The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1)

by Brad Magnarella

  I followed his glance down at my rented tuxedo, complete with cummerbund. He might have had a point.

  Hoffman coughed into a thick fist, as though clearing the final bits of rant from his chest. “All right, so here’s what we’re looking at. Double homicide at Ferguson Towers.”

  “That’s where we’re going?” A sprawling housing project between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, Ferguson Towers was notorious for all manner of illicit activities—from sophisticated drug operations to contract killings. To say they had a crime problem was like calling someone with stage four cancer “under the weather.”

  “Yeah, don’t know why we’re wasting our time,” Hoffman said. “The stiffs are a pair of junkies. Probably knocked off for getting behind on payments or something. Or maybe another junkie had his eyes on their stash. But Vega don’t like something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The pair of them had their necks torn open,” he said.

  In post-Crash New York that wasn’t exactly jarring. “Is there a ‘but’ in there?”

  Hoffman looked at me sidelong. “There wasn’t enough of a mess.”

  “A bloodsucker?”

  “Maybe, but that don’t mean a vampire,” he said quickly, eyebrows raised. “Plenty of sickos in this city to go around. Who knows? Maybe one of ’em has a chronic iron deficiency.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed. But we weren’t talking about a human.

  Ten minutes later, we heaved onto a curb and passed through an open chain-link gate. Ahead, a handful of police vehicles and an ambulance huddled in the gathering night fog, lights strobing. Grim towers took shape around us. Hoffman parked among the vehicles on the project’s central plaza.

  “Piece of advice?” he said, killing the engine. “Watch your head when we go in. Just last week an officer had a brick dropped on him from an upper story. We’re not exactly celebrities around here.”

  “No catching bricks with my head,” I replied. “Got it.”

  “I know you can’t shed your outfit, but you might want to lose the dandy bits. That’s likely to earn you a cinderblock.” He gave a guffaw before radioing to Vega that we’d arrived.

  I unknotted my bowtie and stuffed it into a pocket, wishing I’d worn my trench coat. As I leaned forward to unclasp my cummerbund, I examined the forbidding towers. There were six of them, three clustered on one side of the plaza and three on the other, a half-mile of chain-link fencing surrounding them.

  Geez, I thought, grabbing my cane. What kind of supernatural would want to mess with this place?

  “Stay close,” Hoffman said.

  We left the sanctuary of his car, Hoffman hustling toward the nearest tower, sidearm readied. I whispered a Word as I followed. Light from my cane slid into an umbrella-shaped shield. Peering through it, I half expected to see bricks dangling over the sills up and down the steep columns of windows. Instead, I made out silhouetted heads behind security bars. Despite what Hoffman had said, I sensed more fear in their blacked-out gazes than malice.

  We stepped into a dingy lobby of caged ceiling bulbs, and I dispersed my shield. Ambulance attendants idled around a pair of empty gurneys. A pair of officers emerged from a stairwell.

  “Any witnesses?” Hoffman asked the officers.

  “If so, no one’s talking.”

  “They’re not even opening their doors,” the other one said. “We did an entire vertical tour. The whole tower looks like a frigging ghost town.”

  “Damn Stiles,” Hoffman muttered. “Well, go on and check out the other towers.”

  The officers glanced at each other nervously before pacing out the front door.

  “Who’s Stiles?” I asked.

  “Runs the east towers.”

  “Is he the manager?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Hoffman said. “Victims are down here.”

  “Down, you said?”

  “Got a problem with that, Merlin?”

  A nauseating blend of heat and cold broke out across my face as pressure began to build against my chest. Other than my major phobia of being underground?

  “No,” I wheezed.

  5

  I followed Hoffman’s wide frame and wavering flashlight down two flights to a littered landing. A stench of stale urine pervaded the space, undercut by the ripeness of recent death.

  “Down here,” Detective Vega called from beyond a propped-open door.

  Hoffman and I descended another short flight of steps, arriving in a boiler room fit for an eighties slasher film. A convolution of old pipes and valves ran around the cold, damp space. We stepped over soiled clothes and brown drug envelopes until we arrived in a back room.

