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

by Brad Magnarella

  “Here it comes,” Arnaud said above his glass.

  “What?” I asked nervously.

  “The Big Reveal.”

  “My wife was attacked,” Budge announced.

  The blood fell from my face. He’s going to out me, I thought. He’s going to implicate me in his wife’s attempted murder. Probably Vega, too. And with all of the sympathy pouring toward Budge and his wife, the city will eat us alive. My eyes shot toward the door.

  Arnaud’s cold fingers rested on my forearm. “A moment.”

  On the television, Budge patted the air, assuring the press he would answer their burst of questions after he finished his announcement. “Yes, she was attacked,” he continued. “But here’s the thing. The entire City of New York is under attack. I’d heard the rumors and reports. But I ignored them. It took what happened to my dear wife to finally see the light. I’m talking about supernaturals. Beings that shouldn’t exist. But I’m telling you, they do exist, and they’re here. They’re in our city. And they threaten each and every one of us.”

  Instead of quieting the reporters, Budge used their swelling voices to bolster his own voice, like a preacher at a tent revival. “Many of you have seen them. Some of you have been pursued by them. A few of you have lost loved ones to them. But not any more. Not in my city.”

  In recent months, I’d observed an increasing number of ghouls scavenging the East Village garbage piles, a story even serious papers were starting to pick up. The monsters had graduated from the tabloids.

  “Hey,” one of the barflies said, “you remember that thing that chased us down Avenue C a couple months ago?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” his buddy replied. “Big and ugly with long arms. Think it was one of them supernaturals?”

  The bartender shushed them.

  “That’s the second thing I’m telling Penny while she’s fighting for her life,” Budge continued. “That the monster who attacked her isn’t going to get away. We’re going to hunt him down, along with every other supernatural that has infested our city, and we’re going to eradicate them.”

  “Damned straight,” the third barfly said.

  “So I stand before my city today to announce the creation of a one-hundred person force within the NYPD.” He turned and opened an arm toward a late middle-aged black man with a somber face and thick mustache. “Headed by Captain Lance Cole, the Hundred will lead the effort to root out and destroy the supernatural scourge on our city. The monsters are the true root of evil. Not taxes or the lack of city services or any of the peripheral issues my opponent would have you believe. Once the monsters are eradicated, once the streets and parks are safe, I promise you, the people and businesses that fled will come storming back, restoring our great city to glory.” He threw his arms out with this final pronouncement.

  “So now you see,” Arnaud said as Budge began to take questions.

  I swallowed and tried to find my voice. “Yeah, but he spoke of monsters, not wizards.”

  “You know as well as I that he’s not going to distinguish between the two. Not after what befell his wife.”

  “No thanks to you.”

  “Be that as it may, the question now is how you plan to negotiate the new terrain.”

  I looked down the bar to where the bartender had wandered over. He and the patrons were huddled in conversation. As I turned back to Arnaud, my head ached with the beginning of a migraine.

  “I feel an offer coming,” I said.

  “Or perhaps a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

  “Let me guess, a new pact between wizards and vamps.”

  “Aligning to defend our rightful place in the city,” he said.

  I shook my head. “I’m not getting mixed up with you again.”

  “I don’t see that you have a choice, Mr. Croft—that is, unless you elect to flee. But I sense that would be difficult for one whose power derives from the unique energies of the city.”

  He was correct to the extent that a wizard’s power adapted to the environment where he practiced, to the particular pattern of ley lines. One could relocate, sure, but it took time to shape the new energies fully to his purposes—especially for a relatively new practitioner like me.

  “If you do remain,” Arnaud continued, “I am the only one with a fortification and sufficient personnel to defend it.”

  “Then why do you need me?”

  “Because in the fever of war, favors are called in, strange alliances take shape, the opposition swells. Just look at any of history’s great conflicts. We might soon find ourselves at a disadvantage.”

  “And you think I can do, what?” I said. “Round up the local wizards and march them to the Financial District? Tell them, hey, we’re joining Team Vampire?”

  Though I picked up magical auras around the city, I had no idea who did and who didn’t belong to the Order. My organization was highly compartmentalized, either to protect its secrecy or to decrease the chances of magic-users banding together to rebel. Both explanations made sense. I was sure I wasn’t the only one to have questioned the Order’s authority.

  “It’s above my wizarding level,” I said.

  “Very well,” Arnaud replied curtly. “I suppose it will take circumstances to convince you. Until then…” He finished his drink, dropped a twenty in front of me for the promised cab fare, and slipped off his stool. Before I could say anything, the door to the bar opened and closed in a flash of sunlight, and Arnaud was gone.

  I moved my untouched drink around a small pool of condensation, the class I was supposed to teach on the bottom rung of my concerns. On the television above me, Budge rattled off more details about his eradication program—dollar amounts, federal funding. Arnaud had forecast the development, sure. But that didn’t mean I had to rush into an alliance with him, did it?

  No, I decided. I only need to inform the Order and await instructions. Which I’ll do right after my class.

