4

"On my way." He yanked on his boots and jacket, slung his backpack on, and paused only to give a quick update to Phil as he stepped out of his office.

Turtle Dove was a local ice cream shop and their specialty was, you guessed it, a turtle sundae.

If you really wanted to overdo it and sleep the rest of the day, you could get a turtle brownie sundae.

He'd had two bites of one a single time and been done with ice cream and brownies for like a month.

Benny and Ronan, however, could knock back one and half of the bastards.

He knew because he'd once watched them eat one and share a second. Insanity.

They were standing outside when he got there, and seeing them after hours of waiting and distracting himself so as not to worry despite telling himself he wouldn't, he could have cried.

It was stupid, they hadn't been going anywhere, neither was he, but whatever else happened the humiliating treatment of his so-called friends around town, followed by being fired for no reason but greed, would linger for a long time.

So yeah, it was good to see the people who'd had his back and always would.

"Where do you have them?"

"Because of your wards and us holding the line here, we've got them roughly—very roughly—trapped between here and Spruce Boulevard."

That was about six blocks.

Not awful, not great.

Spruce was a rough divider between the top third of the city and the rest of it.

Maybe four blocks up, and several blocks running east to west. It was one of only three streets that ran unbroken through the entire town. "They can't go east or west?"

"Could break west if they really tried, which is why we backed off.

If we leave them alone, they tend to not do much wandering.

Last we saw them was in Apple Park.

Hopefully we can pin them there."

"Okay.

I should have everything I need to do that." He looked around.

"Where is Luna?"

Ronan's lips pulled back in a contemptuous snarl.

"When she was told she couldn't just have your wards, she threw a hissy fit and refused to 'do everything from scratch like some lame grunt worker, that wasn't what she signed up for'."

"But…she's a witch.

She knows that's not how it works.

What the hell?"

"Don't ask me, dude," Benny said, shrugging.

"Refusing to do the job she was just literally hired to do though is a direct violation of her contract.

I told her she needed to come and help us, or she'd be facing termination.

She insisted she couldn't work in an environment where she couldn't control the wards, and it was irresponsible of us not to transfer the wards to her, and hostile work conditions to expect her to do everything from scratch right that very second. So she's sulking and we're doing our fucking job. But we need us a witch."

Penelope looked up from the tablet she had been watching closely the whole time.

"They're starting to get restless.

We need to go."

"Let's move."

As the snow and ice were going from bad to worse at a rapid rate, they walked.

No way was a vehicle getting through the mess, and Apple Park was only about four-ish blocks from Turtle Dove.

"I am so fucking tired of snow."

"Spring needs to hurry up, seriously," Traci said.

"I barely feel the cold most of the time but right now I don't know that I'll be keeping my toes."

Benny leered briefly at her.

"I'll inspect you thoroughly later."

Traci giggled, and Ronan rolled his eyes as he caught Match's gaze.

"I'm not making an inspection joke, sorry."

"You'll find something just as bad, I have every faith," Match retorted.

Ronan grinned.

"You two are really cute," Penelope said, somehow managing to look at them, look at her tablet, and look where she was going all at once.

"I dunno if I ever said, but I'm really happy you finally got together.

Now somebody find me an adorable sweetheart who's only desire in life is to cook for me."

Match laughed.

"Penny, I'm pretty sure you just described Drew."

"Drew? Fancy pizza place Drew?"

"Yes," Traci and Match said together.

"Huh." Penelope turned so thoughtful she nearly walked into a tree planted at the edge of a sidewalk.

"Looks like I'm wearing a miniskirt to pick up my Thursday order."

Ronan laughed.

"You could wear pajama pants and a hoodie and he'd still jump over that counter the minute you asked him to do anything.

Date, hookup, whatever.

I saw Match in his pajamas once and had to go outside to cool off."

Match rolled his eyes.

Even though he had no room to talk, because he had only filthy thoughts when Ronan wore his stupid yoga pants.

"It's amazing to me you two were so stubborn for so long," Benny said.

"Like, seriously."

"Like, seriously," Match mimicked.

"Okay, Millennial Paladin.

Get your swords out because it's time to work."

Benny grinned, and all three of them removed their layers as they reached the park.

The first thing Match did once his tattoos were activated was call up warming spells for each of them.

"Let's go, Knights of the Coffee Table."

"One day you'll run out of tables to mock us with," Ronan said cheerfully.

"Then I'll just start over from the beginning, duh."

Benny rolled his eyes.

"Traci, hold the perimeter.

Penelope, hold here and keep watch of your fancy little tracking thing.

Match, what do you have in mind?"

Tossing the burnt match he'd finished sucking on, Match said, "I don't have time for any sort of ward; they'd just degrade them pretty quickly anyway at this point.

Gonna go with fire.

Lots and lots of really hot, really high fire that'll make them hesitate if nothing else.

