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

by Brad Magnarella

“We’ll worry about them when the time comes,” he said. “Though I do wish you would have brought your fellows. To take nothing away from you, Mr. Croft, but a dozen wizards are better than one.”

  Especially when that one wizard is essentially unarmed, I thought. Absent my staff, sword, and spell items, what power I wielded was wild and would deplete quickly. But I stuffed such worries away, not wanting Arnaud to pick up on them and decide I wasn’t worth protecting.

  “What’s the end game?” I asked.

  Before Arnaud could answer, the door to the conference room opened. I turned to find Zarko holding a phone.

  “It’s Mayor Lowder, sir,” he said to Arnaud. “He would like to speak with you.”

  Arnaud nodded as though he’d been expecting the call. Zarko set the phone on the table in front of him and activated the handless feature. Arnaud rested an elbow over the back of his chair and laced his fingers.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Mayor,” he said. “I took you at your word.”

  I realized he was talking about the deal he had struck with Budge in which the vampire had protected the mayor’s stepdaughter in exchange for amnesty. A hedge, he’d called it.

  “You’re disappointed?” Budge shot back. “How do you think I felt when I learned the star of my program was in your pay, trying to sabotage everything?”

  “Bunch of B.S.,” I muttered, anger toward the fae coiling my insides.

  Arnaud showed a hand. “If you’re referring to young Mr. Croft, he was not working at my behest, I assure you. He was entirely in your service. His intentions were quite golden, actually.”

  “Was that him I just heard in the background?” Budge asked.

  “I won’t deny his presence among us, but where else was he to have gone? It’s not as though you left him a choice, sending the wolves after him. Do you think they would have listened patiently, chins on their paws, while he pled his innocence? Even you’re not that obtuse, Mayor.”

  “Well, we’ve got a problem.”

  “It would appear so,” Arnaud replied, picking at a talon as though his fortress wasn’t under siege.

  “I’ve got thirty-six men in the morgue, and a city convinced that, not only did Everson put them there, but that he’s working for you. Oh yeah, and that you’re all vampires.”

  “And why should that concern me?” Arnaud asked.

  “Have you looked out your window lately?” Budge said, incredulous.

  “I have, Mayor. But you and I both know that the charges are mostly falsehoods.”

  The phone’s speaker hummed for several seconds, and I imagined the mayor consulting with someone off to the side. Caroline? At last, he cleared his throat and said, “We’ll pull back if you give us Everson. While we deal with him, I’ll, ah, work on putting out the vampire rumors.”

  Give us Everson, Budge was saying, and war will be averted.

  I pinched the corners of my eyes with a finger and thumb, trying to piece together what was happening on the mayor’s end. If Caroline was there advising him, was she trying to help me? Or would I be grabbed and thrown into a trial for public consumption? A trial seemed the logical next step in the fae’s campaign. They had already aroused the city’s sympathies and fears; now they could stoke a communal lust for justice—all to Budge’s and the fae’s benefit. The fae would get their preferred candidate and, using the vampire rumor as leverage against Arnaud, access to the lower portal. That may have been their plan all along.

  One in which I’d served as unwitting pawn.

  When I lowered my hand, Arnaud’s fellow executives were watching me. Loathing hardened their unblinking eyes. I was a threat to their security. They wanted me gone. Could I blame them? If I was in their position, I’d no doubt want the same. And if turning myself in meant preventing a war in which innocents could be killed, maybe I didn’t have a choice.

  I cleared my dry throat, but Arnaud showed me his palm.

  “I’m afraid I can’t accede to your request, Mayor,” he said.

  I blinked in surprise. Several of the vampires hissed their protests.

  “Why not?” the mayor demanded.

  “Because I know a bluff when I hear one.”

  Budge let out an aggrieved sigh. “You’re not leaving me much choice, then.”

  “I’ll trust you to make the right call,” Arnaud said. “Your city is depending on you.”

  Budge raised his voice. “Everson, if you’re there—”

  “Good day, Mayor,” Arnaud said and disconnected the call. He signaled for Zarko to remove the phone from the conference room.

