Much Ado About Magic

by Shanna Swendson

  “I think this was a special occasion. It was nice of them to welcome me that way.”

  He draped his arm across my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “It’s not that I don’t think you’re special, because you know I do, but something tells me that bunch doesn’t need much of an excuse for a party. They probably throw a party like that when they open a new box of pencils.”

  Deadpan, I said, “Yeah, that would be Pencilfest. I saw pictures in someone’s office.”

  “Seriously?”

  I nudged him in the ribs. “No. Just kidding. But I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “If it happens, call me. I have to see that for myself.” We went down the stairs into the subway station and separated to go through the turnstiles. Then he took my hand. For Owen, this was a lot of public affection. He must have really missed me.

  Rod was already in the station, waiting on the crowded platform. He greeted us with a wave, and I couldn’t help but smile. All of us together at a rush-hour subway station was like old times. That was where I’d first seen Owen and Rod, before I met them. So much had changed since then.

  “Nice lei,” Rod remarked with a grin.

  I’d forgotten I still had it on. I pulled it off and shoved it into my bag. “Sales department party,” I explained.

  “Are you excited about the new job?” he asked.

  “Yeah, but why didn’t you clue me in? Surely you knew.”

  “I didn’t know until a few minutes before that meeting—not long enough to give you any warning. You know what the boss is like. He lives in a different time stream from the rest of us.” Rod gestured toward my neck. “I meant to ask this morning, what happened to you? Those bruises look nasty.”

  With a sigh, I tried to explain in a way that wouldn’t sound odd to any eavesdroppers. “Oh, just the competition in action, but this time I was an innocent bystander.”

  He winced. “Yeah, there’s been more of that lately.” Then he said to Owen, “I wonder if anyone will try to fix sporting events.”

  “You’ve tried to fix sporting events,” Owen reminded him.

  “I’ve merely tried to give a friendly nudge or two to improve the accuracy of umpires,” Rod argued.

  Neither of them noticed a tall, leggy blond woman nearby on the platform giving Owen the eye. That wasn’t unusual, as gorgeous as Owen was, but most women gave up pretty quickly when he didn’t notice the flirtation. This woman kept staring hard enough for her gaze to burn holes through me on its way to him, and then she grinned and licked her lips.

  Chapter Four

  A train arrived, and I herded the guys to the car just behind us. With all the bad magic flying around these days, I thought it was safest to assume the woman was trouble. She was a woman on a mission and shoved her way through the crowd to get on the same car with us.

  The train was jam-packed, and as long as the she-wolf didn’t have a clear line of sight to use magic on Owen, he’d be safe. She hadn’t come close enough to snag anything of Owen’s to use to focus a spell, and I doubted she planned to enchant everyone else in the car. Or maybe I was just being paranoid. I wondered if Spellworks offered an anti-man-stealing-bitch charm.

  Owen, Rod, and I clustered around a pole, Owen hooking the arm holding his briefcase around the pole while he continued holding my hand. “I bet you didn’t miss this,” he said to me as the train lurched forward.

  “I missed some of it,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze.

  He smiled, a flush of pink spread across his cheeks, and he opened his mouth as if to speak, but then suddenly he frowned and winced, then shook his head and swayed forward. At the same time, all the little hairs on my arms stood straight up—a sure sign that someone was using strong magic. I turned to see the she-wolf standing at the next pole, her heavily glossed lips moving silently in what was surely a spell.

  Owen was susceptible to magic, but what this chick hadn’t counted on was that his girlfriend was immune. I repositioned myself so that my body blocked as much of Owen as possible from her line of sight, then I squeezed Owen’s hand tighter, in part to give him strength and encouragement and in part to keep him with me.

  “You know how I said I might need you to slap me out of it?” Owen gasped, attempting a smile that failed completely. Beads of sweat were breaking out on his forehead.

  “What’s going on?” Rod asked.

