"You're lucky you went with the power suit today," I told him. "Otherwise, this would have gone a lot deeper." The claw marks weren't deep enough to cause serious damage, just enough to be painful and draw blood.
"It was one of my favorite suits," he said plaintively. I tried to ignore the fact that the suit covered a very nice build. He hadn't been lying about his gym habit.
From the back of the car I heard Ethan's voice in lawyer mode. "So, what you're agreeing to is that you will cease marketing any products based on your work done as an employee of Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Incorporated. That removes any products you have already released from the market, as well as affecting any future products you may produce. Now, if you'll just sign here and initial here."
"Use this pen," Merlin said. "It makes the contract binding in more than a legal sense."
"You're kidding," Ethan said. "Could I get a set of those for my practice?"
Owen winced as I dabbed the claw marks with disinfectant from the first-aid kit Ethan had in his trunk. "Sorry about that," I said. "But you have no idea where those claws have been, and you don't want an infection."
"No, I don't. Go on, do what you have to."
He gritted his teeth as I finished cleaning the wounds, then bandaged them and pulled his bloody clothes back up over his shoulder. I took off my own overcoat and wrapped it around his legs. He looked a little shocky, and I didn't want to leave him exposed.
"Now, if you're quite through humiliating me, could you release my people?" Idris asked.
"It's worn off by now," Owen told him.
"This isn't over, you know, Palmer. I'm perfectly capable of creating my own spells."
Owen didn't rise to his bait. "I'm sure you are."
"You're just lucky your girlfriend here has a good arm."
Owen turned pink in spite of his ashy pallor, but his voice remained even. "She also has a good eye."
"And a nice ass, but you're going to need a lot more than that next time. I have things up my sleeve you haven't begun to imagine." He gave us a mocking bow and salute. "Until next time." Then he turned and stalked away, back to the boardwalk.
"What an asshole," I said before I realized I'd said it out loud.
"That's putting it mildly," Ethan chimed in. "He's even worse than some of the lawyers I know, and that's really saying something."
"Do you really think he'll come up with something else?" I asked nervously.
"I'm sure of it," Merlin said. "That type doesn't give up easily. And worst of all, I believe he's out more for a sense of power than for material riches. He'd thoroughly enjoy being the one to trigger a magical war."
"Then we'll have to find a way to stop him."
"It'll take him a while to develop something on his own," Owen said. "He was never the most original thinker. That should buy us some time to prepare."
"We'll have to rally our people once more. We've grown complacent, from what I can tell," Merlin said. "The last challenge of this magnitude was about thirty years ago, according to the archives I've seen. I'll have to study how, exactly, that challenge was met."
"So this sort of thing happens often?" I asked.
"About once a generation seems standard. There's always someone willing to try to cause widespread trouble, and then the good people have to find the will to fight it."
"Things seem to work that way in the real world, too," Ethan remarked. "Shall we hit the road?"
"Do you have a towel or something?" I asked. "He's going to bleed all over your leather seats."
In addition to the first-aid kit, Ethan did have a towel, along with a spare blanket. My mother would love him. She never left the house without being prepared for a weeklong expedition into the wilderness. We got Owen settled in the backseat with a towel under his wounded shoulder and a blanket draped around him. "We'll get you to the healer as soon as we get back to the office," Merlin assured him with a gentle pat on his good shoulder. "It's a pity I didn't bring any of my potions with me. I wasn't anticipating physical injuries."
"I knew he'd cheat, but he took it further than I expected," Owen said with a weak smile.
I passed around more coffee and cinnamon rolls, then we headed off, back to the city. I couldn't wait to get back, or at least get out of that ghost town. I was sure it was a cheery place in the summertime, but now it was full of empty motels and skeletons of plastic palm tree trunks, their artificial fronds in storage for the winter.
Before we were out of town, Owen was already asleep. I tucked the blanket more securely around him, then settled back in my seat for the ride to New York.
I don't think I'd ever been so glad to see that skyline looming ahead of me. We went into the depths of the Holland Tunnel, then emerged on Canal Street in the refreshing combination of weirdness and normality that was Manhattan. It was good to be home. Then I realized that was the first time I'd truly thought of New York as home.
Ethan took us straight to the office and said he'd be back in a little while, after he got the car parked. By this time it took both Merlin and me to get Owen up to Merlin's office. The initial shock had worn off enough that he was really feeling the pain now, and that, combined with the morning's exertions, had left him weak and shaky. We got him onto Merlin's couch, then I had Trix call for the company healer while Merlin got a painkilling potion into him.
