myth-taken identity

Par, Cire, and the guards started chasing mall-rats all over the place. Massha sailed over to cut Chumley loose. I lost sight of them.

"He must not escape," Eskina panted.

The dark figure ahead of us dodged around piles of stolen goods. Lightning balls and tongues of flame crackled toward us. We threw ourselves into heaps of moldering clothes and stinking upholstery to avoid them. Smoke began to fill the low chamber as Rattila's missiles set more and more swag on fire.

"He won't," I coughed.

The truth was, I didn't have a plan. I had hoped that superior numbers would overcome Rattila and his followers. I was surprised but relieved that there were so few of them. Par should have no trouble rounding them up.

The footing was unsteady. Bedsheets, T-shirts, tunics, socks and stockings, hats and underwear had been tried on and strewn all over them place in ammonia-scented heaps. I tripped on a knot of scarves. A bolt of green power sizzled over my head, incinerating a grandfather clock.

"He is doubling back," Eskina stated.

I took a moment to judge my bearings and realized she was right. The sound of a free-for-all was ahead of us once again. I heard Parvattani bark out orders.

"He's heading your way!" I bellowed.

I hoped Cire and Massha could cut him off, but with all the power he had at his disposal, he probably outgu

"Halt in the name of the law!" I heard Parvattani shout. Another blaze of crackling power came in response. We saw the backwash of actinic white light and heard a yell of pain.

"We must get the device away from him," Eskina insisted.

"We will," I insisted grimly. "Split up. We'll flank him."

Eskina nodded sharply and ducked away to the left, between a pair of full-length mirrors.

Emerging into the area we had been in before, I spotted Rattila alone. He was clambering up the highest heap of junk, heading for a metal seat that looked like a science-fair project at a school for young torturers. I made straight for him. He spotted me about the same time I spotted Eskina coming up behind him.

"C'mon, ugly," I taunted him, walking toward him nice and slowly. "Give up. You don't know how much power we can raise against you."

"I know all about you, Aahz," Rattila snarled, scrabbling frantically at the debris with both paws. "Magikless freak! Big talk, but nothing to back it up. Your Skeeve had more talent than you will ever have!"

"True," I acknowledged, evenly. "The kid's full of promise. But so what?"

I was livid that he had been picking my ex-partner's memories like daisies. When I got my hands on him I'd tear him a new orifice, but Eskina was within a pace of making the collar. I couldn't blow it for her.

"No matter how good someone is, there'll always be a better one coming along in a moment. He's the real thing. You're just a pathetic wa

"I am the epitome," Rattila hissed. "I hold all—"

Eskina pounced. Her teeth snapped shut on the nape of his neck. In spite of the near parity of their sizes, she managed to lift him off the ground and shake him.

In a flash, he became a huge red Dragonet. Eskina lost her grip and tumbled down the mound. Rattila galloped toward the exit. I ran to catch Eskina. "You all right?" I asked, setting her upright. She pushed away impatiently. "Yes! Hurry! He is getting away."

We dashed out into the shop, but we couldn't spot Rattila right away. Chaos reigned in The Volcano. Though I had told Rimbaldi to shut the place down, dozens of his relatives and other shopkeepers had descended. I guessed that word had gotten out that we had uncovered the lair of the gang that had been ripping them off for years, and they all wanted a piece of the action.

Rattila's henchcreatures—henchrats, now that it looked like all of his associates were rats like him—weren't stupid. I watched an Imp, pursued by Marco Dji

"Get your hands off me!" it squeaked, as the Dji

"So sorry," Marco apologized, letting him go immediately. "Did you see an Imp-—"

"That's him, Marco!" I called, as Eskina and I dashed toward them. "Shapechanger!"

The Shutterbug didn't wait around for light to dawn on Marco. He fled into the melee. Marco gathered his wits and teleported after him. The mall-rat turned into a Dji

All around us Parvattani's officers chased the thieves, who morphed into various shapes in hopes of escaping notice. I thought I spotted Rattila's red-scaled form near the big three-way mirror halfway to the front. I pushed my way toward him.

"Leave me alone!" a plump Deveel matron shrieked, holding her purse to her. "I am not a mall-rat! I am a longtime customer!" Bisimo, Parvattani's lieutenant, tugged at the purse. "Oh, you brute!" The handbag flipped open, sending cosmetic cases, address book, black leather wallet and a pair of sequined thong underwear flying. No credit cards.

Bisimo's cheeks turned sapphire. "I am so sorry, madama!" he stammered, helping her to pick up her belongings. She belted him over the head with the empty bag.

Chumley had made the first real capture. He held a mall-rat up by the scruff while he snapped its collection of identity cards one at a time in his teeth. Massha hovered over a gondola of clothes that writhed and gyrated. Every time a limb stuck itself out of the hangers, she zapped it with a little gadget that looked like a miniature lightning bolt.

Rattila was getting closer to the entrance. Guards saw him coming and threw themselves on him or tried to stun him with the pikes Massha had issued to them a few days before. Scales crackling with power, he threw off attacks and attackers with ease.

"Cire!" I bellowed. "Stop him!"

The Walroid saw him coming and braced himself. His huge flipperlike hands whipped out, producing a cone of cold white light. Rattila-the-Dragonet emitted a jet of fire sixteen feet long. I couldn't blame Cire. He dove to one side.

Eskina, baying shrilly, bounded up, trying once again to bring Rattila down. He swatted her away into three oncoming Dji

"Cire, Eskina! Come with me!" I shouted. I backed up, preparing my dive carefully. I hate fire. We Pervects are very vulnerable to it. I threw up my arms to protect my face.

"Aahz!" Massha called, just before I jumped. She hovered in the air, brandishing a kicking brown creature by the ear. She shook it at me. The creature struggled and whined. "What about these mall-rats?"

"Handle it!" I bellowed. "You can do it just fine!"

I leaped.