The ghoul jerked back his spouting arm and let out a window-shaking howl. The gunfire had stopped, I noticed, the ghoul too close to the mayor for the Hundred to risk another fusillade.
“Christ Almighty!” Budge exclaimed, seeing the creature up close for the first time.
The ghoul, who had been thrashing in a circle, oriented to the sound and lunged. I reacted, swinging my sword like a golfer teeing off. I saw immediately that I’d gone too wide. The blade cleaved into shoulder but then rang off a knot of bone, implanting itself in the ghoul’s thick neck.
Yes!
The ghoul stumbled to his knees. I twisted and sawed, trying to complete the decapitation, but the blade became wedged between a pair of vertebrae. I grunted with effort as flames and noxious fumes burned around me.
Without warning, pain exploded through my left calf. I looked down to see the flaming hand I’d severed seizing my lower leg. The detached appendages of ghouls, as well as various undead, could do that, but it was one of those things you always imagined happening to someone else.
I kicked my leg, but the fingers bit fast, nails sinking through skin and muscle. I shouted and reversed course, trying to yank the blade free now. But the vertebrae held it like a pair of pincers. Behind the ghoul’s melted lids, the bulbous orbs of his eyeballs shifted. The thing was coming to. His good arm reared back, black claws level with my face.
“Forza dura!” I shouted.
A force exploded from the sword, freeing the blade and throwing me to the ground. With a chopping downstroke, I hacked the severed hand from my leg. Above me, the ghoul wavered to its feet. Its flaming head lolled to one side, the spine barely supporting it.
“Christ Almighty!” the mayor repeated, still down.
I scrambled toward him on hands and knees and shielded him with my body. Turning to the gunmen, I shouted, “Finish it!”
The explosion was immediate. I twisted my head enough to catch the effect. Bullets chewed through what remained of the neck. Ghoul and head fell to the street, the second rolling toward the gutter.
The gunfire ceased. Except for the crackling of burning bodies, the intersection was quiet.
I rolled off Budge. We both sat up and looked around. The news crews that had retreated in panic crept forward, several cameras fixed on the headless body burning in the street.
“Is everyone all right?” Budge asked, gaining his feet.
Captain Cole emerged from the tent and gave him a thumb’s up: the operation had succeeded. Budge nodded, swiped the hair from his brow, and hustled around until he was in front of the cameras.
“My fellow New Yorkers,” he said, “you’ve now seen the horrible menace with your own eyes. You’ve also witnessed what happens when a determined leader mobilizes the best resources to confront that menace head on. We’re not done yet, but we’re on our way. Phase one of the eradication program is complete.” He swept an arm out. “The ghoul threat to our great city is ended!”
I had to hand it to him. Whatever the man lacked in common sense, he made up for in political instincts. The picture of him in front of the creature carnage was going to look pretty damn impressive on tomorrow’s front pages.
“I’ll be more than happy to take your questions now,” he said, then broke into his signature aw-shucks smile as the cameras and clamoring reporters pressed in. “One at a time, please.”
I caught the coverage that evening on my portable television, an early rabbit-ear model that tolerated my aura better than most. The local stations devoured the story, devoting their entire news slots to that morning’s operation, the coverage ranging from favorable to gushing.
“…an estimated four hundred ghouls eliminated,” Courtney was saying as I shifted the pillows that propped up my wounded leg. “And with that, the mayor claims he’s on his way to eliminating all supernatural threats from the city, though he said that will require a second term.”
“Well played, Budge,” I muttered to the television.
“Just a second term?” Tabitha yawned from the divan. “Does he have any idea how many of us there are?”
“He said threats. And he’s only going after the worst of the worst.”
“Well, there are plenty of those.” Tabitha began ticking them off her paw. “Soul eaters, succubi, incubi…”
“Clear and present threats,” I amended. “Ones that give the mayor the biggest political payout. He’s not going to risk chasing beings that ninety-nine percent of the city can’t even see.” My head ached with the urge to be right. Or maybe I was determined for the vampire Arnaud to be wrong.
