No Quest for the Wicked (3 page)

“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 would 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.

“I bet R-and-D can whip up something,” Owen said, reaching for Merlin’s desk phone. “The trick will be finding someone willing to work with us under these circumstances.”

“Yeah, knowing you’ll be knocked out just when things are getting interesting would be a real turn-off,” I said.

“It would require a great deal of trust,” Merlin agreed with a sidelong glance at Owen and a fleeting frown. I bit my lip, knowing what that probably meant. Although I had no doubt that Owen was a good guy, and Merlin trusted him completely, not everyone in the company was dealing well with the recent revelations about Owen’s heritage. The loss of his powers was about the only thing that made his presence tolerable for a lot of people. There weren’t many wizards who’d be eager to join Owen on a quest for one of the most dangerous magical objects ever created, and even fewer who’d be okay with Owen having the ability to knock them out. Even if they gave the tranquilizer job to me, I was so closely associated with Owen that it wouldn’t make much difference.

Owen hung up the phone and said, “They’ve got something they think should work. And what about Rod for magical support? He’d trust me, and he’s the best there is at illusion and charm.” Rod Gwaltney was Owen’s best friend from childhood. He ran the company’s personnel department, and he was also an expert wizard.

“Good choice,” Merlin said, nodding, as he gave a very subtle sigh of relief. “We can use the security gargoyles for aerial reconnaissance and support. They can track the elves while also clearing the way for your team. Gargoyles are less likely to be susceptible to the Eye. It takes a lot to affect a gargoyle magically.”

Owen got on the phone to call Rod and Sam, the head of security. They arrived soon afterward and got a quick briefing. Sam the gargoyle was his usual unflappable self, but Rod was startled by the revelation about the Eye. He cast a worried glance at Owen as he said, “I can see sending the A team, but is this such a great idea? I don’t doubt you at all, Owen, but you going after the Eye? It looks a lot like a bid for world power.”

“I will deal with any fallout,” Merlin said before Owen could answer. “There is no one better suited for this quest, as Mr. Palmer is the one wizard who isn’t susceptible to the Eye.”

Owen’s former assistant, Jake, broke the tension by arriving just then with what looked like a pencil case. “Here you go, three tranquilizer darts.” He opened the case to show three long, slender tubes. “You can either press them in directly, like a hypodermic needle, or you can throw them from up to ten feet away. They’ll cause instant unconsciousness in anyone, and the effects should last about half an hour, depending on the person’s size. Be careful with those. They’re all we’ve got on hand, and it takes about twenty-four hours to brew the potion.”

“We’ll make them count,” Owen said, taking the case from him and slipping it into the inside pocket of his suit coat. “But just in case, you should get started on another batch.”

“Now all we need is a target,” I said once Jake left.

Just then, Minerva Felps, the head of the Prophets and Lost division that managed the company’s seers, swept into the office. If it had been anyone else, I’d have suspected her of lurking outside and waiting for the optimal time to make a dramatic entrance. Minerva had probably sensed five minutes ago when a good time would be. She carried a folder, from which she retrieved a stack of photos and documents that she spread out on the conference table. “Unfortunately, Jonathan Martin is a fairly common name,” she said as we came over to the table. “This thing was probably pretty pricey, so I figured we could rule out busboys, bicycle messengers, and anyone else who doesn’t earn at least seven figures. That still gave us a lot to sort through. The hackers and the seers ran credit card charges for this morning and looked for shifts in auras and came up with two very strong possibilities.”

“Are either of them magical?” Owen asked.

“Would you believe, there isn’t a single Jonathan Martin in the entire magical registry? We’re in the clear on that count, at least.”

“So odds are, whoever has it doesn’t know what he’s got and didn’t buy it on purpose,” Owen said. “We’re not dealing with a power grab.”

“Not a magical one, anyway,” Minerva said.

“Can’t we just check the manuscript again?” I asked. “If the text changed when it moved before, maybe it could give us an updated location.”

“I’m not sure it would be much help, unless it stays in one place for awhile,” Owen said. “Remember, someone had already bought it by the time we got to Tiffany’s after I was sure of the translation. By the time I translate the new location and figure out what the cryptic, poetic language really means, it may have moved again. It’ll probably be quicker to track down the owner, since we do have his name.”

Minerva pointed to a photo of a steely-eyed man with close-cropped gray hair. “This one seems like our strongest candidate. His company took over another firm this morning, and there’s been a major corporate bloodletting as he’s consolidated power. The aura around him is really murky. It’s not all-out evil, but it’s not sunshine and puppies, either.”

“Do you have an address?” Owen asked.

She handed him a printout. “Home, office, and his new acquisition are all on there. The strongest vibes are coming from the new office.”