Night Rune (Prof Croft Book 8)

by Brad Magnarella

  “The future?”

  I didn’t want to get into the time catch stuff either. “Yeah.”

  “Go ahead,” he decided. “But do you mind if I grab my sword and staff? As insurance?”

  “As long as this is an honest-to-God ceasefire,” I said. “I’m seriously pressed for time.”

  Everson nodded in a way that told me he’d honor the truce. As he climbed the ladder, I opened Arnaud’s wards out again. A moment later, the foghorn alarm sounded upstairs, announcing that a demonic entity had just breached the city.

  “Just us,” I called.

  “No worries,” he said, shutting off the alarm.

  I returned my attention to Arnaud. He lay there with his mouth open, eyelids at half-mast. A yellowish smoke still rose from where Everson had seized him. Just a day or two ago, I would have celebrated the beating my time-catch self had put on Arnaud, but now it placed our return in jeopardy.

  I calibrated the wards until I found the happy medium again. Any weaker and the energy powering the dislocation sigil would be insufficient, and Malphas would find him. I lifted Arnaud’s limp body and placed it on the couch. As I arranged his legs, Tabitha wrinkled her nose and shrank from the sulfurous stench.

  “Smells like a corpse’s turd,” she said.

  “Can’t argue with you there,” I muttered.

  Everson descended the ladder and slotted his sword inside the cane. He took stock of the scene, his gaze lingering a moment on mine, then turned toward the kitchen. The fish continued to sizzle on the stove.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  39

  Ten minutes later, Everson, Tabitha, and I were sitting around a table set with plates of thick swordfish steaks, their seared tops buttered and dilled. Everson had also filled a large bowl with potato chips, which he set between us. My hunger had caught up to me, and I wasted no time digging in.

  “I have a ton of questions, obviously,” he said.

  “The long and short of it is that I’m from the future, but not in a linear sense.” As I paused to chew, I tried to remember if I’d been introduced to the concept of time catches five years ago. I didn’t think so. “I’m here to recover a friend, another ‘time traveler.’” I air-quoted the word. “And then we’re leaving. Again, I’m sorry for breaking into your apartment and surprising you. That was a dick move. I just needed to stock up on potions and check something out in your library. I also helped myself to a few lightning grenades,” I added sheepishly, even though I was confessing to myself.

  He waved a hand. “I can always get more.”

  “Yeah, but let me reimburse you. I know money’s tight.”

  “And the … demon-vampire?” he asked, peering past me.

  Back on the couch, Arnaud had stopped smoking, thank God. Infernal energy was infusing into him again, and he’d stirred a few times.

  “He’s a conveyance more than anything,” I said. “Once we’re home, we plan to annihilate him.”

  “That sounds like bullshit,” Tabitha remarked through a mouthful of fish.

  “It’s true,” I said, more defensively than I’d intended. “I promised someone.”

  “Who? Everson’s future wife?” she scoffed.

  “You said you came back to recover a friend?” he asked.

  “Are you familiar with a Jordan Derrow?”

  He repeated the name and shook his head.

  “How about the Raven Circle?”

  Recognition sparked in his eyes. “Yeah, they’re a druid group based out of Central Park.” He seemed to grow cautious. “Why?”

  Not wanting to say anything that could spook him, I turned cautious myself. “Well, we think our friend might’ve gotten mixed up with them somehow. What can you tell me about them?”

  “The name started showing up sometime last year. The nasties that inhabited the parks after the Crash were freelancers, mostly. Then this druid group arrived on the scene. I heard rumors about a turf war in Central Park. Next thing I knew, this group was running the whole show. And not just in Central. If you want to do business in any of the parks, you have to go through the Raven Circle.”

  “We ran into some punks at Schurz Park earlier today who demanded tribute.”

  “Yeah, they operate like a supernatural racket. Thankfully, the parks aren’t my beat.”

  This sounded like Jordan and his fellow druids, but what had made them go full mafioso? Jordan might have originally seen it as the price of survival—then, like Gorgantha and Seay, forgotten he’d ever done anything else. I dragged a hand through my hair. Something had told me recovering him was going to be a pain in the ass.

