Magical Midlife Invasion (Leveling Up 3)

“Where on God’s earth did you get that? Go put it down before you slice off a thumb. Or something else.”

“There’s a whole attic of this kind of stuff. I found it when I was looking for some mousetraps. Come on, come look at it.”

Curiosity getting the better of her, she said, “Oh, all right.”

By the time they scaled the two sets of stairs, she was feeling it. The fatigue didn’t last long as she surveyed the attic, the far wall absolutely covered with various weapons, polished to a high shine. Above each hung a small white square of paper with elegant scrawl in black. She squinted at them in surprise—each bore a fairly common person’s name.

“And check this out.” He placed the axe on its pegs below the name Jake and crossed the space with bare feet.

“Careful, you might step on a nail.”

“Or a spike!”

“Yes, fine, or a spike. I don’t know why you insist on one-upping me all the time…”

He opened a drawer and extracted a large red stone. “She’s got a whole drawer full of these things. Looks like a ruby, doesn’t it?”

“Pete, now, I don’t know about looking through her things.”

“She said all this stuff came with the house. Maybe she doesn’t even know they’re here. Boy, wouldn’t it be something if it was a real ruby?”

“Of course it isn’t a real ruby.” She peered at the costume gemstones. “This is probably for crafts or something.”

“Or look at this one…” He pulled out a blue stone the size of the end of his thumb. “This could be worth more than our car.”

“No one with precious gemstones like this would keep them in a drawer in the attic. Why are those weapons labeled with names, do you think? That is a bit odd.”

“This whole place is a bit odd. They went looking for a deer last night, acting like it was some first-rate spy or something. They launched into some big talk about tracking and smelling and defenses—build a fence, you know? Deer can’t climb fences. That’s all the defense you need. I think that big guy is some sort of plant nut or something. He really seemed worried about that deer eating Jessie’s flowers.”

“He’s caring. Don’t you see the way he looks after her, pulling out her chair and guiding her through doorways? He’s a real Prince Charming. I’d say she still has the chance to meet the love of her life. Matt wasn’t it, we always knew that. What if Austin is the real Prince Charming?”

“Prince Charming had a castle, not a flower complex. Don’t start, Martha. She doesn’t need to be set up. The kid just got out of a marriage. She’s bruised. Let her find her own way.” He pushed the drawer closed. “Do you remember seeing a garage? I don’t think chasing rats through a house with a battle-axe is the right way to play it, no matter how fun it sounds.”

“Sometimes she just needs a little push, is all.” Martha made her way down the stairs again, gripping the handrail tightly. Thinking about that red-headed doll down below. “Careful here, Pete, these are steep. I wonder if maybe I won’t round up those dolls and put them away after all.”

Click.

“Jiminy crickets,” he said, “there’s another bit of plaster coming loose down the hallway there. This place is going to fall down around us.”Eleven“Here we are.” Mr. Tom stopped in front of what looked like a small house with a wraparound porch, heavily screened by two large maples. The noonday sun dappled the uneven sidewalk in front of the establishment, the tree roots pushing at the concrete. No sign announced a business and no cars waited in the parking lot to the right.

“This is Agnes’s?” I asked, just to be sure, so tired that I barely knew my name.

We’d traveled through the entire wood last night, finding just one spot where Austin could pick up a scent. Just one. No scents, beyond the usual floral bombardment, trailed to or from the spot of munched flowers. Jasper had pinpointed the location perfectly, halfway from the flowers to the property line, the place where the deer had disappeared. If Jasper hadn’t remembered the exact path he’d taken, Austin might never have found it.

The intruder was definitely a shifter—I didn’t know how Austin could tell, but he was sure—and shifters couldn’t also be mages. Being a female gargoyle came with sorceress/mage perks, but whatever gene or magic turned a person into an animal shifter allowed only that one kind of magic. Which meant the deer shifter was using potions or elixirs—potions apparently being the stronger of the two—created by a master craftsman who may or may not be Elliot Graves.

The person at the front of the house hadn’t been concealed. Their scent was all through the yards along the right side of the road. They were not a shifter, but beyond that, Austin couldn’t tell.