Much Ado About Magic Read online

  “Don’t worry, I will. But don’t you have an anti-illness spell? You’d think a place like this could fight the flu.”

  “You’d think, but no, we sometimes even get weirder varieties that the flu shot doesn’t help with, since our bugs get filtered through the other races, like the fairies and gnomes.” I’d always been curious about her lineage, since she was far larger than the average person, but I couldn’t think of a polite way to ask if she counted herself among the other races. Instead, I just said, “I may be back for a refill.”

  Before I made it to the door, I paused. Isabel was the best source for company gossip and information, since working in Personnel meant she knew all the comings and goings within the company. She might know something that could help me, if I could ask without sounding suspicious. I turned back to face her. “One good thing about this flu is that I haven’t had to deal with Idris in a couple of days.”

  She laughed. “I can imagine that’s a relief. He always got on my nerves.”

  Yes! She’d taken my opening. “Did you know him well when he worked here?”

  “He and Ari were off and on, and since Ari was a friend, that meant I had to put up with him.”

  “The more time I spend with him, the harder it is to imagine anyone feeling like he was a danger worthy of bringing Merlin back. Was he really that big a threat?”

  “I don’t think they knew exactly who was causing trouble at the time, so they couldn’t tell how bad things might get. After the last time, I guess they weren’t taking any chances.”

  “What last time?”

  “I was just a kid, but it was pretty bad, from what I’ve heard.”

  I remembered reading something about an earlier attempt to seize power magically. It was in a reference book Owen had let me borrow so I could get the quick-immersion Magic 101 primer right after I joined the company. Unfortunately, I didn’t remember the details, and I didn’t think I could ask Owen for that book under the current circumstances.

  I grinned at Isabel. “Well, he’s not a threat now, and while the flu is going around, he’s not even an annoyance.” I headed back to my office, trying to think of another way to find out about the last threat.

  *

  The next day, the absentee rate was even worse. I was getting hundreds of responses to our conference invitation, so there would be people at the conference, but I was starting to wonder if there would be a conference for them to attend. That was the downside of doing everything magically—I was entirely dependent on other people being able to do magic. I didn’t think I’d be able to find a circus to rent tents from and get them set up in Central Park without anyone noticing. There was no nonmagical Plan B.

  Considering that the subway that evening sounded like a tuberculosis sanitarium, I expected to get home and find my roommates lying on the sofa with boxes of tissues. Instead, they were in perfect health. “Are y’all dealing with the plague at work?” I asked as we ate dinner.

  “Are you talking about whatever Rod has?” Marcia asked.

  “Yeah, it’s going through the company like wildfire. Is that happening at your offices?”

  They looked at each other. “A couple of the designers have been out sick,” Gemma said.

  “At my firm, people come to work when they’re clinically dead,” Marcia said with a sigh. “And that means we all catch whatever they’ve got, so then we have to drag ourselves off our deathbeds to go to work.” She glared at me. “You’d better not catch your office plague and bring it home to us.”

  “So far, I don’t have so much as a sniffle,” I reassured them.

  The subway was practically sedate and much less crowded than usual the next morning. The people struck down by the flu must have all stayed home. “Hey, you made it!” Sam said in greeting as I approached the office building. “It’s a good thing you look healthy. You may end up running the place.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “When Palmer calls in sick, that generally means we need to send the coroner out to his place, and anyone weaker has already fallen.”

  Perdita was still out, and the sales department was like a ghost town. Rina was out, as well, so I didn’t know where she was on handling the party side of the event. I went through my checklist for the conference, but nobody I needed was in the office, so I created a new checklist to see what had already been done and what needed doing. Most of it would come down to the last minute in conjuring tents and protective barriers, food, and decorations. That meant I was sunk if people weren’t well within a week. I reminded myself that the worst flu I’d ever had lasted a week. I was weak for a while after that, but I was functional.

  Of course, with my luck, everyone else would be well by then, and I’d succumb to the illness the day before the conference. Then we’d be left in Perdita’s capable hands.

  And then we’d be doomed.

  I found some hand sanitizer in my tote bag and rubbed it on my hands, then popped a vitamin C lozenge in my mouth. I wondered if putting on a surgical mask would be overkill.

  When I still hadn’t heard from anyone by lunchtime, I ventured out into the corridors. It was like something out of a science fiction movie, with me as the only survivor of a terrible plague, left alone in the ruins of civilization.

  With a growing sense of worry, I hurried up to the executive suite. Kim sat at Trix’s desk, looking reasonably healthy. “The boss is sick,” she said. “He’s not seeing anyone.”

  Flu was supposed to be particularly dangerous for the elderly, and they didn’t get much more elderly than Merlin. My stomach did a flip. “Have the healers seen him?”

  “They’re keeping an eye on him, but he insists he’s got a potion that will cure anything.” She gave a sneaky glance around the office suite, then gestured me forward and whispered, “I haven’t seen you know who in days. Don’t you think that’s suspicious?”

  I wondered if that was how I sounded to Owen and understood why he’d snapped at me. “Maybe he’s sick like everyone else,” I suggested.