  I stood from my barstool, collected the twenty, and turned, only to be met by a meaty hand against my chest. I fell back onto the stool. The bartender rose over me, two of the patrons from the other end of the bar on either side of him. I looked around for the third guy but couldn’t see him.

  “Who was your friend?” the bartender asked.

  I glanced toward the door Arnaud’s blood slave had departed through. “Friend? I hardly knew the guy.”

  “Well, you came in here with him,” the bartender said.

  “Your powers of observation are astounding,” I told him.

  “I’ve never seen anyone move that fast,” he said.

  “Yeah,” one of the barflies put in, a man with a trucker hat and thick beard.

  “Really?” I said. “It probably just seemed that way because the rest of us are moving so slowly.”

  The patrons’ brows beetled as they tried to puzzle that out. The bartender’s eyes didn’t shift from mine, though. He loomed nearer.

  “The boys and I have been consulting,” he said. “We think he might be one of those supernatural freaks the mayor’s talking about. And you know what? We think you’re one of them too.”

  “Me?” The metallic bite of adrenaline filled my mouth as my gaze jumped between them. Who were these losers—one with a head shaped like an eggplant—to call me a freak? Power stormed toward my prism.

  But when I caught a whiff of leather and musk, I realized what Arnaud had done. He’d exuded an aerosol that was releasing hormones into our systems: raw fight or flight. It was the same reason he’d manhandled the bartender into changing the channel instead of using his vampiric powers of persuasion. Arnaud wanted to incite a confrontation, to underline his point that the city was aligning against us. Though my heart pounded with an urge to clash, I settled back into my seat. I’d played into Arnaud’s hands once. It wasn’t happening again.

  “Look guys,” I said, forcing a calming breath. “I’m flesh and blood, just like you. I didn’t come in here to cause trouble—which would be pretty hard for someone like me an
yway.” I held up my cane as proof of disability.

  “Hey, Bill!”

  I looked over to see the third barfly, the one I’d lost track of, emerging from the back of the bar carrying a shotgun. The stock end of the gun dripped water. “It was sitting in the crapper. That joker must’ve dropped it in there when he came in earlier to use the bathroom.”

  Bartender Bill scowled. “Bring it here.”

  “This cane belonged to my grandfather, actually,” I said, pushing energy into my wizard’s voice, willing their attention back to me. “Part walking aid, part novelty item. Can you make out that stone?”

  The three barflies looked at one another, then at the white opal.

  “What about it?” Bill growled. He had seized his gun and begun wiping the stock dry with his towel. I noted the tremor in his hands, the quavering edge to his voice. Arnaud’s toxin was still pumping through him. He wasn’t going to allow me out of his bar without a fight.

  “If you look closely enough,” I said, “you can make out Playboy’s Miss June, 1948.” Gathering energy, I watched Bill’s eyes. When at last they squinted toward the opal, I shouted, “Illuminare!”

  An intense light flashed against their faces. Shouts went up from the recoiling men. I climbed onto the bar to escape their semicircle. Bartender Bill groped toward me, but I was already into the first steps of flight. Ashtrays and beer bottles flew from my feet. The shotgun went off, and a shelf of liquor bottles erupted. Glass and alcohol rained over my back.

  At the far end of the bar, I jumped down. Bill swung his shotgun toward the sound.

  “Vigore!” I shouted, using a force invocation to shove two of the stumbling barflies into Bill. The bartender lumbered backwards, the shotgun blowing fire into the ceiling. Chunks of plaster rained over them.

  I opened the door onto the bright blur of the West Village and then sealed the door behind me with a locking spell. Hailing a passing taxi, I climbed in, my back wet against the seat.

  “Where to?” the cabbie asked.

  “Midtown College,” I panted. “I’m late for a class I’m supposed to teach.”

  “Looking like that?”

  I followed his squinting gaze to my liquor-soaked shirt. Great. Blood from the exploding glass stippled through the fabric over my left shoulder. My back was probably bleeding too.

  “Just drive,” I said. “Fast.”

  As the cab pulled away from the curb, I peered around to ensure Bill and the others hadn’t escaped the bar. But more generally, I was looking to ensure the eradication program wasn’t already underway. What that would even look like, I had no idea. An increased police presence? Mystics and diviners rousted from their shops? Magic-users in arm and leg shackles, tape over their mouths?

  I scooted to the middle of the backseat, out of view of a city that suddenly felt hostile.

  Goddamn you, Arnaud.

  4

  Following a change of shirt and a quick grooming, I stole from the faculty bathroom and, seeing that the coast was clear, made a run for my classroom, leather satchel slapping my hip.

  I turned a corner and nearly plowed into Professor Snodgrass. The diminutive chairman of my department staggered in a circle and would have fallen if I hadn’t caught him. With a huff, he slapped my hands away and straightened his small glasses. He peered up at me, eyes sharpening.

  “Professor Croft,” he exclaimed, cheeks reddening in anger.

  “Oh, hey, sorry about that,” I said, showing an apologetic hand as I made to scoot past him. Ever since my hearing the year before, where Snodgrass had motioned to have me fired, I’d managed to stay off his radar. Part of that had entailed getting to my classes on time. The other part had meant avoiding him whenever possible. I’d just managed to blow both.

