As far as the Order was concerned, we revealed our magical identities at our own risk. And in a city like New York, risks ran aplenty. Especially now, with public outrage over supernaturals growing by the day.
“Mr. Croft?” Courtney prompted.
With energy I couldn’t afford to expend, I swelled my wizarding aura. One by one, the blinking lights of the cameras went dark. Courtney’s cameraman lowered the contraption from his shoulder and looked at it.
“Something inside just blew,” he grumbled.
“Well, grab the backup,” Courtney snapped. “Hurry!”
“Northbound line is clear,” the tech called from the tent.
I wriggled from between Courtney and the mayor. “I need everyone to get back,” I called. “Way back.”
Budge gave an embarrassed laugh. “That’s not necessary, folks.”
“Yes, it is,” I told them. I lowered my voice so only Budge could hear me. “If you don’t want this operation turning into a shit show on live television, you’re going to get them out of here. Now.”
The mayor’s face sobered. “Will a block be enough?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Just get them out of my hair.”
“You heard him,” Budge said, pushing his hands toward the crews. “Back it up a block. The man needs to work.” The mayor’s security detail formed a line and walked them back.
“You too,” I told Budge as I stepped past him.
God, what a frigging nightmare.
With the intersection to myself again, I drew a calming breath and aligned myself with the final sigils.
“Cerrare,” I said.
A shudder rose through the pavement as the final shield manifested. The station was boxed in. I could feel the ghouls ramming against my magical defenses, trying to escape. I pushed more energy into the shields as I awaited the final word. It came only a moment later.
“All teams clear,” the tech called.
I shifted my focus from the shields to the dragon sand scattered over the station floor. Four hundred ghouls versus a two thousand-degree inferno? I was putting my money on the inferno.
“Fuoco!” I shouted.
In an explosive instant, the dragon sand ignited. The intersection shook. Up and down the street, red-orange flames jetted from vents. And now a roaring chorus took up, the dying cries of ghouls.
But I couldn’t relax just yet. I’d felt the shields bow out with the explosion. If even one of the defenses failed, the ghouls could escape the inferno and regenerate. I went sigil to sigil, reinforcing the enclosure with spoken Words.
North and southbound lines … check. Westbound line … check. West entrance to the station … check. East entrance to the sta—
Something rammed into my side, spinning me in a half circle. I lost my balance and fell to the street. I also lost the Word, having only uttered half of it. I looked around for my assailant and found one of the cameramen running toward the subway entrance. His half-exposed belly swung side to side as he moved in for a better shot. That’s what had felled me.
Swearing, I realigned my thoughts with the sigils over the station’s East entrance. Oh, crap. My fragment of a Word had not only failed to reinforce the shield; it had dissolved it.
“Cerrare!” I cried.
The shield crackled and spread back into being, but I felt it crunch through bone. Ghouls had already begun to escape. I opened my eyes to the station’s east entrance. The shadowy pit swelled with fire.
The cameraman had reached the sidewalk and was aiming his backup camera down the station’s steps. He couldn’t have known what he was looking at. He was still filming when the first blazing ghoul appeared. With a fiery slash, the ghoul opened the man’s stomach. The man dropped to his knees, his innards gushing out, then collapsed beside his smashed camera. Three more ghouls scrambled over him, igniting his hair and clothes.
Behind me, members of the news crews began to scream.
“Get back!” the mayor was hollering. “Everybody back!”
Driven to blind rage by fire and pain, the four ghouls oriented to the panicked sounds—and charged.
12
“Vigore!” I cried.
The force that shook from my sword slammed into the lead ghoul. He roared as he was blown backwards, red fire pluming upon his collision against the metal entranceway that framed the stairs to the station.
A moment later, he was back on his feet.
With a shouted “Protezione!” I threw up a shield across the street. Because of the energy I’d just expended, the manifestation was weak. The charging ghouls crashed through it.
