Reinforcements?
A flash of light accompanied by a roaring growl, and the wizard leading the reinforcements charge was struck by a bolt of blue lightning.
The wizard collapsed, his clothes smoldering.
I risked glancing back at my squad.
April’s black tattoo was glowing around the edges and blue electricity crackled up and down her halberd. She nodded to me, then shifted her gaze to another wizard.
“You hurt my baby!” Mrs. Tellier screeched.
I ducked when she threw a fireball at me, then applied the base of my palm to her nose.
I was careful not to use too much power—wizards were more delicate than vampires, after all—but I still heard the crunch of her nose breaking before she screamed in pain, slapping her hands to her face.
The wizards ran past their zapped comrade, but they screamed when a purple fireball sailed towards them, narrowly missing and instead setting a bush on fire.
The House lashed out, one of the timbers on the wooden fence yanking free from the ground so it could smack Juggernaut on the shins.
He hopped in place, but April unflinchingly struck another wizard with her blue lightning. “Message received: Don’t damage the House, and the House won’t retaliate.”
“So it would seem,” Sarge agreed. “Tetiana, Medium-Sized Robert—now.”
I finished cuffing the Tellier matron, ignoring her as she cursed me out for breaking her nose, before I pushed her so she also fell onto the lawn—her fall cushioned by a pile of dead but wet leaves.
Fixing my hold on my dagger, I turned toward the House as April and Juggernaut made quick work of the two other wizards—who were all that remained of their reinforcements.
“Wait! Wait!” The Adept held his hands up, his face pale with panic as he faced Medium-Sized Robert. “We will submit for questioning!”
“Never!” Gideon barely managed to get to his feet despite having his arms secured behind his back. “You said we could use the humans for our reputation—standing down now will only harm it!” He tumbled and fell when his father ruthlessly kicked the back of his leg.
One of the humans clustered on the sidewalk yelped. “What did he just say?”
“Idiot!” Adept Tellier hissed at his son before shouting to the other wizards, “You’re going to ruin everything!”
“I told you it wouldn’t work! Humans are stupid and greedy, but the Cloisters would pick up on it eventually, and now you got our baby hurt!” Mrs. Tellier howled.
Got ‘em.
“Stop talking!” Adept Tellier yelled, but he was too late.
The humans’ voices raised to an angry buzz with more of them coming out of their houses to check on the commotion.
“You admit to it, then, that you’ve created accidents to let you conveniently sweep in and save humans.”
I couldn’t place the charming, suave voice. It wasn’t until I looked back at the squad that I realized it was Clarence, his red eyes glittering as he stared the Telliers down, channeling more charisma than I knew he possessed.
“No—we admit to nothing!” The Adept declared.
“It seems the questioning will be very illuminating,” Grove predicted.
“It’s not surprising,” April said, her voice loud so it carried across the lawn. “House Tellier is full of cowards, who won’t take responsibility for themselves and are too weak to maintain any kind of power on their own without employing cheap—and illegal—tricks.”
“House Medeis trash!” Mrs. Tellier spat.
“You’re only powerful because your House has cozied up with vampires!” Gideon said. “You can’t be angry when we use humans to our advantage when you do the same thing with vamps!”
Nice—that’s not a full confession, but it’s more than enough. The Wizard Council won’t be able to wriggle out of punishing them this time!
The Adept looked around wildly, the whites of his eyes showing as he violently shook his head. “No—no! We do not use humans!”
On the sidewalk, the humans murmured.
“It is odd that there’s been so many incidences lately that they’ve ‘fixed.’”
“Yeah, and it’s pretty strange that there was only one bridge with black ice on it.”
“—knew they couldn’t be that nice. They always were jerks about trash days!”
“We’re protecting you!” The Adept yelled. “You need us—you’ll break without us!”
“Now he sounds like a cult leader!” an indignant human shouted.
“No!” The Adept spat, spittle flying from his mouth as his eyes burned with hatred. “If we hadn’t melted the ice, more cars would have been damaged!” As the humans buzzed like a beehive, the Adept’s panting grew heavier and a sheen of sweat covered his forehead despite the cool night air. “We controlled the flames so they wouldn’t get to the library, despite the difficulties it posed to us!”
For a moment, the street was unnaturally silent.
“You controlled the flames?” Captain Reese repeated, her voice a growl. “So, you were responsible for the library fire.”
The Adept realized his mistake and his skin took on a green hue.
“Just because we controlled the flames doesn’t mean we’re responsible!” Gideon declared. “You can’t prove we started it—or that we caused any of the other issues!”
“Maybe not.” Sarge’s voice was as smooth and frosty as a frozen lake. “But we have enough suspicions that we can enter House Tellier and look for proof.”
I didn’t think it was that great of a threat. The Tellier wizards had undoubtedly used their magic to create these incidences. There were no tools for us to find.
Although maybe we’d find notes. That would be enough.
“Blood,” Captain Reese drew her shoulders back.
“Yes, Ma’am?” I stood at attention, waiting for the next order.
“No!” Mrs. Tellier finally let go of her nose. “We do not give you permission!”
Captain Reese ignored her and pointed to the House. “Go—”
“Fine! We did it.” Adept Tellier exploded. “We built the statue for the library to be hollow so we could start a fire in it, unseen, and use it to engulf the gardens. We created the ice on the bridge and caused the fireworks malfunction. We did it!”
The Tellier wizards—either fried by fire or by lightning depending on whether Juggernaut or April had gotten them—stopped trying to stand, and meekly sat on the lawn as if hoping the House would suck them back inside.
“I knew it—they wanted to hurt us all along!” A human shouted.
“No—no!” The Adept chopped his hand down, refuting the sentence. “Never! We didn’t seek to injure any humans! We just wanted to reestablish our reputation.” He still reeked of desperation, but at least he was smart enough to minimize the damage with humans—the more he upset them, the harder the Curia Cloisters would come down on him.