Magic Gifts (14 page)

"So what are you going to do about it?"

"I haven't decided yet."

I wasn't sure she felt Raphael was worth fighting for. But once, when I was in a really bad place, Andrea told me that she felt like being with Raphael had healed her. She said he was picking up broken pieces of her and putting them back together. Well, all the pieces had fallen now, and Andrea was trying to reassemble herself on her own.

I'd seen Andrea fight. I saw her in unguarded moment, taken over by bloodlust and rage. Raphael would have to tread very carefully, because whether she decided that she wanted him or revenge, nothing would stop her.

I tried to pick my words carefully. "Nothing is free. If you want it, you have to fight for it."

"I'm thinking about it," she said. "How did your day go?"

I nodded at the vampire head.

"That good, huh."

"Yup."

"I have a vamp body for you," Andrea said. "It's in the freezer."

I gave her a nice smile. "You shouldn't have."

"It's a bribe for putting up with my psychotic break."

The car motor came on. Curran got tired of waiting.

"That's my ride," I said.

The door swung open, and Curran walked in. I held my breath. Having Andrea and him at each other throats would be more than I could take.

Andrea got up.

A show of respect for the Beast Lord. I decided that breathing was a good thing.

Curran nodded to Andrea. I got up, too, walked over to him, and kissed him, just in case he was entertaining any violent thoughts. He winked at me.

"Hold on, let me grab the vamp head." I went to the back and got my head.

When I came out, carrying the head in a plastic bag, Andrea and Curran were still in one piece and joined by a freshly washed Ascanio.

I waved at Andrea and Curran and I went to the car. Ascanio tried to linger, but Curran looked at him, and the kid decided to follow us.

We got into the car and pulled away.

"And how did your day go?" I asked Ascanio.

He turned to me, a dreamy look on his pretty face. "We killed things. There was blood. Fountains of blood. And then we had barbecue."

Why me?

*** *** ***

When we walked through the doors of the Keep, Doolittle waited for us. Roderick's necklace had turned the color of white gold. He was having trouble breathing. The next magic wave would be his last.

Ten minutes later we rode out of the Keep in a Pack vehicle. Curran drove. I sat in the passenger seat, holding a bowl of jewelry and bullets for our offering. Doolittle and the boy sat in the back. Roderick whistled with every breath, and Curran drove like a maniac to the north leyline, his hands locked on the wheel, his face a grim mask. We reached the leypoint in record time and he didn't slow down as he drove the Jeep off the ramp into the invisible magic current. The magic clutched the car and dragged it north to the mountains. Magic or technology, the leylines flowed always and I was damn grateful for their existence.

The current carried us to Franklin, spitting us out at a remote leypoint, and from there we drove up a winding road to the Highlands. It used to be a ritzy destination, beautiful lakes and waterfalls, wrapped in emerald-green forests that spilled from the sheer cliffs. Million dollar homes, leisure boats, play-ranches with pampered horses... But the magic had wrecked the infrastructure and the residents quickly learned that the mountains in winter are much less fun without electricity and take-out. Now the homes lay abandoned or taken over by die-hard locals. Little villages sprung here and there, small remote communities whose residents peered suspiciously at us as we drove by.

Cliffside Lake was beautiful, but we had no time for sightseeing. Eight hours after we had left the Keep, we stood by a mountain scoured with white lightning whip marks.

I had expected an altar, or some sort of mark to show the right spot, but there was nothing. Just a cliff.

I dumped a bowl full of jewelry and bullets onto the rocks. They scattered clinking. "Ivar?"

Nothing happened.

Doolittle's face fell.

"Ivar, let us in!"

The mountains were silent. Only Roderick's hoarse breathing broke the quiet.

We should've gotten here sooner. Maybe the offering worked only during magic, but as soon as magic hit, the necklace would snap Roderick's neck.

"Let us in!" I yelled.

No answer.

"Let us in, you fucking sonovabitch." I hit the mountain with the bowl. "Let us in!"

"Kate," Curran said softly. "We're out of time, baby."

Doolittle sat down on a rock and smiled at Roderick, that patient calming smile. "Come sit with me."

