Home > Well of Magic (Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill #4)(4)

Well of Magic (Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill #4)(4)
Author: B.R. Kingsolver

He twirled me around and pushed me toward the car, which was sitting with the driver’s door open just outside the smithy. I stumbled forward, clutching the sword in one hand and the key in the other, and fell into the car. I turned to look at him.

“I shall call you when I need your magic,” he said. “A business arrangement. But if you ever come back for another kiss, I won’t be a gentleman twice.”

The wall of trees in front of me opened. I started the engine and drove out onto the street.

Lizzy came by late that afternoon. “You got the car!” she said when I opened my apartment door. It was parked in front of my building, so of course she saw it when she drove up. “Did you get the sword?”

I picked it up from the kitchen table and turned to her. Her face showed puzzlement, then as I put my hand on the hilt and began to pull it from its sheath, I saw the light go on in her eyes.

“He glamoured it? Nice. You can carry it anywhere,” she said. She looked it over, spending a lot of time studying the hilts of both weapons. “He has always been artistic.”

“Have you known him for a long time?” I asked.

She shrugged. “All my life. I guess he’s a cousin or something. His father is my father’s great-uncle.”

“You warned me to be careful because he’s Unseelie. What exactly did you mean?”

Lizzy sighed. “The Fae look at humans as an inferior species, and many of the Unseelie see them as prey. A lot the way vampires do, you know? And like vampires, they don’t think consent is necessary if they want something.”

“So, Oriel might not understand the difference between consensual sex and rape?”

She shook her head. “I’m sure he understands the difference, or at least he understands that you think there’s a difference, but I doubt that he really cares what a human, or any female, considers important. If you don’t want to screw him, you’ll stop him, and if you can’t, then why should he worry about it? Who’s going to punish him?” She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “Why? Are you attracted to him?”

“He kissed me. And then he let me go and warned me that he wouldn’t stop at a kiss the next time.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Is that how you really look?” I was fairly certain that she didn’t have another form, but meeting Oriel made me wonder.

She laughed. “Yes. Pink hair and all. No glamour. The Seelie tend to look more human. Some of the Unseelie are truly bizarre. But Oriel can change his appearance. Not just a glamour, but a true shapeshift into a human form. I don’t know why he has chosen to show you his Fae form.”

“So, he could pass for human?”

“Sure. He went to Oregon State University. That was before I was born, but I’m sure he didn’t attend classes with horns growing out of his head.”

“How old is he?”

Lizzy shook her head again. “Age for us, even a half-Fae, doesn’t mean very much. Oriel is still considered an adolescent, like me. Well, older than me. I mean, he’s older than I am, but whether that means he’s fifty or two hundred, I have no idea. Did you get the car registered?”

“Registered?”

I had suspected buying Oriel’s car was too simple and painless. I had rented cars dozens of times. My Illuminati credit card and a signature—usually false—had been all I needed. Owning a car turned out to be far more complicated. Lizzy found the title and the bill of sale in the glove compartment. She told me where I needed to go to register the car in my name and get my license plates. But first, I had to go get insurance.

I ended up spending most of the following day running around and standing in lines so I could give people money in exchange for pieces of paper. But in the end, I was legally licensed to drive my new car.

Chapter 4

I drove out to the sword club that evening to see Gilles Prudhomme, the ancient vampire swordmaster Michaela Gallagher’s father had brought to Westport almost a century before. Gilles was one of two vampires I had met who were true independents. The other one was my friend Shawna. They never swore fealty to a vampire master, and seemed to have no interest in the kind of power such masters wielded. They didn’t create children, so they had no followers.

Michaela’s country club was private and open exclusively to paranormals and supernaturals by invitation only. Lizzy told me it was one of the few places the Fae could golf outside of Ireland and Scotland. The sword club was a nondescript one-story building off to the side of the fancy mansion holding the restaurant, ballrooms, and a golf club.

Michaela and David Cunningham, the only male dhampir I had ever met, were sparring when I arrived. They left off their practice and drifted over to where Gilles and I were talking. I showed Gilles my new sword, and I thought he was going to have an orgasm.

“Oh, mon dieu, this is the finest sword I have ever held,” he said, swishing it back and forth, lunging with it, and swirling it over his head. Since Gilles was several centuries old and had been a swordmaster prior to being turned, I considered that high praise.

