Chapter 11

“Kill her, burn the body, and the car. There is no Ley Line here for her to draw Magic from. I made sure of that. She is too dumb to be allowed to live,” Fritz told the others and the demon.

In the meantime, I had been checking my wards around the car and myself. Al had taken refuge on the floor behind the engine.

The three men with the automatic weapons immediately opened fire with a brrrrrzz, and bullets began bouncing off the wards around the car.

“Arais go dti’ bhundh,” I shouted in Gaelic as I drew its glyph on the air, and the bullets stopped bouncing off the wards randomly, and returned to those firing them. They were soon riddled with their own bullets and hit the ground dead. The demon had also cast his Magic Fire spell, and it too returned to burn him badly before he could cancel it or vanish. He did manage to vanish after a short time and the fire ceased.

In the meantime, Fritz was staring at the car and me in shocked surprise. It was a little darker now, as one or more of the bullets had taken out a light and its stand, but there was still plenty of light to see by.

“NO ... no ... no, this isn’t possible. There is no Line here for you to draw Magic from. You couldn’t possibly do this,” he shouted in panicked denial.

“But you just saw me do it,” I said, as I stepped out of the car but didn’t move from the spot where I had chosen to park. I had a double ward around me still.

“YOU owe ME for two male fertility amulets, and I’m here to collect. I went through a lot of trouble to create them, and you are going to pay for them before we finish our business,” I told him in a loud voice.

“NO, never. I won’t give you anything. You’ve ruined all of my plans and cost me a fortune already. You’ll get nothing from me,” he screamed in rage.

A single shot rang out then, and the bullet was deflected by my wards. In answer, I raised my right arm and pointed the fingers of my right hand at where the shot had come from. It really is amazing what a simple spell will allow you to see in the dark.

“Tine,” I said in Gaelic, and fire leaped from the first two fingers of my right hand to hit the gunman hidden in the dark some hundred feet from me. The cartridges in the gun went off with a loud ‘bang’ as the fire consumed the man or woman still holding it.

“That’s not possible! How can you still have wards and Magic this far from the Ley Lines?” Fritz wondered in a strained voice.

“What’s the matter, Fritz? Doesn’t your Magic work here?” I demanded. It was fairly obvious to me that he had very little Magic available.

“No one should be able to do what you have done,” he screamed at me.

“I’m still waiting to be paid,” I shouted back at him.

“No, never,” he continued. “Is that what you think this was all about ... money?” he demanded.

“Very well,” I said and cast a spell that called all of the money he was carrying to me. It turned out to be quite a lot.

“How could you do that? I couldn’t even stop the simple spell that you used,” he said in a disoriented voice.

“The answer is simple, Fritz. I studied Ley Line Magic. There is a lot to learn. You should have spent more time studying and less time scheming,” I told him, before changing the subject.

“Our business is almost done, Fritz. Why did you want my land?” I demanded.

“Because of its value and the power it would give me. That land is worth millions,” he shouted in a frenzied voice.

“Is it worth your life?” I demanded back.

“I would have been rich and powerful. Anything is worth that,” he screamed back at me.

“You are never going to get it,” I said in return, before hitting him with a strong blast of Magic and then a shot of Magic Fire. Fritz died just another overly ambitious Magic user.

“How did you do all of that?” Al asked, coming out of the car now that it was all over.

“The last few pages of Book 3 were very enlightening. They revealed that rivers often cover ancient Ley Lines that still carry Magic, and that Magic can be drawn from them while passing over them and stored in something metal for a time ... like a car. When we crossed the bridge over the Chattahoochee, I filled the car with as much Magic as I could.

“The final pages of Book 3, also talked about Wells of Magic. There are places where the Magic collects deep underground in hollows or broken rock. Many are located in the vicinity of rivers. I detected just such a well here on the driveway, but only because I was looking for it. Fritz probably never realized it was here since he was used to drawing Magic from the Lines that cross the land and not wells where the Magic just accumulates but doesn’t really move,” I told him to an amazed look from Al.

“I never detected the Magic that you put in the car,” he said in a surprised voice.

After removing the money to pay for the two amulets, plus the first ones the demon had destroyed and all of the inconvenience that he had caused me, I added a substantial bonus for all of the trouble over the last two days, before I threw the wallet, with the rest of the money in it, on the ground near Fritz’s still smoking corpse. The owner of the house, or the property it was on, would sooner or later discover the bodies and call the police. I would leave it to them to figure out what had happened here.

Following getting back in the car, I backed out of the driveway. Before leaving, I used a spell that obliterated my tire tracks. The drive back to my side of Atlanta went much better than the drive out there had. There was less traffic on the roads at that time.

It was still late when we reached home, and I made just a small meal for the two of us, since we’d had burgers and fries while out. We both slept very well that night with no dreams or anything else. I still had the charms to deliver, but that was for tomorrow.

Up early the following morning, I started calling those who had ordered charms and amulets before breakfast, I reached most of them and arranged to deliver their orders later that day, based on where they lived. This left only two customers who I hadn’t been able to contact. I would try them again later today. Following a good breakfast for both of us, Al and I set out to deliver the orders to the customers I had contacted.

