“And aren’t we fierce and tough, just like them?” Aunt Florence went on.
“Tougher, if you ask me,” said the third woman, short and round with a kind face and balled-up fists. “You don’t see me laid up for a week with a stuffy nose, do you? Or crying because I got stabbed. No you do not.”
The other women nodded.
“And you know what your mom said?” Aunt Florence asked Ulric. “She said that even non-magical Janes fight. They fight, shifters fight, mage women fight—why can’t we fight?”
I wrapped my hand around Austin’s forearm, needing a little grounding because I remembered having a conversation about this with Patty. She’d been bent out of shape that she’d never gotten to be a guardian, and I sympathized. That had been some time ago. I’d had no idea it would snowball into Ulric’s Aunt Florence randomly showing up in Kingsley’s territory ready to fight a big battle.
“Okay, but…” Ulric lifted his hands in confusion. “You can’t fight, though. All those other women were trained for it. You…weren’t. How do you think you can help us?”
“I can cook,” the willowy woman said. “I have great knife work. I can cut out someone’s gizzard, sure as I’m standing here.”
“I’m not afraid of nothing,” said the kind-faced, clearly very stubborn woman, fists still balled.
“Ask me how many guardians I fought off in my day during raids. Ask me.”
Nessa beamed at her. “How many—”
“No.” Ulric held up his hand to stop her. “Don’t encourage this. Aunt Florence, I get that you want to fight, but baby steps. Starting off in a battle like this is madness. What did Uncle Tom say when you left?”
“He said, ‘Woman, where is that sandwich you promised me?’ That’s what he said. Well, you know what I said?” She paused with raised eyebrows. “I said, ‘Same place as the last orgasm you gave me. Nonexistent!’”
The women all howled, bumping into each other and holding their stomachs.
“That’s such a gargoyle thing to say,” Nessa said with a wide smile. “Seriously, I love their culture.”
“Anyway, I mentioned all this to my book club,” Aunt Florence continued, and I noticed the rest of our people were coming up behind us, rejoining the group after being sent away by Kingsley. “And you know what? They agreed.”
“They didn’t just agree, though,” the willowy woman said, her hands on her hips. “They passed it on.”
“Yes, they did!” Aunt Florence nodded. “And lo and behold, a lot of young garhettes felt the same way in their bones. So you know what we said? We said, ‘Ladies, let’s go make a difference.’ And that is exactly what we’ve come to do, Olly. We’re going to make a difference. If we all go down with the ship, so what? At least we are finally living!”
Ulric stared at her, utterly at a loss, I was sure.
“Ladies.” Tristan walked around the crowd with a smirk and all sorts of swagger, holding out his hands as though greeting friends. “Ladies, hello.”
“Oh my…” The willowy woman turned to the others with a disbelieving smile. “It’s the former Gimerel lead enforcer!” she whispered in barely contained excitement.
“He’s so handsome,” the kind-faced woman said, stars in her eyes.
“Have I died and immediately come back younger and better looking?” Aunt Florence whispered to the other two.
“No,” Willowy replied.
“Damn,” Aunt Florence responded, and Nessa started laughing uncontrollably.
“Ladies, it’s so good to see you.” Tristan stopped in front of them, smiling down at them. “I fully support garhettes showing their mettle in battle.” The ladies all smiled sheepishly. “How many of you should we expect, do you think?”
“Oh…” Aunt Florence blew out a breath, and the three exchanged looks. “At least fifty, wouldn’t you say, Tekkie?”
“It’s really hard to say,” said the willowy woman, Tekkie. “You know…they’re all excited to take up the cause, but there’s the matter of getting out here—young people don’t have all the money in the world—and there’ll be those who get cold feet and all of that. Almost all of our book club is coming, though. That’s fifteen right there.”
“A good few younger garhettes are talking about coming,” the other woman said. “At least twenty.
At least. I mean…they made their own armor! So they’re definitely coming, don’t you think?”
“And you know your mom,” Aunt Florence told Ulric. “When she finds us here, she’ll tell everyone who’ll listen, and more will come after that. We might have a good few garhettes show up to help.”
“Okay, okay.” Ulric put up his hands. “Aunt Florence, I love this idea, and I think it’s a good one, long term. But we have precious little time to get everything here organized, with trained fighters, and we just can’t devote the ma— people power to figuring out how…or where, I guess, you could fit. We don’t even know how we’ll all fit together.”
“Nah, listen.” Nessa pushed through Ulric and Tristan before putting her hand to her chest. “I fight. I have very little magic, two knives, and I follow around a vampire who always seems to be in the right place at the right time—”
“She’s my shadow,” Edgar called from somewhere in the back.
“If you have courage and a trigger finger”—Nessa mimed pulling a trigger—“then I can get in a shipment of magical guns. They’ll be older, but I know exactly where a good few are stockpiled. I got
people who can get them out here—for a cost, obviously, but we’ve got Jessie Warbucks, so we’ll be good. If you want in the action, I can get you in.”
“Except it is going to be incredibly dangerous,” Ulric said, half begging now. “Aunt Florence, Mom isn’t ever actually in the action. She’s on the periphery.”
“Well, that’s fine,” Aunt Florence replied. “I can shoot a magical gun just fine from the periphery.
I don’t care.”
“No, that’s not—”
“A female gargoyle should have female guardians,” the kind-faced woman said, her balled fists on her hips now. “That’s just logic.”
“You know what?” Tristan once again drew their attention, his hands out, now shepherding them back toward the car. “You have some very good points. Very valid points. You’ve given us a lot to think about. What do you say we go grab something to eat and let the alphas talk it through? Because your ability to fight isn’t the only consideration. They’ll need to make sure we have room for everyone, and there are some Khaavalor guardians coming in as well.” All their eyes lit up. They were clearly not from one of the higher-status cairns. “How’d you…” He glanced around. “How’d you get to the territory, by the way?”
“Oh”—Aunt Florence waved her hand—“we took a bus from the airport, but it would only go as far as… Oh now, what was that town called?”
“Sa… Seh…?” Tekkie screwed up her face in thought.
“Anyway, one of the towns close by,” Aunt Florence went on. “There was this cute little café, so we stopped for a cup of coffee and a slice of coffee cake and got to talking to the woman who works there. Lovely person—”