Chapter 13
Austin
Jess tensed at his side. Goosebumps spread across her bare arms. “The mages,” she surmised.
Drex put down his drink and leaned back, suddenly wary.
“The mages,” he confirmed. “Now we reach the second reason I allowed you in. You have experience with mages. You are advocating creating an organization that includes them. I thought you’d be open to mages in a pack.
Many shifters aren’t. I wasn’t aware how ignorant I am about their magical culture.
I’m not sure what I’m dealing with. They were utterly truthful in their representation of their plight.
Mages aren’t subtle in their movements, like Jessie.
But…it sounds like I’m only getting a slice of the reality? ”
“Tip of the iceberg.” Jess nodded slowly.
“But who knows. Maybe they did see the error of the Guild’s way, have wanted to leave for some time, but haven’t been able to.
I guess the Guild doesn’t like losing some people, and so they make sure those people don’t or can’t leave.
Maybe these mages were scared Sebastian planned to kill them or take them in or whatever.
I don’t know. We need to hear their stories with people who know more about the situation than we do. Our mages can help there.”
Drex faintly smiled. “You’re the good cop, I see.”
She shrugged. “Not always, but I do like to give people the benefit of the doubt. My gargoyle, however…” She trailed away.
“How’d they come to be here?” Austin asked.
“Two years ago, our sentries were doing a random sweep and found the mages five miles from here, half dead. They were starved, terrified, and desperate. Usually, when we find Dicks and Janes, lost for whatever reason, we give them money and return them to town. They find their way. These mages had nowhere to go. They were being pursued by the Mages Guild. They would have been killed or worse if they were found, and had no plan.”
“Did they warn you that you’d be in danger?” Jess asked, crossing one leg over the other with wary patience.
“They said the Guild was hunting them. That implied the danger. I took them in, anyway.”
“Hmm,” Jess said noncommittally.
“And these mages of yours?” he asked her. “They have a bad reputation. I knew the name Elliot Graves without needing to look it up. Then, seeing him… He has a lot of swagger, and apparently, even more power. Forgive me, but those combined attributes don’t inspire a lot of trust.”
A burst of frustrated power filled the room. “Sorry,” she said in response. “On the surface, no, they probably don’t. But I know them well.”
“And what made you decide to give Elliot Graves a shot?”
“I decided to give Sebastian a shot, a weird mage who nerds-out with magic. Elliot Graves is his persona for the mage world, and I was just about to kill him when I realized who he really was.”
She gave him the gist, explaining how Sebastian came to be in their lives, their hiccups and learning curves, and what they were now.
“I don’t know Elenor,” she said.
“Who?” Drex asked.
“Do you mean Tilda?” Austin asked.
Jess screwed up her face in irritation. “Tilda, I meant. I don’t know Tilda.
But I know Sebastian and Nessa. I know them beyond their personas, beyond their walls and barriers.
I’ve seen their worst, and I’ve heard their sins.
Niamh has recently created some of those sins.
” At his confused look, she waved that away.
“I am the mostly broken moral compass of this crew, but I do not put innocent people in danger, Drew—“
“Drex,” Austin helped. He’d never seen her so wound up.
She screwed up her face again. “Drex! Craps-sakes, I’m turning into Edgar. It’s just…” She looked away, her eyes becoming distant.
“You good?” Austin asked. A shiver worked down his spine. She’d been like this on the way here before Drex’s attack had a chance to come.
She glanced up through the glass ceiling, taking in the clouds.
“Yeah. I just feel strangely…expectant. I’m probably reacting to confronting those mages.
Anyway, Drex, I do not needlessly kill. I have the same mission as you and Austin—to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
To create a safe space. And those mages are not—“
She blinked rapidly before turning to stare at the pool area. Then she angled her face skyward again. Her emotions started to churn.
“Should we send out people?” Austin asked, scooting to the edge of the couch.
“A few of the basajaunak connections just lit up with emotion,” she murmured, standing. She walked to the glass door leading out toward the pool, currently shut, and looked out. “I feel like I need to get sky bound.”
Her gargoyle was acting as a warning system, like on the way into the territory. Maybe her beast detected the same off-ness about this mountain that the basajaunak had. Whatever the reason, he wouldn’t ignore it.
