Ogres, it turns out, are magic resistant.
I don't know why I was surprised. Most aggressive, sentient nonhumans seemed to be. Maybe it was some kind of forced adaptation: most of the intelligent creatures that couldn't either use magic or resist it got wiped out or subjugated. Humans are nothing if not thorough when we discover an advantage over the things that go bump in the night. It made sense that things like wargs basically only existed in the Nevernever these days.
Ghouls, it turns out, are not.
An ambush predator that mostly preys on muggles, maybe they somehow kept out of the way of human wizards enough to survive as a race. This was unlike Necropolis' bartender, who decided to jump in and back up the two ogres as soon as our group stepped in to help Michael.
I don't think they're ever going to let us back in that bar.
Wasting no time, Michael had scooped up a nearby chair and smashed it to pieces on the face of the nearest ogre, staggering it back. A half-dozen stunners from my crew spread between them only seemed to slightly make the ogres woozy for a moment. It was enough for Michael to dodge a backswing and do some kind of judo move to make the attacking ogre plow through a partition and crush another table.
That was when the bartender jumped in, making upset noises and unhinging his jaw until his mouthful of sharp teeth took up most of his face. For some reason, his predator instincts sent him after Mathilda instead of a bigger threat—like her boyfriend standing next to her with a seven-foot length of oak. I managed to knock several of those teeth out with my swing before the others tried stunning him.
He went right down. I probably should have tried that first. "He surprised me!" I insisted, my friends having the usual shocked disconnect upon seeing a wizard use physical violence instead of a spell.
Michael was doing extremely well against the still-standing ogre, trading blows with the hulking brute in a way that none of us could have managed. While it was hell on the furnishings, Michael seemed to have an excellent awareness for improvised weapons he could grab as he dodged blows. Not that anything in the room was really sturdy enough to survive a couple of impacts against the beast.
Before the judo-thrown ogre could get back up, Percy, Penny, and Alexis had buried it in an array of conjured ropes and transfigured furnishings. Though its bindings creaked ominously, it seemed to be sufficiently cocooned that it wasn't going anywhere soon. But the other one was much more of a moving target. While my friends were better at combat transfiguration than I was, they still weren't anywhere near Professor McGonagall's level. She'd have probably had the guy sinking into the floor.
I had a thought, and yelled at Michael, "Keep falling back!" I extricated myself from our table, lined up with the back door, drew my blasting rod, and started pulling in magic. As soon as the ogre was in between me and the view of the Nile, I told Michael, "Down! Bombarda!"
The exploding charm doesn't usually do much to living flesh. It's meant for blowing holes in walls, not in people. But I didn't want to pulp the ogre, I wanted to take advantage of the shockwave that inevitably results from unstoppable forces meeting immovable objects.
He could ignore the magic, but not the physics of the floor beneath him suddenly turning into a crater. I couldn't really hear him over the explosive thrum of shattering tiles, but I liked to think he made a very surprised noise as he went on a parabolic arc, smashed his head through the lintel over the back door, and belly flopped into the river.
"Yeah! Barfight!" Oliver yelled, and smashed his mug over the head of the tied up ogre. It didn't do much other than make my roommate feel good about himself.
Across the room, Michael had avoided most of the floor shrapnel (because I have excellent aim and also because he was very good at dodging), and rolled to his feet. He took in the catastrophe around him, saw that all the other opponents were down, and started brushing dust off of himself. I figured the look he was giving me was a mix of exasperation and gratitude. Honestly, as covered as his face was with smashed flooring, it was hard to really make out.
Taking pity on the guy, Penny waved her wand at him and incanted, "Tergeo," causing most of the dust to fly off of his skin and clothes in a puff. He seemed pretty bruised up underneath, but considering he'd just been smashed through a floor and fought an ogre in hand-to-hand, he looked great. He had reacted slightly at Penny's spell before realizing it wasn't a threat.
"Did you need anything around here?" I asked, maybe slightly loudly, my ears still ringing from the explosion. "If not, we should probably leave."
As the seven of us strode out into the mid-afternoon sun in the alley, the heat of the day was like stepping into an oven, even in the shade of the building. Not seeing the red cap or his entourage, Michael started to stride back toward the safer section of the district. He asked, "You followed me?"
"Your friend kind of suggested that we should," I told him.
"Ah, you talked to Nakht, the old meddler," he said. "I guess he wasn't wrong. Thanks for the help."
"No worries," I said. "You were there for the red cap? We've…" I grunted in annoyance, unable to finish the statement.
"We've been having problems with sidhe in Britain, as well," Mathilda translated for me. I squeezed her shoulder in thanks. "Seems suspicious that they're all over!"
"The immortal races are moving in a way I've never seen," Michael nodded. "I'm not sure who's behind it. First Mavra, now this, and other rumors of coordination. I don't like it."
"Do you know what they were meeting about?" I asked.
"My Arabic isn't great," the big man admitted, as we finally turned a corner into a shadier part of the district, the temperature dropping several degrees to merely hot instead of baking. "But I think they were organizing some kind of attack. But… not so much on a person as on maybe the city itself? I heard something about acquiring explosives."
"Terrorists," Penny practically growled. "We have to stop them!"
"I'm not really sure where to begin," Michael admitted.
"Well…" Oliver piped up. "That guy I bumped didna keep his robes the cleanest, or his beard that short…"
"Olly!" Alexis smacked him on the arm in delighted disgust. "Tell me you did not pickpocket some creepy wizard's beard hair?"
"I thought t'might be useful?" the quidditch captain shrugged sheepishly.
"I've been looking into tracking spells," I nodded. After the aurors had caught me two years prior, I'd been briefly fascinated by them. "Haven't had a chance to try one yet, but I could give it a go?"
"I don't know if I should be involving a bunch of teens in this," Michael demurred.
"We're nosy!" Mathilda summed up for the group. "If not with you, we'll get in trouble somewhere else. Might as well keep an eye on us?"
"And we're all legally adults anyway," Penny said, failing to point out that Mathilda wasn't quite yet.
Michael sighed, but he was clearly out of his depth and not willing to pass up a bunch of help. "Fine. But if I tell you it's too dangerous, I need you to listen to me."
"Who does that sound like?" Mathilda grinned, elbowing me.
Percy, who'd been turning it over in his head for a while and ignoring the ongoing conversation, piped up, "The old man's name is Nakht? Interestingly, one of the little-known Arthurian knights, thought to be a potential protector of the Grail, had that name. He was supposed to have originally come from Egypt, where Merlin and some knights met him as a street urchin and took him back with them to Britain."
"You don't say?" Michael smiled, eyes glinting like that wasn't a surprise to him.