Sorcerer's Luck (17 page)

“You've asked me three questions,” I said. “I get to ask you three in return.”

He took a sharp step back. “You are too clever.”

“If you won't give me three answers, I won't take in the note.”

He debated, looking down, scuffing the toe of his enormous running shoe on the ground like
a normal teen might do. Eventually he looked up again.

“Very well,” he said. “Ask.”

“Why are you bringing a note?'

“You asked to send the note. We heard you when the other sorcerer made the silly noises.”

I did vaguely remember making a joke about a note. “Okay. How old are you?”

“Thirteen of your years.”

“Third question. Are you a rime jotunn?”

Again the scuff, and this time he gave me an agonized look. Sweat beaded on his face from
the hot sun. I could barely hear his answer. “Yes.”

“I thought so! Now I'll answer. This is his house, and I'm his woman, and I'll give him your
note.”

I took the envelope from his huge hand and saw a line of runes on the front. As I tucked
it into one of the grocery bags, I noticed the two family-sized bottles
of cola I'd bought. I took one out.

“You must be thirsty,” I said. “Here, try this.”

He risked a trembling smile. I unscrewed the cap and handed the bottle over. He took a sip,
grinned, and drank off a third of the bottle in one long gulp.

“Careful!” I said. “It's got air in it. It makes you—”

He burped so loudly that the nearby window rattled. No, he was definitely not an
illusion.

“So good,” he said. “I keep, yes?”

“Yes.”

He grinned again, took one step away, and disappeared. The bottle disappeared with him. He'd
gone back to Jotunheim with a bottle of off-brand cola in his hand.

 When I got upstairs I found Tor sprawled on the couch asleep, a book open in his lap. He
woke up, mumbled something under his breath, and sat up straight with a stretch
and a yawn.

“I have a message for you,” I said. “From the Rime Jötnar.”

I set the bag down, found the envelope, and sailed it into his lap. He took it and stared
at it without speaking for so long that I picked up the bag again and carried
the groceries into the kitchen. I'd just set them down on the counter when Tor
came hurrying in with the envelope in one hand and a piece of cream-colored
notepaper in the other.

“Maya,” he said. “You weren't kidding.” He turned the envelope over and pointed to the
broken seal. “See that rune? It's Thuraz, thorn. It's the sign of the Jötnar.”

“Oh.” My voice shook. “Well, that's what the kid told me he was.”

“The kid?”

“The guy who brought the note. He was a giant kid. Thirteen, he told me.”

Tor stared at me.

“He told me he was a rime jotun,” I continued. “Well, I pried it out of him, but he had to
be telling the truth. He was all white, hair and all, but he was still a kid.”

“He wouldn't lie about that, no.”

“How did he get here?”

“I don't know.” Tor hesitated, his mouth slack. “Unless uh. Oh shit!”

“What?” I snapped at him.

“We released a lot of power Friday night. That's what the red lions mean. I might
have opened something up. A bridge or something. To some place.”

One of the beings I'd read about in the mythology books had crossed over that bridge and
walked down our driveway. It finally dawned on me that I was frightened. I
forced myself to concentrate on unpacking the grocery bags while Tor stared at
the note. Now and then he sounded out a word or two. I put the last carton away
in the refrigerator and turned to lean against the counter and look at him.

“What does it say?” I said.

“I don't know.” He looked up wide-eyed. “It looks like the language on the gold
ornament. Y'know, the one I keep in the safe, and it could be the same language
you started speaking last month. During Nils's attack. Proto-Gothic again. The
only words I recognize are thief and bjarki. I don't even know what case they
are.”

“What what?”

“It's a grammar term. Case endings, like the difference between he and him. They show
you what the word's doing in the sentence.”

“Oh. That.”

“Yeah, that. It could be real important. I wonder—one of my old profs at Cal might be able
to help me read this, but shit, it's summer, and he won't be there.”

“Do you think you can puzzle it out?”

“Maybe. I'll try, and if I can't—” He shrugged. “I'll wait, I guess, until the guy who
can gets back.” He hesitated. “I'd better cast the runes. I'll be in the other
flat, okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “Good luck.”

