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

by Brad Magnarella

  5

  The last time I had seen Caroline was the night she’d come to my apartment. She disappeared the next morning without a trace. When classes resumed after the spring break, I learned she had put in for a last-minute sabbatical. She wasn’t supposed to return until the fall semester, if then. After several calls that went straight to her voicemail, I gave up on trying to reach her.

  Now, I took a moment to absorb the impact of her sudden manifestation. Caroline was dressed professionally—white blouse, khaki skirt, thin gold jewelry—but she carried the charged air of the fae, still subtle, but stronger than what I had felt around her the last time. The oscillating fan stirred her hair, which had been straightened, I noticed, and trimmed to her shoulders.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  Caroline stepped from the doorway until she was standing in front of me. Her blue-green gaze settled on my chest, and she slid the top button of my shirt free. My breath went shallow, but I realized she was only fixing my shoddy redressing job. When she finished correcting the buttons she smoothed my shirt collar and rose onto her tiptoes. The kiss against my cheek was light, cordial.

  “It’s good to see you, too, Everson.”

  “You know what I meant.” I tried not to stammer as my face warmed over. “I thought you were going to be away until the fall.”

  She took a seat in one of my students’ desks and gestured to my desk across the ring from her. She wanted to talk but at a distance. Whether because she didn’t trust me or herself, I couldn’t tell. I complied, affecting a casualness that felt all wrong. Caroline smiled sympathetically. I moved my leather satchel in front of me and propped my arms on it.

  “I owe you an apology,” she said.

  “How about an explanation?”

  “That too.” She clasped her hands on her desk. “The night I came to you, Everson, I was a bit of a mess. This, becoming a faerie, returning to that world … it happened so suddenly, and I … I didn’t handle it very well. When I went to your apartment, it was to talk, to find my center. You’re my closest friend, the only one who would have understood what I was experiencing. But your feelings—they hit me hard.” She studied her hands for a moment. A silver band glistened on her left ring finger. “I’m afraid I let them overwhelm me.”

  “So that night was a mistake,” I said numbly.

  “That’s not what I’m saying. I went along with what happened. I wanted what happened.” When she looked up, her eyes wavered with emotion. “But it was irresponsible. Worse, it was unfair to you. That’s why I left like I did. As much for the loyalty I owed Angelus as his wife as for the loyalty I owed you as my friend. I needed to—”

  “I’m sorry, Caroline,” I interrupted, “but what I felt from you that night went waaay beyond friendship.”

  “I know. But it can’t anymore. That’s what I’m saying. I have duties now, responsibilities.”

  “Bigger than this, than us?” Having her answer that terrified me, but I needed to know.

  “Yes,” she said. “Bigger than us.”

  I sensed there was something she wasn’t telling me. “Are you sure?”

  Caroline hesitated before nodding.

  “Then I guess we’re done here.” I angled my body toward the door, but Caroline made no move to rise from her desk.

  “I didn’t just come to apologize,” she said.

  “Gee, what else can I look forward to?”

  “I’ve been in the faerie realm for much of these last months,” she said. “At times it’s felt like visiting twelfth-century Europe. The realm parallel to New York is a patchwork of feudal kingdoms, with all of the emphasis on lineages, territories, and certain decorums one would expect. Interestingly, the royalty there consider our modern world to be brutish and dirty.”

  “Then why spend time here?” I asked bitterly.

  “Because of the portals.”

  “What about them?”

  “They’re vital to the kingdoms that control them.”

  Though I continued to hold myself at an angle to Caroline, I considered the implications of what she was saying. From the way she’d explained it earlier, distances scaled differently between our realms. A trip from Battery Park to the Bronx would take about thirty minutes in a cab, whereas in the faerie realm, the corresponding trip might take weeks, and often through hostile territories. “So that explains the fae’s interest in the city,” I said.

