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“Is this part of your hate club?” I whispered to Owen. “Are they trying to goad you into fighting them so they can say you’re evil?”
“There’s no telling,” he whispered wearily. Frowning, he added, “I think they’re elves. Their magic feels elven.”
“So I was right, those are illusions!”
“Good work.”
“Tell Rod. I want credit.”
One of our would-be attackers lunged toward us with his knife, but didn’t come close enough to do any harm. “Eek,” I said so he wouldn’t feel bad about not being scary enough.
And then it was as though someone had sent them a signal, and they all charged forward. This time, it looked like their aim was to do more than scare us. “Run!” Owen urged, and we ran through a gap they opened when they attacked.
A loud crack of lightning stopped us in our tracks. I realized it wasn’t generated by our attackers when they pulled back, too. Then a small figure came out of the haze of smoke lingering from the lightning and rapped a cane on the ground. “It’s dinnertime,” Granny said in a voice that wouldn’t accept arguing. She’d heard me! We hurried to her side.
At the same time, a trio of gargoyles swooped down from the tops of nearby buildings, two men dressed all in black appeared as though from thin air, and a bicycle messenger rounded the corner at full tilt, heading straight for the street gang. The attackers turned to run, but the biker was on their tail and the gargoyles chased them down from above. The men in black soon joined in the scuffle.
“What in the devil is going on?” Granny demanded of Owen and me.
“That’s what I want to know,” Owen said, moving toward the altercation. Granny and I followed him.
“You okay, kids?” Sam asked as he left the scrum and landed on top of a sign near us.
“Was this what you were warning us about?” I asked him, ignoring his question. “Did you know we were going to be attacked? Were we bait for some kind of sting?”
The men in black had bound the wrists of two of the elven gang members, and the bicycle messenger was protesting loudly. Hearing this, Sam left us, shouting, “Hey, this is our collar! It’s my sting! You just happened to be here ’cause you’re spyin’ on Palmer, here.”
One of the men in black replied, “This falls into Council jurisdiction.”
Sam snorted. “Yeah, you leave us to do all the dirty work on our own most of the time, but then when you feel like it, it’s suddenly your jurisdiction.”
“We’re not under the jurisdiction of any of you,” one of the captives protested. “We answer only to the Elf Lord.”
Granny tapped me on the arm. “While those idiots fight it out, let’s get home. Dinner’s getting cold, and there’s no point in us standing around. You did your part by drawing them out, apparently.”
The MSI security team and the Council surveillance team didn’t seem to notice us leaving, they were so caught up in their argument. I figured if they needed us, they knew where to look. It was a relief to get safely inside Owen’s heavily warded home and sit down to my grandmother’s homemade pot roast with all the trimmings.
“What was all that about?” I asked after eating enough to mollify Granny. “Sam seemed to know it was coming.”
“That’s what it looked like,” Owen agreed. “I don’t think the Council guys were supposed to be in on it, though.”
“And elves?”
“Maybe they think I’ve got that brooch or they think I destroyed it and they’re out for revenge. I understand there are rumors all over town about what happened to it.”
“Eat!” Granny ordered, pointing her fork at his nearly full plate.
“I destroyed the brooch,” I said. “Maybe I should put out a press release.”
“It’s probably best that not too many people know what really happened,” Owen said, then he noticed Granny’s glare and dutifully put a bite of roast in his mouth.
“I wonder what Sam’s plan was if you hadn’t shown up, Granny,” I said. “I guess you got my message just in time—you did get my message?”
“Loud and clear. But what are you people teaching her?” she demanded of Owen. “That was the worst mental call for help I’ve ever heard.”
“It worked!” I protested.
“We actually haven’t taught her that at all,” Owen said with a proud smile at me. “She must have figured that out for herself.”