While the healer tended to Owen, Merlin pulled me aside. "You did very good work today, Katie."
"Thank my brother Frank, who really wanted me to go out for softball."
"Not just that, but you kept a clear head in a frightening situation that would have scared many people."
"It scared me," I admitted. "But I thought if anyone could handle it, you two could. I mean, come on, you're Merlin. How can they beat that? And Owen's not so bad, either."
"He is a truly remarkable young man." Merlin's face grew thoughtful and his eyes were solemn as he watched the healer working on Owen's shoulder. "Quite remarkable." A shiver went down my spine at his tone of voice.
Ethan came in then. "Is he going to be okay?" He gestured with his head toward Owen.
"It appears so," Merlin said. "And now, I would like a word with you. I have a proposition to make." The three of us moved over to Merlin's conference table and sat down. "I'm not sure if we can fight the rest of our battles in the legal arena, but I'm coming to see where the law is a great power in this place and time, and it's a power we need to harness. We also have great need for people with immunity to magic. We can only hope that we find both in the same person.
Would you be interested in a more permanent position here, Mr. Wainwright?"
Ethan blinked. "You mean, you're offering me a job?"
"How would you like to be our corporate attorney?"
"I'd be honored. I'd have to rearrange some things at my practice, but I've got a partner who'd be up to moving into a more substantial role. I'm not sure I could come over on a full-time basis, but perhaps we could work out a retainer?"
"Whatever you think is best, but I would like to be able to call upon your expertise whenever it's needed."
"I'd like that, too. After this, the usual software cases are going to be boring."
The healer finished with Owen, who came over to join us. He carried his left arm in a sling and he still looked pale. The blood on his shirt didn't make him look any better.
"Apparently, I'll live," he said dryly. "I suppose I need to worry about what we should do next."
"I've asked Mr. Wainwright to serve as our corporate counsel on a more permanent basis," Merlin said.
Owen nodded. "Good idea."
"And I'd like to form a task force to address this issue." It sounded like a certain ancient wizard had been reading contemporary business books. If he brought up quality teams, I was going to run screaming. "I can begin working with the greater magical community to build a coalition. Meanwhile, we need to find other avenues of fighting this battle. Mr. Wainwright will provide the legal angle, Miss Chandler
will lend her marketing and communications expertise, and Mr. Palmer will focus on the magical aspects."
His voice grew firm. "We will not—we can not—let the likes of these destroy the foundations of a way of life I built more than a millennium ago. I would rather there be no magic left in the world than to let people like that subvert it. I hope it doesn't come to that. We won't let it come to that."
I felt properly inspired, and a little scared at the same time. There was something to be said for blissful ignorance. But would I have been happier with no idea about what threatened my world? At least this way I stood a chance of doing something about it. There weren't too many problems in the world where I could make a meaningful impact.
"But we'll start work on that Monday morning," Merlin said. "For now, all of us need to rest. Thank you all for your efforts this mom-ing."
Ethan headed out first, then Merlin told me to make sure Owen got home safely. I decided this was no time for frugality and had Sam hail us a cab. Neither of us spoke as we sat together in the backseat. Owen looked beyond exhausted, but the healer had said he would mend quickly. He just needed rest.
The cab pulled to a stop on Owen's street, in front of a row of elegant town homes.
Owen tried to insist that I stay in the cab and have it take me straight home, but I shook my head. "No, I'll walk from here. Besides, with the one-way streets, it's quicker to walk than drive."
We watched the taxi drive away, then stood there for a moment. "It's been quite a day, hasn't it?" he said after a while.
"That's an understatement. You were incredible there. I had no idea what you could do. I'm still not sure I have that good a handle on what magic really is."
He turned pink, which I took as a good sign, as it meant his color was coming back.
"You weren't so bad yourself."
"Just a lucky throw," I said with a shrug, even as I felt my own cheeks grow warm.
There was an awkward silence, and I wondered if I should say good-bye, or if there was something else that needed to be said between us. In books and movies this was always the part where the battered, wounded hero expressed his true feelings for the heroine. But in real life I imagined that when a man was as battered, wounded, and exhausted as Owen was right now, all he really wanted to do was go to bed—alone.
That meant saying good-bye was my best course of action. "I'll see you Monday.
You take it easy, okay?" I said, turning to leave.
I'd barely taken a step before he said, "Katie?"
