The Summoning Read Online Free PDF

he said. “But I once consulted with a master of the magical arts, who interested himself in my case. He told me that because I was summoned and bound here in this form without end, that this is my fate. I have been in servitude to one master after another ever since.”
    “Yeah? So last night, when you headed up the hill, who was your master then?”
    He blushed. The rose color was awfully pretty on his pale skin. I watched him flail around for a lie that would work for him. He held out his hands again. “That was… different. Things have changed since then.”
    “Oh, yeah?”
    “Look.” He put the deck of tarot cards down on the table in front of him. “Will you cut them?”
    “All right.” I like card tricks. I cut the cards and pushed the deck across the table toward him. He didn’t touch them.
    “Turn over the top card,” he said.
    I did. It was the Moon again. “Good going!” I pushed the deck toward him.
    Again he shook his head. “Will you shuffle them?”
    I put the card back in the deck and shuffled them idly for a while, wondering what trick he would pull next. Then he said, “Whenever you like, choose a card from the deck.”
    I simply turned the deck over to reveal the bottom card. It was the Moon. I dropped that card on the table where I could see it, and shuffled again. I looked a challenge at him, but he only nodded. “Whenever you like, turn over the card of your choice.”
    So I cut the deck and turned over the top card. It was the Moon. When I looked over at the card I had dropped on the table, it seemed I had mistakenly dropped the Knave of Wands there instead. Except I hadn’t.
    I handed him back his cards. “Cute trick,” I said, but he only shook his head again.
    “I have cast the cards a hundred times today. Every time, you appear in the central place, balancing the issue between of the fate of this city, the coming of the Eater of Souls, and the Great Snake.” He lowered his head and added, “And of my fate, as well.”
    I cracked a smile at that. “That’s real funny. What do you think I am, some kind of superhero?”
    He said, “I only know what I am told. We are at the outset of catastrophe, and you are the vital player.”
    “And with you at my side, we will prevail? That’s rich. I always liked those stories too, but just now, these days, I’m just hanging out on the outskirts of L.A., doing my thing, living my life, know what I mean?” I backed him across the living room toward the door. I was about to reach past him and open it for him, when he held out the cards again.
    “I am not without my uses.” He sounded like a hawker in the marketplace, only this guy was selling himself. “I can offer you what it is you want, what you have been longing for.” He fanned the cards in his hand.
    “What are you talking about?” I said, low and dangerous.
    He turned the cards over and fanned them face up, so the bright strange shapes writhed before my eyes. “I am, as I said, the tool of my master. I can read the cards for you. I can find what is lost to you. I can discover what it is you want to know.”
    “Out,” I said. And I bit off the word as my four paws hit the floor. He backed toward the door, still talking.
    “Only if you want, Lady… your tool to use… if in return you would aid me…”
    I walked him to the door, my head low, my mouth open. I get bigger when I’m angry. So they say. I almost didn’t fit in the doorway, so I think it must be true. He backed out onto the landing and down the stairs.
    I slammed the door on his last words, took two turns around the living room as his footsteps retreated to the foot of the stairs and he stood hesitating. After a while, I heard him walk away. I got up on the big chair and curled up. How did he know? What did he know? He can’t have read my mind. Could he have read my heart? And I’d thought, for the longest time, that mine was dead.

CHAPTER THREE
    W hen I got to L.A., I’d chosen Whittier because of the