Damsel Under Stress (32 page)

I cringed, though to be fair, she had pretty much said something along the same lines, except for the part about her being a slut. It wasn’t like I’d broken any new ground there.

Marcia chuckled. “Yeah, and ironic, wasn’t it, considering she went from that to complaining about Owen doing the same thing with her? And then she must have been thinking of poor Philip’s reputation by giving him a chance to show he wasn’t a cold fish.”

By this time I’d cringed so hard I nearly had a cramp. “How did Owen react to the things I did?” I asked. My heart clenched at the thought of what he must have felt.

Gemma shrugged. “It’s hard to tell with that mask he had on. But he went really quiet, still-like. He made sure you were looked after. A lot of guys would have left you there to find your own way home, and he wanted to make sure you’d be okay. I think he really, really likes you. And he’s a good guy.”

I shook my head as though that would clear out some of the deadness. “I just don’t get it. I don’t know where that stuff could have come from.”

“It had to have come from somewhere,” Marcia said.

“We should have known that nice routine was too good to be true,” Gemma added.

I went from contrite to angry. “Come on! How long have you known me? We’ve lived together at least five years, off and on, and you’ve seen me drunk more than once. You’d know by now if I had anything ugly hidden underneath the surface.” I tried to think of an explanation for whatever had happened. The most obvious, of course, was that I’d been enchanted. I’d done some pretty out-of-character things not too long ago, the last time I’d lost my immunity, when I’d been enchanted. It would have been easy enough for someone in that crowd to have zapped me with a spell. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell them that. “Maybe it was one of those drugs people slip into drinks, like the news shows are always warning you about. My mom sent me a magazine clipping about that the other day.”

My head finally cleared completely, although I still felt like my brain was too big for my skull, and I felt like I was truly, fully awake for the first time today—even more awake than usual. I could now assess the situation and see it for what it was. They were lying to me, a voice in my head said, winding me up to make me regret drinking too much. None of that stuff had really happened. I’d probably fallen asleep on a couch and missed the whole party.

I laughed. “Okay, I think your little prank has gone on long enough. You’ve run it into the ground, and it’s not the least bit amusing.”

It would have been nice if I could have grabbed a coat and stomped out of the apartment, but the snow was coming down hard and I didn’t want to be out in it. Instead, I went back to the bedroom and slammed the door. I thought about calling Owen to get the real story of what happened at the party, but then I realized I didn’t have his home phone number. That certainly said something about our relationship. I hoped he might call to make sure I was okay, but he didn’t. I spent the rest of the day curled up on my bed and trying not to dream up revenge fantasies against my roommates. I had the light out and was pretending to sleep long before Gemma came to bed.

Because I’d gone to bed so early, I woke before my roommates did. I got up, got dressed, and left. I figured I’d let them worry about me and stew all day, and then maybe they’d be sorry enough to come clean and apologize that evening. Leaving early also meant that I might stand a chance of missing Owen. If he didn’t care enough to call to see how I was doing after a night when he’d had to carry me home, I didn’t want to see him. It would serve him right if he worried about me.

I picked up a sweet roll and coffee at a deli I passed on my way to the subway station, but when I got into the station, I found myself heading for the uptown platform instead of my more usual downtown platform. I noticed the mistake and tried to correct it, but nothing happened. I kept heading for the uptown platform, as though someone else controlled my body. I saw an elf pass me on the staircase, so I figured I had my immunity back and no one could be controlling me magically. Maybe my subconscious was trying to tell me something and I should just go with my gut.

I got on an uptown express train, then got off at Times Square and instinctively made my way over to the Spellworks store. I stood on the corner across the street from the store, waiting and watching. After a while, I got cold from standing still, and just waiting there seemed pointless, but when I tried to move, something in me resisted. My subconscious was being really, really stubborn. I put up an even stronger fight and finally succeeded in moving one leg, but then I saw Idris approaching the store and decided to stay for a while.

