No Quest for the Wicked Read online

  Sam had flown ahead and was meeting with a cluster of gargoyles on a nearby railing. “Bad news, gang,” he said as we approached. “The elves are already here.”

  “What about Martin and his fiancée—and the brooch?” Owen asked.

  “It’s kinda hard to tell,” one of the other gargoyles said in a deep, gravelly voice. I couldn’t determine if he was making a horrified face or if that was just the way he’d been carved, but his expression didn’t inspire confidence.

  “How is it hard to tell?” Rod asked. “It’s either here or it isn’t.”

  “It’s hard to tell because we can’t get inside,” the gargoyle said, looking even more horrified. “Somethin’s keepin’ us out. Magically, I mean. We can’t even get close enough to put a rock through a window. But it don’t sound good in there.”

  “That probably means it’s here,” I said, then tried to swallow the nervous lump in my throat. If the gargoyles were being magically blocked, then that left Owen and me to go into the restaurant, with no magic to protect us.

  “I’m not feeling drawn to power,” Rod said. “Though it’s possible that the wards are blocking its effects, or it could be back in the box.”

  “I can try to get in,” Owen said. “I can get past the wards, and then I can find out what’s happening.”

  “You mean ‘we,’” I reminded him.

  All of us headed for the restaurant entrance. The row of jockey figures overlooking us made me feel like I was being watched even though I knew they were a famous element of the place and had nothing to do with magic. The carpet driver took a tiny magazine out of his jacket pocket and settled down to read.

  Owen and I made it past the iron gates and down the steps from the sidewalk to the entrance, while the others had to stop at the gates. From in front of the door, I could hear the noise the gargoyle referred to. It didn’t sound like a typical lunch hour at a high-end restaurant. There was a high-pitched whine like a model airplane engine, along with repeated dull thuds and the occasional sound of shattering glass.

  Owen winced at a particularly loud shattering sound, then put his hand on the door handle and glanced at me. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

  “No,” I admitted, “but who else can do it? Do you have a plan for once we get in there?”

  “We find the Eye, then take it.”

  “Oh, that should be a piece of cake. I don’t see any potential problems with this plan.”

  “Well, obviously it’ll be more complicated than that, but that’s what it boils down to. It will all depend on whether it’s there, who has it, and if it’s back in the box. And then we’ll need to find whoever’s warding the place and get them to drop the spell. It feels like elven magic, so my guess is the elves are trying to keep everyone else out until they find the Knot.”

  “You can tell the kind of magic being used?”

  “You can feel magic, can’t you?”

  “Yeah, but just as a tingle. It doesn’t have flavors.”

  “There are subtle differences in the tingle.”

  “And that’s why it’s cool to have a magical immune with wizarding experience. I’m guessing that the wards mean the elves don’t yet have the Eye and the Knot.”

  “Probably not, or they’d be gone by now.”

  A cry of pain came from inside, and both of us winced. “Maybe we should be armed,” I said.

  “I’ve got a pocket knife.”

  “Oh, then we should be just fine.”

  “And remember, their magic can’t hurt us.”

  “But flying objects can.”

  He grinned at that and said, “Ready?” In spite of my misgivings, I nodded, and he eased the front door open. We stepped into a reception area with a cocktail lounge off to the side. The maitre d’ was slumped over the reception desk, and all the cocktail lounge patrons were snoring while sprawled on the sofas. It looked like Sleeping Beauty’s castle under the sleeping spell. “They’ve been enchanted,” Owen whispered.

  “I hope I don’t have to kiss anyone to wake them up. Bad things always seem to happen when I kiss someone to break a spell.” I whispered my reply, even though I suspected I could have shouted without disturbing their sleep.

  The noise was coming from the main room to the rear. We moved cautiously through the short hallway, then paused on the threshold, where I felt more wards. Directly inside the doorway was a pile of wrestling bodies that reminded me of a scramble for a loose ball inside the ten-yard line in a football game.

