No Quest For The Wicked

“I wasn’t the one who owed you money,” Earl said. He hesitated, then added, “Sylvester didn’t suspect anything about me, did he?”

“I don’t think he noticed you were gone.”

“What about Sam?” Owen asked.

“The gargoyle said he would keep an eye on things from the air and alert you to any potential problems.”

“He didn’t warn us about the zombie gargoyle attack,” I said as a sick feeling developed in my stomach. “Do you think he’s okay?”

Owen got out his phone and hit the speed dial key, then gave an audible sigh of relief when Sam answered. He updated Sam, put his phone back in his pocket, then reported, “There’s a commotion at the museum. He thinks he saw Mimi running away. He tried to follow, but lost her in the park.”

I jumped to my feet. “Mimi’s on the loose? Then we’d better go. I’ve seen what this thing does to people who’ve had it only a little while. She was carrying it around all evening. She’ll kill me if she catches me.”

But she’d have had to get in line. Suddenly it seemed as though the entire forest around us had come to life, and this time it wasn’t tiny little people. These were full-size, and they were closing in on us.

I knew there were regular fairies who hung out in the park, as well as gnomes and other magical creatures. There was even the occasional enchanted prince turned into a frog—Gemma was currently dating one of them. I just hadn’t ever run into so many of them, all at once, or with such a sense of hostility about them.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” Earl said softly, and then he started singing. There was answering elfsong from within the circle, and the sense of hostility faded.

“Don’t you work for the Elf Lord?” a voice asked.

“I work for the free elves, but that work takes me into the Elf Lord’s court,” Earl replied.

“You have the Knot in your possession,” another voice from the circle said. “As well as something more.”

“We are guardians of the Knot and must keep it safe,” Earl said. More softly, he said to our little group, “We’d better get out of the park as soon as possible because these people know what the brooch is and what they could do with it.”

“But Mimi’s coming!” I hissed.

“Mimi doesn’t have magical powers.” Raising his voice again, he said, “Now we must take our leave.” He began walking forward, motioning us to go with him. The whole way, he hummed under his breath. There were answering hums as the circle parted to allow us to leave. They didn’t try to stop us, but they did fall into step behind us, drawn inexorably to the brooch.

“They’re still there, Earl,” I whispered.

“Yeah, and that’s why I said we have to get out of the park. I don’t think they’ll follow us into the city.”

“But the power-hungry people are in the city!” I protested.

“They don’t have magic. Trust me, you don’t want these people coming after you.”

“I’m immune to magic.”

“But they may be able to channel the brooch just from being near you, the way Granny did.”

“I bet I could get rid of them,” Granny muttered.

“Please don’t, Granny,” Earl said, a pleading tone in his voice. “Even as powerful as you are, you couldn’t take on all of them at once.”

We finally came out of the lower end of the Ramble, onto Bow Bridge. As I recalled, it was cast iron. “Isn’t iron supposed to be bad for fairies?” I asked.

“That’s just folklore, stories people tell to make themselves feel safe,” Earl said. He walked easily across the bridge, and so did the weird procession following us. We were heading into a more civilized part of the park, but I didn’t know how civilized things would have to get before we lost our entourage.

Once we were across the bridge, we followed the path as it skirted the edge of the lake. It came out at Bethesda Terrace, and then we climbed the stairs to the street. We’d lost a few of our followers, but there were still enough to make the back of my neck twitch. Even though I couldn’t draw power from it the way Mimi had, I put my hand in my pocket to make sure the brooch was still secure.

I was so worried about what was behind us that it took me by complete surprise when something jumped out in front of us, shouting, “I want it now!”

Chapter Fifteen

At first I thought it was yet another one of the park’s wild inhabitants. The figure that jumped out at us was dirty and disheveled, wearing ragged clothes covered in leaves, and it waved a small tree branch over its head. In fact, it looked wilder than any of the beings who’d followed me through the park. Then I realized it was Sylvester.