Night Rune (Prof Croft Book 8)

by Brad Magnarella

  But Caroline, who was on his other side, rested a hand on his back.

  “Malachi, it’s all right,” she said in a soothing voice. “It was just a suggestion. We didn’t know.”

  His words crumbled to sobs as he bowed his head to her shoulder. She stroked his head until it stopped shaking.

  Eventually, he sat up. Tears wet the folds of his cheeks. In his eyes, I saw fifty years of fear, futility, and frustration. Even so, I checked him out again through my wizard’s senses. His aura was all over the place, but it was Malachi.

  “The ones who chased us,” I said, “the soulless mobs. Have you encountered that before?”

  Malachi sniffled. “From time to time, but not in those numbers. The Divine Power protects me, protects me and purges their evil.”

  “You can say that again,” Gorgantha muttered, having just seen it in action and up close.

  I wondered now if the demon Malphas had been using the soulless mobs to keep an eye on Malachi, only feeling threatened enough to deploy them en masse when we joined up with him. But what about the one who changed them?

  “How about a demon?” I asked.

  Malachi’s face darkened. “I’ve not seen any here.”

  “Not even at the St. Martin’s site?” Caroline asked.

  Malachi shook his head. “The energy I felt there was raw but not infernal.”

  “Any visions?” I asked, hoping for some insights into this mystery demon’s doings.

  “Of demons?” He let out a high laugh that verged on crazed. “That’s all I’ve been seeing. Nightmare visions of them flooding into the world. Wars, famine, pestilence, death. Billions of lives, of lives.” That seemed to line up with Tabitha’s premonitions that had her self-medicating with booze. Malachi swiped fiercely at the tears welling in his aged eyes. “We mustn’t let it happen.”

  “We won’t,” I assured him.

  “Not as long as I’m breathing,” Bree-yark put in, glancing at Gorgantha again.

  I felt like a bastard for being disappointed Malachi lacked info on the mystery demon. His knowledge of the time catches alone was a game changer for us, huge. It was just that demons of Malphas’s caliber were incredibly hard to outmaneuver. And I couldn’t help but feel he was setting us up somehow.

  “You mentioned something about a Night Rune,” I said. “What did you mean?”

  The folds on the unburned half of Malachi’s face deepened. “Night Rune?” he repeated.

  “Yes, back at the tavern. You said, ‘The elements of the Night Rune gather.’”

  He gave me a pained look. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Tears stood in his eyes. “I don’t remember.”

  “It’s all right,” I said before he could break down again. “Just let us know if it comes back to you. Night Rune.”

  As he mouthed the words, I considered our next move. I was anxious to reach the St. Martin’s site, especially with the knowledge Malphas was mobilizing to stop us. But Malachi was convinced we needed to recover Seay and Jordan first, and I felt obligated to trust his Divine Voice. Maybe because he’d come around to my magic’s wisdom when it had led us to my grandfather in 1776. And Seay was only six miles away.

  “What can you tell us about Seay and the other half-fae?” I asked him.

  “They run a business in the settlement. Fashioning clothes from beaver pelts. Coats, capes, hats. Especially hats.”

  “They worked in fashion in the modern era,” I explained to Bree-yark, who looked perplexed. “In the Garment District.”

  “And you’ve encountered them?” Caroline asked Malachi.

  “Oh yes, several times, several times. But Seay thinks I’m crazy.”

  Before I could put the question to her, Caroline nodded at me. “I have enough power to restore her.”

  “Good deal.”

  And if all went well, we’d have twenty plus half-fae to help with glamours and enchantments, offloading the burden from Caroline. That made me feel better about recovering Seay before journeying to the St. Martin’s site. The question now, though, was how to approach the settlement and get our teammate alone.

  Gorgantha backed from the cave entrance and spun toward the fire.

  “Two boats coming downriver,” she whispered.

  30

  I spoke a Word, and the cave’s shadows deepened, cloaking us and reducing the firelight to a faint dance in the darkness. Gorgantha led us back to the mouth of the cave, where snow continued to slice over the Hudson.

