Well of Magic: An Urban Fantasy (Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill Book 4)

by BR Kingsolver

  “I had such high hopes for last night,” he said, and kissed me. Our bodies pressed together, and I felt heat from him flow into me. I wanted to kiss him forever. I blocked out all thoughts, disregarding what kind of mess I might be creating for myself, and kissed him until the world shrank to the two of us, conscious only of what I wanted him to do to me.

  His lips touched first one eyelid, then the other, his hands running down my back and over my butt. He pulled me to him as his mouth nibbled my throat. One of my hands slid to his butt and the other tangled in his hair. I pulled his head up, and my mouth found his again. A part of my mind questioned what I was doing, but I pushed it away. I no longer cared about anything but his hands, his mouth, and the fire that I needed him to quench.

  It was afternoon, and soft light filtered through the rain hitting my bedroom window. I lay beside Oriel, admiring and languidly stroking his long, lean body. During our love making, he had reverted to his Fae form. The tattooed designs on his neck and shoulders flowed down his torso to his hips, and the soft, short fur growing on the backs of his forearms and hands was repeated on his legs and feet. It was strange but not unattractive.

  “We should probably get up,” I said. “I want to show the ruby to Sam. Want to take a shower with me?”

  “Sure. Can you carry me in there?”

  I slapped his butt hard enough to leave the mark of my hand print, and he jumped away from me.

  “Come on, lazybones,” I said, crawling off the bed and heading for the bathroom. I heard the bed creak behind me when he got up.

  His arms curled around me as I adjusted the water to find the right temperature, and his mouth nuzzled my neck. He had shifted back to his human form.

  “And we can come back here after we talk to Sam?”

  “We’ll see.”

  He spun me around and planted his mouth on mine. As we were kissing, he pushed me back into the shower and pulled the shower door closed behind him. We washed each other and made love again.

  After our shower, we dressed and he drove me to Rosie’s. I left him sitting at the bar looking at the menu and went back to Sam’s office. I hadn’t told Sam about the pendant or the story about the Heart of Magic artifact before, so our conversation lasted almost an hour.

  When we came out, Oriel had finished his meal.

  “Sam and I are going out to his place to experiment with the ruby,” I said. “I’ll give you a call later, okay?” I gave him a quick kiss.

  “Sure.” He stood, lay some bills on the bar, and walked out without another word. I couldn’t tell if he was angry, irritated, or if that was just his normal demeanor, but I thought it was a bit abrupt.

  “New boyfriend?” Sam asked as we headed out the door to his car.

  “Yeah.”

  He gave me a raised eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  We drove out to Sam’s house in the foothills on the northeast edge of town. I had been there a couple of times before. He had a log cabin—not rustic in the least but rather with the feel of a fancy mountain lodge—perched on a rise overlooking the city. Behind the house, snowcapped mountain peaks rose in the distance.

  His laboratory was in the basement. Stone walls and a concrete floor. He cast a ward and then took the pendant from me. A pentagram was painted on the floor, with candles in tall holders set at the points. He set the ruby on the pedestal in the center, then lit the candles, sketched a rune at each of the archbishop points, and said an incantation.

  For the next hour, I sat and watched. I couldn’t tell what he was doing, but the ruby occasionally flared with light. Then he lifted his head and turned to me.

  “Erin, go out the door, wait about a minute, then come back in.”

  I did as he said, closing the door behind me, and waited on the steps. After waiting for two minutes, I opened the door and stepped through. I felt the same buzz as I did when breaching the ward at Rosie’s, but also a bit of a drag, as though something was pulling at me, then I was inside. Sam was facing me with an expectant expression on his face.

  “It feels like the ward on the bar’s front door but with an extra pull to it. I don’t know how to explain it any better. Like for an instant something was trying to pull me down to the floor.”

  He nodded. “Let’s set that spell on the entrances to the pub, and then we’ll just have to wait and see if it has any effect the next time the ley lines scramble.”

