Damsel Under Stress (17 page)

By this time, Gloria had joined us in the foyer. “Dinner’s getting cold,” she said. “What’s the matter?”

Owen turned to her. “It’s a situation back in the city. I don’t know much more than that. They sent a car to get us back quickly.”

“You don’t have time to eat?”

“’Fraid not, ma’am,” Sam said. There was a loud screech of tires outside. “That’ll be Rolls now.”

“While you two get packed, I’ll put together some dinner to take with you,” Gloria said. “Now go! You need to hurry.”

Owen and I ran up the stairs. I didn’t have much to pack, so it didn’t take long. When I got back down to the foyer, Owen was already there, getting our coats out of the closet. Gloria came from the direction of the kitchen, carrying a small hamper. She hustled us outside to where a silver Town Car waited in the driveway. On its hood perched two of the oddest gargoyles I’d ever seen—and most gargoyles are pretty odd, so that was really saying something. I recognized them as my guardians from the night before.

“Here are your passengers,” Sam said to the waiting gargoyles. “Treat ’em nice. They’re in tight with the big boss, and the boy there could zap you back to stone on a permanent basis. Katie, Mr. P., I’d like you to meet Rocky and Rollo.”

“Otherwise known as Rock and Roll!” the two gargoyles chorused. They looked like something out of a Saturday-morning cartoon, all popeyed and funny-faced.

The taller one with a long, thin face added, “We met last night at the church, but we haven’t been properly introduced. Oh, and Rocky’s not my real name. It’s just a nickname, on account of I’m made of stone.” He and Rollo nearly fell off the hood of the car, laughing. Rocky coughed, got himself under control, then said, “Get it? Rocky? Stone?” He elbowed the other gargoyle in the ribs, and both of them fell to laughing again.

I turned to ask James if the offer to borrow his car still held, but Sam opened the door to the backseat for us and said, “Well, go on with you. I’ll fly on ahead and let the boss know you’re on the way.”

“Last one there’s a rotten egg,” Rollo said. He was shorter and squatter than his buddy, and instead of having a separate pair of arms, his wings were his arms, with tiny hands at the ends.

With grave misgivings, I climbed into the backseat. Owen gave Arawn one last scratch behind the ears, then slid in next to me. Gloria reached into the car to hand him the hamper. “You can eat on the way. I put together two plates, some dessert, and some extra napkins. I wish you could have stayed longer, but I know duty calls. Katie, it was very nice to meet you. I hope you’ll come again.”

“Thank you for having me. I enjoyed myself.”

“I’ll give you a call when we get back and have things settled,” Owen said. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before stepping back and letting Rocky close the door.

Neither gargoyle was big enough to see over the steering wheel while also reaching the pedals, so I wondered if gargoyles could adjust their size the way fairies could. The way Sam had talked, Rollo was apparently the driver, and he seemed the least likely to be able to see, steer, and hit the accelerator or brake at the same time. I soon learned how they worked it. Rocky clung to the steering wheel with his feet and used his hands to work the turn signals, gear shift, and horn, while Rollo sat on the floorboard and worked the pedals.

I instinctively reached for the seat belt, and Owen did the same. “Good idea, kids,” Rocky said, looking over his shoulder. “Rolls here has got a stone foot.” He nearly fell off the steering wheel from laughing so hard, and muffled laughter echoed up from under the dashboard. “Get it? It’s supposed to be lead, but since Rolls is made of stone, it’s a stone foot. Okay, Rolls, I’ve got her in reverse and nothing seems to be coming, so give her a nudge.”

The car backed out of the driveway. When Rocky had steered the car into the street, he shifted into drive and said, “We’re on the road. Give her some gas.”

If I’d had any second thoughts about maybe waiting for the next train and letting Owen handle the crisis, there wouldn’t have been much I could have done about it. Rollo really did have a stone foot. We all but flew down the neighborhood streets. If I’d tried to get out of the car, I’d have killed myself. I could only imagine what it would be like once we were on the open road.

“Brake!” Rocky yelled as we neared the intersection with the main road. The car screeched to a halt, fishtailing a little. After checking up and down the road, Rocky then called out, “Hit it,” as he spun the steering wheel by shifting his weight. I wasn’t sure the tires were actually in contact with road surface, we were going so fast.

“Aren’t you worried about getting stopped for speeding?” I asked.

The two gargoyles went into hysterics. “Who can stop an invisible car?” Rocky said between bursts of laughter.

