No Quest For The Wicked

Out of this tangle of people, creatures, and plants came Rod, supporting Owen. Rushing to meet them, I let out a little sob of relief at seeing Owen without any bullet holes. I draped Owen’s arm around my shoulder to support him.

“You two should get out of here while we’ve got them distracted,” Rod said. He called over one of the gargoyles to escort us, and we hurried toward the edge of the park, away from the fighting. We didn’t get very far, though, because even in the middle of a magical battle, our enemies sensed the departure of the Eye and came after us.

“Persistent, aren’t they?” Owen remarked. He sounded beyond his usual crisis cool, and I wondered if maybe he was growing giddy from pain and loss of blood.

“Well, they are fanatics. They’re not known for giving up easily,” I replied.

MSI gargoyles swooped in to shield us, and we dove for cover as bullets ricocheted off stone. I hoped the gunshots didn’t hurt the gargoyles. If bullets chipped them, did the wounds heal?

Granny and Rod joined us, Granny still directing plants and magical creatures to do what they could against the puritans. “I hate to say this, sweetie,” she said to me, “but I’m not sure you’re up to this.”

“What do you mean?” I asked indignantly.

“You’re helpless against these people, with no magic to protect you. You may not be the best bearer of the brooch.”

I placed a protective hand in my pocket, feeling the reassuring presence of the knotted gold with the smooth stone in the middle. “But I can’t do anything with it other than keep it safe. I can’t say the same about you.”

“It’s not talking to me,” she said, her voice sharp with exasperation. “I wouldn’t use it. I’d just be able to protect it because there’d be nothing they could do to me to take it. You’d be able to get it back when you needed to.”

I shook my head. “Granny, no. A magical immune needs to keep it because we’re the only ones who can be trusted with it.”

“Are you saying you don’t trust your own grandmother?”

“I’m saying I don’t trust anyone where this thing is involved.”

“It sounds to me like it’s working on you,” she said, frowning in concern at me. “Why are you so reluctant to hand it over to me, even though that would save your life and keep it out of the hands of the enemy?”

“It can’t work on me,” I protested. “It’s telling you to say these things, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be silly. It’s not affecting me.” But her eyes glittered with desire as she approached me, and I knew she’d succumbed, too.

She was so focused on the stone that she wasn’t fighting the puritans. Two of them slipped past her and headed toward me. Rod and Owen scuffled with them, but one of the puritans grabbed me.

I struggled against him, but he must have had a younger sister because he knew all my tricks. Then an ice-cold voice said, “Let her go.”

I looked up and found myself looking down the barrel of a gun, but the gun was pointed just above my head at my captor, and it was held by Owen, who must have won his scuffle and come out with a prize.

He held the gun steadily, his eyes narrowed in concentration. Even when he’d been an extraordinarily powerful wizard, Owen had been one of the most gentle people I’d ever known. He was the kind of guy who took in stray kittens, for crying out loud. I wasn’t sure I could imagine him pulling the trigger, but if I didn’t know him and if I’d seen that look in his eyes, I’d have taken him seriously.

My captor did. He released me, and I hurried to Owen’s side. “Now, back away,” Owen ordered. The man hesitated, and Owen’s voice sharpened. “I said, move!”

“He might have made a good hostage,” I whispered as the man backed away, but Owen shook his head.

“No, it’s all about the cause. They’d probably shoot their own guys if they had to.”

“Could you shoot?”

He didn’t answer, and his gun didn’t waver as we slowly backed away from the puritans. “Sam, take their weapons,” he ordered. The gargoyles stopped dive-bombing and instead snatched the guns out of the hands of our enemies.

“Do you know what you’re doing, son?” the mad professor asked, friendly again. Sam confiscated his weapon and brought it to me. I hefted its unfamiliar weight in my hands. I’d fired air rifles and even a small shotgun, but I wasn’t sure about aiming a handgun at a human being, no matter how threatening or deranged he was. I braced the gun in both hands, glaring down the barrel at our enemies.