Damsel Under Stress (Enchanted, Inc. 3)

Owen stepped forward. “We had to remove her immunity temporarily to check on something. They took advantage of the vulnerability.”

“And all that stuff last night?” Marcia asked.

“I’m afraid that was because of me,” Philip said. “One of their enemies is my enemy, as well, a descendant of the man who enchanted me to take over my family’s business.” I noticed that he left out the nature of the enchantment, but that was his secret to tell Gemma when he was ready for that level of sharing. “If I regained the business, they lost funding for their schemes. They seem to have known I had feelings for one of Katie’s roommates, but when they took one of you hostage, they got the wrong one.”

“We’ve spent the last couple of days trying to find a way to get Marcia back and get rid of our enemies,” I wrapped up the story as simply as I could.

“You beat the bad guys, I take it?”

Owen and I looked at each other. “Not exactly,” I said. “We haven’t yet had the ultimate showdown, but we’ve managed to head off each of their evil schemes before it gets out of control. They’re still out there, and that’s why I wanted to tell you guys the truth. It may get even hairier in the future, and you need to know what’s going on.”

“Why haven’t you told us before now?” Gemma asked.

“We’re not supposed to let outsiders know,” Owen said. “We could only tell you now because of what Marcia saw last night. If knowledge of the existence of magic and the fact that there are people with fantastic powers walking among you got out among the general public, the result would be chaos. The rule is to protect you as much as it is to protect us. If we’re forbidden from showing our power, that makes it harder for us to use it against you. The problem with our current enemies is that they’re not abiding by the rules. We’re worried they might try to use their magic to gain real power.”

Gemma nodded, glanced at Marcia, then said, “Okay, we’re in. What do you need us to do?”

I’d been expecting to have to go into hours of explanation, lots of demonstrations, and even then face skepticism. This was almost too easy. “You mean, you believe me, really? You’re not just humoring me to keep me calm while you go off and call the funny farm to reserve me a room?”

“I was there,” Marcia said with a shrug. “It makes more sense than most of the stories you’ve told to cover it up.”

“What do we need to do to help fight this bad guy?” Gemma asked. “Or is there something we need to do to protect ourselves? Hang garlic from the doorways? Wear crosses?”

Owen had to fight to keep a straight face. While he got himself under control, I said, “This isn’t Buffy, and we’re not dealing with vampires.” I turned to Owen. “There aren’t vampires, are there?”

“Not in this country, and they’re not like in the movies.”

“Okay, no vampires to worry about at the moment, so stakes, crosses, and garlic won’t do you much good.”

“Your apartment is warded against magical attack,” Owen said. “No one can get in here using magical means or use magic to get anything else in here.”

Philip nodded. “I thought I’d sensed a barrier here.”

“Mostly, I just need you to keep alert,” I said, “and give me the benefit of the doubt when things get weird. I seem to have made myself a favorite target of the bad guy. If anyone approaches you and claims to be my friend, assume they aren’t unless you’ve met them with me, and even then, it’s entirely possible that there are illusions at work.”

“We’ll need passwords,” Marcia said. “Or questions to make sure everyone’s who they say they are, something about you that nobody else would know. So if someone claiming to be you doesn’t know your childhood pet’s name, we’ll know it isn’t really you.”

“That’s actually a good idea,” Owen said, nodding. “Other than that, though, it’s best that you stay out of this as much as possible. You’re especially vulnerable since you are susceptible to magic being used on you, yet you don’t have any power of your own.”

Marcia got up and went over to her briefcase, from which she took a notepad and pen. “Okay, let’s get to work on passwords to start with. And I want a complete list of contact information for everyone.”

While she grilled everyone on secret info to use for identity verification, Owen edged over to me and put his arm around me. “That went better than I hoped,” he said.

“Yeah, I’m kind of surprised, but I guess I shouldn’t have been. They seem to take everything in stride.”

Once Marcia had her phone list and secret passwords, Owen took off for the night. I followed him out into the hallway. “Thanks for helping with this,” I whispered so neither my roommates nor my neighbors would hear us.

“You handled it pretty well on your own. I just provided the proof.”

“In your usual dramatic fashion.”

He ducked his head and blushed. If I had to name a mannerism that defined him to me, that would have to be it. It had been one of the first things he’d done when we met, and it was still something I could count on him doing regularly, even though he did it less often as he grew more comfortable with me. Watching him, I felt my heart swell in my chest. I hadn’t had the chance to prove definitively how strong my feelings for him were the way he’d proved it to me the night before, but I knew now that if our positions had been reversed, I’d have probably made the same choice he’d made. We could fight the bad guys again some other day, but I couldn’t replace him. It might be early to start thinking along these lines, but I was pretty sure I was falling in love with him, if I hadn’t already fallen.

“You should probably take tomorrow off,” he said. “It’s not quite your front porch or hammock, but it would be a chance to unwind and recover—and get your immunity back.”

“Good idea,” I said, nodding.

“Okay, then, I guess I’ll be going.” He turned to leave, but I caught his arm and pulled him back. Then I stood on my tiptoes and gave him a very thorough kiss. It took him a second to recover before he kissed me back. He wrapped his arms around me and held me like he had in those tunnels, after he’d saved me from the fire. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispered. “If something happened to you…”