Of course, the moment I decided to stay, my subconscious got other ideas. I darted out across the street, dodging honking cars, to reach him. It took him a moment to notice me, and then yet another to recognize me. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his eyes bugging. He immediately scanned the area around me like he was looking for my magical bodyguards. Come to think of it, I hadn’t noticed them, myself. I must have thrown them off by leaving so early, before Owen got there to walk me to work.

I opened my mouth to answer him, but what came out was, “Are you missing anything? Or have you been too busy with your lady friend to notice?” My subconscious was a very strange place. I had no idea what I was talking about.

He rolled his eyes. “I am not dating Sylvia. She’s my investor. You may think I’m joking around with my business, but it’s for real, and it’s going to take that dinosaur you work for down.”

I glanced over at his single, tiny storefront, then back to him. “Yeah, we’re shaking.”

“How big a task force do you have assigned to figure out what I’m doing and bring me down?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest and taking a pose that made him look like a wannabe rap star. “Yeah, you’re running scared.”

“We’re not scared of you. We’re scared about the mess you’ll make and the innocent people who’ll be hurt along the way.” That was me talking, I was sure.

“That’s what you say.” He glanced around me again, then asked with a smirk, “Where’s your boyfriend this morning? I thought taunting me was his job.”

“He’s too busy to waste time on you.” Part of me wanted desperately to stay there with him, which made me really worry about my subconscious, but I knew I needed to get to the office. It took all my will to drag myself away from him to get to the subway station. While I waited for a downtown train, I checked my watch. Unless a train came very soon, I’d be late. I stared up the tunnel, wishing for a train to get there right away. For once, it worked.

When I got to the office, Owen’s lab was empty. That gave me a chance to focus on my own work. I had a revised marketing plan in response to the Spellworks threat to wrap up and get to Merlin, and that almost distracted me from obsessing over what might have happened at the party and whatever was going on with me this morning. I still didn’t think my friends had told me the truth. After all, I never acted like that. I printed the final document, then headed to the departmental printer room to pick it up.

Trix greeted me with a worried frown when I got up to Merlin’s office. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You were in really bad shape by the end of the party.”

“What kind of shape?” I asked.

She shrugged her wings. “You weren’t acting like yourself.” Then she gave one of her tinkling fairy giggles. “For a moment, I even thought Ethan might have regretted breaking up with you.”

“That bad, huh?” I asked, playing along, though I was sure she was in on my roommates’ scheme.

“I’ve seen worse. Remember, I used to hang out with Ari.” Her eyes flashed in anger for a second, then she was back to her perky self. “What brings you up here?”

“I’ve got this plan the boss wanted to see.”

The intercom on Trix’s desk buzzed. “Tell her to bring it to me,” Kim’s voice said.

Trix looked up at me and rolled her eyes. “Her majesty beckons.”

This would have been the perfect time for Merlin to fling open his office doors and ask to see me, but he didn’t, so I sighed, shrugged, and headed to what used to be my office. “You need to make sure Mr. Mervyn sees this as soon as possible,” I said, trying to give my best impression of a superior speaking to a lowly office peon. “It’s high priority.”

She took the document from me, tossing it casually into a nearby in-box. “I’m sure he’ll look at it when he has time.”

That was the last straw. If I didn’t still have the remnants of a killer headache, I’d have been up for an all-out hair-pulling and face-clawing catfight. Before I realized what I was doing, I’d snatched the plan back out of the in-box. “Look, I don’t know what delusions of grandeur you have going on, but you’re just filling in for my clerical tasks until I finish catching the bad guys yet again. Until you’ve been a big part of stopping the latest evil scheme a couple of times, you don’t stand a chance of taking my job, so you can get over yourself.”

She was struck speechless, which was rather satisfying. It would have been even more satisfying if her elbow had bumped the tall Starbucks cup next to her computer and sent her morning latte into her laptop’s keyboard, but I couldn’t ask for everything. While she was still trying to come up with a snappy comeback, I said, “Now, I’ll give this to Trix to give to Mr. Mervyn.” Then while I stood there watching, the coffee cup tipped over, seemingly of its own accord. It took her a second to realize what was happening, and then she shrieked as she grabbed the cup and then tried to mop up the coffee.

