Home > Well of Magic (Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill #4)(9)

Well of Magic (Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill #4)(9)
Author: B.R. Kingsolver

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen them. Hang on a minute. I have pictures of them here.”

I waited and heard her shuffling papers around. “Yes, I’ve got the pictures. The swords are all the same. Sort of unusual.”

“And they all have a red gemstone set in the hilt?”

“Yes, they all do. Why?”

“Did anyone mention the swords being spelled?”

“Nope. Let me check, and I’ll give you a call back.”

She called me twenty minutes later. “Yes, the stones look like star rubies, and they’re all spelled.”

“I had a visit by a Fae last night,” I said. “They think those stones have something to do with the disruption in the ley lines.”

“Interesting. I’ll have one of the swords brought up to my office.”

“I have one of the stones,” I told her, “but I can’t figure out what the magic is or what it does. Do you suppose Dan Bailey might be able to figure it out?” As a spirit mage, Dan’s magic was very different than that of most mages. Air, Fire, Earth, Water, and Spirit were the four magical elements. Bailey’s was the rarest affinity, even rarer than a mage with no affinity. Me.

“I’ll have him take a look.”

I took my tea out to the balcony. Wrapped in a magical shield that kept me warm, I could appreciate the beauty of the frost on the edges of the creek. A girl about my age jogged by with a Basset hound. Cute. An older man strolled by. It was quiet and serene, so much different than most of my life. I sat out there and read the news on my phone until a local story waved a red flag.

The next call I made was to my computer expert. “Trevor, did you notice the story in the news about three Universal priests killed in a car wreck last week?”

“No, I didn’t see it. Here in Westport?”

“Yeah. Do you think you could do a search and find out if there have been an unusual number of priests die recently? Not just here, but anywhere.”

“Is this tied to the search you asked Lizzy and me to do the other night?”

“Possibly.”

He sighed. “Sure. I don’t know if I’ll have time today, but I can get to it tonight.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

I was at the grocery store when he called back a couple of hours later.

“Damn, Erin. Someone has it out for the Universal Church. Since the Prelate was assassinated, almost a thousand clergy—priests, bishops, deacons, including seven archbishops—have died. Everything from car wrecks, food poisonings, heart attacks, and almost any kind of illness you can think of. Way beyond what statistics show as a normal mortality rate. North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Australasia. At least two dozen of them were murdered. Another hundred or so are considered suspicious deaths by the local police, but no one has been arrested. You think this is all connected?”

“I’m beginning to think so. I don’t like coincidences. No one has taken credit for the bombing at the Holy City.”

“Well, I took the initiative to expand the search. You can add almost that many deaths from other religions. Prominent clergy and especially theologians.” He paused, and I thought he was expecting a response from me. Then he said, “You’ve heard about all the vampire and shifter killings here in town, right?”

“Yeah. What does Michaela say about those?” Michaela employed primarily vampires and shifters in her waste disposal business.

“She’s advising all her employees and their families to travel in groups. The packs have sent out a general warning to all their members, and Gabriel Laurent is pretty riled up about it.”

“Well, even the vampire Master of the City can’t be totally uninvolved. We live in interesting times, don’t we?”

Trevor laughed. “We certainly do.”

Although I was nervous about my date with Oriel, I dutifully showered and washed my hair, then put on an A-line pleated yellow cocktail dress, low heels, and makeup. When it came time to choose jewelry to wear, I dithered, staring at the pendant he had given me. I wondered who worked the silver setting, and whether it was Oriel. The filigree was exquisite. In the end, I slipped its chain around my neck and added a pair of dangly garnet earrings.

The knock on my door startled me. The building had limited access, and people needed to buzz me to let them in. I looked through the peephole and saw Oriel standing there. Rescinding my wards, I opened the door.

Whatever I might have expected, the way he was dressed stunned me. He wore a silver frock coat over black leggings and a Renaissance ruffled-front shirt with flared lacey cuffs. The only thing missing from his eighteenth-century costume was a tricorn hat.

“I fear I’m underdressed,” I said.

“Not at all. I like looking at your legs. Shall we go?”

I reset my wards, and he ushered me down the stairs.

“Is this the fashion when you were young?” I asked.

He grinned. “I’m still young. But I’ve never followed fashion—I prefer to set it. A friend of mine is a seamstress, and I asked her to make something special for tonight.”

“You only asked me out last night.”

