Таня Хафф - Long Hot Summoning

“And the cats?”

“Given the metaphysical buzz this place has, they’ll never notice the trickle of power it’ll take to hide the cats…provided one of the cats doesn’t decide to use a planter as a litter box,” she finished glaring at Austin who was digging in the plastic bark chips.

“Old kidneys; give me a break. Besides…” One last swipe with a back leg and he jumped up onto the planter’s broad rim. “…I might have been the first cat, but I wasn’t the first.”

“That’s mildly disturbing,” Claire admitted, scooping him up into her arms. “Diana, where…”

Eyes closed, head swiveling slowly from side to side, Diana waved a silencing hand. “There’s something,” she murmured, trying to pin it down. “Something close.”

“Something? I’m amazed you can sense anything in this.”

“Feels like the bracelet. It’d be harder to find if I hadn’t already touched…There!” Her eyes snapped open and she pointed across the concourse to Heaven Sent Cards and Gifts. “Whatever I’m picking up, is in there.”

“Overpriced ceramic angels?” Claire stared at the storefront in dismay. “Lots and lots of overpriced ceramic angels?”

“They’re not angels,” Sam sniffed, whiskers bristling. “They’re cherubs. Useless little twerps in the heavenly scheme of things.”

“Well, it’s not them.” Diana crossed to the store, her soles squeaking faintly against the tile. The moment she stepped onto the dark gray carpet, the feeling strengthened, and she turned to face the cash desk. “It’s over there.” A quick glance showed Claire and the cats had followed her across the concourse and were standing just off the edge of the carpet. “I’ll deal with this while you guys search the rest of the store, just in case. And Sam, do not spray those angels.”

“Cherubs,” he muttered, trying to look as though he hadn’t been about to lift his tail.

Claire reached out and poked him lightly with her foot. “Come on. We’ll start at the back and work our way forward.”

When Diana turned to face the cash desk again, the heavily mascaraed teenager standing behind it was watching her in some confusion.

“Who was she talking to?” she asked, gesturing in the general direction Claire had taken. “If somebody sprays those angels they’re, like, going to have to pay for them, you know.”

Closing the distance between them, Diana smiled at her. “ Please, don’t worry about it.”

“Okay.” She nodded slowly, looking slightly stoned and remarkably happy. Looking, as it happened, very much like she was never going to worry about anything ever again.

“Oops.” Apparently, her power problems hadn’t been solved by moving off reserve status. Reaching out carefully, Diana tweaked things, just a little, and was relieved to see a frown line reappear.

“If you’re looking for something, I can’t, like, leave the cash desk, so you’ll have to find it yourself.”

“Not a problem.” There were a dozen tubs, boxes, and spinners of impulse kitsch nearly covering the glass counter. If customers actually wanted to buy an item larger than a foot square, they were out of luck. Problem was, in a dozen containers of assorted bits and pieces, the thing she sensed could be…

In the tub of magic wands.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The clerk blinked and focused. Lips almost as pale as the surrounding skin twitched. “Kids love these.”

“I’m sure.” Especially if they get one that actually works.

The wands were about eight inches long; a hollow tube of clear Lucite partially filled with a metallic or neon sparkling gel and topped with a plastic star the same color. The fourth one Diana pulled from the tub jerked in her hand, rearranging a display of ‘flower of the month’ tea cups into a significantly larger porcelain cherub. She was beginning to understand why Sam disliked the things. A quick flick of the wand changed it back.

“What was that?” the clerk demanded, whirling around toward the sound of metal ringing against china.

“Falling halo,” Diana told her, continuing to pull wands out of the tub.

“What?”

“Forget about it. Specifically, about it, ” she added hurriedly, heading off inadvertent amnesia.

“Forget about what?”

Nothing like a cliché to measure effectiveness. “Exactly.”

The remainder of the wands were no more than they appeared.

“I’ll take this one.”

“Whatever. That’ll be twelve ninety-five. Plus tax.”

* * *

“Fourteen ninety-four,” Diana complained, showing Claire the wand. “For a piece of plastic crap.”

Claire stepped aside so that the neon pink star no longer pointed directly at her—she’d seen what had happened to the cups and had no wish to suddenly acquire a useless pair of wings and a winsomely blank expression. “Not a bad price for a working wand, though.”

“And the plastic crap was on sale for five dollars,” Sam added. “There was a whole box of it at the back of the store.”

“From the Otherside?”

“No, I think it was from a Rottweiler.”

Should have seen that coming. Reaching behind her, Diana slid the wand into a side pocket on her backpack. “Taking this across with us should neutralize it. You’re sure there was nothing else?”

“A few Chia Pets left over from Christmas—made on the Otherside, but I checked their bar codes and they were all legally imported.”

“Then our work here is done.” Diana nodded down the concourse toward the stairs. “Let’s go close this sucker down.”

“Chia Pets are imported from the Otherside?” Sam asked, as he and Austin fell into step between the Keepers.

“They were part of a whole Free Trade thing that fell apart over softwood lumber.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“And that’s what I told them at the time.”

“That wasn’t what I…” A half glance over at the older cat and Sam realized that it didn’t really matter what he’d meant. “Okay. Never mind.”

There were more shoppers on the lower levels and a dozen senior citizens in the food court, having coffee and complaining about the way the younger generations were dressing.

“I’ve had it with my granddaughter,” one sighed loudly as the Keepers and cats passed her table. “She’s constantly borrowing my clothes.”

Her companion set down her blueberry bran muffin and smoothed her Canadian Girls Kick Ass T-shirt over artificially perky breasts. “I hear you, Elsie. I hear you.”

“That was disturbing,” Diana muttered as they headed down the last short hall toward the Emporium. “Didn’t you find that disturbing?”

Claire shrugged. “Not really, but then I’m not wearing the same shirt as a seventy-year-old.”

“Hey, hers was red on white, mine’s white on red. Not the same shirt!”

“Okay.”

Marvin Travel, The Tailor of Gloucester, The Erlking Emporium…

Trying to appear as though they were just resting, they sat down on the bench across from the Emporium and took turns glancing through the open door.

“Is that your troll?” Claire asked.

“Okay, first; not my troll. And second, why couldn’t he have a part-time teenager covering the weekend shifts like almost every other store in the mall?”

“That could be a part-time teenager.”

“Good point.”

Given the wide variations in human physiognomy, the troll could pass—provided no one looked too closely and were willing to ignore an unfortunate truth; most humans his color had been dead for a couple of days. A couple of hot days. His head was bald, his goatee had probably come off a real goat, his sunglasses appeared to be Ralph Lauren. He was just over six feet tall and only one short third of that was leg. Huge fists dangled even with his knees.