Magical Midlife Battle (Leveling Up, #8)(110)

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.

Their potion didn’t deaden sound. That was something. They might have the power, but they didn’t have Sebastian’s ingenuity. Hopefully there would be more instances of that in our battle.

Another shot of magic came at me from the left. I threw up a shield, my focus on the mage at the back, currently working on the spell I was using to imprison him. My spell wasn’t complex—that was the bad news. If he worked at it enough, he’d be able to get through it. I needed to get to him before that.

More roars sounded behind me as the other gargoyles shifted. A mage lifted out of his crouch in front of me, shaking, ready to defend himself.

Too late.

I slammed into him, scoring him with my claws. I dug down deep and then ripped outward, taking flesh and bone with me. His wail of agony ended quickly as his body hit the ground.

One of the other visible mages lifted his hands. Gerard was there in a moment, grabbing him up and biting into his neck. Blood spurted, quickly turning the situation grisly.

More mages started screaming as the gargoyles worked through them, taking the hits of magic if there were any but mostly finding terrified people cowering from monsters.

The head mage continued to pound against my wall of magic. The door behind it opened. They’d clearly kept some mages outside too. Another mage stood behind him, both of them trying to help my target escape. With three of them, that spell would be history in no time.

I put on a burst of speed, but I was slow on the ground in this form, and there were too many people and too much clutter for me to fly.

A large, hairy shape suddenly loomed behind the rescue team. Then two more. Their combined roars thundered through the space. The rescue team screamed and turned before screaming louder, throwing up their arms to protect themselves.

The basajaunak grabbed the mages, and my target gasped and stepped back, terrified. I was on him a moment later, ripping him away from the door. My punches were clumsy, though. I wasn’t really used to fighting this way in this form, and the gouges I accidentally dealt were proof of that.

“Got…’im,” Tristan said, lifting the mage easily and slamming him against my magic. He cracked right through, though, as the spell was grossly weakened from the various mages’ efforts to get it down. The mage hit the back wall awkwardly, thunked his head really hard, and then went limp. That would work, too.

Austin appeared at the back door a moment later, pulling it wide and stepping through. He was nude, dirt on his chest and his eyes wild. He’d been chasing mages outside, obviously.

The pandemonium in the room was slowing, bodies on the ground and a couple of mages in little balls in the corner, shrieking and covering their heads. We’d left some alive and dispatched the rest, as per our worst-case scenario playbook.

I shifted to my human form, grabbing a muumuu off the floor at random. “How are we looking?”

“Well…” Nessa stood from the crates by the wall, glancing around. “That was probably the fastest, most effective worse-case scenario I’ve ever seen in my life. Sebastian has said it a million times, but wow, mages sure are terrified of shifting creatures. Half of them never got one shot off. Not one. The other half were totally ineffective. Did the bigwig at the back do any damage?”

“No. He was too busy trying to get through my spell at the back. The basajaunak showed up shortly after his rescue party, thankfully.”

“I didn’t get to do anything,” Cyra said with a pout, still wearing her disco-style wig. “Hollace shoved me out of the way, and then everyone got in before me.”

“Serves you right for trying to cut.” Hollace grinned at her. “I got this one.” He nudged a downed mage with his foot. “His spell singed my muumuu, though.” He pulled the front of the purple cloth wide, revealing the hole and his charred clothes beneath.

“Are you wearing a muumuu over jeans?” Ulric asked as he pulled on a muumuu that was ridiculously too big for him. Judging by the too-tight muumuu on another guardian, they’d swapped.

“Yeah.” Hollace dropped the fabric. “I can’t really shift in this setting, so I figured the muumuu was just for show.”

“Right, but…why not just wear that instead of doubling up on clothes?”

Hollace frowned at him. “It’s nippy. The muumuus are too airy.”

“I like them,” Cyra said, checking the mages on the ground and then picking up a gun. “This is—”

A blast of light shot out, as if it were a weapon from a Star Wars movie. It narrowly missed Dave and punched through the wall.

“Someone take that away from her,” Jasper shouted, giving her more space.

“Wise.” Cyra set it down slowly.

“What’s the plan?” Austin said, walking to the middle of the room as the gargoyles started clearing away mages.

“Nessa, you’re going to lead a team to…deal with all of this, right?” I asked as everyone regained human shape and muumuus.