  “We think our friend is at Belvedere Castle.”

  “Ooh, Raven Circle central,” he said. “I feel you.”

  “I despise those filthy birds,” Tabitha remarked.

  “That was one incident,” I shot back, knowing she was referring to the time a gang of ravens harassed her at Washington Square Park.

  “And you did fuck all to protect me.” She blinked, then looked over at Everson. “Or are you to blame?” Deciding it wasn’t worth puzzling out, she exhaled and went back to work on her swordfish.

  “Anyway,” I said, “if they have shifters and gangbangers at their beck and call across the city, we’re going to be dealing with a lot more than the Raven Circle. They’re probably communicating through druid bonds.”

  “That you can scramble.” With a raised finger, Everson excused himself from the table. When he returned, he’d retrieved a map of the city that he proceeded to spread beside me. “I’m visual,” he explained.

  “Yeah, me too.” I stopped. “Well, clearly.”

  Everson smiled as he traced a finger around the section of park with Belvedere Castle.

  Knowing where he was going, I said, “Bury copper at points along Seventy-second and Eighty-sixth and both avenues, push power into them until they link up, and presto, you’ve got a disturbance field.”

  “That would work, right?”

  “Sure, if I had the time to set it up.”

  Everson cocked an eyebrow. “What about the help?”

  “We’re back,” I called, stepping through the thin glamour.

  As the clearing came into view, I was relieved to find my teammates there. At the same time, I was disappointed Malachi, Seay, and the others weren’t with them. On the taxi ride to Central Park, I’d been hoping hard for their return. Gorgantha received me with one of her monster hugs. Bree-yark, who had been walking a lap around the tree with Dropsy, smiled at me with his goblin teeth.

  “How’s the hip?” I asked him.

  “On the way to brand new. Thanks to you and Caroline.”

  Caroline stood from the grass and shook some leaves from her cloak.

  “How did it go with you?” she asked, glancing at Arnaud as she walked up to us. He was frail and shaky but recovering.

  “Interestingly,” I said. “I was able to cook two batches of potions and do some research.” I decided not to bring up what Arnaud and I had discussed about the races as elements in Malphas’s “Night Ruin” scheme. I was still working it out in my mind, one. And two, I wanted our focus now to be on recovering Jordan and the druids.

  “I also bumped into my time-catch self,” I added.

  Caroline’s eyes widened, while Bree-yark and Gorgantha moved in to hear better.

  “He caught me in his apartment, but it turned out to be a bonus. He had intel on the Raven Circle, a druid group running the parks in the city.” When Gorgantha frowned, I said, “Yeah, it’s Jordan’s circle.” I went on to share everything Everson had said and finished by telling them he’d offered to help.

  “He’s here?” Bree-yark craned his thick neck around. “Oh, this I gotta see.”

  “He’s actually working the perimeter,” I said. “Setting up a disturbance field so the Raven Circle can’t call for outside backup. He’ll signal me when he’s ready, but that’ll be the extent of his involvement.”

  “Sound
s like you have a plan,” Caroline said.

  “A preliminary one.” I sat and unfolded Everson’s map.

  Arnaud sank to the ground behind me, his muzzle back on. We had remained at the apartment until the demon-vampire was strong enough to walk under his own power. That gave Everson and me time to break down what we knew of Belvedere Castle and to talk strategy, all while ignoring Tabitha’s many digs. Eventually, Everson ordered her out onto the ledge and sealed the cat door behind her.

  “Having two of you doesn’t just double the oppression,” she’d remarked on her way out. “It increases it exponentially.”

  I lied and told Everson she would get kinder with age.

  “All right,” I said, angling the map so everyone could see. “First, what’s the activity been like around here?”

  “A group of punk asses walked by,” Gorgantha said, “but then they walked right back out.”

  I nodded. “Everson thinks the mortals are working the smaller parks—like the group we met this morning—or hanging around the periphery of Central. We shouldn’t have to worry about them. But deeper in, the druids are using weres.”

