In the big open space not far from Doorway P, we scanned the thinning crowd looking for Cire's shopper, hoping it was one or more of Rattila's thieves.
"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-skinned ladies—a Dragonet, a Djinnie, and a Gremlin—stood together amidst scads of shopping bags, mostly from lingerie boutiques. By their gestures they were discussing hats. Since they had three vastly differently shaped heads I couldn't imagine a single style they could possibly agree on.
"I beg your pardon, bella donnas" Parvattani interrupted them with a cordial bow, "but I am with The Mall security force. May I inspect your purchases, please?"
"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 Djinn asked. I nodded. "Mini Mitchell is a dangerous felon from, er, Nikkonia. A Shutterbug. He's been known to snap candid pictures of ladies in their undergarments and sell them to newspapers—"
"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 scanned them unobtrusively from a distance. He was getting very excited. I held up one sack after another as I finished with it. He shook his head again and again. In the end, I ran out of parcels to inspect, and I had to let them go.
"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 Djinn comment, before they were swallowed up by the crowd. "It's good to know they're keeping a close eye out for our safety!"
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 announced. "It was sealed up. We discovered a better way to expand, into other dimensions who had some space to lease."
"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."
I eyed him as something nibbled at the back of my memory. "What kind of spells?" I demanded.
"Oh, you know," Skocklin mused, "climate control and all. We're sittin' on top of a volcano, after all."
"The Volcano!" I roared.
"Why, dagnabbit, why is the scaly boy gettin' all riled up?" Skocklin's voice faded behind me, as I shot down the hall.
"What's the hurry, honey?" Massha asked. Her levitation belt let her overtake me with ease.
"You were pretty out of it the last time we were in The Volcano," I explained, pumping my elbows to get the highest turn of speed. "Jack Frost was there, arguing with one of the Djinnellis about how hot it always was in there. He said he renewed the cooling spell frequently, but it shouldn't be wearing out that fast unless they were getting a heat leak from below!"
Massha's eyes went wide. "So you think the way down is somewhere in there?"
"It has to be," I asserted. "Where would be a better interface for thieves? Rattila's people wear dozens of different faces. The Volcano's the busiest store in The Mall. People are always coming and going, and they have about ten thousand dressing rooms. Who would notice if somebody went into one and never came out?"
"Pretty convenient, living right underneath your place of business, huh?" Cire wisecracked, huffing along behind us.
"Idiot," Eskina snorted, running past him.
TWENTY-FIVE
Rimbaldi greeted us with outstretched arms. "What news, Aahz?" he boomed.
"You're harboring fugitives," I rapped out, marching past him.
"What? What does he say?" He reached for Massha's arm. "Dearest madama, what does he mean?"
"You might be closer to your shoplifters than you think, honey," Massha explained. "Can we look around?"
"Of course! My shop is at your service."
"Spread out," I ordered the group. Parvattani was on the horn in seconds. Guards, both uniformed and undercover, started rilling the gigantic store. "And be ready! They've been a step ahead of us all the way. They've got to know we're coming. Seal the doors."
The shoppers present, began to protest. Rimbaldi and his clerks hastened to assure them that nothing was wrong.
Eskina, more nimble than I, ducked past me and started sniffing the ground for familiar scents. Cire peered behind mirrors and displays. With Parvattani at my heels, I started flinging open dressing-room curtains.
"Sorry, madam-a," he apologized to an Imp woman we caught trying to wriggle into a pair of djeanns three sizes too small for her. "Your pardon, sir," he offered to a multi-legged Scarab wriggling into a lapis-lazuli-colored pullover tunic.
"Quit apologizing to them," I snarled. "This is important."
"How far back should we go?" Massha asked. "This place is practically infinite!"
I started sniffing sulfur and brimstone. I knew we couldn't be far off.
"It's got to be in the Flibber half," I insisted. "The extradimensional section wouldn't have access to the cellars here."
"Good thinking," Eskina exclaimed. "But how far back is that?"
"Up there," Rimbaldi indicated, pointing ahead. "Just in front of where that werewolf is coming out."
"Good," I stated. "Let's cut to the chase."
I figured if I were Rattila, I would conceal the entrance to my lair where it wouldn't be easily uncovered, say in the midst of a thousand doors just like it. I wouldn't use the farthest door, because of the tendency people have, either in dressing rooms or lavatories, to use either the very first booth or the very last. Rattila had proved he was a pretty good psychologist, or he had learned a lot from the identities he had ripped off over the years. Well, today was the last day he was going to have the benefit of those identities.
I flung open the second-to-last dressing room. Instead of the usual cramped stall with two hooks, a mirror, and a wooden bench, it contained a long, black, downward-sloping corridor. Waves of sulfur-scented hot air rolled out, making us gag.
"Sacred lamps!" Rimbaldi exclaimed, bobbing up to the ceiling. "I never notice that before!" "This is it!" Cire exclaimed, his crystal ball glowing brightly.