“Hey, Rocky,” Rollo’s voice came up from under the dash, “maybe you should let one catch us someday. Wouldn’t it be funny to see how a cop would react to seein’ a car driven by two gargoyles? Wouldn’t it? Huh?”

“It’d be a scream.”

“I wouldn’t suggest it,” Owen said mildly, even as he white-knuckled the edges of the seat. “You know the rules about exposing yourselves to outsiders.”

“We wasn’t talkin’ ’bout exposing ourselves,” Rocky said, sputtering with laughter. “Just lettin’ ’em see we’re gargoyles.” He and Rollo found that highly amusing, providing their own laugh track once more. “Get it? Usually when you say you’re exposing yourself, you’re talking about the naughty bits.”

“And gargoyles don’t got naughty bits,” Rollo added. “Hey, Rocky, we got room to go faster?”

“Yeah, give ’er some gas. Pedal to the metal!” As the car shot forward, both gargoyles gave a hearty, “Woo hoo!”

Owen turned to me. “So, lunch?”

I wasn’t sure I could eat while we were breaking the sound barrier, but I needed something to distract myself from the speed at which the scenery blurred past. “Sure, why not?”

The hamper Gloria had packed turned out to contain individually packaged to-go type boxes full of Christmas dinner, still nice and warm. I was just about to dig in when I realized we were eating in front of our drivers. “I’m sorry, we should have offered you two something,” I said. “Would you like a snack?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Rocky said. “At these speeds, I’ve got to keep my eyes on the road. Besides, we don’t eat your kind of food. Unless you’ve got some pebbles in there?” He and Rollo found that highly amusing, as usual.

Rollo chimed in, “Or maybe some pecan sandies. Get it? Sand? Like we’re made of stone?” That was apparently even funnier. Gargoyle humor must be a matter of taste, I thought.

Guiltlessly, I dug into the meal. In spite of the high rate of speed and two-gargoyle driving job, the ride was fairly smooth. The way my necklace buzzed around my neck, I was beginning to get the feeling that Owen’s magic detector could turn out to be irritating.

“You won’t hurt my feelings if you take it off,” he said, and I only then realized that I’d been unconsciously touching it. “Remember, I told you it might be a problem around magical folk. Here, let me help you with that.”

I braced myself for the usual meltdown as his fingers brushed the back of my neck. He seemed utterly oblivious to his effect on me as he handed me the necklace. I put it in my pocket while he dug in the hamper for dessert, which turned out to be slices of chocolate Yule log cake with chocolate filling and icing. “I think I really like Gloria,” I said.

“I think she liked you, too. But I worry about how much she tries to do, keeping that big old house all by herself.”

“She’s not by herself. She’s got a brownie helping her.”

“She does? How did you find out?”

“I caught the brownie last night while she was cleaning my room. I guess she usually uses an illusion to keep people from seeing her at work. She gave me permission to tell you because I said it would make you feel better, but you can’t let on to Gloria that you know.”

“It does make me feel better. I wonder how long she’s had help.”

“Since you were little, from the sound of it.”

In the front seat, the two gargoyles started singing Christmas carols with great enthusiasm, if very little talent. Rocky might have been one of the few beings in the universe with a worse sense of pitch than I had, and Rollo’s attempts at harmony didn’t work, but their joy was infectious. Before I knew what I was doing, I was singing along, my terrible voice fitting right in. When Owen grinned and joined the chorus, his ability to carry a tune made him seem to be the one out of place.

Soon, the singing had to stop because we’d reached the edges of the city proper and Rocky had to use his voice for shouting instructions to Rollo. Traffic was light on Christmas day, but this was New York, so “light” was a relative term. “Okay, start easing off the gas,” Rocky instructed. “Brake. Inch forward a bit—a little more—not that much. Green light! Go! Go! Go! Wait a second, brake! BRAAAAAAAAAKE!”

I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my head because the rear of the truck in front of us was a little too close for comfort. When I didn’t feel a jolt or hear the screaming of tearing metal, I cautiously opened my eyes, only to close them again. I’d have been a little unnerved at driving myself in city traffic, but being a passenger in these circumstances was almost enough to make me want to get out and walk the rest of the way. The only thing keeping me from it was the fact that this was an unfamiliar neighborhood. It was also pretty cold outside.

