The shorter man didn’t seem as happy to meet Owen. “You’re Owen Palmer?” he asked.
“Yes. Why?”
“What is your involvement here?”
Owen shrugged. “I was here when it happened.”
“Three more incidents probably happened while we’ve been here,” Mack said impatiently. “We’d better get these two off for a hearing. We’re staying busy these days. Thanks for the help.”
The men in black and their captives disappeared. I felt a little shiver in the fabric of reality as everything went back to normal. Sirens sounded behind us, arriving to deal with the wrecks in the wake of the runaway armored car. “What was that, Law and Order: Magic?” I asked.
“Something like that,” Owen said. “They detain and deal with people who use magic for illegal purposes. The mundane court system can’t deal with this sort of thing.”
We resumed heading toward the subway station. I was still catching my breath after my sprint, but Owen looked like he hadn’t even strained himself, aside from the fact that his hair was a bit windblown. “Can they do anything about the innocent people who’ve been forced to commit crimes?” I asked.
“They have ways of dealing with that.”
“Good. That was worrying me.”
I noticed as we entered the subway station that everyone looked wary. Not that New Yorkers were normally full of friendly good cheer to strangers, but they usually just went about their business while pretending other people didn’t exist. Now they were eyeing each other with suspicion. Even without knowing about magic, they knew that something was wrong.
Once we got on the train, I realized that something was different. The Spellworks ads running along the top of the car now promised protection from the magical crime wave, showing off charms like the keychain I’d seen the day before. The ad’s tag line said, “Stepping up to protect the magical world,” suggesting that they had to step up because MSI hadn’t. That took some nerve.
I nudged Owen and pointed to the ads. He frowned as he read them. “I want to get a look at those charms,” he said. “Maybe then I could reverse engineer to find out how those influence spells work.”
Fortunately, nothing else happened on the way to work. It was a relief to get to my office and find that things were reasonably quiet and calm. In other words, Perdita wasn’t in yet. I took advantage of the moment of peace to search the Internet for venues that could hold our conference.
“Whoops!”
The shout from the outer office told me that my peace and quiet were probably gone for the day. I went to the doorway and found Perdita on her hands and knees, an empty paper coffee cup on the floor nearby, and a widening brown stain on the carpet. She looked up at me and winced. “Oh, hi, Miss—I mean, Katie. Don’t worry. I’ll get this cleaned up in no time. I’m an expert on cleaning spells. I have to be because I’m always spilling things. I guess I shouldn’t have tried conjuring the coffee in midair while I was walking. This was going to be a peppermint mocha for you.”
“That was very thoughtful of you,” I said. “Maybe it would be best for you to conjure it up on my desk—on the side away from the computer.”
She waved her hands over the stain, which then vanished. “Good idea, Miss—I mean, Katie. I’ll get you another coffee in a second. On your desk.”
“Okay, let’s give that a try.”
She bounced to her feet and followed me into my office, where she snapped her fingers, whispered some words, and a coffee cup appeared on the end of my desk away from my computer. It wobbled and teetered for a second—and I grabbed my planner and notepad to get them out of the way—then it steadied itself.
Once I was sure it wasn’t going to tip over, I reached for the cup and took a cautious sip. “How do you like it?” Perdita asked. “I’ve been trying to duplicate all the seasonal specials so I can have them any time.”
“It’s perfect,” I said. “Thanks.”
She lit up. “I’m glad you like it. Now, what do we need to do today, boss?”
I gestured for her to take a seat, then I sat at my desk, took another sip of the surprisingly good magical mocha, and said, “We need to do the impossible.”
“That’s practically the company motto.”
“This time, we have to do real-world impossible. We need to find a place that will hold a couple of thousand people for an event a little more than a month away. Venues that size are usually booked years in advance. We may have to pitch tents in Central Park and then use magic to hide them.”