He gave me a sickly smile and left the kitchen. I'd believed from the beginning that Tor
was a runemaster. I'd recognized him as a sorcerer, a vitki as he called it.
He'd shown himself to be so powerful that I hadn't realized he could make a
mistake. Apparently he could and had. I had the horrible feeling that when a
sorcerer made a mistake, it would be as powerful as he was, neither more nor
less.

I poured myself a glass of cola and went into my bedroom to fetch my laptop. On the
writing desk the hermaphrodite stared out at me. Both of its faces were
smiling.

Even though the moon still hid in darkness, Monday morning brought me back to ordinary
life, school, and the start of critique week. My nerves got me to class early.
As I walked down the hall, I saw a small mob milling around the door to the
painting studio. Students like me, I thought, also nervous. But as I walked up,
I realized that our instructor stood at the front of the crowd. She always
called herself by her last name, Harper, a tall woman, skinny, with rich brown
skin and black hair that she kept in long dreads. That morning she wore her
usual denim overalls and an old gingham shirt, as paint-spattered as any of her
students' clothes. She was talking with one of the campus security guards.

I found Cynthia at the edge of the mob. “What's happened?” I said.

“I'm not sure.” Cynthia shrugged and held her hands palm up. “It can't be anything good.”

“Yeah, I guess not.” I glanced around and saw a man in a dark blue uniform striding down
the hall. “Because here comes a real cop.”

The Oakland police officer joined the security guard and our instructor at the door. They
conferred for a few more minutes, while the crowd of students grew and began to
spill down the hallway in a murmur of questions. Finally Harper turned to face
us and held up her hands for silence.

“We've got a big problem,” she said. “The room's been vandalized. A lot of your work has
suffered. Brace yourselves. We're going to let you in a few at a time.”

You probably could have heard the groans all the way across the bay in San Francisco.
Those projects represented hundreds of hours of work and important grade
points, too.

 Harper rose on tip-toe and looked over the crowd. “Cantescu,” she said. “You'd better
come in first.”

I felt too sick to say a word as I made my way through. The security guard opened the
studio door just enough to let me and Harper slip in. As soon as I got a good
look at the big, open room, I felt even sicker. Slashed canvases littered the
floor. Thrown paint spattered what was left of them. Paint tubes, squeezed
empty, lay everywhere among broken brushes. It took me some minutes to find the
remains of my project. Rather than merely slash it, someone had shredded it.
Tiny bits of paint-encrusted canvas lay on the floor like dead autumn leaves.
The vandal had even broken up the stretcher bars, not an easy thing to do with that
thick wood.

“I got here early,” Harper said. “And found this. Yours is the worst mess of all, which
makes the security people think someone particularly had it in for you. Though
I dunno, the motherfuckers might just have grabbed yours first and then run out
of steam later. They shredded a couple of others, too, just not so thoroughly.”

“There had to be more than one person, you think?” I found my voice at last.

“I'm just guessing. There's bound to be fingerprints with all the lousy paint they threw
around.” She sighed. “Unless they had the sense to wear rubber gloves.”

“How did they even get in?”

“Through the window.” She turned and pointed at one of the old-fashioned wood-framed
panes. “They used a glass cutter to make a hole so they could reach that little
gizmo that keeps it shut. Once they turned that, they could just push up the
whole window and climb on through.”

I squatted down and leafed through the shards of my dead painting. They could have ruined
it with a lot less effort if they'd only want to cause trouble. Did they think
it was dangerous, somehow, and so they had to destroy it? I picked up one of
the bigger pieces, maybe three inches of the silver area that had once formed
part of the model's vinyl vest.

“Can I take this?” I said. “Or will the cops mind?”

“I doubt if they'll care. Why do you want it?”

“I dunno.” I stood up and pocketed the fragment. “Nostalgia, maybe?”

She gave me a twisted smile. “You don't have an ex-boyfriend who'd want to hurt you, do
you?”

“No. I'm living with a guy now, but the guy before him, he was the one who dumped me. I
was single for over a year.”

“Okay. Let's go out. I need to make a general announcement. The good news is that I've
already made notes on everyone's work. Did it last Friday, just so I could
compare my first impressions with the student critiques. So there will be
grades.”

