No Quest for the Wicked (2 page)

“So if that part changed, that means this Eye of the Moon is in a different place now,” I concluded. “That first description sounds like it could have been on an airplane when you translated it.”

He looked up at me, and I could see from the pallor of his face how serious this was. “That would be bad,” he understated.

“Well, where is it now?”

He turned back to the document, frowning as he studied it. “Let’s see, there’s something about glittering stars, cubical robins’ eggs, a king’s ransom in gold, silver, and jewels, guarded like a fortress, a place to break one’s fast.”

“Sounds like Tiffany’s,” I quipped.

“What?”

“The jewelry store. They have gold, silver, and jewels, and their boxes are kind of a robin’s egg blue. I’m sure it’s guarded pretty heavily. And then there’s
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
—you know, Audrey Hepburn staring longingly into the jewelry store windows as she eats her Danish on her way home from a night out?” His blank look told me he was sadly culturally deprived. “But of course, that’s impossible, because how would some Dark Ages wizard know about Tiffany’s?”

“What the Dark Ages wizard did was embed a spell that relays the current location of the Eye using certain possible descriptors. The Eye’s been lost because the description of the original hiding place no longer matched what was there—the place had changed even though the Eye hadn’t moved, and since it hadn’t moved, the text remained the same. If it’s been moved, then the text might use more updated references.”

“So it really could have ended up at Tiffany’s?” I put my hand on his shoulder as an idea struck me. “We should go! We could find out.”

“I don’t think so … I mean, it’s been lost for centuries, and it shows up in Tiffany’s? That’s unlikely. It’s probably just a bad translation on my part. I was doing that off the top of my head.”

“Then translate!” I said, waving my hand at the table with a “get to work” gesture. “I can wait.”

“This could take awhile. You should go to your office. I’ll call you when I have something.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay, then.” I leaned over to give him a kiss. “I’ll leave the coffee and rolls outside in case you need another break.” I then reluctantly headed up to my office, where I could do something exciting like alphabetize my pencil cup. Again.

On my way into the sales department, I smiled and spoke to everyone as I passed their offices. They were willing to chat, but they didn’t need anything from me. In a way, that was good because it meant business was going well. Unfortunately, it also meant that I felt totally useless. I’m not sure that being busy would have helped much, though. While I’d hated my old marketing job before I learned about the magical world, I’d thought that was mostly because my boss was evil. It turned out that I just hated marketing.

I’d thought doing marketing was fun when I was working for my family’s store back home. It was a nice break from keeping the books or working the cash register. As a day-to-day job, though, it wasn’t my ideal. But what else could I do? I was twenty-seven years old, and I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. My opportunities at a magical company were limited, since I didn’t have magical powers or training. Most people like me worked in the verification department, seeing past any illusions meant to trick magical people, but that wasn’t a very interesting job, either. I didn’t want to leave MSI, but I didn’t know where else I fit in there.

My assistant wasn’t in yet, much to my relief. She was as bored as I was, and she dealt with it by talking to me. She’d taken to coming in later and later, and there wasn’t any point in reprimanding her about it. I went to my desk and surfed Internet news sites. I didn’t see anything that hinted at unauthorized magical activity going on anywhere in the world. Yay? It was bad that I actually hoped to find signs of trouble.

Then there was no point procrastinating further, so I did the one major task on my to-do list for the day, writing a new ad for the magical training program my friend Rod Gwaltney was putting together. I came up with three different concepts, annotated them, and e-mailed them to him. I checked my watch and found that I’d accomplished my entire to-do list before ten in the morning.

The ring of the telephone was the only thing that kept my forehead from hitting my desk. “I’ve translated that passage and then cross-referenced it in every related book I’ve got to make sure I was getting it right,” Owen said.

“I’ll be right down,” I said, already rising from my chair.

“Don’t bother. I was right the first time, more or less. The wording is slightly different, but the important parts are the same.”

“So it really is at Tiffany’s?”

“That’s one possible interpretation of the translation of the text. There are a lot of other things it could mean.”

“Like what?”

“It could be in a dragon’s hoard.”

“Would you want to have breakfast there?”

“The dragon would.”

“We should go to Tiffany’s, just in case.”

“What would it be doing in a jewelry store?”

“It’s a gem, isn’t it? If it is there, we’d better get it quickly. Imagine what could happen if some unsuspecting customer bought it.”

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 are 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.”