Damsel Under Stress
“Why would I do that?” I asked. “Whatever we’ve run into, it’s had as much to do with me as it has with you. If I dumped you and tried getting together with someone normal, things would probably be even worse.” My heart suddenly felt like it had been caught in a vise. “You don’t want to end this, do you?”
“No. But you know it’s not going to be easy, the two of us. I don’t think it will ever be easy for me because of who I am, or what I am.”
“Maybe it’ll be easier if we take it on together.” I tried to make my voice lighter. “Besides, if you knew my dating history, you’d know nothing’s been easy for me. If we go out one more time, we’ll be closing in on my record for the past year or so, whether or not we run into another disaster.”
Some of the weight seemed to leave his shoulders. “Okay, then, if you insist.”
“I do.”
It looked like Merlin had come to the realization that this was too big for our little team to deal with, for when we got to his office for the meeting, there was a room full of people (and other beings). I recognized Sam and the heads of Sales and Accounting, as well as the chief seer from Prophets and Lost, the forecasting unit. Even Owen’s direct boss was there, and he almost never left his own office.
I was especially surprised to see our corporate counsel, Ethan Wainwright, there. He was a magical immune, like I was, and we’d dated very, very briefly about a month ago. It was the first time since he’d dumped me that I’d had to deal with him on a business basis. You’d think that dating Owen would have made me feel better about that, but it still stung a little. Facing an ex in a situation like that can be challenging. Do you act like nothing ever happened, or do you acknowledge the past? I went with sitting on the other side of the room and trying to avoid him unless I had a specific reason to address him.
I glanced at Owen, who sat next to me, to see if he’d reacted to Ethan being there, and then I realized that this same dilemma could apply to Owen someday. What if it didn’t work out, if he was right about what he’d said earlier, if all the disasters piled up and made one of us give up? Would we one day face each other across a conference table and try to decide if we should just pretend nothing happened? It was almost as sobering a thought as the implications of what Idris had unveiled the day before.
Merlin called the meeting to order by summarizing what we’d seen on Christmas. “As Miss Chandler pointed out to me, the real concern appears to be that Mr. Idris has the funding to operate like a legitimate, high-level business.”
“It gets worse,” Owen said. “Katie, tell them what you saw last night.”
“Was anyone watching TV last night?” I asked. I was met with a room full of blank faces. I felt like I must have been the only loser with no life, but then I remembered the sheltered magical enclave Owen was from and realized that explained a lot about the things I took for granted that others at MSI didn’t get.
Then Merlin said, “Are you referring to the television commercial?”
I turned to him in shock. Merlin, of all people, was the one watching TV? Then again, that could account for his rapid adaptation to modern life. “Yes, the commercial. If he’s buying TV time, it means he’s got even more resources than we realized, and he’s trying to reach an even broader audience. The commercials must be masked to nonmagical people because my roommates didn’t notice anything odd.”
“According to the commercial, Mr. Idris and his company have now opened a retail establishment,” Merlin added. “I believe our first order of business should be to investigate and determine what spells he is currently selling.”
“We could send someone in undercover,” Mr. Lansing, Owen’s boss, said. “Otherwise, I’m pretty sure most of our staff would be recognized.”
Owen shook his head. “Not a good idea. It’s easy enough to screen out disguises, and then it would be even more obvious what we’re up to. That person would either be thrown out or given something entirely different. I’m not even sure it’s good for a magical person to go in. For all we know, he’s using some of his darker-influence spells on his customers to get them to buy or to make them more agreeable to him. Remember, that’s why we were fighting him in the first place. The storefront and the ads may all just be a way to get more people under his influence.”
I was rather impressed that he’d dared contradict his boss, but the frog-man didn’t seem to mind. “So we send in an immune? A regular nonmagical person probably wouldn’t even see the store or be able to enter it.”