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

by Brad Magnarella

  I lumbered south to Canal Street, aware that the fiend could return to the vault at any moment. I was on borrowed time, and little more. A payphone leaned at the corner. When I rounded it, though, I discovered that the receiver had been torn out. Wires sprayed from the bottom of the dented box.

  “Shit,” I managed to grunt.

  “Hey, there you are!”

  I turned to find the man with the soft pretzel plan hustling to catch up to me, his peeling loafers slapping the sidewalk as he lurched this way and that. He came to a wheezing stop in front of me, a filthy floral shirt hanging from the thin rack of his shoulders. “Why’d you bail, man?”

  Because I need to make a goddamned phone call, I tried to say. But with the amulet’s power ebbing, the only intelligible words that emerged from Ed’s mouth were “need” and “phone.”

  “The hell didn’t you say so?” Pretzel reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a flip phone, and pried it open. “Got it from my sister.” He squinted over the display as he coughed into his fist. “One bar of battery left, man.”

  I nodded and gave his shoulder an enthusiastic pat that almost knocked him to the ground. God bless this man. He handed over the phone, but my fingers were too fat to punch in the numbers. On my second try, I nearly dropped the phone. My clay face creased with stress.

  I don’t have time for this.

  “Here, man, give me the digits.” Pretzel took his sister’s phone back.

  With monumental concentration, I articulated each number. Pretzel entered them, then held the phone up to my ear. I felt the blood I’d used in creating Ed pumping through me. The call hadn’t gone straight to voicemail. For the first time in months, Caroline’s line was ringing.

  “Hello?” she answered.

  “Carllln,” I said, feeling like I was speaking through a mouthful of M&Ms.

  “Who is this?”

  “Eh-eh-sn.”

  “I can’t understand you.”

  In the background I heard heated conversation. The mayor’s distinct voice rose above the others—the sound of it, anyway. I couldn’t make out any words, but it told me Caroline was at City Hall. I tried to repeat my name, but the more I forced it, the more jumbled it came out.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m ending the call.”

  “Whu-ait!” My mind scrambled for some way I could get her to understand me.

  “Look, sir. I don’t recognize your number, and I’m in the middle of something.”

  “Sub!” I blurted out. The old joke between us for all the times she used to cover my classes.

  A silence followed. “Everson?”

  “Y-ysh!” If Ed had tear ducts, I’m pretty sure they would have wept with joy.

  The voices around her diminished as though she were walking into another room. “Thank God,” she breathed. “What’s wrong? Where are you?”

  Okay, she knew it was me, but how was I going to get her to understand a single thing I said. The situation was too complex to grunt out in monosyllables over a phone. If I was going to warn her, I needed a face-to-face.

  “M-meet,” I managed.

  “You want to meet? Where?” No hesitation.

  I thought for a moment. The streets around City Hall were probably closed. The checkpoints would be a nightmare. I came up with a place about halfway between us and within walking distance.

  “Clum-ba Pa,” I said.

  “I didn’t get that, Everson.”

  I balled up my fists and tried again. “Clum-ba-ba Pa.”

  Pretzel pulled the phone from my ear. “I think he’s trying to say Columbus Park, lady.”

  I nodded fervently.

  “He’s saying yes,” Pretzel said. He stuck the phone back against my ear and bounced his eyebrows. “She sounds fiiine.”

  “Columbus Park,” Caroline repeated. “All right. I’m heading there now. I’ll meet you at the pavilion.” She ended the call before I could attempt to thank her. Probably just as well.

  Wavering on his feet, Pretzel slid me a wasted grin.

  “Need a wingman?” he asked.

  31

  Our staggering journey took us down Chinatown’s narrow streets. The amulet’s energy flagged and surged like a dying electrical appliance, and I had to lean on Pretzel for support several times. Thankfully, the sidewalks were empty, the shops closed—the thundering concussions from the battle that afternoon likely having driven everyone inside.

  Almost everyone.

  At the next intersection, a gang of young men in white suits appeared. I recognized them as White Hand enforcers, employees of Bashi. They patrolled the street in a V formation.

