Niamh turned around to get a look at Ulric. “Well, aren’t you a fountain of knowledge.”
He shrugged. “I can be.”
“Even if those mages thought I’d be able to flounder in the air, that net still wouldn’t have held me,” I said. “I fell into it. There was nothing keeping me from flying out of it—assuming my arms worked for wings.”
“It was a magical net. They clearly misread the situation,” Niamh said.
Austin and Ulric nodded.
“I heard you caught another one?” Ulric asked Austin.
He nodded, finishing his beer. “He’d holed up in Greenville.” Seeing Ulric’s blank stare, he added, “The town to the east. He didn’t have a computer on him and his phone wouldn’t unlock with his face. His magic level was mediocre, but I got the sense he was working for someone high level. Whenever he tried to say his boss’s name, he choked on the words. I’ve seen that kind of thing before. Whoever he is working for is watching Ivy House, and they want an easy grab. Their goal is Jess, not that house.”
“We missed that mediocre mage,” Ulric said, his expression troubled. “I looked all around. A few of us did. We don’t have a shifter’s sense of smell, but we found everyone else, even after they scattered.”
“I picked up the trail about fifty yards from the attack site. He’d only managed to eliminate his scent for that distance, which was how I knew what level of magic he was working with. And he also came at me when I barged into his hotel room.”
“Ah.” Ulric nodded. “Your experience wins.”
Austin shook his head, turning so he could look past the people and to the far end of the bar. “Without knowing who exactly the boss is, we—”
“So, there’s this thing I didn’t tell anyone…” I clasped my hands. “Maybe it is nothing, but…”
I told them about seeing the mysterious man in the black suit, with the dark goatee and slicked-back hair. Most importantly, I told them that he’d just up and vanished.
“That might’ve been helpful to know,” Niamh said, and sipped her drink.
“He said he looked forward to meeting you again soon?” Austin asked, an inferno glimmering in his cobalt eyes.
“Yeah. He was all the way across the street, but I still heard him as though he were whispering into my ear.”
“Ye had this hanging over you, and ye decided it would be a grand time to start dating and meet a bunch of strangers, did ye?” Niamh lifted her eyebrows at me. “If you needed to get laid, I could’ve just grabbed someone off the sites that would’ve worked for you and Edgar both. Run them through you, and when you were done with them, toss them at Edgar. There’s a lot of weird people in the world, I’m sure I would’ve been able to find someone easy-like for that sort of setup.”
“Good Lord,” I groaned. “That’s one of the reasons I thought dating a Dick might be a good idea.”
“If that’s all you need…” Ulric grabbed fake lapels and waggled his eyebrows. “How about a massage with a happy ending?”
“Enough.” Austin held up his hand. A crack of power had all of us clicking our teeth shut. Niamh and I grimaced. “What happened yesterday was not headed up by Elliot, I’m sure we can all agree on that. Even on his worst day, he wouldn’t have created such poor spell work. However, the mediocre mage who got away had plenty of time to make a call. If his boss is Elliot, we can now assume that Elliot knows Jess can’t fly. He’ll also know she has backup, so he’ll send better mages next time. There will be a next time, we can be sure of that, and if Elliot takes part directly, we’ll all need to fight him together.” He turned to face me. “I know you are independent and you don’t like to be governed, but I also know you’d rather not be kidnapped. You’ll need protection outside of Ivy House property, and all of those gargoyles should be in the air whenever you are. Do I make myself clear? We have to be prepared. If we aren’t…”
His voice drifted away and a growl laced his words, drifting up my middle.
If we weren’t, I’d be taken, and he’d be pissed. That was about the sum of it. I’d rather be the one left behind in anger, but given that I didn’t have a choice, it looked like I was about to lose what was left of my privacy.17The screams cut through every fiber of his being. They quickened his heart and doused him in fear. He ran with everything he had, sprinting through the light snow, cutting through trees and felling anything in his way.
Another scream, closer now and higher. Jess was in the air, and it didn’t sound like it was going well. His range of motion restricted by his animal form, he could not yet see her. Pushing harder, he burst out through the trees lining the cultivated area of Ivy House, circling the flowerbeds that bloomed despite the winter chill. He ran along the maze made of tall bushes and shrubbery until he could see her, way up in the sky, free-falling.