I followed the same procedures on these deliveries as I had for the previous ones, even though Fritz Herkimer was dead. The demon that he had hired or controlled was still loose, and I wasn’t taking any chances that he might still be after me, even though his boss or master was dead.

The deliveries went well that day, and I managed to contact the last two customers that afternoon. I would deliver their orders the next day. All of these sales had been financially lucrative, and I wouldn’t need to worry about money for a while.

While returning from the final two deliveries the next day, the radio news announced the discovery of five bodies at a private residence just north of Atlanta. The announcer said the police had been called late that morning by the owner of the house when he returned home from a trip. The representative of the Fulton County police stated that they had no idea what led to the deaths of the five people, and the destruction of two of the bodies by fire. They also said that it was possible there was a sixth victim. based on the evidence of a third area where fire had been used. They were attributing it to a drug deal gone bad.

It appeared that Fritz’s little ambush had been discovered, but was being attributed to the wrong people because they had no idea of what really happened. The police still aren’t equipped to recognize the use of Magic at a crime scene. Later, the television news carried the same story but with a limited number of pictures from the crime scene. They had mostly been taken after the removal of the bodies.

Also, that evening, there was another meeting of the Executive Committee of the Ley Line users in a very private location. It was attended by all of the major Ley Line Wizards in Atlanta.

“Does anyone have any idea what Herkimer has been doing lately?” the presiding Wizard asked when they were all present and enough wards had been cast to ensure that no one would hear what was said or would interrupt them.

“He appeared to have spent a lot of money lately. There are rumors of him selling some of his property,” one Wizard volunteered.

“He has been seen with a number of what are called ‘connected people’ in recent days,” a third Wizard told the group.

“That’s all very interesting, but what was he doing? What was he involved in that wound up out in the country and well away from any Ley Lines. What could have induced him to go out there?” the presiding Wizard demanded. No one said anything for a time. Finally, David De Tocqueville stood to address them after exhaling heavily.

“The owner of the property called me early this morning and well before he called the police. I drove out there, as it is too far from a strong Ley Line to transfer there, as there is no way to return. It didn’t require long to determine what had happened last night. The lights were still set up and one was still working; others had burned out and one was destroyed by gunfire.

“There was still just a hint of the use of Magic, Ley Line Magic in the area around the four bodies. The fifth body had been incinerated by Magic Fire. A portion of Herkimer’s body had also been consumed by Magic Fire, but he was still recognizable. There was also still the faint stink of burned demon for someone who could recognize the smell.

“Someone confronted Herkimer, a demon, and four of his associates out there last night. They used Ley Line Magic even as far as the site is from any of the Lines that we know about. It had to be someone or something very powerful to use the Lines so far from them,” he told the others, but failed to mention the discovery of the somewhat depleted Well of Ley Line Magic that his investigation had discovered at the site.

“Who do we know who is that powerful?” the presiding Wizard asked.

“There is only one, and she isn’t one of us,” a young hot head shouted from the back of the room.

“No, she’s not, but even she requires the Lines to use major amounts of Magic. It’s obvious that Herkimer was up to something, and just as obvious that it backfired on him. Something very powerful took those men out. We need to find out what it was, and what happened for our own protection. Something that powerful could take out any of us. I suggest we set up a committee to investigate what Herkimer was doing and to determine what went wrong. All of those in favor say ‘Aye’. There were a number of ‘Ayes’, and they were followed shortly by just as many ‘Nays’. The meeting broke up with no decision on what to do. No one had mentioned that there had been NO heavy draw on the lines the previous night.

Over the next several days, a number of Ley Line Wizards spent considerable time trying to track down what Fritz Herkimer had been doing. None of them came up with satisfactory answers, as those who knew had left Atlanta for healthier locations. David De Tocqueville was not one of those searching for the answer.

The day after finishing the deliveries, I started on Book 4, but couldn’t concentrate on it. I was still upset about what David De Tocqueville had said about me on the news after I had taken down the Wizard’s Guild. By that afternoon, I gave up trying to study and had decided to do something about him. I hadn’t decided what to do before the alarm from the wards along the road sounded.

“Who is that?” I asked in disgust.

“It’s David De Tocqueville,” Al told me, having been awakened by the noise.

“Really! I was just thinking about finding him and giving him a piece of my mind for what he said about me to those reporters,” I told him, before heading for the wards along the road. David De Tocqueville was standing outside of my wards on the grass of the right-of-way of the road.

“How did you do it? How did you know about the Well? None of us knew about them,” he demanded in an angry voice, as I approached him.

“How did I do what? And what well? I don’t have a well. We get our water from the county,” I told him, playing dumb. It wasn’t hard with him. I had been prepared to admit to killing Herkimer and the others, but on hearing his questions, I had decided to see just how much he knew first.

“Fritz Herkimer was killed last night along with several of his associates. A demon was probably present also. Ley Line Magic was used along with Magic Fire,” he told me in an exasperated voice. “Don’t deny that you did it. How did you know there was a Well of Ley Line Magic on the property?” he added in a demanding voice.

“Was he the one on the news today? They never mentioned who had been killed. What are Wells with Ley Line Magic?” I asked to keep him going, so I could learn all that he knew.

“Do you deny killing him last night?” he demanded in an angry voice. I just smiled at his mistake.