I can't do the whole park, but I can do enough of it. I'll get three walls up, drive them that way and I'll put up the last one. That should buy you two enough time to take them down once and for all." Since so long as jack frosts had space, they had an unbeatable advantage.

Striking a fresh match, he pressed it to his right arm, where all his defensive spells lie.

Fire was interesting because it was both defensive and offensive, with slightly different castings between them.

In defensive use, the castings were to keep it where it was, in this case as thick, towering walls of flame that even a jack frost would hesitate to trifle with, at least long enough for a pair of paladins to gain the advantage.

Arm aflame, he used his left hand to direct it, pointing and sweeping, walking back and forth until he had roughly a basketball court-sized area confined on three sides.

"You're up, paladins."

Benny and Ronan slipped away through the snow like wolves on the hunt, calling to each other as they went.

Match took out a fresh match and went to stand near the northeast corner of his wall, crouched down out of the way, ready to close the wall the very second the jack frosts cleared it.

Herding them all in would be tricky, as they wouldn't want to go near the flames at all, but Benny and Ronan were more than capable of handling that small hitch.

Sure enough, after several long, tense minutes, the first one came whizzing by, a specter of ice and snow, blue-tinted skin and lips so dark they seemed black.

Their eyes, not that Match could see them right then, would be voids of solid white.

Part of the reason they could be herded, even toward fire, was that they simply could not see well.

There was an ear-piercing shriek and then the second one was through, along with Ronan.

With waves of fire he kept the two moving, just barely dodging and rolling out of the way as streams of ice were thrown at him.

Moments later, doing some unfairly graceful rolling himself, Benny appeared, the final jack frost hot on his heels.

Match lit a flame, rewoke his tattoos, and cast the final wall.

Sealed in.

Nowhere to go until this was over.

He threw fire at the nearest one, distracting it, then the second one even as he ran like hell to get out of the way of the snow and ice pelted at him.

But the distraction allowed Benny and Ronan to take out one of the jack frosts together.

One down.

With just two of them to deal with, it was easy enough to separate them and then take out first the one, and then the other.

Without being able to run, the fire ruining the chaotic flurries they'd normally call up to disorient and escape, it was laughably easy.

Then again, almost anything could be taken down with laughable ease when isolated and caged.

"Fuck.

Me," Match said, banishing his walls as he sank to the ground in relief.

"Later, after I've had about twelve naps," Ronan said.

Match rolled his eyes, but crawled over to where they'd collapsed and leaned against him, kissing his damp shoulder.

"Well done, you two.

Badass as always."

"I dunno, conjuring all that fire in tidy walls is pretty elite."

"Seriously," Benny said.

"Where is my lovely wife?"

"Here," Traci said as she and Penelope appeared in the snow that was already slowly abating.

"I called for a car, should be here shortly.

Jeannette said she'd have plenty of food waiting for us at townhall.

Along with Wright, and all the other people you called." She held out her hands and helped first Benny, and then the other two up. "Sad I could not see you in action, sweetheart, but I'm glad it's over. What a fucking mess, and it could have been resolved hours ago if Wright hadn't used the risk of death and suffering to make his fucking power play. All this over a goddamn pay raise."

"Seriously," Penelope said, shoving her tablet into her ubiquitous laptop bag.

"Why all the fuss? He cut that severance check with ease, we know damn good and well the money is there, so why is he being so bitchy about this? He could have saved himself time, money, effort, and abject humiliation by just not doing any of this."

Match laughed sourly as he pulled his shirt and jacket back on.

"You know his family is descended from witch hunters, right?"

"Yeah," Penelope said.

"Like, twenty different families at least have witch hunters in the family tree.

Just like every white person has racists in the family tree.

You can't really help it. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Racists aren't a thing of the past, and neither are bigoted witch hunters," Match said.

"He puts on a public face, and knows how to mind his p's and q's, but I'm guessing that at least one of his motives was that he still secretly hates my fucking guts.

My mom didn't get along with him either, but what can you do when the town elects him time and again?" He shrugged.

"It was whatever, mostly."

His friends all looked depressed and ashamed, which he hadn't wanted.

"Just let it go, guys.

Thanks to that severance money, Rick is hard at work securing my cottage for me.

He said he'd see to it we closed in twenty days."

"Oh, my god!" Ronan said, rushing and sweeping him, holding him up like he weighed nothing, dropping him only just enough to kiss him.

"Congrats!"

"Working our asses off and you were house shopping," Benny said.

"Jackass."

"I was fired.

Technically I'm still unemployed.

What did you want me to do?" Match asked with a grin.

"Ride is here," Traci said.

"Continue your banter once we're done with all this nonsense."

"Yes, my love," Benny replied.

They piled into the police van that had come to collect them, and once he was holding still the exhaustion hit Match like a truck.

He let his head fall on Ronan's shoulder and dozed all the way back to townhall, even with the unholy jostling of the van and frequent swearing of the driver.

"I feel like we barely recovered from the other night, and now this.

I'm gonna sleep the rest of the week."