Page 105 of Magical Midlife Conclave

“Crap, crap, crap.” Where the hell was Sebastian with his think it through stuff? I couldn’t—I was too busy freaking out.

A claw scraped across my back. Pain vibrated through me.

I dodged right. My toe hit a rock. I pitched forward and curled into a ball. As I did, I created a defensive layer around me that pulsed with power.

The Elder’s foot connected as she tried to kick me like a soccer ball. My body had nearly stopped rolling, though. The spell held me in place, something I hadn’t been trying for. Happy accident.

Her toe cracked against my magic. Her momentum carried her forward, and she fell over me.

I bounced up and hit her with spells as fast as I could, using full power. They didn’t have the effect they had on most people, even Tristan. I increased the ruthlessness of the spells as she got up. Blood dripped off hair covering parts of her. She turned around to me slowly, almost as if the pain was only just starting to annoy her, and she planned to properly deal with the cause of it.

“Oh God, okay,” I said, dancing back, keeping up the spells. This was about to get serious; I could tell. Where was that Gargoyle God Edgar spoke of?

She advanced on me so fast that I froze in panic. Like Sebastian, I just freaking fell over. Timber!

She grabbed me by the ankle, spun, and threw. It was much more effective than a dropkick.

Wind rushed at me as I sailed up toward the gargoyles. Tristan swooped down immediately, but I was already shifting. My muumuu tore. My world went hazy for a moment—I was unable to see as everything changed in my body—and then strong gargoyle hands grabbed me and tossed me back toward the Elder.

Okay. Round two.

“Bring your systems online,” I told Ivy House.

“No. You do it.”

I rolled my eyes. Thankfully, I had learned how to circumvent her being testy with the house defenses. Why it was different than hiding the gnomes, I hadn’t yet discovered. Obviously.

I flew back down toward the Elder. She was standing in the clearing, waiting for me. I once again started casting spells, choosing ones that were grisly but not truly deranged. Those ones would probably really help without killing, but I didn’t want to take the chance.

Magic blasted her, sending her reeling backward. She got her bearings immediately, though. The air and woods and all natural things seemed to bow and contract again before power gushed into the clearing, boiling and rolling and surging all around. It seemed to eat my freaking spells as I shot them, diffusing the potency.

How the hell was she doing this? I’d never even heard of it.

Sebastian needed to be here.

“Stall,” Ivy House said. “I’ll force him out. Send one of the gargoyles to pick him up.”

“Stall?? Are you kidding? I’m just trying to stay in the fight.”

“You can take her.”

“There is evidence to the contrary.”

I dove toward the Elder. I needed to be closer for these spells to have greater effect, it seemed. Which she knew, obviously, hence that concussion of power. This time, though, I used the Ivy House defenses.

The sky darkened. The air currents changed speed and direction, messing with whatever natural thing she was trying to do. She was using the woods—I owned the ground the woods grew out of. I owned the air they breathed and filtered the water they drank. Her power came from my territory’s generosity.

Skeleton arms blasted out of the ground. One grabbed her foot.

She startled and looked down at it. She kicked it off, but another was already there. A skeleton crawled out of the ground near the trees, then another. They ambled toward her, their jaws clacking, their arms out like in a horror show.

The dead will rise from their unmarked graves, I thought. This wasn’t the first time. The type of people buried here didn’t deserve eternal rest.

I continued to hammer her with spells. Darkness blocked out the sun, pitching the woods into near blackness. I could still see through it. She could only feel, and I wasn’t touching anything that could help.

The spells had greater effect now, slicing into her. Punching holes. She didn’t show much of a reaction, but maybe that was because she was fighting half a dozen skeletons that pulled at her and climbed on her. One emerged from the ground with a butcher’s knife.

“How many people are buried on this land?” I asked Ivy House, my own horror seeping in.