Much Ado About Magic (2 page)

Mr. Mervyn, the boss, crossed the room to greet me. “Miss Chandler, I am so pleased to have you back with us,” he said, clasping his hands around my right hand. Ambrose Mervyn is his name in modern English, but he’s best known as Merlin. Yes,
that
one, King Arthur and all. I’m not sure exactly how true any of the legends are, but I do know that Merlin is real, that he really is a wizard, and that he spent about a thousand years in a magical coma before he was brought back to run the company he started all those centuries ago.

“It’s good to be back, sir,” I said, glad he hadn’t asked why I was such a mess. Then again, this was Merlin, so he probably already knew. I had a ton of questions, namely exactly what job he thought I was doing and what role I had in this meeting. It wasn’t the sort of question I wanted to ask in front of all these people. Merlin escorted me toward a seat as I discreetly tried to tidy my hair. Once seated, I was grateful for the cover of the conference table so my ruined stockings didn’t show.

Owen caught my eye, smiled, then frowned and gestured toward his neck. I unconsciously mirrored his gesture and winced when I touched the developing bruises from the subway incident. I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile and mouthed, “I’m okay.” He nodded in response, but still looked worried.

Kim, the magical immune who’d taken my place as Merlin’s assistant, was seated behind the boss, her steno pad and pen at the ready, so I guessed my role in this meeting wasn’t to take notes and capture action items. What, then, was I supposed to do? I’d heard about expecting new employees to be able to hit the ground running, but they usually got a job description first.

The door opened, and a tall, broad-shouldered man strode in like he owned the place. Merlin rose to greet him. “Mr. Ramsay, what a surprise,” he said, his tone coolly cordial.

Most of the people in the meeting looked up with welcoming smiles, like they knew and liked the new guy. He worked his way around the table, shaking hands and exuding good-hearted warmth. In a group full of unusual-looking beings, Ramsay stood out. He appeared to be in his sixties, though considering that Merlin was at least a thousand and didn’t look a day over eighty, that didn’t necessarily mean anything. He wore his thick white hair slicked back into a ponytail fastened at the nape of his neck, and his fingers were covered in heavy silver rings. He’d look at home in Western wear at a Santa Fe art gallery or in a slick, European-tailored suit at a sidewalk café in Milan. In generic—but expensive—American business attire, he looked a little out of place.

When he reached me in his circuit around the table, he stopped. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said, holding his hand out to me. “I’m Ivor Ramsay.”

“Mr. Ramsay is my predecessor as chief executive,” Merlin explained. “Ivor, this is Katie Chandler.”

Ramsay smiled at me in a way that made me feel he knew more about me and my role in the company than I did. “Ah, the famous Miss Chandler. I’ve heard so much about you.” He gave my hand a firm squeeze as he shook it.

“All good, I hope,” I said.

“Oh, most definitely.” He gave another of those knowing smiles, this one tinged with amusement, as if he was laughing at some private joke. “It sounds like you made a big impact in the time you were here, so it’s good that you’re back.” He finished his circuit and someone quickly moved out of the way so he could sit next to Merlin.

Merlin began with a quick overview of Spellworks’s latest gambit to sell protection against their own dark spells. Then he turned to me and said, “Miss Chandler, it appears that marketing may remain our best immediate strategy to hold off their attempts to gain inroads. Do you have any ideas?”

I shook my head to clear the confusion. Being asked for a plan in a meeting I didn’t know about was the kind of thing I had nightmares about, though in those nightmares I was usually wearing my nightgown—or less.

Okay, marketing
, I told myself. I could do this. That was my area of expertise. “I don’t have a good sense of the current situation, since I’ve been away awhile, but we may have passed the point of just saying we’ve been in business longer and, by the way, don’t do bad magic. I’d have to do some research to come up with a plan.”
And, you know, find my desk and get some coffee
, but I’d never say that to Merlin in front of everyone.

At that moment, a cup of coffee materialized on the table in front of me. I looked up to see Owen winking at me. Then a bright pink flush rose from his collar to his hairline, and he had to look back down at the table. I’d only dated him a short time, but I’d gotten to know him pretty well and I was fairly certain that he couldn’t read minds. He did, however, have an uncanny knack for knowing exactly where I’d be and what I’d need at any given point in time—a handy trait for a boyfriend.

