No Quest For The Wicked

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.