Magic World (working title): Chapter 3

Short Chapter this time guys. I think this particular cutoff point works though so I don't feel too bad. I'm a bit clueless when it comes to pacing though so I'm just moving how it feels right.
Comments suggestions, proofreading, grammar checking, all welcomed.

Thanks for reading.

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Chapter 3:

There are a few things that people aren't prepared for when they drive a classic car, mostly anything made before the early eighties or so. The first is the weight. Modern cars are made from mostly fiberglass or other synthetic materials placed over a frame of aluminum or other such lightweight material. Older cars are made from Steel. On top of Steel. And the engines are made from steel.  Actually the frame of the Stingray was also a fiberglass compound, but the rest was Steel. This gives older cars a weight  and inertia that most people aren't ready for if they haven't driven one before.

The second thing most people aren't prepared for is the lack of: power steering, hydraulic brakes, power windows, power seats, CD players, power wing mirrors, and sometimes you're lucky if the speedometer and tachometer are lighted. Modern conveniences are modern. If you don't know how to get by without them, you better learn, and quick, because of the third thing.

The third thing is the worst, and the best: Power. They did not build for efficiency when they built sports cars and muscle cars. Sure they may have had a passing nod with it, made some concession to it, after all they didn't ALL use diesel fuel, but for the most part they were built to chew through road like a fat kid through Twinkies. Most people expect to have to give a firm increasing pressure to the gas pedal and the car will sedately move along the road. If you do this with a classic muscle car you'll be out the driveway, down the road, and halfway to Route 66 before you realize you should be going the other direction.

But even with all that Davin found himself enjoying Stingray. The low hum of the idle, and the throaty growl when he gave it a good push filled him with a sense of satisfaction, and once he adapted to the gas and the steering, which was like butter at speed. He felt a little disappointed when he pulled up to the parking lot of the storage facility.

That was, until he smelled an odd smoky smell, and saw a blonde elf woman in what looked like biker leathers standing with her hands on her hips watching him approach, a frown furrowing her eyebrows, as she seemed to asses him and look back along the street he’d come down. Did she think he'd been followed?

But it gave him a chance to get good look at her. She was a little older, if she'd been a human he might have said early to mid forties, but because she was an elf, that would put her around her sixties. She wasn't extremely tall, but thin, wiry. She looked tired, not just physically, but in her soul, as if she had seen it all, and was waiting for the inevitable other shoe to drop. It gave her worry lines, but those didn't diminish the beauty that he saw there, in fact they seemed to give her character, make her more interesting.

It made him wonder what she saw when she had sized him up. A nineteen year old gangly not-quite-man with wide eyes and round cheeks?  That was how he felt sometimes. His chin was starting to square off as he lost some of the weight he'd gained in his youth, and he was even able to keep a beard, but he kept it trimmed, because it wouldn't come in right yet.

He shook his head and started getting out of the car as she started walking around it to meet him.

"Are you the guy?" she asked.

He stood up out of the car, thinking about this one. "I'm A guy..." he said dubiously.

She nodded, looking up and down at him, and tilting her head to one side. "You don't look like I expected."

"That's funny," he smirked slightly. "You look exactly like I had imagined you." This was partially true, except he had imagined her slightly younger, and probably a half-elf.

But it drew a little bit of a smile out of her. "Really. Are you sure about that?"

It was his turn to smile. "There's an old saying in Quantum Physics," he said. "The only thing we can be totally sure of... is Uncertainty."

She grinned a little wider, but it didn't seem to touch her eyes. "You're the guy. What's your name"

"Davin Quickly,"  he said starting to hold out his hand to shake. "And y-"

"Rachele Albini," she said, turning away and motioning for him to follow. "Sorry about this, but we're on the clock. What do you know about Magic?"

The question was offhand, but it was clear she didn't know what she was asking. He huffed out a breath. "Erm... statisticaly speaking? Almost nothing."

She stopped and whirled on him, her nearly black eyes piercing him. "What do you mean nothing? I thought you worked for the Professor? How can you not know anything about magic?"

He tried to take a half step back, but his feet couldn't respond so he settled for leaning away from her and holding up his hands. "I mean that the total sum we know about magic right now is estimated to be only a fraction of a percent of all there is to know. I know almost everything we've discovered so far, but compared to what there is, it's almost nothing."

She stepped up closer to him, almost chest to chest with him. She was only maybe 2 inches shorter than him. "Listen Davin. We're in kind of a tense situation here, and the last thing I need is wise-ass answers. A very good friend of mine died here less than forty-eight hours ago, and I OWE it to him to make sure that the mother-fuckers who did it end up in a jail cell or end up fertilizing his fucking grave. The Very Last Thing I need is a smart ass answer to every goddam question I ask you. Got it?"

He nodded. "It's the first thing you learn when you start studying to become a wizard. To teach humility. And they keep drilling it into you over and over, the more you learn. I'm sorry, it's practically a conditioned response."

She took a deep breath and relaxed, and looked away from him. "It's fine. Just... talk to me about this stuff as if I don't know anything about Magic, or physics, or Quantum bullshit. I just need to know what I need to know in order to get this job done. The rest is all just... background noise to someone like me."

Davin nodded. He knew what she meant. That was how he felt about sports. But he couldn't help feeling sorry for her. Where she heard background noise, he heard a symphony.

She beckoned for him to follow her into the storage park, and started walking.

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