Gunmetal Magic(123)

Raphael strode through the arch, followed by Ascanio. Raphael was in black jeans and a black T-shirt that complemented his hair and showed off his carved biceps. Ascanio had somehow managed to copy his outfit so precisely he looked like Raphael’s younger brother.

Raphael saw Roman, registered his hand on my back, and focused on him like a shark.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m sitting and talking to a pretty girl.” The volhv regarded him with a slightly mocking air. “We were having a lovely time until you showed up.”

“That’s nice. How about you go somewhere else,” Raphael told him.

“I’m really tired of you telling me what to do,” Roman said.

They’d bickered the entire way back from the fight with the draugr. My arm hurt too much to pay attention, but apparently during the battle on the hill, someone had run the wrong way and the two of them had managed to collide, which disrupted Roman’s binding. They blamed each other. The fact that Raphael and I had barely gotten back together and he wasn’t inclined to tolerate men in my vicinity wasn’t helping either.

“Go. Away,” Raphael said.

The volhv leaned back, his arms behind his head. “How about you go fuck yourself.”

Nice repartee. Not.

Raphael smiled. “Big talk for a man in a dress.”

“It’s not a dress. It’s robes, which are my work clothes. You know, work? The thing real men do?”

Uh-oh.

“Real men, huh?” Raphael was still smiling, and the hint of insanity in his eyes made him look slightly unhinged.

“What was your job again?” Roman frowned, pretending to think. “Ah yes. Don’t you stand there and look pretty to impress female visitors? You’re really good at that. No real skill involved. Not much of a retirement for that kind of thing, though. Doesn’t help to keep a wife and kids fed either. Unless you find a rich old lady and hope she puts you in her will…”

He did not just say that.

Raphael froze, momentarily stricken speechless.

“How old would the old lady have to be?” Ascanio asked. “Old like forty?”

“Go back to Aunt B and stay with her,” Raphael said. His voice was eerily calm. Uh-oh.

“Yes, Alpha.” Ascanio spun on his heel and took off.

Raphael had removed him from immediate danger.

“What are you two doing?” I asked them. “Don’t we have a bigger fish to fry?”

“Stay out of it,” Raphael told me. “This is between him and me.”

I knew that look. It was his “I will do this or die trying” look.

“I have to concur,” Roman said. “This is an A-B conversation.”

Two idiots. “Fine,” I said. “Knock yourselves out.”

Raphael focused on Roman with the unwavering concentration of a predator sighting his prey. “Right now. Let’s go.”

Roman grinned. “Sure.”

Raphael stretched, rolling his head left to right.

Roman stood, picked up his staff, and spun it like a Shaolin monk bent on a rampage. Raphael squared his shoulders.

Men. Enough said.

Roman leaned forward. Wind swirled around his feet. The black volhv shot forward, as if his black boots had wings. Raphael stepped out of the way, letting Roman pass him, spun, jumped up, and kicked Roman between the shoulder blades.

The wizard flew into the wall, but didn’t hit it, because an invisible cushion of air stopped his fall. He dropped down to his feet and turned. “Hmm.”

Raphael had a frighteningly grim look on his face.

Roman’s lips moved. A cocoon of black threads slid from the ground in twisted streams, wrapping themselves around him, not quite touching.

Raphael lunged, shockingly fast.

The black threads snapped, binding around Raphael’s wrist. Roman leaned back and drove a crushing sidekick into the top of Raphael’s hip. It sounded like a sledgehammer pounding into a stud. I’d seen it before. It was a sambo kick, part of a personal defense martial art the Russians practiced. Ow. Ow, ow, ow.

Raphael grabbed the black threads and pulled. Roman strained, pulling back.

A small boy ran through the stone arch and headed for the two of them. I jumped off the bench, ran, and caught him.

“Hi!” he said.

I lifted him off the ground. My rebroken arm screamed a little and I shifted his weight to the other. “Hi.”

“They’re fighting!” the boy told me, pointing at the two men.

“Yes, they are. Where are your parents?”

A couple ran through the arch, a tall man and a dark-haired woman in her late thirties, followed by a teenage girl.

“Dylan!” The woman reached for the boy. “I’m so, so sorry. We just wanted to pay our respects to the alpha. We were told he would be here. We didn’t mean to interrupt. We’re trying to get admitted into Clan Bouda…”