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

by Brad Magnarella

“If he’s so powerful,” a female reporter cut in, “what’s to stop him from turning on the city?” I saw the anxiety in the young woman’s eyes—exactly why I kept a low profile. The mood of the assembly seemed to pivot as several reporters around her nodded.

  I watched the mayor for his response.

  “Look, I’ve known Everson a long time,” he lied. “Besides being a potent wizard, he’s a man of integrity. A man of morals. And hey, he’s a fellow New Yorker. We have a mutual interest in protecting the city that raised us.”

  “But there has to be some constraints on him,” the reporter pressed.

  “Well, sure,” Budge said, sweeping an arm out. “All of you. If I’ve learned anything in my years of public service, it’s that the press can lift the lowliest to the heavens and drop the mightiest into the gutter. If Everson gets out of line, why, just crack him with a critical column or two. That’ll straighten him up.”

  Relieved laughter broke around a fresh burst of questions. But when Budge turned enough for me to see his face, there was no humor in his eyes.

  15

  “Thanks for being such a good sport,” Budge said, settling behind his office desk. “Can I get you anything?”

  “How about some makeup remover?” I grumbled.

  I dropped the hat and balled-up cape onto a coffee table and sagged into a deep leather chair across from him. The press conference had gone on for another thirty minutes. Thirty interminable minutes in which I’d stood there, a stage prop, while Budge rattled off superlatives about his program.

  It only strengthened my determination to resign.

  “You wanted to talk?” Budge pulled out his smartphone and began thumbing through the messages.

  “I’m out,” I said.

  “Hm?” He raised his eyebrows without looking up.

  “I’m resigning from the program.”

  The mayor’s eyes joined his brows. “Resigning? What are you talking about?”

  “I asked for discretion. That was one of the conditions for my participation. You nodded and said, ‘Mum’s the word.’ Do you remember that? Well, mum apparently left the building and got run over by a truck.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry,” Budge said, showing his hands. “I got a little enthusiastic.”

  “A little enthusiastic? You outed me to every major news network in the metropolitan area. And what was that little stage production just now?”

  “I was trying to take the pressure off you.”

  “By making me a Broadway extra?”

  Budge set his forearms on the desk. “Look, I should’ve warned you I was bringing in the news crews yesterday. And, yeah, things got a little dicey there with the ghouls getting out and all—but listen to me. Capturing that final battle on film? You can’t pay for coverage like that. And it’s exactly what New Yorkers need to see—that there are monsters out there, and we’re fighting ’em. Did you catch today’s poll numbers? I jumped four points overnight. Four points! The race is a dead heat.” He laughed in disbelief.

  “Good, so you don’t need me anymore.”

  “Don’t need you?” His mouth straightened. “You’re the face of this thing.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You heard the press out there—they love you.”

  “Right, and that’s the whole point,” I said. “I don’t want the attention.”

  “What about our deal?”

  He was referring to the protection from Penny, should she awaken. But as I looked on Budge’s wavering brown eyes, I knew I’d been kidding myself. The man didn’t wield that kind of power. Penny would have her retribution whether I helped the mayor win or not.

  “I’ll take my chances,” I said.

  “Well, gosh.” Budge sat back. “I’d hate to think what would happen if the press decided you weren’t working in the public’s best interest, that you were dangerous.”

  Heat prickled over my face. “Is that a threat?”

  “Hey, I just know reporters. They’re a bunch of jackals. You stop giving them what they want, and pretty soon they start digging for the bad stuff. Past arrests. Shady associations…”

  The son of a bitch was threatening me. He was saying that if I didn’t remain on board, he would make sure the press knew about my indiscretions, including my arrest for murder two years earlier. And as went the press, so would go public opinion. Fear and anger stormed inside me.

  “Well, maybe they’ll learn some interesting things about the mayor’s office, too,” I said through gritted teeth. “Such as Penny’s true nature.”

