chapter Two
I wasn’t sure what we could do to save ourselves. Would it be better to stand our ground and try to fight or to run for our lives? We were so close to Owen’s place… where Granny was, I realized. My grandmother had come to New York from Texas because she’d sensed I’d need her help soon. Surely she’d notice if I was in mortal danger little more than a block away. We hadn’t yet covered mental communication in my magic lessons, since that was supposedly a more advanced skill that only a few wizards could do, but I figured that a mental cry for help wouldn’t hurt. I put every bit of thought and feeling I had into mentally calling out for my grandmother.
Then I couldn’t bear waiting any longer for the attack and spun to face our attackers. All my thinking and crying out for help must have taken only a split second because they weren’t quite yet on us. Their steps faltered when they saw me facing them, like they hadn’t expected that. I nudged Owen to get him to turn around, too, as we backed against the nearest wall. “What do you want?” I demanded of the fresh-faced, retro street gang.
Their answer was to fan out to surround us on three sides and look menacing, but they didn’t get much closer to us. I felt magic move with them, surrounding them, and I thought I saw hints of the blurring around the edges that indicated an illusion. In my public guise as a magical immune, I wasn’t supposed to see illusions, so how was I supposed to react to these guys? What was really there? If they’d been ordinary street thugs, I’d have known what to do. A clearly magical situation without a clear agenda was more challenging. Having magical powers was cool, but my magical immunity had been so much more useful in situations like this because I knew what was really happening.
They still weren’t doing anything but acting like they wanted to scare us. They weren’t making threats or demands, just leering at us as they sauntered around us like cats toying with a pair of mice. Well, if what they wanted was to intimidate or scare us, the way to ruin that was to refuse to act intimidated or scared, no matter how intimidated or scared I really was.
I folded my arms across my chest, rolled my eyes, and stifled a yawn. “Is there something we can help you with?” I said, giving my tone a veneer of civility on top of irritation.
Owen looked at me like I was nuts, then got the hint. “I’m pretty sure dinner’s waiting on us, and her grandmother won’t be happy if we’re late,” he said. “So, if you don’t mind, can we cut to the mugging part of this encounter?”
Our assailants gave each other surprised glances. I wasn’t sure what they expected us to do—maybe scream in terror? I’d seen a lot more frightening things than this in my time among magical people.
“Is this part of your hate club?” I whispered to Owen. “Are they trying to goad you into fighting them so they can say you’re evil?”
“There’s no telling,” he whispered wearily. Frowning, he added, “I think they’re elves. Their magic feels elven.”
“So I was right, those are illusions!”
“Good work.”
“Tell Rod. I want credit.”
One of our would-be attackers lunged toward us with his knife, but didn’t come close enough to do any harm. “Eek,” I said so he wouldn’t feel bad about not being scary enough.
And then it was as though someone had sent them a signal, and they all charged forward. This time, it looked like their aim was to do more than scare us. “Run!” Owen urged, and we ran through a gap they opened when they attacked.
A loud crack of lightning stopped us in our tracks. I realized it wasn’t generated by our attackers when they pulled back, too. Then a small figure came out of the haze of smoke lingering from the lightning and rapped a cane on the ground. “It’s dinnertime,” Granny said in a voice that wouldn’t accept arguing. She’d heard me! We hurried to her side.
At the same time, a trio of gargoyles swooped down from the tops of nearby buildings, two men dressed all in black appeared as though from thin air, and a bicycle messenger rounded the corner at full tilt, heading straight for the street gang. The attackers turned to run, but the biker was on their tail and the gargoyles chased them down from above. The men in black soon joined in the scuffle.
“What in the devil is going on?” Granny demanded of Owen and me.
“That’s what I want to know,” Owen said, moving toward the altercation. Granny and I followed him.
“You okay, kids?” Sam asked as he left the scrum and landed on top of a sign near us.
“Was this what you were warning us about?” I asked him, ignoring his question. “Did you know we were going to be attacked? Were we bait for some kind of sting?”
The men in black had bound the wrists of two of the elven gang members, and the bicycle messenger was protesting loudly. Hearing this, Sam left us, shouting, “Hey, this is our collar! It’s my sting! You just happened to be here ’cause you’re spyin’ on Palmer, here.”
One of the men in black replied, “This falls into Council jurisdiction.”
Sam snorted. “Yeah, you leave us to do all the dirty work on our own most of the time, but then when you feel like it, it’s suddenly your jurisdiction.”
“We’re not under the jurisdiction of any of you,” one of the captives protested. “We answer only to the Elf Lord.”
