Chapter 18 #2
“Here, Jessie. Over here.” Niamh waved at me from the edge of the sectioned off area. “Would ye move, ya lummox ya!” she yelled at someone.
A disgruntled shifter pushed back from the line.
“Now. Here.” Niamh put her hand on the back of a fold-out chair, one of only two I’d seen as I made my way to this corner of the field. She sat in the other one. A cooler rested between them.
“A mimosa wouldn’t go amiss,” I said.
Not professional, no, but who was I to judge what had worked for Niamh for four hundred and some-odd years?
“Ah sure, ye might as well.” She dug into her cooler.
Two wolves charged each other.
“Now.” Niamh produced a red plastic cup. “The lower-calorie option.”
“I don’t need…” It was straight champagne. “Ah.”
“Ye don’t need all that sugar.” She patted me as we settled in.
The wolves went until one was on the ground, bloodied and giving up, before two more rushed in to tear them apart. Two more fights went the same until it was Aljoe’s turn to step up.
“Jess.” Sue walked down the line of spectators before gesturing me up.
“I’ll be back.” I put the cup on the cooler.
“Be sure to act quick,” Niamh told me. “Ye’ll blink and someone will be dead.”
The crowd parted, revealing Aljoe dressed in a purple muumuu.
“Nice threads,” I told him, standing beside him, just inside the cones.
“I hear you’re pissed.”
“Just about. I’m easing out of disappointed.”
“At me?”
“You get a pass. You haven’t been here long.”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye as his five challengers stepped into the space, the largest that was sectioned off in the field. I had a feeling Aljoe’s challengers would need it. They’d be trying to get away from a charging lion. I’d seen him in action. It had freaked me out.
“I shouldn’t.” He stripped out of his muumuu, revealing his patchwork of scars acquired when growing up.
“I failed in my duty to this convocation. To Austin. I made the wrong choices. You proved that when you barged in and set everything to rights. With quick economy, I might add. It was like watching a superhero. I walked out of that place greatly humbled.”
I half regretted saying anything now. I didn’t ever tend to stay mad very long.
“Downtown was locked down,” he said. “Gargoyles, who wouldn’t move an inch for that gargoyle-monster, were up in the air in a precise flying pattern—”
“I forced some of them with pain—”
“—shifters were afraid to show themselves with the legendary creatures flying around, and Cyra was taunting everyone who dared to try.”
I curled my lip. I hadn’t known that about Cyra. She’d probably gotten into the habit with the gnomes.
“The basajaunak covered for the shifter patrol who were all out of sync,” he went on, “and the garhettes immediately went on the offensive, organizing lunch dates and tea and I have no idea what else. They didn’t even need the magic.
One started randomly clubbing an enforcer with a rolling pin.
No idea why. No one knew what to do. Certainly, no one stopped it, least of all him.
She then picked him off the ground, fixed his hair, and took him for coffee.
In the space of an hour, a war zone turned into the hustle and bustle of a wary, confused, but calm town full of power no one dared use, let alone flaunt. ”
“You pushed away some of our greatest assets.”
“I failed to call in our greatest asset.” He looked down at me again. “That won’t happen again.”
Now I didn’t regret saying anything. Offense forgiven, ten-fold.
His challengers waited, all of them shifted, the gargoyles hovering in the air expectantly.
“They need to work together to have a chance,” I murmured, stepping forward with him.
“Nothing they do will give them a chance.” He motioned me back. Light and heat flared from his shift. A huge lion stood in his place.
Murmuring erupted through the crowd. He walked forward, his movements sleek and sure. The gargoyles lifted a little higher and then circled him.
“This ends when you submit,” I called to everyone. “Gargoyles, you can physically tap out. Or just fly away. Shifters, you can run or play dead. Begin.”
“You don’t need to tell them to start the fight,” Sue said.
Yeah, but maybe it would move things along.
The shifter challengers were on the younger side, late twenties or early thirties. The leopard lunged and the black bear was right behind. All the gargoyles dove, going for Aljoe at the same time.