What now? I thought as I backpedaled.
The ghouls were close enough for me to smell their burning flesh. Flesh that, beneath the thinning flames, was beginning to regenerate. I cast my staff aside and gripped my sword in both hands. Attempting to decapitate four rampaging ghouls was tantamount to suicide, but there were innocents behind me.
Automatic gunfire chattered from either side. The ghouls flinched from the impact of bullets. Armored vehicles were rolling in, backup members of the Hundred firing from the vehicles’ sides.
“Their heads!” I shouted in reminder. “Aim for their heads!”
If the hollow-point bullets could penetrate the creatures’ dense skulls, they might inflict enough brain damage to drop them. At that thought, two of the ghouls’ heads exploded in rapid succession. The flaming creatures collapsed to the street. A third ghoul joined them. The ghoul I’d knocked into the station’s entranceway did not, however. With a bellow, he lowered his head, impervious to the bullets blowing bits of flaming flesh from his hide.
My backward jog turned into a backward run, until I rammed into the mayor.
His broad back remained to the ghouls as he pushed his arms toward the news crews, yelling for them to disperse. He ignored his security detail, one of whom had wheeled the Escalade around while another was trying to pull him toward the vehicle’s open passenger door. I could see on Budge’s corpse-white face that he believed he was watching his campaign swirl down the drain in front of the very opinion shapers he’d invited to the event.
I regained my footing as a foul heat seared the side of my face. Shoving Budge forward, I spun with my sword. The blade flashed, catching the ghoul’s incoming arm at the wrist. A flaming hand dropped to the street, not far from where Budge and the security man had tumbled down.
The ghoul jerked back his spouting arm and let out a window-shaking howl. The gunfire had stopped, I noticed, the ghoul too close to the mayor for the Hundred to risk another fusillade.
“Christ Almighty!” Budge exclaimed, seeing the creature up close for the first time.
The ghoul, who had been thrashing in a circle, oriented to the sound and lunged. I reacted, swinging my sword like a golfer teeing off. I saw immediately that I’d gone too wide. The blade cleaved into shoulder but then rang off a knot of bone, implanting itself in the ghoul’s thick neck.
Yes!
The ghoul stumbled to his knees. I twisted and sawed, trying to complete the decapitation, but the blade became wedged between a pair of vertebrae. I grunted with effort as flames and noxious fumes burned around me.
Without warning, pain exploded through my left calf. I looked down to see the flaming hand I’d severed seizing my lower leg. The detached appendages of ghouls, as well as various undead, could do that, but it was one of those things I always imagined happening to someone else.
I kicked my leg, but the fingers bit fast, nails sinking through skin and muscle. I shouted and reversed course, trying to yank the blade free now. But the vertebrae held it like a pair of pincers. Behind the ghoul’s melted lids, the bulbous orbs of his eyeballs shifted. The thing was coming to. His good arm reared back, black claws level with my face.
“Forza dura!” I shouted.
A force exploded from the sword, freeing the blade and throwing me to the ground. With a chopping downstroke, I hacked the severed hand from my leg. Above me, the ghoul w
avered to its feet. Its flaming head lolled to one side, the spine barely supporting it.
“Christ Almighty!” the mayor repeated, still down.
I scrambled toward him on hands and knees and shielded him with my body. Turning to the gunmen, I shouted, “Finish it!”
The explosion was immediate. I twisted my head enough to catch the effect. Bullets chewed through what remained of the neck. Ghoul and head fell to the street, the second rolling toward the gutter.
The gunfire ceased. Except for the crackling of burning bodies, the intersection was quiet.
I rolled off Budge. We both sat up and looked around. The news crews that had retreated in panic crept forward, several cameras fixed on the headless body burning in the street.
“Is everyone all right?” Budge asked, gaining his feet.
Captain Cole emerged from the tent and gave him a thumb’s up: the operation had succeeded. Budge nodded, swiped the hair from his brow, and hustled around until he was in front of the cameras.
