Excerpt: The Seven Subtle Gates

Yes, I've started to write my ending, in accord with the advice in No Plot, No Problem. So they're approaching the lair of the villain, where he's busy doing . . . something. God, I hope I find out before they do. And yes, Ebony Dementia Raven et cetera has somehow arranged to tag along. I love her, because there's always so much for her to say.

"Ugh. This is dirty. Why didn't you get Dad to drive you up here? He's always tromping around old places in the hills and these ski slope vacant lots that no sane person would even try to build on. He has shoes just for getting all muddy," Summer told her.

"Look, I'm sorry, I know it's around here somewhere, but you don't have to get all muddy. If you want you can just wait in the car," she offered.

Summer shook her head until the two braids that she'd pinned over her head in a crown pulled free, hanging from her head like rabbit ears. She muttered to Allie, "I don't think this guy you brought -- Drip or whatever his name is -- would be much protection if you ran into some of the crazy homeless people who live out here, or even an animal like a raccoon. And if it's something magical, he'd be even less use than his name. That's why I brought her along. That pouch she gave you was kind of useful -- or at least entertaining." She glanced back at Ebony, struggling up the track behind them.

Allie grimaced at her sister. "Don't remind me. That was a disaster."

Ebony was watching Summer hopefully, clearly looking for company back to the car, then scurried closer to catch up to her friend when Summer refused. Her high- heeled boots slowed her down, so that she had to keep catching at tree limbs and at Summer to pull herself out of ruts in the mud path. The gauzy sleeves she'd been so proud of had already tattered and her mascara streaked around her eyes from sweat, making her look far more like a witch than she had when they had first met.

Up ahead, unaware of Summer's lack of faith, River called, "I found a culvert up off the path. It's partly blocked with brush, but it looks like someone has made an opening."

Allie scrambled up the slope to the jutting opening of the culvert. Behind her she heard Summer repeating, "Crazy homeless people," like a mantra, or a curse, and Ebony panting behind her. Allie inspected the culvert, a concrete tunnel into the hillside, a little higher than her head. Behind the scruff of bushes and old trash, the weathered and water- stained edges of the concrete looked uncomfortably like gaping teeth. River stood in it to one side, feet out of the narrow trickle of dark, stagnant water that oozed down its center.

"Ooh, stinky," Summer observed as she tugged Ebony up the last of the slope. "'What a wonderful smell you've discovered'." That made River laugh; after a second, Allie got the joke.

Ebony caught on last of all. She dropped Summer's arm and said, "So you're making me be Chewbacca now? I can't believe that I agreed to come with you. My pegged leg jeans with the indigo piping are just ruined, and I don't know if this mud will ever come off my thigh- high leather boots. At least I'm not wearing my favorite suede boots to this, this fiasco you've dragged me along on. You said we were going somewhere cool."

"Well, now you sound like C3PO, if that makes you feel any better," Summer told her, and jumped up into the tunnel mouth.