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

by Brad Magnarella

  Her eyes narrowed. “Anything to do with Lady Bastet’s murder?”

  Crap. We’d never buried that hatchet. “A lot, actually,” I admitted. “I think the person who killed her also killed my mother.”

  “You never told me your mother was murdered.”

  “I didn’t know until that night you caught me at LB’s. I saw something in her scrying globe.”

  “Do you have a name for me?”

  “Not yet.” I checked my watch. “And I’ve gotta run.”

  “We’re not gonna play this game again, are we?” she asked.

  She was right. I owed her more. “I’ll tell you anything I find out. If,” I added, “you let me call the shots.” And if, I thought, I’m not in terminal trouble with the Order. “This is a whole different level of menace.”

  Vega’s lips torqued as she considered my terms.

  A small hand tugged at my pant leg. I looked down to find Tony holding my cane up for me.

  “Here, Mr. Croft,” he said, his brown eyes as intense as his mother’s. “To fight the monsters.”

  “Thanks, big man.” I smiled at Vega. “He’d make a great sidekick.”

  She ruffled his feathery curls. “Yeah, when he’s not too busy making trouble.”

  “Hey, listen,” I said. “I’m glad we’re talking again.”

  When she replied, it was with an edge of warning. “Let’s try to keep it that way.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” I assured her.

  “I’m counting on it.”

  I kissed her cheek in farewell—why not?—and gave Tony a high five. Vega seemed not to mind either gesture. As I pattered down the auditorium steps, her son’s voice rang out behind me.

  “Bye-bye, Mr. Croft!”

  34

  “You’re late,” Chicory said when I entered my apartment.

  “Yeah, sorry about that.” I hung my cane on the coat rack and hustled to the sitting area in front of the stone fireplace. “The interview went longer than expected. Can I get you anything?” I ran through a mental inventory of what I had on hand. “Water? Um … cheese?”

  “No,” he said. “Have a seat.”

  From the reading chair, my mentor nodded to the couch opposite him. He was buried under Tabitha whose purrs sounded like a small tractor. His eyes glowered at me over her orange mass.

  “The Order received your communication.”

  I’d thought his scheduled visit might have something to do with that. I sat carefully.

  “Let me hear it from you,” he said.

  “Okay.” I cleared my throat and started into a verbal account of what I’d sent the week before. Bringing my mother’s hair to Lady Bastet, the mystic’s murder, the residue found on the slaughtered cats, my attempt to cast through said residue and the resulting encounter with the dark mage, the vision in the scrying globe of my mother’s murder … I told him everything. Even the part about the mage stealing my blood. Blood I had given to Lady Bastet willingly.

  My only omission was Arnaud’s claim that Grandpa had stolen the wizard artifacts.

  When I finished, Chicory watched me for several long seconds, fingers digging into the hair on Tabitha’s crown. Sweat dewed over my brow. For a moment I was back in Romania awaiting Lazlo’s verdict: train me or destroy me. I flinched as the repaired air conditioner huffed on.

  “You violated a cardinal tenant of the Order,” Chicory said at last. “Several, in fact.”

  “Several?”

  He arched a bushy eyebrow. “Summoning a shadow fiend?”

  “Oh, c’mon. You’re going to stick that on me? I was under a vampire’s control. I didn’t have a choice. And in case you didn’t notice, I took care of the vampire in question. The shadow fiend, too.”

  “Yet another example of giving your blood willingly,” Chicory said.

  “What, you think I offered Arnaud my neck? ‘Here, turn me into one of your mindless undead. Enslave me for all eternity. I’m begging you.’” I sighed at the ridiculousness of it.

  “The point, Everson, is that you contravened the rules. Something you’ve done time and again. Your potential for magic is enormous, but so too is your potential for causing great harm. You dabble in things you shouldn’t, despite any and all warnings to the contrary. You’re a danger to yourself, your city, and to the Order of Magi and Magical Beings.”