“Magic.”

His car was the second surprise. It was a two-seater sports car that looked like a miniature mid-twentieth century Rolls Royce. Fire engine red.

“I never saw a Rolls sports car before,” I said as he opened the door for me to get in.

“One of a kind. You wouldn’t expect me to drive anything mundane, would you?”

No, but I did expect him to pretend to obey speed limits. He hit the freeway on-ramp doing ninety and accelerated from there. It was twelve miles to Killarney Village from my apartment, and we made it in five minutes. We passed a cop car, and I expected a reaction, but we might as well have been invisible.

“A glamour?”

“Of course.”

Once we arrived at the Village, he slowed down to a crawl, and I breathed a sigh of relief. The Village streets were windy and uneven, and I knew from experience that they randomly changed between my visits. Oriel pulled into the same underground parking lot Trevor had once used when he took me to the Village. The stairs, however, led us to a different place than I had gone before.

The restaurant entrance was a bowered pathway between a large rock and a huge tree. The end of the tunnel ended in a black wall. Taking my arm, Oriel stepped through, and I felt a veil, similar to that covering the entrance to Rosie’s. We found ourselves in a cozy little restaurant lit by candles on the table and magelights in sconces on the wood-paneled walls.

A short woman with skin that looked like bark escorted us to a balcony overlooking a pond surrounded by ancient oaks. A table with a white tablecloth was set with crystal dishes. Swans glided through the water, and golden fish swam beneath the surface. Although we seemed to be outside, it was comfortable. That was in stark contrast to the Westport weather. When we left my apartment, it had been raining and the temperature was in the forties.

Oriel poured golden-colored wine into our glasses and held his up for a toast. “To Erin—captivating, exotic, and mysterious,” he said.

I felt myself blush. “Flatterer.” I took a sip of the wine, and it tasted like sunshine on a spring morning. It never would have occurred to me to describe a taste like that before.

“Oh, I’ve barely gotten started. I want to feel you fall in love with me, for that is the finest feeling in the world.”

With a chuckle, I said, “I’m sure you’ve felt that many times.” He was so handsome that I was sure his conquests were legion.

“A number of women have been infatuated with me, lusted after me, yes. It’s not the same. Drowning in love is something I’ve experienced only once, long ago. When I met you, I realized it could happen again.”

Flustered, I searched for something to say. What came out was, “You don’t even know me.”

“I think I know your heart. If you let me, I think I can heal it.”

I shook my head. “No one has broken my heart.”

“You have been betrayed. Maybe not by a lover, but you discovered everything you once believed was a sham.” He took a sip of his wine, studying me over the rim of his glass.

He was making me uncomfortable. “Lizzy said you are cousins.”

“Do you know of Lizzy’s gift?”

“She’s a seer,” I replied, the light going on.

“Yes. My grandmother—her great-great grandmother—was a powerful seer. Half-Fae, half-witch. So, you see, we have Fae blood from both sides.”

“How old are you?”

Oriel chuckled and winked at me. “Not ancient. I was born in 1943, and graduated from the university in 1969.”

The year Shawna was turned. She was twenty-one then, so he was not much older than she was, but she would never age. Still, he was only in his mid-seventies. Lizzy had said the Fae considered him an adolescent.

“Old enough to be my grandfather,” I said, and struggled to hide a smile at his horrified expression.

“I am not a cradle robber.”

“So, you would date Lizzy?”

“That’s different. We’re related.”

“And you’ve known her since she was a baby,” I said, letting my smile manifest. “She’s older than I am.”

He opened his mouth and closed it a couple of times, searching for something to say.

Our waitress appeared and set plates in front of us. The food looked like sparkly mushrooms—sparkly green and red mushrooms, like Christmas candy. Following Oriel’s lead, I took a bite and discovered they were sweet, with a bit of fire, as though they had some kind of spicy pepper involved in their preparation.

The next course was a fairly normal salad with cabbage, carrots, and apples artistically arranged with a slightly sweet dressing. Following that was a salmon filet in a wonderful sauce. The flavors of everything were exotic, unlike anything I had ever tasted. That was followed with three small boneless birds stuffed with something and covered in a glaze. Each of them provided exactly three bites. Every dish was accompanied by a different wine. By the time herbal tea and some small cakes were served, I was definitely lit as brightly as the candles, lightheaded and giggly, and the room had taken on a bit of a glow, too.

   
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