Granny tapped me on the arm. “While those idiots fight it out, let’s get home. Dinner’s getting cold, and there’s no point in us standing around. You did your part by drawing them out, apparently.”
The MSI security team and the Council surveillance team didn’t seem to notice us leaving, they were so caught up in their argument. I figured if they needed us, they knew where to look. It was a relief to get safely inside Owen’s heavily warded home and sit down to my grandmother’s homemade pot roast with all the trimmings.
“What was all that about?” I asked after eating enough to mollify Granny. “Sam seemed to know it was coming.”
“That’s what it looked like,” Owen agreed. “I don’t think the Council guys were supposed to be in on it, though.”
“And elves?”
“Maybe they think I’ve got that brooch or they think I destroyed it and they’re out for revenge. I understand there are rumors all over town about what happened to it.”
“Eat!” Granny ordered, pointing her fork at his nearly full plate.
“I destroyed the brooch,” I said. “Maybe I should put out a press release.”
“It’s probably best that not too many people know what really happened,” Owen said, then he noticed Granny’s glare and dutifully put a bite of roast in his mouth.
“I wonder what Sam’s plan was if you hadn’t shown up, Granny,” I said. “I guess you got my message just in time—you did get my message?”
“Loud and clear. But what are you people teaching her?” she demanded of Owen. “That was the worst mental call for help I’ve ever heard.”
“It worked!” I protested.
“We actually haven’t taught her that at all,” Owen said with a proud smile at me. “She must have figured that out for herself.”
“Then teach her properly before she needs to do it again. My ears are still ringing.” Then she turned back to me. “What have they been teaching you, if not how to properly call for help?”
“Today we worked on some defensive shields that should mimic the effect of being magically immune.”
“Hmmph,” she muttered, and I knew I was in for a magical lesson, Granny style, as soon as the table was cleared. She and the MSI people had very different approaches to magic, since theirs was more analytical and based on rigorous study over the centuries and hers was more of a folk art handed down through generations of people who were mostly isolated from other magic users. I hadn’t even known that there was magic in my family until earlier in the year, and then it turned out that my mother’s side of the family tended to be either wizards or immune to magic. I had one brother who was a wizard and one who was immune.
By the time Owen called a halt to the post-dinner magical workout, I felt as drained as if I’d just done an intense session at the gym. I wondered if magic counted as cardio. “I’m getting totally mixed signals on magic, between Rod and Granny. Who am I supposed to believe?” I asked him as he walked me home.
“Whichever works best for you,” he said with a shrug. “The only ‘right’ way in magic is the way that works with the least power and without hurting anyone. A lot of it is trial and error. Your grandmother does have some interesting approaches. With the lower levels of available magical energy to draw from in your hometown, she’s really good at making efficient use of resources. I’ve incorporated some of her techniques into my research.”
“If you tell her that, she’ll be impossible.”
“Which is why I haven’t told her,” he said with a wry grin. “If something comes of it, though, I’ll owe her royalties.”
We reached my front door, and he kissed me good night before saying loudly, “I don’t have any evil scheming planned for the night, but I’d appreciate the escort home, if you don’t mind.” With a smile, he added, “I might as well take advantage of the hassle. See you tomorrow.”
When I got upstairs to my apartment, Nita, my one roommate who didn’t know about magic, was sitting on the sofa with a big bowl of popcorn in her lap. “Oh, good, you’re home,” she said without moving her eyes from the television screen. “Marcia’s working late and Gemma’s out.”
“I had dinner with Owen.” I joined her on the sofa. She was watching one of those romantic comedies where people fall in love in a montage set to a pop ballad. The couple went on a picnic in the park, went boating on the lake and nearly fell in, danced on a rooftop in the rain, and stared dreamily into each other’s eyes across a restaurant table.
I couldn’t help but sigh wistfully. That was what being in love in New York was supposed to be about, not fighting off gangster elves and then having dinner with my grandmother while being lectured on how to do magic. Owen and I had yet to manage one normal date that was even remotely similar to the kind of things you saw in movies. The closest we’d come was when we were hanging out as friends before we started dating. I guessed it came with the territory when part of your job was stopping bad magic.
But we weren’t on the front lines right now, other than apparently being targets. We should finally have the time to work on the romantic side of our relationship and see what was there without the adrenaline of constant danger or the closeness that came from developing battle plans together. I thought about planning a picnic for the weekend, but then I’d have to pack enough to feed Owen’s official monitors, the various factions who were also watching him, and now possibly the MSI security people and the elves who were out to get us. Was just one nice, romantic day out too much to hope for?
“It’s a lie!” Nita said, and I turned to her in surprise, wondering if I’d been projecting my thoughts unwittingly.
