Slaying Monsters for the Feeble - Annette Marie Page 0,8
for their fifth catch of the month—with Taye’s help, they tracked the notorious Sunset Beach Stalker all the way from Stanley Park to Yaletown … only to discover they were, in fact, tracking a dog.”
Laughter burst through the room. I craned my neck, trying to figure out who Darius was referring to.
“Over there,” the woman beside me murmured, pointing at the three men sitting in front of Tori. “Kai, Aaron, and Ezra.”
“One very friendly Labrador Retriever,” Darius added over the group’s boisterous amusement, “was promptly returned to his relieved owner. Aaron, what was the bounty?”
“I got two hugs and a kiss on the cheek,” the red-headed guy announced proudly. “Kai got her phone number.”
A chorus of wolf-whistles answered him. The dark-haired man beside Aaron casually waved off the cheers, and Tori rolled her eyes at them.
The woman beside me leaned back in her chair. “I thought the three guys were trouble enough, but then they adopted Tori as Mischief-Maker Number Four.”
I blinked owlishly.
Chuckling, she offered her hand. “I’m Zora. You must be Robin, the new contractor.”
I shook her hand. “Nice to meet you. That’s a big sword.”
Way to demonstrate my smooth conversation skills.
Zora grinned at my awkward observation. As Darius moved on to incident reports, starting with a sorcery array that had exploded—in the parking lot of all places—she unbuckled her baldric, slid the weapon off, and leaned it against the wall.
“I was on a vampire’s trail,” she whispered, though there was no chance her voice would carry all the way across the pub to Darius. “Almost had the bloodsucker, but he gave me the slip.”
Vampires? The word alone alarmed me. “Were you out there by yourself?”
“Only at the end. My partner had just left when I caught the trail.” She leaned closer. “Don’t mention to the guild officers that I went after a vamp on my own. That’s a guaranteed write-up.”
Now that was what I liked to hear. A guild that took safety seriously.
“What are you smiling about?” Zora asked, amused. “Are you planning to blackmail me?”
“Oh!” I hadn’t realized I was smiling. “No, not at all. It’s just that my last guild wasn’t very safety-oriented.”
“The Grand Grimoire, right?” She nodded. “I’ve heard that about them. I also heard they’re under MPD investigation right now. Decent chance they might get shut down.”
I hadn’t heard that, but considering the GM had covered up a murder and sold me to a rogue guild, I wasn’t surprised.
“While we’re on the topic of experimental magic,” Darius said to the room at large, “it seems our local MPD precinct has added a new agent to their roster—a formidable young abjuration sorceress. Though I’m sure you would all love to meet her, if for some reason you aren’t using our well-equipped atrium or lab, let’s keep the second rule in mind, shall we?”
Laughter swept through the room and I perked up curiously. Second rule?
Zora whispered, “Where’s your friend? The sorcery apprentice?”
I tapped my phone, lying on the tabletop, to wake the screen. Amalia’s latest message: I just called a cab. See you soon. So much for being “on the way.”
“She’s running behind,” I sighed. “At this rate, she’ll miss the whole meeting.”
Zora smiled conspiratorially. “Anyone who misses without a solid reason gets the minutes treatment.”
“The what?”
“They have to copy the entire meeting’s minutes, by hand, and present it to an officer. And they’re automatically volunteered to take minutes for any and every meeting over the next four weeks.”
Oh, Amalia would love that.
Zora’s grin took on a wicked edge. “Once, a couple of years ago, Kai missed the monthly meeting. That month, Aaron and Ezra organized a dozen completely pointless meetings with almost every member of the guild and made him take minutes for each one.”
I glanced at the three mages and the red-headed bartender. At the other end of the room, Darius was describing a near miss, where a mythic had almost backed their car over their teammate. The room was quiet, Darius’s aura of authority holding every member spellbound.
I fidgeted with my phone, lining it up with the table’s edge. “Can I ask … what class is Darius?”
“He’s a luminamage—a light mage.”
Oh, a light mage. That explained the “blindness magic” Zylas had claimed Darius had tried on him.
“He’s an excellent guild master. You’ll find him very different from the Grand Grimoire’s GM.” She cast me an amused look. “But don’t be fooled. He has his soft moments, but he’s a hard-ass. No one messes with Darius King.”