No Quest For The Wicked

Much to my relief, the carpet landed on the ground, and all of us let out a collective sigh. I sat there for a while, reveling in the knowledge that I couldn’t fall from where I was. Owen stood first and extended a hand to help Granny up, then he pulled me to my feet and straight into his arms, where he held me in a fierce hug. I buried my face against his shoulder and hugged him back, enjoying the feel of solid earth beneath my feet and solid man in my arms. “I am never, ever getting on one of those things again,” I said. “At least, not until they install seatbelts.”

“Seatbelts sound like a very good idea,” Owen agreed. Without loosening his hold on me, he spoke over my shoulder to Rocky and Rollo, the security gargoyles who had just landed beside us. “Someone’s animating gargoyles. I don’t know where they got that one, but it looked old and European. It even had moss growing on it.”

I turned to see Rocky shuddering. “Moss? Talk about a personal hygiene problem! What kind of creep doesn’t bother to scrape off the moss?”

“We’ll look into it,” Rollo said.

“Thanks,” Owen said. “Now, could one of you escort Katie’s grandmother up to Merlin’s office?”

Granny gripped her cane with both hands and planted it firmly on the ground in front of her. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had grown roots. “I’m not letting Katie out of my sight. She’s going to need me.”

“I’ve already needed you,” I said. “Maybe all that”—I gestured in the general direction where our aerial adventures had taken place—“was when I needed you, and you saved us.”

She shook her head. “Nope. That’s not it. I’ve still got the ache in my big toe, so it’s still to come.”

“But Mrs. Callahan,” Owen began.

Granny cut him off. “You can call me Granny.”

He blinked and blushed slightly. “But Granny, the thing is, we’re going to be working in a restricted area that’s very dangerous for anyone with magical powers. You can’t go in there. And by that I mean you physically wouldn’t be able to get in that area. It has nothing to do with wanting you there or giving you permission. We won’t be there long, and I need Katie’s help. Inside this building, nothing will happen to her.”

“And you can hang out with Merlin,” I added. “We need you to tell him what just happened to us. Maybe you could help figure out who in the company is working for the other side.”

She glared back and forth between us for a long time, then nodded and said, “Well, alrighty then. I’ll report to Merlin, and you two run along and do your thing.” She waved a warning finger at us. “But don’t take too long because I’ll have to come looking for you.” Then she turned and told the gargoyles, “Gentlemen, let’s go.”

With my grandmother temporarily out of our hair, Owen and I entered the building and ran down the stairs to the basement workroom. It seemed like days had passed since I’d brought Owen breakfast that morning. The coffee Thermos still sat there in the outer room, and I emptied the contents into a cup. The coffee was a drinkable temperature, though perhaps not as hot as I preferred. Under the circumstances, I wasn’t going to complain about the temperature of my caffeine. I added a good dose of sugar and drank half the cup in one gulp before handing it to Owen. “Here, the sugar and caffeine will help after all that excitement,” I said.

He obediently drained the cup, then abruptly hurled it across the room so that it bounced off the wall and then shattered on the floor. Bright spots blazed on his cheeks as he fought to get control of himself. “Did that help?” I asked him.

“Not so much.” The red patches on his face faded, to be replaced by a pink flush that rose from his collar to his hairline. “I was so helpless out there. We would have died if it hadn’t been for a little old lady with her folk magic. I had to teach someone else to do a spell because I couldn’t work it myself.”

I knew there was nothing I could say to make it better, so I didn’t try. Instead, I said calmly, “It’s about time.”

“For what?”

“For you to admit that this sucks. You’ve been playing Pollyanna all along, acting like you’d practically planned to end up this way, and wasn’t it great that losing your powers meant you got to do all this awesome research and kept the magical world from seeing you as a threat. I knew that couldn’t be real. I mean, really, you were the most powerful wizard of your generation, and you lost all trace of magic. It’s awful. It’s like losing your eyesight, or an arm or a leg.”