Magical Midlife Battle （Leveling Up, #8）(109)

We paused outside the front door. I didn’t hear a sound from inside. This place should be a big room, apparently the interior walls having been mostly knocked down for whatever reason. The details had been listed with the meetup location. There was probably just as much danger of the place falling down around us as being destroyed in a magical shootout. Filtered light bled through the cracks in the wall like lanterns. This place wouldn’t have electricity.

“I’ve never done something like this without Sebastian,” she murmured, chewing on her lip as she checked her simple, plain-faced watch with an equally simple brown leather strap. “He always knows what to do if a magical fight kicks off. I’m more of the background girl.”

“And they can probably hear us through the door.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. I might not be as experienced as him, but I am one hundred times more aggressive. We’re going to be okay.”

“Why are you so confident about this?”

“I have no idea.” I reached for the door as the gargoyles organized themselves around me, Tristan

behind me and to my left and Gerard to my right. Nessa stood more or less beside me, shaking herself out as if to dislodge her nervousness.

To hell with it, let’s get this done, I thought.

“That’s my girl, ” Ivy House responded.

Wings fluttered as I opened the door, and soft light flickered in the strangely shaped room. A half wall existed to my far right, with another ahead and a third to the left. That one had random boards sticking up out of it and debris at the base. The floor had been swept in the center, where a long, shiny banquet table held an array of guns, with more in crates in the far right corner.

At least they’d brought the weapons.

A man in a pristinely tailored black suit stood behind the table, with one sleeve a tiny bit shorter than the other so as to display the gold and silver watch on his wrist. There was no magical interruption of his image, meaning he hadn’t taken any sort of potion. Eight people with similar suits and watches were pushed to the sides of the room, making room for the six invisible guys with distorted bodies and fuzzy faces, their invisibility potions so powerful that the revealing potion Sebastian and I had cooked up barely unmasked them.

That was not great news. It meant they had some serious power in their organization. Either one person had more power than I did, and almost as much as Sebastian and I put together, or they were fluent in working together, something Sebastian had always said was rare with mages.

A ways behind the mages—all guys—and past stubs of walls, another guy waited at the back door, also using the invisibility potion. I couldn’t make out his face, but he held himself with arrogant importance and his watch was a lot shinier than the suit guy’s. He had to be the highest-powered mage in this outfit, but he was clearly too cowardly to be the front man.

I kicked off my flip-flops before meeting the visible man at the table.

“Put ’er there, bud.” I stuck out my hand for a shake.

His brow pinched, and he looked down at my hand in sudden uncertainty. I could do weird in my sleep.

“So what’ve ya got for me?” I tapped one of the guns lying in front of him. “Do these work?”

“Um…” He cleared his throat. “I wanted to explain why we bought out the contract—”

“Nah.” I waved it away as I stepped back, sending a gush of warning through the Ivy House bonds. My crew would know that meant to assemble by the door and wait for my magical signal.

I pulled my muumuu over my head, exposing my body to them, and pretended to get it stuck on my hair.

“She’d never make it as a stripper, am I right?” Nessa chuckled nervously, playing along.

I yanked the rest of it away, feeling the readiness of my crew.

“There now.” I gave the lead guy a thumbs-up.

His eyes were rounded in his suddenly pale face.

I gestured to the guys around me, who quickly tossed their muumuus away.

“Perfect specimens, right?” I said, my power pumping. “Now, let’s get down to the brass tacks, shall we?” I waggled my finger at him, and then shifted my gaze to the guy at the back. “You brought too many people.”

Nathanial, a master at anticipating my movements in battle, darted forward as I started to run. He shoved the table out of the way, and I slammed into the visible guy who’d frozen at my nudity, giving me a clear shot forward. I sent out a peal of magic to bring in my crew and alert the basajaunak and gargoyles around the shanty that there was tomfoolery afoot. If there were any mages outside, they’d grab them. If anyone escaped this room, they’d need to grab them, too.

But no one was going to escape.

I flung my hand forward, erecting a wall to keep that mage at the back from leaving. He might’ve had some clout, but I didn’t think for a second he was the one responsible for the invisibility potion.

No one that strong would be endangered in this way.

The invisible mages in my way all startled in one way or other, only one of them quickly pulling up his hands to shoot off a spell. I deflected it just before I shifted, my gargoyle bursting forth in a flurry of claws and teeth. I scraped another guy as the door behind me burst open. Dave’s roar drowned out all other sound, followed by screams from three of the mages, two of them invisible.

They threw their hands over their heads and cowered.