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“No deal,” I said, firm. “You can’t barge into my job and demand the goods.”
Araceli leaned back into the booth and crossed her arms. “This is where a proper foundation of the history of real magic would serve you well. My Order, my claim to the sword, is centuries old. You are the interloper, not me.”
I reclined against the wall, putting my Timbs on the vinyl seat. “Feeling threatened?”
Araceli scoffed. “By what? The thrall of a demon? Hardly. I have been taught by Mago and Saints, not base brujo such as your dead master.”
“Now I see why he’s got so much love for the Spaniards,” I said.
“I’m Catalonian, not that it means anything to you.”
“Or my ‘dead master’.” I gave her a moment to consider her own choice of words. “Look, we can either relive your four-hour ordeal in the car with Atofo, or you can be straight with me. You seem to know who I am. A shaman, not a warlock by the way, who communes with a dead native and dabbles in the Below. I sensed your magical connections just like you felt mine. Different. More...”
“Untainted?” she offered. “Refined?”
“Call it whatever. Why not drop some knowledge on this savage? I know saints weren’t all about religion. They were wizards in hiding.” Araceli didn’t appear offended by Atofo’s claim, so there must’ve been some truth. “What else do I need to know?”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t have time to teach you.”
“Come on. Before Caleb gets back. Secrets shared between two professionals.”
“My only professional advice is to leave your demon friend be.” Her eyes dropped. “But you’re right, our meeting wasn’t a coincidence.”
“Go on,” I said.
“I’d heard about a former cop who could find antiquities and wanted to see for myself. I didn’t know the source of your unique talents or about the corruption present in the burial exhibit. The coincidence was the job at the park. I didn’t go there expecting to find you, I ended up there because not very many places besides theme parks and historical landmarks employ traditional blacksmiths.”
I didn’t even know I’d been building a rep over the years. Since I didn’t have any knowledge of Kitterling’s clientele, it made sense we might have impressed more than a few high-profile magic types. One ends up being a demon and the other a magic blacksmith or whatever. Is that stranger than a ghost sucking cancer outta my forehead?
“Let’s say I believe you. Why come all this way for a sword?” I’d gotten an earful about the historical significance from Kitterling and Caleb, now I wanted to hear the truth from somebody in the know.
“It isn’t just any sword. This particular mactator daemonium was forged by the hand of Gobán Saor himself.” Araceli caught my confused expression and tried to explain. “Saint Gobban?” We were back to wizards hiding in plain sight, though I couldn’t name many saints myself, a fact she seemed to pick up on. “Before sainthood, he was an Irish deity of the forge.”
Gods and demons. Great. I’d been taught the Above consisted of much the same as the Below, namely ancestor spirits, not really gods in the way we understand them with their pearly gates and cloudy front lawns. Araceli had stumbled over the word deity as well, so maybe her private schooling wasn’t as different from my public education as she wanted to think.
“Why can’t he just make another Mickey D? Or you? You’re pretty good with a hammer, right?”
She squinted impatiently. “Mactator daemonium. Demon slayer. You don’t just hammer out a magic blade overnight. They take centuries to forge under very specific conditions and spells. Contact with the New World prompted the creation of a blade which could be used to help protect this continent.”
“Wait,” I said, sitting forward. “I’ve gone through Caleb’s tour enough to know settlement of this so-called New World started in the 1500s. You’re telling me they waited three centuries to get this weapon here before somebody lost it?”
“As I said, magic moves a scale different from any historical time frame. The blade’s construction took much of those three hundred years. Next, it had to be smuggled into a country already crawling with opportunistic demons. And worse.”
“If you’re trying to tell me how corrupted the history of this here United States is, you can save your breath.”
“I’m not speaking about assholes and petty racists. Those are a completely human phenomenon which the Overseers have fed upon from time immemorial.”
“Overseers?”
She gave a rueful smile. “It must be wonderful living in such ignorance.”
“Girl, if I could stuff all this back in the bottle it came from, I would.”