  Around me, the vampires’ protests grew into bat-like shrieks. Without warning, something slammed into me. I toppled backwards in my chair and landed hard against the floor. The young-looking vampire was on top of me, pupils shrinking inside bright yellow irises, spiny teeth sprouting from his gums.

  “You’ll get us killed!” he screamed, and lunged for my throat.

  A fist knocked Damien off me. By the time I straightened, Arnaud had the vampire pinned high against the wall. “Did I not say the wizard was under my protection?” he seethed, an inch from Damien’s twisting face. “Subvert my authority again, and you will be killed.”

  Arnaud tossed the vampire aside and returned to the head of the table.

  Damien shuffled back to his own seat, grumbling but chastised. The remaining vampires stopped screeching, their eyes shifting between me and Arnaud.

  “My apologies,” Arnaud said as I stood and righted my chair. “My fellow executives are on edge, and perhaps understandably. There is much at stake. However…” He peered around the table. “…I know what I’m doing. The eradication program would eventually have included us all. That day has only been moved up, an opportunity we should be embracing, not wringing our hands over like Nervous Nellies. The city has no intention of sparing us and never did. So now comes the question.” Arnaud leveled his eyes at me as I sat again. “Will you renew the Pact between our kinds and defend our rightful place in this city? Or will you bow to the fears and prejudices of humanity?”

  His musky scent grew inside the room, making my heart slam harder. I raised my eyes to the satellite image. The gunboats Arnaud had mentioned earlier were rushing in to surround lower Manhattan.

  “I need to know your endgame,” I said.

  “There’s a fitting quote, Mr. Croft: ‘War is the continuation of politics by other means.’” He gave an almost paternal smile. “Don’t be fooled by the show of force. What’s happening is nothing more than politics writ large. All we need do is force a stalemate. Make it so further engagement will be too costly for the mayor’s reelection chances.”

  “So your strategy is purely defensive?” I asked to be sure.

  “We’ve nothing to gain by attacking the city,” he replied. “With a successful stand, we win by default. The mayor will have no choice but to seek a negotiated settlement. We may have to make a concession or two, yes, but we’ll find the ground on which we presently stand more solid. And that would include you, Mr. Croft, for whom the ground underfoot must feel like quicksand.”

  “Assuming we’re successful,” I said.

  “Trust me.” Arnaud’s eyes gleamed. “I’ve prepared for this day.”

  A sick shiver passed through me. Trust me. As if I could ever trust someone so vile. But something in his words carried me back to my final meeting with Lady Bastet. There had been a moment when the mystic had stared into me, her third eye probing some future horizon. And what was it she’d said when she’d returned? Trust in the one you trust least?

  I lowered my gaze back to Arnaud.

  The one I trusted least was right in front of me.

  “I’ll repeat my offer from the bar,” Arnaud said.

  He reached into his shirt pocket and held out a silver band. His yellowing talons scraped as he turned the signet around to face me. I stared at a rearing dragon. Grandpa’s ring. He was offering to return it to me. All I had to do was renew the strategic allian
ce between our kinds.

  Trust in the one you trust least.

  I clenched my jaw. How in the hell could I trust a monster?

  “What say you?” Arnaud pressed.

  26

  I eyed the ring Arnaud’s blood slave had broken my finger to remove. Containing the power of the Brasov Pact, the ring was a deterrent against vampire aggression. If I renewed the Pact, that power would only be enhanced. Arnaud and his ilk wouldn’t be able to touch me.

  “The offer will not stand forever,” Arnaud said.

  My legs tensed, as though to stand and claim the ring, but the rational part of my mind resisted. Aligning with Arnaud might mean protection, but at what cost? I would be committing to a war against City Hall as well as the werewolves, maybe even the fae. And something told me it wouldn’t play out as neatly as Arnaud was forecasting.

  Trust in the one you trust least. Lady Bastet’s remembered words again.

  Around me, Arnaud’s musk was strengthening, stoking my adrenaline. I was having trouble breathing. As the ring glinted out in front of me, I felt pressed in from all sides.

  “I need to make a phone call,” I blurted out.

