Knights Magica: An Urban Fantasy (Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill Book 5)

by BR Kingsolver

  “You’re aware that shifters tend to have the hardest time pushing through the ward at Rosie’s, aren’t you?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but better than having another incident like what we had last night,” Thompson said.

  The ward on Rosie’s had originally been cast by an Elf, according to Sam, and he simply renewed it every year on Beltane. The Wolf’s Den was even closer to the nexus where two major ley lines intersected than Rosie’s was, and as I drew the first rune, I could feel the power flow into it. Four runes—top, bottom, and both sides of the entrance—and then draw power into them. That was the easy part. Sam then took several vials and painted the runes again using the liquid from each of the vials.

  “These contain the DNA from each of the races we allow through the ward,” he explained. “Witch, mage, shifter, vampire, Fae.”

  When he finished, I pulled more ley line magic into the runes and watched the doorway glow for about five minutes, then the glow faded.

  “Let me know if you have any problems with it,” Sam said.

  “The Knights will still be able to get in,” I said.

  “Yeah, I may end up asking you to come out and fix that,” Thompson said. “But for right now, I’ve had more trouble from those damned Apostles than I’ve had with the Knights. We’ve had a few Knights in, but they’ve behaved themselves so far.”

  As we walked back to his SUV, another large, black SUV pulled into the parking lot.

  “Speak of the devil,” I muttered to Sam.

  Five Knights got out and walked up to the front door. The driver got out and stood by the vehicle, staring at Sam and me.

  “We’re closed today,” Thompson told the men when they approached him. “Come back tomorrow night.”

  “We’ve come to tell you that it’s better if you don’t open at all,” one of the Knights said.

  “That would make it hard for me to make a living,” Thompson replied.

  “Go back to the forests,” the Knight said. “We don’t need any demon spawn in the city.”

  “That’s a rather intolerant attitude,” I said to Sam.

  “Aye. I begin to see what you told me about them.” He took a deep breath. “Should we interrupt now or wait until the fireworks start?”

  “Let’s give them a chance to back off.” I reached into the car and grabbed my sword. Sam raised an eyebrow at me holding something he couldn’t see, but didn’t say anything.

  Several shifters emerged from the building and spread out behind Thompson.

  “Well, everyone has their opinion,” Thompson said. “I’ll take yours under advisement. Now, this is private property, and I suggest that you leave.”

  One of the Knights kindled a fireball. Before he could throw it, a sudden gust of wind hit him, buffeting him off balance and blowing the fireball across the parking lot away from the building.

  “I think that is enough,” Sam said. “You heard the man. Get back in your car and leave.”

  The Knights turned in our direction, and the guy next to the SUV let loose a bolt of lightning. It hit Sam’s shield but didn’t penetrate. I responded by firing a ley missile at the SUV, and the front half of it disappeared. That got everyone’s attention.

  “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary,” Sam breathed.

  “I suggest you start walking,” I called, “while you still can.”

  Everyone gaped at me. The Knight closest to Sam and me drew his sword and started toward us. I didn’t know if the Knights’ swords could penetrate my personal shield, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way. I drew my own sword, and the Knight slowed down as it became visible.

  “Do you really want to dance, Sir Knight?”

  He leaped toward me, his sword cutting through the air toward my head. I blocked his stroke, and steel-on-steel sang. I whirled away from him, then reversed, ducked, and swung low. My blade bit into his calf as he was slow to block. He cried out and stumbled backward.

  Three of the other Knights drew their swords and started toward me. Before they came close enough to engage, I heard sirens, and two unmarked police cars roared into the parking lot. One screeched to a stop next to Sam’s SUV, and the other pulled up in front of the building.

  Lieutenant Dan Bailey and Detective Sergeant Cindy Mackle jumped out of the car near me, and Josh Carpenter and a woman I didn’t know got out of the other car.

  “Police!” Dan shouted. “Everyone, stand down.”

  The electrokinetic who had been standing next to the Knights’ now-disabled SUV shot another lightning bolt in our direction. It splashed off Bailey’s shield, and I saw a flash of anger cross his face. He sketched a rune using both hands and said a Word. The Knight froze in place. Then Bailey turned back toward the rest of the Knights and cast another spell.

  The five points of a pentagram signified Spirit, Earth, Fire, Air, and Water. The rarest magical affinity was Spirit. A spirit mage was also sometimes called a spell weaver, someone who could use ley line energy to cast spells, similar to what a witch did. But a spirit mage could do it on the fly, without the apparatus, preparation, incantations, and other rigamarole. They simply sketched a rune, said a Word, and twisted ley energy according to their will. I could do some of that, as could Sam, but Bailey was a true spirit mage. I had seen him use that spell before, when he projected a shield around another mage to immobilize them.

  “I said, stand down, and I meant it,” Bailey said. “Mr. Thompson? What’s going on here?”

  “We’re closed for the day,” Thompson answered. “They got upset and thought burning my place down was an appropriate response.”

  A few minutes later, a large police van showed up, and all the Knights were disarmed and herded into it.