  “It’s definitely here,” I remarked. “I don’t think this sort of thing usually happens over lunch in a place like this.”

  Owen quirked an eyebrow, “Well, not until the third martini, at any rate.”

  Both of us instinctively ducked when a dinner plate flew at us, but it bounced off the wards, fell onto the pile of combatants, and then fell off them to shatter on the floor. “I’d bet it’s either gone or back in the box,” I said. “The activity seems too unfocused, more like people looking for something they lost than like people going after something they want.”

  “Let’s hope it’s here and in the box, and then we can get it and get out.”

  A small airplane that I suspected was normally one of the toys decorating the room’s ceiling zoomed past and buzzed a group of elves working their way through the room. “There are the elves,” I pointed out, “but I don’t think they’re the only magic users here.”

  “There were probably some wizards dining here. It’s old-school and it takes a lot of money, which is a combination that draws wizards. Maybe they’ll keep the elves occupied for us. We do have an advantage: We know who owns the brooch while they’re going by feel. Do you see Martin?”

  I didn’t have a great view of the entire room from this spot, but I figured it was probably safest to check out the situation from this side of the wards. I’d had only the slightest glance at the photo of this Jonathan Martin when Minerva spread her dossiers on the conference table, and I recalled a fairly generic distinguished older businessman—the kind that would be a dime a dozen in a place like this.

  It was also hard to spot any one particular person in all the chaos. In addition to the pileup on the floor and the battling wizards and elves, there was a man standing on his chair and demanding that “it” be given to him, and there were several people sobbing their eyes out. The only people behaving somewhat normally were a somberly dressed older couple sitting in a far corner and watching the proceedings with a distinct air of being Not Amused. They’d probably file a complaint with the management and write a strongly worded letter to the Times after this meal. They must have been magically immune, but I decided against trying to recruit them; they didn’t look like they’d be much fun to work with.

  Then I saw the man sitting alone at a table against the wall, weeping uncontrollably, his shoulders shaking. He looked a lot like what I remembered of the photo, though he seemed frailer than I would have expected. I tapped Owen on the shoulder. “I think that’s our guy.”

  He turned to follow my gaze. “I believe you’re right.”

  “It looks like his fiancée bailed on him.”

  “But he might know where she’d go, and he can tell us who she is. I don’t want the elves getting to him, though—or the other wizards knowing what’s going on. I’ll create a diversion. You go talk to him.”

  “What kind of diversion?” I asked, getting an uneasy feeling. “You remember that you don’t have powers anymore, right? You can’t make it snow indoors, or anything crazy like that.”

  “I don’t need magic. All I need to do is be here.” He sighed. “These days, that’s enough to get plenty of attention. I’ll go in first. Wait until they notice me, then you go.”

  I was worried about how right he was. Although he’d done nothing to earn it, he was considered Public Enemy Number One by a lot of the magical world. I caught his arm before he crossed the threshold. “Be careful.”

  “I thought I was the one who was alway
s saying that to you. And what is it you usually say to me? Oh yeah. ‘Actually, I was planning to be reckless.’”

  “But you usually are planning to be reckless.”

  Instead of responding, he straightened his tie, took a deep breath, and passed through the wards into the dining room. He neatly skirted the combatants still scrambling around on the floor and walked right up to the elves. When one of the wizards said, “Owen Palmer!” and all the elves and the wizards battling them momentarily stopped their fighting to turn to look, I figured that was my cue. I took a deep breath of my own and slipped through the doorway.

  I was immediately met by a waiter who was making a visible effort to keep himself under control in the midst of the madness. “Good afternoon, miss,” he said. “Do you have a reservation for lunch? I should warn you that things are a bit …unusual today. We might not be able to offer you our usual standard of service.”

  “That’s okay,” I told him. “I’m just here to meet someone.”

