Magical Midlife Meeting (Leveling Up 5)

Sebastian hit a few keys and turned up the volume near the woman.

“Hello?” the woman said.

“This is the captain,” Nessa replied, a title she’d chosen for herself. She hadn’t revealed her name to the staff, just like Sebastian hadn’t informed them of his real name. They were Elliot Graves and the captain, never close enough to strangers to be vulnerable, feared the world over. It was necessary, the anonymity, and it made life much easier. If people feared you, you got results. The shifters knew something about that. “Who is that man standing in for Shauna?”

The woman had the presence of mind not to turn and look.

“They introduced him as Shauna, ma’am. Sue for short. Well, actually, it seems like they call him ‘broken Sue’ or something… It’s hard to tell. The driver that the Bigfoot chased down—”

“Don’t call him Bigfoot!” Sebastian practically yelled, unable to help himself. He calmed himself down. “Don’t call him that. He gets riled up. Call him basajaun—or whatever he asks to be called.”

Nessa relayed the information.

“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll make sure to pass that on. As I was saying, the driver that the…basajaun chased down has been crying uncontrollably and screeching about being eaten, so it’s made things a little…chaotic. You’d said not to clean up, though, so we’ve left him in a ball in the corner.”

“Yes, fine.” Nessa covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “That rodent talks back far too much. I’d planned to discipline him anyway. This will do nicely.” She took her hand off the mouthpiece. “Did they give any reasoning for…Broken Sue not looking like her—his picture?”

“Yes, ma’am. The…puca said he’d been in a traffic accident and came out uglier. We didn’t really know what to do with that.”

Sebastian huffed out a laugh. “Let them through.”

“Thank you, corporal.” Nessa hung up the phone. There weren’t ranks within the staff—there was one captain, and the rest were corporals. It was a little absurd, but it enhanced the eccentricity of Elliot Graves, so Sebastian had never commented on it. “They made a swap right before go time and clearly didn’t care if we noticed.”

“Seems that way.”

“He’s fit, too.” Nessa was looking harder at the screen. “I’ll take a boy named Sue. How do you do?”

“Okay, that’s enough. Don’t chase the shifters until after you’ve met them face to face. You might change your tune.”

“I’m not trying to marry one of them, Sabby. I just want to take one of them home and play with him for a little while.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes with a grin. Nessa had been friends with Jala, Sebastian’s sister, which was why she sometimes called him Sabby when she was being silly. It grounded him. “Explosive action with a heavy side of danger? Yes, please.”

Sebastian watched Jessie follow the attendant down the largest tunnel to the plushest collection of rooms Sebastian had, save his own quarters and Nessa’s rooms. The alpha was just a little behind, his hand on the small of her back, his eyes straight ahead but his senses probably on overdrive, sussing out danger. The rest of the crew followed them.

“They are lining up according to power level, then,” Nessa asked, studying them, no longer ogling Broken Sue. It was time to do her job.

Sebastian rifled through his memory. “Looks about right. Except the shifters aren’t in the rear because they’re weak. When a shifter expects danger from behind, one of the strongest will take up the last place. An alpha or the next best thing, I think.”

“Broken Sue is clearly the next best thing.” Nessa bit her lip. “It’s impossible to gauge how the heir’s people will fare against the magical might you have coming in here. I’ve read up on the various creatures, but…” She shook her head. “How they will do here is a blind spot for me.”

“They’ll be a blind spot for everyone. So will Jessie. Honestly, wait and see. I wasn’t telling tall tales.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure, sure.” She checked her watch. “We have our first mouse landing at the airstrip in thirty minutes. Have you decided how many of these mages you’ll leave alive?”

“No. It depends on how the week unravels.”

“Well.” Nessa straightened up and headed for the door. “Don’t get soft. You have a reputation to uphold. That reputation is your safety net. Keep it taut.”

“Yes, captain.” He was supposed to be some evil overlord, but he constantly got pushed around and told what to do by his underling. He was pretty sure he was doing it wrong.

He noticed the tension in Jessie’s eyes as she passed from camera to camera. She didn’t understand why any of this was necessary. But it was. Sebastian was only setting her up because he hoped to save her life.

He just hoped, when the time came, she’d return the favor.

The attendant stopped in front of her door, explaining some details about the quarters she’d been given. When she was finished, she left them to it.