“What is?” I asked.
“This whole romantic autumn in New York thing. It’s like there’s an entire industry devoted to selling us this story, and then does it really happen? No! If you try to suggest any of this stuff to a guy, he accuses you of having seen too many movies. Apparently, no one but tourists goes boating on the lake in Central Park. Or is that just what they say when they don’t want to pay for it?”
“You have seen too many movies.”
“Well, yeah, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be at all true. Have you ever done any of this romantic New York stuff?”
“We went ice skating in Central Park last Christmas,” I said. And I fell through the ice, which was supposed to be impossible since the rink wasn’t a frozen pond. “Otherwise, no, not really. Work’s been crazy, so most of our dates are lunches at the office.”
“I think that’s the way most people date in this city.” She sighed. “They’re so doing it wrong.” I couldn’t help but agree as we watched the rest of the movie together. I had an amazing, gorgeous guy, so where was my romantic comedy life?
*
When Owen and I got to the office the next morning, I was eager to interrogate Sam about the previous evening’s events, but he wasn’t at his usual place on the building’s awning. “He’s avoiding us,” I accused.
“You know he had to be under orders, and he obviously did try to warn us as well as he could.”
“Then I guess we can’t go demand that the boss tell us what’s up.”
“I’m sure he’ll tell us soon enough.”
“I hope he lets us know before we get attacked by elves with knives again.”
“Elven blades are dangerous,” he agreed. Then we reached my hallway and he said, “I’ll see you for our afternoon training session.”
As I approached my office, I hoped Perdita had gotten over whatever had been bugging her the day before. I wasn’t in the mood to tiptoe around sensitive feelings. I felt a lot more like stomping on things.
She was already at her desk, which was unusual for her, but she merely glanced up at me, then looked down again. Normally, she’d offer me coffee, at the very least. Often, she’d bombard me with gossip and questions before I made it all the way through the door. “Good morning,” I called out more cheerfully than I felt, but she just nodded and continued pretending to work. I hadn’t given her a project to work on, so I knew her busyness was fake. Giving it up as a lost cause, I went on into my office.
I’d almost made it to my desk when she called out, “Um, Katie, could I talk to you about something?” She sounded troubled and more serious than normal.
I turned back and went to the office doorway. “Sure. What is it?”
She took a deep breath, as though steeling herself for something unpleasant. She wasn’t going to resign, was she? Sure, she was a ditz and a klutz, but I was getting used to her, and she often had good ideas. I’d hate to think that I’d driven her away. I hoped I was a good boss. I’d had enough horrible bosses for me to make a conscious effort to not repeat those mistakes. “There’s something I think I should show you,” she said, not meeting my eyes.
I went over to her desk and sat in the guest chair beside it. “Okay,” I said, as reassuringly as I could. “What do you have to show me?”
She glanced around, like she was making sure no one was nearby to eavesdrop, then leaned forward and opened her lower desk drawer. With another glance around and then a big gulp, she pulled a piece of paper out from under a stack of manila envelopes. “This,” she said, shoving the paper at me like it was on fire. Then she screwed her eyes shut, as though she expected me to hit her once I saw it.
It was a flyer photocopied onto colored paper, the kind of thing political groups hand out around Union Square. “ARE WIZARDS OPPRESSING ELVES?” the flyer asked in huge block capitals. Underneath, it listed the evidence in bullet points, with each line in a different font. I cringed at the first one, which claimed that wizards had stolen and then destroyed the Knot of Arnhold, the ancient magical brooch treasured by the elves.
Actually, I’d been the one to destroy it, though I hadn’t been a wizard at the time. And, technically, we hadn’t stolen it from the elves. Their own leader had stolen it to use it in a scheme, then it was stolen from him and sold, and then we’d stolen it. It was a complicated story, but it had been necessary for saving the world because the Knot had been united with a nasty gem that probably would have led to World War III if I hadn’t thrown it on the electric third rail of a train track during a massive scuffle. The fact that I got magical powers out of the bargain was beside the point. I wasn’t named in the flyer, but Owen was, I noted, and his heritage was highlighted. I wondered if that explained the attack on us.
There were other gripes, including an accusation that wizards were abducting elves who dared to speak out. The flyer concluded with a call for elves to disassociate themselves from wizards, stand up for themselves, and fight back. It looked like Sylvester, the Elf Lord, was still up to his old tricks and using propaganda to do what he hadn’t been able to do with enchanted jewelry. “Thanks for showing me this, Perdita,” I said.
She cautiously opened one eye. “It’s not true, is it?”