  Budge shrugged. “It’ll be your word against ours. And my wife can’t very well speak for herself.” He nodded past me. I turned my head and observed a back wall heaped with floral baskets and bouquets. “Those arrived today. All for Penny. The volume’s down from the spring, but we still can’t get them to the Dumpster fast enough. That Caroline is brilliant. Too bad you let her slip away.”

  “Caroline?” I said in confusion. “What does she have to do with this?”

  “You didn’t know?” he said, sweeping hair from his glasses. “She’s been advising me.”

  “Advising you?”

  “Yeah, ever since Penny’s hospitalization.”

  That explained what she’d been doing at City Hall, what she had meant by You came. I knew she had been negotiating with the mayor for the fae’s access to the portal in lower Manhattan, but advising him? I looked back at the pile of flowers and weighed the mayor’s remark.

  “Wait,” I said, “the sympathy campaign was her idea?”

  “And it’s worked like a charm,” Budge said. “She came up with the eradication program, too.”

  “The eradication program?” I stood and paced a circle around the chairs in front of his desk. The revelations were coming in too hard, too fast. By my second circuit, I started molding them into something sensible. The fae kingdoms Caroline served were anxious to maintain control over the lower portal. If Budge’s opponent in the mayoral race, Abby Azonka, couldn’t or wouldn’t cotton to the idea, the fae had to ensure Budge’s reelection. Whoever advised him would need an expertise in New York politics as well as a strong connection to the mayor’s office—Caroline offered both, the second through her father, one of the mayor’s attorneys.

  In essence, she was the reason the information Vega and I once wielded over the mayor’s office was no longer effective. “Was hiring me as a consultant also Caroline’s idea?” I asked bitterly.

  “She was against it, actually,” Budge said. “Didn’t say why, though.”

  I gave a begrudging nod, remembering her warnings, including her most recent one about seeing a lot more than I could. I assumed she’d been referring to her fae powers, but now I wondered. As advisor to the mayor, had she already worked out the contingencies? Seen a looming threat?

  “So why did you come looking for me?” I asked.

  “I went to that detective first. What’s her name?” He circled a hand. “The one who was with you when you visited my mansion in the spring?”

  “Vega?”

  He snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Yeah, that’s the one. Anyway, I was told Vega took on supernatural cases in Homicide. She was the one who insisted you be brought in.”

  I stopped pacing. Why in the hell would Vega want me involved in the eradication program? I remembered the dismissive way she’d dealt with me at the crime scene, the bitter look she’d given me in the auditorium.

  “Did she say why?” I asked.

  “Well, she said she’d help out however she could, but for the scale of the operations we were talking, we really needed someone of your caliber. You know, a magic-user who understood the threats, knew the monsters’ weaknesses, how best to go after them, so on and so forth.”

  So Vega was the one who had told the mayor about my work.

  “But to tell you the truth,” he continued, “I think she just wanted to make sure you got the same deal.”

  “What deal?”

  �
��Extra protection in the event someone woke up.” He laced his fingers behind his neck and grinned, evidently pleased at how the conversation had come full circle. “Funny how you asked the same for Vega.”

  I sat down again, my head starting to throb.

  “Look at it this way,” Budge said, buddy-buddy again. “You’ve got one friend who came up with the idea for the program and another who insisted on you being a part of it. Both of them are drop-dead gorgeous to boot,” he added with a laugh. “How can you say no to that?”

  “Just shut up for a minute.”

  I massaged my closed eyes. I had to think, but the only thing striking through was Budge’s threat to use the media to turn public opinion against me. And with the city’s growing bloodlust for nasty supernaturals, I’d be a walking target. Unless, of course, I aligned with Arnaud or took up Caroline’s offer to hide in her world. Both nonstarters.

  “Fine,” I said, opening my eyes. “I’ll stay in the program.”

  At least until I can figure out something else, I thought.

  “You’re making the right decision.”

