Kiss and Spell (Enchanted, Inc.) (7 page)

I didn’t have a good argument as to why I should be involved. Even at my most creative stretching of my job description, I couldn’t rationalize it. Still, I felt like I ought to be doing
something
.

I waited for Owen to protest, but he just nodded in acquiescence. On our way out of the office, leaving Merlin and Sam to strategize, Owen said, “Do you want to have dinner tonight?”

“We have dinner every night.”

“I meant dinner out.”

I put my hands on my hips and looked up at him in mock reproach. “Owen Palmer, are you asking me out on a date?”

“I believe that’s what it’s called when two people spend time together in a romantic fashion. And do you want to?”

I hooked my arm through his. “You had me at ‘romantic.’ But you have to let Granny know we won’t be home for dinner.” Then I frowned at him in suspicion. “What brought this on?”

“We’ve been seeing each other for a while. Is this really so odd?”

“Seeing each other, yes. Going out, no, unless you count crazy quests or going on the lam.”

He turned a delightful shade of pink. “Let’s try normal life, for a change. Shall I pick you up around seven at your place? Wear something reasonably nice but with fairly comfortable shoes. There may be walking involved.”

“Dare I ask what you have planned?”

His grin was borderline wicked. “It’ll be a surprise.”

*

When he picked me up, I was pretty sure he was wearing the same suit he’d worn to work, just without the tie. Though it was hard to tell with men’s suits. As far as I knew, he could have put on a totally different suit with a fresh white shirt. Then again, this was Owen. He’d probably come straight from work.

“How did Granny take it when you told her about dinner?” I asked him as he helped me with my coat.

“She said she had work to do and getting me out of her hair would make it easier.”

“I take it you got her those potion ingredients.”

“She may be on to something. I know the stuff she gave me back in Texas helped my energy levels. Though I’ll warn you, it tasted awful.”

“I have no doubt. And it’s weird, because she’s such a good cook otherwise.”

We took a cab to the West Village and went to a cozy, romantic little Italian restaurant with candles on the tables and Sinatra on the sound system. It reminded me of our first real date, though I hoped it didn’t end up the same way—with a magical fire in the restaurant that led to a stampede among the customers.

“So, what brought this on?” I asked after the waiter brought us wine and a basket of bread. “I mean, we’ve been talking about a real date for ages, but it hasn’t quite happened.”

“I’m not going to jinx us by talking about our track record and hoping our luck has turned, but why shouldn’t we go out like normal people, especially when we have a free evening?”

It sounded nice, but the look in his eyes was way too familiar, and it didn’t bode well for romance. When he got that look, he was usually about to try something crazy, dangerous, stupid, or all of the above, in order to save the world. He wasn’t really a thrill seeker, but he couldn’t bear to leave a job undone.

“What are you up to?” I asked.

“Nothing!” he insisted. “Just going out on a date with my girlfriend.” For a moment he looked truly contrite. “Am I that bad, that you assume something is wrong when I do the sort of thing that most guys probably do every weekend?”

“I don’t know if ‘bad’ is the word I would use, and we have good reason for not going out much.” Namely, the two men in black seated at the adjacent table. The hot celebrity couple of the moment got more privacy out on the town than we did.

He gave me a smile that made my stomach do backflips. “Maybe we could embarrass them into leaving us alone.”

“Do you really think that would work?”

He sighed. “I doubt it. But thank you for putting up with me. A lot of women would have bailed on me. I’ve got a lot of baggage to deal with.”

“If I can’t stand by you, then who will? And I know who you really are, no matter what anyone else thinks.”

He reached under the table to take my hand and clutch it earnestly. “I am so glad I met you.”

I squeezed his hand in response. “Me, too. I can truly say that meeting you changed my life.”

“For the better?” He sounded like he wasn’t sure.

“Most definitely. Yeah, my life has been under constant threat and things have been absolutely insane, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

He nodded, worrying his lower lip with his teeth like this had given him something serious to think about. “Good, that’s good to hear,” he said absently. The moment passed when the waiter arrived with our meals.

