Wilder Mage Read Free

crunched through the glass on the walk, eased through the open door, and groaned at the damage. The scent struck him first: the smell of alcohol. Why did it have to be the rare bottles of cognac that lay weeping on the old mahogany floor? Why couldn’t it have been the blackberry wine?
    “Damn it,” Justus said, louder than he’d intended.
    “Justus, is that you?” Maggie called out. She wobbled out of the back storage room, dragging the black garbage bag along the floor. Her knobby hand gripped the pull-strings. “Thought you’d be in soon. Your mom okay?”
    “Yeah, she’s fine, grouchy as ever. But”—he waved his hand—“this is a mess.”
    “Oh, do you think?” Maggie said, huffing. “It’s worse in the back and in the antiques. Not much we can save, I’m afraid.”
    Her husband, Emmett, appeared in the doorway of the antique section of the shop with a broom. He leaned it against the archway and went to his wife.
    “Here, now, I’ll do that.” He took the bag and steered her to a chair.
    She sat down and brushed strands of her damp, curly gray hair out of her face.
    “Thanks, sweetie. Sometimes, I’m glad I married you,” Maggie said.
    Emmett’s grin lightened his aged face. “Well, reckon better late than never,” he said.
    Maggie patted his arm and chuckled. Then she flipped an arthritic hand to the back storage room. “There’s more broken than not, Justus. Emmett might have to cook up all that steak in a hurry if the power doesn’t come on soon. The freezer won’t keep that stuff cold much longer.”
    Emmett frowned. Without speaking, he went out the back door and the lid of the smoker banged open.
    “Sounds like he’s starting now,” Justus said. He began running water into a mop bucket from the supply closet by the bar. “No matter what, we’ll have a crowd for noon, so it’ll work out. I’m not going to worry about it.”
    “Aren’t you going to check the antiques?”
    Justus grimaced and shook his head. He slapped a wet mop onto the brown glass fragments, pushing them and the sad remnants of the cognac into a pile. “I thought about it, but…”
    “Couldn’t take it?”
    He shook his head without answering, steeled his courage, and walked to the antique wing of his shop.
    Emmett appeared at the back door, and a waft of smoke came in with him. “I piled up some of that broken stuff in the antique wing, but there’s a lotta glass. You want I should do some more?” he said.
    “Nah, Emmett, give it up for now. No use worrying about it until later. Stay with the smoker, and I’ll get the tables ready for noon.”
    Relief creased Emmett’s face into furrows. He escaped into the back yard.
    The H-shaped building had one wing dedicated to the bar, where Justus offered food and drink. The other wing was his antique shop. A long connecting room held the register, the entrance, and the back door leading to the barbecue.
    Justus stood at the arched doorway to the antiques and groaned. Bits of glass littered the floor, a mixture of toppled shelving, china tea sets, figurines, and pottery. Decisions, decisions; what to sell and what to trash. First glance told him the dumpster would get the majority.
    On the bar side of his shop, the touchscreen games on the mahogany countertop were undamaged. The antique mirror and glass shelving had survived with nary a crack. But the stemware and many of the steins lay mingled with the fragrant remnants of the liquor. Why the Fates chose the bottles of cognac and not the fifteen-dollar wine was a cruel mystery.
    Justus stood a moment longer with his hands on his hips, viewing the damage. He gritted his teeth and, like Emmett, retreated in the face of an overwhelming opponent, away from the mess and back to the bar. How convenient it would be to use magic to clean up the mess. But objects moving of their own accord tended to upset people.
    Instead, he used the old-fashioned method and employed mop and muscle. Maggie helped, but her stiff