  I could tell by his tone he was building up to a verdict. I made a circular motion with my shaking hand. “Just cut to the chase, please.”

  “Everson, this is the part of my job I least enjoy…”

  “You’re giving me more preamble,” I said.

  Chicory let out a heavy sigh. “The Order is through issuing warnings. The penalty this time is … severe.”

  “Death?” The word scratched from my throat.

  I remembered the sensation of falling into the In Between, that realm of luminescent darkness and haunting gatekeepers. I hadn’t been ready to pass then, and I wasn’t ready now.

  “Possibly,” Chicory answered.

  “Possibly?” I stared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Tabitha stirred on his lap and murmured, “Less talking, more scratching.”

  “The dark mage’s name is Marlow,” Chicory said. “He was once a member of the Order. A lot like you, in fact. Curious. Headstrong. Impetuous. And it was this last quality that got him into trouble. He discovered an old book by Lich, the member of the First Order who aspired to the power of his siblings and opened the seam to the Whisperer. The book contained Lich’s original notes. Notes on his spell experiments as well as pages of invective against the First Order: their iniquities, their disproportionate power. The charges inflamed Marlow’s mind. He formed a splinter group known as the Front to ascend to the power of Lich.”

  “Why didn’t the Order stop him?” I asked.

  “Marlow kept his activities well cloaked. When the Order began to suspect him, they sent an agent to infiltrate the Front to learn more.”

  “My mother,” I said.

  Chicory nodded. “It’s why the Order kept no records on her. Rest assured, Everson, I’m told she performed her job very capably. But all it took was one intercepted message, apparently.”

  “And they killed her.”

  “Marlow sent the Order her ashes in a trash bag.”

  My face burned. “So why in the hell wasn’t he punished?”

  “Marlow and the Front went into deeper hiding. By that time, they had acquired sufficient power to stay hidden.”

  “Even against the Elders?” I asked, incredulous.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I thought you said there had only been one rebellion against the Order.”

  “Yes, but a second is coming,” Chicory said. “Of that the Order has little doubt. It just hasn’t started yet.”

  “So what does this have to do with my sentence of possible death?”

  “The Order believes there was a reason Marlow didn’t want you to learn about your mother’s murder.”

  “And what was that?”

  “He knew you would want to come after him.”

  I barked out a laugh. “Why should that bother him? The Elders can’t even touch him.”

  “This is different, Everson. As a descendant, you would be able to penetrate his veiling and defensive spells in ways others can’t. Perhaps even get close to him unnoticed.”

  “Descendant? What in the hell are you talking about?”

  “Based on the information you shared,” Chicory said, “the Order believes Marlow is your father.”

  For a vertiginous moment, my soul seemed to leave my body. Far away, I felt the ice-cold brush of the AC, heard Tabitha’s chopping purrs. And then I was back, my heart resuming its hard, flip-flopping rhythm.

  “How sure are they?” I asked.

  “That’s what they want to find out. And that’s where your sentencing comes in. As of now, the Order is suspending your other activities. Your new mandate is to find Marlow a
nd destroy Lich’s book. It’s where he derives his power. If Marlow is your father, you should succeed in the first.”

  I didn’t like the qualifying should. “What about the second?”

  Beneath the wiry shelf of his brows, Chicory’s eyes turned dark. “Marlow is also known as the Death Mage. There’s a reason for that.”

  I nodded, fully present now. I didn’t care what his name implied. This was bigger than my mother’s murder, bigger than vengeance. I would be picking up where my mother had left off, countering a threat to the Order, to humankind. This was about legacy.

  I met Chicory’s waiting gaze.

  “When do I begin?”

  Death Mage

  Book 4

  1

  I staggered, my breaths coming in ragged gasps. The trees on all sides looked the same, their trunks mottled with black mushrooms. I had been here before. I couldn’t remember when, but it was familiar enough that I knew no matter where I ran, I would only end up more lost.