  “But on one condition,” I added.

  “What’s that?”

  I picked up the cape from the coffee table and wiped my brow, smearing copper makeup over the fabric. I moved on to my nose, cheeks, and finally my lips and jaw before tossing the soiled cape onto the mayor’s desk.

  “Keep me out of your damned press conferences.”

  16

  “When in Diablo’s name is someone coming to fix the air conditioner?” Tabitha asked, sauntering into my lab and hopping onto the table.

  “We’re still on the waiting list,” I answered distractedly, motioning for her to move away from the casting circle. I squinted at the circle from another angle and added more silver filings to the far side.

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” she said.

  I had returned to the apartment, relieved to find Tabitha fast asleep in front of the box fan, her belly swollen from the tuna steak I’d set out for her earlier. Now I regretted not spiking her lunch with Xanax.

  “If not this weekend then next, all right?” I said with a sigh. “The brownout fried a ton of AC systems in the neighborhood. Now can you leave me alone? I have something important to do.”

  Tabitha made a dramatic noise and plopped down at the end of the table. Shed hair blew off in tufts around her. “Have you given any more thought to Caroline’s offer?”

  “No,” I said thinly, picking strands of orange hair from the casting circle.

  “Just think. We could be in that wonderful realm right now instead of melting in this hell hole.”

  I ignored her, my eyes moving between the casting circle and an illustration in the book I’d propped open. The book was a crumbling tome that protected a caster against powerful demonic attacks. Not knowing the origin of the sulfurous residue Hoffman had given me, I couldn’t afford to take any chances. The casting circle featured two concentric circles with extra sigils of protection. I stooped and fixed a blemish in the outer circle.

  Tabitha made a scoffing sound. “Men and their wounded egos.”

  She was still talking about Caroline. I bristled. “This doesn’t have anything to do with my ego.”

  “Ooh. Touchy, touchy.”

  “Just let it go,” I said. “I need to concentrate.”

  “You saw her today, didn’t you?”

  I glanced over, in spite of myself. “What makes you say that?”

  “I know that hot and bothered look.”

  “I saw her briefly,” I admitted, hoping that would be enough to satisfy Tabitha. I should have known better.

  “I told you she’s trying to get up close and personal.”

  “It was a chance encounter outside City Hall,” I said. “She was leaving a meeting with the mayor as I was arriving.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “Same old, same old.”

  Even as I waved a dismissive hand, Caroline’s warnings continued to echo in my head. You’re standing on a precipice, Everson. And it’s crumbling. As one of the chief architects of Budge’s reelection campaign, she was seeing something that I couldn’t. But what?

  “Hmm. Perhaps I was wrong,” Tabitha said in a musing voice.

  “About what?”

  “While I wouldn’t put it past her to claim you were in danger in order to get closer to you…”

  “You don’t even know her.”

  “…her persistence in the face of so hopeless a case makes me wonder now.” Tabitha propped her chin on a curled paw. “Perhaps you should take her at her word. You might actually be in danger.”

  “We’re not going to the faerie buffet.”

  “It’s not about food,” she said, then added, “not entirely.”

  I met Tabitha’s gaze. Was my cat right? Was refusing to listen to Caroline my way of retaliating for her choosing a life with Angelus and the fae over me? Was I jeopardizing my safety to prove to Caroline that I could take care of myself, that I didn’t need her help?

  “All right,” I admitted, “maybe ego has a tiny bit to do with this, but it’s not the whole story.” I lifted my satchel onto the table and pulled out the evidence bag with the cat hair. “I need to stay here to figure out the whos and whys of Lady Bastet’s murder. The answer might not only have implications for me, but also Detective Vega.” I was still puzzling over Vega recommending me for the eradication team. Had it been to protect me, as the mayor suggested?

  “Well, the whos are the wolves, correct?” Tabitha asked.

