Demon Moon (Prof Croft Book 1)

by Brad Magnarella

  I gave my student a nod of reassurance, then slipped from the bathroom and closed the door. I waited for the knob to jiggle, indicating she had locked it, before replacing my ear shields. In the ringing of the sudden quiet, I took a steadying breath. Then I rounded the kitchen counter until the front door came into view.

  At the sight of me, the shriekers went spazoid, scrabbling up the field with taloned feet, swiping it with gnarly hands, beating it with black-veined wings. The wards held, knocking the creatures against the far wall of the corridor, which was faring far worse. Blown-out plaster and sections of wainscoting littered the floor. Thankfully, no one from the building had come up to investigate. No bloody remains among the detritus, anyway. In post-Crash New York there was a name for those who had learned to keep their heads down: survivors.

  Not an option for this New Yorker.

  I strode forward until I was ten feet from the door, then drew my cane into sword and staff. Under most circumstances, I would be no match for these guys. I’d barely handled their kid brother. But wards and years of cumulative energy? There was my ticket.

  “Soglia,” I whispered, aligning my energy with the defenses over my threshold. My plan was to release the pent-up power into the shriekers. A daisy bomb of magical energy. If that didn’t destroy them, it would weaken the creatures enough for me to finish them off.

  I fixed my feet in a swordsman’s stance as I watched the shriekers, waiting for them to hit the threshold at the same…

  “Liberare!” I boomed.

  For a moment all of the energy seemed to be sucked from the room. I leaned back, the force pressing my coattail flat to my calves and flapping the sides toward the warping threshold. Hanging pictures rocked on their nails. Something shattered in the kitchen. The furniture began to slide toward the exit en masse. My leg muscles screamed as my planted soles stuttered.

  An instant before I could topple forward—and conclude that this had been the worst idea ever—the doorway flashed like an exploding star. Mostly away from me, thank God.

  I staggered from the violent release, blinking at the bursting afterimage. Then I righted myself and powered into a run. Through the dust of demolition, I could see the doorframe hanging from the wall. Beyond the threshold, a hulking shadow twitched on the floor.

  Down, but not out, dammit.

  I tossed my sword up to switch to an overhand grip. Arriving above the shrieker, I plunged the blade between the spot where its wings erupted from a back just human enough to be grotesque. A mewling cry sounded as black fluid bubbled over the striated muscles. Its wings flapped crookedly, the left one twisting around to get a hooked horn into me.

  I leaned away and shouted, “Disfare!”

  With a final mewl, the shrieker exploded in a torrent of black ectoplasm.

  A gusher caught me in the face, the demonic scent blasting up my nose. Pawing for a clean section of coat to wipe away the mess, I could hear the remaining gobs pelting the length of the corridor.

  I’d pushed more energy into the shrieker than necessary, but with the amount of adrenaline pumping, who could blame me? Plus, I needed to make sure it did the job. I just hoped I’d kept enough in the tank. There was still one shrieker to go, and it was clawing its way to its feet.

  Sponging the remaining gunk from my eye sockets, I backed from where the shrieker had landed, down the corridor. I could hear it stumbling from wall to wall, its wings like the slapping of canvas sails, the beginnings of a wail from its nightmarish mouth an approaching squall.

  I thrust my sword toward it and shouted, “Vigore!”

  The middling force was sufficient to send the shrieker clattering back. I staggered over my threshold into the apartment to allow the last of the gunk to evaporate from my eyes. I had just blinked my sight clear when the shrieker appeared in the doorway, clawed hands gripping the blown-out frame. Its eyes, milky and goat-like, fixed on mine. There were no wards to keep it out. With a fresh scream, it shot forward.

  I slid right and slashed my sword through one of its unfurling wings, tearing sinew and vessels before notching a black horn. The impact of metal on exoskeleton rang to my elbow. I grunted and spun away as the shrieker snapped its jaw of hooked teeth at my head.

  Through the ear shields, I made out Meredith’s straining voice. “Is it okay to come out now?”