We actually made it through the entire meal without any crazy disasters or magical attacks, then headed out into the crisp autumn evening. “There’s a bakery not too far from here. I thought we could walk off dinner and head up there for dessert,” he said.

“Sounds good to me. Lead on.”

We walked uptown, got some cupcakes and cocoa at the bakery, and continued strolling. When we crossed Fourteenth, he pulled a small sheaf of folded papers out of his jacket pocket and studied the top page, which was a map. He shoved it back into his pocket and steered us around the next corner.

“Owen, what is this about?” I asked when we’d walked up and down several remarkably non-scenic blocks.

He looked sheepish and said, “I think that photo from Earl came from somewhere around here.”

“Oh, you do know the way to a girl’s heart,” I said, standing on my tiptoes to give him a kiss. “I didn’t think you’d be willing to just sit by.”

He smiled and blushed as he said, “The cell tower that handled that call is in this area. That may or may not mean anything. Any tower within range may have picked up the call. But I did some online photo searches, and the kind of building in the photo is really common in this neighborhood. So, I figured there was no harm in wandering the neighborhood and seeing if anything looks familiar.”

“Excellent idea,” I said. “Let’s try the next street over.”

We walked up and down the neighborhood, frequently comparing the nearby buildings to the printout of Earl’s photo. “So many of them are so close, but not quite,” I said after we’d been searching at least an hour. “Maybe we’re looking at them from the wrong angle.”

“We should be able to see it from the angle where Earl took the photo, and wherever he was then, he must have seen something he wanted me to know about.”

“Unless, of course, he pocket dialed the photo.”

“I don’t think that’s possible. But even if it was, he couldn’t have taken that photo from inside his pocket. He was investigating, and the building isn’t particularly attractive or interesting, I’m pretty sure he photographed it for a reason.”

“Maybe we should do this in daylight,” I suggested after another half hour of searching. “He took the photo in daylight. Things look different in the dark.”

“But when it’s dark, we may be able to see inside if the interior’s lit.”

“I wonder what your followers think of all this wandering around.”

“I hope their feet are tired.” He usually just sounded resigned about the people who watched him for signs of evil, but there was a hint of relish behind his wish. I didn’t think I’d ever get him to tell me outright what he felt about it, but I was getting the idea.

Then we rounded a corner, and there it was. “Owen, that’s it!” I said, grabbing his arm.

We stopped and he took the photo out of his pocket to compare. “Yeah, that’s definitely it.”

“So you’re going to call Sam, right?”

He didn’t answer, but I glared at him until he got out his phone and called the gargoyle. He gave the address, and after a pause he said, “Of course I won’t do anything stupid. I just happened to run across it while I was out with Katie and thought you’d want to know.” When he’d put away the phone he turned to me and said, “Want to check it out?”

“Wouldn’t that fall into the category of stupid things you just told Sam you wouldn’t do?”

“I just want a peek. And besides, how much trouble can I get into when I have two of the Council’s best enforcers watching my every move? They won’t let me get away with anything evil, but I don’t think they’ll let me come to harm, either.”

To be perfectly honest, I also wanted to check things out. “What do you think the building is?” I asked. Strange lights showed through the upper windows. “It’s not just some elf rave or underground nightclub, is it? Maybe that’s why Earl took a picture, since the cool places don’t have signs.”

“Can you imagine Earl going to a cool place? Or anyone inviting me to one?”

“Good point.” We walked around the block so we could examine the building from all sides. At one point, we flattened ourselves into a doorway when we saw someone approach the building’s entry, but they just walked on by. After that false alarm, we almost didn’t react in time when someone did go up to the door. There were three in the group, and if I wasn’t mistaken, one of them didn’t want to be there.

“That person may be in danger,” Owen whispered to me. “We should help.”

“You think this is where all those elves are disappearing?”

“That person looked kind of like he was being disappeared.”

“But what can we do to help?”

“We can bring the Council enforcers down on them.”

“Oh, you clever thing.”

