Page 29 of Chosen Spirits (The Bartender Mage #4)
Spinning around, Rahul gripped Tucker's forearm, hauling him to his feet. Tucker had a moment to admire the fire in his boyfriend's eyes and the warm scent of fierce love before Joseph's wind spirits ripped Rahul away, and forced himself to his knees.
Tucker growled, then immediately regretted it.
Joseph was making an air vacuum, one of the few surefire ways to get past a shifter's raw power.
He channeled as much beast as he could into his form for the added strength, and managed to get to his feet, but couldn't take a single step.
He saw Joseph's brow furrow, conflicted, but the druid continued to trace his sigils.
An approaching scent of Leif and alcohol drew his attention, and he worried for a split second that their cub was about to do something crazy, but then he felt it as a glass bottle prodded against his open hand and he realized.
Him and his telekinesis.
Tucker drank the potion down without hesitation. At first he felt nothing. What had Leif given him? A strength potion? Glitter Armor ? Then he nearly laughed, realizing he wasn't fighting for air anymore.
Cardio-Up , modified. The one that Leif had specially crafted after Tucker had admitted a fear of being buried alive, and that removed his need to breathe.
Tucker met Joseph's gaze, and gave him a wide, fanged grin.
He still couldn't move, at first, but then he heard Rahul whoop, and a crash of water nearly knocked Joseph off of his feet. In the next instant, there was a burst of flame in the air, and the water flashfroze as Rahul drew the heat out of it.
Guess a water-focused Blizzard potion doesn't need any external ice, not when it's being wielded by a djinn with command over fire.
A flash of red light from the shore marked another chain being demolished as Edith continued her task.She spared them the briefest glance. "Ren, destroy the alchemist's gear, and bind the nuisance. I won't need much more time."
"Like hell you will!" Rahul roared. Water, ice, and fire lashed out, but splashed off of Ren's barrier. "Pup!"
Tucker spun away and ran back towards Leif, but he couldn't move fast enough.
He watched as a number of conjured steel bands wrapped around both Leif and Mina at their position beside the house, and several more slashed through his precious kit, destroying many of its contents.
He heard Leif cry out in pain, before his mouth was muffled.
Except…
He sniffed the air just as the illusions vanished, and he understood where the two had really gotten to.
"Lights!" Mina said dramatically, her and Leif instantly appearing next to I'ari's barrier, none the worse for the wear.
"Camera!" she continued, putting her top hat on her head before slamming her hands against her mom's ward. Leif drank a potion, then put himself in front of her, glittery armor forming across his skin.
"Annnnnd…" Mina drew out the word, her hands glowing an ominous black, causing the ward to quickly change color as well.
" Acatoth!" Edith shouted, and her hammer spun towards the pair. Tucker heard Rahul cry out, but her hammer passed harmlessly through them, though it did strike I'ari's ward in a spray of light, cracking it.
"Action," Mina finished, giving a sultry wink before vanishing. No Mina, no Leif, and no black ward. Just more stage magic and misdirection.
" Sha latha !" Ren said. "My staff!"
Mina's cackling laughter could be heard ringing through the air, and then her real form appeared next to Tucker. In her arms, she held both Ren's and Joseph's staves that she'd collected while invisible, and in their place she had left a pair of useless tree branches.
Rahul was quick to harry the exposed Ren with ice, while Joseph stood there frozen from indecision.
Edith turned towards them, glaring, then doubled over, clutching her head as an emerald shockwave shattered her conjured weapon, courtesy of Leif's Spirit Bomb cocktail.
Grinning proudly, Leif jogged over to their position, helped along by Rahul.
"You four…" Edith began, wincing, but stopped when a crashing tentacle struck Ren's failing ward, shattering it in a hair-raising peal of glass on glass.
The three arbiters hurried further away from the shore, where immense tentacles lashed and flailed, no longer bound by the slowed time, destroying brush and even trees that were too close to the shore.
"That's it, push," a woman's voice said.
Lady I'ari Lanathanon was striding with purpose towards the shore, heedless of the danger. She knelt by the edge of the water, reaching her hands into the lake.
"You're doing great, dearie. So brave, so wonderful. You're nearly there, just one more big one. "
Tucker felt Leif clutch at his side, while Rahul held onto Mina, making sure she didn't run headlong down the shore.
After a final quiver of the tentacles, they seemed to relax, then obscured I'ari. There was a blur and a quickening, as if the slowed time was rebounding in the opposite direction, and then I'ari was walking backwards, carrying something in her arms.
"I'm so sorry, dear," she said to the eldritch being. "The summoning tethers are about to break and send you back. But you have my word, I will watch over your child like one of my own, and will hold out hope that you two will meet each other again soon. Te ava lia'ti ."
There was a final stillness to the air, and then being, chains, and frothy waters all vanished, returning the lake to its placid state.
Lady I'ari strode barefoot up the shore towards them while bouncing the child in her arms. "My, aren't you the precious one! And look, you've already disguised yourself in mortal flesh. Such a good job you did!"
Tucker saw I'ari plant a kiss on the forehead of what looked like nothing more than a one-year-old elven toddler, before settling her gaze on the seven of them. She stopped a few feet away.
"Lady I'ari," Edith began.
" Silence !" the royal First Elf said, and such were her words that even the air and sunlight seemed to stutter. "You have broken hospitality , and need now suffer the consequences."
The smell of fury and apprehension mixed in the air, and Tucker felt Leif clench his arm.