  “There,” she whispered.

  Upriver, faint as ghosts, two boats were approaching. They were small, without sails, and as they drew nearer, I counted four paddlers in each.

  “They’re fur traders,” Caroline said at my shoulder. “The front boat is Dutch made, the trailing one a canoe with native rowers, likely from one of the Algonquin-speaking tribes. Can you see the piles of pelts?”

  “Yes, yes!” Malachi exclaimed.

  One of the men stopped rowing and seemed to perk up. I clapped a hand over Malachi’s mouth, and the rest of the team instinctively drew back into the cavern even though the shadow invocation still hid us.

  “We need to keep it down,” I whispered to Malachi.

  His gray eyes flitted back and forth, still full of excitement. I waited for him to nod before removing my hand.

  “Sorry,” he said in a rushed whisper. “But they’re going to New Amsterdam, to Seay!”

  I watched the boats until the lead man resumed rowing. “How do you know?” I whispered back.

  “When I was here before, I learned much about her operation, her operation. Most of the pelts are sold to merchants and shipped to Holland for tailoring into clothing for Europeans. But Seay and her friends created a local industry. She buys a portion of the pelts, the pelts and makes the clothing here, for the colonists.”

  “That’s smart,” Bree-yark said.

  “It won’t take much for me to enchant them,” Caroline whispered behind me. “They could row us right to her.” When I hesitated, she added, “It will save time. The other option is a twelve-mile roundtrip slog.”

  The boats were making their way swiftly downstream. They’d be even with us shortly, though a quarter-mile offshore.

  I turned to Gorgantha. “Can you lure them in closer?”

  A couple minutes later, a thick Dutchman in the front boat shouted and pointed ahead. The paddler opposite him was also Dutch, while two American Indians—Algonquins, Caroline had confirmed—rowed in the rear.

  Gorgantha waved back at them from midriver. She then dove underwater, making sure to lash her tail. The crest of her fin created a V-shaped wake as she angled back toward shore. By now, all of the rowers were talking excitedly. Paddles dug in, and both boats began veering toward us.

  Nicely done, G.

  I waited until the boats were less than fifty yards out before hardening the air behind them and pulling them in. With fresh shouts, the men tried to back-paddle. One of the natives even rose as if to dive into the water. But Caroline’s enchantment met them, and the men settled down and drew their oars in.

  As the boats’ hulls scraped onto the rocky shore, Caroline walked out to meet them. Gorgantha emerged from the water and stood beside me.

  “How was that?” she asked.

  “Perfect,” I said, clapping her muscled back.

  At the edge of the water, Caroline spoke with the men. As they climbed out and began transferring pelts from the canoe to the pile in the Dutch boat, I stared, wonderstruck, at another piece of living history. The tall Algonquins wore leather tunics and leggings, as well as thick capes that appeared to be bearskin. The two blond Dutchmen were in pantaloon boots and wide-brimmed hats.

  When they’d moved about half the pile, the six Algonquins boarded the canoe, making use of the extra space. They shoved back into the water and were soon paddling upriver, ghosts once more.

  “I’m sending them back to their village,” Caroline said. “That leaves two spots with them.” She indicated the D
utchmen, who had returned to their own boat.

  “All right, huddle up,” I said, waving in Gorgantha, Bree-yark, and Malachi. “Caroline and I will go to New Amsterdam for Seay, but your job here is going to be just as important, if not more so. You can’t let anything happen to him.” They followed my pointed finger to Arnaud, whom I’d sat against the cave wall. “No Arnaud, no getting home. Got it?”

  I had strong reservations about leaving him, but with the extreme cold depleting his energy, I couldn’t risk taking him along.

  “You can count on us,” Bree-yark said. “Right, Gorgantha?”

  When she agreed, he smiled with all his teeth: extreme pleasure in goblin.

  “Anything else we should know about New Amsterdam?” I asked Malachi.

