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

by Brad Magnarella

  “You’re asking me to fumigate New York City with pot smoke?”

  “It’s a temporary solution until we can tackle the problem at the source.”

  “Hold on,” Vega said. I heard her shout something into the mass of voices around her. When she came back on, she said, “I got some funny looks, but the wheels are in motion. They’re desperate.”

  “Good.”

  “How’s it look around there?” she asked.

  I peered down through the security bars of the nearest window. The mobs were arriving on the block. Several floors down, a window shattered. Fires blazed from parked cars. James’s car was surrounded, the mob trying to bang their way through the glimmering shield.

  “Could be worse,” I said, which was never a lie. “But listen, I’m going to have James stay here to look after Tony and Camilla. Problem is, that leaves me without a ride. Any chance the NYPD could send a chopper?” There was no chance of driving back through the city now.

  “Consider it sent,” Vega said, no hesitation. “They’ll pick you up on the roof.”

  “Thanks.” I almost ended the call there. “Hey, listen. If for some reason I don’t, you know, make it back, I just wanted—”

  “Shut up, Croft. I’ll see you soon.”

  Despite everything, I smiled.

  “Sounds good,” I said.

  Air blasted beneath the glare of landing lights as the chopper set down on the apartment roof. James had agreed to stay behind, as much to keep Tony and Camilla safe as to give the city a wizard presence, someone Vega could call if new issues arose. James’s ready acceptance of the role suggested he didn’t think he would have been much help in the fight against Lich. I knew the feeling because I was thinking the same thing about myself.

  I climbed into the back of the chopper and strapped myself in.

  The woman pilot turned to face me. “Where to?” she shouted.

  “Gehr Place in New Jersey,” I shouted back. “You can set me down in the cemetery across the street.”

  She nodded, replaced the cup over her ear, and lifted off. When the helicopter cleared the surrounding rooftops, it batted west, through smoke and toward the apocalyptic scene that was Manhattan.

  Welcome to the End of the World Tour, I thought. Sponsored in part by Everson Croft.

  It still killed me that I had been manipulated into destroying the Elder book. As I looked over the spreading flames, I struggled for how I might have seen through the artifice, done something different. My hands balled into helpless fists. The copilot, a young man, turned around. “You the one who said we should dust the city with pot smoke?”

  I nodded tiredly and awaited the inevitable punchline.

  “Department thought it was crazy,” he shouted. “So they tested it out on a group they’d arrested earlier. Filled their holding cell with smoke. Know something? It calmed them right down.” He smiled wide enough to reveal his crooked lower teeth. “I believe you’re onto something.”

  I nodded back, but the drug wasn’t a permanent fix. Something told me that as the Whisperer magic strengthened, it would overpower whatever blunting effect the cannabis was having—no pun intended. Which meant we couldn’t fail. Despite what James had said in the vault, I’d managed to hold on to the remote hope that Lich had overlooked something, that one of the items I’d dropped in the magic sack was the weapon that would destroy his pendant.

  The key was in the syllables Grandpa had left behind: Gug-lugal-i.

  Minutes later, the helicopter set down in the cemetery, both officers wishing me luck. I waved as they lifted off again, and I ran down the street to the safe house. From overhead, I had marked the mobs’ progress by the fires. They hadn’t pushed this far into Jersey yet, but they’d be here soon enough.

  At the front door of the safe house, I stopped to make sure Lich hadn’t returned. I sensed nothing. That disturbed more than relieved me. He had made no effort to stop us, which suggested he hadn’t needed to.

  I made my way down to the basement and stood in the casting circle.

  Within moments, the wooden rafters and earthen floor disappeared, and I was standing in the moonlit clearing in the Refuge. “How did it go?” Marlow asked. He was alone this time.

