Kiss and Spell (Enchanted, Inc.) (2 page)

That perked me up. “How much longer, do you think?”

“I don’t know. A month or two, maybe? By the time we figure out your strengths and start specializing your training, certainly.”

“So, maybe a few more months in marketing?”

“Let’s say the first of next year.”

It was October, so I thought I could survive that long. “Do you have any idea what my strengths might be yet?”

“It’s hard to tell from the basics. You do seem to be pretty analytical with the spells, so you might be able to help me in Research and Development.”

“I think I could cope with that. And I happen to be on the boss’s good side.” I smiled at him. “In fact, I think I might already have him wrapped around my little finger.” I wasn’t normally a flirt, even with my boyfriend, but having magical powers had done wonders for my confidence levels. I hadn’t realized how unequal I’d felt in this company and with Owen. My previous magical immunity had been special and valuable, but being magical was something else entirely. Now I felt powerful. Being able to make myself look like a lingerie model had somehow made me feel like one, even when I wasn’t using the illusion.

“Since I’m not your boss yet, would it be improper for me to invite you over to dinner tonight?”

“Considering that my grandmother is cooking it, I think it counts more as a family thing. Is she driving you crazy yet?”

“No, not at all. It just feels weird for me to come home to a home-cooked meal when it’s your grandmother doing the cooking.”

“I’m sure she won’t be around much longer. Just be sure to remind her how well my lessons are going so she’ll know she doesn’t have to make sure I learn to use my powers the right way.”

We reached the point where we had to go our separate ways to return to our respective offices. “Okay, then, I’ll see you after work,” he said, taking my hand for a quick squeeze before heading off.

I walked with a jaunty spring in my step back to my office, feeling like I should have a perky pop tune following me on the soundtrack. Not too long ago, I’d hated my job and had despaired of ever finding my place in the company. Now I was having a blast learning to do magic.

True, I still hated my job, but that job was now a cover story, so it was less painful to face. I didn’t know where my eventual place would be, but still,
magic!
That made it a lot easier to get out of bed in the morning.

I bounced into my office and asked, “Were there any messages for me?”

My assistant, Perdita, looked me up and down, smirking ever so slightly. Only then did I realize that returning to my office after a long “meeting” with a bounce in my step, a glow about me, sparkling eyes, and a flushed face probably gave entirely the wrong impression, especially since my boyfriend worked at the same company. I immediately imagined that she was picturing Owen and me in a janitor’s closet somewhere, and that mental image made my face flush even more, which made me look even guiltier. I wondered if I could get Rod to give me a signed note saying that it really had been a meeting with the Director of Personnel. After all, training did count as a personnel matter.

“No messages,” she said, raising one slanted elven eyebrow.

“Good, thanks,” I said. “We’re making real progress on that magical training program we’re putting together. I mean, Rod and I are putting together. That’ll be our next big launch.” Feeling my face grow warmer and warmer—which was infuriating, since I didn’t have anything to feel embarrassed about—I made a beeline for my private office.

Then I realized that something was odd. Perdita had said only two words to me, which was very much unlike her. In fact, those had been the only two words she’d said to me all day. She hadn’t said anything when she’d arrived that morning, and she’d only nodded an acknowledgment when I’d left for my training session and told her when I’d be back. Normally it was impossible to stop the flood of words from Perdita, and she drove me crazy from offering to do things for me.

I stopped and turned back. “Is everything okay?” I asked.

She shrugged and didn’t quite meet my eyes. “I’m fine,” she said before bending down to focus on the doodle-covered notepad on her desk.

I knew that was the international sign for “no, things are definitely not okay,” but it was also the international sign for “I don’t want to talk about it,” so I decided not to push. “Well, you know my door is always open,” was all I said before I went into my office. I figured she must have had a fight with her sister or been spurned by her latest crush. She’d probably snap out of her mood by the next morning.

One nice thing about spending several hours a day in those training session “meetings” was that I was a lot less bored heading an ancient near-monopoly’s marketing program. I wasn’t any busier, but I had fewer hours to fill. Even with stuff to do, I was tempted to practice magic tricks during breaks between tasks, but since Perdita was a very reliable member of the grapevine, that would be like telling half the company.

She left for the day without a word, which worried me, and I must have still been frowning when Owen came by to pick me up to go home because he asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I think I pissed off Perdita.”

“I would have thought that would be really difficult to do.”

“Yeah, me too. I wonder, did I forget to have her conjure some coffee for me this morning?” Finding magical approximations for coffeehouse concoctions was one of Perdita’s prized specialties and her biggest value to me, other than her ability to send and receive gossip. “I’ll need to be more careful about that. It’s not just about not doing magic around others. I also can’t change my habits.”

“I’m sure it has nothing to do with you,” Owen reassured me as he helped me put on my jacket. “She may have just had a bad day—probably a fight with her mom.” From what Perdita said about her mother, I got the feeling she was a lot like mine, in which case I sympathized.

As we headed out of the office building, a voice on the awning over the entrance said, “Psst, you two!”

We looked up to see Sam the gargoyle, MSI’s head of security. “Hey, Sam, what is it?” I asked.

“Watch yourselves, okay?”