Araceli peered speculatively at me and her neck stiffened. “I am a woman, a lady, and it would behoove you to address me as such.”
“Lady Araceli is it? I thought you said our friend Caleb made that up.”
“He did,” she relented. “But his instincts are correct.”
“Oh? Well then, your majesty.” I tipped an imaginary, poofy hat.
She wasn’t amused. “I am Lady Araceli de Peñafort, Sister of the Mercedarian Order.”
“Wait, Penyafort? As in Saint Raymond Penyafort?” My Baltimore mutilation of the name made her teeth grate, but I might have finally surprised her.
“San Raimundo de Peñafort,” she corrected in a silky Spanish. “There is at least one saint you have heard of?”
“Patron saint of lawyers, sure. Hard to avoid the name in my former line of work.” There and my own failed aspirations for law school, but she didn’t need to know about all that. I craned my neck and peered toward Caleb who’d started to gather a few plates steaming with eggs and pancakes. “That’s how you went all Johnnie Cochran on poor Deputy Gardener. You’ve studied law?”
“I’m familiar with the laws of many countries. The rigors of legal systems are a fair training ground to prepare one to be a wizard.”
“And a nun? And a blacksmith?”
“They teach us how to fight evil with whatever weapons are at our disposal. If we can forge them ourselves, all the better. Like the many veiled saints though, I am no nun. Not even Catholic.” I thought I saw regret swimming in those metallic eyes. “We wear the vestments of religion out of necessity and out of that same necessity we have fought for centuries to keep the forces of evil at bay.”
Caleb trotted toward us balancing plates. Becky had maybe warmed up to him, but she didn’t look at all eager to serve the table. I doubted I’d be able to talk Caleb into not leaving a tip.
“Got the food,” he said, setting a plate down in front of Araceli first. Mine came next, more hurriedly.
The scrambled eggs glistened with grease and the stack of pancakes dimpled under a hefty pad of butter. I normally kept my breakfast to a cup of coffee, then again, it was closer to lunch. I dug in, not realizing how hungry my ordeal had made me.
Despite her brutality at the forge, Araceli ate like a little princess. She arranged the forks and knives neatly to either side before tucking her napkin in the lap of her scorched overalls. Caleb self-consciously followed her example while I shamelessly exercised my shovel technique.
“Any chance these are silver?” I asked, stabbing my dirty fork toward hers.
Her nose crinkled in disgust. “Aluminio. Cheap aluminio.”
I barely paused enough to raise my eyebrows. “You got any then? Silver?”
My request hadn’t come out of nowhere. Even having been schooled on the streets, I knew silver had all kinds of uses against nasty beasties. Not all rumors and folktales were bullshit. As some kind of demon hunting smith, she had to be packing.
Araceli gave me the stink eye before she answered. She wiped her hands on her napkin then reached underneath the front flap of her overalls.
I held, waiting with a mouthful of half-chewed pancake. Caleb shrank like a turtle retreating into his shell. Seated right next to her, his eyes kept darting toward her hand which wandered toward one of the buttons of her shoulder strap. There was nothing seductive about the movements, but Caleb from his angle had probably gotten a show. Maybe a quick glimpse through the baggy overalls of whatever it was she chose to wear below the tight t-shirt.
She flashed the underside of the front flap, the shoulder strap hanging loose. I caught the handles of a pair of knives, long and narrow and wrapped in black leather. Both the blades and grips were flat, so they ran seamlessly behind the material.
“Nice,” I said. Concealed guns, knives, I usually spotted that sort of thing. “Gives new meaning to ‘my eyes are up here’.”
She didn’t laugh. Caleb snapped forward and went stiff-necked, realizing the awkwardness of his stare. With a smooth motion, she re-buttoned the strap and straightened it with her thumb. The napkin went back into her lap.
“I’m gonna, ummm, get us some coffee.” Caleb sputtered before stumbling out of the booth.
“You’re going to give him a heart attack,” I said.
