Part 74 (1/2)

”He's not Australian,” Dr. Rebik announced calmly.

Meryat rolled her eyes. ”He might as well be. Now then, I think we'll take this someplace more private.” Her gaze traveled slowly down the length of Dean's body and he shuddered. Before Claire and he had . . created an angel, he'd never noticed that sort of thing. After, he realized, to his intense embarra.s.sment, it had happened a lot. ”Let's go to your bedroom.”

Suddenly, being a statue didn't look like such a bad future.

He only hoped Claire remembered to dust him.

Claire stifled a sneeze against her shoulder unable to believe the amount of dust in the dropped ceiling. She stopped herself from wondering where it came from before the Otherside provided an answer, and concentrated on crawling after Teemo's narrow backside.

Fortunately, Diana had already taken this route, so she didn't need to worry about securing its reality.

The drop down into the bathroom was a little farther than she was comfortable with. One foot slid off the edge of the soap dispenser and into the sink, but Kith steadied her as she landed, averting disaster with a steady grip above both knees.

The room smelled of cleaners and disinfectants, and all at once she missed Dean so badly it was like a physical ache. In fact, it wasn't like a physical ache at all. It was a physical ache. Austin would do what he could, but a reanimated mummy was a just a little beyond what snark and sympathy could hope to deal with.

She had to defeat the darkside and return to them before it was too late. Or get Lance to them if that was all she could manage.

Save the world.

Save Diana.

Save Dean.

At least this time, there'd be no nasty surprises in the final inning.

And that was an unprovoked sports metaphor. Even her subconscious missed Dean. At one time, she'd thought maintaining a relations.h.i.+p would be a distraction. It wasn't, it was a goal. Something she could use as incentive to charge right through the worst the possibilities could offer.

Memo to self, she sighed, following Kith and Teemo out into the hall, watch a little less Oprah with the cat.

They were almost to the food court when a rumble of thunder flattened them back against the wall, Teemo raising an unnecessary finger to his lips.

No. Not thunder. Meat-minds. A whole herd of them pounding purposefully past the food court in ranks that were more or less even. Claire thought very hard about saving the world; thinking about how clumsy they looked would only set up a chain reaction of vaudevillian proportions and give away their position.

Bringing up the rear between four meat-minds more defined than the rest was a vaguely familiar warrior dressed and armored all in black. His skin was milk pale and his hair a deep red. Really red. Blood red. Bad fantasy cliche red.

That couldn't be good. Claire sent a silent plea that Sam remembered what he had to do.

On the bright side, if their leader had taken the field, both Diana and the segue would be minimally guarded. Pulling Kith and Teemo closer, she whispered, ”From here, I go on alone.”

”No way, Keeper. Arthur . . .”

”. . . is going to need you. You saw the size of the army he's facing; pull some weapons from that sporting goods store, and attack from the rear. Remember, as soon as I shut down the segue, the meat-minds will fall apart, so you don't have to win so much as you have to not lose.”

”What?”

Okay. That hadn't made a lot of sense to her either. ”Look, I usually work alone. I clearly suck at motivational speaking. Just be careful.” She put a hand on each of their shoulders, squeezed lightly, then turned and raced down the hall toward the Emporium.

They hadn't come through the store. The plywood construction barricade was gone; in its place was a dark tunnel leading down under the mall.