“Maybe next time you should be a little more careful where you fight.”
He rolled his eyes, but he was grinning when he did it.
“Thanks for taking the hit,” I said, pulling off my hoodie and pressing the sleeve to his ear, wiping away some of the blood.
Jason shrugged. “The wolf wanted to fight. And maybe I like rescuing the damsel in distress.”
“Just to clarify, I did rescue you back.”
He slid me a sly glance. “Then that makes us even. For now.”
I grinned back, then checked out Michael and Scout. “You two okay?”
They nodded, then helped each other up.
“Well done,” Michael said, then looked at Jason. “You good?”
Jason nodded.
“You okay, Lils?”
I nodded at Scout, but the relief at putting them down—and keeping us all relatively safe—gave way to exhaustion. I suddenly felt like I was about to get the flu—body aching, drained of energy. I needed warm soup and an equally warm bed.
Instead, I still had five twitching slimy things to deal with.
“That’s all I’ve got,” I quietly said. “I can walk out of here, but that’s about the only thing I’m going to be able to do. And we still have a problem.”
We looked back at the creatures.
Jason stepped beside me. “At least they stopped moving closer. That’s something.”
“Since we’ve taken them out, can we please get out of here?” Scout asked.
“We still have to get past them,” Michael pointed out. “And we can’t just leave them here to roam the tunnels. God only knows where they’d end up.”
“Or who they’d attack,” Jason said. “That means we need a plan for part two. We need to get these things out of here, and we need it really quicklike. Scout? Got anything in the hopper?”
“I don’t—I don’t know—”
“You don’t have to kill ’em,” Michael said. “Maybe you can just transport them or something? I mean, since we aren’t sure what they are?”
“What?” Scout said, a thread of panic in her voice. “Because those claws and teeth are for eating carrots? These aren’t happy, fuzzy bunnies we’re talking about.”
I knew that sound in her voice. I’d heard that panic before, when she’d been taken by the Reapers to their sanctuary. I turned around and looked her in the eyes, and saw the terror there. She was panicking again, and God only knew what kinds of things she was remembering.
“You can do this, Scout.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. I don’t remember how.”
“Michael, Jason, and I are here. And those creatures aren’t Reapers. They aren’t going to use magic against you.”
She sniffed. “They might eat us.”
I put my hands on my hips. “You honestly think a werewolf is going to let those things eat his girl and her best pal? You’ve already seen him in action. And that was just an appetizer.”
She only blinked.
“Look,” I said, bravado bubbling up from somewhere I hadn’t known existed. “We only have to kick a little butt here. You love kicking butt. And if nothing else, Jason can shift and we can let his wolf have an early breakfast.”
“Not that I don’t appreciate that offer,” Jason muttered, “but I have no interest in eating those things, wolf or not.”
Scout’s eyes were still frozen on the creatures on the floor.
I tried again. “Scout.” I waited until she made eye contact, then leaned down and put my hands on the sides of her face to make sure she was looking at me.
“Scout, you and Jason saved me from Sebastian and Alex, and we came and got you out of the sanctuary. Whatever our weaknesses, we are a team. And we’re here, now, together. You can do this. I believe in you.”
“I’m not sure what to do.”
Michael snapped his fingers. “I’ve totally got it. Scout, you could flutterby them.”
She blinked at Michael. “What?”
“Flutterby them. Use a transmogrify spell like you did on that Frankenstein thing last year. Remember?”
Scout was quiet for a couple more seconds. “I can’t use a flutterby down here. I don’t have anything. I don’t have an incantation prepared.”
Michael grinned over at her. “Scout, you are an Adept extraordinaire. If anyone could do a transmog spell off the cuff, it would be you.”
For a moment, there was silence. And then she reached out and grabbed his cheeks and planted a kiss right on his lips. “You are brilliant,” she said.
When she let him loose again, his cheeks were flushed bright red, his eyes wide.
Probably the best part of his day, I figured.
“You’re right,” she said. “I can totally do this. But it’s going to take a few minutes,
and I need space to work.”
We all looked down at the creatures, which were beginning to stir again, heads lolling as they fought off the firespell.
“First off,” Scout said, “let’s all back up a little.”
Carefully and quietly, we took a few more steps backward, putting space between us and them.
“And now for something a little more formal,” Scout said. She looked around at the floor of the tunnel, which was relatively dry compared to some of the other areas we’d been in.