myth-taken identity

"Wait until The Mall closes," I insisted when anyone asked me. "Just hang on."

"It's an hour before the place closes down," Massha observed, kicking one foot impatiently in the "husband's chair" in the empty storefront. She jingled her collection of magikal jewelry, supplemented by a few choice purchases she had made that day. "I don't know about your capacity for shopping, but I couldn't have lasted from ten this morning until now. I'm too antsy to wait much longer. I'm worried about Chumley."

"I agree with Massha." I glanced toward Cire, who was playing some kind of interactive game with a guy in another dimension through his crystal ball propped on the counter. "How about it? Are we ready to start ru

"Gotta go, Delos," he remarked to the face in the globe. He snapped the atlas of The Mall down on the counter and put the crystal down on top of it. He passed his hands over its surface, and the ball clouded up. "Okay, I'm ready."

"I, too," Eskina added, showing her sharp little teeth.

Parvattani rose to his feet and saluted me. "The Mall force is at your service, sir!"

"It's just Aahz," I corrected him, with a sigh. "All right, let's move it out."

Cire flew out ahead of us, keeping his eye on the joined orb and map. "My global-positioning system," he explained, hovering about five feet off the ground. "There's a lot of dispersal already," he continued, nearly colliding with a couple of gigantic black insectoids rolling their purchases down the hall with their hind legs. "A few have gone ex-dimension."

"Uh-huh," I acknowledged. It would be a pain to chase them, but we were ready.

"Hmm. A few of your hard-core shoppers are sticking with it. I show a few big clusters of garter signal still here in The Mall."

"Ooh, their aching feet," Massha offered sympathetically, flying alongside Cire.

"Might be the thieves," I suggested. "I figure Rattila's got at least a dozen henchcreatures, and they will have snatched more of our special booty than anyone else. Let's check out the closest traces first. Which is the biggest?"

Cire changed direction at the next intersection, heading toward Doorway K. He and Massha picked up air speed. Eskina and I found ourselves trotting after them, with Parvattani and his troop quick-marching behind.

"This is a really big collection," Cire informed us, excitedly. "I wouldn't be surprised if we found the whole gang right here."

Cire indicated a spot ahead that I recognized as one of the indoor arenas. It sure seemed to be the kind of venue where pickpockets would gather in force. Music louder than usual ricocheted off the rafters, a hoochie-coochie theme. The usual crowd of gawkers formed a solid barrier.

"I'll go check it out," Massha offered, lofting upward, as Parvattani's guards started to clear a way for those of us stuck using ground locomotion. With Eskina clinging to my shoulders, I forced my way forward through a forest of shoulders as high as my head. Occasionally the crowd would hoot with laughter or cheer at what they were watching. I hoped it wasn't another Skeeve appearance. I was not in the mood to deal with it politely.

"Never mind, honey," Massha called down to me.

At that moment, I pushed my way into the center. A long-legged silver-ski

"This is not our problem," Eskina a

"No kidding," I agreed. I shoved my way out of the crowd. Cire hovered on the perimeter, looking embarrassed. "Honestly, Aahz, I had no way of knowing!" "Never mind," I told him. "Where's the other one?" "Corridor O." Cire directed us toward the next largest signal.

In the big open space not far from Doorway P, we sca

"This one was really greedy," Cire chuckled, heading toward the inevitable music stand. "I'm getting at least twenty or thirty of the tracers on the other side."

We pushed our way past the musicians, now mauling Pervish dance music. I winced at the "Toothgrinder's Waltz" being rendered in 5/6 time and at least five different keys.

A trio of blue-ski

"I beg your pardon, bella do

"Certainly not," the Dragonet replied, clutching a small green bag protectively to her chest. "Why would you ask such a thing?

I stepped forward, snapping the credentials Moa had given me out of my pocket. "Pardon me, ma'am. Undercover agent Aahz. We have reason to believe that a notorious shoplifter is attempting to smuggle himself out of The Mall in a bag."

Their eyes went wide.

"In a shopping bag?" the Dji

"Say no more!" the Gremlin stopped me. She pushed her bags at us. "Please, look, look!"

I took a cursory glance through the bags, while Cire sca

"Thank you, ladies. You're safe from the snoop. Have a nice day."

The three scooped up their shopping and retreated.

"Well!" I heard the Dji

I turned to Cire, who was still excited.

"What's the matter, did you get a false positive?" I asked. "Why did we let them go?"

The Walroid's face shone with excitement. "Because they weren't giving off the signal. It's still here."

"Where?" I demanded.

Cire pointed one thick finger straight down.

"Under the floor?" Moa asked, when we called him and the other administrators to the scene. "Impossible. This building is built on the slope of a giant volcano. There's nothing under The Mall."

"I don't mean to interrupt—no, sir!" Skocklin interjected, "but, boy, you're not thinkin'." We all turned to the bandy-legged Flibberite in surprise. "'Course there's somethin' under here. There's the cellar."

"But we abandoned it. It was never finished," Moa pointed out. "How good do you think a ring of shoplifters need to have their hideout?" Skocklin asked, scornfully. "You think they care if we hung up drywall? Consarn it, that means they've been right underneath our noses all these years, and we never knew it!"

"Never mind the recriminations," I put in. "How do we get down there?"

"Well, now, you don't," Skocklin a

"Someone, specifically Rattila, figured out how to break through your seals," Eskina stated, confronting the Flibberite. How else do you explain this signal?"

"Well, little lady, you're just wrong. It's unlivable. We didn't bother to keep the spells up, tidying the place, or anything, since it wasn't going to be used."