In spite of her frantic reaction, the results were less than spectacular. A minor explosion, or at least some sparks and noise, would have been more fun. Just then, the laptop keyboard blew up, shooting keys and sparks everywhere. Ah, that was more like it, I thought. “It looks like you’re too busy to deal with this at the moment, anyway,” I shot over my shoulder as I left her to damage control.

“That must have gone well,” Trix remarked as I returned to her desk. “Usually you look frustrated instead of satisfied when you get away from Kim.”

“Have you ever had something you wish for really happen? I mean, where you think it would be great if something would happen, and then it does?”

“Of course I have. I can do magic.”

“No, not with you making it happen. I mean like when someone passes you like you’re sitting still on the freeway, and you think it would be terrific if there was a state trooper with a radar gun around the next bend, and then when you get around the next bend you see a state trooper with that guy pulled over. It gives you faith that there is some justice in the universe.”

“I take it Kim just got pulled over?”

“In a way. She had a cup of coffee next to her computer, and her elbow was awfully close to it while she did her superior act with me. I couldn’t help but think that it would be funny if while she was playing power games with me, her elbow hit that cup and knocked it over onto her keyboard. And then the cup fell over, just like that. She’s still in there trying to salvage the computer, but it may be a lost cause, considering it blew up.”

She sighed wistfully. “Oh, I wish I’d been there to see that. Too bad you couldn’t get it on video, but I have a happy picture in my mind. That may be enough to get me through the rest of the day.”

“While you’re daydreaming, can you give this to the boss next time he emerges from his cave?” I handed her the plan.

“Sure thing. I owe you for giving me my daily dose of motivation.”

On my way back down to R&D, I passed a man who gave me an appreciative leer. “Oh, drop dead,” I muttered under my breath as I kept walking. A moment later, I heard a horrible choking sound behind me. I spun around to see that man doubled over, coughing and sputtering while his face turned redder and redder. A bag of cheddar popcorn lay spilled on the ground in front of him. I might not have liked the way he’d looked at me, but I couldn’t leave him to die. I ran over, stood behind him, and whacked him on the back. He was still choking, so I wrapped my arms around him and did the Heimlich maneuver. Soon, he was breathing normally.

I let myself breathe more normally, as well, once the disaster was averted. Then I looked up and saw that a crowd had gathered. While the women rushed to check on the choker, the men all studied me intently. I overheard one whisper to another, “Well, she did act like she wanted to wrap herself around him.”

I ignored it and turned away to head back to Owen’s lab, then almost choked, myself, when I heard another one mutter, “You know, she’s not nearly as cute out of costume. I guess I’d still do her if she threw herself at me, but I’m not gonna compete for her. Palmer can have her, but can you picture him keeping her after all that?”

Another one snorted, “Yeah, our resident boy scout isn’t going to be into that stuff.”

It took all my strength to act like I hadn’t heard anything as I walked away. This was yet another one of those times when it would have been nice if the universe would have set things right for me, but the fact that the universe had allowed itself a rare moment of balance by getting back at Kim did not mean I suddenly was going to get everything I wished for. Still, I wouldn’t have objected if the ceiling caved in on them. I then heard a thud and some screams, and I turned to see a hole in the ceiling in that part of the hallway, with ceiling tiles lying broken on the ground. Two men seemed dazed and had bits of tile in their hair. This was starting to get freaky. Aside from karma kicking into gear, I couldn’t help but wonder about the things those men had said about me. Maybe Gemma and Marcia hadn’t been playing games with me. And that meant that maybe Owen hadn’t been neglecting me but rather had been hurt deeply. I needed to figure out what was going on, and there was one person I was sure I could trust to tell me the truth without judging me.

I headed straight for Rod’s office. It was ironic that a guy who habitually wore a face that wasn’t his own was the person I felt I could trust, but enough had happened between Rod and me that I was sure he’d be honest with me, and although he was Owen’s best friend, I felt like he could be a neutral party in this.