My heart throbbing painfully in my chest—now I really knew what they meant by heartthrob—I turned back around.
He looked me straight in the eye, something he so seldom did. "Thank you. I owe you my life."
I wondered if there was something in the magical community where he was now obligated to me or required to grant wishes. I wanted to make a flippant remark to that effect, but he was so serious. He was also pretty heavily drugged, come to think of it. It wouldn't be fair to ask him to follow sarcasm. "You're welcome," was all I said. That was probably the extent of the confession of true feelings I'd hoped for.
He smiled. "Needless to say, I'm glad you took the job offer."
"So am I." And as I said it, I realized I meant it. I'd refused the opportunity to leave, but I hadn't thought much about whether I was glad this chance had come my way.
Now I couldn't imagine my life without Owen, Merlin, Rod, and all the others in it, without understanding why I saw such strange things. Sure, it complicated the rest of my life, and I hated not being able to tell anyone about everything happening to me, but that was a small price to pay to be part of something so truly incredible.
"Have a good weekend," he said softly, still looking me in the eye and not blushing at all.
"You, too!" I called out, then cursed myself. I doubted he'd be having much fun.
"Get plenty of rest," I hurried to add before I turned and headed home.
So, that was that. I convinced myself once and for all that Owen wasn't interested in me as anything other than a friend. That wasn't the end of the world. I could cope with having someone like him as a friend, and at least he wasn't chasing every other woman in sight, getting into a miserable relationship and then complaining about his girlfriend to me, like so many of the guys who'd just wanted me as a friend had done in the past. After this morning, I wasn't so sure I really wanted to be more than friends myself. He was gorgeous, nice, kind, brilliant, and all that, but I wouldn't in a million years place him at my family's dinner table for Thanksgiving. That kind of power was frightening. I could only imagine what he'd do if my brothers picked on him, which they were bound to do.
The phone was ringing as I opened the door to my apartment. It was Ethan. "I was just making sure you got home okay. And Owen, too."
"I just left him at his place. He swears he'll be fine."
"That was something else this morning, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess it was. Sorry you got thrown in the deep end so quickly. I at least had the chance to ease into things."
"Well, now I know I'm not crazy. Or am I?"
"Don't ask me. If you're crazy, then I'm just as nutty." He laughed. "Nice to know I'm not alone in this. Anyway, I wanted to see if you would like to try that date thing again, and I promise not to freak out on you. I'd assume that fewer weird things would happen this time."
"Don't count on it. Ever since I got caught up in all this, things just seem to keep getting weirder. It comes with the territory. But now you know more what to expect." Then I thought about his date offer. He wasn't Owen, but I'd decided that Owen would have to remain a nonissue. Meanwhile, Ethan wasn't bad at all. He was cute, nice, funny, and smart, and he was just like me in so many ways. It might be nice to be with someone who saw the same things I did but who wasn't likely to make things appear out of thin air. I could definitely take him home, and lawyer was a job title my parents would understand a lot better than wizard. "As for dinner sometime, that sounds great," I said at last. "But would you mind if we wait until next weekend? I'm not sure I'm up to anything but collapsing right now."
"How does next Saturday sound?"
"It sounds good."
"Great. I'm sure I'll see you around the office, so we can firm things up next week."
After I got off the phone, I took a long, hot shower. It was nice not to have to worry about two roommates who also needed to get into the bathroom. Then I dried my hair and got dressed. In spite of all that had happened already that day, it was still early afternoon, and I was too wired to nap. I got out of my jeans, put on some work-appropriate clothes, and headed to the subway station to go back to the office.
If I stayed at home, I'd just think. At work, I could get things in order so Monday wouldn't be such a pain.
In the middle of the afternoon the platform wasn't nearly as crowded as during rush hours, but it was far from deserted. There were a few tourists, some students in outfits that made them look weirder than anything I'd seen in the halls of MSI, and a street performer. There was a fairy I recognized vaguely from work waiting for the train as well, but I just nodded to her and focused my amused staring on the students, who were definitely sacrificing fashion and good looks to youthful rebellion.
Finally, a train arrived and we all got on board. I was lucky enough to get a seat, so I pulled my book out of my bag and read. As the train made its way farther downtown, I heard a chicken squawk and looked up. That same chicken man was making his way through the subway, trying to pass out flyers. This time I shared an
"only in New York" look with the fairy seated across from me, then went back to reading my book.
Sometimes, this city is really weird, and most New Yorkers have no idea how weird it can get.
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