  “Not yet!” I called back.

  The shrieker went for me again, its talons scrabbling over the slick of its spilled fluids like someone trying on a pair of roller skates for the first time. Under different circumstances, the sight might have been comical. I skipped to one side and, with a hacking slash, cleaved the other wing. The shrieker fell past me into a crouch, ruined wings hugged to its body.

  “All right,” I panted, drawing the tip of the blade to my hip. “Let’s call it a night, shall we?”

  I focused on a spot between its wings—and slipped on a spatter of gunk. The cement floor rammed into my side, angering my injured shoulder. From my new vantage, I watched as the tears in the creature’s wings began to fuse, black tissue knotting along the repair lines.

  The damage from the wards was running its course. The shrieker was healing itself.

  We rose at the same time and faced off. I didn’t wait for it to make the first move. Too many precious seconds had already ticked away.

  Lowering my head behind the shield that crackled from my staff, I charged. If I could get my sword through the shrieker’s core, I would hit it with a dispersive force powerful enough to get Thelonious licking his lips but not quite diving in. The still-weakened shrieker wouldn’t be able to hold itself together.

  That was the theory, anyway.

  In a rapid one-two, the shrieker seized my thrusting blade and brought its head down. My good shoulder exploded in white-hot pain. The creature’s teeth sunk in deeper as the horns on its wings collapsed toward me.

  “Respingere!” I cried.

  Energy from my shield shoved the shrieker off and into a wall, a bloody flap of my coat, and probably skin, jiggling from its mouth. As the shrieker righted itself, a segmented tongue emerged to grab the scraps and pull them into its gullet. I didn’t need to see that, I thought, pressing my staff hand to my torn-open shoulder—a shoulder the wormy appendage had just touched.

  But more worrying than its tongue was the creature’s regenerative powers. I wasn’t sure any level of blast, short of one that would invoke my incubus spirit, was going to do the job now.

  And if Thelonious did escape my containment, I would be done for the night. Detective Vega? Her son? Father Vick? All dead. And if the possessed reverend succeeded in escaping the church threshold, who knew how many others would die with them? Through it all, Thelonious would drink and dance the night away, happy as a clam. And I’d awaken tomorrow to the mother of all hangovers in a city that would make the current version seem like Paradise.

  Never mind whose bed I’d shared.

  The shrieker flew at me. Claws raked over my shield. The impact knocked me to the floor. Flapping above me, the shrieker scrabbled its taloned feet against the shield, its foul air buffeting me in great gusts. Ignoring the pain in my shoulder, I drove my sword at its torso.

  Without my legs beneath me, though, the thrust was weak, the contact glancing. I brought my sword back in time to block the horned wing diving for my neck. I had the shrieker where I wanted it, close enough to run through. But with the direction things were headed, it was going to run me through first.

  Need to get the son of a bitch off me, I thought. Regroup.

  I hit it with a force blast, which was barely up to the task. The shrieker rose, flapping, and circled the high-ceilinged room twice before I realized what it was doing: sniffing out sustenance.

  I aimed my staff at the locked bathroom door. “Protezione!” I called.

  The shrieker crashed into a shield of light energy. With another blast from my sword I could ill afford, I knocked the shrieker away from Meredith’s sanctuary. It lifted off again, coming to
a flapping perch on the rail that ran along my library/lab. It stretched its wings until they were gripping ceiling and wall, like some grotesque parody of the crucifixion.

  As the creature stared down with evil, unblinking eyes, I could all but feel it reconstituting the last of its lost strength. Me? I could barely keep my sword and staff aloft.

  The shrieker was above my model of the city, though. If I could detonate the energy inside it, as I had with the wards, I might be back in business. After all, the model was bound to the city-wide wards set up by the Order.

  The thought deflated like a sputtering balloon. Had been bound to the wards set up by the Order—who had duly unplugged my model from their grid when they sidelined me. A quick check confirmed this.

  Damn.