  “We took what we could find,” I said, holding up the sack. “A few items at the house, and one at the vault in Port Gurney. An old dagger. Unfortunately, the vault had been raided. And it sounds like Lich went down there as well. But there were some Akkadian syllables my grandfather had drawn on a wall: Gug-lugal-i. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Marlow repeated the syllables as though testing their power. “It’s not a sound I’m familiar with, no.”

  My heart sank. If one of the most powerful magic-users didn’t know what it meant, who would?

  Marlow accepted the sack and beckoned for me to walk with him.

  “And James?” he asked.

  “He stayed behind to help out in the city. That was sort of an executive decision on my part. I hope that was all right.”

  “A good decision,” Marlow said.

  I looked over at him. I’d become so conditioned to being berated by the magical society to which I thought I’d belonged that being commended was almost jarring. And coming from my father…

  “How does it look up there?” he asked.

  “Honestly? Bad and getting worse.” I described the scene going and returning. “But through a series of, um, happenstances, James and I discovered that cannabis frustrates the effect of Whisperer magic.”

  “Cannabis,” Marlow repeated reflectively. “We’ve been working on various spells and potions as a prophylactic against Dhuul’s influence, but that’s not an ingredient we’d considered.”

  “Its effect may only be temporary.”

  “That may be all we need,” Marlow said.

  He closed his eyes and a vibratory energy moved around him. We were emerging from the forest and entering the plain. The rocky hill and palace rose out ahead of us, backlit by the twin moons. The serenity was as much a shock to my system as the chaos had been only minutes before. To fill the silence, I asked, “Are you going to miss this place?”

  Marlow opened his eyes again and smiled faintly. “A part of me will, yes. It’s been my home for centuries now. But the point of coming here was never to stay. It was to defeat Lich so we could return to the world and resume the important work of the Order.”

  His robe whispered as he walked. Something told me he could have transported us to the palace—we were in a thought realm, after all—but that he had wanted to steal a few minutes alone with me.

  “How old was I when I left here?” I asked.

  “Barely one. In fact, your grandfather spirited you out right before Lich sealed us from the world. This was shortly after Lich’s attack. Your mother and I had discussed what we’d do if he ever found our refuge while you were still young. We decided you would be placed in your grandparents’ care. Your grandfather was very powerful, and your grandmother, though not a full-blooded magic-user, had some veiling spells in her repertoire. With Lich’s focus largely in parallel realms, we felt you’d be safest with them.”

  “Wait, my grandmother was a magic-user?” I rifled through my memories. She had never demonstrated any magical abilities—none that I could remember. But veiling spells were often subtle.

  “And a wonderful cook, too,” Marlow said. “I’ll never forget her blueberry cobbler topped with homemade ice cream.”

  I smiled. That had been one of my favorites, too. But I caught a note of loneliness in Marlow’s voice.

  “You still miss her,” I said. “My mother.”

  “Every day, Everson.”

  I wanted to ask him what she was like, but the question felt strangely personal. Like I’d be prying, even though he was my father. My father. I still couldn’t get my head around the idea that this man strolling beside me was him. No longer an idea, no longer a lie, but a living, breathing presence.

  “How did you meet?”
I asked.

  “Your grandfather introduced us on Eve’s first visit to the Refuge. She was preparing to take over his role. He asked me to give her a tour of our realm, explain what we were doing, that sort of thing. I was exhausted that day. I’d been up late the night before doing spell work and frankly wasn’t in much of a mood to play guide. But your mother had this effect on me—call it magic,” he said with a laugh, “as though our auras were in constant resonance. By the end of her visit, I felt more … alive than I had in a long time. My efforts here, which had taken on the dull weight of drudgery, assumed fresh purpose. You have to remember, we’d been working against Lich for hundreds of years and couldn’t claim much more than a stalemate. But with your mother’s arrival, the work felt brand new. She restored me.”

  We’d come to the staircase leading to the palace, and now he stopped. “That went double when you arrived, Everson. A new life is a growing system of order. In your case, one that was very precious to me. In your eyes—eyes already showing the first glimmers of insight and intelligence—I beheld the true horror of what Lich could do. Or more aptly, what he could undo. All so Dhuul could feed on the dissolution and Lich could know immortality.”