He stood up even as Dave came running across the lawn, trampling the flowers in his haste. Jess froze, watching him, and suddenly her gargoyle connections glittered in his mind’s eye. She was connecting them all as a unit. That meant battle.
“Let’s go.” He motioned Drex on.
“We’re being attacked,” Jess ground out, hurrying for the door.
“What?” Drex shot up.
“Follow her lead,” Austin commanded, hurrying after. “She has a way to connect her people. She’ll know what’s happening better than anyone.”
Jessie
Those mages must’ve gone dark before the extraction. That’s why Fred hadn’t seen anything about it online. We’d walked right into an ambush.
The timing made this situation incredibly suspicious. So, too, did the reaction of the basajaunak. They’d known something was off, but not what. That shouldn’t have been the case.
We’d have to dissect it later.
Dave tore through the bushes. I could feel the other basajaunak moving through the trees on our flanks, heading for the front of the house.
They’d meet us there to discuss. Only one stayed behind.
Her, the basandere in charge of the Ivy House woods.
She could read the pulse of the trees better than anyone.
I didn’t bother asking Dave for information, not when one of us would have to repeat it.
At the front of the house, Broken Sue and Tristan were standing together, waiting for me to reach them. The shifters that had been farther out in the street had pushed in to join the other pack. The town’s shifters had let them, though they were clearly wary about the situation.
“What’ve we got?” Tristan asked, ready to rip off his muumuu.
“Fifty people,” Dave said as we stopped in front of them.
“All coming up the south side.” He pointed for my benefit.
“Half are coming up first in organized lines. They step through the wood lightly and don’t disturb the trees too much.
The rest tramp through and rub against trunks.
All are on two feet, and none seem like shifters or gargoyles. Her is positive.”
“Mercenaries and mages,” Sebastian said, jogging over. “They’ll be looking to acquire Tilda, but they won’t want to expend the effort and danger in looking. They’ll grab shifters to question and kill the rest.”
“Question means torture the information out of,” I told Drex. “How many will they grab?” I asked Sebastian.
“Doesn’t matter,” Austin replied. “They won’t get that chance.” He yanked off his sweats. “This is known protocol when mages attack. We can handle it. Sebastian, what do you surmise will be the power scale of this crew?”
“This is textbook Guild protocol when confronted with a dangerous force,” he said.
“When confronted with shifters in general,” Broken Sue growled, stripping.
“Exactly,” Sebastian said. “It’s a blunt approach and I’d bet solely the Guild. Not Momar.”
“No,” Niamh said from not far off, her eyes distant. “It’s the timing that’s Momar. And managing to hide fifty people from the basajaunak until the actual attack.”
A chill ran through me, and Sebastian’s face lost its color. Niamh had surmised the same thing I had.
“Nothing for it,” she said. “Proceed as normal. We don’t have time for anything else.”
“Proceeding as normal,” Sebastian said, re-taking control, “the numbers in the attack are for the shifters because Tilda doesn’t pose any real threat magically.
Ordinarily in this situation, they’d have mediocre mages.
They won’t use higher powered mages in case something goes wrong.
Jessie and I can distract them easily, take out a bunch, and the shifters can handle the rest. Mercenaries will be similar to what we’ve dealt with in the past: magical guns, organization, unused to shifter power, and certainly not used to fliers.
In a normal situation, we’d be able to handle this. ”
Niamh nodded. “Momar wouldn’t send in anything better.
He’d know we’d kill them. He’s lost too much power to us already.
He’s looking for something else here. Some other information crucial to his plans and he’s sacrificing Guild personnel to do it.
Nothing new there. We’ll have to figure out what he’s after later.
” She swore under her breath. “This lad is starting to get on my nerves. He’s dancing around in the shadows, watching us fumble. That needs to end, like.”
We needed time to devote to unraveling the spider’s web, as Fred liked to think of him.
“A problem for another day,” I said, power thrumming. “We need to take care of this now.”
Sebastian handed his jacket to Tristan and continued to undress.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Drex asked, ripping off his muumuu.
“Kill as many mercenaries as you need to.” Nessa stripped down to her underwear.
She must’ve brought a change of clothes.
“Do not kill them all. Wound them, leave them, and let them limp back to where they came from. They need to see the carnage and tell their friends. We need mercenaries to stop taking jobs against shifters.”
“Yeah, agree.” Sebastian pushed down his pants. They’d both brought a change of clothes.