No Quest for the Wicked (14 page)

“Is there anything in those spells that might give us a clue what this is about? Are they related to the Eye?”

“No, they’re actually after Merlin’s time, probably from one of his immediate successors. At the most, maybe two generations later. But they are all from the same era and I think they can be traced back to the same wizard. I’m not sure what that tells us, but there’s probably some old grimoire out there from that time period, and the doorman could have read that. Now, let’s go get your grandmother and get back to the others.”

When we reached Merlin’s office, he was standing at the conference table with someone I assumed, based on the beads, scarves, and scent of incense, was from Prophets and Lost. “Ah, there you are,” he greeted us as we crossed the threshold. “I just heard from Mr. Gwaltney. They haven’t found the brooch or Ms. Perkins yet. I trust your search was successful?”

Owen held up the stack of spells and opened his mouth to say something, but whatever he was about to say came out as “Ouch!” when Granny’s cane jerked and rapped him across the shin so hard that the sound of it made me hop on one foot for a second.

She looked up at him with an expression of fake innocence. “Oh, dearie me. I’m so sorry. My muscles must still be twitching from all the excitement earlier. I can’t seem to control myself.”

The P & L person finished adding colored pushpins to a map of the city lying on the conference table. “There, those are our latest findings,” she said. “Red is confirmed sightings. Blue is where we’ve picked up an aura that could mean something. Green is potential visions of the future.” The pins spread over most of the Upper East Side, with a few blue and green pins trickling down to Midtown.

“Thank you,” Merlin said. The woman nodded as she picked up her notebook and left, her scarves wafting behind her.

As soon as she was gone and the doors had closed, I whirled on Granny. “What was that for?” I demanded.

“Loose lips sink ships,” she snapped.

I groaned inwardly and was about to tell her that just because someone dresses funny, it doesn’t mean they’re suspicious when Merlin said, “She is right about that, though I suspect she could have conveyed the same warning without resorting to physical violence.”

I gestured to the doors where the P&L lady had exited. “You think she’s the mole?”

“We’ve narrowed it down to that department.”

“But why stop me from saying anything when you just said everything that was going on?” Owen asked as he straightened from rubbing his sore shin.

Granny grinned. “That’s because we’re setting a mole trap!”

Chapter Nine

“A mole trap?” I repeated dumbly, shocked to learn that my grandmother was involved in espionage. Not that I should have been at all surprised. She always did keep close tabs on everything my family and everyone else in my hometown did.

“Minerva is sending her staff members here on errands, one by one,” Merlin explained. “While they are in the room, I take phone calls or have conversations about where our searchers will go next. Sam and his people are watching those locations, and if something happens in any of those places, that will reveal our mole’s identity. But now that we’re alone, what was it you wanted to tell me, Mr. Palmer?”

Owen sat at the conference table and handed the pages of spells to Merlin. “These are the spells that fake doorman used. I realized I’d seen them in the
Ephemera
. I’d guess they’re from about a century before the Norman invasion, based on the language and syntax. We’ve been building on these spells for centuries, so there are now far more effective ways to accomplish the same things. No one uses these anymore, which actually made them difficult to counter.”

There was a polite rap on the door, and Merlin waved a hand to open it. A young woman entered, and at first I didn’t think she could be one of Minerva’s mole candidates, since she was dressed professionally with her knee-length black skirt, medium-heel black pumps, crisp white blouse, and a chignon at the nape of her neck. “I’ve got some new readings for you, sir,” she said, handing Merlin a folder.

“Thank you,” he said, opening it. Then his desk phone rang, and he put down the folder to answer it, indicating with a gesture that he didn’t want the woman to leave. “Oh, hello, Mr. Gwaltney,” he said into the phone. “Ah, so no luck at the salons. Where are you now? Well, it’s only a few blocks down Eighty-second from where you are on Lexington to get to the museum. Perhaps our best hope is to wait for her to arrive at the museum. Please keep me posted.”

After he hung up, he smiled at the woman. “My apologies.”

“I understand completely, sir,” she replied.