  We drove back to the bar, and Sam cast the spells. I called Oriel, but he didn’t answer. I tried twice more, sandwiched around my dinner, then caught the bus back to my place.

  I smiled while I pulled the sheets from the bed and hauled them down to the washroom in the basement, feeling as relaxed and happy as I had in a long, long time. I tried to call Oriel again before I went to bed. Cell phones and computers worked sporadically in Killarney Village, and they did not work at all inside the fairy mound, which was the reason Lizzy spent so much time at Rosie’s doing her school work.

  I figured I’d see Oriel when I saw him. It wasn’t like we’d pledged undying love to each other. But my bed did seem a little colder than normal.

  Chapter 9

  The phone rang while I was on my morning run along the creek. When I answered, Frankie said, “Erin, I need to see you as soon as possible.”

  “Okay. I’m out for a run at the moment, but I can cut it short and head home.”

  “I’ll meet you at your place,” she said and hung up.

  When I got home, she was waiting in the parking lot with Lieutenant Dan Bailey. They got out of his car, and I saw they were carrying a long box. Upstairs in my apartment, Bailey set the box on the table and opened it. Inside were three Knight swords, each with a star ruby set in the pommel.

  “Gee, you shouldn’t have,” I said. “Frankie, I’ve always said Lieutenant Bailey is the most romantic man I know.”

  She snorted.

  Bailey shot me an exasperated look and said, “With you, I’m almost inclined to take that seriously.” Lifting one of the swords from the box, he handed it to me hilt first. “Do you think you could wield that thing?”

  I shrugged. “It depends on whether you mean wield it as a sword or wield it as a magic wand. Sam is the one you want to talk to for spell casting.” I looked toward Frankie. “He did some experimenting yesterday with the stone I have, and cast a new set of wards at Rosie’s using it.”

  “So, you understand what the rubies do?” Bailey asked.

  I told them about how my stone had blocked the negative effects of the ley line disruption two nights before, and what Roisin had said concerning creation of the great artifacts.

  “Were you able to divine anything from studying those things?” I asked when I finished.

  Bailey sighed. “What you’ve said makes sense. I could embed magic into a ruby like that, but you don’t just plant raw magic into an object, unless you’re doing it as a reservoir so you can pull the magic out later. You know, to enhance your magic. Let’s say that you traveled to a place where there were no ley lines. You need something to draw magic from, right? So, a reservoir would give you access to magic, like a battery provides electricity on the go.”

  He showed me a ring on his finger, set with an emerald. I touched it, and it felt like touching a ley line.

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand. There isn’t anywhere in the world where the ley lines are so far away that you can’t draw on one.”

  Frankie chuckled. “For you, maybe, but a weaker mage might not be able to reach as far.”

  “That’s just an example,” Bailey said. “If you completely open yourself up and pull as much magic as you can from a ley line, what happens when you can’t pull any more?”

  “Uh, there’s an explosion. I mean, I can always pull more, there’s just a limit to how much I can hold at a given time. When I fill up, I have to discharge it, and if I don’t, then it discharges itself.”

  They both stared at me.

  “An explosion?” Frankie asked.
<
br />   “Yeah. I blew a lot of stuff up before I learned how to control it. I blew up my parents’ house. Took out most of the neighborhood. That’s when they shipped me off to…well, to where I was trained. I think the authorities classified it as a terrorist bombing.”

  They shook their heads. I didn’t want to go into my personal history, so I said, “You didn’t finish your explanation.”

  “Okay,” Bailey said, “let’s say I wanted to create an artifact that a mage could use to shoot fire. I would need a fire, preferably one created by a pyromancer, to draw the magic from and insert it into an object. A lightning rod and a storm could provide the power to insert electricity into an object, or an electrokinetic could supply the energy. You get what I mean? But where would I get the magic to create an artifact that influences a ley line? Especially something that disrupts the entire world’s magical energy? I’d need such an artifact to draw upon in order to create a related artifact that blocks or filters the disrupted ley energy. I can’t just imagine that kind of magic out of nothing.”

