know a lot about this,â Zaak said weakly.
âMy Field of Concentration is Folklore and Myth,â she pointed out. âI mean, come on.â
She might have said something more, except that there was a knock at the door, and when Emory answered it, the newcomer turned out to be none other than Marshal, the guy whose âthingâ was stage magic.
Zaak was only too pleased to change the subject and quickly introduced Di to Marshal, and vice versa.
Marshal was not as good-looking as Emory, but he was attractive in a mismatched features, cute-like-a-hound dog way. He also had a sense of self-confidence about him, not cocky, just that he wasnât naïve and generally knew what he was doing. Emory had that sense too, but not to the extent that Marshal did.
âI should probably go,â she began, shoving herself outof the couch, which was no easy feat since it had tried to swallow her the moment she moved in from the edge of it.
âHey, stick around, youâre the first person to talk sense at Zaak since he started in on this magic kick,â Emory replied cheerfully. âIf you havenât got anything you have to do tonight, that is.â
âOr someone you need to meet,â Marshal added, looking at her with thinly disguised hope.
Marshal was someone else she was beginning to think she needed to talk to. âWell, the rest of my reading eventually, butâ¦â
âGreat! Let me get the beers.â She managed to conceal a wince. Of course. These were college guys. College guys and beer went together like peanut butter and jelly. Where there was one, there would be the other.
She didnât much like beer, but on the other hand, a little lubrication might help her interrogation. And since she didnât care if her beer was warm, she could make one last quite a long time.
And at least they arenât breaking out the roach clips and the rolling papers. If there was one thing that a practicing magician shouldnât mess with, or at least, not without a lot of preparation and safeguards, it was drugs. Of any kind. Magic was all about control, and when you smoked, or droppedâ¦your control went right out the window.
And that was bad, because when your control went, sometimes your protections did too.
Which was a little like being a drunk white guy, staggering into Bed-Stuy, wearing a Dixie flag T-shirt with twenty-dollar bills hanging out of his pockets. You were bound to attract attention, and most of it wouldnât be friendly.
Not a good idea. Oh, no.
Emory came back with both hands full of open bottles; she took one and settled in for the next few hours as the couch slowly pulled her into its saggy depths.
It didnât take much to get Marshal going either. He loved stage magic. And like his idol Houdini, he loved debunking, or at least the idea of it. He didnât bad-mouth Zaakâs magic, though; he confined his ire to the âmediumsâ and âpsychic readers.â
After two beers she was able to steer him right in the direction she wanted, which was to tell her the stage magicianâs perspective on how they did what they did. âThe best and least harmful of âem are no more than good psychologists,â he said with a shrug. âThey tell you what youâd get from a good shrink, but they wrap it up in a much more palatable package, palatable for people that donât believe in psychiatrists, that is. Like, if the good advice is coming from the Great Beyond, theyâre more likely to follow than if it came from the guy on the chair next to the couch.â
âEspecially if you believe in the Great Beyond and not in shrinks,â Di replied dryly. She shifted, holding on tight to the bottle. There was nowhere safe to put it down, so she was keeping it clamped between her knees.
âExactly. Not to put down religion! Butââ He shrugged. âI go along with Ben Franklin. âThe Lord helps those
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