“My fellow New Yorkers,” he said, “you’ve now seen the horrible menace with your own eyes. You’ve also witnessed what happens when a determined leader mobilizes the best resources to confront that menace head on. We’re not done yet, but we’re on our way. Phase one of the eradication program is complete.” He swept an arm out. “The ghoul threat to our great city is ended!”
I had to hand it to him. Whatever the man lacked in common sense, he made up for in political instincts. The picture of him in front of the creature carnage was going to look pretty damn impressive on tomorrow’s front pages.
“I’ll be more than happy to take your questions now,” he said, then broke into his signature aw-shucks smile as the cameras and clamoring reporters pressed in. “One at a time, please.”
I caught the coverage that evening on my portable television, an early rabbit-ear model that tolerated my aura better than most. The local stations devoured the story, devoting their entire news slots to that morning’s operation, the coverage ranging from favorable to gushing.
“…an estimated four hundred ghouls eliminated,” Courtney was saying as I shifted the pillows that propped up my wounded leg. “And with that, the mayor claims he’s on his way to eliminating all supernatural threats from the city, though he said that will require a second term.”
“Well played, Budge,” I muttered to the television.
“Just a second term?” Tabitha yawned from the divan. “Does he have any idea how many of us there are?”
“He said threats. And he’s only going after the worst of the worst.”
“Well, there are plenty of those.” Tabitha began ticking them off her paw. “Soul eaters, succubi, incubi…”
“Clear and present threats,” I amended. “Ones that give the mayor the biggest political payout. He’s not going to risk chasing beings that ninety-nine percent of the city can’t even see.” My head ached with the urge to be right. Or maybe I was determined for the vampire Arnaud to be wrong.
“Well, what about me and you?” Tabitha asked.
“What about us? We’re not threats to anyone. Hardly anyone even knows we exist.” A vein in my temple began to throb, as though I were making the argument to Arnaud himself.
I awaited Tabitha’s response, but she was staring past me, a grin growing across her furry lips. I followed her gaze back to the television. A headshot appeared through the snowy reception, one I recognized.
“You were saying?” Tabitha purred.
“In the excitement of today’s operation, an interesting figure emerged,” Courtney said in a chirpy, you’re-not-going-to-believe-this tone. “His name is Everson Croft. He’s a college professor, a consultant to the mayor, and a modern day wizard. I saw it with my own eyes, folks. Watch here as he battles a flaming ghoul, using only a sword and magical incantations.”
I’d thought all of the cameramen had been in retreat, but at least one had had the brass to stop and shoot. Shaky film rolled of the moment I caught the ghoul in the neck. I could see the severed hand crawling up behind me like a giant spider. Leaping, it affixed itself to my leg. The rest happened quickly. The shouted Word, the ghoul stumbling backwards, me hacking the hand away and shielding the mayor, and at last, the ghoul succumbing to the hail of bullets.
“How delicious,” Tabitha said.
“Whatever his title,” Courtney continued, “I think we can agree that Everson Croft is a hero—our hero—and someone we’ll continue to follow closely. From all of us here at TV 20, goodnight.”
I sagged back in my chair as the credits rolled over the dimming news set. I couldn’t believe it. I was the night’s feel-good closer.
“Well, this should make things interesting,” Tabitha said.
“Yeah, no thanks to Budge.” I limped over to the television and slapped the power button. “Invites every major network to the ghoul roast, then shows up drunk and starts blabbing about his secret wizard weapon.”
“Not so secret now.”
“No kidding. The jerk just made me a walking target.”
“That’s what you get for dealing with a politician. I’ve seduced many over the centuries. They’re the same everywhere.”
I hopped on my good leg to the phone on the kitchen counter. I’d infused the injuries from the ghoul-hand attack with healing magic, but the claw punctures had been deep and bacteria ridden, meaning a longer mend time.
