“What the heck?” muttered our suspect, and I remembered that I was still sitting on him. I figured I was light enough that it wouldn’t kill him if I stayed there until we worked all this out.
“Since you seem to know who we are, who, exactly, are you? You’re obviously not FBI,” Owen said.
“We’re here to help,” one of the blond guys said. “We were able to get through the barrier with these.” He pointed to his rubber bracelet. “So we thought we’d help with the situation.”
The delivery guy and the store staff were all looking at us like we were nuts, and I could hardly blame them. “Um, guys?” I said to the four pseudo officials who were posturing above me. “We have an audience. You can work out who the hero is later.”
“I’ll take it from here,” Mack said, stepping forward. “I’m the real official here. Thank you for your assistance.”
They looked like they might argue, but then the apparent leader shrugged and backed away. “We’ll leave it to you,” he said. The other guy frowned before following his lead.
I eased myself off the wizard and let Mack yank him to his feet. While Mack bound the wizard’s hands with silvery cords, the older man who worked at the store said, “He had a gun, and I got it when the medic kicked it away, but I must have dropped it in all the excitement. It doesn’t seem to be anywhere.”
“We’ll search the scene, sir,” Owen said, sounding very official. “Now, I need you two to leave. There are police waiting for you.”
The woman kneeling by the injured deliveryman asked, “What about him?”
“We’ll see to him, don’t worry.” Owen stared at the two of them for a long moment, then both of them blinked and looked a little foggy. The woman went to the older man, who put an arm around her, and with a last anxious glance over her shoulder, they went outside. The two fake FBI guys went with them, acting like they were the ones who’d rescued the hostages.
As soon as they were gone, Owen knelt beside the injured man, placed a hand on his forehead and whispered a few words. The man’s eyes fluttered closed. “Okay, you can go,” he told Mack. Mack nodded and disappeared with his prisoner.
“The police are still out there waiting for him,” I said. “How are you going to explain the robber who set off the whole hostage situation just vanishing?”
“We’ve got it taken care of,” Owen said. He went to the door and called out, “We’re clear in here. Bring in the gurney.”
Real medics in fire department uniforms came in and went to work on the injured man. While they worked, Owen took my arm and walked me away from the shop. As we left the scene, I took off my jacket and cap and Owen made them disappear. “Now do you mind explaining how you dealt with all that?” I asked.
“The hostages will remember the robber shooting himself. The police will find a magically created body. None of them will remember us.”
“That’s too bad,” I said with a sigh.
“What do you mean?”
“No one will remember my kick-butt action heroine moment.”
The strain on his face faded as he grinned. “What did you do? That shield spell dropped like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“I kicked an imaginary gun out of his hands. It was much cooler than it sounds.”
He put his arm around me and pulled me to him in a hug so tight it squeezed the breath out of me. “It sounds cool enough,” he whispered. “Thanks.”
When he released me and I caught my breath, I asked, “Who were those other guys? Did you believe them about just wanting to help?”
“Not really. I’m guessing we had more Spellworks plants, setting up a situation where they could save the day. I wish I could have grabbed one of those bracelets. I bet that would help in figuring out that barrier spell.”
I ducked behind Owen as a TV news crew went by. “Are we still invisible?” I asked.
“Why?”
“My mother would never forgive me if I ended up on TV looking like this.”
Not that I had to worry about that. The Spellworks FBI guys were busy giving interviews and being praised by the hostages they’d supposedly rescued. The reporters didn’t even notice us.
Chapter Seven
The Spellworks guys were splashed all over the front pages of newspapers the next day, those rubber bracelets clearly visible in every photo. They wouldn’t mean anything to the average reader, who’d probably just think they were supporting some form of cancer research, but I had a feeling that anyone who’d gone to a Spellworks shop would know exactly what those bracelets were.
Sure enough, when I headed back to work after the weekend, the ads on the subway were all about how Spellworks spells had saved the day, and I noticed the brightly colored bracelets on a number of wrists. It was infuriating, to say the least. I’d risked my life going in there and distracting the wizard long enough for Owen to break the spell, and here they were claiming to be heroes for rushing in after the spell had been broken. They hadn’t needed the bracelets. I wondered if they even worked, or if they were just stealing the credit. It was a real shame that Owen wasn’t around for me to gripe to. All I could do was fume silently.
I was actually glad to see Perdita already at her desk when I got there, but before I could say anything to her, she looked up at me with enormous eyes and gasped, “Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“About Owen?”
My fraying patience came dangerously close to the breaking point. “What about Owen?”
“It’s all over the network—he tried to rob a jewelry store.”
“What? Where did you hear that?”
She waved a hand at the crystal ball thingy on her desk. “That’s what people are saying. There are pictures of him coming out of the store after some guys from Spellworks stopped the incident.”
“That’s not what happened. I was there. The robber was arrested by the magic police, and Owen was the one who broke the barrier spell the robber was using. You people need to get some real magical journalists so you can get decent reporting. What you’ve got is no better than most of the Internet for spreading rumors.”