  Snodgrass checked his watch. “Don’t you have a seminar this hour?”

  “Right, I’m headed there now.”

  “Ten minutes late, I see.” He stepped nearer, sniffing the air. “And what’s that I smell?”

  I met his snooty gaze. “Alcohol.”

  He blinked twice in surprise before his lips pinched into a smile. “So you admit that you’ve been drinking, that you were preparing to instruct your students in an inebriated state?”

  “Do you want the truth?”

  “Please, Professor Croft.” He stood back, hands clasped behind the back of his tweed suit. The man could barely disguise his glee. He would finally have a bulletproof case for my termination. The prestigious college would not tolerate a drunkard for a professor.

  “All right,” I said with a sigh. “I ducked into a West Village bar to watch the mayor’s press conference.”

  “And how many drinks did you have?”

  “Drinks? None, actually.” I watched Snodgrass’s smile fracture. “The bartender threatened me with his shotgun, so I jumped onto the bar and made a run for it. He started shooting. Bam! Bam! Glass and liquor flew everywhere, like something out of a freaking Western. I’m fine, obviously—I know that has to be a relief for you—but I did get soaked.” I chuckled. “Hence the smell.”

  Snodgrass’s lips trembled. “I can see this is all one big joke to you, Professor Croft, but I assure you, the board takes the matter of alcoholism very seriously.”

  “As they should,” I said. “But absent proof, you’d just be wasting their time. Again.”

  The final jab was probably one too many, but with my nerves still raw from the mayor’s announcement, not to mention Arnaud’s harsh toxin, I wasn’t in a good place to be fucked with. I stepped past Snodgrass, but I had only gone a few paces when he called to me.

  “You might be interested to hear that I’ve done some investigating,” he said.

  “Congratulations,” I called back.

  “I admit, it baffled me how you were able to get your arrest record expunged by this Detective Vega.” He said her name with bitter scorn. “A few inquiries later and, lo and behold, I discover you’re working as a consultant to her department. On supernatural cases,” he added.

  I stopped and turned. “What’s your point?”

  “Oh, no point.” He adjusted his bowtie. “Just that I find it all very interesting. A professor of mythology and lore—one who had been serving a probation, no less—suddenly in the pay of the NYPD. That would require a very compelling skill set, I should think. A compelling expertise.”

  “So I’ve taken an academic interest in the supernatural,” I said, a little too defensively. “Big deal.”

  “Are you sure that’s all it is?”

  Panic sped my breaths. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  “Given your grants, the board might be willing to overlook certain … tendencies. But I doubt the same could be said for the parents who are paying their children’s tuition. Especially now that the city has declared war on those with said tendencies.”

  “You’re still speaking Urdu, and I’m late for my class.”

  “If history has taught me anything,” Snodgrass shouted after me, “it’s that when the leaders fail to act, you go straight to the people.”

  I reached my classroom to find the oscillating fan blowing a rattling circuit across the ring of desks—all empty. Dammit. By the college’s rules, students only had to wait ten minutes for a tardy professor. I consulted my watch. My own students appeared to have followed that law to the second.

  “Thanks, gang,” I muttered.

  I tossed my satchel and cane onto my desk and unbuttoned my shirt to my chest. Taking the fan cage in both hands, I leaned down until the lukewarm rush of air bathed my face and billowed my shirt.

  As much as I hated to admit it, Snodgrass’s words had rattled me.

  There’s no way the man knows about my wizarding life, I reassured myself. He may have his suspicions, but that’s all they are. Snodgrass isn’t going to risk his reputation by calling up parents and making wild accusations. That would only put his own job in jeopardy.

  But I had to wonder. With the mayor’s announcement
sure to alarm the public, would merely insinuating someone was a supernatural be enough to alienate him? I considered the ring of empty desks. Of course none of it mattered if I couldn’t get to my own classes on time.

  I smiled bitterly, remembering an era when I would have arrived to find Caroline lecturing in my stead. Afterwards, she would have scolded me, insisting it was the “last time”—like she did every time. I had started calling her “Sub,” short for substitute, a joke she eventually warmed to.

  Closing my eyes, I imagined her faerie-scented skin from our night together, her soft whispers, her golden tendrils of hair spilling around me. I remembered the way our bodies, our magic, had moved against the other’s. Had that night even happened? A night that was becoming more ethereal with the passing months? But there it was: the ache around my heart, the bruising emptiness, like what I’d felt when I’d awoken alone the next morning.

  Yeah. It had happened.

  The fan blades chopped up my forlorn sigh and blew it back in my face.

  “Is this a bad time?” a woman asked from behind me.

  I hurried to button my shirt back up and tuck my coin pendant away. The noise of the fan had washed over the voice, so I wasn’t sure who it belonged to. Someone from administration, with my luck. Maybe Snodgrass was already sowing the seeds of suspicion. But as I turned and the woman in the doorway came into focus, my arms fell slowly to my sides.

  “Professor Reid,” I said.

  “Professor Croft,” Caroline replied, her lips pressing into a smile.