Trio of Sorcery by Mercedes Lackey

next to it as she slumped into it. Emory helped Em to the bathroom, and a moment later, Di heard the shower running. Yeah, after that, the poor girl probably needed a shower. And then a second one to get the sulfur stink out of her hair.
    Marshal, his eyes as big as dinner plates, brought Di a beer, then sat down as far from her as he could get, staring at her. Zaak, on the other hand, sat down as close to her as he could get, though he looked at his hands, not her.
    Emory, who had left Em on her own in the bathroom, brought more beers, set them down, and sat down himself. He was the one that finally broke the silence.
    â€œWhat the hell just happened?” he asked quietly.
    Di slumped a little further into the chair and gave Zaak the evil glare. “Gandalf there decided that normal detective work wasn’t getting anywhere. Didn’t you, Zaak? What did you try to call? Specifically?”
    â€œI thought”—Zaak gulped—“I thought I’d get a wandering spirit. ’Cause, y’know, something like that could go hunting for Melanie….”
    â€œGive me strength,” she groaned. “Haven’t you paid any attention to your own peoples’ folklore?”
    His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “Uh, no?” he said weakly.
    She sat up and pointed at him. “When you do an unspecified summoning, you moron, you get what your heritage calls. And in your case, the only ‘wandering spirits’ that the Jews have, specifically the European Jews, are the dybbuks. Dybbuks are not particularly cooperative. What did I tell you about thinking things through?”
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said in a small voice.
    â€œWell, you had better be sorry. Because the unrestful, unconsecrated spirit of one of your people found himself in the body of a tryf -eating goyim , and he was not even remotely happy about that. Which is, I expect, why he attempted to cleave a pound out of your butt with that knife.” She slumped down again. “Add to that fact that he and his friends are out and about for a reason—said reason being that they were such pieces of crap on earth that they can’t rest—and I trust you get the picture. I’d smack you like your old granny, but I’m too tired.”
    â€œWait—” said Emory. “Spirit? Dybbuk? I’m lost.”
    It was going to be a long night.
    Thank gods it’s Friday.

    Be careful what you ask for. You might get it. Di had wanted a little help, now she had more than she had bargained for. Or she would, when the quartet got over being rattled and started to realize that they had just witnessed some real magic, that there was such a thing, and that—because face it, they were all under twenty-five and three of them werelaboring under a burden of testosterone—it had been pretty damn exciting.
    Which meant that she wasn’t going to be able to pry them off of her now. Zaak was already a Believer, and the only thing more fanatic than a Believer who gets evidence that he’s right, is a Skeptic who gets evidence that the Believers are right. Ah, the zeal of the newly converted.
    Which of course was what Emory and Marshal were. Maybe Em too; for the moment she was being really quiet, and seeing as she was the one whose skin the dybbuk had tried to take over, Di didn’t blame her.
    When Di had finally made all the explanations she cared to, she stumbled down to her own apartment, intending to sleep like a stone. She left them to clean up the mess. Fortunately there wasn’t much of it.
    She hoped Zaak had to clean up the lion’s share.
    She really, really wanted to go straight to bed, but she knew that if she did, she’d wake up with the whole apartment smelling like sulfur, and the curtains would stink for weeks. So she stood under the shower until she started to go all pruney, and then fell into bed with her hair still wrapped in a towel.
    She must have been so tired