We went back inside.
The dark mage was kind of impressing me, as he was about two thirds of the way out of the war mage’s cuffs already. That put him ahead of everybody else, including Tomas, who apparently wasn’t as smart as he was pretty. Because he currently resembled a white tumbleweed.
A large one.
That was a problem since we had a limited amount of space in here. “Don’t struggle!” I yelled, to get through all the layers of webbing. “They pull power from you; they only get stronger if you struggle!”
I couldn’t tell if he heard me or not.
I sat back down.
The girl had found her voice, and she glared at me from her cuffs. “What the hell is this?”
“On the plus side,” I told her. “We didn’t all die from plummeting about sixty stories. I guess purses have decent wind resistance. On the negative . . .” I trailed off, looking at Louis-Cesare, who had started attacking the tumbleweed. “What are you doing?”
“Freeing Tomas!”
“Any particular reason why?”
“We’ll need him.”
“We’ll need him if he’s going to play nice,” I pointed out. “Otherwise, we have enough problems.”
Like the fact that the mage had just freed himself. But, surprisingly, he didn’t attack. He just walked over and stuck his head out of the door, AKA the top of the purse. He was there for a while.
“What are you talking about?” the girl demanded. “What negative side? And what did you do to my brother?”
“Standard knock out potion. He’s fine—”
Her face flushed angrily. “What gives you the right—”
“You did, when you decided to tear the city a new butthole. Seriously, what the hell?”
She looked as belligerent as someone in handcuffs can, which as it turned out, was pretty damned belligerent. Then she looked at the cuffs, and something about that gaze had all the hair standing up on the back of my neck. I remembered what Louis-Cesare had said about not letting her look at me.
Probably because of that, I thought, as my brand-new handcuffs fritzed out, despite the fact that they were guaranteed.
Against anything but a jinx, it seemed.
“If you don’t want that to happen to you, I’d better get some damned answers,” she said, getting in my face.
Or trying to. The mage was back, striding in between us, and heading for . . . the beer fridge. He grabbed a six pack and took it off to an empty piece of wall, where he squatted down and proceeded to chug like a freshman in a frat house.
“Hey!” I said.
“You have beer?” The bruiser asked, sounding hopeful.
I hadn’t noticed him coming around, but he was watching the mage enviously while still hog-tied on the floor. His buddy hadn’t bothered to free him, and he didn’t offer any beer. I sighed and started sorting through the remains of my stash, calling out the names of various crap beers, because I am not picky.
“Anything,” the bruiser rasped. “I’m parched.”
“You want something?” I asked my hubby, who was currently shoulder deep in tumbleweed.
“No.” Louis-Cesare’s voice was muffled. It was also pissy. He was having a moment.
I left him to it.
“How about you?” I asked the girl.