Chapter 9
Jessie
I reached for my wine, only a sip left in it.
“Movement,” Fred murmured into her coffee mug. “They’re abandoning their efforts. Headed north. I’m locked in and tracking. Let’s see where our little rat hides.”
I sent that info into the connection. For a while nothing else happened, and then a connection lit up faintly.
And another. The gargoyle and shifter that were reporting didn’t seem sure, though.
If I hadn’t kept them on the lookout, they probably wouldn’t have reported anything at all.
Whoever this was, they seemed to know what areas of town to slip through to raise the least amount of awareness.
That wasn’t good.
“Thoughts?” Austin asked, now outside the soundproof bubble. We could hear him, but he couldn’t hear us.
He’d been keeping up conversation with Aljoe and his sisters, looking normal, while I leaned against him and did a terrible job doing two things at once. Thankfully, Niamh, still within the bubble so I could speak to Fred privately, had been doing her best to keep up pretenses.
“Hmm?” I turned and blinked up at him while monitoring the connections of Ulric and Jasper “helping” Tristan away from the street. Nessa was nearly to Ivy House, Edgar having met back up with her to walk her there. Two more shifters waited to secure the empty street.
Sebastian pulled down the soundproofing. He coughed into his fist.
“Clear,” he whispered to Austin.
“We were thinking about getting some dessert at Ivy House before Aljoe and his sisters turned in,” Austin said.
“What kind?” Fred turned away from her computer. Numbers and text scrolled across a little window at the bottom. Nothing else was pulled up. If someone was passing by, they’d have to be just as skilled as she to know what she was doing. Probably. Like I knew anything about computers.
“Chocolate?” Austin said hesitantly. He shrugged. “Whatever Mr. Tom made. He usually makes at least one chocolate thing for Jess.”
“I’m in.” Fred snapped down the laptop. “I love chocolate.”
“Oh.” Austin showed surprise. “O-kay.”
I chuckled. Anyone at the bar would assume she’d just invited herself. Which…she had, but he wasn’t actually surprised by that fact. We needed a place to talk in private.
“What, are we all leavin’ so soon?” Niamh looked around the bar. “Where is Phil, anyway?”
“He’s up with Dave on Dave’s mountain.” I slid off my seat and got out of the way for Austin to put cash on the bar.
“They’re preparing for the extended family.
An elder from up north is going to arrive in a couple months, same as Gerard and Evan and a couple of the cairns they assured us want to be a part of the convocation. ”
“Right, right.” Niamh nodded, putting her own cash on the bar. “Then the newcomer gargoyles arrive a week before this conclave rabble starts up.”
My heart beat faster. We’d known mages would sniff around eventually. And hell, maybe they already had. But for them to do it when we were busy with a bunch of aggressive, powerful shifters and gargoyles and very prickly basajaunak…
It wasn’t the first time I wondered what Austin had been thinking. What I had been thinking, going along with it.
Annoyed, scared, frustrated, I turned to the door only to find a wall of people. Without thinking, just wanting to be home, I sent out a blast of magic.
Aljoe
Zara and Nina stepped backward, reacting to the command within the magic, before freezing. Their jaws set firmly and their muscles tensed, refusing to take another step. That didn’t stop the surprise from showing, though. They looked at him in disbelief at the level of power.
“That’s nothing,” Aljoe murmured as Austin followed Jessie out.
Fred dropped her laptop into her satchel before gesturing Aljoe and his sisters on. “Come on! Dessert. You won’t want to miss it. Mr. Tom is a fairly good cook if you’re not terribly picky.”
She was utterly serious, and his sisters could not hide their bewilderment. Aljoe chuckled as Fred exited the bar, Niamh and Sebastian in tow.
Sue stopped beside Aljoe, his body language asking if Aljoe was going to Ivy House.
“Go ahead.” Aljoe motioned him on. He wouldn’t be worried about powerful shifters at his back. If anything happened, Jessie would sort it out without breaking a sweat.
Aljoe’s sisters, however, hadn’t expected Sue’s level of power. They’d heard “beta with alpha-level power” and figured that just meant “powerful beta.” Apparently, most people thought the same.
There was a lot about this conclave that was going to blow people’s minds. For the first time in a very long time, Aljoe was looking forward to seeing some demonstrations. No one would anticipate what Austin and Jessie were bringing to the table.
“It’s a lovely town,” Zara said as they walked behind the others. The town was fairly sleepy, and very few cars passed by. Many packs were similar unless they were tacked on to the edge of a Dick-and-Jane city. “Beautiful weather. It’s nice to get out of the humidity.”
