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

by Brad Magnarella

  “And we’re off the books on this one?” Vega asked.

  “What books?” Larry made a shooing gesture with his hands. “Go on, get out of here. Go save New York.”

  We pulled out of the garage and onto Lexington Avenue.

  “I’ve already called Hoffman,” Vega said. “He’s going to meet us at the office downtown. How did everything go with—”

  “She’s fine,” I interrupted.

  “So she wasn’t missing?”

  “Yes. Well, no.” I stared at the empty road ahead. “It’s complicated.”

  “O-o-okay.”

  I changed the subject. “Did Hoffman sound suspicious when you talked to him?”

  “No, but he seemed a little too interested when I told him I had info on the creature’s mother. Probably can’t wait to get his grubby hands on it so he can run it to whoever he’s informing.”

  “I think it’s Mr. Moretti.”

  “The washed-up gangster?”

  “I ran into a couple of his men just now,” I said. “One of them let slip that I’d popped up on Mr. Moretti’s ‘list,’ which I can only assume meant his hit list. Think about it. Someone has Sonny killed but without knowing what the vampire might have told us. So he has to play it safe—”

  “And eliminate us, too,” Vega finished.

  “But I think our plan buys us time. Mr. Moretti’s going to want to know exactly how much we know. That info will be in the fake file that Hoffman will hopefully deliver to him.”

  Vega was silent for a moment. “Why Moretti, though?”

  I’d done some thinking on the drive back from the townhouse. Lord knew I’d needed to occupy my mind with anything but the bombshell Caroline had dropped on my heart. “The hit was the first clue,” I said. “I then went back over what Arnaud told us outside of Sonny’s. He said, ‘The truth is not as distant as it might seem, especially for you, Detective.’ That last part didn’t click for me at the time, but Little Italy is just a few blocks north of your office, right?”

  “Moretti’s fiefdom.”

  “And think about Arnaud’s parting advice: ‘Find out who wants the creature dead, and the answer will reveal itself like a magician’s coin.’ A coin has two sides, right? So if one side is Moretti, the other side is probably—”

  “His wife,” Vega said.

  “I met her last night at the gala. She fit the bill. Long, auburn hair, orange-tinted irises. And she had this feral air about her, like she wasn’t entirely human. That could be accounted for by werewolf blood.”

  “That also fits with what Lady Bastet said about her being mixed up with disreputable people. The Italian mafia isn’t what it used to be, but it’s still plenty criminal. And there’s probably enough in the till for the wife to have helped her daughter without anyone in the organization noticing.”

  “I didn’t sense a lot of love between Mr. and Mrs. Moretti last night, either,” I said.

  “But why is he so desperate to cover up his wife’s past?”

  I shrugged. “To protect their reputation? The man’s been trying to wheedle his way back into the upper echelons of organized crime in the city—honorable organized crime, as he probably thinks of it. Maybe he considers having a homicidal creature for a daughter a handicap.”

  “Maybe,” Vega said, but without sounding convinced.

  “We’ll find out for sure, in any case. What time did you tell Hoffman?”

  “Four thirty.”

  I checked my watch. “All right. That gives us enough time to create the file and for me to put a spell…” My voice petered out as I remembered the fae’s neutralizing effect on my magic. I powered down the window and aimed my cane at the approaching street light.

  “What are you doing?” Vega asked above the roaring wind, a hand to her whipping hair.

  “A test,” I said. “Vigore!”

  I watched for the street lights to rock on their wires. With even a small return of my powers, I could cast a weak hunting spell, something that might hold up provided it didn’t start raining again.

  The street lights erupted in an explosion of sparks. Wires snapped, and one of the traffic-light bodies plummeted onto the roof of the sedan before clunking away behind us. I drew my cane back into the car and powered up the window.

  “Successful test?” Vega asked thinly.

  “Yeah,” I said, reflecting on Caroline’s parting kiss.

  I wasn’t sure, but I think she had restored my powers.

