As we left the building I said, "I haven't really explored this part of town, other than walking through it, but I think there are some restaurants over on Broadway."
"Lead on, then. You're more of an expert than I am." He held his arm out for me to take as we walked toward Park Row. Anyone we passed on the streets probably thought I was out for a stroll with my grandfather.
In a way, Merlin did remind me of my long-dead granddad. My real grandfather had been a Texas farmer, and not very much like a Dark Ages wizard, but both of them had the same curiosity and good humor. If they'd met, they probably would have been friends.
Along Park Row was a string of computer, music, and electronics stores. Merlin slowed to look through the windows. I imagined this stuff would be fascinating for someone like him. "Do you mind if we go inside?" he asked.
"Not at all."
The store was crowded with lunch time browsers. Merlin headed straight to the DVD section, which astonished me. I wouldn't have thought he'd know where to go in a store like this. "Do you have a DVD player?" I asked him.
He raised an eyebrow at me. "Of course. Otherwise, my evenings would be lonely. I find it a fascinating way to learn about this place and time. Owen taught me how to operate it and loaned me some films about New York."
I moved closer to him and dropped my voice so the other shoppers couldn't hear me. "You do know it's not real, the stuff on the DVDs, right? Unless it's a documentary. Otherwise, it's fake, with actors and scripts."
"I came to that conclusion when I saw the one about the giant gorilla," he said dryly.
"Yeah, that would tend to do it."
He apparently found whatever he was looking for. "Ah, yes, this is the one."
I leaned over his shoulder to see what he was holding. "Camelot!"
"Yes. I'm curious as to how the story has been portrayed."
"It's a musical. The characters burst into song from time to time."
"Then that is certainly different from the actual events." He smiled. "What kinds of songs does a certain wizard sing?"
I hadn't seen Camelot since the drama club put on a production when I was in high school. "I don't think you—I mean, Merlin, has any songs. It's mostly about what happens to Arthur after Merlin goes away."
"I've read the historical accounts, of course. Very sad." I guided him to the checkout counter, but just as we got there, a teenager in a coat way too heavy for the temperature stepped forward and pulled out a gun. "Gimme whatever you got in the cash register," he said to the clerk.
The clerk shrieked and stepped backward, her hands in the air. I clapped my hands over my mouth to stifle my own scream. The last thing I needed was for the robber to notice me. All I had in my purse that he might want was about ten dollars, my MetroCard, and a credit card with a laughably low spending limit, but to me that was a lot to lose. Not to mention all that nice blood I had coursing through my body, that I really wanted to stay inside my body. What if this guy didn't want to leave any witnesses? That was the way it always went in the movies, the robber freaking out and shooting everyone in sight so no one could identify him. Or what if he took us all hostage and this turned into an all-day standoff?
The really scary thing was that my mother was right about something. She'd warned me about how I was sure to be mugged and robbed in the big city, and here I was, being robbed. Okay, so technically I wasn't the one being robbed, but there was a man with a gun not five feet away from me. Forget the fight or flight response. I was frozen to the floor. All I knew was that I didn't want to die. I needed to live long enough to have something vaguely interesting to look at when my life passed before my eyes.
Then I remembered that I wasn't alone. I was with one of the most powerful wizards in all history. A teenage thug robber wasn't going to take out Merlin. That made me feel marginally better. I glanced at Merlin to see what he would do, but he didn't look at all alarmed, which made me nervous again. Surely all those movies he'd watched would have shown him that a gun was a weapon. Could you even make a movie in the United States that didn't have a gun in it? But then I noticed that nobody had moved—not the clerk, not the robber, not anyone else in the store. It was like time had stopped, and Merlin and I were the only ones still moving.
"Neat trick," I said, letting the breath I'd been holding out in a long sigh. "Now what?"
"You should summon emergency help, and I'll make sure no one can be harmed."