Impervious (City of Eldrich Book 1) (9 page)

Chapter 14

N
atalie struggled to
her feet and ran to the conference room door, which she slammed shut. Meaghan stared at the empty table where she’d last seen Jamie. She couldn’t move or speak or think.

“Meaghan, I—”

The sound of Natalie’s voice acted like a bucket of cold water. Meaghan’s paralysis snapped.

“What just happened?” In her mind, Meaghan saw for an instant her mother’s face and heard her voice.
Trust your eyes and ears. Believe what’s in front of
you
.

She had seen Natalie and Jamie tossed around the room, seemingly upon Emily’s gesture. She’d seen Jamie slammed to the conference table, unable to get up or defend himself. She’d seen his head rocked like he’d been struck hard and a wound open on his cheek without a hand touching him. She’d seen Emily pull a necklace from his throat. And then there was a flash of light and he was gone, except for the white dress shirt and paisley tie left on the table.

Meaghan turned her eyes to Natalie. And she saw him.

Her mind wanted to shut down. It was not possible. It could not be. She stood and looked over the table. The rest of Jamie’s clothes lay in a pile on the floor.

Something fluttered by Natalie’s head.

No. Meaghan’s brain fought against her eyes. No.

Trust your eyes and
ears
.

“Meaghan,” Natalie said again.

Believe what’s in front of
you
.

“Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”

“Meaghan, I—”

“Goddammit, Natalie. Am I seeing what I’m seeing? Is that Jamie next to you?”

Natalie looked around the room, eyes darting frantically.

“Natalie!” Meaghan barked at her. “Tell me right now what the hell just happened!”

Like a raw private responding to an angry drill sergeant, Natalie said in a rush, “Me and Emily are witches and Jamie’s not exactly human.”

Meaghan took a deep breath.
Believe what’s in front of
you.

“Okay. And that’s him?” With a shaking hand, Meaghan pointed at the thing fluttering around Natalie’s head.

It flew closer and hovered in front of Meaghan’s face.

It was Jamie. About eight inches tall. With wings.

And he was naked.

Unable to stop herself, she glanced down a few inches. Whatever he was, he was anatomically correct. Very much so, in fact.

Amidst the clamor of panicked voices in her head, the lawyer chimed in. She had just sneaked a peek at her male employee’s genitalia. It wasn’t the biggest problem she had at the moment, but years of sexual harassment prevention training kicked in even as the rational underpinnings of western civilization collapsed beneath her feet.

Meaghan plucked a tissue from the box on the table. She looked at Jamie again, keeping her eyes glued on his tiny face. He leered at her in a way she couldn’t have imagined him capable, at least not when she thought he was human.

She held out the tissue. “Cover yourself up. Now.”

A tiny hand yanked the tissue from her. He wrapped it around himself like a bed sheet and zipped away.

“Meaghan,” Natalie said. “I know this must be hard to take and . . .” She trailed off.

Trust your eyes and
ears.

“It’s the necklace,” Meaghan said, staring at Jamie’s empty clothes. “Right? It makes him our size and Emily knows that.”

Natalie nodded.

“How do we get it back?” Meaghan asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her this strong. She’s a lot stronger than I am right now.” Natalie’s face crumbled into tears. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop her. I couldn’t fight her. I promised Matthew I’d keep him safe.”

Meaghan handed the box of tissues across the table to Natalie. There was a banging at the window. Jamie was hurling himself against it. He looked more feral and less human by the moment.

“He wants to get outside,” Natalie said. “He’s . . . it’s been a really long time since the last time he changed and he didn’t have any time to prepare. He’s all primal urge right now. It’ll pass, but we’ve got to get him someplace safe.”

Meaghan nodded.

Kady pushed open the conference room door. “I heard . . .” She looked around the room, saw the pile of clothes on the floor, and registered the looks on Meaghan’s and Natalie’s faces.

“Oh. Crap,” she said. She slammed the door shut behind her. Jamie zipped over. Her face crinkled into a smile. “Ooh, he’s so cute!”

The tiny winged Jamie hovered right in front of her face.

“He’s waving his itty bitty middle finger at me.” He pulled open the tissue he was wearing. Kady’s smile evaporated. “The little fucker is flashing me!” She peered closer. “Damn. He’s hung like a tiny little horse. No wonder Patrice is so happy.”

“Kady. Not helping.” Natalie snuck up behind Jamie, muttered something, and waved her hand. His wings sputtered and he fell through the air. Kady caught him before he hit the ground. Natalie scooped up his shirt and threw it around him like a net. “We need to get him back across the hall. He’ll only be out for a minute or two.”

