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

by Brad Magnarella

  Vega lifted her head to see. “Oh, crap,” she muttered, and let her head fall back.

  Okay, that’s not very reassuring. “Listen, you’re going to be all right,” I said. “But you have to tell me what to do.”

  “Bullet broke through the vest,” Vega whispered. “But I don’t think it made it through the muscle. Go ahead and open the kit.”

  I opened the medical kit and dumped the contents onto the floor.

  “Put on the blue gloves and grab the peroxide and some gauze.”

  I sifted through the contents until I found the gloves in a plastic bag. I tore open the bag with my teeth and pulled the gloves on. I then ripped open a package of stacked gauze and twisted the cap from a brown bottle of peroxide. “All right,” I said. “I’ve got everything.”

  “Pour the peroxide over the site.” She wrapped her fingers around the edges of the metal frame. “Need to disinfect it.”

  “Do you want a countdown?”

  She shook her head, eyes squeezed closed.

  I tipped the bottle over her stomach, soaking it with peroxide. Her muscles clenched into a small six-pack as the peroxide foamed white in the wound. I wiped around the hole with a handful of gauze, sponging up the pink runoff. After several seconds, Vega let out her held breath in a grunt.

  “Good, Croft,” she whispered. “Now find the extra long tweezers.”

  “Got ’em,” I said, tearing away the sterile wrapping.

  “Have to get the bullet out.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.” I looked back down at the medical supplies. “Isn’t there something I can give you for pain?”

  She shook her head. “When morphine started disappearing from the kits … NYPD stopped including it.”

  “Wonderful.” I swallowed and held the tweezers over the wound. “Just tell me if you need me to back off, all right?”

  She nodded.

  I winced as I lowered the tweezers into the opening. I tried not to touch the walls of flesh, as though involved in a macabre version of Operation.

  I had only gone in a few millimeters when I encountered something foreign beneath the pool of blood. Vega’s stomach tensed as I tried to grip the object with the tweezers.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Just grab it, dammit. Grab it and pull it out.”

  I pressed the tweezers in more deeply, got a solid grip, and drew the flattened chunk of metal free.

  “It’s out!” I said, like someone who had just landed a fish.

  “We’re not done,” Vega panted. “Look for a package labeled Celox.”

  I dropped the bullet and tweezers in the wadded-up gauze and looked through the contents of the medical kit. “Celox… Celox… Okay, found it.” I picked up the metallic pouch.

  “It’s a coagulant,” Vega said. “Pour it over the wound.”

  I opened the pouch too aggressively. The corn-meal-like granules spilled across her stomach, clumping where it met blood. Using a finger, I shoveled the Celox into the wound until it was full, then patted it down. I looked at Vega’s face. She was sweating heavily, a forearm to her brow.

  “Hey, hey, are you all right?”

  She waved weakly toward the medical supplies with her other hand. “Just dress it.”

  I covered the wound with a small stack of gauze and then affixed the gauze with a compression dressing. I reinforced everything with medical tape. It didn’t look half bad, but the mess around her was another story. I appraised her soaked vest, the pile of dirty gauze. She had lost a lot of blood.

  “Just need a little rest,” Vega said. “Then we’ll talk to a blood slave.”

  She wasn’t going to be in any condition. “Why don’t you let me?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s not your son.”

  I covered her with a clean sheet I had grabbed from my apartment and looked at her pallid face. A fresh wave of guilt at endangering her son, endangering her, crashed through me. She needed to be in a hospital. She needed blood.

  I pulled my cane from my coat belt and looked at the opal. What was the bigger risk, attempting or not attempting to heal her through magic?

  “Try it,” Vega mumbled, an eyelid cracking open. “I’m going back out there regardless.”

  I had no doubt she would.

  Setting my legs apart, I touched the end of the cane to the mound of dressing beneath the sheet. I leaned back against the power flooding toward my prism as I incanted, allowing only the smallest trickle through. The orb glowed softly, enveloping Vega in a thin, cottony haze of light. She murmured as her eyelids trembled closed.