  “So what do we got?” Hoffman asked, waddling into Vega’s office in one of his polyester suits.

  “The list of women I mentioned.” Vega tossed the file of fake names and addresses onto the desk. A light blue aura that only I could see hummed around the manila folder. “I want you to follow up. They’re all in the city.”

  Hoffman squinted over at me with naked disdain as he grabbed the file and dropped into the chair next to mine. He flipped it open and frowned over the list. “And you’re sure the mother’s one of these?”

  “Almost positive,” Vega said.

  “Where’d you get the info?”

  “A nightclub owner named Sonny,” Vega said. “The one we talked to earlier.”

  Hoffman nodded and tucked the folder under an arm. “I’m on it.” Halfway to the door, he stopped and turned. “Oh hey, were you able to find your kid?”

  “Yeah,” Vega said.

  “And he’s all right?”

  Vega’s eyes dropped to the folder. “He will be.”

  “Good to hear, good to hear.”

  I waited until Hoffman left and I heard the elevator door close behind him before holding up my trembling cane. “It’s locked onto the folder.”

  “And I was able to pair to his cell,” Vega said, showing me her smartphone.

  “All right, but keep that thing away from me. I don’t want to mess it up.”

  Vega was preparing to say something when the phone rang. She raised a finger for silence and carried the phone to the far corner of the office before activating the speaker.

  Someone picked up.

  “Yeah?” a man’s voice asked.

  “I’ve got the file,” Hoffman said through the crackling exchange.

  “Good. You know where to drop it.”

  “I’ll have it there in a few,” Hoffman said.

  Vega swore under her breath as she put the phone away.

  I stood. “Sounds like the hunt is on.”

  Vega drove while I aimed my cane out the window, calling out the turns. The streets were practically deserted, one of the reasons for the hunting spell. Hoffman would have spotted us had we tried to tail him.

  The spell directed us into Little Italy and down Broome Street, confirming my suspicions.

  “There he is,” Vega said, easing off the gas. Blocks ahead, a blue sedan was turning left, brake lights glimmering red off the still-wet asphalt.

  “He’s already made the drop,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because my cane’s pulling us to that corner.”

  In fact, my cane was jerking like it had hooked a marlin. I choked up my grip to keep the spell from yanking the cane from my hands.

  Vega pulled up to the corner and idled.

  “The mailbox,” I said, cane aimed at the squat blue receptacle bolted into the concrete.

  “All right, we’ll put eyes on it.” She drove through the intersection and U-turned at the next one, parking in front of the rolled-down steel door of a butcher shop about a half block from the box.

  She killed the lights and engine.

  “The son of a bitch lied to my face,” she said.

  “Hoffman?”

  “You were there. He looked me straight in the eyes and told me he had nothing to do with Moretti.” She shook her head. “And I trusted him. When this is over, his ass is history.”

  “I know I don’t consult on hirings and firings, but that sounds fine with me.”

  “Shh,” Vega said, sliding down in her
seat.

  I did the same and peeked over the dashboard. Headlights were swimming into view from straight ahead. We slid even lower as the car behind the lights took shape—a classic sports car. At the corner with the mailbox, the car cut right and droned out of sight. I glanced over at Vega as I scooted back up.

  “False alarm?”

  “Stay down,” she said. “The driver’s probably circling to make sure he’s not being tailed.”

  She was right. The same headlights reappeared a minute later. This time, the car pulled up to the corner. A man in a hat and coat got out of the passenger’s seat, looked around, and hunkered on the far side of the mailbox. Seconds later, he stood and returned to the car, a familiar-looking folder in hand.

  “Recognize him?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s one of Moretti’s men. How’s your spell holding up?”

  “Should be good for another thirty.” I watched the car turn left onto Bowery.

  “Moretti’s place isn’t far from here, but they’ll probably tool around the neighborhood for a little to make sure no one’s following.”

  We gave them a few minutes’ head start before Vega pulled from the curb.