“Well, what about me and you?” Tabitha asked.
“What about us? We’re not threats to anyone. Hardly anyone even knows we exist.” A vein in my temple began to throb now, as though I were making the argument to Arnaud himself.
I awaited Tabitha’s response, but she was staring past me, a grin growing across her furry lips. I followed her gaze back to the television. A headshot appeared through the snowy reception, one I recognized.
“You were saying?” Tabitha purred.
“In the excitement of today’s operation, an interesting figure emerged,” Courtney said in a chirpy, you’re-not-going-to-believe-this tone. “His name is Everson Croft. He’s a college professor, a consultant to the mayor, and a modern day wizard. I saw it with my own eyes, folks. Watch here as he battles a flaming ghoul, using only a sword and magical incantations.”
I’d thought all of the cameramen had been in retreat, but at least one had had the brass to stop and shoot. Shaky film rolled of the moment I caught the ghoul in the neck. I could see the severed hand crawling up behind me like a giant spider. Leaping, it affixed itself to my leg. The rest happened quickly. The shouted Word, the ghoul stumbling backwards, me hacking the hand away and shielding the mayor, and at last, the ghoul succumbing to the hail of bullets.
“How delicious,” Tabitha said.
“Whatever his title,” Courtney continued, “I think we can agree that Everson Croft is a hero—our hero—and someone we’ll continue to follow closely. From all of us here at TV 20, goodnight.”
I sagged back in my chair as the credits rolled over the dimming news set. I couldn’t believe it. I was the night’s feel-good closer.
“Well, this should make things interesting,” Tabitha said.
“Yeah, no thanks to Budge.” I limped over to the television and slapped the power button. “Invites every major network to the ghoul roast, then shows up drunk and starts blabbing about his secret wizard weapon.”
“Not so secret now.”
“No kidding. The jerk just made me a walking target.”
“That’s what you get for dealing with a politician. I’ve seduced many over the centuries. They’re the same everywhere.”
I hopped on my good leg to the phone on the kitchen counter. I’d infused the injuries from the ghoul-hand attack with healing magic, but the claw punctures had been deep and bacteria ridden, meaning a longer mend time.
“What are you doing?” Tabitha asked.
“What do you think? Calling the mayor to tell him I’m out.”
I’d reasoned that my inclusion in the eradication program would make me safer. Right now, I felt anything but. My identity had just been broadcast to every New Yorker with a television, which was most of them. The morning papers would take care of the rest.
“Let’s not be hasty, darling,” she said. “The mayor’s office is compensating you handsomely, after all. Your income from the college is nice, but it’s hardly adequate to our lifestyles.”
She meant her lifestyle, but I wasn’t processing anything past “college.” I dropped the receiver back in its cradle.
“Crap.”
Tabitha gave a startled blink. “What is it, darling?”
“My chairman,” I said. “Snodgrass.”
13
I burst through the front doors of Midtown College, tucking my shirt in as I ran. I hadn’t slept a wink the night before and so s
houldn’t have been late, but I made the mistake of buying several morning papers from the corner newsstand and carrying them back to my apartment to peruse. Time escaped me, and for good reason. All but one of the circulars mentioned my inclusion in the eradication program. A few devoted entire columns to the story of the New York wizard.
I huffed out a curse. Snodgrass has been waiting for this, I thought as I pulled off the fake beard and sunglasses I’d donned to avoid public recognition. Waiting for something he can use to toss me from the college. And now he has it, dammit.
He would make good on his threat to alarm the parents of my students, to get them to yank their children from my courses. “After all,” I could hear him telling them, “you don’t want him corrupting your daughter’s mind with some enchantment or whatever else he decides to put in there. If he’s kept his real identity a secret for this long, what else might he be hiding?”
No students meant no classes. No classes meant no job.