  “It’s small, easy to get around—only fifteen hundred people or so, or so. Oh, but there is one person you should watch out for.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The vampire Thorne.”

  “Of course,” I muttered. Fucking Arnaud.

  “He operates the biggest counting house on the waterfront.”

  I’d been hoping he hadn’t arrived in the New World by this time. Avoiding him in the crowds of 1861 had been easy, but with only fifteen hundred in the settlement, our cover was going to be scant.

  “What’s he going by now?” I asked.

  “Tristan,” Malachi replied. “Tristan Thorne.”

  “Okay, thanks. We’ll keep our heads down.”

  “The glamours I have in mind should help,” Caroline said.

  The cold wind off the river made my face and hands hurt, but my fur coverings and the work of rowing warmed the rest of me. Caroline and I had taken the front positions, the Dutchmen the rear where they could steer as well as row.

  Caroline’s hair was glamoured into a long black ponytail that complemented her russet features. A bearskin, like the ones the men had been wearing, covered her body. She was saving on fae power by remaining female—wives occasionally accompanied their husbands on trading errands, she’d said. And I was the husband, glamoured into a strapping Algonquin. It was a smart glamour, even if it felt like I was being a little disloyal to Vega somehow. I retrained my gaze downriver.

  “Remarkable, isn’t it?” Caroline said, panting lightly.

  “Rowing the Hudson in 1660? Can’t say it was on my bucket list.”

  Caroline had estimated the year based on the population size. Now her laughter sent up a small plume of fog. “Mine neither, but as a former scholar of New York’s urban history, it’s surreal to be living it. I feel guilty for admitting that.”

  “Don’t. I’ve caught myself gawking more than once.”

  “Glad I’m not the only one,” she said. “These pelts, for example. Just think—they’re the economic foundation of what will become one of the wealthiest, most vertical cities in the world.”

  I glanced back at the pungent heap of furs. “Beavers, huh?”

  “‘Soft gold,’ the traders called them.”

  “Listen to you, Prof.”

  “It’s Sooleawa,” she corrected me.

  My Algonquin name was Makkapitew, which knowing the Caroline of old, was very likely an inside joke.

  “‘Former scholar,’” I quoted her. “Does that mean you’re not coming back from sabbatical?”

  “I guess it depends on how everything turns out.”

  I’d steered the conversation there intentionally. “We’re going to defeat Malphas.”

  “Even so, the faes’ memories are long. Our kingdom could remain fractured. I may have no choice but to return to the city, go back to teaching.”

  “As a cast out?”

  She nodded solemnly.

  “You love him, don’t you,” I said after a moment. “Angelus.”

  “It took time, but yes. I do.”

  “But he’s the one possessed.”

  I’d harbored the suspicion ever since encountering him in Faerie. Not only had he tried to alienate me from Caroline, but he’d flown toward Crusspatch’s refuge on the rocs following our encounter. And when I’d asked Caroline if she knew the fae who had fallen under shadow, she’d said, “Well enough.”

  She’d wanted to protect him. An instinct born from love.

  Caroline glanced over with her dark, native eyes. “Yes. He’s the one.”

  “But how did Malphas get to him?” I lowered my voice, even though the Dutchmen were enchanted to think we were speaking Algonquin. “He’s one of the most powerful fae I’ve seen up close.”

  “My husband had been acting odd, pensive. When I pressed him, he mentioned a dream he’d had about an inbound darkness, a dream that had clearly disturbed him, but he wouldn’t say more. He only grew more distant. Then one day he asked if I had been in contact with you. I hadn’t seen you in years, but I was spending more time in the city. Partly to keep my father company after he retired from City Hall. Still, I couldn’t understand why he would ask out of the blue like that. Until your letter arrived.”

  She was referring to my appeal for help to access the time catch.

  “It was as if my husband had been expecting you to send it,” she continued. “I noticed too that Osgood hadn’t delivered the letter directly to me.”

  I took a break from paddling. “No?”