  My cane tugged us north onto Bowery. Following a couple of jags, we ended up on Second Avenue, skirting the worst of the East Village. Blocks away, ghouls rummaged through garbage piles. They were getting bolder, something that was going to become a problem for Mayor Lowder as eyewitness accounts increased and more New Yorkers went missing.

  When the spires of Midtown rose around us, Vega asked, “Still north?”

  I could hear the uncertainty in her voice. We were miles from Little Italy. “Until my spell says otherwise.”

  Her smartphone rang, and she pulled it from her pocket. “Vega,” she said.

  On the other end, I picked up what sounded like a woman’s urgent voice.

  Vega squinted as she listened, as though trying to hear better. “Where are you?” she asked. The woman’s voice was interrupted by a shotgun blast before she resumed.

  “Shit,” Vega spat, more to herself, it seemed. “All right. Hang on. We’re on our way.” She threw the phone onto the dash and performed a vicious U-turn, mashing me against the door. “That was your vampire-hunter friend Blade,” she said when we’d straightened.

  “Blade? What’s going on?”

  “They’ve got the creature pinned in a basement at Frederick Douglass Apartments, a project just north of Ferguson Towers.”

  I glanced back in the direction we had been heading. “But … the file.” I had very nearly said your son.

  “The hunters can’t stop the creature. She’s out of control. And right now Blade and her friends are the only thing standing between her and the thousand-odd residents of Frederick Douglass. They need backup.”

  “How did they even know where to find her?”

  “They picked up some chatter on their police scanner. Someone called in a murder in progress. Another junkie.”

  “That’s what Alexandra came to the city for,” I decided. “Heroin.”

  “What?”

  “Well, blood and heroin. She’s targeting junkies, not because they’re low-hanging fruit, but because she’s feeding an addiction. Remember the victims at Ferguson Towers? The way the blood had been lapped up? I’m betting it was because the blood had been freshly injected.”

  “Great,” Vega said. “So we’ve got a werewolf-vampire hybrid who also happens to be a raging addict.”

  I dumped the iron ammo from my revolver onto my lap and began pushing silver bullets into the cylinders. As I worked, I noticed that Alexandra’s photo had slipped from the file on the dashboard such that the young woman seemed to be looking at me. I considered what Dr. Z had said about killing a hybrid: Decapitation, baby.

  God, I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  34

  We pulled up in front of a single grim housing tower. Before Vega could get out, I seized her arm.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “I want you to go back to Lady Bastet’s.”

  “What? Why?”

  “To see if she can perform another binding spell.”

  “Croft, the creature’s killed four people that we know of, and—”

  “And inside that creature is a young woman who didn’t ask to become what she is,” I said. “That’s why there’s a mother out there doing everything she can to protect her. That’s why Arnaud forbade us from hunting her. The mother was afraid we would kill her.”

  Vega looked from me to the tower and sighed.

  “I’ll keep her from the residents,” I said. “Wizard’s honor.”

  “All right, but I’ll hold you to that.”

  I got out and slammed the door closed before Vega could change her mind. As she took off west, I ran toward the tower. The front door was unlocked, the blacked-out lobby empty. I called light to my cane and found a door that opened onto a plummeting staircase. I swore as my chest began to tighten.

  Why do these big showdowns always have to happen underground?

  Shouts and violent clangs rose as I descended. At the bottom I made out Blade and Bullet, their headlamps slicing through the darkness. Nearby, a thick pipe braced a metal door that shook with blows and screams.

  “Don’t shoot,” I said as Bullet swung his shotgun toward me. “It’s Everson.”

  Bullet nodded quickly, eyes huge, and returned his aim to the door.

  When I was almost to them, my light glowed over Dr. Z. He was propped against a wall behind them, the chest of his leather outfit ripped open. In his right hand, he gripped the handle of a broken ninja sword.

  “What in the hell happened?” I shouted above the noise.

  “What’s it look like?” Blade said, her mouth bloody, samurai sword gripped in both hands. “We got our asses handed to us.”

