Damsel Under Stress

by Shanna Swendson

  As tired as I was, it took me a good hour to fall into a deep sleep. I was sure I had nightmares, but they were too vague to recall when I woke. When I finally dragged myself out of bed, I felt weary. I sat on the side of the bed for a while before I could summon the energy to get up and get dressed. I found Owen lying sprawled on the sofa, a book in his hand and Loony draped across his chest.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  He looked up from his book. “A little after two. I haven’t been up long, myself, and I’d have probably slept longer, but a certain cat couldn’t stand me being in bed one minute more.” He put aside his book, then shifted Loony from his chest to his lap as he sat up. “Are you hungry for breakfast or lunch?”

  My impulse was to say I wasn’t hungry at all, but then my stomach growled. “Breakfast food would be good right now.”

  “Breakfast food I can do. That’s my specialty.” He moved Loony from his lap to the sofa, then stood up. “I’ve already made coffee if you want some.”

  I wasn’t sure coffee would clear my head, but I was willing to give it a shot, so I went back to the kitchen with him. He poured the coffee for me and doctored it up with milk and sugar the way I liked it. “Are you okay?” he asked as he handed me the mug. “You don’t look so good.”

  “Gee, thanks a lot,” I muttered, then when he flushed bright red I hurried to add, “I’m sorry. I know what you meant. And I’m not feeling great.”

  “You’ve been through a lot.”

  I sat at the kitchen table. “Yeah, that week in a hammock or on the front porch is sounding better and better. But we have work to do, what with the bad guys on the loose and all.”

  He expertly cracked eggs, then beat them with more vigor than was probably necessary. “I’ll take care of that. Idris and I are due for a good showdown one of these days.”

  “Is that something you’ve seen or just something you’d like to happen?”

  “A little of both.”

  It was a showdown that I couldn’t help but think would go more smoothly without me in the picture.

  That evening I repacked my bag, and then Owen walked me over to my apartment. It was still a little early to expect Gemma and Marcia to be home, which was fine with me. I thought things might go better if I were already there instead of walking in on them. I was relieved and a bit surprised not to find my belongings sitting in the hallway. My keys still fit in the locks, and when I opened the front door the place looked pretty much the same way it always had.

  “They haven’t kicked you out,” Owen said.

  “Not yet.”

  “They won’t.”

  “You’ve seen that, too, I suppose?”

  “No. But you and your friends have been through a lot together. I don’t think they’ll give up on you so easily. Look at Rod and me. We’re still speaking after all these years and some worse stuff than you know about.”

  “Really?”

  “Remind me to tell you sometime.”

  Marcia was the first one home. She looked startled when she saw us there, and then she hugged me. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ve felt better. I’m tired. I’ve been through a lot, but I’ll be fine. How are you holding up?”

  “I’m confused, but I presume you’re here to explain?” She frowned. “It did really happen, didn’t it? That wasn’t all just a dream?”

  “It was real.” I paused, then asked, “Do you know if Gemma will be home anytime soon?”

  “She didn’t say anything about being out late. Why?”

  “We need to tell her, too, and I only want to go through it once, so let’s wait for Gemma, okay?”

  All three of us jumped when the key turned in the lock and Gemma entered, with Philip right behind her. He was still pale, but looked like he was recovering from the night before. I was glad to see him. He’d be good for backing up my story as a neutral third party. “You’re back,” Gemma said. She sounded chilly, so Marcia must not have told her the full story yet.

  “Get yourself a glass of wine,” Marcia said. “Katie has something to talk to us about.”

  She went to the kitchen and got some wine, offered some to Philip, who declined, then joined Marcia at the table. Philip sat next to her. “Okay, what is it?” she asked.

  Twenty-Two

  I glanced at Owen, then faced my roommates and took a deep breath. “I have something to tell you. It’s going to sound crazy at first, but it’s absolutely true, and by the time I’m done, it’ll explain a lot.”

