No Quest For The Wicked

But because we were apparently not allowed to do anything the easy way, the box didn’t magically appear. Raphael turned and came at us. “I could use the Eye to bring about justice,” he said softly, his eyes boring into me.

Owen and I backed away from him. “Okay, maybe I should have run,” I said. “Now what?”

Owen didn’t get a chance to answer because Raphael was on me, moving so quickly I couldn’t jump out of the way. I lashed out with my feet and elbows, but it didn’t help. He got his hand into my pocket and came out with a brooch, then raised it over his head in triumph.

“Oh no, not again,” I moaned.

“This time, I don’t think it’s such a good idea to let someone else have it,” Owen muttered.

Then Raphael lowered his hands to peer suspiciously at the brooch. He must not have got the real one, and while he was still figuring that out, we made a run for it.

Raphael didn’t notice us escaping, but the puritans did. They came after us, and Raphael was too distracted by trying to channel the brooch to maintain his wards. We were soon surrounded.

“Katie, give me the brooch and get out of here,” Owen urged.

“Are you insane?” I protested. “For one thing, they’d kill you, and for another, that would be playing into that psycho’s hands. You’d prove him right if he thinks you’re taking the Eye.”

Raphael gave a cry of agony. At first I thought it was because he’d realized that he had a fake brooch, but then he grasped his head with his hands, like he was in pain. “No!” he cried. “I have evil in me! I should have resisted temptation.” He threw the fake brooch on the ground. Most of the puritans dove after it, scuffling with each other as they fought to get to it first. The mad professor and a few others weren’t fooled. They kept my arms pinned. Owen and I struggled, but we were both hurt and exhausted and they were crazed with power lust.

Suddenly, my arms were free, though I kept swinging them for a few more seconds before it dawned on me that I’d been released. Raphael stood behind the puritans, holding his arms out and chanting something that seemed to have frozen our assailants.

“Thanks!” I panted.

“I will resist!” he said. I wasn’t sure whom he was addressing. Probably himself, I thought. His hair was damp with sweat, and his face showed the strain he was under.

But his eyes had that odd gleam in them. He blinked it away a few times, but the lure of the Eye was too strong. He lowered his arms and approached me. Owen took my arm, and together we backed away, down the platform. The spell broken, the puritans were moving in on us, as well.

We were almost at the end of the platform, and I could have sworn I heard a distant shrill voice from somewhere down the tunnel shouting, “Where’s my brooch?”

And then they were all on us. “Go! Into the tunnels!” Owen shouted as the puritans swarmed him. I didn’t make it to the platform edge before the puritans, sensing the brooch’s departure, left him to go after me.

“Wait a second! I know what to do!” Owen shouted. “Katie, toss me the brooch.”

Squirming in the grasp of one of the puritans, I yelled, “I thought we discussed this.”

“I think I can destroy it.” I followed his glance and saw the “high voltage” sign near the tracks. I suddenly knew what he had planned. They hadn’t had high-voltage electricity back in Merlin’s day, so it might do the trick to destroy the Eye.

But the puritans had my arms pinned, so I couldn’t throw it. One reached a hand into my pocket. Then there was a loud popping sound, the puritans literally fell away from me, and I was free. I wasn’t sure what had happened, but I didn’t wait to find out. I grabbed the brooch from my pocket, rushed to the edge of the platform, then threw the brooch as hard as I could, aiming to slide it under the third rail. Thanks to having to play pitcher for my brothers’ batting practice, my aim was true.

A second before it landed, Owen shouted, “Get out of the way!”

The brooch was sparking ominously under the edge of the rail. With no puritans hampering me, I spun away from the platform’s edge, but Raphael stood poised there, like someone working up the courage to jump off the high dive. His face was a mask of agony, twisted into revulsion. “I am wicked. I have failed,” he said, his voice flat with resignation.

I realized what he was about to do, and Owen must have come to the same conclusion, for both of us lunged toward him at once, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him back from the edge.

A second later, an explosion rocked the platform. The blast knocked me off my feet and up into the air. I hung suspended in space for what felt like forever. When I hit the ground, it was with a force that knocked the breath out of me.