“Truth,” Nina replied, meeting the watchful gaze of a shifter they passed. The man held her stare for a touch longer than was prudent, before glancing at Austin and then away. This is his turf, not yours.
More shifters patrolled down the way, and Aljoe knew gargoyles not only stood near walls, invisible, but sat on roofs and soared overhead. This place was heavily guarded. Heavily guarded. He’d never seen such a power-heavy pack where everyone was on alert. And still, someone had gotten in.
Shivers coated Aljoe’s flesh. That was inconceivable…but here they were, living with the proof that shifters were not enough against this threat. Gargoyles couldn’t fill in the gaps. It would take a mage to combat this.
Or maybe…a mage and a very tech-savvy Jane.
His sisters fell quiet as they walked, clearly sensing his turmoil.
They didn’t have a clue what was going on.
They would have to understand the various pieces of the convocation for that, and Aljoe hadn’t told them much at all.
They wouldn’t believe it if he did. He regretted that now, because they also didn’t know what level of danger they were in.
They reached the end of the downtown area and turned toward Ivy House. Sebastian stepped awkwardly off the sidewalk and pitched toward Austin.
Austin put out his hand to catch the mage, only to have Sebastian arch to avoid it.
“No, thank you,” Sebastian murmured, veering farther away. “There’s a lot of very aggressive alpha energy in this crew, and it is unsettling.”
“Yeah.” Fred nodded with her whole body in that way she did.
“I can actually feel what you’re talking about.
It’s like…constant shivers of the primal fear thing.
This is how I feel in the woods, but worse.
Think about that for a moment! I will tell you something.
I will never go into the woods with basajunk again. I don’t care how much you pay me.”
Aljoe started laughing, drawing the incredulous gazes of his sisters. He’d hardly ever laughed in his former pack, even among family. It was freeing, not to mention impossible to avoid with Fred hanging around.
“Sebastian, handle the bubble, would you?” Jessie asked, slowing a little.
“Yup.” His hands moved near his chest. “We’re all in it.”
Jessie slowed further until everyone was in a tight cluster. Austin pushed up to be by her side with Sebastian, Fred, and Niamh right behind.
Sue glanced over at Nina, speaking with his posturing. Are you okay?
She didn’t catch on. Sue was on a level of his own, with tightly controlled body mechanics. Aljoe was having to up his game.
“Do you need more space?” Sue asked her.
Delight in his attentiveness and flirtatious interest subtly rang through her body, something most people would miss within her usual stoic demeanor.
Sue wouldn’t. Nina would have to up her game, too, unless she wanted this shifter to know all her embarrassing little secrets.
She wasn’t one to fawn over a potential suitor.
“No, not at all,” she said cordially, her tone even. “Thank you for asking.”
His dark eyes lingered for a moment, assessing.
Was that reciprocal interest? Or maybe just receptive to the possibility.
He was a strong, handsome man, and she was an equally powerful, beautiful woman, or so most people thought.
With their roles, past and present, they’d have a lot in common.
Maybe Nina could finally coax Sue into a little more fun in his life.
“We’re now in the cone of silence,” Jessie said.
“Try not to advertise your talking, but for the most part, we should be fine. An update: I’m still monitoring connections.
The person is working their way out of the territory on foot.
Our people can barely feel this person’s passing.
If we weren’t watching, they would slip in and out unfelt.
They must be steering clear of our people. ”
“There is no way to steer clear of us to that magnitude,” Austin replied. “I think the problem is, they don’t feel dangerous. Not like a shifter or gargoyle.”
“Even Nessa tipped us off,” Sue said.
“We should use Fred to test,” Sebastian said.
“Yeah, I’m in.” Fred put up a thumb. “I am ready for action. Put me in, Coach.”
“We saw this in Kingsley’s territory,” Sebastian said.
“Same playbook. This is a person who excels at gathering information. They’ll be decently strong in magic themselves, and clearly they are armed with magic even Jessie and I can’t match in power level.
They’ll be good at avoiding detection, and as we’ve seen, good at getting out of the way if things go wrong. What were they after?”
“Agnes, the town witch, is right there,” Austin said.
“Agnes?” Sebastian shook his head. “What does she have that Momar might want? Not magic. I’ve spoken to her a few times—had a look around her…store. It’s pretty generic stuff. Low level.”
“You can’t think of anything in there that Momar might want?” Austin asked him.