  Caroline nodded. “Wars have been fought over those portals, treaties written. Marriages arranged,” she added with lowered eyes. “Angelus’s family has a kingdom in the north, a region that corresponds to a section of upper Manhattan. My mother’s kingdom is in the south. Each kingdom controls a portal. Maybe you’ve noticed a new trucking line in the city?”

  “Two Way,” I said automatically. I had seen the green trucks trundling north and south all summer. “Wait, that’s a fae operation?”

  “The portals, and our ability to go between them, have not only established ours as the most influential kingdoms, but they’ve also engendered us with a responsibility to safeguard the greater realm. We have to move food, supplies, and forces when and where they’re needed, and often quickly.”

  “Fine, but why are you telling me all of this?” I asked irritably. Her explanation of our night together had left me feeling like a cheap toy played with briefly and then tossed away. And now here she was, giving me a geography lesson on the fae realm as if I was one of her students. I wanted to go home and punch something.

  Instead, I used my fists to wipe the sting of sweat from my eyes. I noticed that Caroline’s skin remained dry, as though wrapped in its own cool atmosphere. The oscillating fan shuddered another circuit.

  “The portals have two sides,” she said. “And though the fae are quiet about it, they are in constant negotiations with city officials to grant them exclusive access to the portals on this side.”

  “By negotiations do you mean bribes?”

  “When they must.”

  I thought about the fae townhouse on the Upper East Side, the one I’d tried to force my way into in the spring. I had detoured past it a few times since, in the hopes of catching Caroline coming or going. That must have held the portal to Angelus’s kingdom. The portal to Caroline’s mother’s kingdom would be somewhere in lower Manhattan.

  “Ours is beneath Federal Hall,” Caroline said with a tired laugh, as though picking up my thought. “You can imagine the kinds of strings the fae have had to pull over the years.”

  I grunted.

  A stone’s throw from Wall Street, Federal Hall stood on the site of the first capitol of the United States, where George Washington himself had been sworn into office. The building had been a national monument until about a decade ago when the city wrested it under municipal control—and then promptly shut the site down for repairs. Probably the fae’s doing.

  “I still don’t see what this has to do with me,” I said.

  “Because of my connections to City Hall, I’ve been in talks with Mayor Lowder. He’s—”

  “Wait, you’re talking to Budge? Even as he’s planning to wipe us out?”

  “He’s not planning to wipe us out. Just listen,” she said when I started to interrupt again. “Budge saw you and me together at the gala that night back in April. He’s told me about your confrontation in his mansion. I’ve assured him that you’re not a threat, that you’ll be no further trouble to him.”

  That damned professorial tone again. Indignation broke hot inside me.

  “Thanks, but I can fight my own battles.”

  “Not if Penny wakes up,” Caroline said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Budge isn’t sure he can control her.”

  “We already took care of that,” I said.

  “If you’re talking about the information you have on them … Look, Budge covered his bases well. The sympathy campaign protects his wife while she’s comatose. Reveal anything about her werewolf nature now, and the pub
lic will eat you alive. That goes double when the eradication program gains momentum. The public will see it as a slander campaign. Meaning if and when Penny wakes up, she’ll have carte blanche to go after you.”

  I had already been down that line of reasoning, but I refused to show any more weakness. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” I said.

  “For your safety,” Caroline went on, “I think you should come to the faerie realm for a period, as our guest.”

  “Our, as in your and Angelus’s?” I shook my head. “Forget it.”

  “Just until we can assess the situation, see where the eradication program leads. The fae don’t typically intervene on behalf of non-fae, but I’ve worked out an exception for you.”

  I waved my hands for her to stop.

  “You’re welcome to bring your cat, of course,” she said.

  “Look, Caroline. I get that you feel bad about what happened between us, that you want to try to make it up to me. But I’m not a charity case. I can take care of myself.”

  “Not against the kinds of forces that might be gathering.”

