Sorcerer's Luck (14 page)

“Need something?” he said.

“I've been thinking about getting into your jeans all morning.”

He laughed and followed my lead into the bedroom. The sex—it overwhelmed me that
afternoon, just how good it was with him. He teased me, worked me up, and
coaxed me into lying on top of him. I'd never had a climax like that before,
sensations so strong that they edged close to pain without ever crossing into
it. We rested, didn't need to talk, just lay in each other's arms. When things
started up again, I crouched on my hands and knees so he could take me from behind.
Like bears, I thought—but he fondled my breasts like a man.

When we finished, he lay down, smiled at me, and fell asleep. I wanted lunch badly
enough to get up without waking him. I took my shorts from the floor and crept
out of the room to put them on.

After I'd scarfed some leftovers I found in the fridge, I went back to the bedroom. I'd
left the door open, and through it I could see Tor, still naked and sound
asleep, perfectly relaxed and sprawled. He was lying on his side but tipped a
little back to reveal everything he owned. He'd crooked one arm over his face
to shelter his eyes from the light. On an impulse I got one of the big
sketchbooks and some rust and sepia Conté sticks. I sat down on the floor,
half-naked myself, and drew him just as he looked. I considered adding a twist
of sheet for modesty but decided against it. I liked all of him, and I wanted a
record of it, right down to the scar on his left thigh from the werewolf bite.
I turned the page and did another figure study, more polished this time.

Making those drawings made me wonder why I kept downgrading my feelings for him.
Just
physical attraction.
You hear that, and it's a sneer. Only physical. Only
great sex. Well, it's not that easy to find. When you do, it's just as wonderful
as any other kind of love. The truth hit me hard. At last I knew what I felt
about him, even though it meant that I was going to have to lose him. I loved
him, and I couldn't keep lying to him. After I finished the drawing, I took the
sketchbook and sticks into my room. I didn't want him to see the drawings, even
though I couldn't say why.

That evening at dinner I decided to try approaching the subject of my disease
sideways, as it were, to work up some courage. Tor gave me an opening.

“I've been thinking about Nils,” he said. “Well, I did some magical work today that I
guess you could call thinking. He's not Björn, or not his latest incarnation, I
guess I should say. I'm sure of that now.”

“Good,” I said. “That's one less thing to worry about.”

“Yeah, it would have been a real nasty knot if that had been the case. But you know, sooner or
later he's bound to show up. Björn, I mean.”

My stomach clenched. I laid down my fork.

“God, I hope not!” I said.

“Unless he's worked through the wyrd he set in motion. He never struck me as the type
who would. It means admitting you're wrong. But it'll haunt him until he lets
you go.” Tor considered for a moment. “And until he apologizes to me. The
bastard, lying to someone during an honor duel! Whoever he is now, he'll have
to pay for that.”

“Wyrd is like karma?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Sooner or later, you reap what you sow.” He paused for a smile. “Just
to quote from another tradition.”

And what had I done to deserve my vampirism? I had wondered about that for years.
Thinking in terms of past lives, and my mother totally believed in them, had
made me feel that I deserved it. She'd never said so. In fact, she'd told me
the opposite.
Not everything is karma, sweetheart. Never ever think you
deserve this.
Had I believed her? No. Kids blame themselves for things they
don't understand. Blame hurts, but it gives you the illusion that you have some
control over your life.

Tor returned to eating his dinner. I realized that I could open the subject with a
casual remark about a hypothetical situation. What if he did throw me out when
he heard the truth? I'd lose him, but I'd never have to learn why I could speak
in a language I didn't know. The monster of my dream would have to sink back
into his black hole.

“Suppose someone has a fatal disease,” I said. “Did they do something to deserve it? Or
could it just be bad luck, genetics, or some kind of accident?”

“Sure.” Tor looked up from his plate. “Any of those. That's why no one should blame anyone
for being sick or poor or whatever. It really pisses me off when I hear people
do that, say someone's responsible for getting sick or being out on the street
because of what they did in a past life.”

