“Housekeeping,” then when there was no reply, I opened the door.

It looked like someone had held a wild party in there. Before I did anything, I put out one of the candles and lit it. I hoped that having burned it at all would get more of the slightly off-target magic into the room for a maximum reaction. Then I snooped around. There wasn’t much of interest to find.

It could have been any twenty-something man’s motel room, with dirty underwear left lying on the floor next to crumpled wet towels in the bathroom and clothes strewn around the bedroom. I couldn’t find any evidence of magic or anything that looked like magical paraphernalia.

My spying done, I emptied the trash, made the bed, switched out the towels, and straightened the bathroom. Somehow I doubted that these guys were likely to notice the finer points of motel housekeeping, and this wasn’t a mint-on-the-pillow establishment to begin with. I blew the candle out right before I moved on to the next room and left it sitting there on the dresser.

I went through the same routine with each of the other rooms. Most of the guests were doubling up, which meant twice the mess. It reminded me of my brothers’ bedroom when we were growing up. I left two candles in Idris’s room, one in the bedroom and the other in the bathroom, because I really wanted him to suffer. I was fairly certain I felt the tingle of magic as I entered his room. He was smart enough to ward his room with Owen around, though it was kind of a futile gesture when I was around, too, but I didn’t find anything particularly incriminating or useful in there.

Two hours later, I put the cart away and dragged myself back to the office to return the master key.

“That’s a harder job than you expect it to be,” I said. “I left the dirty towels in the cart. Did you need me to wash them?”

“No, Mom takes care of the laundry. Thanks so much for your help.”

I was on my way back to my truck when a rental car pulled up in front of the office. I paused, waiting to see if there were more members of Idris’s gang arriving. But then a very familiar figure emerged from the car. It was Rod, Owen’s best friend. I took that as a sign that Owen wasn’t in too much trouble. Sending Rod was more like giving him a partner in crime than a babysitter. I was just about to run to greet him when another person got out of the car. It was Merlin, the CEO of MSI. That was kind of mind-blowing, when you thought about it, to consider that Merlin, the Merlin of Camelot fame, was standing outside the motel in Cobb, Texas. It also probably meant that either they thought this thing with Idris was a really big deal, or Owen was in really big trouble.

I darted around the corner of the office bungalow before they could see me and got into my truck.

Then I hesitated, torn between conflicting loyalties. If I warned Owen, that would in a way be a betrayal of Merlin and the company. It wasn’t a good idea for him to charge off and take matters into his own hands. On the other hand, I didn’t work for MSI anymore, and Owen was my friend who had cared enough to risk his job to make sure I was okay. That sealed the deal. I started the truck and pulled out of the parking lot.

Owen met me in the driveway, with that uncanny knack of his for knowing where I’d be and when.

He didn’t look worried enough to have already known what was going on. “Your backup is here,” I told him as I got out of the car.

“They haven’t called me yet.”

“I’m guessing it’s a surprise. Owen, Merlin himself came. With Rod.”

Normally, he turned various shades of pink and red with strong emotion, but this time he went a sickly gray color. “Oh. Where are they?”

“I saw them pulling up at the motel as I was leaving.”

“Do they know you know they’re here?”

“I don’t think they saw me, and I didn’t say anything to them.”

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and checked it. “No missed calls and no messages.” He pushed a couple of buttons, then said, “Sam?” There was a pause, and he swallowed hard before saying, “Yeah, I just heard. Go ahead and tell them everything, but try to give me a heads-up before…well, you know. Thanks.” He flipped the phone closed, then said, “Sam’s on his way to meet with them. But they haven’t called me. I guess that puts me out of the loop, huh?”

“Or it means they don’t want you going out and about with a gang of would-be wizards looking for you, and they know it’s not a good idea to hold a magical convention around my family. Speaking of which, how did things go with Granny today? Did you get any useful stuff out of her?”