Read Online Trio of Sorcery by Mercedes Lackey - Free Book Online Page B

know a lot about this,” Zaak said weakly.
    â€œMy Field of Concentration is Folklore and Myth,” she pointed out. “I mean, come on.”
    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 “thing” 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 wasn’t naïve and generally knew what he was doing. Emory had that sense too, but not to the extent that Marshal did.
    â€œI should probably go,” 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.
    â€œHey, stick around, you’re the first person to talk sense at Zaak since he started in on this magic kick,” Emory replied cheerfully. “If you haven’t got anything you have to do tonight, that is.”
    â€œOr someone you need to meet,” Marshal added, looking at her with thinly disguised hope.
    Marshal was someone else she was beginning to think she needed to talk to. “Well, the rest of my reading eventually, but…”
    â€œGreat! Let me get the beers.” 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 didn’t much like beer, but on the other hand, a little lubrication might help her interrogation. And since she didn’t care if her beer was warm, she could make one last quite a long time.
    And at least they aren’t breaking out the roach clips and the rolling papers. If there was one thing that a practicing magician shouldn’t 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 dropped…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 wouldn’t 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 didn’t 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 didn’t bad-mouth Zaak’s magic, though; he confined his ire to the “mediums” and “psychic readers.”
    After two beers she was able to steer him right in the direction she wanted, which was to tell her the stage magician’s perspective on how they did what they did. “The best and least harmful of ’em are no more than good psychologists,” he said with a shrug. “They tell you what you’d get from a good shrink, but they wrap it up in a much more palatable package, palatable for people that don’t believe in psychiatrists, that is. Like, if the good advice is coming from the Great Beyond, they’re more likely to follow than if it came from the guy on the chair next to the couch.”
    â€œEspecially if you believe in the Great Beyond and not in shrinks,” 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.
    â€œExactly. Not to put down religion! But—” He shrugged. “I go along with Ben Franklin. ‘The Lord helps those