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 Djinn, too, and started bamfing around, trying to find a way out of the store. Luckily The Mall's security system prevented him from being able to hop farther than the door, where Cire was waiting for him with his back to the carved doors, which had been bolted and chained shut. The Djinn-thief popped out again, just a moment before Marco and two of his cousins converged on the same spot.
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 Djinnelli cousins. Before anyone else could get close to him, Rattila threw an enormous blast of magik at the doors. They splintered and burned. Rattila dove through the hole. I headed after him.
"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.
TWENTY-SIX
Cire flew up to the ceiling as soon as we were outside The Volcano and pointed in the direction of the fleeing Dragonet.
"There he goes!" he shouted. "He's changed again— he's a Flibberite, I mean she!"
Massha's salesclerk, I thought grimly. But Flibberites couldn't cover ground as fast as Dragonets. We stood a better chance of catching him now.
The Mall would be closing very shortly, which meant the crowds had thinned down a lot. Eskina and I pelted down the nearly empty corridors. Our prey was clearly visible ahead of us.
He knew we were following him, too. He turned and launched another powerball in our direction. I threw myself to the left behind the nearest obstruction, a cotton-candy stand. The cones of fluff blackened, smouldered, and went up like torches.
"I'm not hurt," I shouted, as much for my allies as for Rattila. "Is that all you've got, you pitiful little vermin?"
In answer, a cannonade of small embers followed. I avoided almost all of them. One struck my arm like a foul ball. I batted out my burning sleeve and kept running.
"You are under arrest," Eskina shrieked. "Felony theft, conspiracy, receiving stolen goods, larceny, criminal damage to property, grievous bodily harm, kidnapping, fleeing and eluding—"
Another bolt roared toward us, this time aimed at her. She had been expecting it, though, and flattened herself behind an empty musician stand. The firebolt slammed into a wall, leaving a singe mark the size of a medicine ball.
"Is that the thief?" the gray-spotted Shire horse demanded, as we rolled past the oat shop.
"The master thief!" I shouted back.
"My friends and I will help!" he whinnied. He threw back his head and let out a long neigh. Shopkeepers and clerks poured out into the corridor. What guards had not already converged on The Volcano joined the throng.
"No, don't get in our way!" I yelled. All I needed was for innocent civilians to get hurt by this maniac. The shopkeepers paid no attention, falling in around us. Those who could fly caught up with Rattila, only to get pelted with magikal fire. A Phoenix was burned badly enough to burst into a pillar of flames. By the time I passed him he was reduced to a heap of ashes, out of which peeked the curved shell of the new egg.
Others weren't so lucky. Imps, Gnomes, Deveels, and Djinnies who weren't quick enough to dodge or magikally avert Rattila's attacks suffered burns and scorches. The corridor was getting crowded again.
"He's only got one idea," I hissed to Cire when he swooped low enough for me to hear. "Can you counteract those fireballs?"
"Think so," the Walroid stated. "I can extinguish them when I see them coming."
I groaned. "So why weren't you?"
"Oh, come on, Aahz! It's been a long time since I saw action like this." In training or not, once Cire had the idea, he made good use of technique. Rattila snapped out missiles at the growing crowd as we followed him around corners, up ramps, and down stairs. Cire sailed along at a comfortable altitude, snuffing out the crackling spheres like birthday candles.
"Where is he going?" Eskina demanded. We passed through the center court of The Mall.
"The loading dock," I guessed. "That's where the other rat went to ground."
"I can beat him there," offered one of the Shire horses. Risking Rattila's attacks, she galloped past him.
"We must stop her," Eskina warned.
"We can't catch her," I retorted. "Besides, there's nothing there but garbage, unless it's the back way into the Rat Hole."
I couldn't have been more wrong.
We banged through the swinging metal doors into the unadorned space where the shop owners received their deliveries and dropped off their refuse. I spotted the Shire horse and the other clerks who had run on ahead of us. They were all standing stock-still, staring at a pair of figures at the end of the long chamber.
The one on the right was Chloridia. She had come back!
Just in time I recognized the shadow thrown up on the wall of the figure on the left. Rattila had turned into a basilisk! The still figures had been turned to stone statues.
"Don't look!" I warned Eskina and Cire, as they stumbled to a halt behind me. I pulled them down behind a crate. I couldn't warn the others, who piled into the room, took one glance at the sinuous figure wavering back and forth, and froze in place with surprised looks on their faces.
"Chlory!" I shouted. "It's me, Aahz! That's Rattila! Stop him!"
I peeked around the corner to see if she heard me. She heard me, all right: a bolt of bright green light shot toward me. I ducked back as the magik came close enough to sizzle a few of the scales on my cheek. I glanced again. Chloridia marched toward us, a blank look in her eyes.
"Rattila has her in his power," Eskina hissed.
"Well, she's not as strong as I am," Cire insisted. He stood up and flung a double flipperful of golden light in her direction.
The four-eyed enchantress chanted a brief phrase, and the light dissipated. She leveled her hands at us, and the packing crate blew into pieces. Rubber Kewpie dolls went flying in every direction. We backed off. Chloridia advanced on us, with Rattila behind her, cackling.