Three people stood at Callie and Dizzy’s table, looking down on them. Darius was somewhat removed, standing against the wall, leaving them on their own. Judging by the stances of the people leaning over the table, the closed-down expression of Callie, and the worried expression of Dizzy, this wasn’t a friendly encounter.

Fire surged up my middle, my power finally making an appearance.

“Where were you when that mage was trying to drag me away?” I scolded my magic.

Sure, muttering to myself made me look crazy, but when dealing with bullies, that could only help.

“You have until sundown to get—”

“What’s up?” I asked, coming around the table. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the bartender shaking his head.

A man in his sixties straightened up and swung his gaze my way. Dark brown eyes squinted at me from above a thick beard. “Are you with them?”

I picked up the nearest glass of whiskey and sucked it down. The clink of the empty glass as it hit the table drew the eyes of the woman in the middle of the group of three, mid-fifties with curly hair reminiscent of eighties perms. Residual magic saturated the air around her. She squinted at me.

Squinting must’ve been their go-to for conveying: I hold the power here.

“Yes.” I lifted the second glass of whiskey.

“Are you a mage, too?” asked the far man, a pudgy guy with a serious gray mustache. It was like a mouse had crawled onto his face, lain down, and gotten stuck there.

“Well, aren’t you nosy?” I leaned a hand against the top of the chair.

“These are members of the local chapter loosely affiliated with the Mages’ Guild,” Callie said with a tight jaw.

“They are more of a fan club than they are an actual apart of the guild,” Dizzy added.

“It seems that we must get permission to do business in their town.” Callie put the emphasis on their with a sharp, sarcastic bite.

“Oh.” I smiled. “Well that’s okay, then. You’re not doing business in their town. You’re visiting friends and seeing the sights. Crisis averted.”

“They are working with the MLE office,” Mustache said.

“You got a little something”—I waggled my finger over my upper lip—“just there…”

He frowned at me.

“Anyway, you are incorrect. I am working with the MLE office. Ish.” I touched my hand to my chest. “Me only. The vampire back there gave me a ride to Seattle, and my friends here came along because they’d always wanted to ride in a private jet. So you see, there’s no problem.”

“Oh, I think there is a big problem,” Beard said, hiking up his belt. I didn’t miss those digits dipping into his pocket to grab the top of something sticking out of it. His hand returned to his side, holding a stick of some kind. His sleight of hand was good, but unlike me, he wasn’t up to pickpocket speed.

Amateur.

“Here’s the big problem.” I pointed at his face. “If you are going to dye your beard, you have to dye your eyebrows, too. I mean, a deep brown beard and light gray eyebrows? Who are you trying to fool?”

“Eyebrows are a subtler job,” Callie said. “He clearly doesn’t have the magical finesse.”

“Then use the boxed stuff at the store, know what I mean?” I asked. Someone in the gathered crowd barked out a laugh before shuffling away, eyes averted.

“We know what you’re doing here, and we don’t need you messing around in our affairs,” the woman said, raising her chin. “All the magical people here know that we police our own affairs.”

“Clearly not, since people are still dying.” I said

“The guild is working on it,” Mustache said in a wavering tone. In other words, he had no idea if the guild was working on it. He turned just so until his hand was hidden by the woman beside him.

Not so subtle, bub.

Dizzy’s hands drifted down to his lap.

“Keep your hands on the table,” Beard barked, the muscles on his arm going taut.

“Or what?” I asked.

“Since we are mages, and they have a, however distant, relationship with the guild, they think they have authority over us,” Callie said, icy but calm. “They fail to realize that since we aren’t in the guild, or even a wannabe fan club, we aren’t subject to their law.”

“You are in our town, so you are under our law.” Beard was so agitated he was spitting. It clearly made him nervous that we weren’t groveling before him.

“Or. What?” I asked again, my voice now filled with warning. With anticipated action.

Darius took another couple steps back. He knew something would kick off soon, knew I’d get in the middle of it, and probably wondered if his primal crazy would take over and he’d kill everyone before he could stop himself. Why he thought a few steps would make a difference, I had no idea.

“They threatened to kill us,” Dizzy said in an even voice. It was then I realized his hands were splayed on the table. Callie’s were above the table, too, resting against her glass. The wannabe guild members clearly thought they had the upper hand.

But they didn’t know the caliber and ferocity of the mages they’d decided to ambush. Even still, adrenaline roared through my body. I could deal with a lot of crap, but my friends being threatened was not on that list.

“So let me get this straight,” I said, drawing my sword in a smooth, practiced movement. The fire roaring through my blood, preparing me for battle, made my movements as fast as a vampire’s, something surprising in a girl that looked like a human. All three mages flinched. The woman’s eyes widened. “You don’t give two licks about the crazy-ass mages running around town, skinning humans and calling demons, but two tourists present a grave offense?” I shook my head slowly. “Power, unchecked, corrupts. Now get out of here. We don’t bow to whack-jobs.”

“This is your final warning,” Mustache said loudly, for the whole bar to hear. He tensed, ready to throw whatever spell he’d palmed straight into Dizzy’s face.

I sprang to action, banging Beard on the head with the hilt of my sword and dropping him like a stone. I grabbed the woman as light flashed between her hands.

Always beware the quiet ones.

The blade of my sword dropped, as though I didn’t have control. I did, of course, and the tip sliced through the emerging hex, unraveling it completely. My other hand closed around the front of the woman’s blouse, and I ripped her to the ground.

A bang erupted from Mustache. Red light cut through the air, heading straight for Dizzy. Before I could react, Callie’s hands came away from her glass and a rectangle of blue flared to life in front of them. Dizzy’s hands were digging into his satchel as the red hex washed over the blue. Both spells fizzled out, Callie having somehow anticipated what spell Mustache would use, retrieved the correct counter-spell, and hidden it against her glass in the cupped palm of her hand.

She is good.

I pivoted and kicked, catching Mustache in the teeth with my boot. Blood spurted from a split lip as he fell back, his hands going lax. He bounced off the ground as the woman climbed to her feet, her hands going for a small saddlebag-looking pouch at her side.

“Do people make fun of you for having saddlebags? Get it?” I grinned even as I surged forward and snatched her hand away. Her fingers went white on the orb she was holding before I could peel them away. “Get down!”

I swatted her hand with such force that her body whipped around after it. The spell came loose and fell at her feet. Callie jumped up, probably with some sort of shield for me, but I already had my hand in my pouch and around an empty casing. I crashed it against my blade, playing it up like I was using a counter-spell. As the woman’s spell erupted, I braced myself to cut it harmlessly away, but a large, solid body intercepted and hit me like a Mack truck.

The breath gushed out of my lungs as impossibly strong arms of coiled muscle carried me to the very back of the room and into the hallway leading to the restrooms. People crowded in after us as the blast tore through the room, pushing out a concussion of air.

I finally got my breath back as the noise receded, not easy when a stone of a vampire was pinning me to the wall.