  “I see. Have you ever heard of the Well of Magic, or an artifact called the Heart of the World?”

  Frankie shook her head.

  Bailey pursed his mouth and gave a slight nod. “It’s a myth. Supposedly, The Heart of the World lies at the bottom of the Well of Magic—the place where the ley lines originate.”

  “The Fae don’t think it’s a myth. I was told the artifact—a ruby the size of a fist—is real, and that the Knights Magica have been searching for it for decades.” I pulled the pendant out from under my shirt and told them how it protected me from the ley line chaos.

  “Where did they get that stone?” Bailey asked.

  “I didn’t ask, but I assume they buried the bodies somewhere you’ll never find them. Every Knight’s sword I’ve seen has one set in the pommel.”

  “That still doesn’t help us,” Frankie said.

  “No, it really doesn’t,” Bailey said. “If someone is using the artifact to create these stones, then we would need it to do the same thing.” He was quiet for a couple of minutes, then said, “What you’re saying is that the Knights are using the Heart of the World to disrupt the ley lines, and these rubies are shielding their members from the effects. The big question is, why?”

  “I would think that’s obvious,” I replied. “They plan to take over the world. The only thing that’s stopped them from doing it before this are other magic users. But if they can disrupt the ley lines so they’re the only ones who can use magic, that gives them the upper hand.”

  “How many of these Knights are there?” Frankie asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think they’ve published a census on the internet.”

  The last estimate I had seen recorded in The History of the Illuminati was almost twenty years old. At that time, Master Benedict thought the Knights had increased their numbers to thirty thousand. That was alarming, since the Illuminati only had about eight thousand members. But the Illuminati were more discriminating in their recruitment, taking only the strongest mages. The Order of Knights Magica accepted anyone with magic, including witches.

  I thought about the death of the Prelate. The number of the Order’s members wasn’t that important if, as I suspected, they were planning to take control of the Universal Church. That would add millions of people to their power base. Since I had zero proof of that theory, I didn’t mention it.

  I asked my visitors if they could leave me one of the swords, but Frankie said they needed them for evidence. I would have liked to take one of them to Gilles, who I thought might want to add a ruby-decorated sword to his collection. Bailey bundled up the swords and took them when they left.

  Wistfully thinking I might invite Oriel to take a shower with me, I tried to call him again, but it went to voice mail. I didn’t leave another message since he hadn’t responded to the ones I left before.

  I was toweling myself off when the phone rang. My heart jumped in my chest, and I skipped into the bedroom, trailing water in my wake.

  “Hi, what’s up?” I answered, without even looking at who was calling.

  “Erin?” Lizzy sounded frantic. “I’m at the university, in the library. I need help. Some guys in black uniforms tried to grab me, but I got away from them. They’re waiting for me outside.”

  “Can you hold out for twenty minutes?”

  “Yeah, but hurry. Erin, they have the building surrounded with some kind of force field.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I threw on the remains of my Hunter’s uniform and grabbed my sword and my dagger. Pelting down the stairs, I jumped in my car and headed for the university. On the way, I called Jolene.

  “Lizzy’s in trouble at the university library,” I said when she answered. “Says some guys tried to kidnap her.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” Jolene said. I knew she would bring her brother, and possibly some of the cops.

  My new car flew onto the freeway and over the bridge. I used a burst of ley energy to push a slower car to the side so I could pass it on the off-ramp, and ran two red lights when I got near the university. Not caring whether I got a ticket, I parked in a handicap spot behind the library, leaped out of the car, and shrugged into the sword harness.

  Five Knights stood outside, covering the two entrances at the back of the library. Circling around the building, I saw more Knights watching all the other doors. I found Professor Nicolo Bonato at the bottom of the steps in front of the library’s main entrance.

  My phone rang.