  The shrieker’s next scream shook my ear shields. I backpedaled as the shrieker tore a wing from the ceiling, sifting plaster down. It was unhooking its other wing, preparing to dive, when a hairy pumpkin landed on the back of its neck.

  Tabitha!

  She must have been crouched on the top of the bookcase, because now she was sinking a mouthful of teeth into the shrieker’s tarry flesh. It reared back with a cry, flailing to get one of the horns on its wings into her. Tabitha flattened her head and sank in deeper.

  She wasn’t just wounding its physical form, I realized. Being a succubus, Tabitha was draining the creature’s essence, weakening it.

  The shrieker’s talons scraped over the iron railing, lost its grip, and fell. With wings still writhing to dislodge Tabitha, its torso was an open book. Seizing my chance, I scrambled underneath it. Right shoulder screaming, I thrust up my sword. The blade passed cleanly through the heart of the shrieker—so cleanly, the creature’s plummeting weight flattened me.

  We hit the floor together, my head cracking cement. The sensation of warm tar oozing over my hands pulled me from a daze, and I realized in horror the shrieker and I were cheek to cheek. Tabitha’s green eyes appeared from behind its neck. What the fuck are you waiting for? they asked.

  I drew air into my shocked lungs and shouted the Word for dispersion. “Disfare!”

  The shrieker jiggled against me for several seconds, then erupted in ectoplasm. Tabitha went airborne in a yowling series of somersaults. She hooked her claws into a set of drapes, bringing the whole apparatus crashing down behind her divan. A string of choice words told me she was all right.

  Panting, I rolled in a small pond of black gunk onto my side. As the tail end of the geyser spattered down, a creamy white light fluttered around my vision. I’d come really close to my limits with that invocation, but I’d know in a few seconds just how close. I could all but hear Thelonious’s smooth, jiving voice, anticipating his night of carousing.

  “Not now,” I begged as his light washed in like the surf. “I’ll let you out another time. I promise.”

  I’d begged before, but it never did any good. Thelonious was a force beyond sympathy, beyond reason. But whether it was for the urgency of my plea, or that I had just enough fumes in my tank to forestall him, the creamy white light began to withdraw. At last, it fluttered out entirely.

  Thank God.

  I pushed myself up, groaning. But did that mean I would have to let him out another night? I wiped my sword against a pant leg and sheathed it in the staff. I’d worry about whatever bargain I might or might not have struck with Thelonious another time. Right now, I had to get to Detective Vega and her kid and then to the cathedral.

  “Wh-what in the world happened out here?”

  I turned to face Meredith, who was standing in the bathroom doorway. As she stared over the trashed and tar-splashed apartment, it looked as if she was considering retreating back into the bathroom and relocking the door.

  “Everything’s fine now,” I assured her. “Just a couple of pranksters.”

  “Pranksters?” Her gaze fell to my right shoulder. “You’re bleeding!”

  I looked down as if noticing the sopping mess for the first time. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “We need to get you to a hospital!”

  “All right, but let me grab a few things.”

  I climbed the ladder to my lab. There was no time to cook potions, but I dropped the bottle of holy water and a few spell implements into my coat pockets. Otherwise, it was going to be my sword, staff, necklace, and whatever power remained in me, which was almost none.

  By the time I descended the ladder, Tabitha had extricated herself from the drapery and was perched on the divan, trying to smack the taste of shrieker from her mouth. The black pools had all but evaporated, but the scent hung in the air like an evil mist. I gave my cat a thumbs up before striding toward Meredith, who was exclaiming over the ruined hallway.

  “I’ll be here when you get back,” Tabitha murmured, referring to the lack of wards.

  It took me a moment to realize she had also voiced her confidence that I would be coming back. My eyes threatened to well up. Sometimes all a person needed was the begrudging love of his cat. I opened my mouth to say this, but her slitted eyes suggested I not push it.

  “And I’ll have goat’s milk,” I amended. “You’ve more than earned it.”

  That got half a furry smile.

