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“The guy by the sale books?”
“Yeah, he’s been there at least since outside the Astor Place station.”
“Okay, you wait here. I’ll lead him out.”
I eyed her up and down. The hair was close to the right color, and she was about my height, but my follower would have to be really unobservant to mistake her for me.
“Don’t worry, there’s a spell on me,” she said, noting my skeptical expression. “To him, I’ll look like you. But we need to fix you, just in case. First, let’s trade coats.” Mine was khaki and hers was black, so that alone changed our appearance. She pulled a floppy knitted cap out of her bag and shoved it onto my head, then added a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. “There. You no longer look like the person he’s been tailing. I suspect you know where to meet Owen.”
“I have a good idea.” I handed her my shopping bags, and she handed me her bag. “Okay, let’s see if this works.”
I lurked behind the bookcases, watching as Marcia walked right past the follower to the store exit. He let her get out the door before going after her. I looked around for any other follower I might not have noticed, but only the one guy had moved. I let them get out of sight before leaving the store and going down to the train platforms.
It was a little riskier getting to the secret passages at this time of day because there were so many people. On the other hand, that made it easier to disappear into a crowd. When I felt someone take my arm and turned to see Owen, I suspected we were going to literally disappear.
As soon as the train at the platform departed, we jumped down, ran into the tunnel, and crawled through a space in the wall. “Aren’t there dragons here?” I asked. The smell of sulfur was pretty strong.
“I got them all to better homes.”
“Yeah, and that’s what you said the last time.”
“Really, I went back and took care of it.”
“No others have gotten in since then?”
“I can’t entirely guarantee that, but you know I know how to deal with them.”
I couldn’t believe that we were wasting our precious time together bickering about dragons, but both of us were on edge. “I got your beacon. At least, that’s what I think it was,” I said.
“Good. I figured you’d know to play along. I take it you didn’t set off any alarms.”
“Not that I know of. Unless it was a silent alarm and that’s why I’m being followed.”
“Where did you leave it?”
“In a potted plant in Roger’s office. I couldn’t think of what else to do with it.”
“That’s perfect.”
“You’re not going to do something stupid like beam yourself straight into his office, are you?”
If the light in there had been better, I was sure I’d see him turning red. As it was, I imagined I could feel a little burst of heat off his face. “The combination of that and the spell for getting to the top office could let us get in and take them all down.”
“You don’t think he’s warded against his own spell?”
“You said he was arrogant. Do you think he even suspects that we know about his spell?”
“Actually, he tried to beam himself over to MSI this afternoon, and it failed because he ran up against your wards, so he at least knows that you know enough to ward against it. I’m not sure he suspects a counterattack, but is a commando raid really the best way to handle things?”
“What else did you have in mind? Remember, we’re not the FBI taking down the mob, where we have to find grounds for charges that will stand up in court. We just need to stop them.”
“But we need to stop them for good. You haven’t seen the size of this organization. If you take out the top, someone else will rise to fill the gap.”
“Not
if we also take out the ways they have power over others.”
I sighed. “Maybe you’re right, and I guess whatever plan you can carry out soon is your best bet, because the boss was talking about going after MSI. They want to get rid of Merlin, and they’ve got someone on the Council they think they can install to make MSI their company again.”
