No Quest for the Wicked Read online

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line, and even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew what was going through his mind. He’d recently learned—along with the rest of the magical world—that his birth parents had been the previous generation’s great threat to magical society. They’d been manipulated by the real villain, but the fact remained that his parents had tried to take over the world and they’d gone down in history as supervillains. Although Owen had never shown any signs of having inherited his parents’ evil ways, he had been incredibly powerful before losing his powers, and there were people in the magical community who regarded him with suspicion. If he went after some dangerous gizmo known to make people superpowerful, there would be plenty of people who’d see it as proof that he was taking after Mom and Dad.

  “If you don’t want to go, I could go and check it out,” I suggested when he didn’t say anything.

  “No,” he said with a sigh. “It could be dangerous. This thing, it wants to be used, and it will draw people to it. Even nonmagical people will want to possess it. Only magical immunes will be safe around it. We’ll both go.”

  “I’ll be down in five minutes,” I said. I had my purse in my hand before I hung up the phone and possibly broke some land speed records on my way to Owen’s basement workroom. He was just locking the manuscript away in its safe when I burst through the doorway. “Ready to go?” I asked between gasps of breath.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure this thing isn’t beckoning you?”

  “Come on, what woman wouldn’t want the chance to go to Tiffany’s and count it as work?”

  “Does this count as work for you? It’s not exactly a marketing activity.”

  “It’s a very loose interpretation of my job description,” I admitted. “But it would be a public relations nightmare if somebody tried to use this thing to take over the world.” As we headed up to the building’s exit, I asked, “Do you think we should tell someone about this?”

  “I’d rather make sure before I report it. It would be embarrassing if I messed up the translation or the interpretation. We’ll report it if we find it. Then Merlin will have to figure out what to do about it.”

  We took the subway uptown and then walked a couple of blocks to the jewelry store. As we entered, a polite salesman met us. He took in the two of us walking hand in hand and said, “Our engagement rings are on the second floor. The elevator is right this way.” Owen turned bright red, and my face felt like it matched his, but to his credit, he didn’t release my hand.

  “Actually, today we’re looking for something different,” Owen said. “Something in rare gems.”

  The salesman nodded and told us we’d also find that on the second floor, while I tried not to get too excited about the fact that Owen had said that “today” he wasn’t looking for an engagement ring. We hadn’t been dating that long, and most of that time, we’d been busy fighting magical evil, but I already knew I couldn’t imagine spending my life with anyone else, and I couldn’t help but hope he was thinking along the same lines.

  There was already someone at the counter when we got upstairs, and that alone told me that Owen’s translation and my interpretation were correct because that someone was an elf. It was too much for coincidence that a member of a magical race was there. The elf was fair-haired—and highlighted, I guessed—with his hair blow-dried back from his face. Every item of clothing he wore bore a designer logo, and it was mostly in pastel shades. I’d thought preppies had died out with the eighties, but this one seemed to have survived.

  We edged closer to overhear the conversation, but much to our surprise, the elf wasn’t talking about a gem like the Eye of the Moon. He was talking about a Celtic-style golden brooch. “We did have something like that come in just yesterday,” the salesman said. “Only, it has a gemstone set in it, a star sapphire.”

  “A sapphire? Are you sure? The piece I know had no stone,” the elf said.

  “Oh, it definitely has a stone in it, a rather beautiful one.” The salesman’s eyes glazed over. “So very, very beautiful.”

  “May I see it?” the elf asked, sounding a little too eager.

  Owen stepped forward then and said, “It wouldn’t have been a spherical dark sapphire, would it?”

  “Why, yes!” the salesman said. “Do you know this piece?”

  “I’ve heard of it,” Owen said, warily eying the elf, who gave him a funny look in response. “But it’s not set in a brooch.”

  “Let me go check. A piece that rare would be kept in a safe,” the salesman said.

  When he was gone, I asked Owen, “Is that it?”