  Vega, in her black suit and blouse, was talking to a member of what appeared to be a forensic team. A crime-scene light glared hot over a pair of draped bodies. I couldn’t imagine the heat was helping the smell.

  Vega finished her conversation with the technician and turned toward us.

  “So what’s going on?” I asked, my throat tight around my words.

  Vega trained her dark eyes on the bodies. “The victims were killed sometime last night. Maintenance man found them a couple hours ago.”

  “Hoffman said the cause of death was torn jugulars?”

  Hoffman was grunting goodbye to the forensic team as they began to file out around us. “We won’t know until the autopsy,” Vega replied. “But it’s the most visible sign of trauma.”

  “And no blood?”

  “Not enough blood. I’ve seen opened throats before. They leave small ponds.”

  I tucked my cane under an arm and accepted the pair of latex gloves she handed me. As I donned the gloves, I made a cursory assessment of the covered bodies. The two were sitting side by side against the opposite wall, only their ratty shoes showing. “Could their throats have been slashed after they were dead?” I asked. “Maybe they OD’d.”

  Hoffman huffed, but didn’t say anything. He seemed better behaved around Vega.

  “Some drug stuff was found on them,” Vega allowed. “But the attack would had to have happened after the blood started to thicken and settle, and that takes about eight, ten hours.”

  “But you don’t think that’s what happened.”

  Light gleamed from her pulled-back hair as she shook her head. She led me to the closer body and lowered the sheet from his face.

  His youth struck me first. A white male, he couldn’t have been older than twenty, twenty-one. A tousle of rust-colored hair topped a gaunt, rigid face. His gaping eyes were dilated, either from death or fear.

  “Ready for the rest?” Vega asked.

  “I think so.”

  She dropped the drape to his chest, exposing the man’s throat. Or what was left of it. His trachea had been cracked in two and forced aside. Rags of flesh and gray vessels hung from the gaping wound, as though powerful jaws had clamped down and shaken violently.

  I glanced over the young man’s sweatshirt and faded denim jacket. “I see what you mean about the blood,” I said. With the condition of his throat, the man’s clothes should have been painted black. But except for a few flecks, they could have been fresh off the Salvation Army rack.

  “Take a look at the skin around the wound,” Vega said.

  I leaned closer until I recognized a pattern. Like a dinner plate that had been licked clean, only a few thin, rust-colored streaks remained. Whatever had killed this young man had sucked out his blood, then lapped up the stray splashes with its tongue.

  I swallowed hard against a tide of bile. “And the other victim?”

  “Same,” Vega said.

  I stood back to indicate I’d seen enough.

  “Forensics took saliva samples,” she said, replacing the drape over the victim’s face. “Also picked up some potential trace evidence, including fresh bullet casings. But with the backlog and that we’re dealing with junkies…”

  “It’s going to take weeks,” I finished for her.

  “Try months. I was lucky to
get forensics to even come down here. So, what could we be looking at?”

  I pulled off my gloves, remembering to pocket them. The last time I’d left gloves at a crime scene, a demon had cast from the sweat inside them. “Well, not your garden-variety killer, that’s for sure.”

  “You hired him for that?” Hoffman said.

  Vega turned her back on him. “Reminds me a little of the disembowelment cases.”

  “There are similarities,” I said. “But lower demons wouldn’t have stopped with blood. They would’ve cleaned out the vital organs, derived as much sustenance from the victims as they could.”

  “What about a greater demon?” Vega asked.

  I suppressed a proud smile. Vega had made a radical transition in her thinking that few could have managed without heavy meds. But we weren’t talking about a greater demon either—the Order would have picked up its presence. Sure, they had missed Sathanas, but he’d been partially hidden by the powerful energy that flowed around St. Martin’s Cathedral. No such energy existed around Ferguson Towers.

  In response to Vega’s question, I shook my head.

  Her brows folded in. “Well, what does that leave?”

