Demon Magic and a Martini: The Guild Codex: Spellbound Four by Marie Annette

Author:Marie, Annette
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-988153-29-2
Publisher: Dark Owl Fantasy Inc.
Published: 2019-04-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

I didn’t have to dwell on our overly eventful workout for long. When I returned to the main level, something far more pressing claimed my attention:

Fenton, the young Keys contractor, was standing outside on the front sidewalk.

For one horrible, disbelieving moment, I gawked witlessly through the living room window. Then I ran into the basement to inform the guys.

Since the Keys couldn’t get at Ezra in or around his guild, they had tracked him to his house—and judging by the black van parked behind Fenton, they planned to hang around for a while. This probably wasn’t what Darius had intended when he sent us home.

The three mages and I conferred on strategy. According to Aaron, the Keys wouldn’t enter the house because, as per MPD law, violence against mythic trespassers was perfectly acceptable. If they forced their way inside, he and Kai would be free to roast the Keys guys like pigs on a spit.

Short of that, our hands were tied, so we decided to stick with our original plan: wait them out. We’d ignore them and be as boring as possible. We’d stay in. Do nothing. Rot our brains watching TV and eating microwave dinners until the Keys lost interest. We closed all the blinds and did our best to forget they were out there.

Ha, yeah right. None of us could forget even for a minute.

We didn’t actually eat microwave dinners. Ezra held true to his pushups loss and toasted a box of frozen waffles for breakfast. After eating, I got to work on my menu proposal. So far, I’d selected which dishes to remove from the existing menu, but I was still struggling with ideas for new meals.

“Guys?” I squinted at my list. “Do fried mac ’n’ cheese balls sound good?”

Game controller in hand, Aaron didn’t look away from the TV, the split screen displaying two racetracks with careening cars. “Huh?”

“Fried mac ’n’ cheese balls. Does that sound appetizing?”

“Fried … mac and cheese … balls?”

Ezra dared to look away long enough to smirk at Aaron. “Don’t you know everything is better in ball form? Cheese, meat, donuts, snow … pasta.”

“Real comprehensive list there, Ezra.”

Sighing, I erased that one off the page. While I worked, Aaron and Ezra continued to race the afternoon away. Kai had disappeared upstairs to do who knew what. Maybe he just wanted some quiet; Aaron cursed almost nonstop while gaming.

Ezra played with his usual quiet humor, trouncing Aaron every time—though I now realized his victories had less to do with his skill and more to do with his fast reflexes—but I could see his tension. At every lull in the game, his gaze slid to the curtains covering the front window, his shoulders tensing and brow creasing.

I peeked outside a few times throughout the afternoon. The three Keys members were taking turns standing out front, changing shifts every hour. Their mission wasn’t merely surveillance; if it was, they would’ve stayed in their van. No, they were being deliberately obvious. It was a power play.

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