Enchanted, Inc

by Shanna Swendson

  "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."

  I went to the phone next to the cash register and dialed 911. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Merlin take the thug's gun, empty it of bullets, then put the gun back in the thug's hand. On the other end of the phone line, a recorded voice told me to please stay on the line if this was an emergency. "Put the phone in the clerk's hand," Merlin instructed me. I did as he said. "Now, we should go. I have legal papers establishing my residence here, but it's best that I not be questioned by the police."

  That seemed like a good idea to me. I wasn't sure how long he could sustain whatever cover he'd established before he said something that would get him locked up for psychological evaluation. We headed for the door, but before we got there I took the Camelot DVD out of his hand. "You can't take this out without paying."

  "Ah, good point. I shall have to come back here another time."

  I put the DVD on a nearby display, then hurried to catch up with Merlin, who was holding the door. As the door closed behind us the store came back to life. I thought I heard the clerk say, "We're being robbed."

  "We're near City Hall, so I'm sure there'll be police here soon," I said, more to make myself feel better than to reassure Merlin. Then a thought crossed my mind and I gasped. "What if they have security cameras? It'll show up on tape that we were there, that we tinkered with the scene, and then that we left before the cops got there."

  "Don't worry, that was taken care of as part of my spell."

  "You know about security cameras?"

  "I know about a great many things. My focus in the first few months after I was brought back was intensive study of your world. Now, some lunch would be nice, don't you think?"

  Merlin spotted a pizza stand on a side street and said, "I want to try this food. I've seen it in the movies, and it looks interesting." So, we got a couple of slices to go and took them to a nearby plaza to sit and eat. He struggled with the strings of mozzarella that came off his pizza, and it became easier once more to think of him as a kindly old man who was a little out of his element, not as someone who could freeze the world around him.

  We had just finished lunch when Sam swooped in and settled onto a nearby bench.

  "Good, I found you," he said, sounding about as out-of-breath as a stone creature could.

  "What is it, Sam?" Merlin asked.

  "You need to get back to the office right away, boss."

  eleven

  I glanced around to see if any of the other people in the park were staring at us. Even though I knew there was magic in place to keep people from seeing Sam or us interacting with Sam, it still felt funny to talk to a gargoyle in public.

  But everyone continued eating and talking, paying us very little attention as we got up and walked away, Sam flying just ahead of us. "Sam, what's going on?" I asked. I couldn't help but worry. Maybe I was in trouble for taking Merlin outside.

  "They got their hands on one of that guy's spells. Palmer's about to check it out. He thought you'd want to be there, boss. Katie-bug, too." He glanced over his shoulder with a smirk. "Apparently, we need a professional opinion on the marketing and packaging. And we need to make sure there's nothing hidden in it." It was nice to have an excuse to tag along without having to come up with one on my own.

  Merlin moved pretty quickly for a man more than a thousand years old. In fact, I was the one lagging behind him and Sam. With his wings, Sam had an unfair advantage. We reached the building, and Sam took his usual post on the awning.

  Merlin and I went inside and straight to the R&D department.

  Owen and Jake—this time without a shredded pants leg—were in Owen's lab, both their heads bent over something that lay between them on a table. They looked up as we entered. "Mr. Mervyn, Katie," Owen greeted us.

  "So, this is it," Merlin said, leaning over to look at the booklet on the table.

  "Yeah, found it in that hole-in-the-wall dive charm-and-record shop in the East Village," Jake said.

  "I'm afraid to ask what he was doing there during office hours," Owen said dryly. I thought the fact that Jake was wearing a New York Dolls T-shirt was a pretty good clue, but Owen didn't strike me as a punk fan. I only knew because of a college roommate who was the reason I ended up moving off campus with Marcia, Gemma, and Connie, which eventually led to me moving to New York. I owed a lot to the punk movement.

  Merlin made "Hmmm" sounds as he flipped through the spell book. "Well, then," he said as he closed it and handed it to me. "What do you think, Katie?"

  I assumed he meant the packaging, as I couldn't tell him the hrst thing about magic. I turned it over in my hands. "Well, for starters, this Idris guy doesn't have a marketing department. He must have done this with his home computer and an ink-jet printer." It didn't even look like he was trying to market his products. Then again, the contents would sell itself to the kind of person who'd be interested in this sort of thing.

  "Let others do your dirty work for you," the package said on the front in big letters.

  In another font, in smaller letters, it added, "Use unsuspecting normals as your personal
slaves. They won't even remember what they've done for you. Always have an alibi, for you were nowhere near."