  I pulled energy back from the spell and broke it. The room dimmed again. I had given her as much magic as I was willing to risk. Hopefully it would be enough to jump-start the healing.

  From one floor down, the room shook with the march of footsteps and doors opening and closing. The vampire hunters were home. I wanted to remain with Vega, to monitor her condition, but a quick trip downstairs could help fill in some holes in the Ferguson Towers murders. Such as why Bullet, Blade, and Dr. Z had been tracking the creature.

  Vega had curled onto her side and seemed to have drifted off, her vulnerable body rising and falling in an even rhythm.

  “I’m going to step out, but I’ll be right back,” I whispered. And then I did something I never would have attempted while Detective Vega was awake. I leaned down and kissed her cheek.

  27

  “Mr. Wednesday Night,” Bullet said upon answering the door, but without his usual enthusiasm.

  “Mind if I come in?” I asked.

  The giant of a man frowned his tattoo-patterned face and looked behind him, as though seeking approval from someone beyond my view. “Yeah, sure,” he said, opening the door wider.

  Blade and the green-haired Dr. Z were sitting on a couch, holding half-eaten slices of pizza. They had changed out of their battle gear. Blade now sported a camouflage tank top and Dr. Z a hooded shirt. Bullet joined them on the end, setting his shotgun beside the couch. Blade jutted her chin toward a greasy pizza box standing open on the coffee table. “Help yourself,” she told me.

  “Thanks, but I’m watching my complexion.”

  “How about a beer, then?” Dr. Z offered.

  “Yeah, guess I could use one of those.” I pulled a gold can from the six-pack on the table and settled into an old rattan chair facing the couch, the exhaustion of the day weighing on my bones. I cracked the tab and took a long drink. The beer went down warm and thick.

  “Let me guess,” Blade said, watching me lower the can. “You’re a Jehovah’s Witness and you want us to take a look at some pamphlets.”

  “I’m a consultant for the NYPD, and I want to know what you were doing down in the storm lines. Armed with silver weapons,” I added.

  “I thought you were a professor,” Bullet said, biting into his pizza, the cheese stretching into strings as he drew it from his chomping jaws.

  “I’m that, too.”

  “All the shit going on in this city,” Dr. Z cut in, “and you’re worried about us?”

  “Look, you guys aren’t in any trouble. In fact, I think we’re after the same thing.” The three of them fell silent, suddenly more interested in their dinner. “All right, why don’t you start by telling me what happened after the detectives and I left? We all thank you for bailing us out, by the way.”

  “We followed a blood trail,” Blade said.

  “Detective Vega hit the creature with a silver bullet,” I said, nodding for her to continue.

  “Well, by the amount of blood, I’d say she hit it pretty good. But the trail led to a mainline where water was really gushing, probably from an opened hydrant. That’s where we lost the trail. And in that maze, forget it. We must have been down there for two hours before deciding to pack it in.”

  “The creature killed again,” I said.

  The three of them looked up. “Where?” Blade asked.

  “The
Ferguson Towers Project. We think she’s climbing up through the storm drain.” I wondered now if the creature’s injury had driven her to feed. “How did you learn about her?”

  “Someone hired us,” Blade said.

  That much I had guessed. “Who?”

  “Sorry,” Blade said. “We guarantee our clients complete confidentiality. It’s one of our selling points.”

  When I could see she wasn’t going to budge, I relented and took another swallow of beer. “Fine. Why don’t you just tell me what you know about the creature?”

  “She’s a hybrid,” Blade said.

  “A hybrid? Of what?”

  “Vampire and werewolf.”

  “More of the first than the second, though,” Dr. Z put in.

  I had never even heard of that, but I supposed it was possible. “Hybrid by birth?”

