Audric looked at William and laughed. “Damn, man, you’re snockered. You can’t drink like you used to.”
“You’re a fine one to talk. Hell, you’ve fallen off that stool twice.” William tried to appear indignant, but it was totally ineffective since he was weaving around like a seasick sailor.
“It wasn’t my fault. Millicent’s cleavage knocked me over. Gave me a clearer understanding of the American slang for breasts. Damn, that woman was blessed… and blessed… and blessed.”
“I’m going to look foolish to my granddaughter if I don’t brush up on her generation’s… what do they call them? Something about bugs… damn, getting old sucks, I don’t remember all the details like I used to.” William rubbed his chin, frustration coloring his expression.
“Buzz words, but I don’t think they say that anymore. You’ll think you have it figured out, then it changes overnight, so don’t bother.” Audric gave the direction of the conversation a dismissive wave. “When’s the last time you got your corn ground?”
“Hell, it’s been so long, my cob qualifies as a born-again virgin. My mind is still firmly in the gutter, though—that should count for something.”
“I think getting a second shot at virginity requires your knob and mind to be playing from the same sheet of music.” Audric downed the last of his ale before turning to his friend. “Time travel has one huge flaw in my humble opinion. If we’re going back, I want to have my younger body. You know… for safety’s sake.”
“I’m calling horse hockey. You want to be able to wank the waitress, who is probably Charlotte’s age, you dirty old geezer.” Audric grinned because William was right. If he was younger… a lot younger, he would be leaving with the magnificent Miss Millicent for a few hours of sexual pleasure. “Not that I wouldn’t enjoy a few rounds with my old libido. You know, now that I think about it, I can’t remember the last time I… oh, hell, never mind. This conversation reminds me too much of my youth, and there weren’t many parts of that I’d want to repeat.”
Audric let out a deep sigh. He hated to admit it, but William was right. Being young and stupid had been exhausting and dangerous. As magicals with powerful skills and not much common sense, they’d made some terrible decisions. One of the worst had been the argument that cooled their friendship to the point, they hadn’t seen or spoken to one another for almost a hundred years.
“Come on. I’m too tired to sit here pretending I want to be young again. That damned feather tick in your guest room will kill my back, but it’s too late to travel tonight.” Audric threw several gold coins on the bar, knowing he’d paid their tab and left their waitress enough extra she could probably take the next year off. The two men staggered to the door before nearly falling onto the sidewalk.
Ten minutes later, Audric looked around them in confusion. “I don’t remember it taking this long to walk to your flat. Are you sure we didn’t take a wrong turn somewhere?” Before William could answer, three thugs stepped out from the deep shadows of the alley.
Brandishing a knife, the tallest man stepped in front of the two wizards. “What have we here? Two old fools traipsing around the city after dark. Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“Probably. Thanks for your concern. I think we took a wrong turn.” Audric saw William’s hand slide into the deep pocket of his trench coat and knew he was going for his wand. He nor his friend needed a wand to do magic, but it added another layer of power to a spell and usually dazzled nonmagicals enough they backed off.
“That’s it. Put your wrinkled old hand in your pocket and pull out your wallet. Grab your pocket watch, as well.” Auric wanted to roll his eyes at the young fool’s naivety. He and his friends were about to learn a very painful lesson. When the other two stepped up to him, Audric gave them a smile he knew didn’t reach his eyes.
“You should follow your friend’s example and reach slowly for your wallet. We watched you in the pub and know you’re carrying gold coins. Hand them over, and you’ll live another day.” The second man wasn’t Irish, but Audric couldn’t immediately place his accent. The look on his face was sheer hatred, and Audric could feel anger pulsing around the man whose stare was as completely devoid of any hint of humanity. This man had sold his soul to the demons a long time ago, but it was the third man who sent a chill up Audric’s spine. He stood back, his pose deceptively casual as he leaned against the brick wall. When he finally spoke, his voice reminded Audric of a snake, his tone more of a hiss than the over-confident style of his partners.
“Careful lads, I don’t believe you know who you are dealing with.”
“Tell us who you are, old man. I’ll bet you’re a rich old fool who carries his fortune in his pocket because you don’t trust banks. Hand it over, and maybe we won’t cut you up too bad. It would be a shame if your spoiled children couldn’t identify your body.”
