LONG HOT SUMMONING
The finest in Fantasy and Science Fiction
by TANYA HUFF from DAW Books:
THE SILVERED
THE ENCHANTMENT EMPORIUM
THE WILD WAYS
The Confederation Novels:
A CONFEDERATION OF VALOR
Valor’s Choice/The Better Part of Valor
THE HEART OF VALOR (#3)
VALOR’S TRIAL (#4)
THE TRUTH OF VALOR (#5)
SMOKE AND SHADOWS (#1)
SMOKE AND MIRRORS (#2)
SMOKE AND ASHES (#3)
BLOOD PRICE (#1)
BLOOD TRAIL (#2)
BLOOD LINES (#3)
BLOOD PACT (#4)
BLOOD DEBT (#5)
BLOOD BANK (#6)
The Keeper’s Chronicles:
SUMMON THE KEEPER (#1)
THE SECOND SUMMONING (#2)
LONG HOT SUMMONING (#3)
THE QUARTERS NOVELS, Volume 1:
Sing the Four Quarters/Fifth Quarter
THE QUARTERS NOVELS, Volume 2:
No Quarter/The Quartered Sea
WIZARD OF THE GROVE
Child of the Grove/The Last Wizard
OF DARKNESS, LIGHT, AND FIRE
Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light/The Fire’s Stone
TANYA HUFF
LONG HOT SUMMONING
The Keeper Chronicles #3
Copyright © 2003 by Tanya Huff.
All Rights Reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-101-65801-7
Cover art by Judy York.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1256.
DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.
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First Printing, May 2003
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Back in the summer of 2001, I attended a convention in Toronto called TT15. Or possibly TT2001 . . . it used to be called Toronto Trek and that’s how I remember it. Anyway, after my reading, during the question and answer session, I talked about this book which I’d just started writing. I gave a brief synopsis of what it was about and mentioned that it didn’t, as yet, have a title. A woman in the back of the room called out, “What about LONG HOT SUMMONING?”
The perfect title.
I don’t know who you are, but if you’re reading this, this one’s for you!
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
ONE
THROWING HER BACKPACK OVER ONE SHOULDER, Diana raced out the front door and rocked to a halt at the sight of the orange tabby crossing the front lawn. Or more specifically, at the sight of what dangled from the cat’s mouth. With one of its disproportionately long arms barely attached and dragging on the grass, and something that looked like intestine wrapped around one bare ankle, the bogey was unquestionably dead. An eyeball bounced gently against its bloody forehead with every step. “Nice catch,” she noted, half her attention on the approaching bus. “Where did you find it?”
“Ood ’ile,” Sam told her proudly, his voice distorted by the body.
“You know you can’t eat it, right?”
Amber eyes narrowed, he let the bogey drop and fixed Diana with an incredulous glare. “Do I look like an idiot?”
“No, but you haven’t been a cat for very long…” Six months ago, he’d been an angel. Angels didn’t concern themselves with the small things that slipped through the possibilities. “…and you know how my mother feels about that whole puking on the white wool rug thing.”
“Once! I did it once!”
“Yeah, so did I, and she’s never let me forget it either.” With a scream of abused brake linings, the bus stopped more or less at the end of the driveway. “I don’t have time to bury it now, so try to leave it where Mom’s not going to trip over it.” Turning, she took two steps and turned again, pulled around by the weight of Sam’s regard. “Oh, right. Sorry. You are a mighty hunter. Your skill with tooth and claw is amazing. Fast. Deadly. I stand in awe.”
“Hey! Sarcasm.”
“Not sarcasm,” Diana protested hurriedly. There were any number of imaginative places the dead bogey could be left. “But I’ve got to go. Mr. Watson won’t wait forever.”
“I’m amazed Mr. Watson stops at all.”
“Yeah, well, need provides and all that. Remember, I’ll be home early,” she added, trotting backward up the path, “just in case there’s anything you don’t want me to catch you doing.”
A presented cat butt made his opinion of that fairly plain.
Mr. Watson looked more nervous than impatient. He nodded a silent reply to Diana’s cheerful good morning, closed the door practically on her heels, and jerked the bus into gear. Had Diana not already been reaching into the possibilities, she’d have landed on her ass as he burned rubber trying to outrun half-buried memories. Fully burying them would have messed with his ability to drive, so only the less likely edges had been fuzzed out, leaving him in a perpetual state of nearly remembering things he’d rather not. Which was actually a state fairly common among school bus drivers.
Diana tried not to resent his attitude, but it wasn’t easy. This semester alone she’d stopped a black pudding from devouring an eighth grader, saved Chrissy Selwick from a three-headed dog attracted to the aconite in the herbal body mist she’d been given for Christmas—might as well have had “eat me” tattooed on her forehead—and prevented a Gameboy™ from taking over the world. Handheld computer games were more competitive than most people thought.
She’d also stopped Nick Packwood from hanging a second grader out the window by his heels, but since she still wasn’t entirely certain the kid hadn’t deserved it, she usually left that particular incident off her “reasons Mr. Watson should thank his gods I’m on the bus” list.
Making her way back through the rugrats, Diana noticed without surprise that the last six rows—the rows reserved for the