  “Huh?” I said, emerging from my thoughts. “Oh, I’m not so sure. I had a little run-in with them earlier, and they showed impressive restraint. They would rip me to shreds if left to their instincts, but someone’s got a tight hold on their leashes. And they have a hell of a lot more reason to kill me than to kill Lady Bastet.”

  “What about the mauled cats?” Tabitha asked.

  I considered the mystic’s disabled warding glyphs, the lack of signs of struggle. Finally, I considered the evidence bag in front of me: sulfur lifted from the torn necks of her cats. “I’m starting to think the real killer wanted the murder to look like the work of wolves.”

  “What in the world for?”

  “That’s what I’m hoping to find out,” I said. “So either keep quiet or go back to your cat bed.”

  Muttering something about crappy ice bags, Tabitha remained in a languid heap on my table. She lowered her head to her paws. I waited another moment to ensure she would stay silent before I opened the plastic bag and emptied the contents into the casting circle. Stepping into my protective circle on the floor, I drew my staff and called energy to my prism.

  “Cerrare,” I said.

  Energy infused the sigils and moved around the concentric circles, closing them. Brow furrowed, I concentrated toward the cat hair. My first spell would be a simple detection spell to determine the nature of the residue, to learn what sort of being had deposited it.

  “Rivelare,” I said, staff pointed at the circle.

  The hair swirled and amassed at the circle’s center. In the next moment, small popping noises sounded, and a yellow smoke drifted from the clump of hair. The sulfurous smell intensified, but now it carried something else: a distinct odor of ozone. That went with casting.

  “The residue originated from a spell,” I said.

  “And not from a demonic spell,” Tabitha put in.

  “No?” I hadn’t progressed that far.

  “I have a nose for my own. That carries the taint of human.”

  “Black magic, then.” I gave another sniff, opening my wizard’s senses further. “Cast from elder wood.”

  I withdrew energy from the detection spell. A fellow magic-user. And if he or she had disabled Lady Bastet’s glyphs and killed her without a struggle, then we were talking about a powerful one. Personal enmity between the mage and the mystic? Maybe, but I didn’t like the timing.

  “Let’s do a little hun
ting,” I said.

  “Knock yourself out,” Tabitha murmured.

  With a spoken Word, I shifted half the hair to one side of the circle as a reserve and kept the other half in the circle’s center. I aimed my staff at the small pile and incanted.

  After several moments, a subtle pull took hold on my cane as it began to absorb the residue’s essence. The pull grew stronger, which was a relief. I’d feared the mage had covered his tracks and that the spell would crap out. That he hadn’t cast a spell to avoid detection suggested the mage either wasn’t as powerful as I’d thought or so powerful that he didn’t care.

  “I see you.”

  I jumped at the distorted voice. My gaze searched the circle, but there was no one and nothing there. To the circle’s right, Tabitha had shuffled back into a threatening crouch. Her hair was puffed out, ears flat to her skull. But her dilated eyes weren’t aimed at the circle. They were glaring at me.

  “Yes,” she said, “I see you, Everson Croft.”

  “Tabitha?”

  But it wasn’t Tabitha. A hunting spell worked like a plumbing snake, reaching through the essence of something to hook a target. But that conduit ran both ways, enabling an adept target to lash back and hook the casting circle. Which was exactly what had happened. The minute I knew we weren’t dealing with a demon, I should have reconfigured the circle. Not only that, but I’d been careless in removing Tabitha’s errant hairs. A few must have remained inside the circle, allowing the mage to take possession of my cat.

  I cycled through Word after Word to break the hunting spell, but Tabitha’s lips only forked into a grin.

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  “I was of no concern to you, Everson Croft,” the mage said through Tabitha.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I know a lot about you. I own something vital of yours.”

  The confidence with which the mage spoke sent a cold shudder through me. What in the world was he talking about?

  “Leave it, Everson,” he warned, “or you will join others who have waded into matters beyond their purview. Indeed, crossing paths with me a second time would be very bad luck.”