  “Including New Year’s Eve?” Gemma asked.

  “Including New Year’s Eve, but it goes back further than that.” I had to pause then and think. As many times as I’d imagined how I’d tell my friends about everything going on with me, I hadn’t ever come to a conclusion of the best way to go about it. Should I tell it like a story as it happened to me, or just launch into the part about magic being real?

  I decided to fall somewhere in the middle. “The company I work for is a little unusual,” I began. “It’s not quite as boring as I let on. In fact, it’s really rather interesting, but most of what goes on there is top secret.” Philip’s eyes went wide, and I could tell he’d figured out what I was going to tell them. He frowned, but Owen gave him a reassuring nod. “The product this company sells is magic, more or less.”

  “Like magic tricks?” Gemma asked.

  “No. Real magic. Spells and stuff like that. For people with real magic powers.”

  Gemma laughed. “Good one, Katie. But there’s no such thing.”

  “Uh, yes, there is,” Marcia said.

  Gemma whirled on her. “You know about this?”

  “It has something to do with where I’ve been, but let them tell the story. I only know parts of it.”

  A vase of flowers appeared in the middle of the table, and Gemma jumped back. “Magic does exist,” Owen said softly before making the vase disappear. He waved his hand, whispering some words, and Marcia’s red wine turned to white, complete with beads of condensation dripping down the outside of the cool glass. Another wave, and the wine returned to red.

  Gemma shook her head. “Nice tricks, but…” She shook her head again, unable to even form a question.

  “It is real,” Philip put in. “I can vouch for their truth.”

  She turned to him, openmouthed. “What, you’re mixed up in this, too?”

  “I am like he is.” He gestured toward Owen. “However, at an entirely different level. I don’t have his degree of power.”

  “How do you fit into that?” Marcia asked me.

  “I’m immune to magic. Well, I normally am, but I’m not at the moment and that’s a very long story. Remember back when we first met Rod and he was recruiting me? It was because they’d discovered I have this magic immunity, where nothing they do works on me. I don’t see the illusions they use to hide magic from everyone else. That’s a useful ability in their company.”

  They looked dazed. I couldn’t be sure that they bought it or even understood it fully, but I forced myself to go on. “Meanwhile there’s a bad guy using magic the wrong way, and our company is trying to stop him. Owen’s in the thick of it. I got mixed up in it, and that’s brought me to the attention of the bad guys. A lot of the strange stuff that’s been going on with me in the past few months has been because of that.”

  “Including New Year’s Eve?” Gemma asked.

  “Especially New Year’s Eve,” I confirmed. “It’s a really complicated explanation, but the simple version is that I was possessed by one of the bad guys, and all the stuff I said and did was really her. I just got rid of her last night.”

  “But I thought you were immune to magic.”

  Owen stepped forward. “We had to remove her immunity temporarily to check on something. They took advantage of the vulnerability.”

  “And all that stuff last night?” Marcia asked.

  “I’m afraid that was because of me,” Philip said. “One of their enemies is my enemy, as well, a desce
ndant of the man who enchanted me to take over my family’s business.” I noticed that he left out the nature of the enchantment, but that was his secret to tell Gemma when he was ready for that level of sharing. “If I regained the business, they lost funding for their schemes. They seem to have known I had feelings for one of Katie’s roommates, but when they took one of you hostage, they got the wrong one.”

  “We’ve spent the last couple of days trying to find a way to get Marcia back and get rid of our enemies,” I wrapped up the story as simply as I could.

  “You beat the bad guys, I take it?”

  Owen and I looked at each other. “Not exactly,” I said. “We haven’t yet had the ultimate showdown, but we’ve managed to head off each of their evil schemes before it gets out of control. They’re still out there, and that’s why I wanted to tell you guys the truth. It may get even hairier in the future, and you need to know what’s going on.”

  “Why haven’t you told us before now?” Gemma asked.

