Trapped

You’re on. «
    » I beg your pardon? «
    » I agree. I accept your courteous offer. «
    » You do? «
    Granuaile called to me from behind the knife counter. » Sensei, there’s a damn clown convention going on in here, have you noticed? There’s something strange about their auras, but I don’t know what it means. «
    I blinked and noticed. The two clowns that I thought I’d been seeing over and over were actually more like a dozen. They’d surrounded us. Turning on my magical sight, I saw what was under all the pancake makeup: pointy ears, flattened down and hidden by prosthetic ones. And underneath those rainbow-colored wigs were thick, long queues of black hair. Knives were concealed in the baggy clothing. Over all this was some ice-blue interference—a charm of some kind that had probably befuddled Granuaile’s vision. She was still too unpracticed to see through such tricks. These weren’t clowns at all. They were Svartálfar—real, live dark elves walking around Midgard.
    » You sent in the clowns? « I said into the phone.
    Theophilus chuckled and hung up. So much for his offer. The entire call had been meant to distract me while these clowns surrounded us.
    » The clowns are dark elves, Granuaile. Kill or be killed. Go! «

Chapter 16
    Despite Manannan’s warning that the dark elves were after me and the confession of the faery assassin that dark elves had hired his band of rogues, I never thought I’d get to see them in the flesh. I guess if you’d like the dark elves to pay you a visit on good ol’ Midgard, spend fifteen centuries blaming them for everything; they’ll hear about it eventually.
    The dark elves had good reason to bring me some karmic payback. I’d brought them grief with the blame game on my first trip to Asgard twelve years ago. I’d slung some lies in an attempt to distract the Norse pantheon from my true goals, and as a result Odin had briefly believed that the Svartálfar were infiltrating Asgard and were partially responsible for the death of the Norns. I learned later that Odin hadn’t been gentle with his rebuke, so the dark elves were justified in seeking to share some of that violence with me.
    Too bad they didn’t count on my apprentice. While the elves focused on me being all shouty, Granuaile threw three knives, shik-shik-shik , and three Svartálfar went down before they even realized the fight was on. I charged to my right, which was also Granuaile’s three o’clock, and swung Fragarach at the clown standing there. As expected, he went incorporeal and his clown costume fell to the floor, along with a mess of white face paint and the colorful wig. I didn’t stick around to wonder when or where he’d turn solid again but turned clockwise and kept going at full speed.
    I felt a draw on my bear charm and shot a glance at Granuaile before I lost sight of her around the partition. I saw that she was taking my advice to heart and moving. She had leapt up on top of the glass display case with her staff in one hand and a knife in the other, and she followed me to the other side of the partition by launching herself backward and flipping over it.
    My first thought was, oh, gods, where is she going to land? But then I saw it was a necessary move. She had a whole lot of smoke boiling her way. Empty clown suits competed with flannel for attention on the sales floor.
    Granuaile’s leap drew the eyes of the Svartálfar creeping around behind the partition; they’d been planning on going smoky and stabbing us from behind. Since one of them was looking at Granuaile instead of me when I turned the corner, he didn’t see Fragarach coming and was very solid when I stabbed up through the place where his kidney should be. His death scream attracted the attention of the clown closing in on Granuaile, allowing her to land clumsily but safely between the racks of loud camouflage suits.
    » Keep going! « I called. » Flank and ambush! «
    I wasn’t the only one yelling. The managerial type at the front of the store was no longer trying to control his requests with a tense whisper; he was shouting into the phone for immediate police support, as if gunfire had broken out at Nakatomi Plaza. He needed help now , God damn it, now!
    I charged the clown who was closest to Granuaile even as smoke began to pour over the partition after her. Granuaile fled to the back of the store, out of my sight—especially since I tripped and did a face-plant in the aisle.
    I’d been slide-tackled