“Page one,” I said.
I watched his eyes fall to the lead headline:
CITY: 1 MONSTERS: 0
MAYOR’S PROGRAM OFF TO A BLAZING START
The photo underneath showed members of the Hundred firing on the final flaming ghoul while I covered the sprawled-out mayor. Snodgrass’s eyes skipped to the sidebar: “LOCAL WIZARD STARS IN EFFORT.” My smiling headshot had been lifted from the college’s online directory.
I still wasn’t thrilled about the exposure, but it appeared to have boosted my status with the students—something that was dawning on Snodgrass as well. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
“Those tendencies of mine you mentioned last week?” I said as he read. “Well, they’re out there, and guess what? The students of Midtown College are loving it.” I embellished the word with a lascivious flick of my tongue.
Snodgrass’s eyelids blinked rapidly. At last, he folded the paper with a sniff.
“This changes nothing,” he announced tersely. “I still plan to phone parents. I would be remiss as department chair if I didn’t. In the meantime, I want those students out of your—”
At that moment, the chairman of the college board, Mr. Cowper, rounded the corner with the seven other board members. Cowper pulled up when he spotted me and smacked his flabby lips.
“Ah, Professor Croft,” he said. “We were just discussing you in our meeting.”
“Oh, yeah?” I tried to read the sagging folds of his face to discern whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe I’d turned on the cocky too soon.
“Yes, we’ve received a positive avalanche of inquiries this morning about your fall courses,” he said. “We were wondering if you might consider increasing your offerings. You’d be compensated, of course. And it couldn’t hurt your application for tenure.”
“Y-yeah, of course,” I stammered. “I’ll see what I can come up with.”
“Please do,” Cowper said. “It will really help out enrollment. Especially in this department.” He looked pointedly at Snodgrass before issuing a final lip smack and moving off with the others.
I grinned down at my department chair. “It just keeps getting better.”
A tremor moved across Snodgrass’s blanching face. “I don’t care what you are,” he said, shoving the newspaper against my chest and pointing past me. “I want those cretins out of your classroom. Now.”
“What’s the matter? Afraid your department will be overrun by ancient mythology and lore majors?”
“It’s a—a—a—” His lips sputtered, unable to spit out the word.
“Tell you what. While you’re figuring out what it is, I’ll go ahead and get started on my lecture.”
I pivoted on my cane.
“This isn’t over, Croft!” he shouted at my back.
I waggled my fingers behind me in farewell before opening the door and wading into my new fan base.
After class—a two-hour session that featured a lecture on the ghoul myth across cultures, a long Q&A about my role in yesterday’s operation (which I played way down), and ended with me adding twenty-two new students to the course—I called Hoffman and arranged to meet him at a deli down the street from the college.
The detective arrived, shaking his head. “Must really think you’re hot stuff, huh? ‘Local Wizard Stars in Effort,’” he said, reciting the Gazette headline. “What a bunch of crap.”
I shrugged in answer. Hoffman tossed a pile of paperwork onto the far end of the booth seat and collapsed opposite me. His tie was loosened and the sleeves of his sweat-stained shirt bunched up to his elbows.
“Tough morning on the bribery circuit?” I asked.
Hoffman’s cheeks clenched at the dig. “I saw your little photographer buddy earlier.”
I straightened and peered around. It had been several days since I’d last seen Ed. When he didn’t come home for good, I assumed the spell had expired and he’d collapsed into a clay mound somewhere. I’d been planning a hunting spell to retrieve the amulet. “Where?” I asked.
“I was gonna give him a fat lip,” Hoffman went on, “but the weasel took off. Ran like a little girl.”
“And yet it was enough to outrun you,” I pointed out.
Before Hoffman could respond, the waitress arrived with the two coffees I’d ordered. As she walked away, Hoffman leveled a thick finger at me through the steam.
