Black Luck (Prof Croft Book 5)

by Brad Magnarella

  Quinton lurched forward as the invocation snagged the necklace and snapped it from his neck. The necklace whipped through the air and into my hand. Expecting something ancient and evil, I was surprised to find myself holding a thin silver chain. I shoved it into a bag of salt in one of my pockets.

  The chanting broke apart, and the members of the Ark looked around in sleepy confusion. Quinton pawed frantically around his naked neck.

  Step two: seal the exits.

  “Serrare,” I called, stepping into the room. The air crackled at my back, barring the tunnel I’d entered from. Shields went up over the remaining two tunnels.

  “Over there!” Quinton shouted, pointing at me while reaching his right hand behind his back. When he drew a pistol, I was more concerned for the others. An errant shot could kill someone, and that would mean infernal bags whose locations remained unknown.

  I disarmed Quinton with a force blast. The pistol flew from his grip. A second blast to the gut dropped him to his knees. The rest of the Ark began lumbering toward me, as if awakening from a confusing dream.

  Step three: confine the members.

  “Protezione!” I shouted.

  Light swelled from my staff, and crackling domes grew around each member of the Ark, including Quinton, who was still down. I had them, but I was already feeling the strain of maintaining so many invocations at once. The very edges of my vision began to waver.

  Step four: exorcise the cursed item.

  I sprinkled out a circle of copper filings and dropped the chain in the center. As I willed energy into the circle, hardening the air around it, the wavering in my vision turned creamy.

  Not Thelonious, I pled. Not now.

  Though I’d increased my casting capacity, I had expended more energy today than I had in a long time. My eyes shifted to the exits. I had sealed them to keep anyone from escaping, but also to prevent any surprises from popping in. They were a luxury I could no longer afford.

  I dispersed the barriers. Fresh energy surged into my casting prism. Pulling out a small scroll, I unrolled the vellum paper that contained Latin instructions on performing an exorcism.

  “Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde,” I read, directing my voice at the casting circle, “in nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis…”

  The necklace began to flick around, trying to escape the barrier.

  “…sanctum suum vocare dignatus est, ut fiat templum Dei vivi…”

  Once exorcized, the necklace—and the demon that had cursed it—would have no more hold over the Ark. I could release them and then get down to the business of finding and defusing the remaining infernal bags.

  As the necklace writhed and kicked, I stole glances at the dark mist that hovered over the pentagram. It was the remnants of the demonic energy, trying desperately to hold itself together.

  I read louder, faster.

  “…et Spiritus Sanctus habitet in eo…”

  When I finished, the necklace fell still. The mist above the pentagram broke apart. I watched as air currents carried the failing energy from the pentagram into the tunnels opposite me.

  Good riddance.

  I sighed and pocketed the scroll.

  “Is everyone all right?” I asked, turning to the Ark.

  I expected to find them looking around in confusion as they recovered their senses. Instead, they were pounding the crackling domes that confined them, trying to get at me. Quinton snarled with bloody lips as he threw his entire body into his shield, murder rimming his eyes.

  I looked down at my casting circle. The necklace was exorcized, the energy that had bonded the Ark to it broken. That should have freed them, dammit. I opened my wizard’s senses toward the necklace.

  Crap—a faint pulse remained.

  Swearing, I pulled out my overnight bag, removed a small flask of holy water, and gave it a shake. A little left. Unscrewing the cap with my teeth, I dumped what remained of the water over the necklace. The thin chain came to life in a fit, leaping around and hissing steam.

  I snorted. “Playing possum, huh?”

  I unrolled the scroll to exorcize what presence remained, then froze as the voice I’d come to associate with the smoke golems sounded through the space.

  “Not playing possum, wizard,” Damien said. “I’m simply biding my time. Oh, look. You have company.”

  I raised my head and almost screamed. The two tunnels the smoke had departed through were now filled with nightmare creatures—imps, mostly, but lesser demon spawn filled the ranks. They had advanced slowly, quietly, and were now spreading into the room.

  My gaze ranged over the mass of fangs, glowing eyes, spindly limbs, ragged wings—all of them awash in dark, sulfuric fire. Those must have been the two extra infernal bags Becky had mentioned, stashed farther back in the tunnels for security. Bags Damien had activated as his energy was swept from the main room. And this is what the bags had given birth to.