  “Erin,” Jolene said when I answered, “Josh and I are right behind you, across the street from the library. Cindy and Lieutenant Bailey are watching from the other side.”

  I turned and saw Jolene peeking out from the corner of the building across the street. She waved at me.

  “Okay. What are we doing?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  Great. I didn’t have a plan. “Have you spoken with Lizzy?”

  “Yeah. She’s in the women’s restroom nearest the main entrance. We’ve been watching for about five minutes, and whatever ward or barrier they have in place, people can leave, but the doors aren’t opening for anyone who tries to get in.”

  “Pretty brazen, doing this in broad daylight,” I said.

  “Yeah, but no one seems to even notice them.”

  “Does Lizzy have any idea what they want?”

  “She said one of them referred to her as a demon,” Jolene said,

  “That’s the same thing one of them called Shawna.”

  “So, those are Knights Magica?” Josh asked. I assumed Jolene had me on speaker.

  “Yep, and that guy in the black suit is a professor here. He stopped by Rosie’s after the run-in Shawna and I had with those Knights to warn me that I should be careful who I associate with.” I took a deep breath. “Well, maybe I should go talk with him.”

  As I started toward the library, the ley lines heaved and shattered. I felt it happen but wasn’t affected. Neither were the Knights and Bonato. I looked back and saw Josh sag against the building, but Jolene didn’t seem to notice.

  “Signore Bonato,” I called, speaking my poor Italian, “what an unexpected surprise.”

  He whirled about, looking for who was speaking. His gaze fixed on me.

  I strolled up to him and said in Italian, “I’m going to fetch a friend of mine from inside the building. I would hate to see anyone get hurt, but I’m not going to tolerate anyone who tries to stop me. Do we understand each other?”

  Bonato smirked at me. “Signorina McLane, how lovely to see you again,” he replied in the same language, strongly accented compared to the standard Italian I had learned. “I’m not sure what you mean. I’m simply enjoying this lovely afternoon while I wait for some friends.”

  “For their sakes, I hope they’re late,” I said as I started up the steps.

  I didn’t see the magical missile that hit the right side of my personal shield. I grinned at B
onato and stabbed him in the side with the dagger I had concealed in a fold of my coat. It penetrated his shield and caught him under the ribcage. He grunted, and his eyes widened as he stumbled backward away from me. I didn’t pursue him, or waste any time worrying about the other Knights, but broke into a run up the steps.

  I hit the barrier Jolene had told me about and drew my sword. An overhead stroke pierced the barrier, and I followed my blade through. That told me it wasn’t a ward but some kind of a temporary obstruction. A fireball hit my shield as the barrier closed behind me, but I didn’t slow down.

  Pulling open the large door, I slipped through into the library. A women’s restroom was just off the lobby to my right.

  “Lizzy?” I called when I opened the restroom’s door.

  “Yeah.” Her voice was weak, but I traced it to one of the stalls. The door was locked, so I sent power to my hand and yanked the door open with a screech of bending metal. Lizzy was inside, slumped on the seat. The ley line disruption had obviously hit her hard.

  “Why don’t you have one of the rubies?” I asked her.

  “I gave it to Oriel to set,” she mumbled. “Supposed to pick it up tonight.”

  So, I wasn’t the only person guilty of bad timing. “We’re going to get you out of here,” I said, bending down and picking her up onto my shoulder.

  When I worked with the police on an operation the previous autumn, I had seen some maintenance maps of the university. One of the things not generally known was that a network of maintenance tunnels connected many of the main buildings.

  I carried Lizzy down the stairs to the basement and followed a hallway until we came to a door marked, “Authorized Personnel Only.” Grabbing the knob, I subjected the door to the same rude treatment I had given the stall door in the restroom.

  Beyond was another hallway, all concrete with pipes, conduits, and wiring bundles running along the walls and ceiling. The door at the end wasn’t locked on our side, and I pushed through it into the basement of another building. Twenty feet away, a set of stairs led upward.