  “Wolves?” Caroline asked.

  “Boars,” I said. “They’re easier to control, apparently.”

  “They’re frigging bruisers,” Bree-yark put in. “Saw one beat an ogre in a pit fight a few decades back. Dropped him with a charge, then started goring him. Ignored the ogre’s tap out, too. Took eight refs to pull him off.”

  “Sounds about right,” I said. “Which is why this won’t be a frontal assault.” On the map, I pointed out a body of water to the west of us. “Belvedere Castle abuts this lake. A drainage culvert was built to run out any water that got into the castle’s sublevels, but it’s underwater now. Gorgantha and I can enter the castle through the culvert. But we’ll need a distraction to send the bulk of the wereboars south.”

  “A glamour should do it,” Caroline said.

  “How are you fixed for power?” I asked.

  “I’ve been thrifty. That kind of glamour won’t cost much.”

  “What can I be doing?” Bree-yark asked.

  I unshouldered a duffle bag and unzipped it. From inside, I pulled out a pump-action shotgun and several boxes of shells. “Your job is to take down any ravens that try to fly out.”

  “Oh, hell yeah,” Bree-yark said, inspecting the gun and raising it to his shoulder.

  When Caroline slid me a questioning look, I said, “I made a quick stop in Chinatown. A guy I know owns an apothecary shop, but he also sells weapons and ammo on the side. The shells hold bird shot and silver dust. Enough to stun a druid, but do serious damage to any weres that show up.” I still felt guilty about paying the time-catch version of Mr. Han in glamoured bills, but he’d been tickled to see me.

  “Are we still holding out hope for Seay and Malachi?” Gorgantha asked quietly.

  “They’ll come,” I assured her. “Malachi knows the time catches better than anyone.” I dropped my gaze back to the map a little too quickly, though.

  For the next hour, we went over our strategy, coloring in the details and making small adjustments. Finally, a distant shot from a revolver echoed over the park. Five beats later, a second shot sounded from the same gun.

  “That’s Everson’s signal,” I said. “The field is in place.”

  Bree-yark pumped the shotgun’s action, chambering the first shell.

  “Let’s go find this Jordan,” he said.

  40

  Under the cover of stealth potions, Gorgantha and I picked our way through the trees. We soon emerged onto a stone shore where the eastern end of the lake began, the water green and edged with algae. Across the water, the high walls of Belvedere Castle rose above the treetops. Ravens circled the fort’s conical tower.

  “Should we get in?” Gorgantha whispered.

  “Wait a sec.”

  Already grimacing at how bad it was going to taste, I pulled an encumbering potion from my pocket. Gorgantha had estimated that our time underwater could be anywhere from three to five minutes. On a good day, I could hold my breath for roughly one. Though designed for use on enemies, a sip of encumbering potion would slow my heart rate enough to make the trip on a single breath.

  Tears sprang from my eyes as the sting of ammonia hit my throat, but I managed to gag it down. With a bitter face, I capped the vial and returned it to my pocket. The magic began to work immediately. It felt like someone packing my muscles with lead shot. Needing the effect to thin by the time we arrived in the castle, I’d gone with a small dose. I checked my pockets now to ensure they were all sealed, then gave Gorgantha a nod. Even that little gesture took effort.

  The mermaid slipped into the lake first and helped me down off the rocks. On the tail end of a New York summer, the water that soaked me was bathtub warm. Clean too. Druids had an aversion to the unnatural, and that included pollution. Otherwise, the lake would have featured floating banks of garbage. Barely able to tread, I clung to Gorgantha’s back, my heavy legs sinking to her sides.

  To the south, a piggish cry went up. Others answered. A small stampede crashed through the foliage away from us.

  The wereboars had taken Caroline’s glamour bait.

  I drew a deep breath and tapped Gorgantha’s shoulder. She submerged and kicked off toward the castle. After several seconds I squinted my eyes open. Yellow light filtered through the pickle-colored water. Gorgantha cut left to avoid a group of turtles, then plunged deeper where we’d be less likely to disturb the surface. The water cooled and darkened. Plants along the bottom brushed us with slimy leaves. As we passed the two-minute mark, I still felt fine, like a creature of the underwater myself.

