Free Long Hot Summoning by Tanya Huff Page A

remember-how-Diana-blew-up-the-sofa stories. The wards flickered. And again. And disappeared to the sound of sirens and a blinding array of flashing lights.
    “I think you set off an alarm!” Sam yelled.
    “What was your first clue?” Diana shrieked back at him as the three of them ran out the cleared door and into the concourse.
    “It was either the sirens or the flashing lights!” The shadow construction barrier was the same painted gray plywood as the original.
    “Unless this is the original and the other one’s the shadow.”
    “Not important right now!” Claire had both hands pressed flat against the wood. “We’ve got to get through this.”
    “How? There’s no door!”
    “Then want to get through harder!”
    “I am!” Diana scanned the barrier for any kind of a seam, but all she could see were the warning signs and the ubiquitous, Kilroy was here. “Oh, sure, but he’s not here now. The obnoxious gnome owes me ten bucks.”
    “What?”
    “Nothing!”
    Claire smacked the barrier with the palms of both hands, then backed away.
    “We’re going to have to use the access corridor to get behind it!”
    “I hate this, but you’re right!”
    They turned back toward the store, but before they’d taken a single step, the door to the storeroom crashed open and half a dozen misshapen bodies in badly fitting navy blue track suits charged through. Essentially bipedal, they looked like someone had crossed a rhinoceros with a hockey player.
    “Great! Not wanting them doesn’t seem to be working either!”
    “What are they?”
    “Who cares?” Diana grabbed Claire’s hand, yanked her around until she was facing down the concourse, and gave her a shove. “RUN!” Sam was already almost at the food court.
    The Tailor of Gloucester had become The Tailer of Gloucester with a number of samples hanging in the window. Diana would have liked a closer look at the multicolored fog swirling about inside the travel agency, but something slammed into her backpack as she passed the store and she decided that maybe concentrating on running would be the better plan. Fortunately, here on the Otherside, concentrating on running was enough to lend new speed to her feet.
    “What are they throwing?” Claire demanded as they began weaving through the tables in the food court.
    Something buzzed past Diana’s ear with an almost overpowering scent of gardenias, dented one of the metal chairs, and bounced out of sight.
    “ I think it’s scented candles!”
    “Oh, that’s just great! Those things are deadly!”
    “Only in enclosed spaces!”
    On the far side of the food court, they followed Sam to the right; the crashing and banging of their pursuers through the tables and chairs drowning out the distant sound of the sirens.

    “Where are we going?”
    “I don’t know!”
    “Hey! Up here!”
    Both Keepers skidded to a halt and squinting up through the hexagonal opening to the upper level trying to make out the features of the person leaning over the edge.
    “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” the spiky silhouette demanded.
    “We’re not . . .” Claire began but Diana drove an elbow into her side.
    “Good witches!”
    “Then haul ass to the stairs! We’ll hold them off.”
    “We’re not . . .”
    Diana grabbed Claire’s hand again. “Close enough. Shut up and follow Sam!” Something whistled through the air behind them as they pounded up the concourse after the cat. The escalators were insubstantial, but the stairs were much as they’d left them. Except for the piled barricade at the top and the half-dozen teenagers standing behind it.
    Sam scrambled up and over but as the Keepers neared the top step, a genuine wood finish laminate armoire was rolled back out of the way. The packs made it a tight fit, but they both squeezed through and collapsed panting to the floor.
    Candles pounded the barricade, hitting with enough force to slam through a display counter and into the piled barbeques behind it. The