  “It sounds like it.”

  “But what about this brooch?”

  “I don’t know.” He turned to the elf. “What brooch is this you’re looking for? Is it of elven creation?”

  “Ah, so you do see my true appearance,” the elf said, giving a slight bow. “I am Lyle Redvers. I seek the Knot of Arnhold, which has been lost to my people for centuries. I had a vision of it here today.”

  “The Knot? Really?” Owen asked. To me he explained, “It’s legendary. Supposedly, anyone who wears it is practically invulnerable.”

  The salesman returned, looking distressed. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he looked like he’d been crying. “Was this the piece you were looking for?” He showed us a printed digital photo of a golden brooch made of interlocked rings with a globe of sapphire set in the middle. The photo was crumpled, as though it had been clutched desperately in someone’s grasp.

  Owen and Lyle the elf both gasped so hard that it seemed to suck all the air out of the room. “Yes, that is it,” the elf said to the salesman, his voice shaking. “I must have it.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, sir,” the salesman said with a mournful sniffle. “That piece was purchased this morning, almost as soon as we opened for business. It’s gone.” His voice broke in a sob. “We lost it.” Then he pulled himself together with some effort and said stiffly, “Is there something else I can show you? We do have several other brooches of similar design. They aren’t the same, but then, what is?” His voice trembled again, and there was a loud, wailing sob from the vault area. A bedraggled saleswoman with a blotchy, tear-stained face staggered out, grabbed the photo from the salesman, clutched it against her chest, then stumbled back to the vault, still wailing loudly.

  “No, no thank you,” the elf said, backing cautiously away from the counter, his hands clenching and unclenching. Then he turned and moved toward the elevator. Owen and I went after him. When we were out of earshot of the salesman, Owen reached to catch the elf’s arm, but before he could do so, Lyle turned to Owen. “That stone was the Eye of the Moon, wasn’t it?” he hissed.

  “I believe so,” Owen admitted.

  “Combined with the Knot …”

  Owen nodded grimly. “Somebody just bought ultimate power and invulnerability.”

  Chapter Two

  I grabbed Owen’s sleeve. “Wait, so someone found this superpowerful, super-evil gem that’s been lost for centuries, and then they combined it with a brooch that makes the wearer invulnerable? Who would be so crazy?”

  “We can worry about that later. For now, we need to find it.”

  “Do you think whoever has it knows what they have?”

  “Even if they don’t, it’ll affect them. Look at the way the sales staff is acting.” The salesman had joined the wailing saleswoman, and their sobs carried throughout the store. “They couldn’t have had it for long—definitely not long enough to use its power—and they’re acting like they’ve lost the love of their lives. Anyone who gets this thing won’t want to let it go, and that gives the stone the chance to work on them and take over. We’ve got to get it back.”

  “The Knot belongs to my people,” the elf insisted.

  “I’m not arguing with you there,” Owen said. “The problem is that both the Knot and the Eye are currently in the possession of someone else.”

  “Who ar
e you?” Lyle asked suspiciously.

  “I’m with MSI,” Owen said.

  Lyle frowned at Owen. “You’re Owen Palmer, aren’t you? Is it true?”

  Owen sighed wearily. “Is what true? There are so many rumors about me going around that I like to know exactly what I’m confirming or denying. I’m not evil, if that’s what you’re wondering, and I have no plans to take over the world.”

  “And yet you seek the Eye of the Moon.”

  “It wouldn’t do me any good.” Owen spread his hands helplessly. “No more magic. I found the location in the Ephemera I’m translating.”

  “You have no magic?” The elf quirked a slanted eyebrow.

  “None whatsoever. I want to keep this thing out of the wrong hands. That’s all. I need to report this to my boss. He should know what’s happening, and then we can decide how to handle it. This could be a touchy situation.”

  “You wizards won’t take our Knot from us.”

  “That’s what I mean by touchy. I’m not here officially, but my boss wouldn’t want the Eye to fall into the wrong hands.”