  I flipped through a mental reference of supernatural beasties in greater New York. Werewolves had crossed my mind when I first saw the throat—the moon cycle was right—but while werewolves were maulers, they weren’t bloodsuckers. Ditto ghouls and trolls, who left very little of their victims intact, gnawing down to bones, and often eating those, too.

  Conversely, vampires would do a great job of explaining the lack of blood, but not the torn-up throat. They tended to be precise in their blood draws. Unless it was…

  “A blood slave,” I mumbled.

  “A blood what?” Vega said.

  “Sorry.” I blinked up at her. “I’ve told you about the vampires in the city, right?”

  “You mean Wall Street?” Though Vega’s acceptance of the supernatural had come around in a big way, it seemed she still carried a reserve of skepticism sometimes. Like now.

  “Well, the heads of the big investment banks,” I said. “Arnaud Thorne at Chillington Capital is the oldest and most powerful. He and his fellow vampires control a lot of things in the city, including small armies of blood slaves. Humans who were vampire-bitten.”

  “I thought they became vampires, too,” Vega said.

  “Not always. That process involves the vampire giving some of its own essence back to the victim, but in the case of blood slaves, the vampire mostly takes—blood, emotions, identity. The vampire hollows the person out, essentially.”

  “And then controls him,” Vega said.

  “Exactly. As long as the blood slave remains under the vampire’s control.”

  “Oh, this is ridiculous,” Hoffman complained. “Vampires? Blood slaves?” He waved a hand at the whole idea and left the crime scene, his heavy shoes pounding up the steps. “Load of crap.”

  Vega rolled her eyes. “He’ll come around.”

  “I’m not holding my breath.”

  “What did you mean by as long as the blood slave remains under control?” she asked.

  “Well, history is dotted with legends of blood slaves breaking their masters’ hold. Without a mind of their own, and deprived of their own blood—for centuries, in some cases—the blood slaves go on a bit of a rampage. Tearing open throats, drinking down all they can.”

  “What about the size of the wound?” Vega’s gaze had shifted to the covered victims.

  “A slave’s jaw can unhinge. Combine that with their superhuman strength…”

  “But how can we be sure?”

  “We find him,” I said.

  “Super. How?”

  I pulled a folded kerchief from my pocket and opened it beneath a steady drip of water falling from one of the pipes.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Preparing a spell.” I returned to the first victim and, wincing, exposed his torn-open neck again. With a finger tenting the kerchief’s damp center, I ran it along an area of intact skin where the creature had licked. “A hunting spell. With the saliva, I should be able to lock onto the creature’s location. Would it be a problem if I set up a casting circle down here?”

  “If you promise not to shove me inside.” She was referring to the night I’d placed her in a protective circle to protect her from a shrieker attack while I went after the demon lord Sathanas.

  “Heh. Special circumstances, Detective. Won’t happen again.”

  Vega backed up a safe distance anyway as I hunkered down and began to sprinkle out a circle of copper filings.

  “I have a question,” I said, “and don’t take this the wrong way, but when did the NYPD start caring about drug addicts? I mean, some would say the killer did the city a favor. And with all the homicides out there… I guess what I’m asking is why do you care?”

  “I’m trying to prevent a war.”

  I stopped and looked up at her. “A war?”

  At that moment, a riot of angry shouts sounded from upstairs. Vega drew her sidearm and broke into a run. I left my copper circle half finished and followed, cane pulled into sword and staff.

  6

  We arrived upstairs to find Hoffman and four NYPD officers shouting down their aimed firearms at three men across the lobby, two of whom were aiming assault rifles and shouting back. The third, a shaven-headed black man, stood between his armed associates in a pair of aviator sunglasses, arms crossed. Between his lips, a toothpick slid back and forth.

  In the confusion and close acoustics, I couldn’t make out a word being shouted, but something told me the lobby was one slammed door from becoming a shooting gallery. I readied my staff for a shield spell.

  Before I realized she’d left my side, Vega was marching into the middle of the mayhem. My heart leapt into my throat. She was putting herself right in the potential crossfire.