  A chill wracked my five-year-old body as I stopped and tilted my head back. The gray sky through the branches was dimming with the coming night. When darkness fell, the creatures would emerge.

  Horrid creatures.

  I broke into another blind run. “Mom!” I shouted.

  I had no memory of my mother. I knew her only as a framed photograph in the living room of Grandpa and Nana’s house: a young woman looking out a large window, half her face in light, the other in shadow, one hand resting over the pregnant swell of her stomach. Even so, I sensed in my gut that she was the only one who could help me out of this place.

  “Mom!” I called again.

  Someone, or something, answered, a whisper that slithered from the trees to my right: “Everson.”

  The alien voice was familiar to me in the same way the forest was. The voice would chase me and eventually catch me. I veered away from it, heart slamming. The voice echoed from all sides now.

  “Everson … verson … son.”

  I pumped my arms and legs as hard as I could. Around me the forest darkened. The mushrooms on the trees clotted into thick, dripping tumors. When I tried to shout for help, the spores that swept through the air closed my throat. Only a gasping whine squeezed out.

  “Everson,” the voice whispered again, seeming to reach for me. “Join us.”

  I arched my back, breaking through fresh whirlwinds of spores and into a deepening gloom. Wet leaves squished underfoot, and the air stunk of rot. Sinister shadows moved among the trees.

  “Everson … verson … son.”

  “Stay away,” I gasped, batting through the crowding branches.

  The forest pressed in until I had to slow down to pick my way through. I climbed between a pair of trees, the toadstools on their trunks bursting like pustules, and became stuck. I grunted and squirmed, but the space between the trees narrowed further, holding me fast.

  No! I thought desperately.

  But this was what always happened, wasn’t it?

  “Join us,” the voice whispered behind me. “Join the cluster.”

  I peeked back. The forest shimmered in an insane dance of colors. Below, something wet was climbing my legs, but the colors around me, dazzling shades of pink, orange, and emerald, were too intense. I couldn’t stop looking at them. In hungry squelches, the wetness inched up my stomach. When it reached my shoulders, I could see it in my peripheral vision: a gelatinous black fungus. I went to wipe it away, but I couldn’t move my arms.

  “Join the cluster, Everson,” the voice whispered. “Become one.”

  The fungus squelched up my neck and spread over my jaw like a beard.

  In revulsion, I tore my gaze from the shimmering colors. “Mother!” I shouted.

  The word tapped into an undercurrent of power. Crackling energy broke from the sound, radiating out in all directions. The fungus blew from my body. The trees that held me parted.

  I stumbled backward and fell into a quiet clearing.

  “Everson,” someone said—but not the whispering voice this time.

  I turned and rose. At the center of the clearing stood my mother. A sob of relief hiccupped from my chest, and I ran toward her. Except for her lean stomach, she looked identical to the woman in the picture: half in shadow, hair brushed over one shoulder. But she wasn’t smiling in the same faint way. Not like in the framed photo. Not like in the other…

  Dreams, I thought suddenly. I’m inside a recurring dream.

  I peered around, expecting the dreamscape to dissolve away, but the clearing only became more vivid. A scattering of stately trees creaked and rustled in a light breeze. Birds chirped in their branches. I looked back at my mother, a sea of emotions roiling inside me. I’d never known her, and yet she’d become a powerful force in my imagination.

  By the time I arrived in front of her, I was a grown man—which had never happened before. No, the dream-child me would typically hug her leg and tell her I was lost. She would say that she’d found me, that she would always find me. She would then point the way from the forest, but tell me I had to make the journey on my own. She always said this with a smile.

  Now, concern lines creased her young face. Before I could ask what was wrong, she embraced me firmly and stood back.

  “Everson, there isn’t much time. The Whisperer is coming through.”