 He'd given me the perfect segue. My heart started to pound in such terror that I could not
speak.

“Are you okay?” Tor said.

“No.” I made myself force the words out. “There's something you don't know about me.”

“You've got some kind of disease, don't you? Is it leukemia?”

I felt my entire body turn hot, then cold. “How did you—”

“Maya, look!” Tor laid down his fork and swiveled on the chair to face me. “You've got
olive skin, right? A little darker, maybe. Which hides things like turning pale
pretty well unless someone's really looking at you. I like to look at you. So I
can tell that when you're tired, the blood leaves your face. You get tired real
easily, too. At first I thought, well, you've been working too hard. But that's
not true any more.”

“I thought I was better at hiding.”

“No.” He held out a hand. “C'mon, tell me. I'll take care of you. You should know that
by now. I've been thinking lately that I should put you on the health
insurance.”

“That won't do any good. What I've got, they won't cover. It's not leukemia, no. That's too
normal.”

“Well, I've got investments I can call in to pay for—”

I shook my head no and struggled for words. I finally realized that there was only one
thing to say, the brutal truth. Tor let his hand rest back in his lap and
waited.

“I'm a vampire,” I said. “A real one. I'm not dead or undead or anything like that.
It's not like the movies. I just can't regenerate my life force like a normal
person. I have to steal it from other people.”

Tor stared with his mouth half-open.

“It's a disease, a really rare one, and it killed my father. It's going to kill me,
too, sooner or later. Probably sooner.” The words broke through my fear. To
tell someone the truth, to admit it, to explain at last—the relief turned into
a bitter pleasure. “It's a gene mutation from Central Europe. My father
explained it to me, and it's the root of all the old vampire legends. It's
real, Tor. You should understand if anyone can. It's like the life force you
give off after the bjarki change. I call it élan, but it's probably got another
name. I can harvest it when you throw it away.”

“Chi. It's called chi or sometimes etheric substance or magnetism.” He crossed his arms
over his chest and went on looking at me, merely looking, his eyes unreadable,
his face set into a mask.

“You can throw me out,” I said. “I always knew it would happen, once you knew the truth.”

“What?” The mask split and let me see Tor again. “I'm not going to throw you out. Why do
you think I would?”

“Because I'm a thief. I take life from other people without them knowing. Just a little
bit at a time, not enough to hurt them. My dad told me it wouldn't really hurt
them, if I only took a little bit from people who were young and healthy. I
hope to god he was right.”

“He probably was, yeah. Okay. So. What are we going to do about this?”

The room lurched to one side. Tor got up and caught me by the shoulders.

“Let's go into the living room,” he said. “I feel like a jerk, perching over my dinner
like a raven while we talk about this. Come on.”

It was my turn for the idiot stare.

“What's wrong?” Tor said.

“You're not going to throw me out?”

“No. Don't be stupid!”

“Then you don't believe me.”

“Of course I believe you. Why wouldn't I?”

“Don't you think I'm crazy? Delusional?”

“No! I wondered why you could take the bjarki in stride. I guess I know now. We both
have a problem, don't we? Why do you think I'd judge you?”

I had never seen it that way before. Why hadn't I? Because you've been so damn wound up in
your own illness, I told myself. Paranoia is a kind of vanity, I realized. I'd
thought that I was the only pariah in the world. I got up and let him lead me
into the living room. When I sat down on the couch, he sat next to me, but he
turned so he could look right at me. I leaned back against the cushions and
trembled. The sense of relief had deserted me. I felt like I'd had too much to
drink and done something horribly embarrassing, maybe even criminal, that I was
now going to pay for.

“Just one thing.” He spoke quietly, but I heard menace in his voice. “Have you been
stealing from me? I don't mean taking what I need to get rid of. I mean
stealing. Like, when I don't know it.”

