Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Well, Austin Steele and Niamh herself. And the basajaun, she supposed. Cyra shouldn’t be left off the list. Edgar…
“Jessie,” a voice boomed. Sebastian’s voice amplified by magic. “Time’s up. We’ve got mages.”
Jessie rose higher into the sky, a little lopsided.
Niamh shifted into her smaller form again. The pain from her back was mostly gone, and the surge of energy from Jessie greatly helped. She skittered up someone’s back, saw Dave running in her direction, and decided to let him have this guy. Instead, she jumped from that guy’s back onto another guy’s face and wreaked havoc. Jeepers, creepers, she sang in her head, you just lost your peepers…
Where are all the women in this outfit? she wondered to herself as she scratched down another guy’s stomach and then bit hard into his junk. This troop was solely made up of men. The mages, too. A bit sexist, that.
A body flew by her, one missing an arm. Another body followed.
Dave was having a grand ol’ time.
He roared and high-kicked, catching one of the shorter troops in the side of the head. A resounding crack had the guy sliding bonelessly to the ground.
Cyra dove by and blasted someone to Niamh’s left before continuing to barrel down the line, getting two more. They didn’t die, though, just screamed and writhed and tried to get their weapons up to shoot.
Jessie was there in an instant, throwing a quick shield over Dave before a blast struck him, and then dousing the fire Cyra had caused. She was gone again in no time, twisting to hurl a spell at the enemy mages.
Niamh hopped from one singed guy to another, taking them out quickly. They only needed a little help to go down.
Magic flew from the enemy mages. They aimed for the fliers at first, but their attack smacked into one of Jessie or Sebastian’s defense spells. A ball of light shot back the way it had come.
Niamh jumped onto the ground and ran through the shuffling feet, swiping or biting if the opportunity presented itself. Those mages had to be taken down. The shifters could handle the rest of the ground crew, who were being thinned rapidly at this point, but magic was another story altogether.
She got to the edge of the milling crowd, only to find Dave again. That creature really made his way around. He picked someone up by their ankles and then slammed them onto their back as if the weight didn’t bother him at all. She ran around and into the trees, climbing a tall one to better see her target.
What she saw widened her eyes.
Magic shot in both directions, but the enemy mages couldn’t get through the defensive shield. As Jessie seemingly held it, surrounded now by her gargoyles, Sebastian fired through it at the enemy mages. His spells came just as quickly as before, and even from a distance, they were incredibly powerful. They cracked against the enemies’ defensive spells, scattering the mages.
The enemy had bottles of potions to help, though. They weren’t doing this on their own.
Niamh climbed back down the tree. She ran through the grass and bushes, staying hidden. When she was nearly at the mages, Edgar suddenly popped into sight, shifting from his insect form back into a vampire.
“Oh, hello, Niamh,” he said, running by.
“Have you seen this guy run, though?” Nessa laughed as she hurried after him holding just one of her knives.
Niamh kept with them, slinking behind trees and then sprinting toward the mages.
The one on the left saw them first; he swung his hands from the air toward Nessa’s center mass, ready to shoot off a spell.
“No, no.” Edgar puffed into insects, closed the gap faster than Nessa could run, and popped back into being right behind the mage. “Surprise!”
The mage howled in startled terror, jerking to the right. But Edgar was already biting down on his neck. The mage next to them gasped, and the spell he’d been casting went wide. Nessa was there in a moment, grabbing him and swinging him around to use as a shield. Another mage blasted him on instinct, or maybe out of fear. Niamh ignored that mage and went for the last, but a dome closed over him before she could get there. She slammed into the magical barrier and bounced off.
“Leave him,” Nessa shouted as the last “free” mage ran. “We need someone to report their failure. We need to make Momar hesitate and want more info. Quick, get that mage—”
A spell hit the fleeing mage in the back. Another hit even as he was falling. Jessie and Sebastian had him.
Nessa dropped the dead weight she was holding and approached the dome. The other magic users switched back to helping with the ground crew.
“We’re the sort of people you invite to dinner,” she told the terrified mage in the dome. “Not the sort you sneak up on. Tell your boss that he’d best do this differently next time. Just because we’re new on the scene doesn’t mean we don’t know how things work.”