Page 11 of Frostbite, Lovebite

"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 pajamasonceand 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 goddamnpay raise."

"Seriously," Penelope said, shoving her tablet into her ubiquitous laptop bag. "Why all the fuss? He cut that severancecheck 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."

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