“Shit,” I spat.
18
I spent the next day in my apartment, afraid to leave my protective wards, not even sure they could protect me. The mage who had killed my mother had my blood, and that was bad. Super bad. With it, he could cast all manner of blood magic, up to and including a death spell.
I would be powerless to stop him.
I paced the length of my bookshelves again, eyes jerking from title to title, but I’d already pulled the relevant ones and read through them. They only reaffirmed what I already knew about blood magic.
I was fucked.
I sagged into my padded chair with a hard sigh and eyed the evidence bag beside the books on my desk. The bag held what remained of the cat hair and spell residue—my sole connection to the mage. I had mentally cycled through the spells I was capable of casting, but I was still too junior. None of them would enable me to find the mage or strike him without his knowledge. And if the mage was as adept as he seemed, he probably had a nasty counterspell in waiting.
That left communicating with the Order—and that was where I was stuck.
First, there were the questions. Why didn’t the Order have a record of my mother? Were they trying to hide something? And why hadn’t the Order done anything about her murder? The mage should have been toast. Was he that powerful, or was there something more going on?
Complication number two fell back on my blood. The mage had taken it without my consent, true. But that wouldn’t earn me any pity points with the Order. The fact I had given my blood willingly, to whomever, was what mattered. If the mage used my blood in any kind of black magic, I would be considered just as guilty as he was. In which case, the only way I’d be spared the death penalty was if the mage killed me first.
I massaged my closed eyes, the final moments of my mother’s life flashing behind my swollen lids. The pain, the blasts, the mage with the gold mask, the bitter exchange, the cruel fire—
The ringing phone made me jump.
I considered letting the call go to my answering service, but I was selective about who I shared my unlisted number with, and this could be important. I arrived downstairs and grabbed the receiver on the fifth ring.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“Everson!” the mayor said. “Listen, I know we barely touched on it in our meeting yesterday, but I want you to go ahead and start drawing up plans for the next phase in the program.”
“Central Park?” That had been slated for late August.
Budge lowered his voice. “Between you and me, I was hoping for a solid month of coverage on the ghoul operation, but the press is already running out of steam. We’re looking at another week, tops. They want fresh stories on the program. Maybe we can divide up the park, do it in phases?”
“We’d have to,” I said, considering not only its size, but its creatures.
“Yeah, maybe a series of grab-and-hold operations,” Budge said. “We could even reopen parts of the park, host a big cookout with blankets, clowns, the works—you know, something tangible for the public. Don’t get me wrong. Ridding the lines of the ghouls was great, but it’s gonna take months to get those lines in good enough shape to run trains through again.”
I caught myself nodding. Despite that Budge had all but blackmailed me into pledging my continued cooperation, I was thankful to have another problem to divert my thoughts.
“All right, but listen,” I said. “This is going to be a lot different from the ghoul operation. For one, we’re dealing with a different class of creature. Goblins, hobgoblins—bad, bad dudes. They might not have the regenerative powers of ghouls, but they’re smarter, more tactical minded. Also, we won’t have anything like the subway tunnels. This is going to be jungle warfare.”
“Is that a problem?” Budge asked.
“It is if you’re trying to avoid casualties.”
“Hmm, good point,” Budge said. “At this phase, though, I think the public would be willing to stomach a few losses, don’t you? Shows them we’re taking the problem seriously. Just so long as the losses are minimal and they don’t include you. You’re still the face of this thing, remember.”
I let the remark go. “When do you need a plan by?”
“Have something Friday. If we want to maintain campaign momentum, Caroline’s saying we need to get the ball rolling by the following week. Otherwise, I’m bleeding points again.”
Mention of Caroline sent a raw charge of emotion through me. I wondered vaguely about the looming threat she was seeing. In light of recent developments, it didn’t seem so pressing.
I cleared my throat. “Friday it is, then.”
I still had the mage to worry about, and whether or not to tell the Order, but in my years as a scholar I’d found that shifting my focus to a secondary problem often yielded answers to a more pressing primary problem. Subconscious incubation, I’d heard it called. I hoped that would be the case here.
“The more spectacular, the better,” Budge said, and hung up.
A week later found me pacing the command-and-control center’s main tent, gripping a Styrofoam cup of bitter coffee. All around me, NYPD officers and technicians manned computers and communication equipment. For the second phase of the eradication program, we had set up in Grand Army Plaza, just outside Central Park’s southeast corner. As before, Captain Cole wanted us close to the action. Only this time, there was no action.
Across the tent, he shot me a stern look that said, Where are they?
I dropped my Styrofoam cup into a trashcan. Above me, a series of monitors showed grainy green images of woods, overgrown paths, a derelict amusement park—but no creatures. On the GPS display, the numbered points indicated that the sweep, begun at midnight, was nearly complete.
“Well?” Cole asked, voicing his displeasure now.
“It’s only the first action,” I said defensively. We had divided Central Park into six sections with the plan to clear them in successive actions, south to north. Tonight we were tackling the southernmost section, up to the transverse road at Sixty-fifth Street. While half the Hundred performed the sweep, the other half were stationed around the perimeter in armored vehicles. No creature was going to get out alive. That had been the idea, anyway.