“Parts of it are,” I admitted, “but they rather severely missed the point. There’s a lot more to it than that.” She opened her other eye, but she didn’t seem to relax much. I asked, “Are the elves taking this seriously?”
“Some are. A couple of my friends quit this week. My mom is griping at me about finding a new job.” Then she gasped and hurried to add, “Not that I would. I like it here. But, yeah, even some of those who didn’t like the Elf Lord before are starting to listen.” She twirled a red ringlet around her finger before whispering, “To be honest, I feel kind of like a rat for showing that to you. I mean, I’m turning against my own people.”
“Not all your own people,” I reassured her. “There are free elves who don’t want you to be ruled by a lord of any kind, and they’re the ones working with us to keep your people from being even more under Sylvester’s control.”
“I’m not sure my family would see it that way.”
“Don’t worry, they won’t know where we got this. There are a lot of elves working here.” At least, there had been. If this flyer represented elven sentiment, that might change soon. I stood. “Mind if I take this?”
“Please do.”
“Thank you again for trusting me.” I started to leave the office, then turned back. “Could you hand me an envelope?” She did, and I sealed the flyer up in it. There were a number of elves working in the sales department, where my office was. It was safest not to let anyone see me carrying it from my office, lest they suspect Perdita of bringing it to me.
I headed straight up to the boss’s office, where, as usual, he was waiting for me. It’s a little disconcerting to have a boss who manages to anticipate your every move, but when your boss is Merlin—yeah, that one—it comes with the territory. You even get used to it. On the upside, I never have to wait for him to see me.
“I take it you have a concern, Miss Chandler?” he said by way of greeting as he gestured me to a seat in front of his desk.
I handed him the envelope. “Apparently, this sort of thing is going around the elven community,” I told him.
I watched his face as he removed the flyer from the envelope and read it, but his expression gave nothing away. He murmured a soft, “Hmmm,” as he laid it on his desk.
“Is that what last night was about?” I asked.
Instead of answering me, Merlin picked up his phone and called Sam, Owen, and Rod to come to his office. He made one more call to Earl, the young elf who’d been instrumental in letting us know what Sylvester had been up to with the Knot.
Once the gang was gathered, Merlin threw the flyer in the middle of the conference table without comment. They all leaned forward to get a good look.
When Owen read it, he paled. “I suppose this explains last night,” he said dryly. Then he looked up at Merlin. “Did you already know about this?”
“There have been rumblings,” Merlin admitted, “but we didn’t know anything concrete.”
“It was apparently enough for you to use us as bait,” I said, not even trying to mask the irritation in my voice.
“We had our eyes on you the whole time, doll,” Sam assured me. “We were hopin’ the elves would show themselves.”
“And now we know why they were after me,” Owen said with a weary sigh. Poor guy, I thought. He already had people from the magical world watching his every move to make sure he wasn’t evil. Now he was on the elves’ Most Wanted list.
“Have you heard anything about this?” Merlin asked Earl.
Earl squinted at it, then shook his head. “Not in my circles, but I’m kind of persona non grata around Sylvester’s people these days. This looks like his style, though. He’s trying to create a common enemy and deflect the blame so people will forget that he was secretly hiding the Knot all along and was planning to use it to solidify his power.”
Rod picked up the flyer and studied it. “This explains a lot,” he said with a grim nod. “I’ve had more resignations in the past week than in the previous two months, and they were all elves. I was starting to research whether I had some toxic supervisors to deal with.”
“More like a toxic Elf Lord,” Earl said with a disgusted grunt.
“They’re leaving MSI like rats leaving a sinking ship,” Rod said with a shrug. “I don’t know if that means they don’t want to associate with us or if they want to be well out of the danger zone when something happens.”
“Do you see this as a real threat?” Merlin asked. “Are we going to see more than mischief from this?”
Earl cleared his throat to speak, then glanced around before saying tentatively, “I’ve heard …” He trailed off, realized we weren’t going to interrupt or disregard him the way his previous boss had, and started again. “I’ve heard rumors of people disappearing. Elves, I mean. Those who speak out against Sylvester. I don’t know anyone personally who’s gone missing, but people talk.”
“Has Sylvester got some kind of elf Siberia going on?” I asked.
Earl glanced around nervously, then winced as he said, “Actually, they’re blaming the wizards for the disappearances, and your people arresting those guys last night just played into that rumor.”
“It wasn’t our people,” Sam grumbled. “Those Council goons pulled rank.”
“They played us,” I said. “I wonder if that’s what it was really all about, staging an attack they knew we’d anticipate to goad us into arresting their people, and then there’s proof that the disappearances are our fault.”