  I looked at the others and smirked. "You have to admit, they have a compelling message. You don't need a lot of flash when you've got a proposition like that."

  Although I tried to keep my tone flippant, the thought of it sent chills down my spine. I knew I was safe because I was immune, but there were too many people I cared about who weren't immune. "A personal slave sounds pretty appealing. I could get someone to do my laundry and wash the dishes."

  "Or carry out a robbery while you were somewhere else, with plenty of witnesses to verify your alibi," Owen remarked.

  That made me think of the robbery Merlin had just foiled. I wondered if that thug was operating under his own will or someone else's. "That, too." The crime implications alone were staggering. I imagined a rash of bank robberies carried out by people who were somewhere else at the time. "I'm not sure our marketing campaign can beat this," I said. "If someone's interested in this kind of thing, they won't care about all that quality and testing stuff."

  "But your marketing may keep many stores from stocking these spells," Owen said, not looking directly at me. I mentally kicked myself for not having thought of that for myself. I was supposed to be the marketing expert here, even if Owen was an all-purpose genius.

  "That's true," Jake added. "This was the first one I found, and that shop isn't too picky."

  "We'll just have to keep an eye on the stores where most people shop. Maybe we should do a brochure and really hit the stores with our next big push," I said.

  "Good idea," Merlin said, and I got the impression he actually knew what I was talking about. Another genius. I was surrounded by them.

  "Our best bet is to make these things as hard as possible to find," I added, trying to make myself sound more authoritative than I felt.

  "What do you think of the spell itself?" Merlin asked Owen.

  "It's along the lines of what he was working on when he was here. His project started as a fairly simple influence spell, one that can make anyone more likable. To be honest, I wasn't entirely comfortable with that, but Gregor thought there was a real market for it, and it wouldn't cause any real harm because there would be limits built in. But Phe-lan took it beyond that, and that's when we put an end to it. I don't know if he ever got it to work. I suppose we'll have to find out."

  Jake groaned. "Don't make me do anything stupid or embarrassing, okay?"

  "No, you don't make me do anything embarrassing." At Jake's blank, shocked look Owen added, "I need to feel the effects of the spell to get a better sense of what I'll have to come up with to counter it."

  Jake grinned, showing crooked teeth in his freckled face. He looked like Jimmy Olsen in a lab coat and a punk rock T-shirt. "Sure thing, boss."

  "Don't get too excited," Owen said. "Remember, even if I'm not supposed to remember what you made me do, I have witnesses."

  "Geeze, take all the fun out of it. I was only going to make you cluck like a chicken."

  Owen looked alarmed. "No chickens!" I imagined it was difficult for someone like him to put himself in such a helpless role. It didn't help matters that he was so easily embarrassed. He blushed when he spoke to someone. I couldn't imagine how he'd feel if someone made him cluck like a chicken or take his clothes off. "First, though, we'd better make sure there's nothing hidden in there. Katie?"

  I flipped the book open. "What do you want me to do?"

  "If you don't mind me reading over your shoulder, I'd like you to read what you see out loud to me, word for word."

  "Isn't that dangerous?"

  "You're immune. You couldn't do magic if you tried. In fact, you're the only one who's safe reading it out loud. Anyway, there's more to magic than saying some words."

  "Okay, here goes." I was curious what a spell looked like, and this was my first chance. In a way, it was like reading a cookbook, with a list of ingredients, then some directions, and the incantation itself. Most of the words made no sense whatsoever to me. It was hard to concentrate on the details with Owen leaning over my shoulder. I felt his breath on my neck, right under my ear. I reminded myself that he was powerful, potentially dangerous, and probably not interested in me. When I got to the end,

  I turned to look at him. "Is it what you expected?"

  "It's clean. The spell may not be what we'd approve of, but he's not trying to sneak anything in."

  "What did you think he'd do?"

  "Who knows? Make it so that there was an implied contract where if you actually used the spell, you'd owe him something. That kind of thing."

  "He could do that?"

  "I wouldn't put it past him." Owen took the book from me and handed it to Jake.

  "And remember, no chickens. No bats. No clucking. No removal of clothing."

  "You're no fun."

  "Yeah, but I'm your boss."

  "Okay, everyone stand back," Jake said after he'd flipped through the booklet.

  Merlin and I moved to the side of the lab. I felt like I ought to put on safety goggles.

