“You’d be surprised.”
We went together over to Merlin’s office and gave him the letter. He read it carefully, making the occasional “hmmm” sound. It looked like Owen was right. He did know what he was reading. He must have spent his free time studying every reference book he could get his hands on, or maybe he’d discovered the Internet.
“This is excellent work,” he said.
“You know about law?” I had to ask.
“Remember, the Romans hadn’t been too long gone in my day. Your modern legal system has its share of similarities to their law. Please tell Mr. Wainwright to go ahead and send the letter to Mr. Idris. And then we’ll see what happens.”
It didn’t take long to get a response. Within two hours I had a call from the lobby that Mr. Wainwright was there to see Mr. Mervyn. I met Ethan at the top of the escalator. “What is it?” I asked. He looked flushed and out of breath.
Merlin joined us a second later. “You’ve had a response?”
“He wants to meet.”
“Trix, get Owen up here,” Merlin instructed before turning to head back into his office. Ethan and I followed him. “So, he wants to meet?”
“Yes, sir. I made it clear that I could get an injunction and tie him up in court for the foreseeable future. That could eat into his potential business dealings. Now he must want to get all of this out of the way.”
“Do you really think he’d want to negotiate?” I asked. “I mean, he doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d much care what the courts say.”
“Everyone cares what the courts say, if it means you’re out of business,” Ethan said.
“No, I doubt he wants to negotiate,” Merlin confirmed. “I imagine he’s as tired of playing games as we are.”
Owen arrived then, panting and disheveled from what must have been a sprint up to Merlin’s office. “What is it?” he asked.
Ethan explained, “I heard from Idris. He wants a meeting.”
“Already? That letter must have been more powerful than I realized.”
“Let’s just say my C and D letters are my own brand of magic.”
We gathered around the table, and Ethan pulled out his Palm Pilot, then brought up a document. “Here’s the gist of it. He wants to keep this out of the mundane legal system—I suppose that’s your word for nonmagical things. But he also wants us to get out of his way. He wants a meeting to hash all this out, but not around a conference table. He said something about the ‘good old-fashioned way,’ and that you’d know what that meant. We get to pick the place.”
“He’s challenging us to a magical duel,” Owen said, his eyes grave.
“You still do those?” Merlin asked.
“Not often, at least not officially. They’re as frowned upon in our community as the sword or pistol kind is under mundane law.”
“Don’t look at me,” Ethan said. “My game is legal briefs at ten paces. I’m just the go-between here. I’m supposed to get back to him with a location within an hour. The time is set for sunrise tomorrow. And only four people are to come per side, no creatures. Only humans.”
“Then that’s not technically a duel,” Owen remarked. “A duel implies two people. But details were never Phelan’s strong suit.”
“You’re going to fight a duel?” I asked, not sure whether I should believe what I was hearing. “Isn’t that kind of archaic?”
“I’m more than a thousand years old,” Merlin said with a wry smile. “I’m the very definition of archaic. I might as well live up to it. Are you in, my boy?” he asked Owen.
Owen went pale. “I’ve never done this sort of thing before, not seriously. Just what they taught us in school.”
“You’re our strongest. I can’t think of anyone who’d be more up to the task.”
“Wait a second, you’re more than a thousand years old?” Ethan asked, lagging somewhat behind the conversation.
I leaned over to whisper in his ear. “He’s Merlin, the real one. I’ll explain later.” He stared at me, then at Merlin, then back at me, and I nodded to confirm it. He shook his head in amazement.
“If we get to select the location, we might as well make it one to our advantage,” Merlin continued, ignoring Ethan’s question. He raised a hand, and a large book flew off the shelf to land on the conference table. He leaned over the book, stroking his beard as he studied the page. Then he pointed to a spot. “There, that seems to be the area of weakest magical influence in this region.”