“I’ll say it again. Those photos don’t show what you think they do. I’m just going along with this ’cause I don’t want you making a goddamned mess of my operation. Do you have the photos?”
“The info first,” I said.
Hoffman peered around, then hunched over the table. “The lab’s still going through the trace evidence. So far it all matches up with the woman’s clients. We’re interviewing them. No suspects yet.”
“Any of them work in security?” I asked, thinking about the werewolves.
“The clients?” He snorted. “They’re about the farthest thing from security you can get. They were seeing her for potions and palm readings. Bunch of fruitcakes if you ask me.”
That didn’t make any sense. The wolves had to have left something.
A Ziploc bag landed in front of me. Inside was a clump of gray hair.
“Your residue,” Hoffman said. “Techs still don’t know where the stuff came from.”
While Hoffman gulped his coffee, I held the bag up to my eyes. Squinting, I could make out a fine yellow dust on the ends of the cat hairs. When I unsealed the bag, the faintest odor of rotten eggs leaked out. Definitely sulfurous. I resealed the bag, folded it over, and placed it inside my leather satchel. I would run some spells on the residue back at my apartment.
“How about the human hair I asked for?” I said.
“Not in evidence.”
“What?”
“You said light brown and about a foot long, right?”
I nodded, remembering the final hair I’d drawn from my mother’s brush.
“I checked the log,” Hoffman said. “Nothing like that was collected. They found a little shriveled-up piece of hair on the victim’s lap, though. The DNA was too corrupted to test.”
“Her lap?”
Heat shriveled hair, but so did intense magic. I recalled how I’d discovered the mystic: slumped in her chair, arms at her sides. She had probably been yanked into that position from behind, the hair she had been handling falling onto her lap. Had Lady Bastet completed the reading before her murder? Had she seen who killed my mother?
Hoffman’s voice broke through my racing thoughts. “We done here?”
I collected myself. “One more question.”
“That’s all I know about the case.”
“Not about the case. It’s about, um, Vega.”
“What, you got a little thing for her?” He smirked. “I’ll tell you what, buddy, she sure doesn’t like you anymore.”
“Did she say why?”
I got that we had hit a nasty bump in the spring, but that had been four months ago. Could she still be that upset? I considered how she’d treated me at the crime scene, the look she’d shot me at my presentation on the ghoul operation. There had to be another reason.
“Hey, your problem, not mine,” Hoffman said with a harsh laugh. “Ask me, she recovered her senses.” He finished off the rest of his coffee and held out a hand. “The photos.”
I pulled a stack of Polaroids from my satchel. “These are most of them.”
“What do you mean, ‘most of ’em’?” Hoffman snatched the photos away and flipped through them like they were playing cards.
“I’m keeping the rest. You can earn them back by finding me suspects.”
The thick flesh of Hoffman’s brow collapsed down. “Listen, you little smartass—”
His voice broke off as a large shadow fell over our table. We both looked up. The redheaded werewolf brothers loomed over us.
I reached for where I kept my revolver before remembering those two had destroyed it.
For an instant, I reflected on how Grandpa’s possessions had existed in twos. In his tool shed, he’d kept two sets of hand drills, claw hammers, awls—and always the same kind. Ditto his night robe and slippers, his pocket watch, his fedora. I snuck into his bathroom once and discovered two identical shaving mirrors beside identical straight razors with bone handles. When I asked my grandmother about this, she told me he had always acquired things in pairs. His reasoning? If something broke or went missing, he had an immediate replacement.
Too bad I hadn’t adopted the habit. With the inflating cost of firearms, I wasn’t sure I could afford a replacement now.
Muscles swelled beneath the wolves’ security guard uniforms, but I was preoccupied by the burn in their irises. Left to their pack instincts, the two would tear me apart. Hoffman must have sensed the potential for violence, too.
“Been nice chatting,” he said, scooting from the booth. “Gonna leave you to your friends.”
“Mayor wants to meet with you,” Flint said to me.