“What are you doing?” Tabitha asked.
“What do you think? Calling the mayor to tell him I’m out.”
I’d reasoned that my inclusion in the eradication program would make me safer. Right now, I felt anything but. My identity had just been broadcast to every New Yorker with a television, which was most of them. The morning papers would take care of the rest.
“Let’s not be hasty, darling,” she said. “The mayor’s office is compensating you handsomely, after all. Your income from the college is nice, but it’s hardly adequate to our lifestyles.”
She meant her lifestyle, but I wasn’t processing anything past “college.” I dropped the receiver back in its cradle.
“Crap.”
Tabitha gave a startled blink. “What is it, darling?”
“My chairman,” I said. “Snodgrass.”
13
I burst through the front doors of Midtown College, tucking my shirt in as I ran. I hadn’t slept a wink the night before and so shouldn’t have been late, but I made the mistake of buying several morning papers from the corner newsstand and carrying them back to my apartment to peruse. Time escaped me, and for good reason. All but one of the circulars mentioned my inclusion in the eradication program. A few devoted entire columns to the story of the New York wizard.
I huffed out a curse. Snodgrass has been waiting for this, I thought as I pulled off the fake beard and sunglasses I’d donned to avoid public recognition. Waiting for something he can use to banish me from the college. And now he has it, dammit.
He would make good on his threat to alarm the parents of my students, to get them to yank their children from my courses. “After all,” I could hear him telling them, “you don’t want him corrupting your daughter’s mind with some enchantment or whatever else he decides to put in there. If he’s kept his real identity a secret for this long, what else might he be hiding?”
No students meant no classes. No classes meant no job.
I skittered around the corner of the hallway and was met by a wall of noise. “This is a graduate-level seminar,” I heard Snodgrass shouting as I drew nearer. “It cannot be audited.”
Huh?
I arrived at my classroom and peered through the half-open door to find my chairman standing and waving his arms at a mob scene, his face turning the same dark burgundy as his bowtie. “Did you hear me?” he demanded. “This is a closed course. If you are not registered, leave now.”
Was this my classroom? I leaned back to read the number over the door before looking inside again. This time I spotted my six regular students at their des
ks. But the remaining students, including the fifty or so jockeying for standing room, were completely new to me.
“There he is!” one of them shouted.
Heads swiveled toward me. A fresh clamor went up. The students surged in my direction, Snodgrass disappearing behind them. A multitude of mouths talked at once. “Is it true?” “Did you do those things on television?” “Are you a real wizard?” “Can I take your course?”
Several pushed newspapers and drop-add cards at me.
I held up my hand and cane in a warding gesture and backed against the door. The students, most of them young women, formed a jabbering semicircle around me, admiration bright on their faces.
My God, they’re serious.
Snodgrass fought his way through the crowd, fixing his skewered glasses as he arrived beside me. “Professor Croft,” he shouted above the commotion. “A word outside, please.”
I followed him into the hallway and forced the door closed behind me. He proceeded down the hallway a short distance, stopped suddenly, and wheeled on the high heels of his leather shoes.
“What in the devil do you think you’re doing?” he said.
I looked from him to the students’ faces crowding the classroom door window.
“Croft!” he snapped.
“I’m sorry … what?”
“This is an academic institution, not some camp for teeny-boppers. Is this a stunt to improve your enrollment?”
“Stunt?”
“Did you compel those students to attend your class through some inducement?”
A realization struck me. As impossible as it seemed, Snodgrass had yet to hear the news. I walked backwards until I reached the classroom door and opened it to a surge of noise.
“You,” I said, pointing to a young woman. “May I borrow your paper?”
With all the reverence of a virgin making an offering to a god, she stepped forward and handed me her copy of the Gazette. As she retreated back into the masses with a mad giggle, I closed the door and returned to Snodgrass. He accepted the paper as though I was up to some trickery.
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