  “She-wolf over there sees something she wants,” I said, gesturing with my head. I looked Owen in the eye. “I’m trying to play human shield, but you’re bigger than I am so I can’t block it all. Can you fight it?”

  “I’m doing my best. I should be stronger than she is.” He swayed toward her as if pulled by a magnet, then jerked himself back to me.

  “Can you do anything?” I asked Rod.

  “I’m trying, but there’s something odd about the spell. It’s getting past my shields.”

  Owen’s palm was sweaty in my grasp, and I felt his grip weakening. His eyes went glassy and unfocused. I was losing him. “Oh, hell,” I muttered under my breath. Desperate times called for desperate measures. I released my hold on the pole, grabbed his necktie and pulled him to me for the biggest kiss I’d ever given him. There was more than one kind of magic, and I hoped that a particularly hot kiss from a girlfriend he’d been separated from for months was more powerful than any hocus-pocus.

  He resisted for a second or two, then he melted against me, returning the kiss. It wasn’t the ideal setting for a heavy make-out session, and the whistles and catcalls from the other subway riders were a little distracting, but my plan seemed to be working.

  After a while, someone nearby cleared his throat, then Rod’s voice said, “Whenever you two want to come up for air, I got a protective shield to work, and I think your number one fan has given up.”

  The train jerking to a halt forced me to let go of Owen and grab the pole again. I heard a squeal of feminine outrage from the far end of the car and noticed the she-wolf getting off the train with her arm hooked through the elbow of a glassy-eyed man. She tossed a glare at me over her shoulder as she left. I knew they said that all was fair in love and war, but there had to be some limits, and magic definitely seemed unfair.

  Owen was still a little shaky when we reached our station, and he walked with his arm tight around me. Once we were aboveground and had some breathing room, Rod asked, “What happened back there, man? Don’t tell me that chick was stronger than you are.”

  Owen shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think she was particularly strong. There was just something about that spell I’d never run into before—like it sapped my will to resist. That was the strongest compulsion I’ve ever felt. I need to get a copy of that spell so I can come up with a counter or protective charm.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that, myself, and I know attraction charms,” Rod said.

  It was only then that I realized that Rod must have stopped using his attraction charm. Ever since I’d known him, he’d maintained a charm that made every woman around find him terribly attractive. It didn’t work on me, of course, but I had felt its effects when I’d temporarily lost my magical immunity. This had been the first subway trip I’d ever taken with Rod when he hadn’t had women eyeing him.

  “Speaking of attraction charms…” I said to him.

  He raised his hands in mock surrender. “I gave them up entirely. I’m a new man. Turned over a new leaf, and all that.”

  “And you’re afraid of Marcia,” I teased. Rod was dating one of my roommates, and I couldn’t imagine Marcia putting up with every woman around drooling over her boyfriend.

  “Yes, I am afraid of Marcia. Besides, when you’ve got the best woman in Manhattan—present company excluded, of course—at your side, why bother setting all the other women up for disappointment?”

  I wondered if he’d also dropped the handsome illusion he usually wore. He’d certainly continued the self-improvement program he’d started before I left town. Now he had a good haircut, h
is skin looked better, and his teeth had been whitened.

  “Do you think this is another setup for selling protective charms, demonstrating the product in a real-world setting?” I asked.

  “I doubt it,” Rod replied. “I don’t see much of a market for something that keeps hot women from throwing themselves at you. Now, if they were using hags to demonstrate the potential dangers, then you might be on to something.”

  “Maybe they’re marketing a charm to women to help them keep their men from being snared by these spells,” I suggested.

  Our banter had given Owen a chance to recover, and now he looked more like himself. His eyes were still a little glassy, but from what I knew of Owen, that meant he was mentally analyzing the spell he’d just encountered and was thinking of ways to fight it.

  The two of them walked me to the front door of my apartment building, then Rod said, “I’ll make sure Romeo here gets home safely without running off with any loose women. Say hi to Marcia and tell her I’ll call later.”

