Magical Midlife Battle （Leveling Up, #8）(7)

“Oops. Be careful there.” Cyra put out a hand to steady him. “It is very sharp.”

“What’d you bring?” I asked, peering in as Niamh started throwing bottles in the trash, grumbling under her breath.

“Just a large, serrated knife,” she said, peering into the bag. She affected a strange sort of accent.

“That’s not a knife… This is a knife.”

Hollace started laughing. I continued to stare.

“Ulric was watching Crocodile Dundee the other day,” Hollace explained, stopping behind us.

“She thought that was a good joke.”

“Yes. I wanted to do that to one of the shifters in this new territory. Sort of like breaking the ice, you know?”

“No—Cyra…” I opened my mouth. Closed it. Collected myself. “No. Take— Get it out. You can’t bring weapons on an airplane, Cyra! Are you nuts?”

“You can’t?” She poked her finger through the lens-less frame of her glasses to rub her eye. The deep scowl in the agent’s face bent a little toward confusion. “Why not?”

“I explained that, remember?” Hollace said. “Just get rid of it. The shifters wouldn’t have thought that joke was very funny anyway. Most of them probably haven’t even seen the movie or wouldn’t remember it. It’s old.”

“Fine,” she said, as put out as Niamh.

She reached for the suitcase only to have the agent stop her. “No. I will handle the weapon.”

“Can’t I at least stash it in the airport and get it when I come back?” she asked.

The agent gave her a hard stare. “No.”

It was a miracle he didn’t arrest her.

The next issue happened when we were trying to get everyone onto the plane. My boarding zone had already been called, but I stayed back to make sure everyone else got on. Good thing.

“I beg your pardon, madam?” Mr. Tom said indignantly to the ticket agent. He pulled his ticket back, not allowing her to grab it and scan him through.

She paused in a moment of confusion.

“No, this is not a costume party,” he said, “and no, we are not cost-playing, whatever that is, a legion of Batmans. An ordinary man with enhanced technology running around the night dressed as a bat with fake muscles is, quite frankly, ludicrous. Little Dicks need to put their faith in something better than mentally unstable vigilantes.”

The woman gasped.

Niamh let out a loud guffaw. “Now who’s going to prison, ya cheeky bastard,” she drawled.

“That kind of language is highly inappropriate, sir,” the woman said, her body bristling.

It took me a moment to realize she was reacting to the phrase “little Dicks,” which for us meant non-magical kids.

“Right, okay.” I rushed forward, bumping into Niamh so that I could get to Mr. Tom.

“Shite,” Niamh grumbled, pulling the travel bottle away from her body and looking down at the spreading stain on her shirt. I hadn’t even noticed she’d been drinking from her stash—something I was pretty sure wasn’t allowed.

“Sorry, ma’am,” I told the agent, now trying to angle my body so she couldn’t see Niamh. “He didn’t mean— He, himself, is a little off-kilter.”

“How dare you,” Mr. Tom said, stepping away a little.

I yanked his ticket free and handed it to the agent. “His age has caught up with him. We’re getting him treatment.”

“This is an outrage,” he said, his hands on his hips and his wings fluttering.

The other agent, standing beside the first, noticed. Her eyes rounded.

“They’re mechanized. Here we go.” I scanned the ticket myself, something half the agents had people do anyway. I handed it back to him and magically shoved him toward the tunnel to the plane.

“All is well.”

Next I turned to Niamh and reached for her ticket.

“Get rid of that!” I whispered at her, my gaze dropping to the little bottle that she hadn’t stowed away.

“Yer such a spoilsport,” she grumbled, and, with very impressive sleight of hand, the bottle disappeared somewhere into her clothes. “I’ll scan it. Good heavens, Jessie, cut the apron strings.”

She pushed ahead of me and scanned her own ticket.

“Don’t worry about that muppet,” Niamh told the agent. “He insists on that ratty old cape. The oul codger thinks Batman stole his identity. Never got over it. Sure, our friends dress up in capes just to make him happy. Too much trouble, if ye ask me.”

“Right, okay.” I stepped in again to hurry this along. “People are waiting. No need to embellish the story.”

Despite the fact that he had a first-class ticket and should’ve gotten on the plane with the first boarding group, Tristan was the very last person, besides me.

“Hey,” I said, stepping in beside him with my ticket finally out and ready to be scanned.

“Hey,” he replied, gesturing for me to go in front of him.

“Why were you way back here? Did you decide that joining this territory was a terrible idea and, as Niamh would say, you were about to pull a runner?”

He gave me a lopsided grin, then broke down into chuckles. “No, but I decided I better take up the rear in case someone got ejected or hauled off to prison or…who knew what.”