“That's a relief!”

“I knew it would be particularly hard on scholarship kids like you if there weren't. Don't
worry, you did a good job. I made sure the police know that no one's failing
this class. If someone was, I suppose they might have done this to get out of
the critique, but no one needed to, especially not you.”

“Thanks.” My eyes filled with tears. I snuffled them back. “God, this is so awful!”

“Yeah, I know. Maybe it was just a class project, but you put a lot of work into that.
And then the bastards tore your baby to bits.”

I nodded. I didn't trust my voice because I didn't want to cry in front of her. A class
project, sure, but art is art, and that painting contained a little bit of my
soul.

We returned to the crowded hallway. Pretty much the entire class had arrived, as near as I
could tell, except of course for Brittany. While Harper told everyone what had
happened, I made my way back to Cynthia.

“There's not much use in holding the last week of class,” Harper finished up. “I'll post
the course grades online as soon as I have time. Tonight, probably.”

Harper went back into the classroom. The security guard and the police officer began
letting people in to join her four at a time.

“I'm in no hurry to see,” Cynthia said. “Shit! All that work!”

“Yeah. They turned mine into confetti. Brittany's was a real mess, too. I saw yours,
though, and it could be patched. Just a couple of slashes.”

She shrugged and made a small groaning sound. Was it Nils? I wondered. I wished
that Tor were there. Somehow he'd know if his uncle were responsible, I
thought, not that he could give the police information he'd gained through
sorcery.

“Where
is
Brit?” Cynthia said. “I suppose she'll come dragging in later.” She began
rummaging through her backpack. “I'll call her, if I can find the damn phone in
here.”

I glanced around to look for Brittany. Instead I saw Tor, striding down the long hallway.
For a minute I thought I was hallucinating, but he waved to me and hurried
over.

“What's wrong?” he said.

Cynthia stared at him in complete open-mouthed surprise.

“I'll explain later.” I was too shocked myself to think up a good lie. “Uh, Tor,
let's move over here, okay? Cynthia needs to call Brittany.”

I laid a hand on his arm just to ensure that he was really there. I felt solid flesh. He
caught my hand in his, and we walked some ten feet down the hall, away from the
crowd. He dropped his voice to make sure no one could overhear us.

“I picked up your message,” Tor said. “That you wished I was here, I mean, and I could
tell you were upset. So I came over. Leapt the distance. You know.”

“Thank you so much! Something awful's happened. The studio got vandalized.” I dug into my
pocket and took out the scrap of canvas. “Everyone's work is ruined. Someone
cut my project up into little pieces like this.”

Tor took the scrap and held it between his palms. His eyes went unfocused, his entire
face slackened. After a few seconds he scowled and shook his head.

“Nils,” he said. “What do you bet? I'm picking up some kind of trace from him. I never should
have brought you into the working. I'm so sorry. It was stupid of me, dragging
you in.”

“He must have seen me, then, when I saw him.”

“Why else would he do this? He wanted to get back at you.” Tor scowled at the fragment of
portrait. “His vibes, yeah. I'm sure of it. Fucking coward! Going after you
instead of me. I bet he's trying to drive you away.”

“Why would he want to?”

“He's almost as strong as I am. You tipped the balance in that working. Without you
around, he'd have a better chance at me.”

Since I'd spent most of my life afraid of dying, I thought I was used to fear. The
icy-cold terror I felt at that moment caught me by surprise. I gasped aloud.
Tor threw an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close.

“I really wish,” Tor said, “that I could just go to the cops about this. They wouldn't
believe me. Magical attacks. Sorcerers fighting it out. They'd probably try to
get me committed. And they might even be right about that.”

I managed to smile. He kissed my forehead.

“This is all my fault,” Tor went on. “My damned conceit again! Arrogance—yeah, you
nailed it. I thought I was strong enough to punch a wasp's nest and not get
stung. I'm sorry, Maya. I really blew it.”

“You don't need to keep apologizing. He's the one who attacked you first. I feel awful
because he had to go and wreck everybody's work. I feel like I brought all this
down on my friends, y'know?”

