Gold Dust

Chapter 13

Rose wouldn't even be around Grace to this day, until several months ago she had stumbled upon her. To be honest, Grace was homeless at the time, and Rose had quite literally stumbled over her, fallen to the ground and then complained to Grace for ten minutes. Then she had the sense to recognize Grace, and then refused to let her out of her sight until Grace had agreed to stay with her.

After all, it wasn't very often that the Rose Quartz Witch found the notoriously missing Gold Witch.

Rose was a smaller witch, one that didn't necessarily get offers for contracts every time she went out. Not a lot of demand for rose quartz, and so, she was left with a small salary that the Witch Council gave to her every month, thus the crappy apartment.

The hardest part of living with Rose, was constantly being pestered by her. 'Why don't you get a contract?' 'Why don't you want to rise into power?' 'Why do you want stay hidden from the Witches Council?' It seemed like every day that Grace was asked a question, to which she would look at Rose and say, "just because."

There was a lot of 'just because in their relationships. (That, and it also bothered Rose a lot. It seemed like she didn't like simple answers.) And it wasn't a very healthy one. The only reason why Grace stayed with Rose was because if she'd left, then Rose would go to the Witch Council and tell them she saw her, and believe it or not a huge manhunt would being.

Finally, when everything was starting to go Grace's way, being forgotten in a world of humans who didn't care if she suddenly had to leave their lives, Rose had to find her and recognize her. For Emerald Lands sakes, what exactly were the odds for that!?

Grace hit the brakes, when she came to an intersection, turning to her right. It was too early and cold for another pedestrian to be out. It was the middle of November, and already it had snowed twice. Grace simply had her bike fitted with mountain tread tires, and checked her brakes. She's already survived in Wisconsin for the past three years, the longest she's stayed since Germany, but nobody of any importance actually came to this place. It was the armpit of America, really. It was too cold during winter, with the exception of people who've lived in other cold regions, there weren't any tourists that came down here. They went up to the ski resorts, not in Madison. For the rest of the time, Wisconsin was either really rainy, muddy, or burning fire ball. It was simply a mystery type of weather, nobody really knew what it was going to be today.

Finally, Grace came to an old antique store. Her bike slid a few feet forwards after she came to a complete stop, but she was used to that kind of motion and simply stepped down without falling. Leaning it up against the side of the building, hopefully this conversation wouldn't take too long before all the thieves came out from their beds, Grace walked inside. It wasn't much warmer inside than it was outside, as the shop had barely opened a few minutes earlier.

The man who was at the desk was rather lazy. He didn't get here until maybe ten minutes before it opened, and the heater system wasn't yet running. His name was Tony Sakimoto, an ex-Italian thief. He was specialized in finding Witches, and their personal belongings. However, after an incident with the Queen of the Cursed Witches, Hecate, he was put in a wheelchair and found somewhere remote that didn't get any witches. Somehow, Grace's path was crossed with his, and he immediately hated her.

Somehow, Tony Sakimoto had the special privilege of having a sixth sense. Not the type that sensed ghosts, or predicted the future, oh no. It was more of sensing the magical powers inside of an object. No wonder he had once been so good at locating some very dangerous items for a mob boss.

"What do ya what Witchie?" He called from behind the counter.

"Just lookin' Tony." Grace said, studying a monkey carving that seemed to be made out of a coconut. "You got anythin' new recent?"

"Nothin' you ain't gonna look at." Tony lifted his chin up. "If you haven't seen my new hardware, I'd thought it'd be fair to point it out to you."

Grace glanced up to see a camera pointing across the store. No doubt her face was just caught on camera. "Smart trick, Tony."

"If you try anything on me, I can send in a little video to your Witch Council, see how they like it." Tony said, as Grace walked up to the counter. "Think of it as your own personal movie, don'tcha think. If I don't really see anything happenin' from the Witches, I'll send it to the local News. How does that sound?"

"I think it sounds prepared." Grace said, a smile on her lips. "However, I don't really think you'd need it with me. I ain't gonna do anything magic in this shop. Besides, our friendship depends on this, don'tcha think?" She was mimicking his thick boston accent. It was accidental at first, but as time grew on, it would be a hassle to tell Tony that she was playing with him all along. And he'd wouldn't trust her anymore, with the little amount of trust he had in her at all.

(To be honest, it was considerable enough that Grace wasn't brained when she first walked in. When she had first happened upon Tony in a grocery store, he had pulled a shelf full of metal beans on top of her head. It was then a beautiful relationship grew.)

"I don't trust your kind. We aren't friends." Tony hissed at Grace. "And if you'll excuse me, I got the American right to refuse service to anyone."

"Not even to this?" Grace reached into her pocket and dropped a pouch on the counter. "I promise you, this ain't a fake. I got this a favor from the Witches Council." A lie, obviously. "I need you to locate that thing we talked earlier about. The impossible one. I'm sure your other sixth sensed buddies know where it might be."

Tony's fingers clawed opened the bag and dumped it's contents on the counter. Gold balls rolled out, running every which way. Grace caught a few in her hand, but more fell on the floor. "This is bespelled gold. You know I don't like no magic gold."

"You simply don't like magic at all." Grace said, leaning over the counter. "But this is somethin' you'd like. You see this? This is made from the Gold Witch, the one who's been disappeared for the last six hundred years." She held up a ball. "Council really owed me big time, so they gave me a few of some of her creations. A single ball is three ounces, and how much does that make it worth?"

"It's five thousand an ounce." Tony said, a greedy light in his eye. "You say you got this from the Council, eh? No strings attached?"

"It was an under the counter sort of thing. Not a lot of people knew about what the Council even had, so prepare for some questions. Say you found it buried somewhere." Grace shrugged. "But it's legit. You can feel the magic on it."

"I'll have to have somebody confirm it." Tony said nervously, taking a ball in his hand. He closed it, the guarded look on his face coming back. "When it's confirmed, I'll get my associates to come and we'll see about what you want."

"Thank you for doing business with me." Grace smiled, before turning and exiting the shop. Her bike was still there, and Grace hopped on it and started to pedal away.

Now for the more exciting part of the day- college.

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