  “Very good, miss,” he said with a polite nod. “But I do hope you return and enjoy a meal with us.”

  Since he was neither sobbing nor fighting, I suspected that there was another magical immune and I was tempted to give him my card and tell him to call me, but I’d never seen a waiter that dedicated, and I’d hate to interfere with a true calling like that. Besides, working at a place like this, he probably earned more than he’d make at MSI in the verification department.

  I picked my way across the room, stepping around shards of glass and china. When I glanced over my shoulder to see how Owen was doing, I barely stopped myself from crying out a warning as the airplane dove at him. I remembered just in time that he was the diversion, and me shouting would defeat the purpose. He heard the sound and ducked, much to my relief. I forced myself to turn away and focus on my own mission.

  When I got closer to Jonathan Martin, I saw that he had deep cuts down his face. He looked like a tigress had clawed him. No wonder the receptionist was afraid of the fiancée, I thought. “Mr. Martin?” I asked tentatively.

  He turned to me with an expression that made me want to go read Russian literature to cheer myself up. “She took it. I bought it as a gift, but then it was too beautiful to give, and she took it away from me.”

  “Is she gone?” I asked. “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know. She left. She said she didn’t have to put up with this nonsense.” He started sobbing then and barely choked out, “We hadn’t even had dessert, and I’d arranged for something special.”

  I took a tissue out of my purse and handed it to him, then patted him on the shoulder. “It’s okay,” I told him. “Everything will be okay. Maybe it’ll make you feel better to tell me about her.”

  He blew his nose into the tissue. “I don’t know what I’ll do without her.”

  “Surely she hasn’t gone forever. You’ll see her soon.”

  “She won’t need me now. She has it. She can have anything she wants.”

  “I doubt that’s true. Look at you, what woman wouldn’t want someone like you?” Well, what gold digger wouldn’t, but I was too nice to say that.

  A tiny glimmer of hope shone in his eyes. “You think so?”

  “Of course. I could even talk to her for you. Just tell me how I can find her.” Really, all I needed was her name, but since I was acting like I knew her to get him to talk to me, I could hardly come right out and ask it.

  “She has some thing tonight—one of her projects. That’s why we had to celebrate her birthday at lunch.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. “What thing? She has so many projects, you know.” I gave a little laugh, like I was well aware of the mystery woman’s foibles.

  “A gala. I’m not going. She said it was far too late for me to be out. Past my bedtime. My Sweetie-pie looks after my health, you know.”

  I tried not to wince. It sounded like the poor man needed an intervention. The woman must have been using his money to gain a social position for herself while cutting him out of society. “That’s very considerate of her,” I said halfheartedly. “You don’t know where the gala will be or what it’s about?”

  “Sweetie-pie said I shouldn’t worry myself.”

  But what is Sweetie-pie’s name? I wanted to shout, but I suspected that yelling at him would only make him cry. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to track down a billionaire’s fiancée who was involved in a gala happening that night. I thought I’d try one last line of questioning where he might be more helpful. “When she took it away, was it in a box?”

  “It was in a jewelry case lined with dark velvet.” His eyes went unfocused as he added, “It was so beautiful nestled in that little box, the gold and the sapphire against the velvet. I never should have given it to her. It should have been mine.” He broke down in sobs again.

  There was a surge of magic from across the room, followed by a series of thuds, and I looked up to see the people I assumed were wizards slumping to the floor. The elves had just lost their distraction, which meant it was time to get away from Martin before the elves noticed me with him.

  I gave Mr. Martin one more pat on the shoulder before standing up. He tried to hand me the tissue I’d given him, but I smiled and said, “You can keep it.”

  “Thank you so much,” he sobbed.

  “And you should probably see a doctor about those scratches on your face. You don’t want those getting infected.”

  He clutched my hand. “You’re so kind to care.”

  Feeling guilty about leaving him, I hurried back across the room to stand at Owen’s side as Lyle Redvers, the elf from the jewelry store, said, “Palmer, I’m sure you didn’t come here just to interrupt our search.”

