No Quest For The Wicked

Owen reached down, grabbed his jacket, and slung him under the nearest table. Meanwhile, Mimi shrieked at Sylvester, “This is the second time you’ve attacked me. What is your problem?” She raised her voice and shouted, “Security! Is security here? Get over here, this instant!”

Several men in uniform rushed forward. Sylvester raised a hand, stopping them in their tracks. The guards wavered, caught between the compulsion to obey the owner of the Eye and Sylvester’s spell holding them motionless. It didn’t help when Mimi shouted again, “Well? I said get over here. Deal with these men. They’re trespassing.” I worried that the guards would spontaneously combust from trying to simultaneously obey two mutually exclusive compulsions.

Owen used this latest outburst as an opportunity to make another attempt. He had the fake brooch in his hand, ready to slip it into Mimi’s pocket, but the puritan minion came to his senses at the worst possible moment and turned just in time to notice Owen. He caught Owen by the arm, grabbing him hard enough to make him wince.

I looked around for help. Thor was still vibrating under a table, Earl was pretending to be Sylvester’s loyal servant, Rod was on the other side of the huge room and visibly fighting off the desire to go after the Eye, and I couldn’t see Granny anywhere. That had me almost as worried as the fact that Owen had been caught. Owen was pretty good at taking care of himself, with or without magic, but I wasn’t sure what Granny might be up to or how the Eye was affecting her. I didn’t want to find myself in a situation where I’d have to take down my own grandmother to save the world from her tyranny.

Sylvester inadvertently came to Owen’s rescue. He’d apparently decided that going with the fiction of being the band for the event was his best chance of staying near the brooch, as he got up in Mimi’s face and said, “You wouldn’t dare fire us. You wouldn’t be able to replace us. How many of the unemployed musicians you have on call can do this?” Then he opened his mouth and sang.

I’d thought Earl’s singing was sublime, but this was beyond that. Earl’s voice still existed in the mortal realm. It was beautiful, but there were human singers who could do almost as well. Sylvester sounded like I’d always imagined angels must sound. The security guards quit struggling, Owen’s captor released him, and everyone in the room stopped what they were doing so they wouldn’t risk missing a note.

Once he realized he had the room in the palm of his hand, Sylvester signaled to his flunkies, and they joined in, creating an otherworldly harmony that soon had everyone in the room in tears. The magic of it didn’t affect me, but I still found it breathtaking. My brain didn’t seem to want to work anymore. It just wanted to listen to this lovely sound.

“That was close,” Owen said, rejoining me after escaping the minion’s grip and propelling me behind a sculpture.

“Hush,” I told him. “This is gorgeous.”

He frowned in concern. “The elfsong shouldn’t affect you.”

“Elfsong or not, it’s good music. Oh, wow, but Sylvester can sing.”

“Huh. Tenors get all the girls.”

“Baritones are nice, too, and you’ve got a good voice. But you’re not an elf.”

The question was, how did this affect Mimi? The music was getting to me in spite of my magical immunity, so even if the brooch shielded her from the magical effects, it shouldn’t have kept her from being stirred. Then again, I wasn’t sure Mimi had a soul or that whatever shriveled, dark thing she had in place of a soul was capable of being affected by such pure beauty.

She listened for a moment, then said, “That’s not at all what was on the demo you sent. You were supposed to be a jazz combo, not an a cappella vocal ensemble.”

My jaw dropped. Seriously, that was all she could say about this? I’d actually been joking about her having no soul, but maybe I was right. I turned to see that Owen looked equally astonished. “I thought you were exaggerating about her,” he murmured. “I owe you an apology.”

Then Mimi sighed heavily. “But I suppose you’ll do. It’ll certainly be different. Everyone does jazz combos and string quartets, and if I have to hear another harpist I’ll take a knife to the strings. People will definitely be talking.”

When they aren’t crying, I thought. I wasn’t so sure that elfsong made the best dinner music, but I doubted Sylvester and the elves—which would make a great band name if they ever decided to perform—would stick around that long.

Which reminded me, we were there to get the brooch. I shook my head to clear the last strands of elfsong-induced cobwebs. “What are we up to, Plan C?” I asked Owen.