Magical Midlife Battle （Leveling Up, #8）(81)

“Oh my…” The willowy woman turned to the others with a disbelieving smile. “It’s the former Gimerel lead enforcer!” she whispered in barely contained excitement.

“He’s so handsome,” the kind-faced woman said, stars in her eyes.

“Have I died and immediately come back younger and better looking?” Aunt Florence whispered to the other two.

“No,” Willowy replied.

“Damn,” Aunt Florence responded, and Nessa started laughing uncontrollably.

“Ladies, it’s so good to see you.” Tristan stopped in front of them, smiling down at them. “I fully support garhettes showing their mettle in battle.” The ladies all smiled sheepishly. “How many of you should we expect, do you think?”

“Oh…” Aunt Florence blew out a breath, and the three exchanged looks. “At least fifty, wouldn’t you say, Tekkie?”

“It’s really hard to say,” said the willowy woman, Tekkie. “You know…they’re all excited to take up the cause, but there’s the matter of getting out here—young people don’t have all the money in the world—and there’ll be those who get cold feet and all of that. Almost all of our book club is coming, though. That’s fifteen right there.”

“A good few younger garhettes are talking about coming,” the other woman said. “At least twenty.

At least. I mean…they made their own armor! So they’re definitely coming, don’t you think?”

“And you know your mom,” Aunt Florence told Ulric. “When she finds us here, she’ll tell everyone who’ll listen, and more will come after that. We might have a good few garhettes show up to help.”

“Okay, okay.” Ulric put up his hands. “Aunt Florence, I love this idea, and I think it’s a good one, long term. But we have precious little time to get everything here organized, with trained fighters, and we just can’t devote the ma— people power to figuring out how…or where, I guess, you could fit. We don’t even know how we’ll all fit together.”

“Nah, listen.” Nessa pushed through Ulric and Tristan before putting her hand to her chest. “I fight. I have very little magic, two knives, and I follow around a vampire who always seems to be in the right place at the right time—”

“She’s my shadow,” Edgar called from somewhere in the back.

“If you have courage and a trigger finger”—Nessa mimed pulling a trigger—“then I can get in a shipment of magical guns. They’ll be older, but I know exactly where a good few are stockpiled. I got

people who can get them out here—for a cost, obviously, but we’ve got Jessie Warbucks, so we’ll be good. If you want in the action, I can get you in.”

“Except it is going to be incredibly dangerous,” Ulric said, half begging now. “Aunt Florence, Mom isn’t ever actually in the action. She’s on the periphery.”

“Well, that’s fine,” Aunt Florence replied. “I can shoot a magical gun just fine from the periphery.

I don’t care.”

“No, that’s not—”

“A female gargoyle should have female guardians,” the kind-faced woman said, her balled fists on her hips now. “That’s just logic.”

“You know what?” Tristan once again drew their attention, his hands out, now shepherding them back toward the car. “You have some very good points. Very valid points. You’ve given us a lot to think about. What do you say we go grab something to eat and let the alphas talk it through? Because your ability to fight isn’t the only consideration. They’ll need to make sure we have room for everyone, and there are some Khaavalor guardians coming in as well.” All their eyes lit up. They were clearly not from one of the higher-status cairns. “How’d you…” He glanced around. “How’d you get to the territory, by the way?”

“Oh”—Aunt Florence waved her hand—“we took a bus from the airport, but it would only go as far as… Oh now, what was that town called?”

“Sa… Seh…？” Tekkie screwed up her face in thought.

“Anyway, one of the towns close by,” Aunt Florence went on. “There was this cute little café, so we stopped for a cup of coffee and a slice of coffee cake and got to talking to the woman who works there. Lovely person—”

“Danica,” Tekkie said.

“Yes, Danica. And wouldn’t you know it, she said her nephew was at home doing nothing—

playing video games or something—and he could run us out. Well, that was just fine. So he dropped us at the edges—you know, because cairns can be wary of strangers, and I wasn’t sure if shifter packs were different—and then we walked in far enough to meet this fine shifter.” She pointed at the still-surly driver. “He’s a wolf, I guess. He wouldn’t show us his other form, though. Anyway, he drove us here.”

“Fantastic,” Tristan said, taking all of that without batting an eye. “How about this? Let’s get you that bite to eat or maybe just another coffee while the alphas chat, okay? Patty won’t arrive for another few hours or so. I’ll meet you there with Ulric.” He glanced at Kingsley.

“Take them to the Hot Plate,” Kingsley told the driver. “Tell them to bill me.”