I came over to the book and saw that he was pointing to a spot on the southern New Jersey coastline. Ethan joined us. “Yeah, I would have guessed that the Jersey shore was pretty nonmagical, especially this time of year. The place should be more or less deserted.” He bent to look closer at the map. “Hmm, Wildwood. We went there once on vacation when I was a kid. Very kitschy. The boardwalk is nice, though. It has a good amusement park.”
“But why are you choosing a nonmagical area?” I asked. “Don’t you need something to draw on for power?” I remembered what Rod had said about the need for a power supply.
“That will weaken him more than it weakens us,” Merlin said. “We have a secret weapon.” He turned to look at Owen, who appeared uncomfortable. A couple of bright spots formed on his cheeks, then spread over the rest of his face.
“I can probably outlast him,” he said softly. That must be what Rod had meant about Owen being particularly powerful. He didn’t need to draw on other energy sources as much as others did. Or something like that. One day I was going to have to get that physics of magic lecture from somebody.
Then Owen’s lips turned up in a mischievous grin. “Let’s meet at the amusement park. That will keep us out of sight so we won’t have to worry about masking while we’re fighting, and it gives us something to work with.”
“It’ll give him somewhere to hide, though,” I pointed out. “Do you really believe he’ll stick to the rules he set out?”
“That’s why you’ll be there, both of you,” Merlin said. “We’ll need our legal counsel, of course, upon the outcome of the battle, but it will be very handy to have a couple of immunes on our side. I doubt that’s something he’ll have.”
“And we can work with that.” Owen was really getting into this. It was the most enthusiastic I’d ever seen him about anything. “He may bring extra people and mask them, but we can make him think we’ve got a few other things on our side.” He grinned, and a wicked gleam formed in his eyes. “It’s all about the sleight of hand.”
“So, we get back to him,” Ethan said, “tell him he’s on, and we’ll meet at the boardwalk amusement park in Wildwood, in front of the roller coaster, at dawn. Does that work for everyone?”
Merlin nodded. “Please let him know we accept his challenge, according to his terms.”
“Is there a phone I can use?”
“My office,” I said.
While he went to make the call, I thought of logistical matters. “That’s about a three-hour drive from here. My roommates and I once drove down to Atlantic City, and this is even farther. We’ll need to leave pretty early in the morning—more like the middle of the night—to get there on time. That means we’ll need a car, or do you guys have magical transportation?”
“That would be unwise, as we’ll need to save our energy for the fight itself,” Merlin said.
“Okay then, we’ll need a car. I still have a license, so we can rent one.” I was looking forward to getting on the open road. That was something I missed from Texas.
“I have a car,” Ethan said as he came back to the office. “No need to rent one. We should leave by two in the morning, to give us plenty of time to get there, scope the place out, and get situated. Oh, and he did agree to the location. We’re definitely on.”
Merlin looked satisfied. “Good.”
“This isn’t to the death, is it?” I asked, suddenly nervous.
Owen shook his head. “No, it shouldn’t be, not unless he refuses to surrender when he’s clearl
y beaten.”
“You sound awfully confident.”
He shrugged. “I am. I’ve gone up against him before, though never in so formal or so serious a fight, and he’s never given me any problems. But if we are clearly beaten, we’ll surrender so he doesn’t have to kill us.”
“And what then?”
“Depending on the outcome of the fight, I’m sure we’ll work out an agreement regarding what spells he’s allowed to produce,” Merlin said. “We win, he stops using these spells. He wins, we have to let him.”
“Maybe we should bring back dueling,” Ethan mused. “It would really unclog the court system, and thin out the ranks of lawyers.”
“We’ll all need our rest, so everyone should go home and prepare,” Merlin said.
“I can pick everyone up, depending on where everyone is,” Ethan said. “I live in Battery Park City.”
“My home is in this building,” Merlin said.
“Katie and I live near each other,” Owen put in. “She’s off Fourteenth, and I’m in Gramercy.”
