No Quest For The Wicked - Page 72/105

“How are you holding up?” Owen asked him. “Will I need the dart anytime soon?”

“I won’t lie to you and say that I don’t want that thing, but I can fight it. I’m getting some pretty vivid mental images of what I could do if I had it, and I think it might be whispering to me.”

“Ew!” I said with a wince, then asked, “What’s it saying?”

“It’s hard to describe. Picture that little cartoon devil that sits on your shoulder. It’s like that, not so much words as ideas, playing to all my deepest desires.”

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t share any details,” Owen said, and I felt him shudder. “I heard way too much about your deepest desires when we were in high school.”

“Not those deepest desires. Well, okay, maybe a few, but only because power does tend to draw beautiful women. I have to admit, it paints a really pretty mental picture.”

“It whispers to me, too, but I am choosing not to listen.” Earl said. “I am focused on my aim to keep Sylvester from having it.”

“And I already told you I don’t care much for that kind of power,” Granny said. “I’ve got a mission of my own.”

“Do you think this is the danger you predicted?” I asked. “Me in possession of this horrible thing that draws people to it and makes them thirst for power, but not getting the magical protection it gives other people?”

“No, don’t think so.”

“There’s something worse than this?” I turned to Owen. “How much longer should we have to wait?”

Owen checked the luminous dial of his watch. “I know it’s hard to believe, but it hasn’t been that long. We still have almost an hour, and that was only an estimate.”

“Then how long do you think we can hole up here before someone finds us?”

“That’ll depend …” Rod started to say before a soft rustling sound in the grass distracted him. The sound grew louder, and soon a faint glow spread out on the ground around the rock where Owen and I sat. I pulled my legs up and then climbed to stand on the rock. Owen joined me, his arm securely around me as we watched the glow build. Rod and Earl jumped onto nearby rocks, but Granny stood her ground. Oddly, the glow kept a safe distance from her.

“What kind of spell is this?” I asked frantically as the glow surrounded our rock.

“I don’t know!” Owen said. “I don’t recognize it.”

“A seeking spell, maybe?” Rod asked. “Was there anything like it in your medieval book?”

“No, nothing like this. I don’t think it’s the puritans trying to find the brooch.”

“It’s not a spell,” Granny said.

Now I could see that the glow wasn’t an unbroken mass. It was made up of lots of tiny little lights, and each of those little lights was a creature. I’d seen beings like this, back home, when we’d enlisted the local magical folk to help us fight the bad guys. They were the nature spirits, what my grandmother called the wee folk, but I hadn’t realized there were any in New York. Yet, here they were.

And they were all kneeling at the base of my rock.

A whispering sound rose into the air, like the sound a soft breeze makes when it blows through pine trees. After listening for a while, I was able to discern words. “Hail to thee, our queen!” they said over and over again as they bowed.

“You’ve got a fan club,” Rod quipped.

“They must have been drawn by the Eye,” Owen said, more seriously. “It seems to be an instinctive response. Small creatures like this can’t help but respond to power.”

“Will they try to take it away from me?” I asked, my flesh crawling as I imagined these things swarming over me to get to the brooch in my pocket. I thought that might be even more unpleasant than being tackled by Mimi.

“I don’t think so,” Owen said. “They’re probably just basking in the proximity of the great power.”

“It’s still freaky,” I said. “You’re sure they’re not dangerous?”

“Well, there is the possibility that they may draw the attention of other magical things,” Owen said. “They’ve pretty much created a big, glowing ‘Hey, over here!’ sign that’s visible from the air.”

I instinctively looked up for signs of the zombie gargoyles. “Would it be rude to make them go away?”

“Try it. They think you’re their queen.”