Home for Horny Monsters - Book 3

The Magician

They came again in the early hours of the morning, moving silently behind the outer wall. They triggered the wards Yuki had set, causing the kitsune to watch their approach through the window with bated breath. She could see them now, ominous shadows that peered over the wall and then vanished, gathering near the entrance for their next attack.

Yuki had spent hours building her defenses back up, her mind and body tired from the effort, hoping to catch some sleep. Now, she watched with eager anticipation, mentally daring them to come toward the house.

The shadows gathered at the entrance in a silent conference, then moved forward into the yard. When the closest figure had traveled about twenty feet, an ice dragon raised its frosted head and bellowed, summoning a storm of ice and snow that blasted the intruders. The dark figures in the yard were quickly lost in a storm of ice, forced to retreat.

Exhausted, Yuki fell on the couch, allowing herself a quick nap, thinking herself safe until morning. She was wrong.

Twenty minutes later, they came back.

The dragon lifted its head again to summon the storm, but they had returned with a trio of small imps that rushed her dragon. The tiny demons ran beneath the dragon as it let loose with the fury of the storm, and her attackers took cover behind the front wall as the imps exploded near the base of the dragon's long neck. The ice cracked all the way through, and when the dragon took a breath to unleash another storm, its head fell off and shattered on the cold ground beneath.

They made it halfway up the yard before they encountered the avalanche she had set up for them. The night sky was blocked by the low fog over the house, and she had used several of her cards to trap several tons of snow on an artificial ramp of ice. With a snap of her fingers, she watched as the snow flowed over them like a river, burying the front yard in several feet of snow and then freezing along the top. The front porch was now packed in, so she monitored the chaos through the eyes of an ice crow she had planted on the chimney.

Several seconds after the avalanche had been triggered, she scowled in anger at the sight of a protective bubble under the snow. The eerie blue glow suffused the yard until the invaders poked a hole in the ice above them, helping each other out. Snow beasts formed all around them, and they made another run for it, vanishing between the lions who were now level with them.

Thinking they had given up, Yuki was able to get another hour of sleep before she felt a change in the composition of the yard. Beneath the snow, she could sense the beginnings of a powerful magic ritual that summoned a storm of its own, a whirlwind of energy that threatened to undo all her hard work.

"Silly mice," she muttered, stepping out onto the porch. Placing a hand on the snow, she could sense them now, tunneling toward her. She tilted her head, frowning. There were at least four of them now. Two had set up a chamber toward the front of the yard, and two others were tunneling toward the dial.

With a sly grin on her face, she drew the Two of Pentacles and held it upside down, pushing it into the snow. It burst into ash and a tremor rocked the front yard, caving in the tunnels and the chamber they had created. Clearly the intruders had been warded against such dangers, because they were able to dig themselves free, but they weren't able to escape the icy spears that she summoned from the ground. Blood was splashed across the snow by the time they left, and she went back into the house to lie down on the couch with some tea.

It was nearly four in the morning when the snow in the yard caught on fire.

Throwing herself off the couch, Yuki ran outside to see a pair of large fire elementals standing atop the lions and sending balls of flame in every direction. The air reeked of sulfur and swamp gas, and five figures now stood just outside the yard, peering in. Each one wore the same blindfold, and Amir smiled at her through the flames.