The Shine

The prettiest girl in Wurzburg

There's a place in Germany called Wurzburg. Or there was in the 17th century, I don't know if it's still there. A girl lived in Wurzburg named Gobel Babelin and according to record she was a total knockout. They put that on Wikipedia. She had all the stuff guys liked back in the 17th century, weird swan necks and pointy foreheads, who the hell knows what they were into. Because she was so pretty the Mayor of Wurzburg or whatever they had at the time wanted that pussy real bad. Real bad.

Gobel Babelin wouldn't give it up to him because that was when God was a big deal and He didn't want anyone to have sex. Plus that was back before lady orgasms had been invented so what was in it for her anyway? Guys then, as today, didn't like it when women wouldn't give up the puss. So the Mayor did the only reasonable thing he could do given the situation. He went to his priest and said that Gobel Babelin was a witch and she had enspelled him.

This was also the time when God hated witches even more than He hated people having sex. So the Inquisition, which was a real thing as it turns out, grabbed Gobel Babelin. The Inquisition tortured the fuck out of her to see if she was a witch. They tortured her real good. She never said she was a witch because probably she wasn't and she knew God was watching. They cut her head off anyway just to be sure. I can only assume at that point the mayor got want he wanted with her headless body.

In 2013, Gary was on vacation in France. While there, he bought a bauble that was said to have been made from an iron nail that Gobel had in her pocket when they burned her headless body. That was something people did in witch times. A nail was supposed to be good luck. Clearly it didn't work for Gobel Babelin.

Gary made this purchase not just because he was a sick bastard, but also because he felt that it had magic in it. Does that mean Gobel really was a witch? Gary doesn't think so. He thinks that the trauma of her torture and death imbued it with magic. He doesn't know for sure how magic things come into being. I sure don't.

The next year, a guy from Sweden flew all the way to Texas to talk to Gary in person because he wanted to buy it. I don't know what to call it because it's not really anything. It's a lump of metal made into a vague shape. I guess its art.

Gary said no. Next the Swede and some punks show up to bust him up and take it. Gary magics his way out of that jam. Stymied, the Swede tries negotiating again. The Swede is part of a magic tradition that has been after the Gobel art-blob for generations. They were thwarted by a protection spell some other magic people put on it, but it was broken when Gary bought the thing. Commerce kills magic I guess.

The Swede's new offer was that they could use it to do magic shit together. Gary says no again. Black mages aren't good at sharing. The Swede and his crew come at Gary hard. Gary uses his sorcery and black magic fuckery and loads of cash to get some 1 percenters on his side. Such as the Banditos and the Zulus. Also, ironically, the Warlocks.

You'll see that in Grapevine, Texas in late 2014 to early 2015, the murder rate goes up 1 million percent due to "gang warfare". I found a bunch of articles about it, none of which seem to question why a bunch of foreigners were in Texas fighting it out with outlaw bikers. The answer as far as the police and press were concerned was "drugs".

Gary was ultimately victorious, despite the Swede and his crew setting off a bomb at a mall Gary had invested in as part of a downtown rehabilitation project that killed 8 people.

These are the people Gary wants us to ask for help. The Swede is still around. He said that we could give them the magic lump in return for them helping us with Eterno.

I told him that sounded like the worst idea I ever heard in my life. He was behind his bar making himself a drink and he looked at me like I was the stupidest kid in grade school. This may not be word for word but this is basically what he said;

"Grace, you can't do anything alone. It takes a lot of hands to get anything done. And many of those hands are going to be filthy Grace. You don't have to like someone to use them for your own ends. To get by in this world you have to make deals with a lot of horrible people. It's just business. If it takes a hundred people to build a bridge, it doesn't matter to the people driving over it that some of those people were killers. A bridge is just a bridge."

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