Ethan fed all our information into his Palm Pilot, then we arranged pickup times and places and headed out. The thought crossed my mind that we could have tried to find hotel rooms in the area so we wouldn’t have to drive all night, but by the time we all got home and packed for an overnight stay, it would be rush hour, so it would take us about as much time to get out of the general metro area as it would to make the whole drive in the middle of the night, and in the off season, finding a hotel room late at night might be a challenge.
I ran into Owen at the subway station. He looked tense but excited. “Are you really up for this?” I asked him while we waited for a train.
“I think so. I know what to do, but I’ve never had the chance to try it.”
“And you’re really more—” I searched for a word I could use safely in public. “—capable than he is?”
“Apparently so. People are gifted in a lot of areas. This happens to be mine.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s genetic.”
“Were your parents like that?”
“I don’t know. I never knew them. They died when I was a baby. At least, I think they did. I don’t even know who they were.”
As usual, a train showed up just as things were getting interesting, and a crowded subway train wasn’t the place to get into a conversation about someone’s mysterious origins. If Owen was an orphan, that could explain some of his awkwardness around people.
He walked me home from the subway station, saying he didn’t want to take any chances, then we said we’d see each other very soon. I went upstairs and laid out an outfit for the morning. I wasn’t sure what one should wear to a magical battle—not even Gemma the fashion maven would have an answer to that—so I went with warm, comfortable clothes that were still businesslike—a black wool pantsuit with a gray sweater underneath and low-heeled short boots.
I knew I should go to bed early, but I was too wired to sleep. Instead, I baked cinnamon rolls. Cooking always relaxes me, and I had a feeling all of us could use some sugar in the morning. The rolls were rising when my roommates got home. “What are you up to?” Marcia asked when she saw the flour-spattered kitchen.
“I have to go on a very early road trip for work in the morning.”
“Ah, sucking up to the boss with some goodies, huh?”
“Or impressing the cute guy?” Gemma teased.
“Mostly just sorting out my thoughts,” I said, although they were both partially right. “I can switch beds with you for the night, Marcia, so I don’t disturb you when I have to get up and go. It’s going to be god-awful early.”
“What kind of business trip is it?” Marcia asked.
“Just a meeting my boss is going to.”
“And he’s too cheap to spring for a hotel room. Typical. He is driving with you, though, isn’t he? He’s not putting himself up in luxury for the night?”
“No, he’s driving with us. It was a last minute thing, so we couldn’t get rooms.”
“Is that cute guy, the one you were talking about, going to be on this trip?” Gemma asked. She has a one-track mind.
“Yeah. Actually, there will be two of them.” I hadn’t yet told them Ethan was working with my company, so I decided not to try to work that in right then. It would get too complicated to explain. Come to think of it, “complicated” was a very good word for my life.
I set Marcia’s alarm for one, and when it woke me, I started the coffeepot while I dressed, then filled a couple of thermoses. I had a feeling we’d need plenty of caffeine to keep us all going. I’d just made it to the sidewalk when a silver Mercedes pulled up. The passenger window rolled down and I saw Merlin’s face. “Good morning, Katie,” he said, looking perkier than any thousand-year-old man had a right to look at that time of the morning.
I climbed into the backseat, then Ethan took off. We turned off onto a narrow, tree-lined side street, where Owen waited on the sidewalk. He wore a black, double-breasted greatcoat over a dark suit, which was somewhat incongruous with the pillow he had tucked under one arm, like a child heading off on a family vacation. I scooted over to make room for him in the backseat.
And then we were off. “I brought coffee,” I said. “Does anyone want any?”
“Oh, bless you. You’re an angel of mercy. Black, please,” Ethan said. I poured some into a travel mug and passed it up to him. He turned to Merlin and said, “I can see why you hired her.”
“Anyone else?”
“No, thank you,” Merlin said. “I must confess I haven’t developed a taste for this coffee you drink.”
I turned to Owen, but he was already sound asleep, his head resting on the pillow he had wedged against the window. I didn’t see how he could sleep at a time like this, but it was good that he could. We needed him at his best that morning.