  “I don’t want the Eye in Merlin’s hands, either.”

  “I don’t think he’d want it. But he will know what to do with it.”

  The elf nodded again, as if in agreement, and then, moving almost too quickly for the human eye to see, he darted away and jumped into an elevator just as the doors opened. By the time we realized what he was doing and went after him, he was gone. Without magic, Owen couldn’t do anything more to summon another elevator than push the button. Lyle must have done something to magically tamper with the elevators, because it took longer than I would have expected for another one to arrive.

  I thought Owen would blow a gasket. “He played me!” he sputtered. “I should have known better.”

  To calm him down while we waited, I said, “He ran off without finding out who bought it. Something like that, you probably don’t pay cash. There has to be a record of the sale.”

  “Yeah, but they don’t pass out customer information like that to just anyone.” He groaned. “I know how I could get it, but at the moment …” I patted him reassuringly on the arm, well aware of how much it bothered him to have lost his powers. Although he didn’t use much magic in his daily life, there had been so many little magical things he’d taken for granted.

  “Those two aren’t exactly acting like your usual Tiffany employees,” I said. I went back to the counter. “Excuse me,” I called to the sobbing sales staff.

  “I told you, it’s useless. It’s gone,” the salesman sobbed.

  “Curse you, Jonathan Martin,” the saleswoman spat. “He’ll never love it like I did.”

  “Or like I did,” the salesman said, and then they collapsed on each other in tears.

  I returned to Owen just as another elevator finally arrived. “Who needs magic?” I said with a grin. “Lyle may have a head start, but we know who bought it.” When the elevator let us out on the ground floor, I grabbed Owen’s hand and tugged. “Come on, the subway will be quickest for getting back to the office.” While I guided him through the crowds on the sidewalk, he called the office to explain the situation.

  When we got into the subway station, he kept staring up the tunnel, his fingers twitching like he was trying to magically summon a train. “Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered under his breath.

  “That spell doesn’t work, trust me,” I told him, taking his hand so he’d quit trying to use magic he no longer had. “I use it all the time, and for most of us, the more we want a train to come, the slower it will be. What did the boss say?”

  “We’re to see him as soon as we get back.”

  “You’re not in trouble, are you?”

  “I can’t tell. I probably should have said something before we went, but I didn’t know then, and it wouldn’t have made any difference.”

  A train did finally arrive, and when we got back to MSI headquarters, we headed straight up to the executive suite, where Merlin was waiting for us in his office doorway. And, yes, this was the Merlin, the great wizard of legend. He’d been in a kind of magical coma for a long time, waiting to be revived for the magical world’s time of great need. It turned out that he’d been revived for a bogus reason, but it looked like he was planning to stick around instead of going back into magical hibernation.

  I’d seen Merlin go through a lot of stuff in my time with the company, some of it pretty hairy, but I’d never seen him quite so shaken. He appeared almost feeble. If I’d seen him around town looking like this, I’d have offered to help him cross the street. “Good, good, you’re here,” he said. “Come in, and we can make plans. I’ve already got Prophets and Lost tracking down the purchaser.”

  As soon as we were inside the office, Owen said, “I should have told you when I found the change in the Ephemera.” He sounded like a schoolboy who’d been called to the principal’s office.

  “And I should have taken action when I sensed the Eye’s arrival early this morning,” Merlin said. “I thought I was mistaken. I’d hoped it was impossible.”

  “You sensed it?”

  “You think I wouldn’t have felt my own creation?”

  Owen looked genuinely surprised. “You?”