  The gravity in her voice matched the weight of her gaze: whatever it was she wasn’t telling me. I wanted to press her, but my pride wouldn’t allow it. I stood from behind my desk.

  “Thanks for stopping by,” I said.

  “Everson…”

  I strode to the classroom door and opened it. After a moment, she rose and walked toward me. “At least promise me you’ll think about it. You still have my number. Leave me a message.”

  “I left several back in April,” I said coldly.

  She made a tentative move to hug me, but I backed away a step and stared at a spot just above her head. After a moment, Caroline relented and walked out of my classroom and most likely my life.

  Good riddance.

  “My ice bags are all soggy,” Tabitha pouted as I hung my cane on the coat rack and locked the apartment door behind me.

  I looked over at where my cat lounged on her divan, a box fan blowing orange hair from her squinting eyes. Her perch was a cooling system I had fixed up for her: a plus-sized cat bed set atop gallon bags of ice. The bags were water-filled now, one fallen to the floor and leaking.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I sighed. “Hop up, and I’ll change them.”

  “This heat is insufferable,” she complained as she stood from the cat bed and stretched. “Can’t you do anything about it?”

  “I told you, we’re on a waiting list with the HVAC people.”

  She stopped and eyed my approach. “You look like walking death.”

  “Just a tough morning at the college.”

  “Oh sure,” she said. “Telling stories to an audience of impressionable young women, mooning and batting their lashes up at you. Must be fucking torture.”

  “It has nothing to do with my classes, and watch your mouth.” I picked up the dripping bags and carried them to the kitchen sink.

  “Do tell.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  I could feel her sharp feline eyes on me as I emptied the bags and scooped fresh ice into them. The heat wave coupled with a dead air conditioner had made Tabitha more antagonistic than usual. She was looking for an opening to needle me. I wasn’t going to give her one.

  “Well, if you don’t tell me what’s wrong,” she said, “how am I going to help you?”

  “You help me?” I laughed once. “That’s rich.”

  I returned with the ice bags and a fresh towel, arranging them beneath her cat bed. I used the old towel to wipe up the spill on the floor.

  “Oh, come now, darling,” she said in her hurt voice, curling onto the bed, ice crunching as she shifted her weight around. “I know I don’t always show it, but it just kills me when something’s bothering you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I’m serious. Besides, who else do you have to talk to?”

  She had a point. With no one to confide in, my encounter with Caroline was only going to play a numb loop in my mind. A part of me felt a cold satisfaction at having shown Caroline the door, but the heart-piercing truth was that she had walked out of it a long time ago. The four months since our night together would have been roughly two years in the faerie realm. Enough time for Caroline to settle into her marriage, her new life.

  “Fine,” I said, aiming a finger at Tabitha. “But the second you say something catty, this conversation’s over.”

  She widened her ochre-green eyes as though to say moi?

  I sighed and lowered myself to the couch. “Caroline stopped by my classroom today.”

  Tabitha grinned at the delicious tidbit, but to her credit, she kept her mouth shut.

  “She claimed she came to apologize,” I continued, “and to explain what happened, you know, that night.”

  “Oh, I know all about that night,” Tabitha purred, damned feline hearing.

  “I mean, I see where she’s coming from.” I stood and began pacing. “She agreed to marry Angelus to save her father, which is admirable. It is. And her new role carries all kinds of responsibilities, not just to her—” I had to swallow hard before I could form the word. “—husband, but to that realm. Responsibilities that, believe me, I understand. But I felt something that night in the way we moved, in the way our magic melded. Something that…”

  “Doesn’t happen with just any old gal?” Tabitha asked.

  She had one eyebrow arched, but not in sarcasm. It was an honest question. I considered it before collapsing back onto the couch and digging my hands into my sweat-dampened hair.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Tabitha nodded in what appeared honest understanding. That had to be a first.