I skittered around the corner of the hallway and was met by a wall of noise. “This is a graduate-level seminar,” I heard Snodgrass shouting as I drew nearer. “It cannot be audited.”
Huh?
I arrived at my classroom and peered through the half-open door to find my chairman standing and waving his arms at a mob scene, his face turning the same dark burgundy as his bowtie. “Did you hear me?” he demanded. “This is a closed course. If you are not registered, leave now.”
Was this my classroom? I leaned back to read the number over the door before looking inside again. This time I spotted my six regular students at their desks. But the remaining students, including the fifty or so jockeying for standing room, were completely new to me.
“There he is!” one of them shouted.
Heads swiveled toward me. A fresh clamor went up. The students surged in my direction, Snodgrass disappearing behind them. A multitude of mouths talked at once. “Is it true?” “Did you do those things on television?” “Are you a real wizard?” “Can I take your course?”
Several pushed newspapers and drop-add cards at me.
I held up my hand and cane in a warding gesture and backed against the door. The students, most of them young women, formed a jabbering semicircle around me, admiration bright on their faces.
My God, they’re serious.
Snodgrass fought his way through the crowd, fixing his skewed glasses as he arrived beside me. “Professor Croft,” he shouted above the commotion. “A word outside, please.”
I followed him into the hallway and forced the door closed behind me. He proceeded down the hallway a short distance, stopped suddenly, and wheeled on the high heels of his leather shoes.
“What in the devil do you think you’re doing?” he said.
I looked from him to the students’ faces crowding the classroom door window.
“Croft!” he snapped.
“I’m sorry … what?”
“This is an academic institution, not some camp for teeny-boppers. Is this a stunt to improve your enrollment?”
“Stunt?”
“Did you compel those students to attend your class through some inducement?”
A realization struck me. As impossible as it seemed, Snodgrass had yet to hear the news. I walked backwards until I reached the classroom door and opened it to a surge of noise.
“You,” I said, pointing to a young woman. “May I borrow your paper?”
With all the reverence of a virgin making an offering to a god, she stepped forward and handed me her copy of the Gazette. As she retreated back into the masses with a mad giggle, I closed the door and returned to Snodgrass. He accepted the paper as though I was up to some trickery.
“Page one,” I said.
I watched his eyes fall to the lead headline:
CITY: 1 MONSTERS: 0. MAYOR’S PROGRAM OFF TO BLAZING START
The photo underneath showed members of the Hundred firing on the final flaming ghoul while I covered the sprawled-out mayor. Snodgrass’s eyes skipped to the sidebar: “LOCAL WIZARD STARS IN EFFORT.” My smiling headshot had been lifted from the college’s online directory.
I still wasn’t thrilled about the exposure, but it appeared to have boosted my status with the students—something that was dawning on Snodgrass as well. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
“Those tendencies of mine you mentioned last week?” I said as he read. “Well, they’re out there now, and guess what? The students of Midtown College are loving them.” I embellished the word with a lascivious flick of my tongue.
Snodgrass’s eyelids blinked rapidly. At last, he folded the paper with a sniff.
“This changes nothing,” he announced tersely. “I still plan to phone parents. I would be remiss as department chair if I didn’t. In the meantime, I want those students out of your—”
At that moment, the chairman of the college board, Mr. Cowper, rounded the corner with the seven other board members. Cowper pulled up when he spotted me and smacked his flabby lips.
“Ah, Professor Croft,” he said. “We were just discussing you in our meeting.”
“Oh, yeah?” I tried to read the sagging folds of his face to discern whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe I’d turned on the cocky too soon.
“Yes, we’ve received a positive avalanche of inquiries this morning about your fall courses,” he said. “We were wondering if you might consider increasing your offerings. You’d be compensated, of course. And it couldn’t hurt your application for tenure.”
“Y-yeah, of course,” I stammered. “I’ll see what I can come up with.”