“We make appointments for those now.” I blew on my coffee and raised it to my lips. Werewolf or not, I didn’t care for his threatening tone.
Flint thumped the mug with a finger. It flew from my grasp and shattered against the tile wall. Hot coffee rained over the table. I looked down at my dripping hand, then over at Flint.
“Problem?” I asked.
“Next time, it’s your head,” Flint growled.
“Is that what you told Lady Bastet?” I asked, testing him.
The muscles around his nose bunched up. “Don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Now let’s go.”
I searched Flint’s and Evan’s eyes. If either had been involved in Lady Bastet’s murder, they were disguising it well. I pulled several napkins from the dispenser and began drying my hands.
“Fine,” I said. “But I’m not riding with you. I’ll catch a cab.”
Flint snarled and lunged toward me. Evan caught him by the arm and grimaced, clearly fighting his own inner beast. Whoever was running the pack in Penny’s stead had forbidden them from exacting revenge against me. But who would that be? Budge? As a mortal, he wouldn’t wield that kind of power. There had to be a second in command somewhere.
Flint controlled himself and straightened. “One o’clock,” he growled. “Or we come back.”
I’d been anxious to return to my apartment to begin work on the sulfur residue, but I’d get nothing done with a pair of pissed-off werewolves in the back of my mind. Plus, I still intended to resign from the eradication team—something I could do in person. Though the press coverage had improved my position at Midtown College, any further attention would only hurt. I consulted my watch.
“Tell the mayor it’s a date.”
14
The cab dropped me off at the checkpoint outside the plaza that fronted City Hall. The guard, another werewolf, studied my ID with a snarl while a second wolf gave me a bruising pat down. They returned my ID and shoved me through. I limped over the plaza, squinting from the bright concrete.
“Everson.”
I looked up to find Caroline descending from City Hall’s columned portico, one hand forming a visor above her eyes. She was dressed in business attire and carrying a black leather briefcase over one shoulder. She looked like a lobbyist, which I supposed she was. Among other things.
I met her halfway up the steps.
“You came,” she said.
“Yeah,” I replied, not sure what she meant. “I’m supposed to meet with the mayor.”
She angled herself so the sun was no longer in her face and lowered her hand. When her blue-green eyes searched mine, a keen pain pierced my chest. I looked back at her neutrally.
“My offer still stands,” she said.
“You mean the vacation in the faerie realm? I’m handling things pretty well up here, thanks.”
“That could change.”
“So you’ve said.”
Her lips pressed together. “Everson—”
“I’ve worked out something with Budge,” I said, cutting her off. “I help him, he helps me. And as much as I dislike the press attention, it now means he hurts me at his own risk. Same goes for Penny, if she ever wakes up.” Though the rationale sounded good, I still intended to resign. I just wasn’t going to tell Caroline that—for no other reason than to challenge her.
“Were things to go wrong,” she said, a thin comma forming between her eyebrows, “do you have somewhere you can go? Someplace safe?”
I thought of Arnaud’s offer of a renewed alliance.
“It won’t come to that,” I said.
“I see a lot more than you can.”
“Care to share?”
A breeze blew a strand of hair over Caroline’s cheek. I had to restrain myself from brushing it back behind her ear. Too much had happened since the night we’d held each other. She fastened the hair away herself, eyes flicking to the bottom of the steps. My gaze followed. A tall, striking figure in a Cambridge suit leaned against a flagpole, his copper hair shining in the sun.
The sight of Angelus kicked me in the heart with both legs.
“You should probably go,” I said, already starting to leave. “Don’t want to keep hubby waiting.”
She seized my arm, the force turning me so I was facing her again. “You’re standing on a precipice, Everson. And it’s crumbling.” The aggression in her voice and grip surprised me.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re not as safe as you think you are.” She released me. “Let me help you.”
A determination in her eyes seemed to be masking a deeper conflict. For a moment, I thought she was going to lunge at me—though whether to strangle or kiss me, I couldn’t tell.
