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“Ex-excuse me?” he stammered.
“Oh, don’t you try to play innocent with me,” she snarled, stalking toward him. She pointed at him with her left hand while her right hand fondled the brooch in her pocket. Owen and I took a big step backward to get out of her path. “It was so very convenient when my last assistant just happened to quit without notice and you just happened to be there to take the job.” Her voice had lost the shrill madness of a moment before, and now she seemed to be channeling the Eye again.
“But it was all a setup, wasn’t it?” she continued, now standing barely a foot away from the minion. Even if he had something to keep him from being affected by the Eye, he still shrank from Mimi’s power over him. “You were put in position to sabotage me, weren’t you? Who are you working for? Tell me!”
He sputtered and stammered, then finally blurted, “It’s not about you. It’s about a higher cause. You are merely the vessel to bring about a return to purity!” Then he clamped his lips shut and shuddered.
Yet again, Mimi was stunned speechless. This had to be a new single-day record. She probably would have been less surprised if he’d admitted that he’d been sent by a conspiracy of other disease-fighting groups to ruin her event. I wasn’t sure what shocked her more, the indication that he was some kind of fanatic using her event to further his cause or the assertion that it wasn’t all about her. The latter was a totally foreign concept for her. I thought we might have to explain it.
As if reading my thoughts, she whispered, “It’s not about me? Are you sure? Because I do have enemies.”
“Lady, we don’t even know who you are,” he said, sounding less enthralled. “You’re just convenient.”
That was the worst possible insult anyone could ever give Mimi. She pulled herself together, clutched the brooch in her pocket, then straightened her spine and looked down her nose at him. I halfway expected her to shout, “Off with your head!” but instead she merely said, “You’re fired! Get out of here, now, or I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.” Her voice rang with the power of the Eye.
His fanaticism for his cause warred with the magical compulsion of the Eye as he struggled between trying to stay and trying to leave. The result was an odd quivering as he shifted his weight back and forth between his feet and twitched his shoulders.
“Well, go on!” she said with a haughty wave. “Your cologne is making my eyes water. God, but that stuff is vile, and practice a little moderation. You don’t have to bathe in it.” For a moment, I felt kind of bad for the guy, since the cologne wasn’t his fault. That lasted about two seconds. After all, I’d sprayed him in self-defense.
The room had fallen totally silent while Mimi had her outburst, and all the workers turned to watch the minion leave. Mimi noticed everyone staring and shouted, “Well, what are you all looking at? Back to work! The guests will start arriving in less than an hour, and we’re nowhere near ready. The tables still aren’t set, the flowers aren’t done, the bandleader is unconscious, and the lighting is all wrong. This is a disaster!”
Mimi’s moment of crazy made her momentarily forget about us. When she rushed off to supervise the setting of the tables, Owen and I regrouped with Granny.
“So, we’re down one elf lord and one puritan,” I said. “That should make this a little easier.”
“But you heard her, we’ve got less than an hour before the guests are here,” Owen said, “and she’s going to be especially guarded from now on.”
“You know, at this point, I’m not sure anyone would so much as blink if one of us tackled her and took it away from her. They’d probably cheer for us.”
“Okay, then. Let’s do that.”
I turned to stare at him in shock. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. I’m tired of this. We’ve tried everything else. I don’t like her. And I’m sure you’d enjoy it.”
“Oh, yeah,” I sighed. “I spent a year dreaming about the chance to do something like this. Dreams do come true!”
All this time, Granny had been watching Mimi across the room. Actually, I wasn’t sure if she was watching Mimi or tracking the Eye. “How are you holding up?” I asked her.
“I could use a drink, but the bartender isn’t set up yet.”
“I meant, are you feeling any strong thirsts for power, or anything like that?”
“Honey, I don’t know what I’d do with real power at my age. Ruling the world would take too much energy. I’d miss all my TV shows.”
“You managed some control over Mimi earlier,” Owen said. “Do you think you could do it again? We just need to distract her enough to get her off guard.”
She snorted. “Piece of cake. Her mind’s pretty weak. I meant what I said about her doing all this bossing people around because she doesn’t have real power. The moment someone truly powerful comes along, she’ll hand over that brooch before she knows what she’s doing, and she’ll be the first one to sign up to be his flunky.”
“I should have had you come visit me when I worked for her,” I said wistfully. I rolled up my sleeves to match Owen’s, then said, “Let’s do this.”
Together we advanced on Mimi, who was back to criticizing the ice sculpture. We had to step around Sylvester’s prone body, which the elves had left where it fell. Lyle and the other elves had their heads together in a corner, probably hashing out their own plan. Earl kept trying to join the group, only to be shoved out.
We’d just passed Sylvester when Thor emerged from under the table where Owen had shoved him. He still looked a little wobbly and reeled as he walked. If Granny hadn’t been certain that the bartenders hadn’t set up yet, I’d have suspected him of drinking under that table. He staggered away from the table, dragging the tablecloth with him and sending the centerpiece crashing to the floor.
The noise got Mimi’s attention, foiling our plan, but that wasn’t the most immediate concern. Thor had seen his enemy lying helpless on the ground and was heading straight there—well, as straight as he could stagger—with his battleaxe in hand.
“No, you don’t,” Owen said, catching him by the collar of his jacket and taking the axe away from him.