  “They’ll make bail before I get back to the station,” Bailey said, “and the Archbishop will probably be on the phone yelling at Frankie, but it still feels good to arrest some of the bastards. I am so sick of them strutting around and acting as though they’re above the law.”

  “Having a lot of problems with the Knights?” Sam asked.

  “Lots. I’m not sure which group I detest more, them or the Apostles.” He shook his head. “Sam, I know you’re Universalist, like I am, but fanatics who think God is on their side no matter what kind of crimes they commit piss me off.”

  Chapter 4

  “Another three hundred Knights came in to town in the past week,” Karl Langermann said to open a meeting of the Otherworld Council at the Academy. Langermann was the headmaster of Westport’s Columbia Academy. Tall and thin, with gray streaking his shoulder-length black hair, he was one of Sam’s oldest and closest friends.

  Sam cleared his throat. “The disruptions in the ley lines are coming more frequently, and the Knights are becoming more aggressive. So far, we’ve mostly taken a defensive stance, but as much as I abhor violence, they aren’t giving us much choice. I think we need to consider another approach.”

  “And if we do?” Maya Evans, an earth mage who taught at the Academy, asked. “What if they bring in another thousand Knights like they did in Dallas and Atlanta? Look at the mess in London.”

  “They aren’t going to back down,” Reverend White said. “They’ve been working toward this for hundreds of years, and now that they’re making their play, it’s all or nothing. Most of the other churches, other religions, are willing to stand against them, but without magic users we’re at a disadvantage. The Knights have hijacked the Universal Church.”

  “Where are they getting all these troops?” one of the council members asked.

  “They’re recruiting magic users from all over the world,” Sam said, “but a lot of their new recruits are untrained, and a lot of them are very weak in their magic.”

  “The resistance is spreading, not just in Westport but all around the world. We need the human governments to unite with us,” Michaela said. “I know that we’ve always avoided governments, but if humans don’t use their power to resist, they’re all going to end up enslaved.”

 
“She’s right,” Langermann said. “Human governments are mobilizing their armed forces. The governor of Oregon called out the National Guard yesterday, and they are deploying one thousand troops to Westport to assist the local police.”

  I shook my head. “I feel sorry for them, just as I do for the police. They are armed with conventional weapons, and they just aren’t able to stand up to the Knights.”

  “And what I’m saying is that we need to work with them,” Michaela said.

  The talk went on for hours. In the end, a small group was chosen to go to Washington and try to talk to the federal government. Messages went out to other resistance groups around the country in hopes of coordinating our efforts.

  The meeting broke up, and as I was leaving, Langermann approached me and asked, “Can you help us train a couple of ley line mages who are just coming into their powers?”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “How powerful are they?”

  “One of them blew up a building last week. Pulled in power until he couldn’t hold it anymore and couldn’t let it go properly.”

  “I can help with that,” I said. “I need to go to work this evening, but I’ll come out here and work with him tomorrow. We need to fix that quickly before he kills himself.”

  And everyone in his immediate vicinity.

  I showed up at the Academy the following day, and Langermann introduced me to Jay Sellers and Sally Donaldson, the young ley line mages he wanted me to train. Jay was fourteen years old, taller than I was, with pimples and hair that wouldn’t stay combed. He was a mess. His expression alternated between sullen pouting and outright terror. Having been in his position, I understood.

  Sally was also fourteen, a pretty blonde girl with freckles, bright blue eyes, and braces on her teeth. She was just starting to blossom, as they say, and I could tell she was going to be a heartbreaker. Sally wasn’t afraid of magic at all, or at least that was what she wanted the world to think.

  “Get your coats,” I said to both of my trainees. “We’re going to take a long walk.”

  I didn’t know what the two kids had been told about me, but they both got their coats without comment or question. We passed out of the back gate of the Academy and took a path that led up into the foothills. The three of us walked for about forty minutes until we topped a ridge and could look back over the city and see the ocean.

  I sat down on a big rock and asked, “Can you feel the ley line off to our right? The one that follows that little creek?”

  Both of them nodded.

  “I want you to tap into that line, and slowly pull the magic into you. Stop after one minute. That’s what we’re going to work with—one minute’s worth of magic. Jay, you go first.”

  Jay opened himself up and let the power rush into him. After a minute, I reached out and grabbed his wrist, bleeding power away from him and cutting him off from the line.

  “Do you feel how I did that?”

  He stared at me, his eyes wide, and nodded.

  I showed him how to release the power slowly, then we did it all again three times. By the last time, he was able to sever his connection to the line without my help, and a slow smile spread across his face.

  Turning to Sally, I said, “Your turn.”

  As I had suspected, she was so calm because she refused to truly open herself to the magic. When she tapped the ley line, she pulled only a trickle of power. I used my magic to pick up a rock about the size of my head, then I threw it at her. In a panic, she opened herself and used the power she pulled to blast the rock into gravel. That didn’t relieve her panic, however. I could tell that the power she pulled scared her.

  By the time we walked back to the school after three hours of practice, both kids were able to pull magic from a ley line, cut it off at will, and dissipate the magic they held without blowing anything up. That was in a calm setting with no distractions and me there to cover for any mistakes. It was a beginning, and I promised Langermann I would come out Wednesday mornings to work with them. I could go from the Academy to the sword club for my weekly session there. My schedule was starting to get very full.