  “Actually, I heard they serve a good lunch here.”

  “I know what you’re after, Palmer.”

  “Yes, I realized that when you gave us the slip at Tiffany’s, but we’re both too late. It’s not here.”

  “How do you know? I thought you lost the magic.”

  Owen gestured at the lingering madness. “Does this look like anyone’s in possession of the Eye?”

  I folded my arms defiantly across my chest and said, “Yeah, face it, Elvis has left the building.”

  “Did you let it go?” Owen asked.

  “‘Let’ is not the word I would use,” Lyle said with a haughty sniff. “I sensed its presence here, but I believe it had already gone before we arrived.”

  “Serves you right for tearing out of the jewelry store and trying to cut us out of things,” I said.

  “You would have done better?” Lyle asked, arching a slanted eyebrow.

  “We don’t have magic, and yet, we’re here,” Owen said. “This would probably work better if we cooperated. We have information on the owner, and we have people who are immune to the effects of the Eye. You can sense the Knot and use magic to help obtain it.”

  “What do you plan to do with the Eye?” another elf demanded.

  “Destroy it.”

  “And the Knot?”

  “Take that up with Merlin.”

  “How can we trust you?” Lyle asked.

  “We could ask the same of you. The dangerous part of the brooch is ours, and we can’t risk it falling into the wrong hands.”

  “You think ours are the wrong hands?”

  “I think any hands are wrong.”

  “Other than yours, apparently.”

  “Like I said, no magic. I’m immune. It wouldn’t affect me.”

  “How can we believe that?”

  Owen shook his hands in frustration, looking like he was barely restraining himself from strangling the elf. “You saw all the power that the wizards threw at me and that you threw at me, and nothing happened. Not to mention the fact that I got past your wards. I can’t use the Eye. I might even be able to separate it from the Knot, if it can be done physically.”

  “I will consider your offer and suggest it to the Elf Lord,” Lyle said stiffly.

  “Great. Now,
drop the wards and let these people go.”

  “Do you think that is a wise idea?”

  All of us looked around at the fighting or sobbing patrons. I imagined them being turned loose on the city to hunt down the gem. “Well, probably not,” I said. “Maybe you could give them the Sleeping Beauty treatment, like you did to the people in front and to these wizards. You could throw in a little memory adjustment, while you’re at it.”

  The elf gave me a surprised glance, then nodded. “Yes, we could do that.” He waved his arms, and everyone in the room, aside from the elves, Owen, the waiter, and me, settled down into sleep. I was surprised that the stern-looking couple also fell asleep. I’d been so sure that they were immune. Maybe they just had a lot of self-control. “Now, we will return this place to its normal appearance. We know where to find you if we decide to accept your offer.”

  “Thank you,” Owen said, then he took my arm and led me out of the club. I shivered as I looked at the people who’d fallen asleep in mid-squabble. If being in the same room with the thing made people that crazy, it wouldn’t be easy to get it away from the future Mrs. Martin.

  I noticed that Owen was bleeding from a cut on his forehead and asked, “Are you okay?”

  He touched the cut, then frowned at the bloody fingertips he brought back. “I think so. I just had a bit of a Hitchcock moment back there with that airplane.”

  “You’ve seen North by Northwest, but not Breakfast at Tiffany’s?”

  “It had spies in it! That’s different.”

  We joined the others outside, and I quickly explained what I’d learned from Martin, then Owen told them about the elves.

  Sam snorted. “I don’t trust elves.”

  “Really?” I asked. “We have lots of elves at MSI.”

  “Oh, I trust them. But these guys work for the Elf Lord, and he’s a real piece of work. You can’t believe a thing his people say. It may be the truth, but it’s all spun up in riddle and different meanings for words, and stuff like that, so they can tell the absolute truth and still be dishonest.”