“This, you’ll have to call in,” Sam said once we were safely back at the car. “You’ll need backup.”
“I can handle it.”
Sam shook his head. “Even if those guys aren’t as powerful or trained as you are, you can’t handle all of them by yourself if they’re teaming up and gunning for you.”
“I’ve got you and Katie’s grandmother. And Dean on the inside. And I may be able to get some local allies. We’re not that outnumbered.”
“If you don’t call and let the boss know what’s going on, I will. Don’t you think it would go better if he heard it straight from you?”
I felt like I was missing a crucial part of this conversation, but if my reading between the lines was accurate, then…“You’re AWOL!” I blurted to Owen. “They don’t know you’re here, do they?”
“Oh, come on,” Sam said. “You know the boss. Of course they know he’s here. They just don’t officially know.”
“I thought I could wrap it all up over the weekend,” Owen admitted, sounding like he was explaining why his homework wasn’t done. “I called in sick on Friday, and I thought I could easily be back in the office by Tuesday, with everything taken care of.”
“Yeah, and there wasn’t anything suspicious about you calling in sick the morning after you spent the day begging the boss to let you come down here and make sure Katie was okay,” Sam said.
If Sam hadn’t already been made of stone, the look Owen gave him would have turned him that way.
“We weren’t having any luck finding or dealing with Idris in New York, so I thought I’d do better finding him here by going through his student. And I was right.”
“But now you’re outnumbered, with the bad guys gunning for you, and Idris seems to have some tricks up his sleeve, like that disappearing act he pulled,” I argued. “So unless you’re willing to run, you’re going to need help.”
“We can’t afford to let him get away this time,” Sam added.
Owen stood still for a while, then finally said, “Okay. I’ll call. In the morning. It’s pretty late now.”
Sam snorted. “Like the boss isn’t expecting this.”
Owen held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I’ll call. I knew I’d have to come clean at some point, but I would have preferred to do it with Idris or his junior wizard in custody.”
“You do have the junior wizard,” I reminded him. “That may help.”
“Maybe I should get a little farther away from all the student wizards who are gunning for me before I take time out to make a phone call,” he said.
“Don’t worry, kiddo, I got you covered. Go right ahead and make that call,” Sam said, a little too gleefully, earning himself another glare.
Owen went a few yards away, just out of earshot, and at least mimed talking on his cell phone. I watched him for a moment, then turned to Sam. “You were in on this?”
“Not really ‘in.’ I just agreed not to tell anyone he was here. He said it would only be for the weekend at first, but then he started tacking days onto it. Even if we hadn’t seen what those goons were up to tonight, he’d have had to come clean pretty soon, or else I’d have had to rat him out.”
“But why?”
Sam laughed. “Oh, dollface, and I thought you were so smart. It’s ’cause of you! He nearly flipped when he heard about the bad guy going after you. I guess that was really your brother playing a prank on you, huh? The boss wanted to wait and see what happened after you figured out that Idris was involved. I was gonna keep an eye on you while they tried to find Idris in New York. But Palmer there was convinced Idris would be down here. And then he was the one I reached to tell about the stuff at the theater. I’m guessin’ he didn’t tell the boss about that.”
“So he risked getting into huge trouble because he was worried about me?”
“I think he also wanted to make up for what happened the last time, you know, not letting his feelings get in the way of him being able to catch the bad guy again. Of course, the fact that he rushed down here to protect you doesn’t help his case much, does it?”
“No, probably not,” I said with a sigh. No wonder he hadn’t said anything about me going back to New York. After this, they certainly weren’t going to let me be close enough to him to be a distraction, unless they decided to lock me up safely somewhere they could keep an eye on me. Part of me was thrilled to have proof that he still cared for me, but I couldn’t help but be a little bit scared.
