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I put the DVD on a nearby display, then hurried to catch up with Merlin, who was holding the door. As the door closed behind us the store came back to life. I thought I heard the clerk say, "We're being robbed."
"We're near City Hall, so I'm sure there'll be police here soon," I said, more to make myself feel better than to reassure Merlin. Then a thought crossed my mind and I gasped. "What if they have security cameras? It'll show up on tape that we were there, that we tinkered with the scene, and then that we left before the cops got there."
"Don't worry, that was taken care of as part of my spell."
"You know about security cameras?"
"I know about a great many things. My focus in the first few months after I was brought back was intensive study of your world. Now, some lunch would be nice, don't you think?"
Merlin spotted a pizza stand on a side street and said, "I want to try this food. I've seen it in the movies, and it looks interesting." So, we got a couple of slices to go and took them to a nearby plaza to sit and eat. He struggled with the strings of mozzarella that came off his pizza, and it became easier once more to think of him as a kindly old man who was a little out of his element, not as someone who could freeze the world around him.
We had just finished lunch when Sam swooped in and settled onto a nearby bench.
"Good, I found you," he said, sounding about as out-of-breath as a stone creature could.
"What is it, Sam?" Merlin asked.
"You need to get back to the office right away, boss."
eleven
I glanced around to see if any of the other people in the park were staring at us. Even though I knew there was magic in place to keep people from seeing Sam or us interacting with Sam, it still felt funny to talk to a gargoyle in public.
But everyone continued eating and talking, paying us very little attention as we got up and walked away, Sam flying just ahead of us. "Sam, what's going on?" I asked. I couldn't help but worry. Maybe I was in trouble for taking Merlin outside.
"They got their hands on one of that guy's spells. Palmer's about to check it out. He thought you'd want to be there, boss. Katie-bug, too." He glanced over his shoulder with a smirk. "Apparently, we need a professional opinion on the marketing and packaging. And we need to make sure there's nothing hidden in it." It was nice to have an excuse to tag along without having to come up with one on my own.
Merlin moved pretty quickly for a man more than a thousand years old. In fact, I was the one lagging behind him and Sam. With his wings, Sam had an unfair advantage. We reached the building, and Sam took his usual post on the awning.
Merlin and I went inside and straight to the R&D department.
Owen and Jake—this time without a shredded pants leg—were in Owen's lab, both their heads bent over something that lay between them on a table. They looked up as we entered. "Mr. Mervyn, Katie," Owen greeted us.
"So, this is it," Merlin said, leaning over to look at the booklet on the table.
"Yeah, found it in that hole-in-the-wall dive charm-and-record shop in the East Village," Jake said.
"I'm afraid to ask what he was doing there during office hours," Owen said dryly. I thought the fact that Jake was wearing a New York Dolls T-shirt was a pretty good clue, but Owen didn't strike me as a punk fan. I only knew because of a college roommate who was the reason I ended up moving off campus with Marcia, Gemma, and Connie, which eventually led to me moving to New York. I owed a lot to the punk movement.
Merlin made "Hmmm" sounds as he flipped through the spell book. "Well, then," he said as he closed it and handed it to me. "What do you think, Katie?"
I assumed he meant the packaging, as I couldn't tell him the hrst thing about magic. I turned it over in my hands. "Well, for starters, this Idris guy doesn't have a marketing department. He must have done this with his home computer and an ink-jet printer." It didn't even look like he was trying to market his products. Then again, the contents would sell itself to the kind of person who'd be interested in this sort of thing.
"Let others do your dirty work for you," the package said on the front in big letters.
In another font, in smaller letters, it added, "Use unsuspecting normals as your personal slaves. They won't even remember what they've done for you. Always have an alibi, for you were nowhere near."
I looked at the others and smirked. "You have to admit, they have a compelling message. You don't need a lot of flash when you've got a proposition like that."
Although I tried to keep my tone flippant, the thought of it sent chills down my spine. I knew I was safe because I was immune, but there were too many people I cared about who weren't immune. "A personal slave sounds pretty appealing. I could get someone to do my laundry and wash the dishes."
"Or carry out a robbery while you were somewhere else, with plenty of witnesses to verify your alibi," Owen remarked.
That made me think of the robbery Merlin had just foiled. I wondered if that thug was operating under his own will or someone else's. "That, too." The crime implications alone were staggering. I imagined a rash of bank robberies carried out by people who were somewhere else at the time. "I'm not sure our marketing campaign can beat this," I said. "If someone's interested in this kind of thing, they won't care about all that quality and testing stuff."
"But your marketing may keep many stores from stocking these spells," Owen said, not looking directly at me. I mentally kicked myself for not having thought of that for myself. I was supposed to be the marketing expert here, even if Owen was an all-purpose genius.
"That's true," Jake added. "This was the first one I found, and that shop isn't too picky."
