Sorcerer's Luck by Katharine Kerr Read Free Book Online Page A

sound appeared. Laughter poured out of the kitchen,
the creepy howling kind that serial killers make in horror flicks. It gave me
nothing to draw, of course, so at first I thought we had no defense against it.
When it ended, we heard a high-pitched whine like a security system gone crazy
or a knife scraping across a china plate. Just when I thought I’d go crazy
myself, it stopped. I gasped in relief, and Tor let his breath in a long sigh.
    â€œThat must have been hell’s hard work to create,” he said. “Maybe he’ll run out of energy.”
    â€œYou keep saying he. You don’t think a woman is doing this?”
    â€œI don’t, no. I don’t know why, but I’m pretty sure it has to be a man.”
    â€œNot some girl you jilted, huh?”
    â€œI’ve never jilted anyone. They always leave me.”
    I’d been trying to joke, but his quiet answer rang true.
    â€œWell, sorry,” I said. “I—”
    The blast from a trumpet interrupted me, a sour, out of tune, squeaking blast that played
the same four notes over and over. I clamped my hands over my ears. Tor
muttered something that I couldn’t hear and got up.
    He stalked into his bedroom and came back with a plastic bag of little orange cones:
earplugs. When I tried a pair, they brought the sound down to a tolerable
level. After a few more minutes, the trumpet fell silent. I took one of the
plugs out. Tor did the same.
    â€œWe could leave, I suppose,” he said. “Go out somewhere for a drink.”
    â€œDo you think this guy’s trying to make you do just that? Go out and leave the place
unguarded?”
    â€œIf that’s his game, he doesn’t know about the security system. I’m hoping he’ll just give
up. Judging from what my books tell me, creating sound illusions is a lot
harder than the visual variety. Maybe he’ll run out of steam.”
    We put the earplugs back in when the automobiles started gunning their engines, racing
around the roof. The attack then switched to gunshots pinging off the appliances
in the bathroom. We clamped our hands over our ears to supplement the foam
plugs. When the gunshot noises stopped, the silence seemed to ring almost as
loudly as they had.
    â€œWait a minute,” I said. “I was thinking about the things we saw yesterday. When I drew
them, they went away. That gives me an idea. It’s not the drawing that did it.
It’s the interpreting.”
    The laughter returned to the kitchen about five minutes later. Apparently the guy
had a limited repertoire. I got up and walked over to the kitchen door. Once I
picked up the rhythm of the sounds, I could match them. I laughed like a maniac
in harmony for just a few seconds before words began tumbling out of my mouth.
I felt them as air pressure and lip movement, but except for an English word here
and there, I had no idea of what I was saying
    The laughter stopped. I nearly fell, but I clutched the door jamb in time to steady
myself. When I turned around I saw that Tor had left the sofa and was standing
just a few feet away.
    â€œYou’ve got a talent for this,” he said. “Do you know what that language was?”
    â€œWhat language?”
    â€œThe one you were speaking. Go sit down. You’re pale.” He went into the kitchen.
    Pale and sweaty and cold, I realized, horribly cold, as if I’d felt a blast from a
winter wind. I sank into a leather chair and slid down so I could rest my head
on the back of it. Tor returned and handed me a glass of cola.
    â€œThe sugar in it will help,” he said.
    â€œBut it’s so cold.”
    â€œDrink it anyway.”
    He sat down on the couch across from me. I drank about a third of the cola straight off and
burped a couple of times. Sure enough, I began to feel better, physically at
least. Mentally—well, something had taken over my mind and made me speak in
words I couldn’t understand. Terror and