  “Could be,” Dr. Z said. “But there’s always the lightning strikes twice scenario. You know, some unlucky bastard getting the lycanthrope infection, then later being turned into a vampire.”

  “And someone hired you to put this one down?”

  “We don’t chase after these things for our health,” Blade said.

  “No, I guess not. Care to tell me your next move?”

  “And tip off our competition?” Blade smirked. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re a little cash starved.” She glanced around a living room of second-hand furniture, sagging punk posters, and stacked amps.

  “I think I can convince the NYPD to let you have this one.” Especially since that would free us up to focus on Arnaud’s leads. I just prayed he hadn’t already taken punitive action against Vega’s son.

  “Well, thanks to your blundering into the tunnels,” Blade said, “who knows where the creature ended up. It won’t be lairing in that little service room again, though, I can tell you that much. It’s too smart.”

  “And damn near invincible,” Dr. Z said. “Those silver bullets you were packing wouldn’t have done the job.”

  “No?” I set my beer can down with a shaking hand. Some consultant I’d turned out to be. “How do you kill a hybrid, then?”

  Dr. Z drew a finger across his neck. “Decapitation, baby.”

  “We’ll probably have to wait for it to strike again,” Blade said. “That’ll give us an idea where it’s holed up.”

  I remembered the hair in my coat pocket, the one I had collected in Alexandra’s dorm room. If she was the creature, a hunting spell could lead us to her. But the creature wasn’t my immediate priority. That honor went to Detective Vega’s son. Which meant taking up Arnaud’s game again, connecting the dots he was setting out for us until a picture emerged.

  “How did you know to look underground?” I asked.

  Blade chewed slowly on her next bite of pizza, as though considering what to divulge. “We were told the same thing as you,” she said at last. “That the creature was using the storm drains.”

  Only we weren’t told that, I thought. Vega and Hoffman figured it out. Which suggests that whoever hired you three either has access to the case file or to someone working the case.

  “Can I assume your employer is someone powerful then?” I asked.

  Blade and Dr. Z gave me poker faces, but I caught Bullet, the weak link, glance quickly down.

  Blade tossed her crust into the box and closed the lid. “Time’s up, Everson. Dr. Z and I need to rehearse. Big show next week. If you can promise to keep your pants on, you’re welcome to come.”

  “One last question,” I said, ignoring the dig. “With this job, have you been meeting any resistance from the vampires?”

  Dr. Z snorted. “Only about every time we turn around. Too bad no one’s paying us to knock off blood slaves.”

  “Any idea why?” I asked as I handed them cards with Vega’s contact info.

  Blade shrugged. “Someone hired us to kill the hybrid. Maybe someone hired a vamp to keep it alive.”

  28

  I rushed to where Vega stood at the side of the bed, adjusting her service belt around her waist. Her wife beater was dark but no longer bloody. She had already rinsed it in the sink and wrung it out.

  “What are you doing up?”

  “I didn’t want to sleep too long,” she said. “Whatever you did helped.”

  When she raised her face, strands of damp hair clung to her brow. Though her color remained pale, it had improved from only a half hour ago.

  “I still say you need your rest. You lost a lot of blood.”

  She ignored the comment, wincing as she straightened. “Where did you run off to, anyway?”

  “That trio that helped us out with the blood slaves? They’re squatting in the same building.” At that moment, the muted sounds of electric guitars came up through the floor. “They’ve been hired to hunt the creature. That’s why they were down in the storm lines.”

  “Hired by who?”

  “They wouldn’t tell me, but I say let them hunt it.”

  Vega nodded as she stepped past me. “I agree for once. Now let’s go find Arnaud’s spokesperson, see where things stand.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” I held up a piece of paper. “It was stuck in the door when I got back here.”