Merlin sat lost in thought for a moment, then nodded as though he’d come to a decision. “Sam, I’d like you to put together a team to investigate any disappearances that might be related to the company. Earl, please use your underground connections to learn as much as possible. Mr. Gwaltney, provide the names of missing elf employees to Sam, and check in with our remaining elven employees. Please keep me informed of your progress.”
I cleared my throat. “Is there something you need me to do?”
He gave me a fond smile. “I think you deserve a break after all you’ve done recently. Please focus on your magical training.” In other words, I was a lot less valuable to the company when I couldn’t spot disguised elves or hidden activities.
“Maybe I’ll see if I can come up with a way to get out the message that we aren’t out to get the elves—of course, without admitting to destroying the Knot or outright saying that Sylvester’s the really evil one. Unless, that is, we get some concrete proof.”
“Yes, that would be good,” Merlin agreed.
That would probably mean having Perdita tell her friends the rumors were false. I wondered if maybe we should throw a big “elf day” party, but then I remembered that our track record for marketing events was iffy. Our enemies tended to use them against us.
Since Owen didn’t have an assignment either, I hoped we could try to have a normal, romantic date, after all. For once, we weren’t the ones in charge of saving the world.
*
When it was time for my afternoon magic lesson, I bounced into the schoolroom, as myself this time. “What do you have for me today, teacher?”
“Well, you’ve mastered illusion, shielding, physical manipulation, and you’re getting the hang of food and beverages,” Rod said.
“Maybe we should do some introductory communication,” Owen said. “We don’t want to blow out anyone’s synapses the next time she’s in danger, and that’s one thing she can do without revealing that she can do magic.” I caught his eye, and he blushed slightly. I suspected he was thinking the same thing I was, that psychic communication between us could be a lot of fun.
Rod glanced back and forth between us. “Something happened?”
“Granny said it was too loud when I called for help last night,” I explained.
“Okay, then, magical communication, it is,” Rod said. On the room’s whiteboard, he outlined the steps, which weren’t too different from what I’d done instinctively, though I could see where I’d gone wrong. Then he had me send him a message.
He squinted in concentration, then shook his head. “I could tell you were there, but I couldn’t decipher it. Maybe you were trying too hard not to be as loud as you were last night. Just relax and let it flow.”
I tried again, mentally raising my voice this time, but he shook his head. “No, you’re still whispering.”
Owen got up from where he was observing and came over to us. “Try me,” he instructed. “As close as we are, that should be easier. I practically get your signals anyway, without you trying.”
I was tempted to send a risqué message, then decided instead to suggest we go on a picnic that Saturday if the weather was nice. I waited for his shy smile in response, but he just said, “Okay, you can send now.”
“I was!” I insisted aloud. “What am I doing wrong?”
“You may not be doing anything wrong,” he said soothingly. “This just may not be where your talents lie. Or you may have exhausted that part of yourself last night. It can be like exercise—if you did something strenuous yesterday, you can’t expect to be at your best today.”
“Let’s go back to something easy you know you can do,” Rod suggested. “To start with, try erasing the board.”
I focused on the eraser and thought the spell that put it under my control, then willed it upward to where Rod had written the communication spell. It moved, but not as briskly as it usually did. It seemed a little more sluggish, and it took more effort. I had beads of sweat on my forehead and upper lip by the time the board was clear. I couldn’t tell if the guys noticed how hard I was struggling.
“See, you can still do that,” Rod said. “We’ll come back to the communication later. How about something fun? Remember that time Owen and I made it snow indoors?”
I smiled at the fond memory from not long after I’d joined the company. “And that was real, right? Because I could see it.”
“Yeah, it was real, though you can also get a similar effect with illusion.” He wrote new instructions on the board, then demonstrated by creating his own snowfall. Delicate flakes danced in the air, and now that I knew what to look for, I could sense the way he directed the magic. It was so vivid that I felt cold, even though I knew it wasn’t real snow.
Then it was my turn. I ran through the spell, then imagined a magical Christmas Eve snowfall and directed it to appear. Instead of dancing flurries, I got more of a Texas snowfall, with big, wet, gloppy clumps of flakes, and even those vanished before they hit the ground. Soon, the whole snowfall petered out, no matter how hard I tried.
“What is wrong with me?” I cried out in frustration.
Owen put his arm around me. “Hey, everyone has bad days, and you used more power than you realized last night. You may not have aching muscles to feel, but your magical muscles are probably stiff and sore today. We should have thought of that and given you the day off.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Rod chimed in. His smile was encouraging, but I caught the worried glance he and Owen exchanged. I wondered if my earlier successes were merely beginner’s luck.