  Owen moved to the other end of the room and took a few deep breaths, like he was trying to steady himself. Instead of turning his usual ten shades of red, he'd gone very pale. Even his lips were bloodless. Jake didn't look much better. He'd turned a grayish shade beneath his freckles. As often as I'd fantasized about zapping my boss with a curse, it would be another thing entirely to be asked to do it, especially when you had no idea how it would actually work.

  "Would you get a move on?" Owen snapped through clenched teeth. "You should already know how this works from hearing Katie read it."

  "Just making sure," Jake said. His voice shook. I glanced at Merlin and noticed that a muscle was jumping in his jaw. This was, apparently, a very big deal.

  "Okay," Jake said at last. "I need something of yours. It doesn't have to be much."

  Owen pulled a pen from the pocket of his lab coat and tossed it at Jake, who caught it easily with one hand. "Great. That should do it. Okay." He took a deep breath, then held the pen out in front of himself in the palm of his left hand. He held his right palm over the pen. Then he took a deep breath and began speaking the nonsense words I'd read earlier.

  I might have been immune to magic, but I was sure I sensed a buildup of energy, like when it's winter and there's so much static electricity that you get a jolt every time you touch something metal. I felt like if I touched anything, there would be a spark.

  The air seemed heavy, like it does just before a bad thunderstorm, the kind that brings tornadoes. When the air felt like this back home, my parents turned on the weather radio, just to be sure.

  Jake then turned his right palm face out, toward Owen, and said some more nonsense words. All the crackle, pressure, and tension in the air caved in on itself and disappeared, all at once. I glanced at Owen to see if he was okay. It couldn't possibly be healthy to be hit with something like that. He seemed fine, more or less, although he was still deathly pale and there was a blank look in his eyes.

  Jake nibbled on his lower lip, looking like he was lost in thought. After a moment he made a subtle gesture with his right hand. Owen then went to the whiteboard and picked up a marker. He moved perfectly naturally. He certainly didn't look like a mind-controlled zombie. No one who didn't know Owen would think anything at all was wrong. Even someone who knew Owen well wouldn't notice a difference unless they got a good look in his eyes, JAKE DESERVES A RAISE, he wrote in large capital letters. I didn't know his handwriting well enough to recognize it, but this writing looked very different from the textbook-perfect script that filled the rest of the board. After he finished, he capped the marker and stepped away from the board.

  A smaller dose of the crackle and pressure in the air returned as Jake clasped the pen in his right hand, then it was all over. Owen swayed, and as I was closest to him, I ran to steady him. He must have been in a pretty bad way, for he was shaking and he didn't even try to pretend he was okay and didn
't need help. "Owen?" I asked him.

  "I need to sit down," he whispered. Now I got to return the favor he'd done for me yesterday. I draped his left arm over my shoulders, put my right arm around his waist and walked him to the nearest chair. Once he was seated, he bent over, his elbows braced on his knees and his head between his legs, like they tell you to do when you feel faint.

  Merlin and Jake joined us. "Boss?" Jake asked, his voice shaking even worse than it had when he'd done the spell. "You okay?"

  "Just give me a minute." Owen's voice was muffled, coming from down around his knees. Jake shot a worried look at Merlin, who took one of Owen's wrists to check his pulse.

  "Maybe I should go get some tea," I said. "Strong, sweet tea is just the thing in this kind of situation." But before I could start to look for the nearest coffee room, Jake had a steaming mug of tea in his hand. Oh yeah, I kept forgetting about that.

  Merlin rubbed Owen's back. "Deep breaths, that's a boy," he soothed. He looked so worried that I had to fight back panic. I wondered if this was a typical reaction to a spell, or if this was just a particularly nasty one. Either way, I was very glad I was immune. Any remaining disappointment in my absolute lack of magic dissipated.

  After a few minutes Owen pulled himself into an upright position, with a visible effort. Even though he'd spent a while with his head upside down, his face was still ashen. "Wow," he said. "That was unpleasant. I don't think he's tested that." In spite of his apparent attempt to sound flippant, his voice quavered.

  "Something tells me he doesn't really care," I said.

  Jake handed Owen the tea, but Owen's hands shook so badly he couldn't get the mug to his mouth. I reached to help him steady the mug. He took a few sips, then took a few more deep breaths. The next time he spoke, he sounded more like himself. "What did you make me do? I feel like I've just run a marathon."

  "You don't remember at all?" Jake asked.

  Owen shook his head. "Nothing. I remember you starting the spell, and then the next thing I knew, I felt like I was about to faint."