Even though he never moved, I was abruptly aware of just how much taller than me he was,
how much stronger.

“No!” I stammered. “I never would, Tor! Not from you, not from my friends, either.” I
twisted my hands together in my lap to stop them shaking. “It was only after
the bjarki change.”

“That's okay!” He relaxed and smiled. “I was casting it off, and if you wanted to use
it, why would I care?”

I'm not sure why I found it so hard to believe him, maybe because I felt like two people
fighting inside one skin. One of them felt a hard knot of disappointment that
he wasn't making it easy for me to leave him. The other knew I wanted to stay.

Tor started to speak, then looked away with a little twist of concentration to his mouth. His
eyes became distant, unfocused. I wondered what was wrong until I felt the élan
began to gather. He pulled it from the air and from the sunset light coming in
the living room window, summoned it with his sorcery. He turned, raised both
hands, and like a flood of pure water let it pour over me. I gasped, sobbed,
breathed it in, and fed—ah god, it felt so good to feed, to feast on life
without stealing it from some person who'd never done me any harm. And so much!
I glutted myself, soaked up far more than I could process. Letting some of it
slide away again felt as luxurious as stroking silk velvet.

“You'll never have to steal from me,” Tor said. “All you have to do is ask. Maybe not
even that. I'll probably be able to tell when you need it. I'll give it to you,
Maya. A gift.” He smiled with an ironic twist to his mouth. “Some gift! It's
free. All I've got to do is harvest it.”

I sprawled back on the cushions in the ecstasy of having fed. He slid over close to me and
let the remnants of élan drip from his hands. I sighed and stretched in the
luxury of it.

“Tor?” I said. “I love you.”

He smiled at me like the sun breaking through fog. When he held out his arms, I turned
into his embrace and kissed him. Only much later did I realize that he'd bound
me to him with chains stronger than any rune.

On Wednesday, when I came home from school Tor was working, as he called it, in
the lower flat. I got myself some lunch, then brought out my laptop and put it
on the coffee table while I sat on the couch to do some banking. I'd attached
both of my credit cards to the online billpay, nice and convenient, though the
total of what I owed was anything but. It would take me a long time to pay them
off, but at least I could make a start. I needed to leave a certain amount in
my checking account to keep it open, of course. Beyond that, I wanted to divide
up the balance between the cards. If I sent it all, it would leave me without
any cash on hand. I could keep out enough for gas and maybe a lunch with my
friends, but how much? I was going back and forth about this when Tor came back
upstairs. I wondered if I could still consider myself his employee.

“Something wrong?” he said.

“Well, um, I've—god, this is embarrassing—but I've spent my last check from my old job.
And I need gas for the car.”

“Right.” Tor pretended to slap himself in the forehead. “And you need the salary I
promised you. I'm the one who should be embarrassed, not you. You've been here
a month, haven't you?” He grinned at me. “The best month of my life. Even with
the damned bjarki.”

“Really?”

He sat down next to me on the couch and kissed me for an answer. “Let me just stick a note
about it on the refrigerator door.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate it. I feel like I shouldn't take it from you, now that you're
my boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend.” He grinned at me. “What a word for it! Anyway, I don't want you to go without
spending money.” He let go of my hand. “Is the five hundred a month enough?”

“I'd take less if it weren't for my credit card bills. I mean, I can't spend that kind of
money just on stuff.”

He sat forward on the couch and frowned at the laptop screen. “You weren't kidding
when you said you were in debt.”

“Yeah, fraid not.”

“We should just pay those cards off. Why give the bastards all that interest?” With a
shrug he stood up. “You've changed your address, right? At the post office, I
mean.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Do you get ebills or paper?”

“Paper. They should come any day now, probably with new penalties, too. I kind of
missed a payment.”

“Kind of.” He rolled his eyes. “Then I'll take care of the bills when they get here. Don't
worry about it any more.” He went into the kitchen to make the note.