Creation Mage 6 by Dante King (red scrolls of magic .TXT) 📗

Mullock as tooth floss, was flicked with unerring aim and caught on the elaborate pauldron that protected his muscular shoulder.

The sergeant looked down at the dangling lingerie, hanging only a few inches from his nose, and I saw his nostrils dilate. He swallowed and turned beet red.

“I… Uh, that’s not quite the… Whilst this is, um, naughty it’s not… We’re more after supernatural pharmaceuticals, weapons that are being carried with malice aforethought, that sort of thing, miss,” he managed to say, in a tight little voice.

“Oh,” Leah said in that dreamy, ditzy tone that slipped past your guard and grabbed your libido right by the johnson. “Oh, I see. Well, you can keep that anyway, Sergeant. I’m not much of a one for underwear anyway.”

I might have imagined it, but I was almost certain that I heard five minute clangs as five boners made contact with five armored codpieces. The four other guards shuffled closer to the sleigh in a way that looked to me to be quite subconscious—a definite case of member over mind.

Sergeant Mullock removed the underwear from his shoulder. “Right. Well. If you’d care to declare anything on your persons or in your luggage that you think we might take umbrage with, I’m sure that we can have you on your way in two shakes of a roc’s tail.”

“You heard the man,” Reginald said, his voice dripping with disappointment that what promised to be a lengthy and extremely soporific chat with the sergeant had been mothballed. “For those lucky enough to have pockets, empty them!”

“Excuse me, sir,” Mort said sheepishly, beckoning to one of the guards who had been busy working on a drool patch while he ogled Leah’s legs, “I would like to hand these over to you, although I do so with an assurance that they are absolutely safe in my hands, being what you might call a professional.”

There was a loud rattling, clanking sound as Mort handed over the contents of what looked to be Dexter’s cutlery draw: a roll of blackened throwing knives, a push dagger, a bigger khukuri knife that looked like it would probably be kept in a sheath that ran up Mort’s spine, a couple of nondescript daggers, and a skinning knife.

The guard, arms full of weapons, said, “I’ll just have to run a few checks on these, sir. Make sure they’re not imbued with any overly sinister magic or illicit poisons.”

Mort smiled indulgently at the man and motioned at Mallory in front of him. His pale eyes glinted and his white-blond mutton chops quivered. “Curses and poison? That wouldn’t be fair on the bounties now, would it?”

The man cleared his throat.

“So, she is one of yours?” he asked.

Mort nodded.

“And you are the Mortimer Chaosbane.

Mort nodded again.

The guard tried at a smile. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” he said.

Mort blinked. Then said, quite truthfully, in his eerily polite voice, “It’s not often I meet people who say that.”

The guard cleared his throat again and hurried away, casting a quick glance back at the pale bounty hunting Chaosbane and his ridiculous facial hair.

I had nothing that I’d consider contraband on me, nor did Mallory, Enwyn, or, surprisingly, Leah.

The female Chaosbane did ask the guards whether they fancied strip-searching her, but it seemed that none of them quite had the courage to do that.

I watched as Reginald handed over a large, ornate pipe that I recognized instantly as the apparatus that I’d puffed on the night of the Choosing Ceremony.

“We’ll look after that, Headmaster Chaosbane,” Sergeant Mullock said, taking the pipe carefully from Reginald. “It’ll be safe here for when you or one of your staff members can come to collect it.”

The sergeant sniffed at the bowl of the pipe and his eyes went wide. “Holy smokes!”

“Yes, it’s my own special blend,” Reginald said, smiling wistfully as Sergeant Mullock handed the pipe to one of the guards to take away.

“And I thought I’d had my last surprise today after after going through one of your aunt’s handbags…” Sergeant Mullock said, his eyes watering.

“That must’ve been my cherished Aunt Ruth,” Reginald said.

“Might have been, sir,” the sergeant muttered, blowing his nose. “I can’t recall the woman’s name.”

“Probably Aunt Ruth,” Reginald said. “She’s very much the sort of woman whom you would remember meeting for the first time—as much as you’d try and forget it. What did this aunt look like?”

“I wouldn’t like to say, Headmaster,” the sergeant replied.

“Probably sweet Aunt Ruth. Let’s just say, mate, that if you had a dog with a face like my aunt you’d shave it’s backside and teach it to walk backward.”

I could tell by the look on Sergeant Mullock’s face that he was close to reaching his Chaosbane limit. The look was compounded when Leah performed a perfect backward roll, hopped off the sleigh, and went to stand next to Reginald.

“Are you talking about Aunt Ruth, cousin?” she asked, regarding the sergeant through her big, beautiful eyes and smiling coyly at him.

“Indeed I am,” Reginald said.

“I like Aunt Ruth,” said Leah, stretching her arms over her head so that her midriff showed.

“So do I,” said Reginald.

Leah leaned in toward the sergeant of the border guard. “We have a private little joke in the family, when we introduce her to people,” she said. “This is Aunt Ruth, we say, the ‘less’ is silent.”

While Sergeant Mullock had his brain reduced to cream cheese by Reginald and Leah, Igor was keeping two of the other guards busy on the other side of the sleigh.

“How about this?” he asked one, pulling a joint wrapped in giant leaves and as long as his forearm from his trouser leg.

“Contraband,” the guard said.

“Pity,” Igor said sadly and handed it over. “How about this?”

The guard took the small vial of viscous