Magical Midlife Battle （Leveling Up, #8）(98)

The guy at my right lurched forward to grab me.

Then a whole lot of things happened at once.

“Hey, Jessie, care to dance?” Nessa bounded from the trees, a knife in each hand, behind the guy stepping forward. He nearly tripped over his feet as he half turned in surprise.

The shifters had been so focused on their little plan that they hadn’t paid attention to their surroundings.

“Hello,” Edgar said from the other side, puffing into a swarm of insects and heading for the woman on my left.

The man behind me lunged forward, as did the woman next to him.

I turned to meet them, blasting them with magic intended to crumple them to the ground.

Nessa reached the man on my right, jumped up to wrap her legs around his middle, and slung one arm around his chest with the blade facing in. Stabbing with that knife, she sliced across his neck with the other. The movements were so fluid and graceful that it looked like an actual dance they’d rehearsed.

“Don’t worry, neither wound will kill him,” Nessa said, sprinting across the circle at a man who’d also frozen in place. “You can be much less careful with shifters. No, Edgar, maim, not put to sleep!”

Edgar looked up from his limp victim with raised eyebrows, red dripping down his chin. He put his hands up, like this was a holdup, and the man dropped to the ground. “I know. The gnomes can do it.”

My heart constricted. “Wait… What? ”

But I didn’t have time to ask more about it. James was the last man standing. He looked around wide-eyed at the team he’d assembled, which we’d flattened in no time at all.

“Should’ve shifted,” Nessa told him, wiping her blades on the grass.

“It wouldn’t have helped,” I said, closing the distance. “I don’t fault you for not wanting to give Austin another chance.” I put up a wall of magic so he couldn’t keep backing away from me. “It can be hard to forgive and harder to forget. Using me to get at Austin, though?” Anger burned in my gut, making my stomach roll. “That’s disgusting. You’ll get your wish. I won’t hide what you’ve done from him. I will keep him from killing you, but I won’t temper his reaction. Good luck. Until then…”

My magic surged, and I pummeled him with spells, the pain seeping down deep and dragging him under. He gritted his teeth, handling it for a while, but then sank slowly to his knees. A little more power, nothing like I’d throw at his shifter form or a gargoyle, and he shouted obscenities at me and curled up in a little ball.

A gnome dashed out from the trees with a pair of scissors, cackling.

“Damn it,” I said, hopping away from it. “Edgar, how did this happen? Tell me Kingsley also has a gnome infestation and it wasn’t our fault somehow.”

Nessa held up her hand to Edgar before filling me in on what Edgar had apparently told Sebastian a few nights ago, something Sebastian had assumed was a sort of fever dream. Clearly it was not.

“Damn it,” I repeated. “Kingsley will never forgive me for this. And I wouldn’t blame him!”

“Don’t worry, Jessie,” Edgar said, putting out his hands to back Nessa and me toward the trees. “I know what I’m doing.”

“But do you really?” I pushed.

“Almost a little bit, yes.”

Three more gnomes rushed from the trees.

“How many did you bring?” I screeched.

“Just a couple besides the one that escaped at the airport. They colonize quickly. But that’s good, because magical spells don’t bother gnomes, you see. Now, don’t kill them,” he said, pointing at one of the gnomes, this one with a paring knife it had obviously stolen from someone’s outdoor kitchen.

At least, I hoped it was from an outdoor kitchen and these little nightmares weren’t invading houses now.

It made a sound like “Grrrraw” and lifted its knife at Edgar.

“I think we should walk away slowly,” he said, motioning for us to keep moving back. “They don’t seem to have the rapport for me that I do for them.”

“That doesn’t even make se—” I stopped myself, rubbing my hand down my face. “We can’t leave

them to the gnomes. That’s not right. We beat them, we’ve won—we should all just walk away now.”

“Oh, it’ll just be a little chop-chop,” Edgar said, not sufficiently alarmed. “Nessa did far more damage than the gnomes will probably do. Besides, they really do deserve it.”

Nessa paused. “Should I go slit the rest of their throats? Practice makes perfect.”

“No. Oh my—no! Just—” I turned and started walking. Those shifters had started it, that was true.

They should’ve paid more attention to the type of outfit I ran before picking on me.

Besides, whatever those gnomes did would likely be nothing compared to how Austin would react. So…maybe I shouldn’t say anything to him at all? After this, I doubted very much those shifters would ever try to attack me again, and if they did, I wasn’t worried about their succeeding.

“Why are you guys here, anyway?” I asked as I walked them back toward the town. “I thought you were supposed to be working with the perimeter crew.”

“We were,” Nessa replied, looking up through the trees. “But they’re all really fast, and I couldn’t keep up.”