“Only in America would a man his age die of a heart attack caused by an onset of prudishness.”
“Are all magic nuns as forward as you? Disrobing in public to show off their hardware?”
Her fork clattered to her plate. I imagined I saw the faint glimmer of a smile. “I explained, warlock, I am no nun.”
“And I’m not a warlock. I’m a shaman. And if you want me to find your sword I need to borrow your fancy silver blade.”
“Why?”
“Because my fancy fork was confiscated, and I have a feeling yours might do the trick.”
She took a bite of egg and dangled her fork, upside down, with the scrambled fluff pierced on the tines. “What are you going to do with my fancy blade?”
“Shove it in the dirt,” I said between mouthfuls. “Middle of a road.”
She winced. The staredown lasted until Caleb returned with the mugs of coffee on a tray. I absently prodded the side of mine with a finger, too hot to comfortably hold. Our eyes locked, she scooped up hers in both hands and took a swig as Caleb moved to stop her.
“It’s...fresh?” He followed suit, tried to take a sip and jerked his lips away.
“Done,” she said, lowering the mug, her eyes behind a curtain of scalding steam. “But the sword, when it is found, is mine.”
Just then the door to the diner opened, the little bell clattering atop the frame. The preacher’s entourage I’d seen at the jail darkened the door. What with the poor man’s striptease, I’d missed the Escalade pulling into the parking lot.
These guys carried bulk as a deadly weapon. No tell-tale signs of being strapped, I wasn’t sure they could’ve hidden a weapon even under the tailored suits as the fabric strained taut against their super-sized frames.
The entire row shifted as they squeaked into a booth between us and the door. Becky didn’t bother to hide her excitement that somebody not connected to a murderer had come into the diner. Her broad smile quivered as she tried to walk past us, unseen.
“Want that sword? You’re gonna have to get in line,” I told Araceli. She casually checked over her shoulder. Before Caleb could turn backward in the booth to gape, I tapped the table in front of him. “You said you wanted to help?”
“Yeah, Ace, most def.” He sounded hesitant.
“Seriously, just don’t. Look, you’re good with history. How about public records? How about a little research for the cause?” He relaxed, probably relieved I wasn’t going to ask him to be my backup in a street fight with a demon. “There’s got to be a county land office in Charleston. Go do some research. I want to know all about the land records for Fenwick Hall. Maps. Permits. Development. Any old records from say around Civil War times?”
He nodded eagerly and slid out of the booth. Buckles on his costume jangled as he fumbled for his car keys. As an afterthought, he snatched his coffee and took one big gulp for the road. His eyes flared and he spit the mouthful back into his cup. He stood venting, hand over his mouth and watching Araceli intently.
“What about you, Araceli? Are you coming?” Caleb felt around his mouth with his tongue while he waited for her answer.
I glanced at Araceli who politely avoided it. “She’s going to work another angle with me.”
“But you’ll need a car,” he protested.
“I’ve got the company car at the motel.”
“Motel?” he squeaked. Dude was crushing hard.
“That’s sweet, but I’ll be fine,” Araceli assured him. “If fortune smiles on us, we’ll both be headed home tonight. Where Eustace here goes after that is entirely up to him.”
Fortune. More right than she knew. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the old man’s crossroads magic would take at least two more nights. Better she found out later.
Caleb left the diner under the watchful eye of the preacher’s muscle. I made sure to watch him cross the parking lot and get into his car. Becky had finished taking the thug’s order which had required more scribbling than a witness statement. As she tried to slip past, I reached out and she went rigid.
“Coffee?” I could see Becky inspecting our mostly full mugs. “To go?” The idea of us leaving had her racing for a couple of paper cups.
The eyes of the meathead facing me pinched in that juggernaut dome of his when he heard the order. I offered a little toast with my mug. He didn’t even bother to be subtle with his response.
“Miss?” he called out in a deep rumble. “We need ours to go.”
“Everybody wants a piece of Ace,” I muttered to Araceli.