“Well, that's not your fault. That's his fault. You didn't make him do anything. What
a crappy thing! Do you remember when you felt like someone was spying on you at
school?”

“Yeah, I sure do. It must have been him, all right. He must have seen this studio room.”

I was about to say more when Cynthia hurried over to join us.

“I reached Brit,” she said, “and she's on her way. She was just leaving the house, she
told me, when I called, so she won't be here for another half-hour.”

“Late as always,” I said, just because it was such a normal thing to say.

Cynthia glanced at Tor and raised an eyebrow. “On the other hand, you're here early.”
He nodded but kept quiet.

“He needed to use the car.” Luckily I'd never sworn any vows to the runes against lying. “So
he was just going to drop me off.” I glanced his way. “You must have seen the
police car drive up.”

“I wanted to know what was going on,” Tor said, and of course that was true. “Make sure
you were all right.”

“Well, thank heavens, we're all okay,” Cynthia said. “But oh my lord, all our work! At
least we're going to get grades.” She tried to smile. “I suppose we should be
grateful for getting an extra week off.”

“Your instructor's cancelling the last classes?” Tor said.

“Yeah,” I said. “She announced that just before you got here. The police probably don't
want us in the room. They'll have to go over it for evidence.”

Tor brightened. “Maybe they'll find fingerprints.”

“Maybe,” I said. “You know, we could go visit Bryndis this week after all, if you want.
And if it's convenient for her.” I glanced at Cynthia to include her. “An old
friend of Tor's family from Iceland.”

Tor pulled his smartphone out of his jeans pocket. “I'll just call her.”

Visiting during the week proved to be very convenient for Bryndis. Over the phone they
arranged that we'd go to her house Tuesday [the next] afternoon. After Tor
clicked off, we hung around in the corridor with the class in order to keep
Cynthia company. When she came out of the classroom, I was glad that we'd stuck
around. She'd gone pale, and her voice snapped with anger.

“I'm too upset even to swear,” Cynthia said. “Did you realize that whoever did this peed
in the corner? It's so disgusting!”

“No, I didn't see that when I was in.” I felt more guilty than ever, even though Tor
was right. Nils was the one who'd chosen to throw this nasty little temper
tantrum, not me. “God, how sick!”

“Crazy,” Tor muttered. “Way out there somewhere.”

“Oh yeah,” Cynthia said. “Devon found it when she picked up her share of the pieces. He
did it right on a pile of paint rags. Well, sorry. We don't know it was a guy.”

“It's not the kind of thing women do,” Tor said. “It's not as convenient for them.”

Cynthia managed a small, twisted smile at that. “Yeah,” she said. “You're right. I—”
She paused and looked down the hall. “Here's Brit, and your brother's with her,
Maya.”

I turned and looked where she'd pointed. Brittany and Roman came striding down the hall
arm in arm. With a khaki T-shirt he was wearing a faded pair of camo cargo
pants left over from his days on active service. The flap pockets had his name
printed on them, Cantescu. The military gear reminded me that there were worse
things in life than having one of your paintings destroyed. When they joined
us, Brittany let go of him to give first Cynthia, then me, a hug. Roman and Tor
shook hands.

“Well, Sis,” Roman said, “this is a pile of shit, huh?”

“Fraid so,” I said. “It's a real mess in there. Brit, Harper's signaling to you.”

“I'm probably the last one in,” Brittany said. “I always am.”

“There are reasons for that,” Roman said darkly.

They shared a grin, and she hurried off to join Harper in the studio.

“Time means nothing to Brittany,” Roman remarked.

We all nodded our agreement. Roman looked good enough that I was willing to bet he'd
stayed drug-free since the last time I'd seen him. He seemed nervous, though,
shifting his weight from foot to foot, slipping his hands into his pants
pockets, taking them out again, glancing up and down the hall, always looking
around as if he expected someone to jump out at us. Tor, on the other hand,
leaned against the wall of the corridor and hid his face behind the illusion of
the nerdy guy with the meaningless smile.

“What did you think of yours?” I said to Cynthia. “It looks to me like it could be
patched from the back, and then you could paint over the slashes.”