  I nodded, not sure what to say.

  “I wanted to be there with you, Everson. Through your questions, your struggles, through the lies and distortions that followed. But know that all this time, you’ve been with me. In my thoughts, my work.”

  Tears stood in Marlow’s eyes. For the first time since realizing he was my father, it felt natural to hug him. We embraced solidly, every so often clapping the other’s back. I didn’t want to be anywhere else. When at last we separated, moisture stood in my eyes as well. I blinked it back.

  “So is it time to save the world?” I asked.

  “We’ll need to depart for Lich’s realm shortly,” he said.

  For the first time it occurred to me that I might not be included in the plans, that I would be considered too junior. But I was the one who had destroyed the Elder book. I was the one who had allowed Lich into the Refuge—twice. Besides that, I was Eve and Marlow’s son. I was a member of the Front. I was about to say as much, but my father was already nodding.

  “Yes,” he said, “we’ll need you too.”

  26

  When Marlow and I arrived in the altar room, Arianna and the rest of the Front were already there. The model of Lich’s realm remained in the water, the pit dropping like a narrow whirlpool. The members of the Front stood around it, eyes closed. I sensed a unifying force moving among them, conjoining them.

  “A guiding principle of the Order,” Marlow said to me, “is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

  I thought about the old Order and its practice of keeping us segregated.

  At the sound of Marlow’s voice, several members of the Front separated and made room for us. As we took our place at the pool’s edge, the strange force seemed to invite me to become a part of the magical collective. I flashed back to my nightmare of a gold-faced mage urging me to join the cluster, to become one. Everson, he’d whispered, emphasizing the son. But this wasn’t the same feeling. I wasn’t being compelled or even coaxed. I had a choice.

  I looked around at the statues of the great Saints. Four men and five women, rock-solid purpose in their frames and steady gazes. Beyond the head of the pool stood the statue of Saint Michael, the line to which all magic-users belonged. As I studied the image of my ancestor, I couldn’t help but feel he was looking back at me, asking if I was ready.

  When I nodded, I imagined him returning the gesture.

  In a dizzying flash, my mind opened. The lone planet I had been zoomed out to become part of a revolving galaxy. Power hummed around my prism in a giant corona, but it didn’t overwhelm me. That power was being contained by the collective and the specters of those who had come before.

  “The world is fast succumbing,” Marlow announced, “meaning Lich’s thousand-year project is almost complete. By the First Saints, we unite in a common purpose. To destroy Lich, close the portal to Dhuul, and restore the Order to the purpose for which it was originally created.”

  No one spoke, but I felt the collective power deepen and move through me.

  “Lich has placed Everson’s staff here,” Marlow said, pointing his wand. In the pool, a light glimmered on the side of the pit opposite the fortress. It was the same spot Lich had taken me to. “Nothing stands between us and it,” he continued. “Lich’s plan, no doubt, is to bait us in and set the spawn of Dhuul upon us. There are many, yes, and Lich is counting on them to overwhelm us so he may claim our souls and complete his portal.” My gaze shifted to the horrid creatures climbing from the pit. “But thanks to a discovery by Everson, we’ve concocted a potion that will resist their influence, hold them off longer.”

  Hold them off? I thought to myself. That doesn’t sound like a plan for victory.

  “While we are thus engaged, Everson will steal into the keep, find the glass pendant, and destroy it.”

  “Me?” I stammered in alarm.

  “Lich’s attention will be on us,” Marlow explained. “Indeed, he will be salivating at the prospect of claiming the collective soul of the resistance and turning it to his own purposes. You haven’t enough power to interest him. You’re beyond his care. You’ll also have this.” An automaton entered, holding the robe of John the Baptist. It had been repaired, its cloaking energy coursing through the fibers once more. The automaton held the robe toward me.