Ramsay leaned back in his chair, making it creak alarmingly. “What we need here is a big idea,” he said, gesturing expansively. “We can’t beat these guys by being subtle. It’s time for an all-out effort to let the magical world know who we are, what we do, and why. We need to find a way to let everyone know this, all at once.”

“Do you have any specific ideas?” Merlin asked with an edge to his voice. I knew he wasn’t the type to say something like, “Well, duh!” but the concept was certainly implied in his tone.

If Ramsay took offense, he didn’t show it. “I’m curious to know what your people have in mind before I offer my input,” he said.

“Have you ever done a customer conference?” I asked.

“No, we haven’t,” said Mr. Hartwell, the company’s head of Sales. “What do you have in mind?”

“We’d invite all our major customers and anyone else who’s interested, show off our products, have a few educational seminars and some big rah-rah speeches from the executives. The idea is to let everyone see what’s going on with the company and maybe hammer in a few marketing messages cleverly disguised as education along the way.”

“Do we want to let everyone know what we’re doing?” protested the head of Verification, Gregor. He’d very briefly been my boss, and he was a real ogre. By that I mean he was really, truly, literally an ogre when he got angry—horns, fangs, and all. “We don’t want to show our hand to the competition.”

“But we do want to show our customers what we’re doing,” I pointed out. “That’s the general idea, to give them more confidence in us.”

The gnome who headed the accounting department conjured up an abacus and began clicking beads. “It would be expensive, and our revenue is significantly down. Do we want to throw money at something like this?”

“It’s worth considering,” Ramsay said. “If you don’t spend the money now, you may be even more behind later, and unless you’ve really been squandering cash since I’ve been away, you should still have hefty reserves.” I noticed that Gregor and several other people around the table relaxed at Ramsay’s endorsement.

“I think it’s an excellent idea, Miss Chandler,” Merlin said. “I’d like to see a plan for that, along with some budget figures and a proposed schedule. We should stage this event as soon as possible—at Midsummer, perhaps?”

I took a sip of coffee to stave off a coughing fit. It was early May, which meant Midsummer—if he was actually talking about the first day of summer the way it was referred to in the magical world—was less than two months away. We’d spent most of the year planning my old company’s customer conference and had a whole staff devoted to it. “Let me see what I can come up with,” I said when I was sure I could talk without gasping. On the upside, we did have magic to work with.

Merlin adjourned the meeting. People rose to leave, but Merlin motioned me to stay seated. Owen gave me a slight wave and a nod as he left, and Rod Gwaltney, director of Personnel and Owen’s best friend, shot me a grin along with a thumbs-up. Once everyone was gone, Merlin said, “Now, about your new position.”

Finally, a chance to clear things up. “What new position?”

He frowned, then said, “Oh, I suppose you didn’t get the news yet.”

“Apparently not. I only just got in the door before the meeting started.”

“Dear me, you must have been confused,” he said with a rumbling chuckle. “You’re our new director of marketing. That will be your full-time responsibility. The job is too big to be done on the side. You’ll be reporting to Mr. Hartwell in Sales, and you’ll have an office there. Of course, there will also be a commensurate salary increase.” He named a figure that I’m sure made my eyeballs pop out. It was a real, professional salary, nearly twice what I’d been making before joining MSI.

“Thank you, sir,” I said, trying not to show my shock. “I’ll do my best.”

He stood and ushered me toward the door. “I have every confidence in you.”

Mr. Hartwell was waiting for me in the hallway. “I’ll walk you to your new office,” he said. “I’m looking forward to having you in our department.”

The sales department was pretty much what I remembered from my first day at MSI. Compared to the executive suite, it was noisy and chaotic, with voices coming out of all the individual offices up and down the main hallway. Most of them appeared to be talking on the phone or into the crystal ball communicator devices the magical world used in addition to phones. Mr. Hartwell walked me all the way down the hall, almost to where his office was, before opening a door for me. There was a small outer office with a secretary’s desk and a door leading into an inner private office. Considering that I’d spent my last few months in a broom-closet-sized office behind the counter at a farm-and-ranch-supply store, this would be like going to work in the Taj Mahal.

