“Oh my God,” I breathed out as a lumbering stack of bones approached from the left, teetering toward the mage. The other skeleton rose from its unmarked grave, stepped up onto the dirt, and headed toward the man.
“Of all the options at your disposal…” I said as the first skeleton bent over the flailing man and dug bony fingers into his eyes. His screaming wilted me in place. “All the options, like spears and darts and gas… All that, and you chose to unleash the biggest nightmares you have? This is a joke on me, isn’t it? You think my fears are stupid. Well, your humor is terrible, Ivy House.”
The jubilant feeling soaking into me was the house’s mirth, rubbing it in.
“We’ll see who’s laughing when I set you on fire,” I grumbled, hopping to my feet.
Through our now-open connection, I felt Austin rouse and then his sudden gush of terror. Incredible pain bled through as he struggled to stand. He knew I’d been taken, and he intended to come to me even though he was hurt.
“Keep him there, Ivy House—we don’t need him making himself worse,” I said.
I felt the door swing shut, something I probably could’ve done myself if I wasn’t so completely distracted by the little doll bodies competing with animated skeletons to swarm the enemy. Boy had he been wrong in his assessment of this house.
Frustration ran through Austin. A moment later, I felt something weird and wondered if the magical connection had gone haywire. But then I felt his huge body slam into the front door, bursting it to bits. He’d shifted into his polar bear form. So much for Ivy House keeping Austin put.
A doll ran by me, laughing like a mad thing.
I hadn’t known they could speak. That was disturbing news.
The doll took a running jump at the mage, who was fighting with the two skeletons, his magic slapping into them uselessly. The doll’s weapon lodged into the man’s back, and it hung there for a moment, dangling.
The mage’s scream cut right through me. I’d thought horror movies were my thing but this was taking it to a whole new level. The word shocking couldn’t fully describe it, especially when the doll grabbed another knife from a holster on its frilly dress. It pulled it out and stabbed it into the sinking man, trying to climb him like a mountaineer.
“Nope.” I popped up, adrenaline fueling me, about-faced, and ran like hell. Ivy House had this covered, clearly, and someone else could grab the mage’s body if they wanted it. This whole scene was a nightmare, and I didn’t want any part of it.
I could sense Niamh and Earl flying overhead, and I sent a wave of magic so they’d know where to find me, just in case Ivy House had kept my location a secret in order to continue tormenting me. A snap of great wings said Damarion hadn’t been left behind.
I felt Austin before I saw him, a great lumbering beast through the rolling, swirling mists. When he neared, he dropped and slid to me on his stomach, clearly wanting me to hop on.
“Run away,” I said, pointing behind him. “They got him. That guy is dying a gruesome death. Go the other way!”
I climbed on and sank into his fur.
Thankfully, he listened. He turned around and started lumbering back to the house, his pain unmistakable but his determination pushing him on.
That could have been a close call, but the mage had made the fatal mistake of attacking me on Ivy House soil. And he hadn’t felt the need to knock me out—another mistake.
In short, I was lucky. Very lucky. If that mage hadn’t been a self-important idiot, things could’ve gone much differently for me.
I was two for two on lucky escapes. There was a price on my head, though, and the person organizing this sounded like he had a lot of money, a lot of power, and probably a lot of prestige. He’d have mages of all types trying to cash in. Soon my luck would run out.21“Do you need anything, miss?” Mr. Tom stuck his head into my favorite sitting room, tucked away in the back corner of the house. Smaller and cozier than the other sitting rooms, it had lovely wooden carvings at the base of the ceiling that moved in pleasing ways. It was the room I used to decompress, Ivy House helping by changing the carvings as befitted my mood. She was currently attempting to make up for the horror show with the mage by showing me ocean waves and softly swaying trees and flowers.
I still hadn’t forgiven her.
“No, thanks, Mr. Tom, I’m okay.” I leaned back in the recliner, my feet up and my head turned so that I could look out the window at the side yard, alive with beautiful flowers from our award-winning (cheating) gardener. “How’s Edgar?”