  “Maybe. But he could be going to all the meetings that the boss is missing.”

  “Is he missing a lot?”

  “Not really,” she admitted sheepishly. “Most people are canceling because they’re sick.”

  “You and I must be the last ones standing.”

  I wasn’t sure I liked the gleam that came into her eyes. “We’ll be running the company soon.” I’d have bet money that she’d be sitting at Merlin’s desk by the end of the day.

  I was on the way back to my office when it occurred to me that with Owen out, this was the perfect chance to look at his reference books. I could find out what really happened the last time, what Ramsay had done then, and if history might be repeating itself.

  Chapter Nine

  When I got to the R&D department, I was stymied. That department was secured. Owen usually anticipated my arrival and opened the door for me, but the point of this visit was that Owen wasn’t there, so that wouldn’t work.

  I settled for the tried-and-true strategy of hanging around and waiting for someone else to either come or go and open the door. Anyone who worked in that department would have seen me around often enough to be willing to let me in. After all, I rationalized, if I told Merlin I needed to get something from Owen’s office, he’d surely give me access. I just didn’t want to disturb Merlin when he was sick or get him involved in this yet.

  I didn’t have to wait too long. Soon, the door opened and someone in a lab coat came out, carrying a couple of shopping bags. He stopped to sneeze halfway through the doorway, and I jumped to catch the door for him while he groped for a handkerchief. “Thanks,” he croaked.

  “Bless you,” I said, meaning it quite sincerely. Once he left, I headed into the department and hurried to Owen’s lab. The lights were out, and there was no sign of Jake, so he must have been sick, too. There were bookcases in the lab, but a quick skim of the titles I could read told me that these were all books about magic itself, not magi
cal society.

  Owen kept his office warded, so I felt a slight tingle as I passed through the doorway, but nothing held me back because the wards didn’t work on me. I was sure I’d recognize the books I needed when I saw them, but I didn’t see them on the bookshelves. That left the desk, which would be a challenge to search because it was so cluttered and because, in spite of the clutter, Owen knew exactly where everything was. Move one thing, and he’d know someone had been in there.

  I remembered giving the books back to Owen not long after I’d joined the company. I visualized the scene—he’d taken the books from me, said I was welcome to borrow them at any time, and placed them… there, on the corner of his desk. I went around the desk, sat in his chair, and gingerly lifted a few file folders to find the books exactly where he’d put them, all those months ago.

  Taking mental note of the books’ position, how they were placed, and the order in which they were stacked, I pulled out the one I recalled having the most information on the recent history of the magical world. I flipped straight to the back, where there were blank pages, although there were fewer blank pages than I recalled. The book had updated itself to include events that happened since I’d last read it. I glanced over the article about the growth of Spellworks, out of curiosity, then flipped a few pages back to the story about the last serious threat to the magical world.

  It sounded pretty similar to the way this battle had started, with a brilliant and eccentric young wizard named Kane Morgan who was fired from MSI when he and his wife began using dark magic no other wizard dared to tap into. It sounded far worse than today’s magical mischief. The book said that the Council had discussed restoring Merlin, but before they had a chance, the Morgans tried to seize power, and it was another young MSI wizard, one Ivor Ramsay, who saved the day by defeating the bad guys in a surprise attack.

  “Yeah, that would get you a fast promotion,” I muttered to myself. And it would explain the hero worship, as well as Owen’s resistance to my suspicions. It was like I’d accused Luke Skywalker of being Darth Vader, even after he’d destroyed the Death Star. I could even see why they might have jumped the gun on bringing Merlin back for something relatively minor this time around. They were afraid of taking too many chances.

  There wasn’t much more about Ramsay, aside from him being promoted to company president about twenty years ago and being chairman of the Council for a couple of terms. As Owen said, he’d had just about all the power anyone could want. He didn’t need to concoct an elaborate scheme to take over when he was already there.

  But still, there was something about Ramsay that just bugged me, and if he was behind this, then that meant he had something far more nefarious than normal power in mind.

  The part about Merlin’s return was still sketchy, like it was a placeholder article that would be fleshed out when enough time had passed to lend historical perspective. Not only did this book get added to, it expanded along the way. I could have sworn some of the information about that last crisis hadn’t been there the last time I read this book.

  I put the books back where I’d found them, made sure the folders on top of them were back in place, and then left Owen’s office, still deep in thought. I went home early because there wasn’t much I could do with everyone else gone, and my to-do list of things I needed from other people was haunting me. The subway was emptier than normal—even accounting for non-rush-hour ridership. And then it occurred to me that there were no obviously magical people on board. Not a single pair of wings, no pointed ears, no gnomes, and no one was causing magical mischief. It was as though the entire magical population of Manhattan had vanished.

  As soon as I got home, I called Marcia at work. “Is your office still flu-free?” I asked.

  “So far, knock on wood.”