  Crap.

  I searched around for a place to hide. The gang spotted us and veered our way.

  Double crap.

  I didn’t have time to be interrogated. The amulet fueling me was already in the red, and if the White Hand decided to remove it, Ed would collapse into a mound of clay, and I’d land back in the vault. I lowered my head, hoping the gang would allow a pair of common vagrants to shuffle past. But Pretzel chose that moment to pick up his business pitch.

  “The thing with soft pretzels, man, is they don’t discriminate. They’re for everyone, you know? Race, age, creed—none of that shit matters. Come one, come all. The only thing might change is what’s put on ’em. Some like mustard, others like that horseradish.”

  The members of the White Hand surrounded us.

  “Oh, hey,” my partner said. “What do you guys like on your pretzels? Sweet and sour sauce?”

  Oh, Christ.

  The man in the lead position stared down at him. “What are you doing here?”

  “We’re goin’ on a date,” Pretzel answered proudly.

  “With each other?”

  The other gang members laughed. Not realizing we were the butt of the joke, Pretzel laughed along with them. The leader’s mouth didn’t budge. He had the deadened eyes of a killer. They cut over to me. “What’s the matter with your boyfriend?” he asked Pretzel. “Someone shoot off his tongue?”

  “Aw, he don’t say much,” Pretzel explained. “But when he does, pure genius, man.”

  “Is that right?” The leader drew a black Beretta from his waist band. “Let’s hear some of that genius, tùzi.”

  I looked past him. The park was only a block and a half away.

  “Hey,” he snapped. “I’m talking to you.” He flipped my bill and the Mets cap tumbled off my head.

  When the leader drew back, I raised an arm in anticipation of being pistol whipped, but his eyes were large and startled. Amid muttered swears, the others in the gang eased back too. The leader recomposed himself, his eyes going dead again. “Get out of our neighborhood,” he said to Pretzel. “I never want to see that deformed piece of shit around here again.”

  Pretzel gave his lazy smile. “Yeah, man, he’s cool.”

  I retrieved my hat as the gang moved on, their members peering back with unsettled looks. I leaned toward my reflection in a car window and understood. Out in the summer heat, and with the amulet flagging, Ed’s face had started to melt. One eye was a good two inches below the other, and what remained of his nose had skewed to the left of his lips. It was a disturbing sight. With a stab of self-consciousness, I replaced the hat and pulled the bill as low as it would go.

  Caroline was already at the pavilion when Pretzel and I shambled up. She must have sensed my presence in the pile of clay, because she hurried toward us. “Everson?” she asked.

  I nodded and gestured to my body. Just a loaner, I tried to say, but it came out a clumpy moan. Speech gone. Power spent. The park around us was beginning to feel insubstantial too, like a fading dream. For a moment, I felt the cold floor of the vault beneath me.

  No…

  Pretzel stumbled in front of Caroline. “I spoke to you on the phone, lady. I’m his business partner.”

  His voice brought me snapping back. As Caroline accepted Pretzel’s hand, I pawed at my chest. Her head tilted in momenta
ry question before nodding. She could see the energy that emanated from the amulet to power my form, could sense its weakening field.

  Pulling her hand from Pretzel’s, she stepped in close and pressed her palm to the amulet. Maybe it was seeing Caroline through Ed’s eyes, but she looked even less human now, more fae. From the amulet, a scent of honeydew rose and a soft, prickling wave swept over my skin. My body began to straighten and tighten, facial features migrating back into place. As the recharge finished, I decided that, yes, Caroline was definitely more fae.

  She stepped back, eyes dark with concern.

  “Thank you,” I said, the words wooden but much easier to form.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  I looked over at Pretzel, who was staring up at Caroline with a dreamy expression. “Hey, mind giving us a minute?” I said.

  “Oh, yeah, sure.” Pretzel staggered off several paces before turning. “Ask if she’s got a friend,” he called back in a loud whisper. He found a park bench and collapsed onto his back.