  “And when we were talking today,” I went on, “I kept getting this feeling that she was holding back. That there was something she wasn’t telling me.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Tabitha appeared to be thinking as she licked a paw and combed it over an ear. “Well, if you sensed as much, I’m sure the reason will emerge eventually. Will you have occasion to see each other again?”

  I stared at Tabitha a moment to make sure she wasn’t mocking me before shaking my head. “Our meeting didn’t end well. Though I do have a standing invitation to the faerie realm. Woop-de-doo.”

  “And what’s the occasion?”

  “Oh, earlier today the mayor announced a plan to eradicate supernaturals. We’re all right as long as his wife remains comatose, but if she wakes up, Caroline thinks all bets could be off.”

  Tabitha scowled. “By wife do you mean that werewolf? I do wish you would have killed her. I never have gotten on with their kind, and living inside a cat’s body doesn’t exactly improve things.”

  “Half werewolf,” I corrected her. “And yeah, I’m starting to wish I would’ve finished her off, too. Which reminds me, any sightings today?”

  Since my encounter with Penny and her pack, I’d asked Tabitha to be extra vigilant for werewolves. Budge may not have issued a sic-’em order, but the pack was no doubt burning to avenge the attack on their leader and fellow pack members. After four months, nothing, but I wasn’t about to let my guard down. Especially after the day’s developments.

  “No, darling, but let’s not get off topic,” she replied, no doubt to steer the conversation from the tours she hadn’t carried out. “How did you reply to Caroline’s invitation?”

  “I told her no, of course.”

  Tabitha’s lower lip pouted out. “But their realm is rumored to have the most divine delectables. Markets of plump, fresh-caught fish—not the farm-raised trash you buy. Succulent lamb. Goat’s milk so rich it separates into a layer of cream thick enough to eat off the top.” Tabitha’s eyelids fluttered at the imagined foods. “It would be so wonderful, darling.”

  “Well, too bad,” I said, “because I’m not going to hang around eating … goat yogurt while Caroline plays princess with Angelus.”

  Tabitha tsked as she shook her head. />
  “What?” I said.

  “You clearly don’t understand women. Don’t you see? Caroline is using the excuse of some ill-defined danger to bring you into her world, to be closer to you. It’s an age-old trick.”

  Hope flickered inside me. “Really?”

  Tabitha darted out her tongue, too late to catch the trickle of saliva dribbling off her chin. I sighed. Her counsel no longer had anything to do with Caroline. She was thinking about the faerie food.

  “All right,” I said, slapping my thighs, “we’re done here.”

  Tabitha returned from the fantasy, eyes sharpening. “Won’t you even consider the offer?”

  “No.” I stood and retrieved my cane from the coat rack.

  “Wait. Where are you going?”

  “To learn about my mother.”

  6

  Though the sun had just set, the dimming West Village streets continued to radiate late July heat. I hurried down the steps to Lady Bastet’s basement-level business—minutes from learning the fate of my mother—only to find the door locked.

  I knocked, waited, and then knocked again, harder.

  Still no answer. Must have stepped out.

  I was debating whether to wait for her, assuming she would even be back tonight, when something scratched the other side of the door. A cat’s cry followed, the tenor low and strained. Something about it set off an inner alarm. I drew my sword and aimed it at the lock.

  “Vigore!” Energy coursed down the blade. The lock trembled and burst. When I pushed the door open, something lithe and black and wearing an odd collar darted past me and up the steps. Crap. I was preparing to retrieve Lady Bastet’s escaped cat, when I picked up a familiar scent.

  Blood.

  I threw myself against the brick wall beside the door. Using my sword blade, I tested the threshold. The protective glyphs were down. Either Lady Bastet had inactivated them, or a powerful presence had broken through. In readiness for the latter, I summoned a shield of light.

  I peeked around the corner—no one inside—and eased into the main room. The lights had been left on. Ahead, one of Lady Bastet’s cats lay on its side, partly hidden behind a colorful hanging rug. In two more steps, I saw that the body was headless, blood pooling near the neck.