Kady gathered up the rest of his clothing and they hurried across the hall into the office suite. Meaghan locked the door behind her and leaned on it. Kady dumped out a cardboard file box and they placed the stunned Jamie inside it.

“Take him back to the file room. Weight the lid with something. It won’t hold him for long so get out of there fast and lock the door,” Natalie said.

Kady nodded, grabbed the box, and ran.

“He’s still all muddled from the change,” Natalie said, “but he’s going to get crazy strong real soon. She had to do it up here, the bitch. It makes it so much worse. Let’s hope his head clears first. There are no windows in there and both doors are steel, so he should be okay for now.”

Meaghan was still leaning against the door. “Why couldn’t Emily get me? She tried right before she bolted.”

Natalie sat down in her desk chair and rubbed her temples. “This isn’t how we wanted you to find out about your . . . about what Matthew really did around here.” She looked up and met Meaghan’s eyes. Natalie’s eyes were red and puffy, but she’d stopped crying. “You truly are your father’s daughter.”

“Why couldn’t she get me?”

“Because magic doesn’t work on you. You’re impervious,” Natalie answered.

Believe what’s in front of
you.

Meaghan nodded. “That means I’m the one who has to go get Jamie’s necklace back.”

“Amulet,” Natalie corrected.

“Amulet. Will she go back to her office?”

Natalie nodded. “Yeah. I think so. She’s got it rigged with some big magic to keep her safe. From me.” Natalie looked down. Her voice thickened like she was choking back tears. “Like she needs to worry about me right now.”

Meaghan needed her to stay on track. “Magic that won’t work on me?”

“Yeah. I think. It didn’t work on Matthew.” She raised her gaze again. “But please be careful. Even if she can’t hex you, she can hex everything around you.”

Meaghan raised an eyebrow. “What, like drop a piano on my head?”

Natalie flashed a weak smile. “I don’t think she has that much imagination. She was crazy strong back there, but she’ll need time to recharge.”

Meaghan gave her a grim smile in return. “I’ll be careful. She was scared back there. Of me. That gives me something to work with.”

“You’re taking this surprisingly well,” Natalie said.

“No, I’m not, but I don’t have time to fall apart right now. I need my deputy back. Lock the door behind me. If there’s anything you can do from here to back me up—spells, voodoo dolls, whatever—get on it.”

Meaghan strode out the door. Time to tour the council offices.

Chapter 15

M
eaghan took the
stairs. As she neared the second floor landing, she felt the hair on her arms stand on end and a slight stab of nausea for a moment and then it passed.

She felt her anger rise, her typical response to fear. But still she felt detached, like she was watching someone else stomp down the stairs, someone else who had just had the rug of reality yanked from under her feet.

Under the detachment, her mind sifted and sorted the events of the last week. The unspoken conversation was now loud and clear. She’d been right. Everyone
had
been hiding something from her, although it was several orders of magnitude weirder than she could have imagined.

Meaghan expected at some point before the end of the day she’d find herself weeping and assuring herself that it was only stress and she couldn’t possibly have seen what she saw. But for now, she had to get Jamie back. Make him human instead of . . . what? A fairy?

Her mind rebelled at the thought. Only fifteen minutes ago, she knew there was no such thing as fairies. But now, who knew? The whole world had turned upside down. But that couldn’t be it. Weren’t fairies supposed to be all sparkly and pretty and childlike?

Jamie had merely been a smaller version of himself, with wings. Based on the full frontal naked view Meaghan had gotten, there was nothing in the least childlike about him. On the contrary, that leer he’d given her—if he’d been his normal size, she’d have kneed him in the balls and run like hell.

And he’d flashed Kady, pulling his tissue toga apart like a greasy raincoat. After he’d flipped her off.

Definitely not Tinkerbell.

The council office was on the second floor, at the opposite end of the hallway from the mayor’s office. Meaghan pushed open the door and strode in. A young woman—chubby, plain, wearing glasses, her brown hair in a ponytail—sat at a reception desk.

“Where’s Emily?” Meaghan barked.

Her voice quavering, the girl said, “Emily’s not available right now. If you’d like to make an appointment . . .”

Meaghan felt a stab of pity for the girl. Hurricane Meaghan had to be nearly as terrifying as Emily in full wicked-witch mode.

