AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Thank you,” Owen said, then he took my arm and led me out of the club. I shivered as I looked at the people who’d fallen asleep in mid-squabble. If being in the same room with the thing made people that crazy, it wouldn’t be easy to get it away from the future Mrs. Martin.
I noticed that Owen was bleeding from a cut on his forehead and asked, “Are you okay?”
He touched the cut, then frowned at the bloody fingertips he brought back. “I think so. I just had a bit of a Hitchcock moment back there with that airplane.”
“You’ve seen North by Northwest, but not Breakfast at Tiffany’s?”
“It had spies in it! That’s different.”
We joined the others outside, and I quickly explained what I’d learned from Martin, then Owen told them about the elves.
Sam snorted. “I don’t trust elves.”
“Really?” I asked. “We have lots of elves at MSI.”
“Oh, I trust them. But these guys work for the Elf Lord, and he’s a real piece of work. You can’t believe a thing his people say. It may be the truth, but it’s all spun up in riddle and different meanings for words, and stuff like that, so they can tell the absolute truth and still be dishonest.”
While Sam ranted, Owen called the office to update Merlin. “They’ll try to track down the fiancée,” he said when he finished his call.
“What should we do?” I asked.
With a shrug, he said, “We may as well go back to the office and help. There’s not much else we can do until we have a target.”
“We’ll keep an eye on the elves while you kids check in with the boss,” Sam said. “I wanna make sure they don’t get up to no funny business.”
As we boarded the magic carpet, I glanced back at the club, thinking I’d seen something out of the corner of my eye. I hadn’t counted the number of jockeys along the front of the building on my way inside, but it seemed like there were more of them now. And if I wasn’t mistaken, one of them had a beard.
That was kind of weird, but the way this day was going, it only came in at about a four on a weirdness scale of one to ten. I was about to say something to Owen when I noticed something even more alarming, a man wearing a trenchcoat that was entirely too heavy for the weather, with a hat pulled low over his eyes. The carpet was already rising, so by the time I got Owen’s attention to point the man out, we’d reached the end of the block.
“It’s probably just one of my usual followers,” Owen said with a shrug. “They want to make sure I’m not up to anything evil. I’m getting used to it.”
“But if they find out about the Eye and learn it was there, they’ll know you were after it.”
“I don’t intend to do anything with it that would give them a reason to worry. In fact, maybe it’s better that I have official witnesses along the way. Then nobody can accuse me of anything.” I would have expected him to say something like that with bitterness, but he was remarkably cool about it, if perhaps a bit weary.
Even though the restaurant was well out of sight by this time, I couldn’t help glancing back over my shoulder to see if we were still being watched.
Chapter Four
Much to my horror, the flying carpet didn’t let us off at ground level when we reached MSI headquarters. Instead, it stopped and hovered in front of the open window of Merlin’s tower office. It was bad enough getting off one of those things when it was a few feet off the ground. Stepping from the carpet to a window ten stories up in the air was sure to give me nightmares for the rest of my life. Rod had the longest legs, so he made the jump into the building and then helped Owen and me across the terrifying gap. Once inside, I clung to Rod until I convinced myself that I really did have a solid floor under my feet. I’d never had a bad fear of heights, but if I had to travel by flying carpet too many more times, I thought I might develop one.
A tray of sandwiches on the conference table reminded me that it was lunchtime. I decided to wait until my stomach made it the rest of the way downtown before I tried to eat. Owen also looked a little green, but Rod leaned over and grabbed a sandwich and took a big bite before he picked up a plate.
Minerva Felps then burst into the office, making another dramatic entrance. “Unfortunately, engagements aren’t a matter of public record, so we can’t just get the documents from the courthouse, and not everyone gets a write-up in the Times,” she said. “We’re digging, though. I’ve got my people reading his cards, and then the hackers are looking for wedding registries and cross-referencing that with any galas happening tonight. Oh, and Katie? Your roommate’s looking for you—the glamorous one.”
No sooner had she left with Rod to do further research than Trix, Merlin’s fairy receptionist, came in and said, “Katie, Perdita called and said Gemma was looking for you. She’s at work.”
While Merlin and Owen discussed possible ways to destroy the Eye, I used Merlin’s desk phone to call Gemma. “Wow, you’ve been out of the office all morning,” she said when she answered.
“I’m on a quest.”
“In your line of work, I have a feeling I should take that literally.”
“You should. What’s up?”
“I checked the voice mail at home, and there was a call saying you need to pick up your grandmother at Penn Station.”
“What?”