“I can introduce you to the smith,” I said, and watched his eyes light up even more.

Michaela reached out, and Gilles handed the sword to her.

“You don’t see workmanship like this anymore,” she said, studying the hilt. “Lovely.” Michaela was more than a hundred years older than I was, and since paranormals and vampires tended to live a very long time, many of the people who trained at the club had grown up when swords were commonly used. She handed it to David, whose hand was large enough to cover the hilt.

“This does have nice balance,” he said, “but it’s a little light. Do you mind my asking, how much did it cost?”

“Uh, I traded for it,” I said. “I think you’d have to talk to the smith about the price.”

Michaela nodded. “Do you think he could do a custom job for me?”

“I’m sure he could. What I need is a harness so I can carry it. Do you know someone who works leather?”

The sword was forty-two inches long from tip to pommel—five inches longer than my Hunter’s sword, with the blade two inches longer and the grip lengthened so it fit both of my hands—and it would drag the ground if I wore it at my belt. I wanted a harness so I could wear the sword on my back. I wouldn’t be able to draw it from that position, but I had a solution for that.

I explained what I needed, and Gilles gave me the address of a leather worker—a shifter—who could fashion the harness I wanted.

I still didn’t know if the spells I had cast into the sword would work properly, and there wasn’t a good way to test them. My major concern was about the null-magic spell. A Hunter’s sword could cut through most personal shields but not through a ward. Asking someone to cast a personal shield to test if I could cut through it was out of the question.

But I still needed to work with the sword and get used to it. I asked Gilles when he would have some time to spar with me. He was the only person I could spar with using a steel blade. His speed was blinding, and if I did happen to cut him, he healed with supernatural speed. I’d have to cut off his head to kill him.

He agreed to meet with me early the following evening.

I promised him that I would ask Oriel to stop by, then, silently thanking Lizzy and Oriel, I got back in my car and drove to the shifter’s leather shop on the other side of town.

Mike Spence ran a shop specializing in leather clothing for bikers and hunters called Wild Leather. When I walked into his shop, the first thing I noticed was the clothing made from deer and elk hides. I assumed he hunted those animals in his shifted form.

Mike was almost as furry in his human form, with long hair and a full beard that fell to his chest. After Sam, he was the largest person I had met in Westport.

I explained to Mike what I was looking for, and he took my measurements. The harness would go over my shoulders and clasp in the front under my breasts. The sword would then hang at belt level so it could be easily drawn. The scabbard would attach to a set of leather straps, and pulling on a ring set on a strap across my chest would pull the sword up and onto my back. Hooking the ring on a clip at hip level would secure it. To draw it, I would release the ring, and the sword would fall back to my hip. Re-hooking the ring would pull the scabbard onto my back and out of my way.

“Ingenious,” he commented, when we finally had a sketch of my idea. “Give me a couple of days, and I’ll call you when it’s ready for a fitting.”

In the meantime, I bought a leather underbust corset to use as a sword belt, and he assured me he could connect the harness to it when I came back. The corset provided a lot more support for the sword hanging off it than a belt would.

Even so, I had to unhook the scabbard from the corset to get into my car. I wondered if I could rig something to hold it in a handy place when I drove.

The following afternoon, I went by Mikes shop and picked up the new harness. After a couple of adjustments, it fit perfectly, and worked exactly as I hoped it would. I stopped at a café and ate an early dinner. Then I drove out to the country club after sunset.

Michaela and David were there, along with a couple of other dhampir who were evidently curious about my new sword. David was probably the most handsome man—human-type man—I had ever seen, and he professed to have a mad crush on me. As far as I was concerned, his looks were the only thing he had going for him. I wasn’t interested in the least.

Gilles chose a sword that appeared to be an early form of a rapier, with a basket guard and a blade that was narrower than the blade of my sword but wider than that of a rapier. I shielded myself, and then we set to attempting mayhem on each other.

After half an hour, I was sweating like a race horse. Gilles, of course, looked as fresh as he probably had when he stepped out of his coffin at dusk. Vampires had incredible stamina.

But I felt pretty good about myself and my new sword. He had only touched my shield half-a-dozen times, and I had actually nicked him on his sword arm, right above the wrist. In all the times we had sparred, it was the first time I had touched him.

   
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