Before the armored car came to a complete stop, Owen took off, chasing someone down the sidewalk—probably the magical villain. I figured the real action would be wherever Owen was going, so I ran after Owen, abandoning the brewing shouting match between the armored car driver and the drivers whose cars he’d hit.
He had a head start and was much faster than I was, so I could barely see him ahead on the crowded sidewalk. There was a blast of magic so strong that even the normal people who had no idea magic existed paused and shuddered, and then everything came to a total halt.
I groaned and muttered, “You know you’re not supposed to do that,” while I wove my way through commuters frozen in time to find Owen stepping forward to grab the arms of two young men.
“It’s only for a second or two,” he said as I reached his side. “And it was necessary.”
“You don’t have to get defensive,” I said, just as time started moving again. Owen’s captives jerked in shock when they suddenly found themselves in custody. They struggled, but Owen was using more than muscle power to hold them.
“Hey, man, what is this?” one of them said, playing innocent. “You can’t just grab people like this.”
“And you can’t just hijack an armored car in broad daylight on a busy city street,” Owen said, managing to sound calm even though he was breathing heavily.
“You can’t prove anything,” the other captive said. “Help! Police!” he shouted, then added, “And try explaining this to the police.”
“I won’t have to. Did you really think I’d let anyone see or hear you?” Owen asked, raising an eyebrow.
Two men dressed all in black suddenly appeared in the empty space next to me on the sidewalk. Funny, I hadn’t noticed any major magic. “We’ll take it from here, sir,” the shorter man said, waving a hand. Silver chains materialized and looped around the captives’ wrists.
Owen released them and stepped back. “Do you need a statement?” he asked. “I witnessed the incident. I’m with MSI.”
“We may contact you later,” the taller man said. Then he frowned at Owen and asked, “Aren’t you James and Gloria Eaton’s boy?”
“They brought me up.”
A smile broke out on the man’s craggy face. “I thought so. You probably don’t remember me, but I was at your house a few times when you were a kid. Tell James and Gloria that Mack said hello. It looks like they trained you well.”
The shorter man didn’t seem as happy to meet Owen. “You’re Owen Palmer?” he asked.
“Yes. Why?”
“What is your involvement here?”
Owen shrugged. “I was here when it happened.”
“Three more incidents probably happened while we’ve been here,” Mack said impatiently. “We’d better get these two off for a hearing. We’re staying busy these days. Thanks for the help.”
The men in black and their captives disappeared. I felt a little shiver in the fabric of reality as everything went back to normal. Sirens sounded behind us, arriving to deal with the wrecks in the wake of the runaway armored car. “What was that, Law and Order: Magic?” I asked.
“Something like that,” Owen said. “They detain and deal with people who use magic for illegal purposes. The mundane court system can’t deal with this sort of thing.”
We resumed heading toward the subway station. I was still catching my breath after my sprint, but Owen looked like he hadn’t even strained himself, aside from the fact that his hair was a bit windblown. “Can they do anything about the innocent people who’ve been forced to commit crimes?” I asked.
“They have ways of dealing with that.”
“Good. That was worrying me.”
I noticed as we entered the subway station that everyone looked wary. Not that New Yorkers were normally full of friendly good cheer to strangers, but they usually just went about their business while pretending other people didn’t exist. Now they were eyeing each other with suspicion. Even without knowing about magic, they knew that something was wrong.
Once we got on the train, I realized that something was different. The Spellworks ads running along the top of the car now promised protection from the magical crime wave, showing off charms like the keychain I’d seen the day before. The ad’s tag line said, “Stepping up to protect the magical world,” suggesting that they had to step up because MSI hadn’t. That took some nerve.
I nudged Owen and pointed to the ads. He frowned as he read them. “I want to get a look at those charms,” he said. “Maybe then I could reverse engineer to find out how those influence spells work.”
Fortunately, nothing else happened on the way to work. It was a relief to get to my office and find that things were reasonably quiet and calm. In other words, Perdita wasn’t in yet. I took advantage of the moment of peace to search the Internet for venues that could hold our conference.
“Whoops!”
The shout from the outer office told me that my peace and quiet were probably gone for the day. I went to the doorway and found Perdita on her hands and knees, an empty paper coffee cup on the floor nearby, and a widening brown stain on the carpet. She looked up at me and winced. “Oh, hi, Miss—I mean, Katie. Don’t worry. I’ll get this cleaned up in no time. I’m an expert on cleaning spells. I have to be because I’m always spilling things. I guess I shouldn’t have tried conjuring the coffee in midair while I was walking. This was going to be a peppermint mocha for you.”
“That was very thoughtful of you,” I said. “Maybe it would be best for you to conjure it up on my desk—on the side away from the computer.”
She waved her hands over the stain, which then vanished. “Good idea, Miss—I mean, Katie. I’ll get you another coffee in a second. On your desk.”
“Okay, let’s give that a try.”