  “To whom?” Arnaud asked, watching me for a lie.

  “Detective Vega.”

  “For what purpose?”

  My gaze moved around the table. I couldn’t reason in here. My thoughts were slamming together. I needed to know what was happening outside, and Vega would give it to me straight.

  “Information,” I answered.

  “Look at the screen, Mr. Croft. There is all the information you need.”

  “It will only take a minute.”

  Arnaud closed his fist around the ring. “Very well,” he said. “Through that door you will find a small office with a phone. You have exactly one minute.”

  I stared at him, making sure I’d heard him right.

  “Run along,” he said. “The second hand is ticking.”

  I hurried through the door he’d indicated and closed it behind me. A conference phone sat on one end of a desk. For a moment I considered calling Caroline, but I doubted her offer to help me still stood. Besides, there was too much she hadn’t told me, and I wasn’t going to waste my one minute on more vagueness. I pulled Detective Vega’s business card from my wallet and dialed her cell.

  “Vega,” she answered.

  “Before you say anything, let me explain—”

  “Croft,” she whispered. “What in the hell are you doing?”

  “I ended up at Arnaud’s, yeah. But listen, listen, listen,” I said over the expected outburst. “I didn’t have a choice. The wolves caught my scent. I got trapped in the subway tunnels and had nowhere to go but downtown. His men grabbed me at the Wall.” All true on the surface.

  She was quiet for a moment. “You’re okay?”

  “For right now,” I said. “How about you?”

  “Yeah. Told the officers you kicked my gun away and jumped out the window. But what in the hell are you gonna do now?”

  “How bad is it out there?” I asked.

  “On a scale of one to ten? Twenty. We’ve got just about every piece of military equipment aimed at the Financial District. There are some in the chain who want to start blasting.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Police Plaza … inactive duty because of my knee.”

  The acidic churning in my stomach abated slightly. Vega wouldn’t be involved in any fighting. “The mayor made Arnaud an offer,” I said. “Turn me over and he’ll pull back, quash the vampire rumors.”

  Vega snorted. “Budge would have a better chance putting out a volcano with a bucket of water.”

  That was what I’d been afraid of.

  “The story’s already caught fire, huh?” I asked.

  “Put it this way. If you’re looking for a crucifix or bulb of garlic, every store in the five boroughs sold out this morning.” She lowered her voice further. “And the government security guards, Croft. They’re working with the NYPD in ways I’ve never seen.”

  “The werewolves,” I muttered. “Who’s in charge?”

  “Hard to say. Cole is down at command-and-control, but this feels higher up the chain. I could try to—”

  “No, no,” I said, seeing where she was going. “You’ve already helped me enough.”

  She’d also given me the straight answers I needed. Arnaud was right, dammit. The city meant war.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this, Croft. But you’re trapped.”

  “Yeah,” I said, sighing. “I’m starting to see it that way too.”

  There was another pause on her end. “Listen,” she said, “you make some really aggravating decisions sometimes, but you try to do right. I know what they’re saying about you is bullshit.”

  I thought about how that aggravation ran both ways but was too touched by her words to say it.

  “Thanks, Vega. That means a lot. Especially coming from you.”

  “Just—” she started, but the room shook and the line went dead.

  “Vega?”

  A growing rumble sounded outside, like thunder. I hung up and returned to the conference room. On the flat-screen television, a white cloud had appeared among the skyscrapers. An answering explosion sounded, and one of the helicopters burst into flames. It went down in Battery Park, creating another small plume. More shots thudded and boomed.

  “The war has begun,” Arnaud said. “It is now or never, Mr. Croft.”

  The vampires along both sides of the table were watching the screen in rapt attention. But opposite me, Arnaud was holding out the ring again.

  “Hey, uh, shouldn’t we get out of the top of the tower?” I said.

  Arnaud didn’t answer. His eyes sharpened and pressed into mine.

  Trust in the one I least trusted? It wasn’t like I had a goddamned choice anymore.

  “All right,” I said, my stomach in a nauseating fist. “I agree to renew the Pact.”