Once the coast was clear, we started to leave our hiding place, but he pushed me back. “Maybe you should stay here. I’m the one they’ll follow.”

“I’m not letting you go in there without me. And I’m not standing alone on the sidewalk at night in this neighborhood.”

He didn’t argue. We reached the door, and I felt the tingle of magic as he unlocked it. “I’m not sensing wards,” he whispered.

“Maybe it’s a trap.”

“Maybe they underestimate us.”

I still had a bad feeling as we crept through a narrow, unlit hallway. We’d made it into a vast warehouse-like space when I thought I heard the door open and close behind us. I hoped it was Owen’s Council shadows.

If it was, I doubted they’d see anything they could make an arrest over. I didn’t see any people or elves, definitely not the person who looked like he was being kidnapped. There was a weird glow at the far end of the room that probably explained the odd lights we’d seen through the upper windows.

“What do you think that is?” I whispered.

“Let’s go find out.”

We edged our way around the room, sticking to the shadows and keeping as silent as possible, even though I still didn’t see anyone we needed to hide from. When we were finally on the same end of the room as the glow, I got a good look at what was going on, and before I could remember to stifle my gasp of shock, everything went black.

Chapter Five

The sound of an old-fashioned jangling alarm clock woke me from a deep slumber. I snaked a hand out from under the covers to turn it off, then flung the comforter back and sat up, stretching as I yawned. It was time to face the day. I hopped out of bed and went through the morning rituals of washing and dressing, holding a couple of different blouse options in front of myself in the mirror with one hand while I brushed my teeth with the other hand.

And then I was out the door and down the stairs. I waved to the mailman as I made my way down the front steps of the brownstone. “No bills for you today, Katie!” he called out to me.

Strange, I had the oddest feeling that I was hearing bouncy music playing behind me all the while. After fighting off an eerie shiver, I told myself I probably just had a song stuck in my head.

I rounded the corner and popped into the neighborhood coffee shop. “Hey, Katie, I’ve got your usual ready,” the waitress called out. She took the paper cup from the counter and turned to hand it to me, but she stumbled and the cup went flying. I had visions of ending up covered in coffee, but at the last split second, a hand shot out and caught the cup.

“Here you go,” my rescuer said, handing it to me. I found myself looking into dark blue eyes, and it seemed as though time came to a standstill. I blinked and saw that the eyes were set in a handsome face topped with dark hair. He was as frozen as I was. And then reality returned with a crash.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Katie!” the waitress said, rushing over to check on me. She blushed to the roots of her curly red hair. “I am such a klutz sometimes. Did I spill any coffee on you?”

“No harm done,” I assured her. I turned back toward my rescuer, but he was gone. I felt bad that I hadn’t even thanked him. Or gotten his phone number. Or married him. Ah, well, I supposed it wasn’t meant to be. I took a sip of the coffee and said, “Just right. Thanks, Perry!”

The sense of background music had faded slightly during that scene, but it returned as I continued down the sidewalk, heading toward work, only a little late this morning. The regulars were already in the park across the street from the store, including the two men who spent their days playing chess there. I paused for a moment with the strangest feeling of reverse déjà vu. Instead of getting the sense that I’d seen something before, I felt like I
hadn’t
seen it before, even though I knew I had.

I finished my coffee as I stared up at the bookstore. Three stories full of books, with a bonus coffee shop, had seemed like my idea of heaven when I first went to work there. It was supposed to have been a temporary job, but I was closing in on a year with no sign of anything better on the horizon. With a dejected sigh, I drained my cup and tossed it in a nearby trash bin before heading across the street and into the store.

I took the stairs up to the second floor where the coffee shop was, grabbed my apron from the back, put it on, and adjusted my name tag. “And good morning to you,” my coworker—and best friend—Florence greeted me. “I’ve already got the regular, the decaf, and the coffee of the day brewing. Do you want to take care of the bakery case? The delivery’s already come.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll do that,” I said.

She blinked, frowned, and sniffed as I spoke. “You’ve got coffee breath!” she accused.