  “We’re not supposed to let outsiders know,” Owen said. “We could only tell you now because of what Marcia saw last night. If knowledge of the existence of magic and the fact that there are people with fantastic powers walking among you got out among the general public, the result would be chaos. The rule is to protect you as much as it is to protect us. If we’re forbidden from showing our power, that makes it harder for us to use it against you. The problem with our current enemies is that they’re not abiding by the rules. We’re worried they might try to use their magic to gain real power.”

  Gemma nodded, glanced at Marcia, then said, “Okay, we’re in. What do you need us to do?”

  I’d been expecting to have to go into hours of explanation, lots of demonstrations, and even then face skepticism. This was almost too easy. “You mean, you believe me, really? You’re not just humoring me to keep me calm while you go off and call the funny farm to reserve me a room?”

  “I was there,” Marcia said with a shrug. “It makes more sense than most of the stories you’ve told to cover it up.”

  “What do we need to do to help fight this bad guy?” Gemma asked. “Or is there something we need to do to protect ourselves? Hang garlic from the doorways? Wear crosses?”

  Owen had to fight to keep a straight face. While he got himself under control, I said, “This isn’t Buffy, and we’re not dealing with vampires.” I turned to Owen. “There aren’t vampires, are there?”

  “Not in this country, and they’re not like in the movies.”

  “Okay, no vampires to worry about at the moment, so stakes, crosses, and garlic won’t do you much good.”

  “Your apartment is warded against magical attack,” Owen said. “No one can get in here using magical means or use magic to get anything else in here.”

  Philip nodded. “I thought I’d sensed a barrier here.”

  “Mostly, I just need you to keep alert,” I said, “and give me the benefit of the doubt when things get weird. I seem to have made myself a favorite target of the bad guy. If anyone approaches you and claims to be my friend, assume they aren’t unless you’ve met them with me, and even then, it’s entirely possible that there are illusions at work.”

  “We’ll need passwords,” Marcia said. “Or questions to make sure everyone’s who they say they are, something about you that nobody else would know. So if someone claiming to be you doesn’t know your childhood pet’s name, we’ll know it isn’t really you.”

  “That’s actually a good idea,” Owen said, nodding. “Other than that, though, it’s best that you stay out of this as much as possible. You’re especially vulnerable since you are susceptible to magic being used on you, yet you don’t have any power of your own.”

  Marcia got up and went over to her briefcase, from which she took a notepad and pen. “Okay, let’s get to work on passwords to start with. And I want a complete list of contact information for everyone.”

  While she grilled everyone on secret info to use for identity verification, Owen edged over to me and put his arm around me. “That went better than I hoped,” he said.

  “Yeah, I’m kind of surprised, but I guess I shouldn’t have been. They seem to take everything in stride.”

  Once Marcia had her phone list and secret passwords, Owen took off for the night. I followed him out into the hallway. “Thanks for helping with this,” I whispered so neither my roommates nor my neighbors would hear us.

  “You handled it pretty well on your own. I just provided the proof.”

  “In your usual dramatic fashion.”

  He ducked his head and blushed. If I had to name a mannerism that defined him to me, that would have to be it. It had been one of the first things he’d done when we met, and it was still something I could count on him doing regularly, even though he did it less often as he grew more comfortable with me. Watching him, I felt my heart swell in my chest. I hadn’t had the chance to prove definitively how strong my feelings for him were the way he’d proved it to me the night before, but I knew now that if our positions had been reversed, I’d have probably made the same choice he’d made. We could fight the bad guys again some other day, but I couldn’t replace him. It might be early to start thinking along these lines, but I was pretty sure I was falling in love with him, if I hadn’t already fallen.

  “You should probably take tomorrow off,” he said. “It’s not quite your front porch or hammock, but it would be a chance to unwind and recover—and get your immunity back.”

  “Good idea,” I said, nodding.