  “Will do. And I’ll see you two tomorrow.”

  I unlocked the front door, checked the mail in the entryway, then headed upstairs to my apartment. I’d missed this dingy old building while I was in Texas, but more for what it represented than for what it really was. Our apartment was far too small for three people, and there was no such thing as personal space. I was relieved to get home and find that my roommates were still out. That gave me a moment of privacy and quiet.

  Well, maybe not that much quiet, I thought, wincing at the sound of an argument coming from upstairs. I turned the television on to drown out the noise while I changed out of my work clothes. When I came back to the living room, the TV was showing a live news report from an attempted bank robbery. The cameras zoomed in on a man being arrested while the reporter said, “The suspect, who was identified by patrons in the bank as the robber, surrendered to police, but claimed to have no memory of robbing the bank. Police still have not recovered the stolen money.”

  I groaned and sank onto the sofa as the newscast returned to the anchorman, who began talking about an unusual crime wave in the city. New York may have the reputation of being a dangerous place, but it’s really not that bad except in certain areas. This type of crime wave was definitely unusual.

  In a burst of panic, I switched to the national news to see if this was showing up anywhere else. The last thing I needed was my parents knowing about a crime wave in New York when their little girl had just returned to the big, bad city. We needed to put a stop to this as soon as possible before someone really got hurt—and before my parents came to drag me home. It was bad enough that people’s lives could be ruined by crimes they hadn’t been aware of committing. What would happen if one of these people under influence spells hurt or killed someone and then had to live with that? The magical people could buy the Spellworks charms to protect themselves, but what about ordinary people?

  Nothing about a major New York crime wave appeared in the five minutes I had the national news on, and then my roommate Gemma came home. She kicked off her high-heeled shoes right inside the front door, then limped to the bedroom without a word.

  “Rough day?” I called after her.

  Mumbled cursing came from the bedroom. A moment later, she reemerged, wearing yoga pants and a tank top. “What is it with people these days?” she asked.

  “What happened?”

  Instead of answering, she inspected a bloody patch on her elbow. “Do we have a first-aid kit?”

  I got off the couch and ran to the bathroom for the kit, then waved off her hands when she tried to take it from me. “You can’t see your own elbow properly, no matter how much yoga you do,” I said, grabbing her arm to hold it steady so I could dab the wound with antiseptic. “What happened to you?”

  “Oh, just some jerk running out of the subway station. He slammed me against the wall.” Then she must have noticed my cuts and bruises. “What happened to you?”

  “Something along those lines. I got caught in a subway fight this morning.” Out of sheer habit, I left out the reason for the fight. I wasn’t yet used to my roommates being in on the magical secret.

  “So, tell me, Katie, is all this stuff a magical thing?”

  “I think so,” I said, putting a bandage across her elbow. “We’re working on it, but be careful, and if you notice something weird, get out of the way.”

  The door opened again and Marcia, my other roommate, came in. She, at least, didn’t seem to be damaged or disgruntled. As soon as she saw me, she grinned and said, “So, how’d it go?”

  “How did what go?” I asked.

  With an exasperated sigh, she threw down her briefcase. “Your job? You know, the one you were going to beg for today.”

  “Oh, yeah, that.” So much had happened that I’d almost forgotten I’d started the day unemployed. “The bad news is, I didn’t get my old job back. The good news is I got a promotion, and I’m already busy with a big project.”

  “Congratulations!” Marcia said. “I don’t suppose that promotion came with a raise?”

  “It did. A nice one.”

  Marcia and Gemma exchanged glances, then Marcia’s grin got even bigger. “Great! That’ll work out great.”

  Gemma jumped off the sofa. “You mean we got it?”

  “We got it!” The two of them jumped up and down like cheerleaders after a touchdown.

  “What did we get?” I asked warily.

  “Katie, honey, don’t bother to unpack, because we’re moving,” Marcia said.

  “Moving?” I asked. “Where?”