An hour into the drive I was wishing I’d brought my own pillow. Not that I thought I could sleep, but there wasn’t much else to do. In the front seat, Ethan and Merlin talked quietly. It sounded like Merlin was giving Ethan a Magic 101 lecture, answering all of Ethan’s questions. I would have liked to listen in, but they spoke too softly and I didn’t want to risk waking Owen by asking them to speak up so I could hear. It was too dark in the car to read, even if I had brought a book, and I couldn’t see the scenery outside in the darkness.
It was still dark when we pulled into a parking lot near the boardwalk. “Looks like we made good time,” Ethan noted. “But if we’d left later, something surely would have come up.”
“I made cinnamon rolls, if anyone wants breakfast,” I said.
“You aren’t an angel, you’re a goddess,” Ethan said. I passed rolls forward for him and for Merlin. Ethan took a bite, then said, “You made these, yourself? Look out, Sara Lee.”
“You cooked for us?” I jumped when I heard Owen’s voice, then turned to see that he was awake, blinking sleep out of his eyes.
“Yeah, would you like some coffee and a cinnamon roll?”
“Yes, please. I take it we’re here?”
“With plenty of time to spare,” Ethan said as I handed Owen a mug and a roll.
“After we refresh ourselves, we can get the lay of the land,” Merlin said.
I got a roll and some coffee for myself. The nearly sleepless night was already catching up with me, in spite of a bad case of nerves. “These are wonderful, Katie,” Owen said, his voice sounding very close to me in the darkness of the backseat. “You’re a good cook.”
“Everyone needs a hobby,” I said, glad he couldn’t see me blushing.
After we finished our breakfast, we got out of the car and walked toward the boardwalk. The sky was just starting to turn gray on the eastern horizon, and a light fog forming near the ground gave the deserted boardwalk a ghostly quality. Merlin unlocked the public restrooms so we could all recover from the long drive. I touched up my lipstick before heading back out to join the men. A girl just couldn’t face a magical battle without her lipstick.
&nbs
p; We walked together toward the amusement park. If this had been a movie, it would have been one of those slow-motion power shots, our coats swirling around us as we strode purposely through the fog toward our destiny. As it was, we all felt a little cold and damp, so we clustered together tighter than we normally would. I noticed that the men had closed ranks around me, and I wasn’t enough of a feminist to mind all that much. If they wanted to protect me from the scary bad guys, I was totally on board with that plan. Never mind the fact that I was probably safer than Merlin and Owen were from whatever was likely to happen.
A gate sealed off the amusement park’s pier, but one touch from Owen and it opened soundlessly. In the pale early morning light and the fog, the amusement park looked like something out of a Scooby Doo cartoon, very eerie and haunted. I halfway expected to find the evil caretaker wearing a rubber zombie mask. Only bits and pieces of the giant roller coaster broke through the fog, looking like sections of a railroad to nowhere.
“Do you think he’s here yet?” Owen whispered.
“I’m not sensing anything,” Merlin replied. “You two”—he indicated Ethan and me—“keep your eyes open for anything unusual, anything you don’t think should be there.”
My heart pounding in my throat, I scanned the empty amusement park, then did a double take when I saw a darker shadow up in the rigging that supported the roller coaster track. “There’s someone up in the coaster,” I said.
“I see it, too,” Ethan said.
“I don’t see it,” Owen said, frowning. “And I suppose that answers my question. He’s here.”
“How, exactly, do you define sunrise, anyway?” I asked. “It’s getting light, but the sun isn’t up.”
“For our purposes, it’s sunrise when the sun is clear of the horizon,” Merlin explained. I looked to the east and saw that only the topmost part of the sun was showing. We had some time to go. “But if they attack, we fight back, no matter what time it is.”
I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. “Look out for the guy on the coaster,” I warned.
Owen barely lifted a hand, and the man up in the coaster flew back against the iron bars, seemingly held there by invisible cords. “I don’t think he’ll be a problem,” he said mildly. “Let me know if you see anything else.”
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