He went back to the folder and flipped through the documents. “Is there anything you need to explain in here?”

“I’m sure it’s all self-explanatory for you, sir.”

“Very well, then. My thanks to your department for all your hard work today.”

She nodded in acknowledgement and strode briskly out of the office. “Are you sure she works in P and L?” I asked when she was gone. Most of Minerva’s department tended to dress like they were working at a carnival fortune-teller’s booth, so she didn’t look the part.

“Minerva says she’s one of the best scryers she’s seen,” Merlin said. “And I believe she’s the last one on the list. Now we wait to see where—if anywhere—our opponents go.”

Owen’s phone rang, and after answering it, he hit a button and set it on the table. “Okay, Rod, you’re on speaker,” he said.

“We’ve hit all the salons on the list and the good news is that we found Mimi’s stylist,” Rod reported. “The bad news is that the stylist is meeting her at the museum.”

“I should have known,” I muttered. “She’d want plenty of flunkies on-site.”

“I’m afraid the first time we’re sure of being able to get to her will be at the museum, possibly during the event setup. Do you think she’ll show up to supervise, Katie?”

“Oh, yeah. She has to be there to micromanage and change her mind a dozen times.”

“Then we’ll go into the museum as patrons,” Rod said. “We’ll veil ourselves while they clear the regular visitors out of the exhibits and be in place to wait for her.”

“How do we get in?” Owen asked. “You’ll need us when it comes to getting the brooch.”

“Sneak in with the catering staff. Surely she won’t know everyone.”

“The caterers will probably be scrambling to staff this event after everyone who’s met her quits,” I said. “It could work, but I’ll have to avoid her while I’m undercover. Not that she’d pay enough attention to a catering waitress to recognize me.”

“Did you find those spells?” Rod asked.

“Yes, and a few more they might use, just in case,” Owen said. “I’ll bring them with me. We’ll be up there as soon as we can.”

While Owen ended that call, Merlin’s desk phone rang. “Yes, Sam?” he said, answering the phone. Then he frowned as he nodded somberly. “Are you certain? Have them followed. At the moment, I would prefer that they not know we’re on to them.” Merlin then dialed an internal extension. “Minerva?” he said. “Miss Spencer appears to be our person. Please bring her here immediately.”

When Merlin hung up, Owen stood and said, “We’d better be going.”

“I want to see this,” Granny said, planting her feet solidly on the floor in front of her chair.

“I would prefer that you stay, for the moment,” Merlin said. “It may help if you have firsthand knowledge of who is getting in your way.”

When Minerva arrived, I was shocked to see the professionally dressed woman with her. She’d seemed too normal to be a magical spy. It didn’t appear that she knew why she’d been brought to Merlin’s office for a meeting. She carried a notepad and looked very much the way I must have once looked when I’d been Merlin’s assistant and went with him to meetings.

“Please, have a seat,” Merlin said to the newcomers with an expansive gesture. “Thank you for coming on such short notice on such a busy day.”

Minerva sat across from Merlin and beckoned to her associate. “Come on, Grace, sit over here by me.” She’d positioned the possible traitor so she’d have to get past all of us to get to the door.

“I thought it was a good time to update everyone on the status of our project,” Merlin said. “We’ve run into a few obstacles, the first of which being that we appear to have someone within the company working at cross-purposes to our operation. Someone has provided misleading information to our team, has withheld useful information that should have been easily obtained, and is sending information about our team’s activities to people who are interfering with and even attacking our people.” If you didn’t listen to his words, Merlin’s tone sounded like he was starting any ordinary staff meeting. He even looked perfectly calm and neutral.

But as Grace heard his words, her face went as white as her blouse. She jerked back in her chair, like she was trying to shove away from the table so she could flee, but Minerva reached over and pushed her chair back up to the table. “Now, Grace, the meeting’s just getting started,” she said.

Merlin continued as though there had been no interruption. “Do you have any input on this matter, Miss Spencer?”

Grace stammered, then blurted, “I don’t know anything about it.”

“You brought me some reports not too long ago,” Merlin said.