  Across Arnaud’s lips, a smile clicked on and off. He set the ring flat on the table and slid it toward me. The ring bisected the eight vampires and came to a rest in front of me. I pushed it on. The ring fit as I’d remembered, squeezing the base of my middle finger. A chill energy coursed down my body, and I imagined it circling the room, binding us all in the agreement.

  The conference room shook again.

  “The mayor has made the opening move,” Arnaud announced. “Phase one of the war has begun. Go now. Assemble your slaves. Be ready to mobilize them. This is for our very existence, gentlemen.”

  Arnaud spoke with the authority of a general. The vampires stood and filed from the room, the Undertaker’s eyes lingering on me. My attention remained fixed on the screen. Several of the tanks were in flames, and two sections of the Wall appeared to be smoldering.

  “Come, Mr. Croft,” Arnaud said. “Let’s go to my office for a live view.”

  Zarko appeared and opened the conference room door for us. I pulled my gaze from the screen and fell in behind Arnaud. We followed Zarko to the end of the hallway, where he opened the office door. As I stepped past him and onto the plush carpet, I thought about my two prior visits. The first time, Arnaud had nearly sunk his teeth into my throat before banning me from the Financial District. The second time, he had coerced me into a deal that had led to Vega’s son being imperiled.

  Third time’s a charm? I thought cynically.

  I joined Arnaud beside the window that took up the far wall. Through the brown-tinted glass, we looked over the battlefield. Smoke billowed here and there, probably from artillery fire and downed helicopters. Along the Wall, automatic weapons popped. Gas jetted out as an antitank missile took flight. Its target, an armored vehicle rolling down Broadway, exploded in flames.

  “Sadly, it’s a recurring scene in our history,” Arnaud remarked, as though watching a television documentary. “A city come to storm the fortress walls, to drive our kind from their midst. But that is the advantage of immortality, no? One eventually
knows what to expect.”

  Zarko appeared with two glasses of scotch. I shook my head, but Arnaud accepted his glass and took a thoughtful sip. I looked over at him, incredulous. How could he be indulging at a time like this?

  A helicopter chopped past our view, gunfire bursting from a pair of muzzles. I shouted and reared back.

  Arnaud swirled his glass. “At ease, Mr. Croft. The windows are made of reinforced laminate. The building is similarly blast resistant. It would take several direct hits for us to become imperiled, and the city’s forces presently have their hands full.”

  The helicopter appeared again, this time spiraling beneath a trail of black smoke. Below us, it collided into a neighboring skyscraper, fire mushrooming from the impact site.

  I peered up at the sky. “What’s to stop them from dropping a giant bomb?”

  “Resources, for one. I doubt they have anything like that in their arsenal. Money, for another. It’s already going to cost the mayor a pretty piece of his budget to restore Central Park. Now imagine having to rebuild lower Manhattan from the ground up. Not even the federal government will spot the city that kind of capital.” City Hall was hidden by a cluster of intervening skyscrapers, but a wedge of its park peered out. By the tenting, I guessed there was some construction going on. “No, the initial assault is meant to punch some holes in our defenses in preparation for the next wave,” Arnaud went on. “Ah, and here it comes.”

  I squinted past the Wall. Though I didn’t possess Arnaud’s preternatural vision, I could see the tide of foot soldiers racing down the north-south corridors. More than a hundred of them. And too fast to be humans.

  “Werewolves?” I asked.

  “I knew Penny was amassing an army before her untimely bullet wound, but I must applaud her ambition. She apparently got her hands on some enchanted item or other. A half wolf couldn’t have managed this kind of control otherwise.”

  Automatic fire popped from the Wall. The advancing wolves were undeterred, converging toward several sections of the Wall that looked to have been damaged by tank fire.

  “You, ah, planned for this, right?” I asked.

  “The wolves, yes,” Arnaud said, taking another sip of scotch. “But not necessarily the numbers. We’re looking at the population of much of New England. It seems we’re going to be getting our hands dirty, after all.” Without looking, he handed his half-empty glass over his shoulder, where Zarko was standing. “Come,” he said to me. “You too, Zarko.”