“But–but that’s what people are saying, and there are pictures. He’s also been at a lot of those other magical incidents.”
“People are wrong. There are pictures because he was there to break things up—or they were Photoshopped, or whatever it is magical people do. Would he be here at work if he had tried to rob a store?” At least, I assumed he was at work. He’d become scarce right after dropping me off at my new place.
With his usual impeccable timing, Owen stepped through the doorway at just that moment, causing Perdita to yelp in fright. Owen gave me a baffled look, and I sighed heavily in response. “Have you checked the crystal network lately?” I asked.
“No. I’ve been working, and it’s a bunch of rumors anyway. Why?”
Perdita said, “You probably ought to see this.” Then she jumped out of her chair and moved well out of the way so that Owen could go behind her desk and look at the crystal ball. With my magic immunity and inability to do magic, those things were nothing more than paperweights to me.
As he read, Owen’s eyebrows raised, and then he straightened and said, “You’ve got to be kidding. Where do these people get this stuff?”
“I’ll give you one guess,” I said.
“They’re trying to make me into a villain! And it doesn’t make any sense because Mack was there from the Council, and he wouldn’t have let me go if he thought I was guilty.”
“Mack left directly with the prisoner,” I reminded him. “They’ve apparently left out any pictures of you two going into the building together.”
“I haven’t seen any,” Perdita confirmed.
“At least they don’t name me,” he said. “It’s just pictures and rumors about an unnamed wizard criminal—probably because libel laws work in the magical world, too, and naming me would bring in the boss. But still…” He sounded more frustrated and sad than angry,
like this was a big disappointment to him. “I’ve just been trying to help.”
“Was there something you needed from me?” I asked him.
“I need to talk to Idris again. I don’t know if that barricade was one of his spells or a more recent one, but if he knows something, it could help, and maybe we’ve let him stew long enough that he’ll tell us more.”
“You need me for that?”
He shrugged wearily. “He won’t talk unless you’re there. I don’t know why, but is it worth arguing? I know I’d like you there. He’s calmer when you’re around.”
“Then I can’t imagine what he’s like when I’m not there,” I said. As we headed to the detention area, I watched Owen carefully. He had changed clothes since Saturday, and he had shaved, but I wasn’t so sure about sleeping or eating. “You’re going to make yourself sick if you keep this up,” I said.
“You saw what happened Saturday. I don’t want another incident where we can’t get our people in before the entire police department shows up—or Spellworks takes the credit.”
When we got to the detention area, Idris wasn’t looking so good. He was pale and shaky and had developed a distinct twitch. “Oh, thank God!” he called out when we entered the interrogation room. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
“What happened to you?” I asked. He looked bad enough that I didn’t have to pretend to be concerned. “Are they not feeding you?”
“Oh, the food’s pretty good.”
“Are you sick? Do you need medical attention?”
“No, I’m fine. But I haven’t had anyone to talk to! Nothing to read! Nothing to watch! Nothing to do! I’m going insane!”
I couldn’t help but wince. For most people, that would be awful, but for someone with Idris’s attention span, that must have been a good approximation of hell.
“We’ll see what we can do about that,” Owen said. “Of course, it all depends on how cooperative you are.”
“I’ll cooperate! I will!”
Owen leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table. “Did you do any development on the barricade spell?”
“Barricade spell?”
“Quick magical dome over a large area, blocks out not only magic but also physical entry.”
Idris frowned in thought, and his fingers twitched like he was mentally typing. “There was something like that—I think the basis had to do with battlefields. I didn’t develop it fully because it takes a lot of concentration, but it came from that book in your office, the old one.”
“That narrows it down,” Owen said acidly.
Idris snapped his fingers as if conjuring the memory. “Oh, you know, the red one, it was about spells for war.”
“I think I know the one you mean. Thank you. You’ve actually been helpful for a change.”
Idris leaned back in his chair and clicked his tongue as he smirked. “Glad I could help. Come to me any time you need assistance with magical matters.”
With a great demonstration of maturity, Owen ignored the barb. Idris sat up straight and beamed at Owen. “Don’t tell me someone actually used that spell! Wow!”
“That’s not something I’d be proud of, considering the way it was used,” Owen grumbled.
I gave Idris a pitying look. “With all those spells you were developing, you didn’t really want to hurt people with magic, did you?”
“Are people being hurt?” My bruises had healed, but I just had to point to my neck to remind him. “Oh, yeah, I guess they are. I only wanted to have some fun.”
“I bet there’s plenty of room for magical pranks that are safe, right, Owen?”
Owen looked at me like I was crazy, and then he caught on. “Yes, of course! Magic doesn’t have to be dull and boring. You can have fun with it. I bet you have lots of ideas for that.”
Idris sat up eagerly. “Oh, yeah! I have lots of ideas.”
“That might be something we could get the boss to consider—that is, if we could convince him we could trust you,” I said.
“You can trust me, honest!”