She bounced to her feet and followed me into my office, where she snapped her fingers, whispered some words, and a coffee cup appeared on the end of my desk away from my computer. It wobbled and teetered for a second—and I grabbed my planner and notepad to get them out of the way—then it steadied itself.
Once I was sure it wasn’t going to tip over, I reached for the cup and took a cautious sip. “How do you like it?” Perdita asked. “I’ve been trying to duplicate all the seasonal specials so I can have them any time.”
“It’s perfect,” I said. “Thanks.”
She lit up. “I’m glad you like it. Now, what do we need to do today, boss?”
I gestured for her to take a seat, then I sat at my desk, took another sip of the surprisingly good magical mocha, and said, “We need to do the impossible.”
“That’s practically the company motto.”
“This time, we have to do real-world impossible. We need to find a place that will hold a couple of thousand people for an event a little more than a month away. Venues that size are usually booked years in advance. We may have to pitch tents in Central Park and then use magic to hide them.”
“That would actually be kind of cool.”
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my desk. “Yeah, it would, wouldn’t it? And it might be less complicated. If we use a conventional meeting space, they’d get suspicious if we managed to put together an entire exhibit with no need for labor or catering, and I don’t see how we could hide that magically.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true. I’m so used to hiding magic that I forget about what people must think about what they see.”
I chewed on the end of my pen as I thought for a moment. “So, if we used real meeting space, we’d have to hide parts of what we’re doing—maybe make it look like a software users’ group meeting—without hiding the fact that we’re having an event. But if we create something magical, whether it’s tents in the park or boats in the harbor, we could just hide the whole thing. Can we do that?”
“My cousin Edlyn had her wedding in the park, and it was totally invisible to outsiders. She didn’t want to get married while using an illusion to make herself not look like an elf, so we ve
iled the wedding and used a compulsion spell to make people not want to go near that area. A couple of my uncles were able to do it, so I’m sure this company could take care of it.”
“This could work,” I said with a grin. “Thanks, Perdita.”
My brief moment of triumph faded when my phone rang and I saw Kim’s name on the readout. After steeling myself with a deep breath, I answered the phone. “You need to come up to the president’s office right away,” she said. “It’s about the incident this morning.”
Chapter Five
I assumed that Kim meant the armored car incident, but I didn’t know why Merlin wanted to talk to me about it. All I could think of was that Merlin wanted to know about Owen and that time-stopping spell, which he wasn’t supposed to use.
“I have a meeting upstairs. Don’t know when I’ll be back,” I told Perdita as I left. Heading up to Merlin’s office, I felt like I was back in elementary school and had been summoned to the principal’s office, and even though I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, I still got a sick feeling in my stomach. If this was about Owen, I wasn’t sure what I should say.
When I reached Merlin’s office, I was surprised to find Ramsay there. “Ah, there you are, Katie,” Merlin said when he noticed me standing in the doorway. He sounded friendly enough, so I let myself relax slightly. Merlin gestured and the door shut behind me. “Please, have a seat,” he added.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Far too much,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve noticed the many criminal incidents associated with magic use.”
“Yeah. It’s getting pretty wild west around here.”
“And I understand you were present for one of these incidents this morning.”
I glanced from Merlin to Ramsay. Neither of them looked angry or more concerned than I’d expect them to. Ramsay was leaning back in his chair, one booted ankle resting on his knee in the masculine version of crossing his legs. “Yes. But I walk down Fourteenth Street to get to the subway, and that’s a pretty busy thoroughfare. That increases my chances of being present for an incident.”
“You were with Owen Palmer, weren’t you?” Ramsay asked.
I couldn’t read his face at all. He seemed so casual and neutral, but suspiciously so, like he was trying not to show anything. “Yes, Owen lives near me, so we usually go to work together,” I said, trying not to sound confused or irritated by his question.
“And I understand you two handled what could have been a serious situation.”
“Owen did. I just shouted a warning.”
“Do you know how he caught them?”
I fought to sound just as casual as Ramsay. “He figured out who was doing the spell and blocked it, then chased the people responsible. Someone sprinting down the sidewalk was a dead giveaway.”
If I wasn’t mistaken, Merlin was intensely uncomfortable with this questioning. He even fidgeted, which was something I’d never seen him do. That turned my confusion about these questions into suspicion. “There have been questions raised,” Merlin said with an overly bland neutrality that conflicted with his body language, “and it is best if we know the answers before they’re asked officially.”
Ramsay leaned further back in his chair. “I tend to hear things in an unofficial capacity, so I thought I’d give you people a heads up. With all the incidents going on, and with as much trouble as the company has had countering these spells, it’s interesting that Owen was able to counter this one on the fly.”
He made it sound like an accusation. I shrugged. “I’m not the one to talk to about how magic works. I just see hands waving and feel the tingling. You’ll have to ask Owen what he did.”
Ramsay turned to Merlin. “I’d be interested in hearing Owen’s viewpoint.”
Not looking at all happy about it, Merlin nodded and stood up. His shoulders were stooped, like they carried a great weight, as he went to the phone and called Kim to have Owen come up. I’d never seen Merlin act like this. If this Ramsay guy bothered him so much, why was he putting up with him?
