The Summoning Read Online Free PDF Page A

something out of his pocket and held it out to show me.
    It was a deck of cards, larger than most, and so old and worn that the pattern on the back had worn off to a pasty white almost everywhere that fingers would normally touch them.
    “Cards?” I said. How cute.
    He shook his head, turned them over, and fanned them. The other sides weren’t faded at all; they were livid with color, pulsing with life, flaming with symbols, and full of meaning. “It’s a tarot deck.”
    “I can see that.” I said.
    “It’s how I know,” he said earnestly, “that I’m in service. They don’t work for me. I’m only able to use them on behalf of my master.” He was flushing, the delicate color rising to his cheeks and his ears. He lowered his head in embarrassment, cut the cards, and turned over the one at the top. “Look,” he said. “This is you.”
    It was the Moon, and below it a wolf stood, drawn in a Medieval style, with its head back, howling. “Oh yeah?” I said. “That’s me?”
    He made an impatient gesture. “It symbolizes you. Your nature—your true nature—is guided by the moon.”
    “That’s a myth, you know.”
    “No, that’s not what I mean. The moon is your sign because, like the moon, you are changeable. You have more than one aspect.”
    “I’ve got lots of aspects,” I said gently, “and most of them you wouldn’t like.”
    He shook his head. “I know it’s you, because until today, that card in that form never appeared in my deck before. And I’ve had these a long, long time.”
    I forked the meat onto my plate. After a moment, I got out a second plate and put some meat on that, too. I got out some cutlery and put it on the table across from me with the other plate, and sat down to the second half of my supper. “Sit down,” I told him, pointing. He didn’t have to be told twice, but he waited till I had my first mouthful before he started in. Then he ate faster than I did. Boy, he must have been hungry.
    I leaned back in my chair when I’d finished. “All right, demon. Let’s have the rest of the story. What are you doing this side of Hell?”
    He’d been finished for a while, looking at his plate as though he’d like to pick it up and lick it. But he raised his head and took a breath. “I am here because I was summoned by the most ignorant practitioner of the magical arts in the history of the craft, who called my name, commanded me into human form, this form, and set no limitations in time or space for my durance here. None!”
    “Uh huh.” I thought about this. “Okay, there’s some magician who can call up demons, make them human—”
    “Make them wear human form, pardon me.”
    “All right. But he’s supposed to put an end time on how long you stay, and he didn’t. Is that right? So—don’t tell me. Now that you belong to me—as you say—you want me to kick his ignorant ass.”
    He smiled then, and for a moment I saw the ghost of the beautiful boy he had been commanded to be. “I wish it were so simple. John Dee has been dead more than four hundred years. I am good and stuck here.…” He looked away, his mouth hardening.
    I didn’t let him help with the dishes, or even clear them. I didn’t want him to feel that much at home in my place. He wasn’t staying. He didn’t seem to know that yet. While I cleaned up, I made him tell me the rest of the story. He didn’t tell it all, but I guessed that.
    “I thought when John Dee died, I would return to my true form and be free to go. When he found he could not use me as he hoped, he gave me to his daughter, who kept house for him. She was never at a loss to find me something more to do. Then John Dee died, and I went on as before.… I thought when Katherine died, then I’d be free, but it wasn’t so. She sold me to pay a debt, and I found myself still bound.”
    “They had to die while you were still working for them. Is that it?” I turned off the water and hung up the dishrag.
    “I thought so, too,”