  Vega snatched it from me, her eyes already moving over the spidery script. I came around behind her and reread the message:

  Your return to Ferguson Towers violated the letter of our agreement, but perhaps not the spirit. I am giving you the benefit of the doubt and will consider the detective’s injury penalty enough. Rest assured, the boy remains safe in our care. As for the leads, I applaud your thoroughness thus far. It seems you are making progress. Keep it up, and the conditions for the boy’s return will soon be fulfilled. I have another person you will no doubt find interesting. I advise you to see her forthwith.

  Lady Bastet

  59 Carmine Street

  “The name ring a bell?” Vega asked.

  “Not from personal experience, but yeah. Lady Bastet lives in the West Village. She also happens to be a mystic.”

  “An old woman with a crystal ball?”

  “Old in years, maybe, but not looks. And I don’t know about the crystal ball, but it wouldn’t surprise me. That address is for a rug store she owns, but her real business is divination and spells.”

  “Good mystic or bad?”

  I considered the question as I retrieved my revolver. “Neutral.”

  “Think she’ll be open this late?”

  “Probably, but you’re going to need something warmer.” I dug into one of my duffel bags and pulled out a gray sweatshirt I had planned to sleep in. “Here.” I tried to help Vega into it, but she pulled it out of my hands and put the sweatshirt on herself, rolling up the sleeves to her wrists.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  A plain sign over the sidewalk pointed down a staircase to Lady Bastet’s basement-level business. Despite Vega’s assurances that she was all right, I had her keep a hand on my shoulder as we descended. I had already seen her stumble once.

  At the bottom of the steps, an old wooden door creaked open before I could knock. A striking eye with a white kohl peered out.

  “Yes?” a woman’s voice asked.

  “Lady Bastet?” Vega said, shouldering me aside. “I’m Detective Vega with the NYPD. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  “And who is your handsome associate?” She spoke in an accent that was hard to place.

  “That’s Everson Croft. A consultant.”

  Lady Bastet opened the door until we were looking at a dark-skinned woman in a white peasant blouse. A gold band with an ankh symbol in its center held a pile of dark hair from a face whose subtle age lines enhanced her appearance. Lady Bastet smiled at me with lush lips, then seemed to tease me with her cat-green eyes to follow. It was a compelling look.

  Vega shot me a consternated glance as Lady Bastet led us through a display room of Middle Eastern rugs to a back room. The space smelled of harsh incense and magic. As cats squint
ed at us from various perches, Lady Bastet gestured for us to sit at a stone table in the room’s center. After covering what looked like a scrying globe with a cloth, she joined us on the table’s opposite side.

  “You are missing someone close to you,” she told Vega.

  Vega set her jaw. “We’re investigating a series of murders, and we’d like to ask you some questions.”

  “As a consultant?” Lady Bastet asked.

  “As a person of interest,” Vega replied.

  I half expected Lady Bastet’s eyes to widen in alarm. Instead they pinched at the corners, as though she were smiling inwardly. Perhaps our visit had livened up an otherwise dull night.

  “Please,” she said, opening a hand of long nails. “Proceed.”

  “I’m going to give you some names,” Vega said, “and I want you to tell me whether they mean anything to you.” She took Alexandra’s photo from the file and pushed it across the table. “This is Alexandra Mills.”

  Lady Bastet lifted the photo. “She is beautiful.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “Beautiful and tortured,” Lady Bastet went on. “It is there in her eyes, as though something is fighting to claim her very soul. She is winning, though. At least at the time of the photo.”

  “You haven’t answered my question,” Vega said.

  Lady Bastet placed the photo on the table and slid it back. “I am sorry. Sometimes the impressions just come.” When her gaze touched mine, she might as well have winked. “No, I do not know her.”

  Vega’s shoulders slouched as she returned the photo to the file. “How about a Sonny Shoat? He runs an establishment on West Forty-second Street called Seductions.”

  Lady Bastet repeated his name. “Do you have something of his I might touch?”

  “I’m not asking for a reading,” Vega said, her voice thinning with frustration. “I’m just asking if you know him.”

  “I do not deal with those types.”

  “What types?” Vega asked.

  “I think you know.”