I felt about twenty pairs of eyes on me as every person in the room turned to look.
Feeling self-conscious, I gave them as big a smile as I could muster and fluttered my fingers at them in an awkward wave. Rod stepped forward to pull a chair out for me.
I sat down, then he helped me scoot up to the table before taking the seat next to me.
He clasped his hands together on top of the table, and suddenly he was a polished business executive rather than a sleazy pickup artist. "As you're all aware," he began,
"we've increased our recruitment efforts substantially in recent weeks. Unfortunately, immunes are few and far between, and they don't last long in this city. The new varieties of antipsychotic drugs aren't helping matters, because those apparently undo the immunity and make people susceptible again. That reduces the pool even further."
"We're working to find ways to counter that," Owen put in, clearly in business mode, for he spoke strongly and clearly, and his skin tone remained even.
"In the meantime," Rod continued, "it leaves us at something of a loss. We need immunes now more than ever, and there aren't as many to be found. That's what makes Miss Chandler here such a rare find. Not only is she entirely immune—according to every test we've put her through—but she seems to have held on well to her sanity and common sense."
He might have spoken too soon about the sanity. I felt like I'd left it behind somewhere out on the street. I must have looked as confused as I felt, for an elderly man seated across the table from me remarked, "Obviously, she hasn't yet been briefed."
Rod snapped to attention, and I assumed this must be the head honcho. He was a distinguished-looking gentleman with silver hair and a neatly trimmed silver beard and mustache. It was hard to tell just how old he was, other than that he was quite old.
"No, sir," Rod stammered, having now lost all pretense of swagger. "I thought it was best to wait until—"
The boss cut him off. "Until she'd lost that precious sanity you were so proud of?"
he asked, his voice stem but not unkind. He turned to me. "My dear, I believe we owe you an explanation of two." His voice was deep and rich, with a hint of roughness, as though he'd recently gone a long time without talking. I thought I detected a trace of an accent, but I couldn't identify it. When it came to accents, I was only good at figuring out which part of Texas someone came from.
"Do you believe in magic?" he asked. That's not on the list of likely job interview questions, so I didn't have an answer for him. It seemed to be a rhetorical question anyway, which was good, because I couldn't get my chin off the table so I could answer. "What about elves or fairies? Are these real to you, or are they stories?"
I finally got my brain in gear. "Well, up until a few minutes ago, I would have said they weren't real. But something tells me I would have been wrong. I'm not sure yet about magic."
The boss looked toward Rod with a smile. "You did say she had common sense."
He turned back to me. "Magic is real. Unfortunately, the very qualities that make you valuable to us make it difficult for us to prove it to you. You see, you are one of the rare human beings without the slightest hint of magic in you."
That didn't sound like such a good thing to me. After all, doesn't everyone wish for a little magic from time to time? That's the reason Harry Potter books fly off the shelves, little girls try to wiggle their noses after watching Bewitched on TV Land, and audiences clap their hands to cure Tinker Bell, no matter how silly that makes them feel. Being told that magic does exist but that I had no part of it was a huge disappointment, whether or not I was ready to believe they were telling me the truth about magic.
My distress must have shown on my face, for Owen, who was seated at the boss's right hand, leaned toward me across the table. "That's actually valuable to us," he said softly, as though he and I were the only two people in the room. His words had the confident ring of his business persona, but his manner was shy. "Most people have only enough magic in them to make magic work on them. They can be influenced by spells or fooled by illusions. Meanwhile, those of us who are magical, who have
the power to do magic for ourselves, also can be influenced by magic." I wasn't sure what to make of the fact that he'd used the words "we" and "us." Did that mean Owen was a wizard?
"You, however," he continued, "are of the rare breed who can neither do magic nor be influenced by magic. You see the world as it is . You see through the illusions we use to shield the magic from the rest of the world. Surely you've noticed things you can't explain?"