“I don’t need to watch myself,” Owen said. “I’m
being
watched.” He gave a friendly wave to his unseen surveillance team. Since I’d lost my magical immunity, I couldn’t see them anymore because they tended to veil themselves magically, but Owen knew he was being watched by official and unofficial monitors from various groups who still weren’t convinced he wouldn’t turn evil and try to take over the world with dark magic.

“That’s not what I meant,” Sam snapped with uncharacteristic tension that made me wonder if there was something in the water or perhaps a city-wide spell making usually cheerful people into grouches. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried casting a broad spell like that. “Just be careful. This is a big city, you know.”

“The crime rate here is actually a popular misconception,” I pointed out. “Things happen, but if you stay in the right neighborhoods, you’re safer than in a lot of cities. We’ll try to avoid the crack dens.”

“Hey, just lookin’ out for two of my favorite people. What, you don’t like me carin’ for you? Be that way and see if I do it again.” I waited for a second for the “just kiddin’, doll” I was sure would come, but he flapped his wings and resettled himself so that his back was turned to us.

Owen and I exchanged an uncomfortable glance and departed. “Maybe we should check the top of the Empire State Building,” I said as we walked to the nearby subway station. That was where the bad guys had broadcast the last spell to hit the whole city. “Someone’s put up a grumpy hex.”

“Or maybe something
is
going on.”

“Something’s
always
going on. And, let’s face it, we like it that way.”

Once we were in the station, he took my hand and I closed my eyes for a second to enjoy the little magical tingle that sent through me. I’d been able to sense the presence of magic even when I was immune, but now that I had power, myself, I’d learned to pick up on nuances. There was something about the way Owen’s magical field meshed with mine that sparked something. I didn’t know if it was because we were magically compatible or if it was because Owen had drawn on my latent power in the past, but it was extremely sexy, whatever it was. We’d made a good team when I was immune and he was magical, but there was a lot to like about sharing magic with him.

“I wonder if we could find a garden club for Granny to attend every so often,” I mused out loud after we’d boarded a train and were standing close together. It was a real pity to have this magical connection and no chance for solitude. I had three roommates and my grandmother had moved in with him. We had more privacy on a rush-hour train than we had at home, since no one on the train noticed or cared what we were up to.

“In Manhattan?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“There are gardens. Community gardening is very big, and there are rooftop and container gardens. She could teach them a lot of things, I’m sure.”

“Maybe we could get the boss to invite her out for dinner.”

“Bite your tongue!” I snapped, getting queasy at the idea of my boss and my grandmother getting cozy. They already seemed to like each other more than was comfortable for me.

“They don’t have to date. They could just spend time talking shop.”

“But what if something
did
happen and she decided to stay permanently? Even if she moved out of your place, she’d still be around, meddling.”

“Okay, then, garden club it is. We’ll do an Internet search and ask around the office tomorrow.”

I couldn’t help but smile at the idea that he wanted alone time as much as I did. I was still grinning when we reached Union Square and left the train. My grin faded when he whispered, “Don’t turn around, but try to look around casually the first chance you get.”

I gulped. “You mean Sam was right about watching ourselves? Does he have some kind of precognition?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell if you’re being followed in a place this crowded, but I have a funny feeling.”

He led us on a more roundabout than usual route out of the station. The area around the park was still pretty crowded with commuters leaving the subway station, and we stuck to the busier Park Avenue to head uptown instead of cutting over to Irving Place, like we usually did. Eventually, though, to get to Owen’s home we had to go down one of his neighborhood’s quiet side streets, where there wasn’t a lot of traffic—vehicular or otherwise. It was the kind of neighborhood where I didn’t mind walking alone at night. When I saw in the rearview mirror of a parked car that a small group of young men had followed us, I realized that today was apparently different.

They looked like gangsters. That is, they looked like gangsters in a high-school production of
West Side Story
. They didn’t much resemble the current breed of street toughs that you almost never saw in the vicinity of Gramercy Park. In spite of my nerves, I had an overwhelming urge to bend forward and snap my fingers menacingly as I walked down the sidewalk. Then we passed another car’s mirror and I caught a glint of metal in the reflection. These guys were armed, so I doubted they were going to limit themselves to intimidating us through virtuoso choreography.

“Do you remember that shield spell you learned today?” Owen whispered.

“Yeah. You think they’re going to attack us with magic?”

“There’s magic nearby.”

I felt it, too, I realized. “You’re sure it’s theirs?”

“It’s strongest in that direction.”

“You’d probably do a better job with that shield. It’s your spell, and you’re more powerful.”

“I can’t.”

“I thought me using magic would give you away, too.”

“They’re watching me. They’re not watching you, so they may not notice. If there’s a magical attack, your shield should be hidden in the overall surge of power.” He must have felt me tense because he gave my arm a reassuring squeeze and said, “You can do it. You fought off everything Rod and I threw at you today, and it always looked like immunity at work.”

“But those guys have knives. That spell won’t fight that.”

“I think those are just for show. If they’ve got magic, they’re not going to bother getting close enough to stab us.”

I heard laughter behind us, the sound of a bully who’s spotted someone weaker he can prey upon, and then the others joined in, feeding on each other’s cruelty. We were still nearly a block from Owen’s place.

“What if they know who we are and think we’re immune to magic?” I hissed at Owen. “Then they won’t use magic on us.”

He turned to look at me in horror at that realization. The sound of footsteps behind us grew louder and faster. I braced myself for the attack.

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.