Magical Midlife Meeting (Leveling Up #5)(8)

“Have been for a while.”

“Right. Which is something ye might’ve mentioned when Jessie was getting ready to battle—and potentially kill—that idiot mage a couple of weeks ago. Kinsella is firmly established in their crap network and she is not. If she’d killed him, she would’ve had that damn repository breathing down her neck.”

“They would’ve been up her ass, actually, and I figured you knew.”

Niamh glared at him, her patience quickly running out. “Ye must be the stupidest smart fella I know. The lot of us have been practically dormant in this small town for…years. Decades! We didn’t know when, or if , someone would show up to claim the Ivy House magic. We’d all but retired. Then Jessie came to us without any knowledge of magic, so our focus needed to be on training. We don’t—or didn’t—know bollocks about the current goings-on in the magical world. Hopelessly blind, so we were. How did ye not see that?”

He pulled his lips to the side and squinted one eye as if aiming. “I was scrambling to figure out how to be part of the team and clearly missed the mark.”

“Yes, ye certainly did,” she said, then picked up her glass and shook it aggressively, the ice cubes making a sound like shrill bells. Donna down the bar put up her finger in a just a moment gesture, waiting on a group of younger women with too much booze and too few clothes. “Well, it’s a good thing she didn’t slit his throat as she oughta’ve, because the repository would’ve held an inquiry. Austin Steele wouldn’t have let them punish her, and it would’ve led to war. A war the shifters aren’t ready to fight. It would’ve been a grand ol’ mess, sure enough.”

“Jessie has enough money to buy the guild.”

“Momar basically owns them, from what I’ve gleaned, and he would never allow it. He hates shifters something fierce. That poor wee lad Sebastian wasn’t telling fibs about that. No, it’s lucky for us that useless bugger Kinsella took off. The only problem is, he’ll resurface eventually, and then we’ll have a problem on our hands.”

Ulric tensed as a swell of power infiltrated the bar. Through the link, Niamh could feel Jessie nearing the entrance. Ryan, also known as Sasquatch, had gone outside for a smoke. Jessie did not tolerate him on the best of days, and today was far from the best of days.

“She’s still pissed that we didn’t pull Cyra off her,” Ulric muttered, correctly reading the situation.

“That is the general feeling I am getting, yes.” Niamh glared down the bar at Paul, helping a crowd of shifters who’d been drinking all day and were ordering shots. Austin Steele was in the backroom and not slinging beers as he ought to be. Niamh had been dry for much too long. People would start to wonder what she was even doing there, sitting at the bar with a computer and nothing to drink. “Don’t mind her. She had it in the bag.”

“It was kind of a close call, though.”

“Nah. Ivy House would’ve reacted if it had been a close call. Hell, Cyra would’ve let go. She’s been around far too long to get lost to rage. Jessie just needed a moment to push through her fear. Worked out exactly like it should’ve, with the basajaun pissing himself and everything.”

Ulric huffed out a laugh and turned around, elbows pushed back to lean on the back of the pushed-in chair. He’d clearly given up on getting a drink.

Niamh shook her glass again.

“I didn’t even know he’d snuck up,” Ulric said.

“Only Edgar seemed to notice. That el’ vampire is Froot Loops, but he does tend to notice things everyone else has missed.”

“She took out a phoenix in one shot, after already having battled everyone for a while.” Ulric shook his head, his smile growing. “If we can get her enough training, she’ll be a real contender.”

“If we can kill Elliot Graves so he’d butt out of her life, we might have a shot.”

“Wouldn’t we have to deal with the guild?”

“They’d be thanking us. The Anal Repository has a bounty out on Elliot Graves. They’re trying to weasel into this thing he’s throwing in a couple weeks under the guise of ‘discussing the possibility of lifting the bounty,’ but Elliot Graves is ignoring them, so he is. The whole situation has social media atwitter. No one can believe he is flat-out refusing them, and they are dying to see what happens. So it seems our Mr. Graves is re-emerging into the magical world on the wrong side of the current pervasive authority.”

“Then he plans to pit himself against Momar, I take it.”

“If that’s what people are thinking, they haven’t dared mention it where I can see. Stands to reason, though.”

“Still, what the hell does he want with Jessie?”

“To harness her power? I was starting to think someone else might be using Elliot’s name, but with his invitation and all the rest of it, that doesn’t seem likely. Maybe he’s trying a new tactic. Throwing romance and riches at her and promising her the world in the hopes she’ll open up that power for him to use, like the heirs before her.”

“If that’s his game, he’s going to get an unwelcome surprise.”

Niamh watched Austin emerge from the backroom, making his way behind the bar, ignoring everyone, his eyes on the door. He had clearly come out to greet Jessie.