Audric knew the second hoodlum had just signed his own death warrant, but he was content to stand by and let the other two paint themselves into the same corner.
“I’ll give you nothing. Everything I own belongs to my granddaughter, and you’ll not deny her a bloody red cent.” William’s shouted words bounced off the brick walls of the alley, making it seem as though he’d been standing in a mountain valley. His vehemence appeared to shock all three men, but it was the first dolt who made the mistake of moving first.
William pulled his wand from his pocket with a lightning-fast movement that was little more than a blur. With one stroke, the man standing in front of him fluttered to the ground, little more than a pile of ashes as his knife clattered to the ground at William’s feet.
The second would-be robber ran into the shadows, but he never made it to the other end of the alley. Without enough time to turn the corner to put brick and mortar between him and the two wizards, the fool never had a chance. A bright fireball halfway down the dark path between two rows of businesses was the only indication he’d ever been on this earth. There wouldn’t be anything left to clean up, so there was no reason to pull in backup.
Audric knew the third man was watching him for any sign of magic as the power the lower ranking wizard had been working so hard to conceal now shimmered around him in an aura only the Head of the Magic Council could see.
A split second of distraction was all it took. In the space of time no longer than it took Audric to glance at William, the third man pulled a wand from his pocket, the crackle of electricity making the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up. Before Audric could react, the other man screamed in pain, his wand suddenly red-hot burst into flames. The man was bound in a web so decorative it could have only been created by one person.
“I can’t leave you alone for a minute.” Brigitte stepped from the shadows, her wand still sparkling with residual energy. “Who is this asshat?” With a quick flick of her wrist, the man tilted to the side before tipping over and slamming unceremoniously into the damp cobblestone street. Gigi let him roll a few times before raising her finger. He was lifted in the air, dangling precariously while she turned back to her father.
“He’s a dark wizard, Dad. If you two weren’t snockered, you’d have noticed.” She watched in utter disbelief as the two men leaned against each other and burst into uncontrollable laughter.
“Damn, I didn’t see that one coming. I can’t believe we had to be saved by your daughter. She’s gorgeous, by the way—looks just like her beautiful mother.” William’s observation surprised her. Brigitte was rarely compared to her mother. Elizabeth Stafford had been stunningly beautiful, inside and out. Simply being considered in the same league as her mother was an honor.
“She does, indeed. Unfortunately, she inherited my mother’s snarky disposition.” Gigi shook her head at her father’s ridiculous comment. He always said his mother was cantankerous, but his lovely wife disagreed. Elizabeth insisted her mother-in-law was a sweet woman who simply refused to put up with her son’s arrogance. In Brigitte’s opinion, it was probably a combination of the two.
“Lucky for you, I inherited your sixth sense and decided to check on you. After the message I received earlier, I was worried.” He and William had been surrounded by magicals in the pub—some good and others not so much. Luckily, Millicent, was a friend who knew how to get word to Brigitte that her father and William were going to be easy marks when they left the tavern.
“How did you get here? Time travel wasn’t in your skillset the last I knew.”
Gigi shook her head in frustration. Damn, her pop was definitely toasted, and if William’s swaying back and forth was any indication, he wasn’t any better.
“It’s not.” At least it’s not a skill I’ve perfected. “But there are Council members who are more than capable of sending someone through time. They will either pull me back in another four hours, or William can take us all back.” Hopefully, the other man was sober enough to get them back to the present. She didn’t care where they landed because she could handle the transport to the Council’s hidden headquarters.
There wasn’t any question the dark wizard bound and currently floating several feet above the ground was a low-level narc, who wasn’t going to be able to give them any valuable information. The Council’s interrogators wouldn’t bother asking him questions. They’d just tap into his memory and pull out any information they could. They would make a token effort to rehabilitate him, but in the end, he’d be stripped of his magical powers, then his memory would be completely erased before being replaced with something so bland, it would bore the most conservative among them. I hope they make him an incompetent accountant for a drug cartel.
To his credit, the cretin whose buddies had tried to mug two wizards appeared to be marginally more intelligent than his pals, who were now little more than dust.