  The following Wednesday, after my session with the kids, I found Maya Evans waiting for me in the Academy lobby as I was getting ready to leave.

  “I’ve been talking with Michaela,” she said. “I guess you and she discussed the concept of mage circles.”

  I nodded. “Yes, a little bit.”

  “She had an idea, and I think it has some merit. What do you think a full circle of ley line and earth mages might be able to do to that monastery?”

  I thought about the walled fortress sitting on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean where the Knights had kept me captive. When the monks built the place in the late nineteenth century, the west was still wild, and they evidently felt that God needed some help in defending the place.

  “I guess it depends on whether the Knights sit passively while we attack them,” I said.

  Maya smirked. “I was looking over the plans Franklin found at the University, and did a bit of scouting. A decent-sized earthquake might sheer that promontory right off the cliff. I ran the idea past Ian McGregor, and he agrees with me.”

  I had a sudden vision of the Knights sitting on the monastery walls with cold beer and popcorn watching us throw magic at them. “And the Knights are on board with this plan? I can’t see them sitting by passively while you conjure up an earthquake.”

  She chuckled. “A second circle, or maybe two, made up of mages with offensive magic should give us the time to do what we need. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Knights don’t ever use circles. When they attack, they do it as a group of individuals. They don’t join and enhance their power.”

  I thought about it, and that was certainly true for their operations in Westport. That had also held true in their attack on Illuminati headquarters in Munich.

  “The attacks that blew up buildings in London and Rome strike me as circle work,” I said. “I know the attack in London happened during a ley line disruption, but blowing up a large building without affecting anything around it wasn’t the work of a single mage.”

  Maya pursed her lips. “Yes, I would tend to agree with that. But they haven’t used such tactics here. I think it’s worth the chance.”

  And so, I ended up standing on a ridge above the Knights’ monastery at two o’clock in the morning. A narrow curtain wall surrounded the main compound like a medieval fortress, except it didn’t have a walkway on top. The buildings inside the wall sat amidst lush gardens and lawns. It was a truly idyllic setting for its original purpose—contemplation and prayer.

  There were a couple of half-completed structures inside the walls that were meant to eventually accommodate the influx of Knights, along with five more buildings under construction outside the wall. Vegetable gardens ringed the compound, and vineyards covered terraced hillsides.

  Few lights could be seen other than large spotlights mounted on the compound wall to illuminate the grounds surrounding it. It appeared that almost everyone inside was asleep. The monastery was warded, of course, but we didn’t plan to attack the walls.

  We had spent three weeks planning the attack and had included all of the paranormal and supernatural resistance groups in the city. Vampires and werewolves surrounded the area to provide security for the magic users standing with me on the ridge.

  Liam, my autistic bartender buddy, and two other ley line mages I vaguely knew gathered with me and nine earth mages, holding our hands in a circle. Eleven of us faced inward while Maya Evans and Ian McGregor faced outward toward the Knights’ compound. Maya was the circle’s focus mage, with McGregor next to her ready to assume the focus should she falter.

  To our left and slightly below us was a circle of thirteen pyromancers. To our right on the pinnacle of the ridge was a circle of thirteen aeromancers. Those two circles were charged with protecting us from any magical counterattacks the Knights might mount. The Knights had guards posted, b
ut the magic of individual guards couldn’t compete with the combined magic of a fully-formed circle.

  I had worked in circles during my training but hadn’t stood in a full circle in six years. I wasn’t sure if Liam ever had. Most people were intimidated by his strength and lack of communication skills. Ley line mages were rarely used as focal points due to the limited range of our magic. Our job was to pull energy from the ley lines and feed it to the earth mages.

  I felt a surge of power as Maya closed the circle, and I began pulling magical energy from the ley lines. I stood opposite of Maya in the circle in the position of monitor—to oversee and control the energy running through the other mages.

  The power built. I quickly identified the weakest member—an earth mage two positions to Maya’s left. When I felt him fill with all the magic he could hold, I shouted, “Now!”

  Maya was good, and she must have felt the circle fill at the same time I did because she immediately began directing the magic into the earth in front of us.

  Nothing happened for several minutes, then I heard a faint rumble, like a train in the distance. The sound gradually got louder, and I felt the ground begin to vibrate beneath my feet.

  Soon, the world began to shake. Maya pulled more power, and I gave it to her. Our weakest link held.

  The wall around the compound developed cracks, and bricks fell. Cracks appeared in the ground, then sections of the wall collapsed. The sound built into a roar, and the roof of one of the buildings inside the compound caved in. Two of the partially completed structures outside the wall came apart, one of them falling into a large crevasse that opened under it.

  Liam turned his head, and I could tell he shouted something, but I couldn’t hear him. The look on his face was one of exaltation. I had never seen him display emotion so openly, and I grinned back at him.

  People poured out of the buildings below, and the scene quickly took on the look of a disturbed anthill. More buildings collapsed, and one wall of the main monastery sheared off, the bricks sliding away from the structure like water in a stream.