  41

  Meredith and I arrived on the street at the same time police lights appeared down the block. Before the car’s jouncing high beams could hit us, I pulled Meredith around the side of the building, into an alleyway.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “That’s a police car.”

  I peeked around the corner. Though the shrieker battle felt as though it had lasted an hour, it had only been ten or so minutes since I’d spoken to Vega on the phone. And here were Dempsey and Dipinski, as promised. With a finger to my lips, I signaled for Meredith to keep behind me.

  Confusion creased her young face. “They can help us,” she whispered.

  “Trust me,” I said. “They can’t.”

  The squad car jerked to a stop against the opposite curb. Dipinski emerged from the passenger side and squinted around. I had absorbed a little light from our space to be safe. The boy-sized officer looked past the alley, then adjusted his too-large hat as he waited for Dempsey to kill the engine and join him.

  They started across the street at a jog, Dempsey snapping his keychain to his duty belt. With the point of my cane and a soft incantation, I undid the leather clasp, then caught the keys before they clattered to the street. Using the same low-level force, I lowered the keys gently the rest of the way. Dempsey didn’t break stride. I waited until the building door knocked closed behind the officers before pulling Meredith into the street.

  “Know how to drive?” I asked her.

  “Yeah…?”

  “Good.” I scooped up the keys and handed them to her. “I need a driver.”

  At about the time I estimated Dempsey and Dipinski were emerging from the apartment building, Dempsey slapping his empty key holder, I had Meredith take a sharp left onto Delancey Street.

  “Where are we even going?” she asked.

  She was driving the police cruiser only slightly faster than my late grandmother, but at least she was driving. That had taken a little convincing, but she had consented—for no other reason, I suspected, than I was a favorite professor. I was abusing the teacher-student relationship big time, but seeing as how tomorrow’s hearing was going to be career ending for me anyway, I didn’t feel I was risking an awful lot. And with tonight being potentially life ending…

  “The Williamsburg section of Brooklyn,” I answered.

  “Brooklyn? Is that where your primary physician is?”

  “It’s where a police detective lives.”

  She stole a glance over her shoulder. “Couldn’t those guys back there have…?”

  “It’s a long story, but no.”

  “What about your arm?”

  “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  When I didn’t offer anything more, Meredith trained her frowning face on the approaching suspen
sion bridge, hands at ten and two. I sat back. The shoulder that had dislocated throbbed in a cold ache. The one that had been gnawed on flashed with hot barbs. I managed to put a little healing energy into both without Meredith seeing, then watched her work the pedals, having already taken note of what she’d done with the gear shift. My wizarding aura had knocked out the dashboard computer and GPS system, which would keep us cloaked.

  “The inner roadway’s clear,” I said, pointing at the lane running beside the train tracks. “How about a little pedal to the metal?”

  She hesitated, then depressed the accelerator. The cruiser jumped forward, plunging into the tunnel of scaffolding as the bridge lifted us up. When Meredith leaned over the wheel, something on her face told me she was starting to enjoy this. If nothing else, I was giving her permission to bend a few rules.

  Five minutes later, we found the street, and a minute after that, the address. Meredith cruised past Vega’s skinned-up sedan and pulled in front of the modest-looking apartment building.

  “I want you to drive straight home,” I told her. “Park the cruiser wherever but leave the keys in the ignition.” A straight-A student like Meredith would never be suspected of boosting a police cruiser, I figured, but if someone else stole it afterwards, so much the better.

  Her eyes staggered with disappointment. “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine.” I got out of the car, then turned around and stooped to the open door. “Thanks for your help.”

  “See you in class tomorrow?”

  The hope in her voice made me hesitate. “You bet,” I said. “See you in class.”

  I closed the door and slapped the roof of the cruiser twice. She wheeled around and took off the way we’d come. I was gambling that Dempsey and Dipinski were still debating whether to call in their stolen vehicle, given that Dempsey’s missing keys would suggest negligence, not to mention gross stupidity.