The boy walked over and scooted onto the rock.

I sagged against the mountain wall.

"It's pretty up here," Roderick said.

It wasn't fair. He was only a boy... I put my face into Curran's shoulder. He wrapped his arms around me.

"Can you hear the birds?" Dolittle asked.

"Yes," Roderick said.

"Very peaceful," Doolittle said.

I felt Curran tense and turned.

A man walked up the path. Broad and muscular, built like he had to wrestle bears for his living, he had a wide face, lined with wrinkles and framed with a short dark beard and long brown hair. He wore a pair of soot-stained jeans and a tunic.

His gaze fell on Roderick. Thick hairy eyebrows crept up above the pale blue eyes.

"What are you guys doing up here?" he asked.

"We're looking for Ivar," Curran said.

"I'll take you to him." The man looked at Roderick and held out his hand. "Come, little one."

Roderick hopped off the rock and walked over. The dark-haired man took his hand. Together they walked up the steep mountain path. We followed.

The path turned behind the cliff, and I saw a narrow gap in the mountain, its walls completely sheer, as if someone had sliced through the rock with a colossal sword. We walked into it, stepping over gravel and rocks.

"Where are you folks from?" The man asked.

"Atlanta," I said.

"Big city," he said.

"Yes." Neither of us mentioned the necklace choking the boy's throat.

Ahead the sun shone through the gap. A moment and we passed through and stepped into the light. A valley lay in front of us, the ground gently sloping to the waters of a narrow lake. A watermill turned and creaked on the far shore. To the right a two-story house sat on the lawn of green grass. A few dozen yards to the side a smithy rose and behind it a garden stretched up the slope, enclosed by a chain-link fence. Further still, pale horses ran in a pasture.

The necklace clicked and fell off Roderick's neck. The dark-haired man caught it and snapped it in a half. "I'll take that then."

Roderick drew a breath. Tiny red dots swelled on his neck, where the necklace had punctured skin.

"No worries," the man said. "It will heal in the next magic wave."

A shaggy grey dog trotted up to us, spat a tennis ball out of his mouth, and pondered Roderick with big eyes.

"That's Ruckus," the man said. "He'd like it if you threw the ball for him."

Roderick picked up the tennis ball, looked at it for a second, and then tossed down the slope. The dog took off after it. The boy turned to us.

"Go ahead," Doolittle told him.

Roderick dashed down the slope.

"So you're Ivar," I said.

"I am."

It finally sunk in. The necklace was gone. Roderick was safe. My legs gave a little bit and I leaned against the nearest tree.

Ivar studied me. "Oh now, that's not good. Why don't y'all come down to the house? Trisha was making iced tea before I left. It should be about done."

As if in a dream I followed him down to the house. We sat on a covered porch, and Ivar brought a pitcher of tea and some glasses.

"Why make the necklace that would strangle a child?" Curran asked.

"It's a long story." Ivar sighed. "I take it you know what I am?"

"A dverg," I said.

"That's right." Ivar looked at his hands. They were large, out of proportion to his body. "I work with metal. As long as I remember myself, the metal spoke to me. Some things I make are harmless. Plows, horseshoes, nails. Some are not. I have made a blade or two in my time. The thing is, once the blade is out of your hands, you can't control what it's used for. I try."

"Like with Dagfinn?" I guessed.

Ivar nodded. "How is that boy doing?"

"Well," Curran said.

"Good to hear. He had a bit a temper, that one." Ivar looked out, at the river's shore where Roderick and Ruckus chased each other. "Trisha is my second wife. My first one, Lisa, well, she was... The best I can figure, she was elfen. No way to know for sure, of course. She showed up on my doorstep one day and stayed. She was beautiful. We had a daughter, but the valley life wasn't for Lisa, so one morning I woke up and she was gone. Left the baby with me. I did my best to raise her. She had hair like gold, my Aurellia. But I did a lousy job raising her. There was never any warmth in her, no empathy. I don't know why. She was fully grown, when a young man came down to the valley. He said he wanted to apprentice himself to me. To learn about smithing. I don't take apprentices, but the boy had talent, so he and I made a bargain. He would stay with me for a decade."

