own.

“It’s possible.” Motioning for Sam to be quiet, Diana froze as a final shopper

slipped through the partially barricaded Kitchen Shop storefront, clutching a cheap

manual can opener and trailing the ill wishes of the teenage clerk like black smoke

behind her as she hurried down the side hall. “She feels like the last one in here. We’d

better get moving before that creepy old security guard heads this way.”

Sam butted his head reassuringly against her leg. “You can take him.”

“Well, yeah. But I’d rather not. Come on. Blonde Ponytail said . . .”

“Who?”

“The jock with the bracelet. I never got her name. She said the store was on

the lower level, so let’s find some stairs.”

Behind reinforced glass or steel bars, the stores themselves were places of

shadow.

Unless the bracelet was the only piece of the Other-side they were selling,

Diana should have been able to sense the Emporium, her Summons directing her like

a child’s game of Warm and Cool where the parts of “Warm” and “Cool” were played

by “I Can Live With the Headache if I Have to” and “Shoot Me Now.” Unfortunately,

the Summons was unable to poke through the interference from the back rooms where

a hundred part-time teenagers counted up a hundred cash drawers and ninety-seven of

them came up short. By the time the cash had to be counted for the third time, the

emanation of frustrated pissiness was so strong Diana couldn’t have sensed a trio of

bears if they were sneaking up beside her.

“Hey, Rodney River has orange polyester bell-bottoms on sale for $29.99.”

“Is that good?” Sam wondered.

Diana shuddered. “I can’t see how.” Pleased to see that the escalators had

already been turned off-cat on escalator equalled accident waiting to happen- she led

the way to the stairs.

Only the emergency lights were lit on the lower level, and the footprint of the

mall seemed to have subtly changed.

“There’s too many corners down here. And if I can smell the food court, why

can’t we find it?”

“I don’t . . . Someone’s coming.” Scooping up the cat, Diana backed into a

triangular shadow and wrapped the possibilities around them both half a heartbeat

before a flashlight beam swept by.

“I know you’re here.” One shoe dragging shunk kree against the fake slate

tiles, the elderly security guard emerged from a side hall. Massive black flashlight

held out in front of him, he walked bent forward, his head moving constantly from

side to side on a neck accordion-pleated with wrinkles.

Diana would have said the motion looked snake-like except that she rather

liked snakes.

Shunk kree. Shunk kree. “I will find you; never doubt it. I know you’ve hidden

your lithe bodies away in the shadows.”

Sam twisted in Diana’s arms until he could stare up at her. His expression

saying as clearly as if he’d spoken, “Lithe?” She shrugged.

“Long, loose limbs stacked unseen against the wall.” Shunk kree.

Who was he looking for? It couldn’t be her and Sam-he thought they were

gone.

The flashlight beam flicked up, caught the pale face of a store mannequin, and

stopped moving.

Tanya Huff - Keeper's Chronicles 3 - The Long Hot Summoning

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