I glanced over at Angelus, who was still watching us.
“I don’t need your help,” I said, and paced up the steps.
This time, Caroline let me go.
I groaned when I spotted the werewolf brothers, Flint and Evan, waiting for me beyond the scanners inside the City Hall building. “What are these two?” I muttered. “Part retriever?”
“You’re late,” Flint said. “Follow us.”
“Thanks, but I know the way to the mayor’s office.” I stepped around them toward the elevators.
“We’re not going to the mayor’s office.” Flint grabbed my right arm above the elbow. Evan took my left, and the two began marching me down a long hallway. I twisted my shoulders, but their large hands held me like a pair of manacles, fastening me between them.
“Where are you taking me?” I demanded.
Flint touched an earpiece. “We’ve got him.”
Who was he talking to? The pack’s second in command?
Evan drew a key and unlocked a door that opened onto a narrow, empty corridor. The wolves turned their wide frames such that Flint was pulling me, Evan pushing me. They hadn’t confiscated my weapon, which seemed odd. Still, Caroline’s warning flashed hot in my mind.
You’re not as safe as you think you are.
“Respingere!” I cried.
From the opal in my cane, white light detonated. My arms wrenched violently as the force blasted Flint down the corridor and Evan back into the door we’d just entered through. The pain in my left shoulder registered a moment later, as well as the familiar clunk of dislocation.
Dammit.
Supporting the infirm arm at the elbow, I ran back toward the door. It had collapsed out into the main hallway with Evan’s impact, along with Evan. But in the next instant, Evan sprang up and activated his earpiece. If he was calling for backup, the hallway would soon be swarming with wolves. He pawed for his holstered firearm. Another deal breaker.
I stopped and reversed course. Down the narrow corridor, Flint was slower to recover. He staggered to his feet, blood on his brow. If I could get past him, I could search for a rear exit. When he saw me coming, he sank to his haunches, a deep growl growing from his chest.
Have to keep going. Have to
hit him hard enough to make him stay down.
Fumbling my cane apart, I held the staff weakly in my left hand. Manifesting a shield, I used additional Words to shape it into something resembling a battering ram. I sensed Evan bounding up from behind. With my right hand, I aimed the sword behind me at an acute angle to the floor. I’d managed this once before in a car but never while running.
“Forza dura!” I shouted.
The power that stormed from the sword hit the floor and launched me forward like a rocket. I hurtled down the corridor. Flint tried to throw himself out of the way, but in an explosion of sparks, the battering shield rammed into him and left him tumbling in my wake.
The floor rose quickly as the blast from the sword petered out. My front foot caught the carpet, and I was thrown into a bruising roll that shot fresh pain through my shoulder. My head absorbed some solid shots as well.
I stood and staggered in two nauseating circles to collect my weapons and orient myself. My casting prism was shot, but behind me, Flint was still down. I turned back toward the end of the corridor, where a door with a red crash bar read: EMERGENCY EXIT.
Just need to get out of here.
I shambled toward the exit—and nearly collided into a side door that swung out in front of me. A man wearing a headset and Prada sunglasses peered out. “There you are!” he exclaimed in a prissy voice. “Get in here!”
I stared for a moment, trying to figure out if I should know him. The man’s frosted hair stood in a voluminous coif, while his black designer shirt opened on a thin, hairless chest. The shirt’s sleeves flapped as he motioned for me to come. Though the eyes beyond the tinted lenses were animated, I could discern no werewolf in them. A touch of faerie, maybe.
“Come on!” He seized my wrist with dainty, but insistent, force.
I glanced back at the wolves. Flint was struggling to his hands and knees, and Evan had disappeared from view, probably to intercept me on the other side of the emergency exit. In my still-woozy state, I allowed the man to pull me after him. He led me through a warren of corridors.
Purge City (Prof Croft Book 3) Page 9