Damsel Under Stress
Page 103

This was too weird for me to get my mind around. If I really was Ari and I’d managed to switch bodies with me, Katie Chandler, would I really think I was Katie? Wouldn’t I be going around thinking like Ari and gloating about having fooled them all? It would ruin the point to think I was Katie. Meanwhile, where was Katie? If Ari was in my body, shouldn’t I be getting all kinds of good insight into Idris and his company about now?
Another stab of pain hit my head, and next thing I knew, I was digging in my heels and resisting Owen’s pull. “Oh, no, not so fast,” I said.
He turned back to fix me with a glare. “Katie, now is not the time.”
“You know, you’re kind of hot when you get all forceful and manly like that. Do you ever do that in the bedroom?” I heard the words coming out of my mouth but I didn’t remember forming them in my brain. It was like these things came from outside me. I seemed to have a little devil sitting on my shoulder and whispering in my ear, like in the old cartoons. Shaking my head, as though I thought I could shake that little devil off, I said, “No!” Then I looked at a beet-red Owen and whispered, “Sorry. I don’t know what’s happening, but I want it to stop.”
He looked sympathetic, and shifted his grip on my wrist so that he held my hand, instead. “I know. And that’s what we’re going to do now, so come on.”
The closer we got to Merlin’s office, the harder I had to concentrate to force myself to go along with Owen and not resist him. I tasted blood in my mouth from biting my lip to keep myself from saying all the awful things that tried to come off my tongue. The pain in my head got worse and worse, to the point that tears came to my eyes.
Fortunately, Merlin’s office doors opened as soon as we reached his suite, so we didn’t have to do battle with Kim over scheduling an appointment. I might not have been able to resist whatever cruel things the little devil wanted me to say or do to her because I would have kind of wanted to do them, myself.
Merlin shut the doors behind us as Owen swept me over to an armchair and seated me there. He remained beside me with one hand on my shoulder in a gesture that was both supportive and restraining. Merlin took a seat opposite us and looked at us expectantly.
“Something’s been done to Katie,” Owen said. He ran through what I’d told him about my odd string of seeming coincidences. “Then I had her do something for me,” he continued, “and it’s true. She can do magic. I saw it, and I felt the power in use.” I couldn’t see his face from where I sat, but I heard the intake of breath as he steeled himself for the next thing he had to say. “And here’s the odd part: She’s got Ari’s signature to her magic. If you blindfolded me and had Katie do magic near me, I’d think it was Ari.”
“I’m also acting more like Ari than I’d like,” I confessed. “I keep saying things I don’t mean, really awful things intended to hurt people, and I can’t seem to help myself. I don’t remember a thing about what I did at Rod’s New Year’s Eve party, but what I’ve heard was really awful. My roommates are barely speaking to me.”
“Whatever it was that happened must have been done at the party,” Owen went on. “She was fine until soon after midnight and then…” His voice trailed off, and when he spoke again there was a roughness to it. “Well, it wasn’t Katie.”
Merlin nodded. “You’re right, that is quite odd. I’d never heard of a magical immune developing powers, but Ari’s signature could explain it.”
“She also has a bad headache,” Owen said.
“Hideously bad, like an alien is about to burst out of my skull,” I added.
Merlin got out of his chair and came over to stand right in front of me. “Katie, I need you to do some magic now.”
I glanced around his office, which was far neater than Owen’s, and saw a teacup sitting on a nearby table. Concentrating with all my might, I tried to lift the teacup and turn it around. Although I had a better sense of what to do to make the magic happen, this time it was more of a struggle, like I was fighting against something within me that didn’t want it to work. By the time the teacup finally rose from its saucer and turned around, I had beads of sweat dripping from my forehead and my underarm antiperspirant had given up the ghost.
I let the teacup fall a few inches into its saucer and collapsed back into my chair. Owen’s hand on my shoulder tightened, and Merlin frowned and stroked his beard. “Very, very interesting,” he said. He stepped forward and rested his hand on the top of my head. I felt a slight tingle of magic, and then he lifted his hand. “And that is even more interesting,” he said. “When she’s not actually using magic, there’s another magical signature lingering.”