  She shook her head. “But he left it where he knew I would find it. When I confronted Osgood, he admitted that Angelus had instructed him to intercept any correspondences intended for me. By this time, Osgood sensed something was off with Angelus too, and he began exploiting loopholes in his directives.”

  That must have been how the fae butler was able to continue collaborating with Caroline.

  “My husband was barricading himself behind loyalists,” she said, “holding meetings in secret. In your letter, you mentioned an infernal breach and demons infiltrating groups. That went a long way toward explaining Angelus’s behavior, why he was so intent on blocking contact between you and me.”

  I snapped my icy fingers. “Back when Arnaud possessed me and locked me in his vault, he absorbed my thoughts—that was when you helped me at Columbus Park. Malphas would have had access to those same thoughts through his infernal bond to Arnaud. He would have known about our friendship. He clearly thought you were my one good chance to enter the time catch and disrupt his plans.”

  “And when you did,” she said, “the repercussions came swiftly.”

  “Placing Osgood under even stricter orders. Forcing you into hiding. Severing your lineal claims.”

  “Murdering Crusspatch to keep you from returning,” she added.

  But something was still gnawing at the back of my mind. “Why didn’t Angelus kill me in the Fae Wilds, then? I was helpless, trussed up, unable to cast. Malphas could have ended the threat of me going back right there.”

  “Because I would have gone in your place.”

  “And Angelus wanted me to lead him to you,” I said in immediate understanding. “End two threats in one fell stroke.”

  Good thing I tossed the stone.

  Plotting Malphas’s moves like this was helpful, but too much remained shrouded. He’d infiltrated the fae and placed Angelus under his service, but he also had a mystery demon in the time catches, not to mention some sort of works going on at the St. Martin’s site. Add to that the fact he knew we were here, but aside from a soulless mob that couldn’t shoot straight, he’d offered no real resistance. I revisited what Caroline had said about attacking us, not where we were, but where we were going to be.

  “How many fae can we expect at St. Martin’s?” I asked.

  “Angelus and his loyalists, certainly. So at least eight.”

  Damn. “How about help from the good fae?”

  “I tried,” she said wearily. “Believe me.”

  “Not even Osgood?”

  “He did what he could, but he’s dutybound to Angelus’s family.”

  I was still curious how a fae as godlike as Osgood had become their servant, but now wasn’t the
time. “Do they have any weaknesses? Anything we can exploit?”

  Caroline rowed silently for several strokes, snowflakes gathering across her lashes. At last she blinked them away. “When Angelus and I wed, he closed the ceremony with a heart vow. I wasn’t expecting it—that wasn’t part of the arrangement—but he was determined to prove his commitment to me.”

  “Wait, back up. What’s a ‘heart vow?’” Though I possessed a respectable understanding of the fae, many, if not most, of their customs remained veiled to outsiders.

  “It’s a bond that only I can access, and it endures for life.”

  “To his heart.”

  “To his life force.”

  Her troubled expression told me the rest. By pushing power through the bond, she could hit him where he was most vulnerable. Possibly to the point of destroying the possessing demon, but which could well destroy Angelus too.

  “Does he have one to you?” I asked.

  “I was given the choice, but I didn’t grant it.”

  That gave her a big advantage, and a very grave decision to make.

  We rowed in silence for several strokes, small waves slapping the side of the boat. Caroline had glamoured my cane into an ornamental stick, and I glanced down at it now. It held the means to banish demons, but my chances of getting the blade through a being as powerful as Angelus were next to nil.

  “One more question,” I said.

  Caroline looked over guardedly.

  “What does the name Makkapitew really mean?”

  She let out a surprised laugh. “Man with large teeth.”

  “What? I don’t have—” I broke off. “Oh, no you didn’t.”

  “I couldn’t think of any other names, and your glamour had to match.”

  “You gave me buck teeth.”

  Smirking, she dug her paddle into the water. I joined her, grateful to have drawn a smile. I couldn’t imagine her pain. Her husband turned against her by a demon. A husband who could be awaiting us at the St. Martin’s site. A husband she might have to kill. I exhaled an unsteady breath.