  Ahead, the culvert’s cylindrical opening grew into view. Gorgantha parked me beside it and held a finger in front of my face for me to wait. She then plunged inside. I leaned my head back. We were directly underneath the castle, but I couldn’t see anything through the peaty water. Something squeezed my foot.

  The hell?

  I reacted in slow-mo, trying to draw my leg up, but it remained fixed. At first I thought the potion had deadened my leg, but something was holding me. It was the plants. They were writhing up my body.

  Crap, an animation.

  The druids must have placed a ward near the culvert. I’d marked several in the park, but this one I’d evidently missed. Swearing, I pulled my sword from my staff and inserted the blade into the leafy mass of tendrils now wrapping my waist. I twisted and sawed at them, but more were arriving all the time.

  Going to need to cast.

  Though I was in a watery medium, it wasn’t briny enough to stifle my power. Gathering energy toward my prism, I glugged out a Word. The result was weak, but enough light and force discharged from my blade to scatter the bulk of the plant material. As I kicked my legs partway free, something grabbed my arm.

  What now?

  But it was Gorgantha. Dropping a torn-off grate, she pulled me into the cylinder after her. Her strength overwhelmed the remaining tendrils, which went snapping from my legs in putrid bursts of plant matter. More leafy arms searched after me, but they soon faded in our wake.

  As darkness closed around us, my muscles tingled with returning blood. My lungs began to ache for oxygen. The small dose of encumbering potion was wearing off. Before I could panic, Gorgantha pulled me from the water and helped me to my feet. I sputtered and wiped my eyes as water cascaded off me. We must have been on the sublevel, but I couldn’t see a thing in the pitch black.

  I invoked a pair of shields around us and pushed power into them. The fields glowed, exposing a dank cinderblock room with a stairwell and a separate closet for a pump. I saw where Gorgantha had ripped off the grate that had once covered a large drain in the floor. The shields warmed us until we were damp rather than dripping, which had been the point. I didn’t want a water trail giving us away.

  I recalled power from our protection until the room fell black again. Gorgantha took my hand, the darkness not an issue
for her mer vision, and led me toward the stairwell.

  “We tripped a ward coming in,” I whispered, “so expect company.”

  My invocations had burned through some of our stealth magic too, so I took another hit of potion and passed the rest to Gorgantha.

  The ascending stairwell delivered us into a large basement. Light from a staircase opposite us limned the room. A neat arrangement of wooden crates and large sacks filled most of the space, their contents giving off plant and herbal smells.

  I scanned the room for wards as we walked along a central aisle. Though the potential for magic hung thick, no dangers appeared in my wizard’s vision.

  “That company you mentioned?” Gorgantha whispered. “It’s coming.”

  Faint snorts and snuffs sounded, and soon large shadows filled the stairwell ahead. Damn, wereboars. My heart kicked into a flip-flopping rhythm as I motioned for Gorgantha to follow me down a side aisle. We concealed ourselves behind a stack of crates as two wereboars entered the basement. Beside me, Gorgantha swore under her breath. They were frigging huge.

  The creatures wore hoodie shirts with the sleeves ripped off. From the ends of tusked snouts, porcine noses snorted this way and that. They stalked down the center aisle, clubs hanging from arms packed with muscles. As I shrank further back, Bree-yark’s story about one of these things taking down an ogre didn’t seem at all farfetched.

  The lead wereboar stopped and stuck his snout down our side aisle and snorted several times. The stealth potion was designed to hide scent too, but these guys could pick up smells from five miles away. The wereboar straightened and pushed the hood from his head, revealing a thick mohawk of bristles above a pair of beady eyes. When he switched the club to his other hand, I braced for battle.

  “Anything?” his companion asked in a gruff voice.

  “Naw, this is bullshit,” he said. “The action is down in the Ramble.”

  He was talking about the wooded area where Caroline’s glamour had led the others. I relaxed my grip on my sword, even as my pulse continued to slug in my ears.