  I knelt beside Dr. Z, who stared straight ahead, his breaths shocked and gasping. I moved his hand from his chest and winced at the damage. The creature had clawed him to the bone.

  Hovering my cane’s orb over his chest, I spoke Words of healing. A soothing force moved through me, emerging as a cottony aura that enveloped Dr. Z. His eyelids fluttered closed, arms relaxing to his sides. Caroline had not only restored my power, it seemed, but my control. I hoped both would be enough to handle the creature until Lady Bastet arrived.

  I stood from Dr. Z’s side and turned to the clanging door. “Is that her?”

  “Yeah,” Bullet said, “and the door’s not gonna hold her much longer.”

  “No?” It still looked solid to me, especially with the pipe bracing it.

  “Check out the hinges,” Blade said.

  The hinges were as thick as toilet-paper tubes, but old. With each blow, rust sifted from them. Beyond the door, nails screamed over metal, sending a sharp shudder through me.

  “We had her cornered in there,” Blade said. “Bullet tossed a frag grenade into the drain she’d come up through, collapsing her escape. The creature was injured, too. Then a band of frigging blood slaves jumped us, giving the creature time to recover. She tore into Dr. Z good. We were lucky to get her off him and get ourselves the hell out of there. The only reason we haven’t ditched the job is because I don’t like the idea of that thing above ground.”

  “Yeah, that makes a few of us,” I said, drawing my revolver. “Look, I’ve got someone on the way. Someone who may be able to transform the creature back to the human she was.”

  “That thing’s human?” Bullet said, squinting from me to the shaking door.

  “An eighteen-year-old girl,” I said. “If we can keep her in there for another twenty minutes or so, we might not have to fight her.”

  “No argument here,” Blade said.

  With the next collision against the door, something snapped in the lower set of hinges. The pipe bent at its middle and shifted. Crap. The door wasn’t going to contain her for twenty more minutes. More like two.

  “Back up,” I said as the door shoo
k with another blow.

  Blade eased toward the rear wall, adjusting her grip on her sword. Bullet backed up beside her, shotgun aimed at the door from his stomach. Neither of them knew I was a magic user, but they weren’t exactly strangers to the supernatural. I would explain later.

  Aiming my cane at the door, I murmured, “Vigore.”

  A low-level force shook from the sword and met the door as the creature collided into it again. My casting prism buckled. The bracing pipe folded at its middle and clanged to the cement floor.

  “Vigore,” I repeated, leaning into the increasing force flowing from my cane.

  The creature’s next collision broke the lower hinge and cracked the upper one. I staggered but kept my footing. The door tilted in the cement frame, creating a narrow space along the top edge. Bloody talons jabbed through the space, the creature’s scream cutting deep into my ears.

  “Someone get Dr. Z out of here,” I shouted.

  Blade cocked her head of pink-spiked hair at Bullet. “You’re almost out of ammo.”

  “Yeah, but you gonna be okay?” he asked.

  “I’ve got a professor-cop-wizard in my corner,” she said with a smirk. “Who knew?”

  Bullet holstered his shotgun on his back and scooped up Dr. Z like he weighed nothing.

  The talons disappeared from above the door.

  At the foot of the steps, Bullet leaned toward me and said, “Blade can get a little bold for her own good. Keep an eye on her.”

  I nodded quickly and braced for the next impact. The creature hit the door like a truck, destroying the upper hinge and dropping me to my knees. The door threatened to collapse. With a shouted Word I slammed it back into its frame, muscles burning, body streaming sweat.

  The door rattled and shook. I had expended too much power in too little time and could feel my hold failing, could feel Thelonious whispering around my thoughts. “She’s coming through,” I grunted.

  “Let her,” Blade said from her crouch.

  “Huh?”

  Blade licked her pierced lips. “Just partway. If you can pin that thing in the doorway, I can make her think twice about wanting to come out the rest of the way.”