  “My company has been pretty much wiped out.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m going to play Florence Nightingale for Rod after work. He’s such a big baby. Do we need to quarantine you?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know if there is such a thing, but this looks like some kind of magic flu. The only people I know who are sick are magical people, and I don’t know of anyone nonmagical who’s sick. Owen’s sick, too, and I’ll be going over there. I’ll leave a note for Gemma.”

  “Keep me posted,” she said. “You have my cell number and Rod’s number, right?”

  “Yeah, I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  If there was a magical flu, I’d need Owen’s help to figure out what we could do, even if he was sick. In case I needed to do like Marcia and play nursemaid, I threw some overnight things into a tote bag. On my way to Owen’s place I bought a container of hot-and-sour soup from the Chinese restaurant next door to my building and a jug of orange juice from the corner grocery.

  Normally, Owen’s door just opened for me when I showed up, since his weird brand of ESP told him I was coming, but the plague must have knocked out his magical senses—or else he was mad at me. I had to hit the buzzer, and I hoped I wasn’t waking him from a nap. After a long pause, a scratchy voice said, “Yeah?” over the intercom.

  “Owen, it’s Katie. I need to talk to you. I’ve got soup.”

  He didn’t respond, and I held my breath. Then the door opened, and I went inside and ran up the stairs. His front door had already opened for me. I found him sprawled on the sofa, his cat staring at him warily from her perch on the sofa arm at his feet.

  I couldn’t blame her for her wariness. He looked like hell, worse than I’d ever seen him, and I’d seen him after he’d been practically ripped to shreds by a harpy. The circles under his eyes were nearly as dark as his hair, he had a day’s growth of stubble on his jaw, which made his cheeks look even more hollow, and he was pale enough to almost be gray.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” he croaked, squinting at me. His glasses lay on the coffee table, and I doubted he’d bothered with contact lenses in the state he was in. “I don’t want to give this to you.”

  “I don’t think you can give it to me. Not that I plan to kiss you right now, regardless.” However, I did have an urge to give him a hug. When he looked like this, he brought out all my latent maternal instincts. I cleared a spot among the books and papers on the coffee table and set down my bags. I opened the soup, stuck a spoon in it and handed it to him. “Here, this should open your head and give you some energy. You can eat while I talk.”

  He pulled himself to a sitting position and swung his feet around to the floor. I sat beside him, waited for him to eat a few bites, then asked, “Is there such a thing as an illness that strikes only magical people?”

  He swallowed, coughed, and said, “I don’t know. I haven’t heard of one.”

  “I noticed that it’s only the magical people who seem to be sick. The immunes at work are the ones still going, and Marcia said nobody is out at her office. So either there’s an illness that only affects magical people or there’s some massive spell being cast all over Manhattan that makes magical people sick.”

  Owen groaned and leaned back against the sofa, like the effort of eating a few spoonfuls of soup and listening to me had utterly exhausted him. I reached over and took the soup from him before he spilled it on himself. “I really don’t need this right now,” he said.

  “I suspect that’s the point. We won’t get anything done while all our people are sick.”

  “But whatever they’re doing is probably making them sick, too.”

  “Unless they have a way to block it from particular people. It might be interesting to see exactly who is still up and around right now.” I started to say that Ramsay hadn’t shown up at the office, but then I wasn’t sure what that proved. It meant either that he was sick or that he wasn’t sick and didn’t want anyone to see that. Either way, this wasn’t the time to stir up that particular argument.

  Owen rubbed his temples wearily. “If only I could think,” he muttered.

  “I wonder how far-reaching this is—is it only Manhattan, or does it af
fect all magical people everywhere?”

  He fluttered a hand vaguely in the direction of his desk in the front corner of the room. “Could you bring me the phone?”

  I got up and brought the cordless to him. “I should make you talk,” he muttered as he dialed. “She’ll know something’s wrong with me, and I’ll never hear the end of it.” Then he cleared his throat and forced himself to sound normal as he said, “Gloria, it’s Owen. I wanted to see how you’re doing.” He winced as he listened, then said, “Yes, I am a little under the weather, but are you and James okay? What about anyone else? Yes, that was what Katie suspected. Okay, thanks, let me know.” He disconnected and handed the phone back to me. “They’re feeling, as Gloria put it, ‘a bit peakish,’ which probably means they’re barely getting out of bed. They have heard from neighbors who work in the city that they feel sick at work, but get a lot better when they get home. Oh, and she said you were very clever. That’s about the highest compliment she can give.”

  “If we want to see just how widespread this is, I could call Dean or my grandmother.” My family has an odd genetic quirk that left most of us either immune to magic or magical, though we’d only just discovered that. My brother Dean was the wizard in the family, and we seemed to have inherited this trait through my grandmother.

  “Call them,” he said, picking up the soup again.

  I called the family store. Dean’s wife, Sherri, answered the phone on the second ring. “Chandler Agricultural Supply,” she sang out cheerfully.

  “Hi, Sherri, it’s Katie. Is Dean around?”

  “He’s out on a delivery. Can I take a message?”

  “No, don’t worry about it. Is he doing okay?”

  “Sure is.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “And how are things in New York?”