No Quest For The Wicked

And then she woke with a start. At first I thought she’d realized she’d missed her stop, but then she turned to look at me with cold, glittering eyes. She leveraged herself to her feet, leaning heavily on her metal cane, and made her way to me. Without warning, she lifted the cane and whacked me across the shoulder with it.

“Ow!” I cried in protest. Owen moved to intervene, but I pushed him back. The last thing we needed was for him to be seen fighting an elderly woman.

The woman pulled back the cane for another try, but one of the hoodie crew rushed over and grabbed it. “Yo, lady, that’s not cool,” he said. Then he turned to the old man. “Can’t you make your woman stop this?”

The woman struggled with him over the cane, and Owen and I slid the length of the bench to avoid the scuffle. The woman was now yelling at the top of her lungs.

The cop stirred himself to get up, head our way, and ask, “What’s the problem here?”

“This lady went crazy and started hitting that girl over there,” the young man said, pointing at me. I rubbed my sore shoulder as the cop turned to look, and then I groaned when that familiar gleam came into his eyes. He advanced toward me, his hand going to his weapon. I clutched Owen’s hand, unsure what I could do. I doubted that claiming the cop was under supernatural influence would help if I got arrested for attacking a police officer.

The train slowed as it approached a station, and the cop swayed to keep his balance. As soon as the train stopped, Owen jumped up, pulling me with him, and we bolted through the still-opening doors and onto the platform. While he steered us through the station, I looked back for followers. I didn’t see the cop, and I wasn’t worried about the old lady keeping up with us.

“I think we’re clear,” I told Owen. “Where are we?”

“Grand Central. Keep moving. We aren’t clear as long as we’re around people.”

“We’re in Manhattan! We can’t get away from people.”

“I have a plan.”

“Yeah?” I asked with some trepidation. He was leading us to the subway exit into the main railway terminal, and I was afraid of what his plan might be.

“Who knows the tunnels around here better than I do?”

“The people who work in them?”

“Possibly, but I may even know a few they don’t, and I’ve got a few tricks.”

I came to a stop, bracing myself to force him to stop, too. “I can see where this is going, and I don’t think it’s such a great idea. There are dragons there!”

“Not anymore. Remember, we sent them all to a sanctuary. Those tunnels make a great hiding place. We can hide out until that box gets to us.”

“Are you certain about the dragons?” I asked. “Do you know for sure that you got every last one?”

“I can’t guarantee it, but all the ones I knew were accounted for.”

“That’s what makes me nervous. If there were any you didn’t know, then they would be wild, and you don’t have the power to tame them anymore.”

A voice rang out behind me, shouting, “Give me my brooch!”

With a sick dread of what I was sure I’d see, I turned to see Mimi plowing through the sparse late-night crowds in the station. Her eyes were wild, like a creature beyond reason. “I think I’ve seen this horror movie,” I muttered as Owen gave my arm a tug and started us running for the turnstiles at the station exit. I gave up resisting. A dragon that might or might not be there was preferable to having my power-crazed former boss hot on our heels.

We made it out of the subway station and up into the terminal itself, with Mimi behind us every step of the way. We ran across the concourse, down to the food court and then up again by another stairway, then back down again on the other end. The terminal wasn’t entirely deserted, but it was late enough that there weren’t too many people and there were fewer trains. When we seemed to have lost Mimi for a moment, we ran around a plastic “platform closed” barrier and down an empty platform. This part made me nervous, since we didn’t have magic to hide us from station officials.

At the end of the platform, we scrambled down, avoiding the tracks, and headed deeper into the tunnel until we reached a break in the wall that led into another chamber. Mimi was nowhere in sight, so it was with great relief that I followed Owen through the gap and into a pitch-black cavern.

“Are you sure about the dragons?” I asked Owen. This chamber certainly smelled like dragons. It reeked of sulfur and charred wood.

Instead of answering me, Owen asked, “Do you still have that little flashlight in your purse?”