“Why should we trust you?” Owen asked sternly.
I touched Owen’s sleeve. “Maybe we could give him a pencil and some paper to write down his ideas, and then we’d have something to show the boss.”
“It would have to be purely theoretical, since there’s a magical dampening field in the detention area.”
“I’m sure he could still come up with some good theories, even without testing them. He probably even has ideas he’s already tested that he’d like to write down.”
Idris practically bounced in his chair. “I do! I do! Please!”
Owen took a small memo book out of his suit coat pocket, along with a pen, and handed them to Idris. “I’d like to see what you come up with.” Then he stood and gestured for me to follow.
Outside in the observation room, Owen asked, “What was that about?”
“I thought if we threw him a bone, he might be more cooperative. Think of it as nonmagical dragon taming. Did you get what you needed?”
“I believe so. If I have the basis for the spell, it should be easier to counter it. I’ve got one of those bracelets, but it doesn’t contain a true counterspell.”
He started to head off, and I called after him, “I am going to see you again someday, right?”
He stopped and turned around. “When this is all over, we’ll go where no one can find us and spend lots of time together. I promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” I said. The question was, what would really count as “over,” and would it ever really be over?
As if to prove my last thought, the guard in the observation room glanced at his crystal ball, then said to us, “The boss wants to see you both right away.”
For a change, I found myself hoping that the sudden meeting was to discuss the conference and my progress in planning it, but I had a sinking feeling that it would be about the weekend incident. Merlin wouldn’t believe what they were saying about Owen, but he’d want to look into it.
When we got to Merlin’s office, Ivor Ramsay was there, looking irritatingly smug. Merlin looked uncharacteristically stern. “We need to talk about the most recent situation you’ve dealt with,” he said.
Owen looked confused, and while he was still thinking of how he should respond, I jumped in. “The rumor mill is getting out of control. You people need a legitimate news source within the magical world—you know, someone who actually checks facts.”
Owen gave me a “stifle it” glare and said coldly, “I gave you my report. The security team called me for help, and Mack from the Council’s enforcement branch was with me. I’m not sure what the problem is beyond the misinformation that’s being spread.”
Ramsay gave a low chuckle. “Easy, son,” he said, making a calming gesture. “No one is accusing you of anything—at least, no one in this room is. But we do need to consider the reputation of this company and do some damage control. The Council is very well aware of the role you played in resolving the situation, as well as the interference by others who might be affiliated with Spellworks. However, the magical community is hearing a different story.”
“It’s slander,” I said, backing Owen up. “All we can do is deny it and present our own evidence.”
Ramsay leaned back in his chair. “And denial looks guilty. It’s a no-win situation.” I was really starting to dislike this guy. He almost seemed to be gloating, like he was enjoying this. He paused, making a great show of deep thought, then said, “I suppose all we can do is put Owen here front-and-center in the good things we do so people can get to know him beyond the rumors.” He gave Owen a warm smile. “No one who really knows you could suspect you of these things.”
Yeah, I thought, and putting him front-and-center was a good way to kill him. Owen could be okay in meetings and one-on-one with people he knew and trusted, but anything beyond that and he’d be paralyzed by panic, which could make him look cold and aloof and give the wrong impression. Even
now, just raising the topic had made Owen go horribly pale. We’d been standing in front of the conference table like kids called on the carpet, but I tugged on Owen’s sleeve to get him into a chair before he passed out, then I sat beside him, keeping what I hoped might be a calming hand on his arm.
“Again,” I said, “It might be handy to have a real news outlet for him to talk to. What else can he do, start blogging?”
“He could be a presence at this conference you’re planning.”
“I’ll be demonstrating some new spells,” Owen said quietly.
Ramsay beamed. “Excellent! Then you’re ahead of me already. How are the plans going, otherwise?”
I provided an update of everything I had set up thus far. Merlin nodded and smiled the whole time I spoke, which I found encouraging.
“You’ll need a keynote speaker,” Ramsay said.
It was an obvious request for an invitation, but I ignored it. “We have Merlin. I’m sure that name still means something in the magical world, and this is your first major public appearance since returning, isn’t it?”
“I have met with customers, and I have been at Council meetings, but no, I have not made an official public appearance,” Merlin said.
“How are you planning to address Spellworks?” Ramsay asked. “It is the elephant in the room. I’m not sure that just talking about what you’re doing will be enough. You need to take on the competition directly, maybe even accuse them of wrongdoing.”
“And how would you propose we do that?” Merlin asked. “We have only the slightest concrete evidence of their evil intent.”
“You have the person who was the face of Spellworks in your custody,” Ramsay said. “He could repudiate them and admit that they were the source of all these negative spells that they’re now selling charms to fight.”
Before I thought about what I was saying, I blurted, “That’s insane! He’s insane. I wouldn’t put him in front of any audience. You never know what he’d say.” I turned to look at Merlin, sure he’d back me up, but if he thought the idea was crazy, he was showing a lot of self-control in not visibly freaking out.
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