"Ten years is a long time," I said.

"It's enough to learn how not to do harm," Doolittle said.

Ivar threw him a grateful look. "You understand. You can't teach the craft in ten years. I'm sixty and I still learn new things every day. But I thought a decade would be long enough to teach them what one should make and what on shouldn't and when. Can't just hand that kind of power to a man and let him loose in the world without guidance. So Colin and I made a bargain. He would wear the collar and stay here in the valley to learn all I could teach him. If he left the boundary of the valley before the time was up, the collar would kill him. He understood that there was no turning back. Once he put on the collar, he has to stay here for ten years."

"Aurellia decided to leave?" Curran asked.

Ivar nodded. "She had no skills. There is a school down in Cashiers, and I tried to take her there, but she quit. Didn't care for it. Didn't care for the metal work either. Thought it coarse and common. It's my own fault: I had explained money to her and that in the outside world one can't just live off the land and barter the way we do here. So she decided Colin would take care of her. One day I went up in the mountains to the old Cooper mine, and when I came down, they were gone. I had warned Colin that if he'd managed to take the collar off, it would try to find him again and he wouldn't be able to resist. The way I figure, Aurellia got it off him somehow and they must've sold it. There was a lot of gold in that collar."

Now things made sense. Colin made the money. She needed him alive to take care of her. Roderick was just incidental.

"Colin doesn't do metal smithing anymore," I told him. "He's an accountant. I don't think he even remembers his time here. They way he acted when he saw the collar, I don't think he knew what it was. He and Aurellia had a daughter. The necklace killed her. That's their son." I pointed down toward the valley where the boy and dog played. "Aurellia had put the necklace on him to keep it off Colin."

Ivar's face jerked. "The necklace was never meant to follow the blood. It was only meant to keep Colin here."

Roderick came up the stairs. His face was flushed. "We don't have to go yet, do we?"

I would not take him back to that bitch.

Ivar looked at his grandson. There was a sadness there and regret. A lot of regret. I could see the resemblance between them now: same dark hair, same serious, somber look in the eyes.

"Do you like it here?" Doolittle asked.

Roderick nodded.

The medmage looked at the dwarf. "Second chances don't come about often."

Ivar's face went slack.

"He's right," Curran said.

Ivar took a deep breath and smiled at Roderick. "Roderick, I'm your grandfather. Would you like to stay here for a while? With me?"

Roderick looked at Doolittle.

"It's your choice," the medmage said. "You can come back with me, if you would like."

Roderick mulled it over.

"I never had a grandfather before," the boy said.

"I never had a grandson before," Ivar answered.

"Can I go swimming?"

"Yes," Ivar said. "Your grandmother will be back from the market soon. We'll have us some lunch and you can go swimming. The water's cold but you might enjoy it. Our kind does."

Roderick smiled. It was a tiny hesitant smile. "I would like that."

Ivar got up and offered the boy his hand. "Would you like to see my smithy?"

Roderick nodded. The two of them walked off the porch together, hand in hand.

The three of us sat on the porch, watched the river, and drank the iced tea.

"What about Aurellia?" I asked.

"She's still married to DA's brother," Curran said. "A woman told me it would be a bad idea to do anything about that."

"I wouldn't worry about Aurellia," Doolittle said, watching Ivar and Roderick but the smithy. "I have a feeling she'll get what's coming to her."

"Atlanta Avery hospital reported an extremely troubling case: a local woman, Aurellia Sunny, has aged forty years overnight. The medmage professionals theorize that accelerated aging had occurred due to a gold ring that had arrived in the mail and was left on Mrs. Sunny's front porch. The ring has since dissolved into her skin and is impossible to remove. The aging process is continuing and the family has been advised to make the proper arrangements. PAD detective Tsoi, the lead investigator on the case, had the following advice to the genral public, 'Don't accept gifts from anonymous parties. If you don't know who the package is from, don't open it.'"

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Or is it? No, it's not quite the end. You can read the other side of the story in GUNMETAL MAGIC, Andrea's book, which will come out Summer 2012.

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