“Here you go,” Mr. Hartwell said. “I’ll leave you to it. Let’s meet this afternoon to talk about your customer conference idea. Say, three?” He was gone before I could respond, but I didn’t have anything on my calendar to conflict with the meeting, unless there was something else they’d neglected to tell me about my new job.

My pulse quickened as I stepped across the threshold into my own office. I had moved up in the world in a big way. But my executive chair was already occupied by a redheaded elf woman. Her long legs were stretched out and propped on the desk, and her fingers laced behind her neck. She was staring into space, her eyes unfocused.

Apparently, I had the wrong office, which wasn’t the most auspicious start to my new job. I turned to sneak out and find Mr. Hartwell, but before I made it out the door there was a high-pitched squeak behind me.

Chapter Two

I whirled to see the woman sitting bolt upright in the desk chair, one hand covering her open mouth, her eyes wide with horror. “Oops,” she said. Then she jumped out of the chair and faced me. She was built like a teenage model, half a foot taller than I was and with legs that seemed to go up to her pointed ears. “You must be Miss Chandler. I’m your assistant, Perdita. Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to invade your space or anything, but I wanted somewhere quiet to think and you weren’t here and I didn’t know when you’d be here, so I didn’t think you’d mind.”

It took a second or two for my ears and brain to catch up with the rapid-fire flow of words. When I was sure I had everything straight in my head, I said, “Hi—Perdita, was it?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, Miss Chandler.”

“You can call me Katie, please.”

She nodded again. “Okay, Miss—I mean, Katie.” Her mouth then moved silently, as though she was repeating my name several times to herself. “Is there anything I can do for you or get for you, Miss—Katie?”

“Not right now, thanks. I just want to get settled in.”

“Okay, let me know if you need anything. I’ll be right outside. And I don’t mind if you want to shout through the doorway. Or you could call me. My extension’s on the list beside the phone. I made a list of important numbers for you.”

“Thank you, I’m sure that will be very helpful.”

“And your computer’s already set up. The computer guy said it was your same e-mail address and password and everything.”

“Good. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Can I get you some coffee, or something?”

“No, thanks. Not right now,” I said, already exhausted by her energy. I hoped she was just nervous about meeting me and starting a new job. I knew I was nervous about a new job and having an assistant.

“Okay. Let me know if you need anything else, because that’s my job!” She paused and frowned. “Is there anything I need to be doing?”

“I’m sure I’ll have something for you soon, but I have to get myself settled before I have projects to delegate. You can take it easy for a while. We’ll be busy soon enough, I’m sure.”

“I guess I’ll just answer the phone then.”

“That’ll be great, thanks.”

And finally, she was gone. I sat at my new desk and gave myself a moment to calm down. Once I quit feeling like everything might vanish in a puff of smoke, I got out my compact mirror to assess the subway fight damage. Red welts had formed on my neck and I had a scratch on my cheek. My hair was an utter disaster, so I took out the pins, found an elastic in my purse, and made a ponytail.

That taken care of, I was ready to get down to business. I worked my way through a surprising number of e-mails and resisted the urge to call one of my friends to squeal about getting a promotion and having an assistant. I had a feeling Perdita’s pointed ears were sharp in more ways than one, and it might diminish my status as boss if she knew how overwhelmed and excited I felt. Instead, I got out a notepad and made a list of things to consider for the customer conference so I’d be ready for my meeting with Mr. Hartwell later that day.

A commotion from the outer office startled me out of my thoughts. Perdita’s voice shouted, “Wait, I have to announce you! That’s my job!”

A second later, a frazzled-looking Owen stepped into my office, closed the door, and leaned back against it with a big sigh. “I’m going to kill him,” he said.

This wasn’t quite what I’d expected in our first moment alone since he’d met me at the airport a couple of days earlier, but we were at work, and he obviously was irked about something, so this probably wasn’t the time for a romantic reunion. Knowing that didn’t stop my heart from fluttering at his presence. “Is that a threat or a premonition?” I asked, trying to sound casual. “And who is this marked man?”