  “Okay, then, I guess I’ll be going.” He turned to leave, but I caught his arm and pulled him back. Then I stood on my tiptoes and gave him a very thorough kiss. It took him a second to recover before he kissed me back. He wrapped his arms around me and held me like he had in those tunnels, after he’d saved me from the fire. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispered. “If something happened to you…”

  “I’m glad I’m okay, too, thanks to you,” I said. I forced myself to break away from his embrace. “Take care of yourself.”

  “I try,” he said with a crooked grin before he turned to head down the stairs. I watched him until he disappeared to the floor below, then I went back into the apartment.

  Philip was getting his coat on and preparing to leave as I entered. Once he was gone, I sank into one of the kitchen chairs next to my roommates. “So, magic, huh?” Gemma said after a while.

  “Yeah, magic,” I said, nodding.

  “Wow.”

  “And your boyfriend turns out to be a grown-up Harry Potter,” Gemma said.

  “Nah, he’s cuter than Harry,” Marcia said.

  “I don’t know, Harry’s pretty cute for a kid. You can tell he’s going to be a knockout when he’s all grown up.”

  “Movie Harry is cute, but I don’t get the impression from the books that he’s supposed to be all that gorgeous,” Marcia argued. “Besides, Harry has green eyes in the books, and Owen definitely has blue eyes. Plus, Harry wears glasses.”

  “Owen wears glasses sometimes,” I said. “But most of the time, he wears contacts. No scar, though.”

  “And didn’t you say something about him being an orphan?” Marcia asked.

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t know who his parents were, so it doesn’t look like they were killed by the bad guy. The people who brought him up were strict with him, but they’re basically good people and it doesn’t sound like they made him sleep under the stairs.” I pondered it for a moment, then said, “I think he’s more like Superman, except for the part about being an alien and the exact kinds of powers. And maybe being a bit shorter.”

  Gemma nodded. “Yeah, the dark hair and blue eyes fits that, as well as being brought up by good people who aren’t his parents.”

  “And I’m his kryptonite,” I said with a deep sigh.

  “What makes you say that?” Marcia asked. “Is it something like your immunity cancels out his powers?”

  I shook my head. “No, not like that. But I’m afraid I
may be his weakness. Owen chose to rescue me instead of catching the bad guy.”

  “Well, of course,” Gemma said. “He’s crazy about you.”

  “But it was his big chance to catch this guy who’s been causing all sorts of trouble and find out what he’s up to. Because of me, he didn’t.”

  “At least you know for sure how much you mean to him,” Marcia said. “That’s something very few people get to have demonstrated for them in such a vivid way.”

  “I’m afraid I’m holding him back, though. I don’t want to be what stops him from doing what needs to be done. I’m his biggest weakness.”

  “I think you also give him strength,” Gemma said. “Saving the world is an abstract concept, but making the world safe for you is something he can care about. That boy needs you, no matter how powerful he may be.”

  That thought made my head spin. It was a real paradox. How could I manage to be both Owen’s greatest strength and his greatest weakness? It was too much for an ordinary girl like me to cope with.

  I slept so hard that night I didn’t notice my roommates leaving for work in the morning. When I finally woke up, I was as tired as if I’d stayed up all night.

  I put on my robe and slippers and stumbled into the kitchen to make some coffee. While the coffeemaker went to work, I looked out the front window. It had snowed again during the night, but after the rush-hour traffic, the snow had already turned to gray slush that piled up in the gutters and on the edges of the sidewalks. The gray slush matched the gray brick of the buildings and the gray sky above. The only color I could see through the window was the yellow of taxis. Even the row of trees down the street looked gray, their winter-bare limbs bleak and silvery, with no sign of life.

  This was the downside of winter in New York, once the Christmas lights were gone and everything returned to normal. As I recalled, I’d nearly packed it up and gone home at this time last year. Mimi had been going through a particularly nasty spell, and the grayness had been almost too much to bear when I saw on the weather report that it was sixty-five degrees and sunny back in Texas.