  “One floor down and to the back,” Gemma said. “The people in one of the two-bedroom, two-bathroom units downstairs are about to move, and as soon as we knew you were coming back, we went after it. The rent’s higher, but if you got a raise, that shouldn’t be a huge problem. We could always find a fourth, if we need to. We’d still be less crowded than the three of us are in here.”

  “I’ll pay more to have my own room,” Marcia said. “One of the bedrooms is a little smaller and doesn’t have a connected bathroom.”

  “Just think,” Gemma said with a wistful sigh, her face glowing, “two whole closets. Two bathrooms.”

  “What do you say, Katie?” Marcia asked.

  The lack of space was one of the downsides to life in New York. “When do we move?” I asked.

  “We should be able to move two weekends from now, if we can hire some movers,” Marcia said. “That shouldn’t be too hard, since they wouldn’t need a truck. We just need someone who can carry things down stairs.”

  “We do all have boyfriends,” I reminded her.

  “Oh, right. I guess they could do a lot. The sofa bed can be pretty heavy, though.”

  “We have boyfriends who have magical powers.”

  Gemma and Marcia looked at each other, then both of them laughed. “I keep forgetting about that,” Gemma said. Gemma and Marcia had only learned about magic at the beginning of the year, when they got drawn into all the complications associated with my life. Gemma hadn’t known that the guy she’d been dating was actually a wizard, and as far as I knew, she still didn’t know he’d spent nearly a century as a frog under an enchantment. Marcia had met Rod before she knew about magic.

  “I guess the guys could levitate things down the stairs, huh?” Marcia said.

  “Or they could snap their fingers, and everything in our apartment would disappear and reappear in the other apartment,” I suggested.

  “They can do that?” Gemma asked.

  “I’m pretty sure Owen can.”

  “That is so cool,” Marcia said with a grin.

  *

  Owen was waiting on the sidewalk in front of my building the next morning. He smiled at me, but didn’t quite meet my eyes as he fell into step alongside me to walk to the subway station. “Sorry about yesterday,” he said, his cheeks flaming as he stared straight ahead.

  “Don’t worry about it. You couldn’t help it. But there is a way you c
ould make it up to me.”

  He frowned. “How?”

  “Do you have a spell for moving furniture?”

  “Usually, I just push.”

  “I meant up or down stairs. When you moved into your place, did you actually carry everything up the stairs, or did you do the abracadabra routine?”

  “Abracadabra wouldn’t be very effective for teleporting or levitating heavy items. That’s more of a rabbit-in-a-hat spell.” The crinkles at the corners of his eyes told me he was teasing me. “But yeah, there are spells for moving.”

  “What are you doing the weekend after next?”

  “Let me guess, I’ll be moving furniture.”

  “Only if it’s not too hard, and if you’re free.”

  “Who’s moving?”

  “We got dibs on a two-bedroom unit downstairs in the same building. And I figure that instead of us hiring big, burly men to carry our furniture down the steep stairs, their muscles rippling and shining with sweat while we gaze upon them in admiration, you might prefer to snap your fingers or flick your wrist or whatever the spell calls for while you say the magic words.”

  “Yeah, Rod and I could move you easily. You don’t even have to pack. And if Rod isn’t too eager, I bet the big, burly men threat would work on him.”

  I hugged his arm. “Thanks. You’re the best.”

  The sound of honking horns on a New York City street wouldn’t have caught my attention, but when it was accompanied by the sound of screeching tires and loud, metallic bangs, I whipped around to see what was happening. An armored car was careening toward us, knocking aside every other vehicle in its path. I grabbed Owen’s arm and shouted his name, but instead of looking at the armored car, he turned to stare at the crowd.

  I wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but apparently he saw it, for he tugged his arm out of my grasp and moved his hands in a subtle pushing gesture while he said soft words that I didn’t understand. I did understand the surge of power that radiated from him. Soon, the out-of-control armored car resumed a reasonable course, gradually moving to pull over without hitting anything along the way.