Magical Midlife Battle （Leveling Up, #8）(108)

It was also clear that he knew Niamh could tell him exactly how hard to push said line.

All this boiled down to one thing: with big risks came great rewards. They just needed the iron tits to reach for them.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Jessie

“DO you hear what I am telling you?” Nessa asked me, two days after she, Niamh, and Tristan had sat down with Austin and me to go over all the pros and cons of taking this meetup to get the guns. “You can walk away from this. It won’t matter at all. We don’t absolutely need these guns. Sebastian thinks our numbers are good. This is a risk we don’t have to take.”

“I understand,” I said.

They’d gone on to talk about the risks and a ton of stuff that didn’t really seem to matter. Because the second I heard who might be behind this situation—likely one of Momar’s mages—something had come over me, a sort of confidence that I wouldn’t bother trying to understand. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to stop me from going to that meetup.

The kicker was, I didn’t even know why. I didn’t know what I ultimately hoped to accomplish. I just had a feeling that this meeting was incredibly necessary for some reason. My primitive gargoyle instincts told me so.

Also…I was done with Momar calling the shots.

And if it wasn’t Momar’s people? Well…I’d give them a heartfelt apology and probably coach them through the shock of having seen my wild side.

Now, we were approaching a lonely shack on the outskirts of a run-down town two hours from the pack’s territory in vans we’d rented. “We do not want to expose the gargoyles’ power to blend in,”

Nessa said as everyone stepped out of the vans.

The sellers would be going in through the back. We were relegated to the front. The number of people we could bring had been defined, as well as the number of people who’d actually be allowed into the establishment.

We’d brought quite a few more than that defined number. Nessa figured the other side would do the same.

“The gargoyles will walk in with us in a V,” she continued as I met Austin at the hood of the first van. “You will not bring in any of your crew except Nathanial, since he’s as big as a guardian. The rest will wait outside in case the seller has too many people in the building. If that is the case, it is a violation of the agreement, and we’ll know they mean us harm. You’ll call in your crew and all hell will break loose.”

“I know,” I said, having heard all of this before.

“Remember, and this is very important,” Nessa said, stopping me from heading to the front door.

The gargoyles who’d be going inside with me were already waiting there. More were pressed against the house, ready to step out in case there was trouble. No revealing potion could be used to see them.

Still more reinforcements soared high above us, lost to the night. “If they’re using an invisibility potion—also against the agreement—and it is powerful, you must pretend not to see it. We don’t want them to know our revealing potion is more powerful than their invisibility potion. And why is that?”

“Because they’ll know we have more power than their most powerful person, presuming their most powerful person made the potion. I know this, Nessa.”

“You’ve heard it before, yes,” she replied, “but you never seemed to be listening, and I don’t think you realize how pear-shaped this might go. If this is the worst-case scenario, they will be looking to capture. If they can’t capture, they will kill. In that case, no one is getting out alive.”

“That’s not a problem we need to worry about,” I responded, my magic throbbing, my confidence at an all-time high. Again, I had no idea why. This just felt so natural for reasons I couldn’t explain.

Austin watched me for a long beat before minutely nodding. He’d be waiting outside. Someone would need to rescue me if they got grabby and managed to capture me.

“I got her, brother.” Gerard put his hand on Austin’s shoulder. “We’ll watch out for her.”

He’d be leading his guardians and Tristan would be leading ours—a bit overkill, since each would only have three gargoyles to look after, but whatever.

Austin didn’t respond, not hiding his frustrated emotions from our bonds. He hated this whole situation. He didn’t think the risks were worthwhile and hated the danger I was about to face. But these mages would be more powerful than the others we’d encountered. They might know something valuable.

Basajaunak lingered in the trees, also hidden from revealing potions. Only Dave would go inside, and only then if something went wrong.

Nessa tucked her laptop under her arm. She’d use that to make the money exchange, presuming her contacts actually brought the guns. It was nowhere near as cool as a bag full of money.

“Be tough,” she coached as we walked toward the front door. “Don’t shy away from being weird.

Mages get really cagey when someone is being too weird.”

“I’m wearing a purple muumuu and so are all the gargoyles. If my crew enters, Edgar has on a bicycle helmet and Cyra is wearing a sparkly fake wig that she got from a kid’s birthday party she wasn’t invited to. Niamh is drinking a beer from a can in a koozie that says ‘tits’ on it.”

“Yes. All that is certainly a good start.”