Cole walked up to me. “You said we’d get engagement.”
“I said maybe we’d get engagement. I’m an academic, remember? Qualifiers are our stock and trade. I also said the heaviest concentration of creatures was going to be farther north. Either way, we secure the southern park and the mayor gets to throw his cookout. Everyone’s fat and happy, right?”
“This is about liberating, not securing,” Cole said in a menacing voice. “You don’t liberate a place by strolling through it and shouting ‘all clear.’ The local Cub Scout troop could’ve managed that.”
“Good,” I said, turning away. “Consult their den mother next time.”
Cole seized my wrist. “You know what I’m saying, Prof.”
I felt my other fist balling around my cane. It was late, my nerves were stretched, and—qualifiers or not—the operation was not going as planned. And here Cole was trying to make me the scapegoat. Monitors flickered. Cole must have sensed the crackle of magic too because he released my wrist.
“Look,” he said, “I hate the political B.S. as much as you, but it is what it is.”
“Yeah, I get it,” I said, a sigh dispersing the power that had rushed to my prism. “The press needs a monster count. Otherwise, this is going to look like an expensive publicity stunt—one the mayor’s opponent will jump on as yet another example of his reckless spending.”
“How dangerous would it be to send a team north to try to bag a few bodies?” he asked.
I followed his furrowed gaze to the map of Central Park. It was a large aerial shot that should have answered his question. The further north one ventured, the wilder and more rugged the park became—and thus, the more dangerous. I’d only ventured into those wilds once, and that was with a stealth potion. Even
then, I’d nearly been flame-broiled by druids.
“Not worth it,” I said.
“Team of five,” Cole went on. “If they’re killed in action, not a huge loss.”
“It is if we have nothing to show for it.”
But the stern line of the captain’s lips told me he’d already made up his mind. He readied his headset to issue the command.
“We found something,” a voice crackled over the feed.
Cole and I turned simultaneously. The GPS display showed team members converging near the park’s southeast corner—a wooded area anchored by a horseshoe-shaped pond. My eyes cut to the nearby monitors. One of the feeds steadied on the base of a giant boulder. Several armored officers were clearing branches away from what I realized was the entrance to a tunnel.
“Careful,” I muttered.
Cole nodded. “Drop in a couple grenades,” he ordered.
As team members readied the grenades, I studied the tossed-off branches that had been used to screen the tunnel. Something about the concealment seemed too obvious. I eyed the GPS display. In the men’s eagerness for action, they had converged too quickly, were too close together.
“Have them spread apart,” I told Cole quickly. “There are probably other access points to the—”
The bangs of the exploding grenades cut me off. Fire blew from the hole, the retreating camera catching it as a white-green flare. The camera whipped around suddenly.
I drew in a sharp breath at the sight of small figures blurring past the trees. Thunks sounded, and the camera fell to the ground. Out ahead of the camera lens, beyond a spray of twigs, I could see two downed members of the Hundred, the seams in their body armor bristling with arrows.
A blow horn sounded, followed by a chorus of garbled cries.
“Son of a bitch,” I said, instinctively drawing my cane apart. “Goblins.”
“We have engagement!” Cole shouted into his headset. “I repeat, we have engagement!”
19
Unlike many of the creatures in the city, Goblins were not undead. Neither were they descended from the original demons. They had come up from the faerie realm in an age before fae kingdoms controlled the portals. Passing for stunted humans, they were a mean, marauding race. They never adopted modern weaponry, however, and were eventually killed or driven into hiding. But their love of human treasure kept them close to urban centers.
Several of the monitors showed small figures cutting in and out of view, pursued by bursts of gunfire. Arrows flashed at cameras in a deadly hail. Though more likely to pilfer than plunder these days, the goblins’ skill in battle had never left them.
“They’re everywhere,” a team leader called through one of the feeds. “Coming from all sides!”
“Everyone to the southeast quadrant,” Cole ordered. “Perimeter team, move in.”
“We don’t know how many there are,” I said. “There could be hundreds.”
“That’s not what you told us at the briefing,” Cole growled.
I stammered for a moment, but he was right. I’d told him and the mayor that we could expect a few dozen creatures, a number I’d extrapolated from the statistics on murders and attacks in and around south Central Park.
When I found my voice, I said, “So we pull back, reassess.”
“We’ve got personnel pinned down,” Cole answered. “They need backup.”
A nauseous heat broke out over my face. “There’s no telling how far the goblin tunnels extend. You could be sending your forces into a bigger trap.”
Cole ignored me, shouting more commands into his headset as he moved off.
I looked from my inert sword and staff to the frenzy of activity around me. On the monitors, more helmet-mounted cameras were staring at the ground or up into trees, their operators dead or dying. I’d underestimated the number of goblins. Underestimated their cunning. Once the sweep team had converged on the poorly hidden hole—a decoy, no doubt—the goblins had poured from surrounding holes and launched an ambush. And something told me the goblins had a second ambush in waiting for whatever backup arrived.
We were playing into their grubby little hands.