“There’s no reason to whisk me off to your secret lair. I was paid two gold coins to stall you long enough for someone else to show up. They didn’t tell me it would be a kinky witch with a rope fetish.” Brigitte rolled her eyes at the man’s admission. He’d just told the Head of the Council of Magic he’d sold them all out for less than the tip her father left the busty pub waitress.
“You’re a special kind of stupid, aren’t you? Do you even know who you’re talking to?” William shook his head at the man, and with a quick flick of his wrist, a strip of duct tape appeared over the thug’s lips. The man’s eyes widened in surprise before narrowing in anger. “Yeah, that’s going to hurt like hell when the interrogators pull it off. I’ll bet you cry like a toddler, begging for mercy when they start probing around in that pea-sized brain of yours.”
Brigitte bit the inside of her mouth, trying to suppress her laughter at William’s taunting. She wasn’t sure what business he was in, but it was obvious he was no one’s fool. Audric stepped closer to the man and narrowed his eyes, his expression the same one she’d seen him use when dealing with a magical he found particularly offensive.
“Telling us you are useless is not in your best interest. Mr. Fitzpatrick has done you a huge favor. You should be grateful.” Turning to William, he waved his hand in a circle, indicating he was ready to travel. “They ruined a perfectly good drunk. At least two of them got what they deserved. Take us back, and we’ll introduce butt plug over there to the investigators at headquarters. You and I will get some rest, and my lovely daughter can make certain all the Adlers have gathered in Texas.”
“What about Catalina and Cooper?” Gigi wasn’t sure what it was about Catalina Adler, but she was worried about the other woman. They’d shared drinks and swapped stories of their lives a few weeks ago when Gigi was in Austin. Despite the obvious differences in their ages and abilities, Gigi had been surprised by the things they had in common—Cat’s easy acceptance of the strange combination of Brigitte’s position in the magical world and her struggles to fit in with the people around her. Learning Catalina often felt like an outsider in her own family surprised Brigitte and made the other woman seem more vulnerable than she first appeared.
“I’ve already sent them to Adler Oil. They are probably a bit disoriented by the abrupt move, but it was necessary. The dark side tracking us through time changes everything. Let’s go. I want to hand him over to the interrogators as soon as possible, and since a wild night with… oh, hell, never mind.” William’s laugh filled the night, and Gigi shuddered at the thought of knowing anything about her dad’s thwarted sexual encounters.
Magicals were notoriously sexual, and from what she’d learned over the years, their sex drive didn’t fade like their non-magical peers. Gigi and her sister speculated the nons, as they liked to call them, had much shorter lifetimes because they stopped having sexual intercourse as they aged. Spending time hidden in the back corner of the pub, watching her dad and William flirt with every woman in the place, Brigitte assumed they were going to be around for many years to come. Of course, that was contingent upon getting to the bottom of the dark side’s subversive efforts to gain power.
Other members of the Council agreed with Brigitte—the threat was bigger than her dad wanted to admit. From the information she’d pulled together, there were too many accidental deaths associated with the pendants the five Adler mates and Bronx wore. She’d seen all the pieces and knew there was one for each point of the pentagram and hadn’t understood why there were six until she’d seen Bronx and Kenya’s pieces.
It hadn’t been until last night, she’d finally sorted it all out. Finalizing the reconstruction of Lisa Star’s journals provided the final clues she’d needed to solve the puzzle. Brighten Adler’s plan to split the piece Lisa had stolen was brilliant. She’d known their children were fated mates, and the two halves of the final piece would have to be rejoined in order for the fulfillment of the powerful prophecy.
Brigitte’s conversation with Catalina provided more evidence, and their brainstorming session proved how interaction and collaboration yielded more than what any of them could achieve individually. She looked forward to Catalina’s mating—the increase in her magic was going to shock the woman who mistakenly believed her greatest skill was jewelry design. Gigi tried to explain how Cat’s magic was vibrating just beneath the surface, but the other woman waved her off, unconvinced.
All of Gigi’s prior research was confirmed when she met Catalina. It was the third Adler daughter who was the most like her mother and whose magic would eventually mirror Brighten’s in strength and purpose. Her thoughts were interrupted when William sent the four of them hurtling through time. This trip was shorter, but the effect on their prisoner was devastating.
I am probably enjoying his misery more than I should, but when someone tries to kill my father, I feel entitled to a certain level of giddiness, watching the fool heave in the gutter.