Trio of Sorcery by Mercedes Lackey Read Free Book Online

could mail order most of them directly from the companies that were printing them.And the hippies were buying them by the bucketload. Even the book that phony Anton LaVey wrote was getting snatched up, despite the fact that the former carnie was not the wholesale advocate of free love that they thought he was.
    That was the heart of Memaw’s theory—that all the weirdness and problems cropping up were a result of all these people dabbling in what used to be the provenance of a few who were trained and knew what they were doing. They were supplying the raw energy that allowed things that had been dormant to wake up and start making trouble. According to Memaw, the same thing had happened after World War I, when the Spiritualists had been tilting tables, trying to get hold of loved ones on the other side. And again after the Civil War. To be honest, Di couldn’t see anything wrong with this theory.
    Especially now, when she was looking at the card of a supposed “psychic” that was radiating bad juju.
    Bloody hell.
    Was this just a case of some manipulative bitch who happened to be dabbling in real magic? Even though she hadn’t asked for money yet, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t; she could just be working a longer game than O’Brian was going to spot.
    Or was it something more than that?
    Or was it just a coincidence that this psychic was also into Bad Things as well as going after a woman at her most vulnerable?
    Well, Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation was probably the best one, and this Tamara was probably just taking advantage of a grieving and frightened mother, and the nasty magic she was using had nothing to do with the missing child. She’d probably been a phony psychic for a lot longer than she’d been a dabbler in the black arts.
    Actually, come to think of it, she might be getting paid—in a way. Black magic worked best when you had a source of negative energy, the sort produced by anger, hate, fear, or grief. Chris Fitzhugh would have plenty of that, and Tamara could just be using her as a spiritual “battery.”
    If that was the case, well, it could be difficult to pry her off. Difficult, but not impossible; the trick would be doing so without spooking Chris Fitzhugh in the process.
    Dammit. It didn’t matter. The Call was genuine, the real thing. As a Guardian, she didn’t have a choice, and too bad if her regular life had to suffer for it.
    As a Guardian…
    She closed her eyes for a moment and sagged against the door.
    She’d never had a “normal” childhood. She’d been on the front lines of a nasty war for a fourth of her life. She knew exactly how Vietnam vets felt.
    Tired.
    She could give it up. Guardians had, and she wasn’t a sixteen-year-old steeped in comic book superheroism anymore. She had a life now, and she needed to think abouthow she was going to keep herself fed. Guardians didn’t get a salary; there was no “Guardian Company.”
    Face it, as long as you’re a Guardian, your life is never going to be your own.
    She opened her eyes again, and stood there for a long moment, cards in her hand, her eyes going from the cards to her books, back and forth. She could quit. She would never taste the headiness that was Guardian magic again, but she could quit. Right now.
    Lavinia could take this on. Right?
    Well…not really.
    Well, someone could. Someone else. There had to be someone else with the skill set needed to pick this thing apart and see Tamara separated from her prey.
    Maybe.
    She took a long, deep breath. She could hear the line from Spider-man echoing in her head, only it was spoken by Memaw.
    Dammit. No, she had the power, she had the skill set, and she had the responsibility, and she wasn’t going to turn her back on people that needed her now.

    Tamara Tarasava was, indeed, on the bus line. And for once, Di realized that it was not so bad to have an aura that made people