  “The Banebrand,” I said, accepting the robe, “are you telling me I found it?”

  “I’ve inspected the collected items for Whisperer magic. They’re clean, but there isn’t time to examine them more thoroughly,” Marlow said. “The only way to know whether one is the Banebrand will be to try them all.”

  I thought of the collection of items in the sack: wands, amulets, the sorry-looking dagger. “If we don’t have the weapon, we can withdraw through the portal to regroup, right?” I asked.

  Marlow shook his head. “Lich won’t allow it. This will be our one chance.”

  I looked around at the other members of the Front, men and women who would be sacrificing themselves so that I might accomplish the impossible. Like the statue of Michael, though, their gazes were steady, resolved. They frigging believed in me. I fought the urge to look away from them. Instead, I centered myself in the collective until their resolve became mine.

  “What happens after I destroy the glass pendant?” I asked.

  “That will depend on Dhuul,” Marlow said. “Should he emerge before the portal fails, we will need to act. Part of our work here has been to cultivate a Word. A single, powerful note similar to that which brought the universe into being, that delivered order from chaos. Speaking the Word will drive Dhuul back. And without Lich to hold open the portal, it will collapse in Dhuul’s wake.”

  I sensed a thought move through the collective.

  “It will destroy us as well,” I said, voicing the thought. But of course it would. No one could survive the power of creation, not even through a collective. The Word would blow us apart.

  Are you still willing? my father asked in my head.

  The chances of returning alive had already been slim, but if we reached a point where the Word needed to be spoken, it would at least mean we had succeeded. I wouldn’t be alone in my sacrifice, either. I would be with my father and the highest echelon of magic-users.

  I am, I answered.

  He nodded. “Arianna will remain here,” he announced. “Should we succeed in our mission but fail to return, it will become her duty to locate the remaining magic-users of the world and reestablish the Order. She’ll look after Tabitha as well,” he said with a wink that made me smile despite the terror pounding through me.

  A pair of automatons entered the room, each carrying a large goblet.

  “The time is upon us,” my father said. “We will drink and prepare to depart.”

  The automatons handed the goblet
s off at the end of the pool. The goblets made their way down, each member of the Front taking a sip, as though the potion was a kind of communion wine. When my turn came, I did the same. The potion was plain-tasting, but I felt its magic immediately, enveloping my mind in a protective field. I understood now that when my father had closed his eyes on our walk here, he had instructed the automatons to add an essence of cannabis to the potion.

  “Don your robe,” he said to me.

  As I pulled the robe of John the Baptist over my head, I noted how everything had come full circle. I’d first donned the robe on my journey here, in search of my mother’s killer and the book I’d been told sustained him. Both lies. Instead, I found the truth, a community, and a father. Now I would use the same robe to find and destroy the liar and help cast Dhuul from our world.

  My father handed me the sack of artifacts. I took it and secured it in my belt.

  “Wait a full minute after we’ve entered,” he said. “We’ll push the fight to the edge of the pit. That will give you ample space when you come through. But you must make your way to the fortress quickly.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  He squeezed my shoulder, gray eyes peering into mine. “I’ll see you there.”

  He stepped onto the edge of the pool with the others. Power emanated from the ends of their wands. As though by unspoken agreement, they dropped in at the same time, the pool swallowing them without a splash. Light flashed from the water, and then only Arianna and I remained.

  “Do you have anything to give me this time?” I asked with a shaky laugh, referring to the glass vial she’d given me before my first departure.

  I was cloaked now, and it seemed to take her eyes a moment to focus on mine. “Not this time, no,” she said. “The only way, Everson, is to trust you have everything you need.”

  I could feel my analytical mind wanting to discount the words as empty feel-goodism, but she was right. At this point, that was the only way. I tightened my belt and adjusted my grip on my sword. Then I climbed onto the edge of the pool, my heart booming like a base drum.