  I looked at Caroline again. “I’m at Arnaud’s.”

  “I know. We’ve been trying to get you out of there.”

  “The situation’s become more complicated,” I said with a wince. “Arnaud … bit me.”

  Caroline’s face paled. “Bit you?”

  “He took over my mind and forced me to call up a shadow fiend. I couldn’t stop him. I’m pretty sure he intends to turn the fiend loose on the city after it takes care of the trolls. And me.”

  Caroline searched my eyes, appearing to weigh the information.

  “I’m not asking you to help me,” I said. “I’ve blown my chances, and it’s too dangerous anyway. But I can tell you something Arnaud never intended for anyone to find out. He bound the shadow fiend to himself in a way that makes it dependent on his life force. This guarantees the fiend will remain loyal to Arnaud, but it’s also an Achilles heel.”

  “Kill Arnaud, and the fiend perishes,” Caroline said.

  “Exactly. Meaning there can’t be any more negotiations with the vampires. Arnaud has to be destroyed.”

  Caroline nodded. “We’ll take your heed.”

  “Good,” I said, noting how she was even starting to talk like a fae. “And, look, whatever happens … I want you to know I’m sorry. I should have listened to you.”

  “It’s not your fault. I gave you ample reason to distrust me.” Caroline smiled tightly. “The fae and their secrecy … I wasn’t to discuss my involvement in the mayor’s programs with anyone else. Nor was I to intervene directly in the outcomes of those programs.”

  “You saw the potential for complications, though,” I said.

  She nodded. “Including the vampires trying to twist the eradication program to their own ends. That story about you … I knew where it originated. But Captain Cole reacted first, preempting the mayor. He organized the hunt for you and lay siege to the Financial District. City Hall had to play catch up.”

  The war has begun, I remembered Arnaud telling me as his building shook.

  “Arnaud fired the first shot, didn’t he?” I said, coming to yet another realization of how thoroughly I’d been duped. She nodded. “So Budge’s offer to end the siege in exchange for my extradition…?”

  “Was to get you to safety,” Caroline affirmed. “We were in the process of clearing your name.”

  “And the trolls?”

  “Sent to help you.”

  I shook my head in anguish. Who knew how many would die before the shadow fiend—and Arnaud—could be stopped. If they could be stopped. And all because I’d wanted to prove Caroline wrong.

  She cupped my chin and raised it until our eyes aligned. “When we spoke in your classroom a few weeks ago, I told you I had worked out an exception in your case. I was given three chances to intervene on your behalf. The first was convincing Budge to negotiate for your release, the second was deploying the trolls. Everson, I still have one more chance to help you. If you’ll let me.”

  “At what cost to you?”

  The skin between her brows dimpled.

  “Oh, c’mon,” I said, “I know the fae well enough to know there are no freebies. I mean, you gave up your mortality to help your father. What did you have to give up to help me?”

  She hesitated. “My feelings for you.”

  That was why she’d kept her distance. She had known this moment was coming.

  “And with this third chance, the deal’s sealed?” I asked. “The feelings go away?”

  The moisture in her eyes answered the question for her. I looked over her face, trying to frame it in my memory: every perfect line, every sensual color, from the blush of her lips to the blue-green spires of her irises.

  Over on the bench, Pretzel began to croon about faded love.

  No kidding, I thought. Caroline will never look at me this way again.

  I drew a deep breath and, nodding, took her hand.

  “Let’s make it a good one, then,” I said.

  32

  I stood slowly, feeling my way up the vault door.

  The merry-go-round motion had stopped moments before, and I’d opened my eyes. Gone was the hazy light of the park, Pretzel’s singing, Caroline’s tender touch, the clean scent of fae magic. There was only a soulless darkness that smelled of sulfur and rancid blood.

  But I was still alive.

  I pressed my ear to the door’s cold metal. I couldn’t hear anything. Had the troll massacre ended? Where had Arnaud and the shadow fiend gone? Not out into the city, I hoped.

  Okay, need to focus. Need to—

  “You’re up, I see,” Arnaud said.