Trying to sound a bit less enraged, Meaghan said, “She’s going to see me now if I have to kick the goddamn door down. Please call her and tell her that.” With a quick smile to reassure the girl, Meaghan swept past her and into the office suite.

Another young woman waited, this one blond, and so tall and thin that she’d adopted the sad slouch shy girls got trying to hide in the crowd.

With a shaking hand, she pointed at the closed wooden door behind her. “In there,” she whispered. “Be careful.”

Meaghan smiled at her and nodded. Poor kid. Emily had handpicked assistants she could easily terrorize.

Bitch
, Meaghan thought. A witch and a bitch. That thought was followed by the fervent prayer that Natalie was right about the impervious-to-magic thing. Meaghan pushed down her fear. After an entrance like she’d just made, there was no going back.

“Emily,” Meaghan shouted at the closed door. It flew open with a bang, but the doorway was empty.

Meaghan snorted. “Show off,” she muttered. She stepped through the doorway and looked around. Please, she thought, give me a break. The office walls were covered with cheerful motivational posters. There was a cutesy, crafty dried flower wreath on the wall above her desk with a placard dangling from it reading “Welcome!” She could smell potpourri.

My first encounter with an actual witch, Meaghan thought, and she’s freaking Martha Stewart.

Emily stood behind her immaculate desk. Jamie’s amulet lay in the middle of the gleaming glass desktop. Emily sneered at Meaghan, but Meaghan could see the fear behind the bravado. Emily began waving her arms and chanting. She raised her arm and made a throwing motion.

Meaghan felt a tiny shock, like walking across the carpet in socks and then touching a doorknob, nothing more.

Emily’s eyes widened. Her chanting grew louder and more guttural. She lifted both arms and made the same downward slashing motion Meaghan had seen upstairs.

Not even a shock this time.

More chanting and more arm waving. And still Meaghan stood there, unscathed.

“You done?” Meaghan asked, hands on her hips and eyebrow raised.

“You . . . you,” Emily sputtered, inarticulate with rage. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

Face impassive, Meaghan said, “Let’s see. You and Natalie are witches and Jamie . . . hell, I don’t what he is. I just know he can’t stay that way.”

Emily’s jaw dropped.

“And I’m sure there’s a bunch of other supernatural crap going on too.” Meaghan waited a beat. “Oh, and I’m impervious to magic. Like my father. There’s a whole lot of detail I still need to pick up, but I think I have the general outline.”

Emily, her face brick red, stared back without reply.

Meaghan took a step closer to the desk. Emily took a step backward.

Gotcha
, Meaghan thought. “I know you can’t hex me, but you can still magic all the stuff around me. But you need to understand. You drop a desk on me, you’d better make it count because if I get back up again I’ll kick your ass all over this building.”

She dropped her hands onto the glass desktop and leaned forward. Emily cringed backward. Meaghan glared at her. “Don’t ever come at me through my staff or anyone I care about again. You’ve got a problem with me, you take it up with me.”

Emily refused to meet Meaghan’s eye. With a stiff nod, she pointed at the amulet.

Meaghan scooped the amulet off the desktop. A subtle surge of energy seemed to flow through it. Heavy for its size, it felt warm in her hand, alive.

“Thank you,” said Meaghan. She held the amulet tight in her fist, feeling it throb like a tiny heart. “You and I have gotten off to a bad start. I’m not sure what you hoped to accomplish here, but since you’ve decided to now be reasonable, this one time I’m going to overlook you assaulting my staff members.”

As Meaghan turned to leave, Emily said, her voice tight with anger, “You may be safe from magic but that doesn’t mean I can’t make your life miserable. Politics can get pretty ugly around here and . . .”

Meaghan stormed back to the desk, silencing Emily in mid-rant. Emily backed up so fast she almost sat on the credenza that covered the wall behind her desk.

Again, Meaghan placed both hands on the glass desktop and leaned until she was at eye level with Emily. With icy calm, Meaghan said, “You may be a big bad-ass witch, Endora, but I’ve spent my entire government law career in Maricopa County, Arizona, which is, in many ways, still the Wild, Wild West.” She leaned back and stared down at the cowering Emily. “I know uglier politics than you’ve ever seen. Bring it, sweetie, and I’ll take you to school.”

Meaghan turned on her heel and strode out. The two timid girls in the outer office looked at her with something approaching adulation. Meaghan smiled back. She stopped a moment and said, “She gives you any shit, come see me.”

Eyes wide, they nodded, as Meaghan swept out the door and down the hall.