Joe shifted, his eyes heading toward the door as well. “If you got a druid out there, you don’t want to be staying in one place. You’d best get behind a ward.”
“Wards don’t keep them out,” Reagan said. She shrugged. “Assuming the rumors are true. That’s why they make the best magical assassins.”
“We’re better off in one location without a lot of shadows.” Emery shifted a little closer to Joe, trying to catch his focus again. “Joe, the mages?”
Joe shook himself a little, fear lingering in his eyes. “Yeah, right, uh…” A line formed between his eyebrows as he tried to snap back to reality. He’d been blindsided by our ragtag crew of mayhem. “Mages—a few. I’ve had a few wander through, eyeballing everyone. They didn’t start any trouble, though. And my people left well enough alone. But the bar is filling up, what with Roger bringing in more people.” Joe paused, as though making sure Emery was in the know. “If any mages wander in now, they aren’t long in leaving.”
“Yeah.” The word rode Reagan’s sigh. “Not good. We should’ve accounted for that.”
“What?” Joe asked, his gaze drifting back toward the door.
“We gonna get service over here, Joe?” someone shouted across the bar.
“He’s talking,” Reagan called back. “Mind your manners, or I will mind them for you.”
“Don’t you start.” Joe leveled a finger at her. “Do not start a fight in my bar. Roger might have a soft spot for you, but he does not own this bar.”
Reagan huffed and glanced at Joe. Her smile grew as she took in the serious look on his face. “If that hard mug is Roger with a soft spot,” she said, returning her gaze to the door, “I’d hate to see what he’s like with an enemy.”
“Yes, you most certainly would,” Joe said.
“Do you have any information on how the Guild is preparing?” Emery asked, his voice still low.
Joe glanced behind him, looking suddenly uncomfortable. He held up a finger to the crowd that had gathered across the bar. “Just hang on a sec, will ya? Let me sort them out, and I’ll be back.” On his way around the bar, he pointed at Reagan again. “Don’t mess with anything. I’m watching you.”
“You are very jumpy, Joe. Very jumpy.” Reagan rolled her neck. “I’m getting a bad feeling.”
Emery’s eyes hazed over for a moment, and I knew it was a premonition that warned him when someone or something was about to deliver him—or me—a death blow. He frowned and wrapped his arm around my waist. “We’ve got trouble.”
Magic cocooned us, ready to rip out the second an attack struck. But nothing happened.
“What’d you see?” I asked, noticing shifters still peering at us with interest through the island of bottles. Joe must’ve told them who we were. Basically, the crew many of them would be working with soon.
“A…warning, of sorts.” He shook his head and turned to face the door before shifting to look at the wall behind us, loosely draped in shadow. “I’ve seen one like it before, but that last one was a vision of you. Back in New Orleans. They’re not like the usual premonitions…they’re just warnings. I can’t describe it. I don’t know how to get out from under them.”
“Easy, take down the Guild,” Reagan said, bristling. She glanced behind at the wall. “Something’s not right.”
“No.” Emery let out a slow breath. He rolled his shoulders. “It isn’t. We gotta go.”
“I agree. Dang. Joe looked like he was going to spill something juicy. And if I know his type, he won’t want to tell Roger. He’s got a wife and kids; he doesn’t want to endanger them by getting wrapped up in danger.”
“How…do you know all this?” Emery asked in confusion.
“What kind of woman do you take me for—someone who doesn’t learn about people before I instigate their bars getting blown up?” She stepped toward the door, looking behind her again. “Come on. Get away from that wall. I feel like something is going to bust through it.”
“I have absolutely no danger warnings,” I mumbled, closing my eyes and feeling the magic. “Did that goblin kill my Temperamental Third Eye? Because that is going to be a problem.”
“God you’re weird.” Reagan’s boots clunked on the floor as she stepped farther away.
It hit me like a shot, making my body tingle and my legs shake. My flight reflex roared to life, insisting I get the hell out of that bar.
“Never mind. In good working order. Let’s go, no time to lose.” I blinked my eyes open and lunged after Reagan, but put on the brakes a moment later, making Emery slam into my back.
Magic surged up from outside, blackened and putrid and awful. Twisted elements rolled and surged, vile intent dripping from them and infecting everything in the vicinity.
Slice. Maim. Destroy.
“Mages, and they know we’re here. That, or they are after the shifters.” I clutched Emery’s arm. “Back door. Or do we fight?”
A loud bang sounded from the other side of the bar, followed by an explosion. The building shook and people shouted. Shifter magic exploded and the sound of ripping clothes filled the air as several people changed form.
Reagan ripped her sword off her back. “We’re in it to win it, folks. Prepare for battle.”
15
“Don’t freak out, don’t freak out.” I yanked open the compartments of my utility belt and drifted off to the side of the others, the three of us making a loose triangle. The power stones throbbed in my belt, and I lifted a couple of them out and placed them on the bar. If we had to run, I wanted to snatch them as quickly as possible.
Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky sent out a pulse of power. Emery’s Plain Jane throbbed.
“Here we go,” I said, sucking in a breath as adrenaline flooded me.
Magic tumbled through the door, hot and sticky and oh so vile. It felt wrong, worked in a way contrary to nature and fused with only the most evil of intentions.
That made it weak. Unbalanced.
I started a weave to counter it, but Reagan was already there, zipping open her fanny pack, smashing an empty casing against her sword and mumbling, “Fuckity-fuck-shitty-fart.”
“What is she doing?” Emery said, glancing at the back of the bar. More shifters were transforming on the other side as magic rolled in from the front like a barbed wheel. People or animals darted this way or that, chaos reigning with the surprise.
“She’s pretending to cast a spell, remember?” I said, reaching forward to join our half-formed spells. “You’ve seen her do it before.”
“Not with the swearing. Get back,” Emery yelled, pushing the counter-spell toward the jagged, destructive thing attempting to mow down the shifters.
“We were in the wrong place at the right time,” I said, jogging a little closer to the door and turning so I had the best angle. “They were after the shifters.”
“Seems so.”
“Boy will they get a nasty surprise,” Reagan said in a singsong voice. She was in her element.
More magic flashed through the front door. Reagan pounced, hacking through the spell with her sword. The fragments of it withered away, not drifting into nature as they should’ve.
“This magic isn’t right,” I yelled over the din. “It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
A concussion of air blew through the other side of the bar, a silent explosion. Debris from the back area slapped the walls and tumbled across the floor. The mages were clearly trying to pose a double-pronged attack on the front and back.
“Do you feel a difference between the magic coming at the front and the back?” Emery asked, zipping off another spell across the room. “Because I don’t. Middle power level, no creativity. If they’d show themselves, I could take them down easily.”
“I’m on it!” Reagan darted out of the front entrance, clearly forgetting the freaking warrior creature that was loitering out there somewhere.
“Hurry,” I said to Emery, rushing forward with her.