Magical Midlife Madness (Leveling Up 1)

“Everyone has an agenda,” I said, feeling that deep pulse within me again. Feeling the thought that wasn’t mine slither through my brain. Feeling bodies emerge from the woods way back behind the house. Feeling the intruder finally leave my room and head down toward the front door.

“Get us out of here, Mr. Tom. Austin said to meet him at the lake.” I was not about to go looking around the house for magic. I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay in this crazy circus. Adventure was one thing, like a zip line with safety cords, or sky diving with a knowledgeable instructor strapped to your back, but this was something else entirely. I was about to jump out of a door in the roof in the arms of an old as hell mythical creature who kept forgetting to explain very important magical precepts in moments of crisis. I’d read dozens of fantasy books, and none of them were this weird.

Mr. Tom grunted, stood, and slung the huge canvas sack he’d grabbed from the floor in the corner around my back. “Sh-it,” he grunted.

I looked at the bag, which seemed empty, then around the space. “What happened? Did you feel the people coming? They’re here for me, right? But you can get me out of here?”

He helped me curl my fingers around the edge of the canvas bag, indicating I should hold on to it.

Then swore again. “Sh-it.”

“I don’t know how to help. I don’t know what’s wrong!”

He shoved me with one of his clawed hands, the points pricking me painfully. I stumbled, couldn’t get my footing, and fell into the sack.

“Yer-ah,” he said, nodding.

“Oh, sit.” I curled my feet into the bag, remembering how he’d carried the food earlier. Even still, I was really unsure about this. I weighed more than that food. “Is this bag going to hold me?”

“Yer-ash.” He grabbed the handles, collapsing the bag around me and lifting me off the ground. “Her-oh-d ah-n.”

“Hold on. Okay.” I grabbed the edges. Stuffed my feet into the base. Felt fear travel my length. “Oh God, there has to be another way. There has to—”

Colorful swearing accompanied our dive through the opening as I swung wildly below him. My canvas-covered butt crashed against the roof. I skidded down the slope and then swung wildly into empty air. It would’ve been nicer leaving out of that other trap door that didn’t lead out onto a roof before the fall. His massive wings thrummed, curving down around me. He turned back to the trap door and I skidded up the roof again.

“Wrong…way,” I said, trying to wriggle for a softer place to take the bouncing.

The heavy steel slammed down onto the roof. He turned again, treating me to a third encounter with the roof. A moment later we were completely airborne, him soaring through the sky, gaining altitude with each wingbeat, me dangling below him, the view of his begonias sure to haunt me.

“The lake,” I repeated from earlier, not sure if he could hear me over the roaring of the wind and his wings. “Austin said to meet at the lake!”

I wanted to shift my positioning so I could look out the side of the canvas, maybe see the intruders, but I didn’t dare. My luck, I’d pitch over the edge and go splat before Mr. Tom even knew I’d fallen.

Chilled wind froze me to the core. As we got farther away, it struck me that I’d been blocking out that the voice that had urged me to claim the magic was still speaking to me—probably had been all along. My panic had blocked it out. It got fainter as Mr. Tom hastened us away, but I got the final messages quite clearly. “If you had my power, you wouldn’t have to flee. No man could make you run, ever again. No man would need to be your escape.”

It sounded less like a house, and more like a woman trapped within it.

“Rely on no man, for it is he who will betray you. Set yourself free.”

“Yup, everyone has an agenda,” I murmured, feeling the darkness in the voice. The bitterness. I wondered how much of it would corrode me if I relented and took the magic. How much of myself I would lose.

Only as much as I allow. And that voice was entirely my own. Thanks to my marriage, I know the signs, and this time, whether I’m aligning myself to a man or bitter woman posing as a house, I will make sure to lose none of myself.

A sound drew my attention to the right. Just over the canvas sack, I could see a new shape fall in beside us, streaking through the moonlit sky like spilled oil.

My mouth gaped yet again.

The horse creature had nightmare black scales, a golden mane and tail, and a crystalline horn coming out of its head. The soft black feathers on its mighty wings had a blue sheen in the moonlight, and its shimmering golden hooves clawed at the air. The sallow vampire riding its back waved at me. Edgar.