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 magical 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?”