"I still can't believe you got us a fifty percent discount!" Parvattani kept saying.
I whistled as I walked. "That was a pretty nice piece of negotiation," I acknowledged. "Nobody who hangs with me ever pays retail."
Massha and Chumley rolled their eyes. I had to admit that maybe I had kept repeating myself, too, but it had been a damned fine deal. Because of all the years I'd spent on Deva, all the arrangements I'd come to with other Deveels, I knew when to cut the offer and crank up the volume. About halfway through the negotiations we were yelling at one another at the top of our lungs just as if we had been in a dusty tent in the middle of the Bazaar. The low, civilized, conversational tone people generally used here in The Mall was left far behind. I found it kind of refreshing. The Deveel seemed surprised at first, but like any merchant of his species the bartering he learned at his mommy's knee came right back to him. The highest percentage I paid for any item was the first one we dealt on. After that I started a lot lower and fought a lot harder. It had been such a frustrating few days there in The Mall chasing shadows it was really nice to win at something for a change. I strutted all the way to the next store on Massha's list.
"—No, I don't want to enter a drawing," Massha exclaimed, batting at a fairy clad in diaphanous pink who fluttered beside her pushing ticket slips into her hands.
"Go 'way," Chumley ordered, swatting at the winged pest. The fairy flew hastily out of reach.
We got pestered a lot in between stops. Moa had assured me that all solicitors carried a license, a blue crystal that they had to display on demand. Most of these didn't have 'em. Rattila kept sending minions after us, some pretty, some obnoxious, some ugly and menacing, all of them nosy. I wondered how he managed to sneak all of these people in and out of the building every day. Then I realized that they looked like everybody else. For all I knew he had six shapechangers who could turn into a hundred or so customers apiece working for him.
"All the more reason," Eskina insisted, when I broached the subject, "that we be well prepared and well armed." She cocked a pocket crossbow and tucked it into her thick fur coat. It disappeared without a trace.
"What else have you got in there?" I asked, with a wicked grin.
She winked. "I must know you much better before I tell you that." "That one," Yahrayt whispered, pointing, as he hovered over the head of Lawsy, who was disguised as a Mall guide. The Flibberite female whose image she wore had been a find Rattila gloated over. Dinii was a deep-seated shopaholic who never kept track of the purchases on her employee credit card. She paid the minimum on whatever balance her statement showed. At this point she was years behind on her payments, but the card was the only one that the administration didn't have a watch on. She came in very handy when one of the mall-rats needed to be in a restricted area during business hours. Dinii's identification was all up-to-date. They had to be careful not to use Dinii up; she had to keep her job in The Mall, or the cloned pass card that was their key to going where she could go would be changed.
"She's friendly?" Lawsy asked, studying the big female who hovered just above the heads of the crowd.
"She talks the most," Yahrayt corrected Lawsy. "Like, the Big Cheese told us to look out for opportunity. I think she's it. The big purple guy talks in one-note words. The other one is nasty. Go where the going's easiest."
Lawsy straightened her neat uniform. "I get it. Later, man."
"Later, dude."
"—Well, you don't want to skewer this thief," Massha argued, as Parvattani pawed through racks of polearms looking for the most serviceable.
"I do," I put in.
Massha ignored me. "You want to snare him, at a distance."
"Before he can get away," Par nodded.
The weapons shop salesclerk, a bronze-skinned individ- ual, nodded until his chin clanged. "May I suggest these?" He rapped his chest with a shiny fist. "You can try them out on me."
"How was that?" Massha asked in a low voice, as we left the weapons shop.
I twisted my mouth. "You did fine. You know, you're not an apprentice any longer. You really need to stop doubting yourself. What would—er, what would Skeeve say?"
Massha instantly snapped out of her funk. "You're right, Aahz." She sighed.
"Take a break," I advised. "Your part's done. Now I'm going to give Par and his men a pep talk on strategy. You can give them all the toys they can carry, but you're not going to turn them into operators overnight. I'm just gonna give them a few rules to follow."
"Wilco, Green and Scaly," Massha agreed, her good mood restored. "Guess I've spent so much time worrying about Skeeve I'm winding myself up in knots."
"Take a look at the big picture," I suggested. I'm not a big one for the Dutch-uncle routine, but she needed to cool down, or she was going to break down. "I want to tear that impostor's head off, but you don't see me wasting energy fidgeting. Relax."
Massha was pretty savvy, or she would never have risen to jobs as local chief magician in two different dimensions. She nodded and headed for the nearest jewelry store. Everyone relaxes in their own way.
"You'd make a good mall-rat!" the pert, uniformed clerk beamed approvingly. Massha removed her nose from the glass display case outside Sparklies 'R' Us. "Aren't those pretty?" Massha glanced back at the glistening baubles on display. "They're all pretty."
"You like blue? I like blue, too. I noticed that you're interested in the bangles. Would you like to try one on?" When Massha hesitated, the girl grabbed her arm and started to tow her inside the shop. "Come on! You don't know if you'll love it until it's on your arm."
"Well—" Massha allowed herself to be persuaded. "I do deserve a chance to try on something nice. I've just spent the entire morning shopping for ... utilitarian items."
The young Flibberite female looked blank.
"Guy stuff," Massha clarified.
"Oh! Well, come and sit down. This is my favorite store in The Mall. Even when the sale music isn't playing it's almost hypnotic to come in here, isn't it? So, what would you like to try on first?"
The displays of rings, necklaces, earrings, and other adornments were arranged by color. Massha glanced from red stones to clear to green to purple to black, and inevitably back to blue. "How about those?"
The girl opened the back of the case and came over with a trayful of rings. She pointed to them one at a time. "Invisibility, growth-shrink, talking to plants, poison detector, gold assayer, and that one will make you look five years younger."
"Only five?"
The girl looked a little embarrassed. "It's not very expensive, madame. You get what you pay for." She cocked her head. "You don't need a youth ring, really. Why would you even want to consider it?"
Massha grinned. "Well, my husband and I weren't kids when we met. I kind of wish he could have seen me in my prime." She poked fingers into the rolls of flesh at her sides. "A little less of this, and a few less wrinkles!"
The girl shook a finger at her. "I'm sure he doesn't see any of that when he looks at you."
Massha laughed. "You're sweet. All right, how about that one?" She looked approvingly at the plant-speech ring with its forest green gems arranged like petals around a carved purple center stone. The girl touched the golden shank. It grew to accommodate Massha's finger.
"Let me just get a begonia so you can try it out."
Massha looked around with approval at the rest of the shop. The cases against the wall gleamed with light generated by the jewelry itself. From the center of the ceiling swags of silk and velvet swirled down to the floor, which was lined with a plush silk carpet that matched the comfy padded chair she sat upon. An elderly Djinni gentleman across the room peered over half glasses perched on the end of his nose as he helped a large Impish matron try on enormous bejeweled necklaces.
A potted plant plunked down on the glass case.
"Why not try out basic conversation with this one?" the girl asked.