Page 48 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

“No,” I told her shortly, feeling a flash of annoyance. “It isn’t. Look, we came here for supplies.”

“Well, then, you’ve come to the right place.” She gave a little laugh and gestured around the shop with a flourish. “We’ve got crystals, candles, essential oils, tinctures, tarot cards, herbs, beginner guides to balancing your chakras—”

“Come on. That stuff is for tourists.”

She frowned at that. “There are a number of sincere seekers who gain a great deal of benefit from these sorts of practices. And regardless of how you feel about it, a number of them work, even for those of us who aren’t bloodline witches.”

“Wait,” Bryan cocked his head to the side. “You’re not the same type of witch as Tobias? There are different types?”

“Some witches are born into it,” Ella replied, gesturing vaguely in my direction. “The magic runs through their blood. And it is given shape and direction by the powers of the otherworld, when they undergo their initiation. My mom called witches like that ‘bloodline witches.’ They’re really powerful. But they’re not the only sorts of witches out there.”

“What other types are there?” Bryan asked, clearly fascinated by her.

“Well, for starters, you can learn how to be a witch, too,” Ella smiled at that. “Like my mom did. It takes years and years of study and practice and it’s true that you’d never be able to do the type of spell-casting a bloodline witch can do. But you can still learn how to do magic. It’s just a bit more subtle. Less dramatic and showy.” She paused. “There was no magic at all in my family line until my mother met a witch who helped her learn how to harness her personal power to cast spells.”

“Which makes you a bloodline witch,” I informed her. “You got your magic from your mother.”

Ella rolled her eyes at me good-naturedly. “That and two decades of study and practice.” She paused, assessing us for a moment. “You’re hunting ghosts.”

Bryan’s eyes widened. “Wait, how did you do that?”

“One of the benefits of being mostly self-taught is that I know how to do a lot of things,” Ella said, giving him a small, sly smile. “For instance, I know that you’ve only been a vampire for three years.”

His eyes still wide, Bryan nodded, seeming entranced by her. “Uh, yeah. That’s exactly right. So, you’re what? Some kind of psychic?”

She shrugged. “I can’t shoot fireballs out of my fingertips or walk through walls. Yet. But don’t knock crystals or balancing your chakras. There’s a lot of power in some of those types of practices.”

“Look, we need blessed iron,” I cut in. “Preferably something that can be used as a weapon.”

“Right to business, then,” Ella smiled at me, revealing perfectly straight white teeth. “Remind me to give you pointers on what constitutes an acceptable date.”

“We’re not dating,” Bryan said, immediately.

Ella cocked an eyebrow at him before giving me some serious side-eye. Still, she appeared to be deeply amused. “I see. Your aura says otherwise.” She gave me a once-over, her expression going a little smug. “That goes for both of you, actually.”

“Do you have the blessed iron or not?” I asked, growing annoyed.

“Of course,” Ella replied. “This is, after all, the best stocked occult shop in Portland. We cater to pagans, wiccans, magicians of all stripes, and bloodline witches as well, like yourself.” She gestured for us to follow her, then stepped through the beaded curtain leading into the back of the store.

We followed her into a much smaller room, with shelves that contained the more exotic items that witchcraft sometimes called for. Coffin nails. Cemetery dirt. Bones from animals. Various symbols and seals etched into metal discs. And then an entire display case filled with charms and amulets, all of which were real and highly dangerous.

“As it happens, I do have what you are looking for,” Ella told us. She ducked behind the long glass display case and produced a narrow piece of black iron, sharpened on one end and approximately three feet long, which she laid down on the glass before us. It looked halfway between a spear and a sword. “A fragment of a Wiccan athame, the metal of Saint Michael, blessed by a Catholic priest, and the star of David, prayed over by a Rabbi, were all used in the smelting of this iron,” Ella told us. She added, “Catholic holy water, pagan moon water, and the pure water from three separate sacred springs were used in the cooling process. Then the holy oil recipe from the Grimoire of King Solomon, made with the appropriate prayers and words of power, was used to anoint it once it was cooled. It will destroy any wraith, no matter how powerful.”

“We’ll take it,” I told her, immediately. “How much do you want for it?”

“Because we’re old friends, I’ll give you a steep discount. Ten thousand dollars.”

Bryan’s jaw fell open.

“Holy shit. That’s at a discount?” He glanced over at me. “Um, we could probably get a piece of regular iron from somewhere and steal some holy water from a church or something, to dip it in…”

Ella and I exchanged a look. She smirked at me, clearly amused.

Bryan wasn’t technically wrong. However, the trick with blessed iron—the thing that actually mattered—was the faith that empowered it. If the priest who had blessed the holy water was having an off day or struggling with his faith, the holy water might not be powerful enough to destroy the wraith. That’s why blessed iron usually had various different types of holy substances, from many religions, containing the prayers and faith of many different people smelted in with it, used in the cooling process, or else anointed onto the object after it was done. This piece of iron, however, contained multiple blessed substances, used at every point in the creation.

We had to have it.

“This will be better,” I told him firmly. “The coven won’t mind. This is technically a work expense. Sort of.”

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