  “The Whisperer,” I echoed, remembering what Chicory had told me. An ancient entity older than the First Saints and Demons, the Whisperer had corrupted the youngest of Saint Michael’s nine children. It had turned Lich against his siblings. In a one-man rebellion, Lich had nearly overthrown the Order. He was eventually defeated, the fissure to the Whisperer sealed. But centuries later, Marlow, a man the Order believed to be my father, discovered Lich’s book. He replicated the spells, reopening the fissure to the ancient being.

  “How do we stop it?” I asked.

  My mother’s eyes hardened as she looked past me. “Run,” she said, but not in answer to my question.

  I turned and realized we were no longer in a clearing, but a large stone room, the trees becoming pillars. Familiar-looking figures in black robes strode toward us, all chanting a single word.

  “Traitor … traitor … traitor.”

  Backing in front of my mother, I groped for my cane, my amulet, my revolver, but I wasn’t carrying any of them. I had witnessed this scene before, in Lady Bastet’s scrying globe: the scene of my mother’s execution.

  “Leave her alone!” I shouted.

  My mother spoke near my ear. “Don’t let him know about you.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Did you really think you could keep up this shameful duplicity without me finding out?” A tall figure emerged through the others, the face beneath his hood an ornate gold mask. The mouth frowned in judgment while the dark, vacant eyeholes seemed to stare through me.

  Marlow.

  “I did nothing,” my mother told him.

  Marlow stopped in front of us. “Nothing? You joined the Front as a sworn rebel against tyranny. You pledged your allegiance, your life. Only for us to learn that you’re a plant for the Order.”

  “That’s a lie,” she said.

  The mage drew a wand that smelled of elderwood. “Then you shouldn’t have a problem submitting to a mind flaying.”

  “I will submit to nothing,” my mother said.

  I lunged for Marlow’s wand, but my hands passed through it. He seemed not to notice me.

  “Then you are admitting guilt,” he said.

  “If that’s what you want to believe,” she replied.

  “Vigore!” I shouted, thrusting my palms toward him. The energy of the force blast rippled through the dreamscape. When it subsided, everything wavered still again, and Marlow remained in front of us.

  “It’s the truth, traitor,” he said, raising his wand. “And you know the penalty.”

  “Do your worst.”

  “No!” I shouted.

  The force from the mage’s wand threw my moth
er against a stone pillar. She grunted in pain. Marlow spoke another Word, and vines writhed up through cracks in the floor, binding my mother to the pillar. An especially thick tendril wrapped her throat, making her gag.

  “It didn’t have to end this way, Eve,” he said before turning to the others. “Behold the penalty for treachery. Death by fire.”

  Yes, I had witnessed this scene before, from inside my mother’s memory. I had felt her fear, her pain. I raced back to her, intent on pulling the vines away. But when I reached for the thick tendril encircling her throat, my hands passed through it, as they’d done with the wand. Sadness filled my mother’s eyes as they met mine.

  “What can I do?” I pled. “How can I help you?”

  A whisper strained from her lips.

  “What?” I asked, leaning closer.

  I love you, Everson, she mouthed.

  “Fuoco!” Marlow shouted behind me.

  Flames exploded from the floor, engulfing my mother and throwing me backward. I pulled off my shirt and ran at the fire to beat it out. But the fire became a reflection in a gold mask, and I was standing in front of Marlow, staring up at him, and he was suddenly huge.

  Run, my mother had said. Don’t let him know about you.

  The rest of the room darkened as the mage’s face canted down. Beyond the eyeholes, a pair of lights burned in recognition. His hand shot out and seized my wrist. A cold, aching power emanated from his grip. I strained against him, but I was a small child again.

  “You’ve come to join us,” he whispered.

  I shook my head, unable to make a sound.

  “To join the cluster.” He lifted me from my feet.

  When our faces were even, Marlow reached for his mask, which continued to glisten with the fire that consumed my mother. Terror paralyzed me as he began to pull the mask away. I didn’t want to see his face … but a part of me had to, had to know if this man was my father.

  “To become one,” he whispered.

  Metal separated from skin in a wet squelching.