“You know what I mean.”
“We’ve talked about this.”
“Yes, I know. I just felt so. . .helpless.”
He hesitated. The chickadees had stopped calling. “I’m sorry you felt helpless.”
Her lips pursed in a tight smile, but her gaze remained troubled. “I died once, you’d think I’d be less frightened of it happening again. But I’m not.”
He straightened, sitting up with his arms around his knees. She rarely got this worked up. “I suppose I could get one of these guys to make me a vampire. . .”
“You’re joking.” She looked sharply at him. “You are joking?”
“Yeah.”
“Because I don’t think you becoming a vampire would stop anyone with a grudge from trying to kill you.”
“No, probably not.”
“Besides, I’m not sure I’d survive the transformation. I have no interest in attempting the experiment.”
“So you like being here?” He looked up, around. Quirked a smile.
“I suppose I do.”
“Could be worse, I guess.”
“Cormac, what did you ever do before you had me looking out for you?”
“Got myself sent to prison is what I did.”
“Ah, yes, see. That’s just the sort of thing I’d like to avoid.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Spiritually cleansing dog parks. Let’s keep to that.” She settled back against her boulder and closed her eyes.
Chuckling, he lay back in the grass and let a real sleep overtake him.
A few mornings later, their email delivered a more interesting proposal than magically protecting dog parks.
An archeologist at a dig in South Dakota had found an unusual artifact, a clay pot in a style and with markings that didn’t match any other pottery styles of the time and region. The archeologist, Professor Aubrey Walker, claimed to have some magical sensitivity, and believed that the artifact represented something otherworldly. Would Cormac please come and examine it, to see if he could tell if it was magical, or merely odd?
“‘Otherworldly.’ That could mean anything,” Cormac murmured.
I’m not sure we have the expertise to evaluate such an item.
“We can be up front about that. Walker has to be willing to pay travel expenses and a consulting fee, even if the answer is we don’t have a clue.”
We can’t guarantee an absence of magic. We can only state definitively if we do find something. It seems unsatisfying.
Amelia insisted on doing initial research to determine if they were even qualified to take on the job. Cormac did a web search on Walker and her credentials, and the trail of online breadcrumbs led to the home university of the archeology team and information about the dig, which was investigating hunting and camping sites of Plains Archaic cultures from about fifteen hundred years ago. So, there really was a dig, and their correspondent really was a scientist there. A scientist who wanted a magical consult.
Amelia was intrigued. An artifact such as intact pottery seems very incongruous with other information about the culture. You’d expect to find bones and fire pits, maybe a few tools, nothing more.
“Maybe that’s why she thinks it’s magical.”
If something magical, some sort of spellcraft, has survived from that era—that would be phenomenal.