“Please do,” Cowper said. “It will really help out enrollment. Especially in this department.” He looked pointedly at Snodgrass before issuing a final lip smack and moving off with the others.
I grinned down at my department chair. “It just keeps getting better.”
A tremor moved across Snodgrass’s blanching face. “I don’t care what you are,” he said, shoving the newspaper against my chest and pointing past me. “I want those cretins out of your classroom. Now.”
“What’s the matter? Afraid your department will be overrun by ancient mythology and lore majors?”
“It’s a—a—a—” His lips sputtered, unable to spit out the word.
“Tell you what. While you’re figuring out what it is, I’ll go ahead and start my lecture.”
I pivoted on my cane.
“This isn’t over, Croft!” he shouted at my back.
I waggled my fingers over a shoulder in farewell before opening the door and wading into my new fan base.
After class—a two-hour session that featured a lecture on the ghoul myth across cultures, a long Q&A about my role in yesterday’s operation (which I played way down), and ended with me adding twenty-two new students to the course—I called Hoffman and arranged to meet him at a deli down the street from the college.
The detective arrived, shaking his head. “Must really think you’re hot stuff, huh? ‘Local Wizard Stars in Effort,’” he said, reciting the Gazette headline. “What a bunch of crap.”
I shrugged in answer. Hoffman tossed a pile of paperwork onto the far end of the booth seat and collapsed opposite me. His tie was loosened and the sleeves of his sweat-stained shirt bunched up to his elbows.
“Tough morning on the bribery circuit?” I asked.
Hoffman’s cheeks clenched at the dig. “I saw your little photographer buddy earlier.”
I straightened and peered around. It had been several days since I’d last seen Ed. When he didn’t come home for good, I assumed the spell had expired and he’d collapsed into a clay mound somewhere. I’d been planning a hunting spell to retrieve the amulet. “Where?” I asked.
“I was gonna give him a fat lip,” Hoffman went on, “but the weasel took off. Ran like a little girl.”
“And yet it was enough to outrun you,” I pointed out.
Before Hoffman could respond, the waitress arrived with the two coffees I’d ordered. As she wal
ked away, Hoffman leveled a thick finger at me through the steam.
“I’ll say it again. Those photos don’t show what you think they do. I’m just going along with this ’cause I don’t want you making a goddamned mess of my operation. Do you have the photos?”
“The info first,” I said.
Hoffman peered around, then hunched over the table. “The lab’s still going through the trace evidence. So far it all matches up with the woman’s clients. We’re interviewing them. No suspects yet.”
“Any of them work in security?” I asked, thinking about the werewolves.
“The clients?” He snorted. “They’re about the farthest thing from security you can get. They were seeing her for potions and palm readings. Bunch of fruitcakes if you ask me.”
That didn’t make any sense. The wolves had to have left something.
A Ziploc bag landed in front of me. Inside was a clump of gray hair.
“Your residue,” Hoffman said. “Techs still don’t know where the stuff came from.”
While Hoffman gulped his coffee, I held the bag up to my eyes. Squinting, I could make out a fine yellow dust on the ends of the cat hairs. When I unsealed the bag, the faintest odor of rotten eggs leaked out. Definitely sulfurous. I resealed the bag, folded it over, and placed it inside my leather satchel. I would run some spells on the residue back at my apartment.
“How about the human hair I asked for?” I said.
“Not in evidence.”
“What?”
“You said light brown and about a foot long, right?”
I nodded, remembering the final hair I’d drawn from my mother’s brush.
“I checked the log,” Hoffman said. “Nothing like that was collected. They found a little shriveled-up piece of hair on the victim’s lap, though. The DNA was too corrupted to test.”
“Her lap?”
Heat shriveled hair, but so did intense magic. I recalled how I’d discovered the mystic: slumped in her chair, arms at her sides. She had probably been yanked into that position from behind, the hair she had been handling falling onto her lap. Had Lady Bastet completed the reading before her murder? Had she seen who killed my mother?
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