“What’s your take on these incidents, Katie?” Ramsay asked me. “Maybe what we need here is an outside perspective.”
I wasn’t sure how much I really wanted to share with Ramsay. “Advertising those protective charms is a good strategy for Spellworks,” I said. “No matter what’s going on with these incidents, they now look like they’re the ones to save us from all the chaos.”
“And meanwhile, MSI looks ineffectual,” Ramsay concluded. “That is a very good point, Katie. I can see why you’re so valuable to this company. I wish I’d had you on my side when I was in charge here.” Although it sounded like praise, I got a funny feeling from the gleam in his eyes as he looked at me that what he’d left unsaid was something along the lines of, “so I could have done away with you before you became a problem.”
The door opened and we all glanced over to see Owen come in. Ramsay got up to shake his hand and clap him on the back in greeting, as though he hadn’t just been questioning Owen’s actions. “Good work this morning, son,” he said. “Too many of these guys have been getting away, so it was good to get a couple in custody.” He guided Owen to the conference table with a hand on his back. “Now, maybe you could help us understand a few things.”
Owen looked as confused as I felt. “I’d be glad to help,” he said.
“What did you do to stop that spell affecting the armored car?” Merlin asked before Ramsay got a chance to take over the discussion.
“Nothing special. I just blocked all spells coming from that direction until I could tell who was doing it. I didn’t really counter the spell.”
“How close are you to having some good counterspells?” Ramsay asked.
“Not as close as Spellworks, from the looks of things. I don’t have any protective charms ready to go on the market, if that’s what you’re asking. But then I’m at a disadvantage, since I didn’t create the bad spells in the first place.”
“That’s what you think they’ve done?”
“I know they created some of these spells because I have the original spells they sold, back when it was an underground enterprise. And now they’re selling the charms. It’s pretty obvious, even if they’re now playing innocent.”
“That’s a big accusation to make,” Ramsay said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the conference table.
“And one they’re sure to deny,” Merlin added.
Ramsay propped himself on one elbow while gesturing with his other hand. “I’ve got to tell you guys, this doesn’t look good. The Council is concerned. They’re wondering why MSI should get the position of prominence when you can’t deal with this situation. You’re losing customers left and right. Not to mention the fact that the mundane world is starting to ask questions. I got a call from our person in the mayor’s office just this morning.” I was totally at sea here. I’d never heard of this Council.
“Our customer conference should help with our image,” Merlin said. “How is that progressing, Miss Chandler?”
Oh, great, I thought. Now my event was being viewed as the key to stopping a catastrophe I didn’t understand? “I’ve decided on a venue. That’s the first step. Then we’ll need to decide what we want to announce or showcase.”
“I would be happy to help if you need any suggestions or feedback,” Ramsay said.
Merlin’s lips thinned, and when he spoke, he faced me instead of turning to Ramsay. “I am sure Miss Chandler is quite capable. Now, unless you have any additional Council gossip to share, Ivor, we should all return to our duties.”
If Ramsay felt chastised or took offense, he didn’t show it. He just grinned as he stood and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you in the loop on anything I hear from the Council world.”
This sudden dismissal took me by surprise. I’d been sure they were suspicious about Owen’s use of unauthorized magic, but they hadn’t brought that up at all. What had the interrogation been about, then? It was like Ramsay wanted
to see how much we knew, or let us know how much he knew. Whatever it was, my instincts told me there was something fishy going on with Ramsay.
Owen walked with me away from the executive suite. “Is there some backstory I’m missing?” I asked him when we were out of earshot of the others.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the cold war between Merlin and Ramsay. I felt like I needed to put on a sweater, it got so icy in there.”
Owen frowned and tilted his head in thought. “It wasn’t that bad, was it? As far as I know, there’s no bad blood between them. Ramsay suggested we bring Merlin back, and he retired voluntarily.”
“You know, he would be ideally placed to indulge in a little industrial espionage,” I mused.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Katie,” Owen said, sounding truly annoyed as he came to an abrupt stop on a landing and faced me. “I know he can seem overbearing, but I’ve known him most of my life, and I’ve never had reason to doubt him. Ramsay’s not on the Council anymore, but he’s still really well connected.”
I backed off by changing the subject. “What is this Council, anyway?”
“The ‘law’ part of the magical law and order, assuming you consider the people doing the enforcement on the streets the ‘order’ part. The Council makes the rules about the use of magic and deals with violators.”
“Then where have they been all this time? They should have stepped in long before now instead of leaving it up to us.”
“It’s not quite the same as the mundane justice system. It’s hard to explain—it’s more like the United Nations and their enforcement of international law.”
“So they pass resolutions, but don’t do anything serious until it’s a crisis that leads to an international outcry?”
He gave a wry smile. “That’s pretty much it. MSI has always been the de facto ruling body of magic, in a practical sense, backed by the Council, and that mostly means they leave us alone until things are really bad, and then they get in the way.”
Much Ado About Magic Page 5