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“While you were here, I took a phone call and discussed where our people would go next. Our enemies happened to converge on the spot I mentioned, very soon after you left my office. I find that interesting, don’t you?”

Grace glanced from side to side, as though trying to decide whether she was more afraid of Merlin or Minerva, but she kept her mouth shut.

“And here’s the interesting part,” Merlin said. “They weren’t really there. It wasn’t a real phone call. What you overheard was bait.”

“And you took it, honey,” Minerva concluded, sounding more disappointed than angry. I recognized the tactic from the way my dad dealt with my brothers. The tone of disappointment was far more painful than anger. “Now, why would you go and do something so silly? I’m dying to hear who you’re really working for. I’ve been under the mistaken impression that it was me.”

A battle seemed to rage within Grace, as she wavered between continuing to play innocent and throwing herself on her boss’s mercy. She went with an entirely different approach that I didn’t think any of us saw coming. She straightened her spine and looked down her nose at Minerva as she said with a sneer, “Because I believe in true magic, not in power that is so bastardized by the modern age.”

Owen reached for his pages of spell notes, a light dawning in his eyes. “You mean, the only good magic is the pure magic from the old grimoires,” he said softly.

Her face lit up, losing the anger and wariness that had been there a moment before. “Yes! We are wizards. We have no need for technology. Long before anyone invented the engine or ways to generate and use electricity, we had power—true power. And we have weakened ourselves by not using it that way.” Her eyes glittered with the depth of her passion, but then they turned hard and cold as she glared at Owen. “You’re one of the worst—you, who took old spells and created new things out of them, taking away their purity.”

“So, you’re like magical Amish?” I asked. “Anything modern is wicked?” Now I saw her conservative business attire in a new light—and I came to the uncomfortable realization that I’d liked her outfit because it was almost identical to mine. Her hairstyle was more severe, and her blouse was buttoned up all the way, but everything she had on could have come from my closet.
I’m making Gemma take me shopping this weekend
, I thought as I surreptitiously unbuttoned another button on my blouse.

“I don’t understand the reference, but we do believe that wizards have lost their way and should return to their roots.”

Minerva raised an eyebrow. “And what the blazes does that have to do with your spying on this company and interfering with our efforts to retrieve the Eye of the Moon?”

Instead of answering her, Grace turned to Merlin and said, “You were one of the true wizards who created the magical foundations, and we knew that when you came back, you would restore things to the way they should be. But instead, you did this.” She gestured disdainfully at the executive office, with its telephone, computer, and conference table.

She turned to Owen. “You’re just as corrupt—even more so, because you were the one to corrupt Merlin, teaching him your wicked modern ways, infecting him with technology. And you were punished for it. That’s why you lost your magical powers. Impurity must be punished!” Her voice grew shrill as her fervor overtook her reserve. “But we will purify the magical world!” As if realizing she’d said too much, she clamped her lips together and stared straight ahead.

Merlin leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “Normally, I am very tolerant of other approaches to magic. There is certainly merit to the old ways, and it is good for us to remember how to work pure magic without the need for technology or other tools. But this isn’t the time for a philosophical discussion. I want to know what the brooch has to do with this and why you’re interfering with our efforts to contain it.”

“I’m not seeing the link between the brooch and magical purity,” I said, shaking my head. “Why would anyone want to stir up that kind of trouble?”

“Remember Bobby Burton, the volunteer fireman back home?” Granny asked me.

“The one they caught setting fires because he wanted to play hero and be seen putting them out?” I turned back to Grace. “That’s it, isn’t it? Your people stole the brooch from the gnomes, not Sylvester. Your plan was to create a threat to the magical world by setting that brooch loose, and then your people could swoop in when Merlin’s team failed to save the day, proving that the old ways are the best and discrediting Merlin as a leader in the magical world—maybe then with your leader having the brooch so he can solidify his power.”

“Only, everything would be ruined if we got there first and prevented the trouble, so you had to make sure that didn’t happen,” Owen said.

Grace tried to remain stoic, but she had a terrible poker face. She winced every time someone said something that must have hit close to the truth, which was as good as a confirmation.