“Entering from Central Park South,” I heard a familiar voice report over one of the feeds.
Vega?
I ran over to where Cole was standing in front of the GPS display, barking coordinates. “You sent Detective Vega out there?” I asked.
He pushed me aside with a forearm and leaned over one of the communication technicians seated at a computer. He said something into his ear that I couldn’t hear.
“Hey!” I grabbed Cole’s shoulder. “I asked you a question.”
“She’s on the perimeter team,” he shouted. “We were short one.”
I was about to ask why in the hell he’d put her on the perimeter team when I remembered something else I’d said at the briefing. The perimeter team would be unlikely to see major action. They would be in place as a containing force. I swore and sprinted toward the tent door.
“Prof!” Cole shouted. “I can’t let you go out there!”
Yeah, I know, I thought cynically. I’m the face of this thing. But I’m also the reason for the current clusterfuck.
“Tell your team not to shoot at the white light,” I shouted back.
I broke out into a humid, halogen-suffused night and took a moment to orient myself. Armed NYPD officers stood around the perimeter of the plaza. A block away, news vans huddled. Voices rose in earnest at my appearance, and several cameras aimed their lenses at me.
“How’s it going so far, Mr. Croft?” a reporter called.
“Will you be joining the action?” another one wanted to know.
Awful, and I don’t have a choice.
I wheeled toward the distant popping of semi-automatic gunfire. Vega had said she was joining the combat from Central Park South, a street that bordered the bottom of the rectangular park. Police officers shouted after me as I left the plaza and accessed the street at a run. At the next block, I jumped a police barricade across a stone staircase and descended into the park itself.
“Protezione!” I said.
White light burst from my staff and hardened into a shield around me. I would stand out, but I would also be protected from both friendly and enemy fire—assuming the goblins weren’t bearing magical weapons.
The steep staircase deposited me onto a busted-up asphalt path. Trees pressed in from all sides. More gunfire sounded ahead of me. Away to my left, I picked up a burst of goblin speech.
“Vega!” I called.
Arrows clattered off my shield.
Shit. I reinforced my protection and plowed into the woods ahead. Leafy limbs batted at my shield. I stumbled over something and went down. I knew without looking that it was a body.
Please don’t let it be hers, I thought desperately.
I turned and held up my staff. White light illuminated a row of small sharp teeth and the staring squash-colored eyes of a goblin. Its muscled torso had been ripped open by gunfire. Beyond the black talons of an outstretched hand rested the creature’s short bow. I hesitated for a moment, never having seen a goblin up close. Even in death it looked menacing.
Another hail of arrows got me moving. By the growing volume of goblin chatter, I guessed more were emerging from underground—just as I’d feared. Gunfire answered in staccato bursts.
“Fall back!” I shouted. “Fall back!”
But a fresh series of horn blasts obscured my cries.
I saw the next body before I could trip over it. One of ours this time. With a force invocation, I rolled the body onto its back, arrow shafts cracking beneath the weight. I let out a relieved breath even as my stomach clenched at the sight of the young man’s lifeless face.
I pulled the helmet from his head, donned it, and activated the communication system. “This is Everson Croft,” I said. “We’re outnumbered. I’m ordering everyone to fall back. I repeat, I’m ordering everyone—”
Feedback blew into m
y ears, and the power box exploded. I swore and tossed the smoking helmet aside. Cupping my hands to the sides of my mouth, I shouted for Vega again.
Behind me, something broke through the brush.
I turned and nearly screamed. The hairy giant that loomed over me grunted, pointed ears flattening back from a short brow and huge red eyes. Bugbear, a voice stammered in my head. It’s a frigging bugbear. Eyewitnesses frequently mistook the creature for a bigfoot—an easy mistake to make. Only a bigfoot didn’t brain its victims and tear them limb from limb.
From a fanged mouth, the creature let out a horrid cry.
I raised my sword, but the shock of the encounter had cost me the precious second I’d needed to cast. Muscles hardened across the bugbears hairy torso and a club came crashing toward me.
I criss-crossed my sword and staff in front of me at the same moment the club collided into my shield. Sparks blew against my face, and the impact hurled me backwards. I ricocheted from tree to tree like a giant pinball. At last, I crashed to a stop. The woods reeled around me as I sat up, but the glimmering shield had held, sparing my life.
“Not gonna survive a second round, though,” I mumbled.
I chanted quickly to reinforce the shield. The bugbear screamed again, limbs breaking with his next charge. Too soon, his fierce red eyes shone above me, club raised overhead.
“Respingere!” I called.
The pulse from my shield knocked the bugbear onto his heels. Without my feet planted, the counterforce sent me backwards. The shield and I broke through a sweep of reeds, and then we were … bobbing?
Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.
The shield fizzled and burst apart. Warm water soaked through my clothes. I splashed until I was standing shin deep in the muddy shallows of a pond, my sleeves dripping wet.
Beyond the tall reeds, the bugbear unleashed another scream.
I waded across the finger of water at the pond’s tapering end and splashed onto the opposite shore.
“Protezione,” I tried.
Brown light popped around the staff’s opal before blinking out.
The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) Page 65