“Crap,” I said, flinching.
Aljoe stayed stationary for a beat, and then he launched into the air.
He ripped the largest gargoyle out of the sky.
The gargoyle crashed into the shifters that were lunging for him.
He jumped again, grabbing another gargoyle.
This time he flung the gargoyle to the side, throwing him through the air, hitting the remaining gargoyle and knocking him off course.
Aljoe didn’t miss a beat. He jumped over the gargoyle on the ground, who was struggling to right himself as the shifter he’d landed on fought to regain his feet. Aljoe’s jaw opened, revealing crimson teeth. It was clear what he was aiming for, and just as clear he’d nail it.
“Crap,” I said again, stepping forward with my hands out.
Aljoe barreled into the black bear, his teeth perfectly fitting around the creature’s jugular.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” I dodged a gargoyle’s swiping claw, no idea what he was going for, and stepped aside as the leopard hopped up. “Get him clear! Get that bear clear!”
I wedged magic into Aljoe’s mouth as he ripped his head to the side.
“Get Indigo,” I yelled, already healing the wound even as the skin tore. “Get Indigo in here. That bear won’t have long.”
The front of the bear’s throat ripped, but only halfway, as my magic stopped the rest of the carnage.
Aljoe spat the bear away and turned to face the attacking leopard.
I didn’t miss the look of wild, primal frustration he gave me.
He’d thoroughly lost himself to his animal, and I was in the way of his beast’s kill.
Sue jumped in to grab the bear, helped by the bear’s people.
“Tristan, get active,” I called. “Get in the air.”
The leopard landed on Aljoe’s shoulder, digging his teeth into the back of Aljoe’s neck.
Aljoe didn’t seem to notice.
Instead, he grabbed one of the gargoyle’s legs by the ankle.
“Crap, crap, crap.” I hopped closer like some sort of carrion bird.
“Jess, you’re too close,” Sue called.
“I’m not worried about me. Aljoe goes for kill shots. We don’t have long to get these people out of the way.”
“They knew what they were signing up for.”
He meant possible death.
“We are not doing Momar’s work for him! We are not going to kill each other in mock battles to prop up people’s fragile egos. I can get them out.”
Aljoe ripped the gargoyle out of the air. A wing bent as he landed. He’d be ground-bound now. Aljoe jerked his body suddenly, and the leopard rolled off, ripping a chunk of the lion’s flesh from the back of his neck. It would heal. Aljoe clearly knew that.
The massive lion was on the smaller cat in a flash.
“Don’t—” I magically got there first. I coated the leopard’s jugular in a shield, stopping the majority of Aljoe’s teeth from finding purchase. Magical sparks flew as Aljoe tried to force his way through. “Not gonna happen, bud.”
The remaining gargoyle dove onto the lion. He reached around with his claws, but he didn’t properly line up with Aljoe’s throat.
“Help me get that leopard out of here.” I darted in, grabbed the leopard by his paws, and started to drag him away. He roll-lunged, going for me. “Don’t attack me—I just saved your life, you idiot!”
I slammed him with magic to stop his struggles and let Sue bump me out of the way to grab him.
In that tiny moment, Aljoe had gotten the other gargoyle beneath him and was clawing at his stomach with his front paws while fighting the gargoyle’s claws to get at the creature’s neck.
“Tap out,” I told the gargoyle, pushed up close. “Tap out. He’s—”
I slid magic against the gargoyle’s stomach to stop Aljoe from ripping his middle out. Then the throat, because Aljoe didn’t seem to have a “chill out” setting.
This time I didn’t mistake the furious look of the massive predator.
“Tristan, get him out.” I pointed at the limp gargoyle. He was alive, but he was not feeling so great.
Aljoe barely bothered with the remaining challenger, his bite to his favorite target—the jugular—nothing more than proof he would’ve won. I was confused by that for exactly one moment.
Then the big beast turned to me.