270 270 Bargain Prices
Wolfe rested for the evening and then got out of bed to take a shower with the first light of dawn.
There was an ensuite bathroom for the guest room, a small blessing in such a crowded house, but Wolfe didn’t linger long. The sun had only just come up, but he could hear a number of people downstairs getting ready for breakfast and waiting for him to come downstairs.
“Good morning, everyone. I do hope that you had the chance to sleep well. It’s not such a rush that you had to get here before dawn to make a deal. I will wait around for a few hours before heading home again.” Wolfe chuckled as he walked into the kitchen to look for coffee.
There were dozens of soldiers and former soldiers living in this massive mansion. There had to be a decent cup of coffee here somewhere.
“There is a pot in the coffee maker, or there is an espresso machine to your right.” A small man in a chef’s coat informed him while gesturing with a grease-covered spatula.
He had a tattooed set of tears under one eye, and Wolfe could see that there were more tattoos starting at his neck and running all the way onto his fingers. Perhaps it was a universal rule that all cooks must be tattooed to gain their qualifications, but the tattoos helped assure Wolfe that this was a qualified line cook, though he didn’t expect anything fancy from him.
It was good that Wolfe didn’t set his hopes too high, but the breakfast smelled amazing. Biscuits with sausage gravy and scrambled eggs were waiting for him on a buffet table in the corner of the large dining room.
“Come over here to the head table, Wolfe. It will make it easier for everyone to get to you. I’ve got a notepad so that you can keep track of everything, and one of the girls found an old set of saddlebags for your motorcycle so that you can carry home all of the books that you’ll be getting today.” The elderly head of the family informed him with a smile.
“I hope you slept well. You had a pretty good nap late yesterday evening.” Wolfe joked as he took a seat next to her.
“Just ask your Familiar Cat, and she will tell you that there is no reason to let a good nap interfere with your evening sleep,” she joked back with a smile on her face.
“How long do we need to wait if we need a charm from a higher-ranked witch?” One of the men in the room asked quietly so as not to disturb those who were still a bit groggy in the early morning.
“If you have the materials, Stephanie can do it for you. If you need one of ours to grow or collect the materials, it could take a week or two.” Wolfe shrugged.
The man looked a bit confused, then turned to look at the cat sitting on the table next to Wolfe.
“The Familiar Cat? I meant spells by a Rank Two witch.” The man asked with some confusion.
“She is a Rank Two witch. One of the stronger ones that we have, in fact. If you have the materials, she can cast about any Witch Magic you might need. She’s just not as noticeable as most witches of her pedigree.”
Wolfe felt Stephanie laughing in his mind at the mention of her pedigree. She came from a Coven Council family, after all, and though she was mistreated and cast out, she still had a rather politically powerful lineage.
Well, assuming that they survived the purge of the Council in Morgaga City. She hadn’t asked about them and really didn’t care at this point what had become of her birth family.
ƥandasnovel·ƈom
“It looks like they want a Rank Two witch to cast a [Witch Garden] spell to improve the growth of the reagents in their indoor garden. I suspect that this will be a popular one today.” Wolfe informed the Familiar Cat, who was jealously guarding a plate of sausages from some nonexistent threat of theft.
The man placed a spellbook on the table [Practical Potions for Daily Life]. It seemed like the sort of thing that would come in useful, and it presumably didn’t contain the same ones that every witch would memorize the first year at the Academy, so Wolfe nodded and gestured toward the bag for Stephanie to cast the spell.
[If I knew you were going to make me work, I would have stayed home.] She complained as she spread the ingredients out to prepare the spell.
[You got to go for a long motorcycle ride, and we don’t have this sausage at the Den. I think it’s a fair trade.] Wolfe reminded her.
She would also get to learn from all the spellbooks that they obtained today, but that wasn’t a major concern of the work-phobic Familiar Cat.
It only took a few seconds for her to create the charm after drawing it on the amulet with her claw, and Wolfe passed it back to the waiting customer along with the empty bag.
“There you go. You can ask your wife to verify it if you’re unsure about its power, but I can assure you that it is the real deal.”
One of the witches seated at the breakfast table snatched the charm from the man’s hand and held it up to examine it.
“It’s genuine. There is no way that a Rank One witch made this. If I had to guess, you will even be able to grow advanced magical reagents in a regular garden with this charm active. Stephanie has some skills.” She informed him before handing it back.
Stephanie licked sausage grease off her claws with a look of great pride and dignity that didn’t match the mangled plate of meat in front of her, making a few of the witches in the room laugh.
“Anyone else who is here for the same charm, you might as well bring your materials forward. We will take care of them all right away to make things simple for everyone. It’s one of the spells that we have on the garden in the Den as well. Only we had to use a slightly larger scale version since we’ve got nearly a hundred acres of garden there now.” Wolfe informed the room with a chuckle.
The thoughts of a hundred acres of garden enchanted by witches that powerful nearly made some of the assembled witches drool. Magical plants always tasted better than their mundane counterparts, and those would be even better than the ones that they could grow themselves.
In seconds, phones were out, and text messages were being sent, telling everyone they knew to bring reagents and payment to the main house to get the garden enchantments finished.
Most of them needed other things as well, but better magical plants for their spell-casting were near the top of everyone’s list, so a lot of other requests could be delayed until the next time they were making a deal with Wolfe and his people.
The morning cook brought Wolfe another mug of coffee and some juice that he didn’t recognize. It looked like Orange juice but didn’t smell like it. It should be safe to drink, though. Everyone else in the room seemed to enjoy it.
Wolfe took the first sip and nearly choked. It was a mix of peach and grapefruit juice. There was something wrong with these witches’ taste buds.