  Blood roared in my ears as I spun toward his voice. No, it was too damned soon!

  From the far end of the vault, footsteps clicked toward me. “You were lying so still, I feared you’d succumbed to the transformation. Not everyone has the constitution for it, I’m afraid. I would wager that for every young man I enslave, three to four die. A horrible inefficiency—a nuisance, really. Especially when one is trying his best to play down his true nature.”

  I pressed myself flat against the vault door, and edged away from his voice, from the soul-raking presence of the shadow fiend.

  “But at last the days of hiding are behind us, Mr. Croft. The trick was making the cost of persecution too high. Today, the city received a taste. Tonight, we will give them so much more.” Arnaud’s eyes shone red in the darkness. Several feet above him, a larger pair of eyes peered hungrily down.

  “You promised the battle would be defensive,” I stammered.

  Arnaud chuckled. “Well, you know what they say. The best defense is a good offense.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “Yes, about that…” He and the shadow fiend continued to stalk me in the dark. “I take my pledges very seriously. I have a reputation for my word being as reliable as gold. It’s what elevated me to the heights of lower Manhattan while lesser of my kind ended up in the filth of Forty-second Street. The late Sonny Shoat, for example. But in your case, Mr. Croft, I made an exception to my own rule. And you have your grandfather to blame.”

  “My grandfather? What in the hell does he have to do with this?”

  I could feel the talons of Arnaud’s mind probing my thoughts. What he found was terror and uncertainty.

  “You know about the original Pact, of course,” Arnaud said. “The union between wizards and vampires to resist the enforcers of the Inquisition. Why, you used the Pact’s binding power against me in our first meeting. That never should have happened. Your dear grandfather violated the Pact when he double-crossed not only me, but his fellow wizards.”

  Anger flared hot in my cheeks. “Bullshit.”

  “Oh, I don’t blame you for not knowing, Mr. Croft. He hid the deception very well. Indeed, even I wasn’t aware of what he’d done until after his death. But I received a visit one day from someone in your Order. A representative, I suppose. The fellow asked some interesting questions, and though he disg
uised his mission well, I soon understood what he was after. You see, during the campaign in Eastern Europe, some powerful artifacts were stolen, including the Scaig Box over there. I, along with others, had always assumed the Church to have taken and destroyed them. But by the nature of the fellow’s questions, it became clear he suspected a vampire of the thefts—me, in particular, given my movements during the war. I must have said enough to convince him otherwise, because he left, and I never saw or heard from him again. It got me thinking back, though. Your grandfather, the Grand Mage himself, had been with me or close by during much of the war. He was at the same places the fellow from the Order had mentioned during our interview.”

  I continued to ease along the wall of the vault as he talked, chanting quietly.

  “Fortunately, I kept close tabs on your grandfather since his arrival in Manhattan. He was behaving quite curiously, performing work far beneath his station. A stage magician and insurance man? I was convinced the war had addled his mind. Some form of shell shock. But after the fellow’s visit, I began to wonder whether your grandfather had been hiding something.”

  Though I kept up the chant, I couldn’t help but think about Grandpa’s strange habits, his odd hours.

  “Every so often he would take a trip out to Port Gurney. If you haven’t been, it’s a waterfront town, very working class. Old dockyards, warehouses, a few bars as well. Your grandfather would go directly to one bar in particular—a place called the Rhein House—and sit on the same stool, sometimes for hours. He would then emerge, perfectly sober, and drive home, scarcely having spoken. Maybe the man just liked to spend time in a place suggestive of his German past. Or maybe, I thought, there was more going on than met the eye. Late one night, following the fellow’s visit, I dispatched a pair of slaves to that waterfront bar to have a look around. And do you know what they discovered?”

  “What?”

  “A vault in the bar’s basement. Despite considerable coercion, the owner seemed not to know how to open it, claiming the vault was closed and locked when he bought the establishment. After a bit of research, I discovered a strange clause in the property deed. The vault could not be considered a part of any subsequent sale. Very curious, wouldn’t you agree?”