Sorcerer's Luck Read Free Page A

another worker at the burger joint. I loved the extra money and the second meal, but I got home just before midnight. I tossed my purse and jacket onto the chair and realized that I stank from the smoky grill, the spatterings of a hundred burgers, and worst of all, the grease from the french fries. All I wanted to do was lie down and sleep. I absolutely had to get plenty of sleep, because I couldn’t risk exhausting myself. Getting sick would have been a total disaster, for all kinds of reasons. But that stink!
    My shower was a big tin box, designed for outdoor use but installed inside by the miserly landlord. The hot water ran out fast. I had just enough time for a soap-down, quick shampoo, and rinse, no long luxurious showers for me. I dried off and put on clean jeans and a tee shirt, but the grease smell lingered in the air from the dirty clothes lying on the floor. Just one more school year till you graduate, I reminded myself. You can do it. You can endure.
    But the thought of a job that didn’t smell of grease—I nearly cried. Instead, I took the business card out of the zipper pocket in my backpack, cleared my throat, and said, “Torvald Thorlaksson” three times without a pause.
    He’d show up in the morning, I figured. Instead, about ten minutes later he knocked on the door. This time I took off the chain and let him in. He was wearing new dark jeans and a clean white shirt under a leather jacket, a patchwork of different browns.
    â€œHi,” I said. What else do you say to a sorcerer?
    He smiled and stood looking around my studio. Finally he sighed. “You really need this job. We’re even now, by the way. You called me ‘sir’, but then you said my name three times and summoned me. How did you know to do that?”
    â€œFairy tales. My mom was big on that kind of stuff when I was little. She read aloud to us a lot.”
    â€œSmart woman, your mom. Call me Tor, by the way. Torvald sounds too foreign for the States.”
    â€œOkay. I take it you’re from Sweden or somewhere like that.”
    â€œIceland originally. And Norway. I’ve got ties to both places, but my family came here when I was four. I’m a citizen. I even pay taxes.”
    â€œHow do you describe your job on the IRS forms?”
    â€œSorcerer. No one’s ever asked me about it. They must think I’m a stage magician, a guy who does tricks in night clubs.” He shrugged the matter away.
    We were still standing by the door. My legs ached from working so late, but the apartment had only one chair. I refused to sit on the bed myself, and I didn’t want him to sit on it, either. Even without the magic spell, he was a good-looking guy. I refused to give either of us ideas.
    â€œThis place of yours is dismal,” he said. “Let’s go to mine. It isn’t far from here.”
    A pass, I figured, on his part. I had a reasonable response. “I’m so tired I don’t even want to walk to my car. I had to park six blocks away.”
    â€œYou won’t have to walk far. Just down to the corner. It’s a crossroad, y’know.”
    â€œYou’ll bring me back when we’re done discussing the job?”
    â€œI’ll bring you back whenever you ask. No more forcing anything on you, Maya.” He looked down and shuffled his feet like a guilty child. “I still feel bad about that.”
    â€œYou promise?”
    â€œI promise.” He looked up. “On my art and upon the runes.”
    He spoke quietly, but I felt a cold chill, as if I’d heard his words echo inside an enormous cavern.
    â€œOkay,” I said. “Let me get my hoodie.”
    I lived just off Telegraph near the border with Berkeley, not a good neighborhood, especially for a girl on her own, but cheap. Tor and I walked east toward the cross street where he’d vanished before. At the corner a gaggle of dope dealers were leaning against the wall of the liquor