It only got worse as we made it into Manhattan proper, where driving down Broadway can be stop-and-go at the best of times. I had a feeling I’d be hearing, “A bit more, no, brake! Go! BRAAAAAKE!” in my nightmares for the next few nights. Other cars had an uncanny way of swerving out of our path, so we made remarkably good time. Finally, the car screeched to a halt in the middle of Times Square, with one wheel up on a curb just inches from a lamppost.

“Okay, folks, here we are,” Rocky announced as Rollo climbed up onto the driver’s seat behind him. “And Sam’s nowhere to be seen, so it looks like we win.” He and Rollo started a victory dance. “We rocked and we rolled, we’re Rock and Roll,” they chanted.

“Guess again, boys,” Sam said as he landed on the hood of the car. “Now, come on. You’ve got to see this.”

Owen opened the car door and climbed out. I followed him. Merlin was already standing in the traffic island, looking up. As soon as I looked around and got my bearings, I realized why we’d been called back to New York. “Holy crap,” I said under my breath.

My voice must not have been as soft as I’d thought, for Merlin turned to me. “I take it you see it, too. And that would mean it’s real, not illusion.”

“Yeah, it’s real, all right.”

All the brightly lit, giant billboards in Times Square were a glaring tribute to one Phelan Idris and his company, Spellworks. One billboard urged people to “Spell Different,” and I doubted we were part of a spelling bee. “Not very original, though,” I commented. “He’s reusing an old Apple slogan that wasn’t that great to begin with.” Another billboard said, “Do magic your way.” There were images of stodgy, gray conformists in suits being bested or shocked by colorful radicals.

“Now we know what he was up to,” Owen said, staring up at the billboards.

“I’m assuming these ads are veiled to the rest of the world,” I said. “Maybe the spell is filtered to target only people with magical ability?”

“That’s probably it,” Owen agreed. “He’s definitely making a splash in a big way, and it appears to be that he’s attempting to legitimize his company among the general magical population. No more photocopied spell instructions sold in hole-in-the-wall shops.”

“I’m afraid the implications are bigger than that,” I said, a sense of gloom filling me as the realization dawned on me. “Do you know how much this kind of thing costs? These ads are really physically here, which means he had to buy the ad space, and that costs millions. He’s bound to have the space for at least a week because New Year’s Eve is a prime high-traffic time here. And this probably isn’t his only advertising. You wallpaper Times Square to make a splash, but you also have to follow it up with ads that everyone else will see. Odds are, this little display is for our benefit so we’ll know he’s gunning for us.”

“He’s got someone bankrolling him,” Owen said grimly, finishing my thought. “He might have been able to raise some cash through magically underhanded means, but not at this level. So he’s got someone rich—and presumably powerful—in league with him. Maybe that’s where your friend’s enemy comes in.” He gave a quick recap about Philip and Mr. Bones to Merlin.

“That company certainly would have the capital to fund these activities,” Merlin said. “They’ve been one of our larger corporate customers—mostly security and contract-enforcement spells. I haven’t much liked Jackson Meredith in my few dealings with him, but I had no sense that he was unethical enough to be involved in this sort of thing.”

“He’s currently ‘indisposed,’” I said, making air quotes. “His niece Sylvia is in charge now.”

“Ah, yes, that would explain things. She quite clearly is evil.”

“There’s got to be something else going on,” I said, staring at a larger-than-life image of Idris breaking a cement box with a karate chop. It looked like the hand breaking the box had been badly Photoshopped onto a picture of Idris striking a karate pose.

“What do you mean? Isn’t this enough?” Owen asked.

“Has Idris ever done anything splashy when he wasn’t there to see it? That’s his big downfall—he gets so sidetracked watching us react that he forgets to follow through on whatever advantage he’s gained.”

“And that is the reason I called you in,” Merlin said. “I thought it would be a good time for a stakeout. He’s sure to be nearby.”

All of us then turned and looked around Times Square. The area wasn’t quite as crowded as it was on most early evenings, but there were still enough people milling around that it would be hard to spot one unprepossessing wizard. “I don’t think I see him,” I said, well aware that I was probably the only one who would see him.

We settled in to wait. Owen conjured up cups of hot coffee for us, and Rocky, Rollo, and Sam took aerial patrol. I wasn’t sure if there were any laws against loitering, but this didn’t seem like the kind of place where it would be easy to enforce them. Still, I couldn’t help but feel jumpy whenever a police officer went by. One finally did stop and ask us, “Are you folks waiting for something?”