  “My greatest mistake,” Merlin said with a sigh as he lowered himself onto a chair. “In the days when I was a young, inexperienced, and very foolish wizard, I planned to create a gem that would exude a subtle sense of power, so that when set in a crown, it would validate a king’s authority. But the spell went horribly wrong. Instead, the gem created a thirst for power while giving its holder great power over others. I was initially able to resist its lure because my spell created it, but before long, it was even affecting me, so I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t break the spell or destroy it magically. I tried every physical method I could find at the time to destroy it, from smashing it between rocks to throwing it in a blacksmith’s forge, and it survived everything. By the time I created a container that dampened its effects and buried it where it could never be found—or so I thought—war had already broken out over it.”

  “And now it’s back and loose in Manhattan, combined with a brooch that makes the wearer invulnerable,” I said, wincing. “This should be fun.”

  “We must get it back before it does too much harm,” Merlin said. “Technology has advanced significantly since my time, so perhaps it can now be destroyed once and for all. If not, it must be hidden again.”

  “What about the Knot?” Owen asked. “The elves do have a claim to it, and they won’t want it destroyed.”

  “I’m sure they’ll survive the disappointment,” Merlin said dryly. “They’re welcome to file a complaint against me if they have a problem with my decision, but holding on to the Eye long enough to find a way to break the enchantment that binds it to the Knot would be a bigger risk than I care to take.”

  “If the elves get it, they’ll keep it, and I’m not sure I trust them to hand over the Eye—especially once they possess it,” Owen said.

  “That is why we must find it first. Even there, we will likely have to take it by trickery. The invulnerability of the Knot makes it unlikely that force would be effective in taking it from its new owner.”

  “Would a magical immune be affected by it?” I asked. “Would it turn an immune evil or power hungry?”

  “It shouldn’t,” Merlin said.

  “And what about the invulnerability from the Knot? Maybe an immune could get past whatever magical protection it gives.”

  “There is no record of anyone wearing the Knot encountering magical immunes,” Merlin said. “They don’t occur among the elven race, and the Knot was lost long before they began cooperating with mankind.”

  “So, it’s theoretically possible that Owen or I could, say, punch someone wearing the Knot and take it away from them?”

  Merlin stroked his beard thoughtfully, and he was quiet for so long that I started to worry about him. “Possibly, possibly, though it woul
d require bare hands, as no weapons would work. Yes, that may be the only solution,” he said at last. “Mr. Palmer, I know you regret the loss of your power, but it may be the saving grace in this. You’re the only wizard who can be trusted with this mission. You must find and recover the Eye—before anyone else does. It cannot be allowed into the hands of anyone who can be affected by magic.”

  I tried to make myself invisible, hoping I could get away with tagging along, even though this mission had nothing to do with my actual job. Back when Owen was a powerful wizard, we’d often teamed up because his powers and my magical immunity allowed us to cover each other’s weaknesses. Now that he was a trained wizard who was magically immune, I was redundant.

  “You’ll need help,” Merlin said, “and I hesitate to assign anyone susceptible to magic.” It took all my self-control not to jump up with my hand in the air and shout, “Ooh! Ooh! Pick me!” As if reading my mind, Merlin turned to me and said, “Miss Chandler is the obvious choice.”

  “I’d be glad to help, sir,” I said, resisting the urge to salute. I knew this was likely to be a difficult and dangerous mission, but I couldn’t stop myself from grinning like an idiot. It had been boring not being in danger all the time.

  “I don’t think we can do this with just immunes, though,” Owen said. “The elves have magic. Katie and I can’t compete against that. We’ll need all the tricks, from the little things like getting through traffic and summoning trains to getting past building security or neutralizing bystanders. And then we may have to fight the competition to get to the brooch.”

  “This does present us with a dilemma, doesn’t it?” Merlin said. “Magic will be essential for finding and reaching the brooch, but then it becomes potentially deadly once we obtain the object of our quest.”

  “What we need is a tranquilizer gun,” I said. “We could have a magical person with us to help with the quest, but then knock him out as soon as we get near the Eye.”

  I’d meant it as a joke, but both Owen and Merlin turned to me with smiles. “Excellent idea, Miss Chandler,” Merlin said, raising an eyebrow.