Damsel Under Stress

“Maybe you ought to take it.” I noticed he said “you” and not “we,” even after I’d clarified myself to show he might be welcome.



“I don’t have any vacation time accrued yet.”



“I’m sure we could make an exception. Call it hazard pay or comp time.”



I decided to start taking my comp time immediately. I knew I couldn’t concentrate on work. Owen had his head buried in a stack of magical tomes, probably working out some wonder spell he could use in the big showdown. I discovered that he had an impressive collection of paperback spy thrillers, so I settled on the sofa and read while he worked.



Late that afternoon, he brought me another dose of the immunity potion. “I’m going to stop giving you the fairy sedative now,” he said. “We’ll need Ari awake and functioning in case you have to prove you have her. It’ll be a few hours more before it all wears off, but we’ll need to start being careful.”



“Apologies in advance if I do or say anything particularly bitchy,” I said after drinking the potion. “I’m not in the best of moods, myself, and with her influence I could be awful.”



He gave me a crooked smile that was almost enough to warm my heart, since smiles of any kind had been rare lately. “I’m sure I can cope with it,” he said.



By the time we were ready to leave for the big multihostage exchange, my headache was worse than ever. It felt like someone was kicking at my skull from the inside, and come to think of it, someone probably was.



We got to the tunnel first, so that Owen could get his dragons settled down. They were overjoyed to see him, and he had to play a game of fetch before they’d stand still. Merlin, Rod, Sam, Rocky, and Rollo soon showed up. Sam saluted Owen with one wing and said, “I’ve had my people watching all the comings and goings at the store. Anyone we’re fairly sure is part of their outfit has a tail on them. That doesn’t mean we’ve got everyone, but we’ve got a lot of ground covered.”



Owen nodded. “Good. I don’t know what else he might try to pull tonight, so I wanted to be prepared.”



Ethan and Philip arrived next. Ethan was in full lawyer mode, suit, briefcase, and all. Owen directed them to the other side of the cavern. “Okay, Rod, do your thing,” he said.



Rod rubbed his palms together. “I’ll use a selective illusion. All of us should see everything, while they should only see their own side of the room until you give me the signal to drop or change it, and I can drop it in one direction either way.”



“And none of it will work on me, so I can make sure everyone’s being honest,” Ethan said. Normally, that was my job, but I couldn’t do it with my immunity to magic stripped away so we could get Ari out of my head. Whenever it happened, it wouldn’t be soon enough. She’d thoroughly awakened from the sedative, and she was really pissed off. I had to bite my lip to keep my mouth shut so I wouldn’t say all the things that came into my head.



Owen directed his dragons off to the sides of the room, then waved a hand, and they disappeared. “We’re all set now,” he said.



Merlin pulled out a pocket watch and checked it. “Mr. Idris should be here at any moment.”



“He’s here now,” a voice said from the darkness. Phelan Idris stepped forward out of the shadows, along with a few of his henchmen, the ones who’d been with him in the big magical battle we’d fought a couple of months ago. They still looked more like they were on their way to a science fiction convention to meet up with a bunch of other people who’d seen The Matrix a few too many times than like anyone you’d expect to be on the cutting edge of magic.



Then again, our side didn’t look all that intimidating unless you knew what they were capable of. Merlin looked like a little old man in a dapper suit, while Owen looked like an astonishingly good-looking version of the boy next door. Sam and his people could have starred in their own Disney cartoon.



“Let’s make this happen,” Idris said. “What is it you want? That is, if you really do have Ari.”



“Oh, we’ve got her, all right,” I said, rubbing my temple.



“We understand that one of your colleagues has taken custody of Miss Chandler’s friend,” Merlin said. “We would like you to secure her return.”



Idris’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. “What?” he squeaked, his voice going up about an octave. “Whoa, I had nothing to do with that! I may have mentioned that the dude trying to take back his company was dating one of Katie’s friends, but it was just a conversation, you know? I didn’t think she’d do anything about it.”