  Vega waved her arms overhead. “Everyone shut the fuck up!”

  Within seconds, the shouts wound down, giving way to ringing echoes.

  Vega looked sharply from one side to the other. “Now lower your weapons.” She holstered her own pistol, which seemed either incredibly bold or stupid. When no one complied, Vega stepped up to the man with the shades and toothpick. His lean leather coat rippled around his boots.

  “Stiles,” she said sternly.

  It was the man Hoffman had mentioned, the one in charge of the east towers. The toothpick between Stiles’s lips stopped moving, and he said something over a shoulder. His men eased back and lowered their assault rifles.

  After another tense moment, the police responded in kind. My own shoulders let out as I sheathed my sword into my staff.

  “Now, do you want to tell me what this is all about?” Vega demanded.

  Hoffman jutted his chin toward Stiles. “Scumbag put a gag order on the towers. No one’s talking, meaning we can’t do our jobs.”

  Vega turned to Stiles. “Is there a reason for that?”

  “Maintenance shouldn’t have called you,” he replied, his voice deep and even. “We manage our own affairs.”

  “Oh yeah?” Hoffman challenged. “So what are two stiffs doing down in your boiler room?”

  “We’ll take care of that,” Stiles said.

  “I bet you will,” Hoffman muttered.

  “Let me guess,” Vega said. “Revenge hits?” When Stiles remained silent, Vega nodded. “One of Kahn’s dealers showed up at Manhattan General last week with a stump for a right hand. Which means he was caught selling in your towers, right? And now you think what happened downstairs is Kahn’s retribution—taking out two of your clients, sending a message. Well, I’ve got a news flash for you. You’re not as smart as you think.”

  The toothpick paused for a moment before resuming its back-and-forth slide. My gaze moved to Stiles’s henchmen. The one to his left had the lumped-up face of an NFL lineman, while his partner looked like he was on leave from the Mexican wrestling circuit for unnecessary rou
ghness. Though they aimed their weapons floor-ward, their thick fingers remained tense on the triggers.

  I hope to hell you know what you’re doing, Detective.

  “We have a lead on someone,” she continued, “and it’s not any of Kahn’s people. If you’ll let us do our job, we’ll bring the perp to justice, and you and Kahn can carry on, business as usual.”

  “Business as usual,” Stiles said, “is cops not invading my buildings.”

  “Oh, you think this is an invasion?” Hoffman gave a hard laugh. “We’ll show you an invasion, buddy. Got a list of crimes a mile long we could nail you for.”

  “Then why haven’t you?” Stiles asked.

  Hoffman’s red cheeks balled up. “Smartass sonofa…”

  Vega showed him a staying hand before training her gaze back on Stiles—a man whose illicit profits probably paid officials and Midtown lawyers to keep him in business. Vega was up against someone she couldn’t strong-arm, and I could see in her eyes she hated that.

  “Look, we get that these are your towers.” She swallowed as though the words were leaving a bitter residue. “Just let us do our jobs here, and I’ll keep you current on the investigation. Tell you about any arrests. But you’re gonna do a couple of things for me.”

  “Really,” he said evenly.

  “First, you’re gonna put out the word that anyone who saw something can talk to us.”

  His shades remained fixed on her face. “And…?”

  She drew up her five-foot frame. “And you’re not gonna act on what you think happened downstairs.”

  “I can’t promise that.”

  Vega’s anger broke its dam. “Where do you think this is gonna lead, huh? You kill two of his, he kills four of yours, you turn around and kill eight, and pretty soon this place is ground zero.” She drew in a hard breath and pushed it out through her nose. “You’ve got three thousand people in your towers, more than half of them children. Same for Kahn and the west towers. Think, for God’s sake!”

  So this is the war she’s trying to prevent, I thought. Two drug lords ruling opposite sides of the same project, and the police can’t lay a finger on either one. I remembered the silhouetted heads I’d seen peering down from the caged windows like frightened prisoners.