Sarge lowered his chin. “Blood.”
I straightened, my fingers hovering over the pouch as I waited for the orders.
“Go,” Sarge said.
Go was an attack order, so instead of grabbing the potion I pulled a dagger from my thigh bandolier and a set of cuffs from my belt—I would have gone for the gun, but that undoubtedly would have freaked out the humans and probably the House.
Internally bracing, I stepped onto the first paver that marked House Tellier’s property line and walked towards the Adepts and their son without hesitation, even as I waited for retaliation.
“House Tellier!” Gideon shouted. “Stop her!”
The House was still.
“Gideon, stop,” his father said.
“We’ve got nothing to worry about—you know we don’t, or we would have been warned!” Gideon shouted back to his father before puffing up in anger. “House Tellier, didn’t you hear me—stop her!”
A board on the porch creaked, but that was it.
I was curious why Gideon was so confident they had nothing to worry about, but it was even more interesting that the House still wasn’t listening to him.
That’s not good for the Telliers.
Gideon growled. Orange flames erupted around his fist and his spikey wizard tattoo emerged on his cheek as magic flowed through him.
I dodged when he flung the ball of flames at me, side stepping it and simultaneously moving closer to him.
I slapped one of the cuffs on his outstretched hand, which immediately snuffed out the flames that crackled on his palms.
“How dare you—” Gideon started.
A knee to his gut and he folded in half with a wheeze. Needing both hands for the task, I had to toss my dagger into the air with my free hand so I could grab his other hand and yank it up behind his back. I had just enough time to slap the other cuff on him, completely cutting off his contact with magic, before catching my dagger.
Gideon sucked more air in. His tattoo was gone, but his face was red with rage. “You can’t treat me like this!”
“You’re being taken in for questioning,” I said. “I can do whatever is necessary to get you there.”
“I’m a wizard—and an Heir!”
Gideon tried to stagger away, so I applied a kick to the back of his knees to make him faceplant. “Humans have been harmed.”
“So?” Gideon peeled his head off the ground—a wet, yellow leaf was stuck to his cheek.
“Heir!” His father roared. “Shut your mouth!”
“Gideon!” His mother shrieked, her voice so high pitched it made Brody and Binx flinch. She was markedly more upset about my handling of Gideon than his father, which was interesting. “You’ll pay for that!” Her wizard tattoo surfaced on her cheek as she gathered sizzling orange electricity in her hands.
I pivoted to face her, calculating how to limit potential magical damage.
“No—no!” Adept Tellier shouted, waving his hands in the air. “Stop it!”
“Group up!” The other House Tellier wizards who had been dawdling on the porch ran down the steps, hustling in our direction.
Reinforcements?
A flash of light accompanied by a roaring growl, and the wizard leading the reinforcements charge was struck by a bolt of blue lightning.
The wizard collapsed, his clothes smoldering.
I risked glancing back at my squad.
April’s black tattoo was glowing around the edges and blue electricity crackled up and down her halberd. She nodded to me, then shifted her gaze to another wizard.
“You hurt my baby!” Mrs. Tellier screeched.
I ducked when she threw a fireball at me, then applied the base of my palm to her nose.
I was careful not to use too much power—wizards were more delicate than vampires, after all—but I still heard the crunch of her nose breaking before she screamed in pain, slapping her hands to her face.
The wizards ran past their zapped comrade, but they screamed when a purple fireball sailed towards them, narrowly missing and instead setting a bush on fire.
The House lashed out, one of the timbers on the wooden fence yanking free from the ground so it could smack Juggernaut on the shins.
He hopped in place, but April unflinchingly struck another wizard with her blue lightning. “Message received: Don’t damage the House, and the House won’t retaliate.”
“So it would seem,” Sarge agreed. “Tetiana, Medium-Sized Robert—now.”
I finished cuffing the Tellier matron, ignoring her as she cursed me out for breaking her nose, before I pushed her so she also fell onto the lawn—her fall cushioned by a pile of dead but wet leaves.