No Quest For The Wicked

Sam met us on the sidewalk outside the station. “I got a full briefing from the boss, and he sent me to make sure you get there okay. I got nothin’ against the Middle Ages, seein’ as how that was when I was made, but lemme tell ya, it’s nothin’ to get nostalgic for, magic or not. Anyone who wants to bring back those times didn’t actually live in ’em. And anyone who wants to turn the Eye loose on the world to make the boss look bad is clearly cuckoo.”

“They’ll want to keep us away from the museum, at any cost,” Owen said.

“Don’t worry, kiddo. I’ll be with you.”

That made me feel a little better, but fanatics willing to kill for their beliefs wouldn’t be easy to stop. What would they do to keep us out of the museum?

Owen’s phone rang, and after he answered it, he put it on speaker and held it out so we could all hear. “We’re in the museum, and it’s closed,” Rod reported. “The event staff are coming in. They’re setting up in the indoor courtyard of the American wing. So far, it’s mostly the heavy lifting stuff—setting up tables and chairs and the like.”

“Any sign of Mimi?” I asked. “She’d usually be micromanaging.”

“She’s here, but I haven’t been able to get close enough to tell if she has the brooch. She’s always surrounded by flunkies. She does seem to be on a power trip, though. She’s made them move each of the tables about a dozen times, usually by no more than an inch each time, and it looks to me like they end up right where they were to begin with.”

“That’s not the Eye,” I said. “That’s normal Mimi. Has she yelled while doing it?”

“No. She’s actually been pretty apologetic about it.”

“Then that’s nicer than normal Mimi.” I looked up at Owen. “Is it possible that this thing has an opposite effect on someone who’s already evil and power hungry and turns them nice and meek?”

“We can only hope,” Owen said. Into the phone he added, “We’re almost there. Be careful.” As he put his phone back in his pocket, he glanced at Granny, and then stepped out to the curb to hail a cab. “We’ll be running around enough tonight. We may as well stay fresh,” he explained.

“And it’ll be harder to tail you in a cab,” Sam said approvingly.

Owen wasn’t quite as efficient in getting a cab without magic as he’d been with it, but one stopped soon enough, and we piled into the backseat. A glance through the rear window showed Sam following us by air but no other followers. The ride was short, and Owen tipped the driver extra to make up for the low fare.

As we got out in front of the museum, I saw that a crew was setting up a red carpet and platforms for photographers on the main entrance stairs. Meanwhile, groups of people dressed in black skirts or pants and white shirts converged on the ground-floor entrance, where a man stood at the door, checking names and IDs against a list on a clipboard.

“Let’s find another way in,” I said.

“Give me a second, sweetheart,” Sam said. “I’ll see what I can find. There aren’t too many buildings that a good gargoyle can’t find a way into.”

“Yeah, but remember that we can’t fly.”

“I’ll find a door I can open for you.”

We kept walking slowly, trying to give the impression of a couple taking an early-evening stroll by the park with an elderly grandmother. Owen’s phone rang, and he had a brief conversation with Sam. I still wondered how the gargoyle used a phone. I’d never seen him with one and he didn’t have pockets, yet we were always talking to him on the phone. Maybe he had a magical headset. The magical puritans probably wouldn’t approve. Owen finished the call and said, “He thinks he can get us in through the parking garage.”

We went around to the side of the building, following the driveway. Sam met us just outside the parking garage and flew alongside us as we went past the entry gates. “As far as I can tell, the coast is clear this way,” he said. That didn’t reassure me as much as I would have liked. There were too many places for danger to lurk, and as we made our way to the museum entrance, every little sound made me jump in anticipation of an attack.

It turned out that I was sorely lacking in imagination.

We reached the doors that led from the parking garage into the museum, but just as Sam went to magically unlock them, a tangle of vines burst out of the concrete floor, totally obscuring the doorway. “That wasn’t one of the spells I found,” Owen said with a frown, sounding insulted.