  “Attack!” Damien’s voice ordered.

  I responded with two shield invocations intended to shove the creatures back into the far tunnels, but the moment the creatures contacted them, the shields failed in brilliant cascades of sparks.

  Adaptability, remember? I told myself.

  A large creature sprung from the mass on grasshopper legs, its pointed ears almost as long as its horns. Spiny teeth shone bone-white from the creature’s gaping jaw. I swung my sword at the same time the creature shot out an arm. Fortunately metal still worked where magic didn’t. My blade caught the imp at the elbow, severing it neatly. I whipped the sword back around and removed its screeching head. The body collapsed to the floor, its thin, tendinous legs twitching and kicking.

  But as more creatures flapped and raced toward me, I knew that wasn’t a winning strategy. They were too many. I cut my eyes to the Ark. The members were vulnerable. I shouted a force invocation, shoving their shielded bodies into an alcove. With a second invocation, I shrouded them in deep shadow. If Damien got desperate, he might look to silence them.

  The creatures arrived in a gibbering mass. I hacked and slashed at them while digging my free hand into my coat pockets. I removed three golf ball-sized objects and chucked them into the throng. They ricocheted off creatures and bounced over the floor in separate trajectories.

  “Attivare!” I shouted, activating the lightning grenades.

  A harsh scent of ozone filled the room an instant before blue-white jags of energy streaked from the three tunnels and detonated inside the chamber to deafening and ground-shaking effect. Creatures shrieked as they blew apart, their appendages raining everywhere.

  Though my shield protected me, I could feel the lightning’s energy buzzing in my teeth. I looked around. The attack had destroyed half the creatures, but the rest were reorienting themselves, starting to come at me again. I slashed through an imp, but missed the one zipping in behind it. My shield shook and spilled sparks as the imp grazed it.

  What else did I pack?

  I dug into my pockets, past vials and bottles that contained potions I’d yet to activate and wouldn’t have time to. At last I encountered a smooth glass orb the size of a tennis ball.

  Yes.

  The orb pulsed in my grasp and sent a warm current up my arm. As I drew out the orb, its misty interior glowed through my fingers.

  The several dozen creatures stopped and stared at the orb, transfixed.

  I was holding the emo ball my mother had given Arianna to give to me. Knowing she might be killed before I was old enough to remember her, my mother had invested the ball with her love, so that I would know it always. Though I’d carried it on several assignments in the last year, I had remained obsessively protective of it, to the point of using it only as a last resort. I had lost my mother once—I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her again.

  “Attack!” Damien ordered.

  “No,” I countered, pushing energy into the emo ball.

  The orb swelled more brightly, causing the nightmare horde to wince and draw back. Born of evil, the
creatures had never been in the presence of love before, especially not a love this intense or unconditional. They were as fascinated by it as they were terrified, some part of them sensing the orb’s power to undo the wicked coils that held them together.

  “Attack!” Damien urged. “Destroy him!”

  The creatures lurched forward, as though being shoved by an unseen force. Willing more power into the ball, I shoved back. As light from the emo ball touched the creatures at the front line, their skin began to bubble and hiss steam. They screamed but were powerless to draw back.

  I grunted as I pushed even harder through the ball. Though the creatures shrieked and howled, Damien continued to force them forward, determined for the horde to overwhelm me.

  Creamy waves lapped around my vision, stronger than earlier.

  Need my protection back from the Ark, I thought desperately. Just long enough to destroy the creatures and finish purifying the necklace.

  With a pair of Words, I dispersed the obscuring and shield invocations that protected them. The members reappeared in the alcove—startled, it seemed, by their sudden freedom. I channeled the released energy into the emo ball, shoving the creatures back … back … back…

  Blam!

  Light burst around my right hand and dissipated. The room dimmed suddenly. The coldness that rushed in carried Damien’s laughter. When I heard the tinkling of glass shards hitting the floor, I realized I was no longer holding the emo ball. My heart staggered. My mother’s gift…

  “A pity,” Damien taunted.

  I backed from the recovering imps and demon spawn. Beyond them, Quinton stood in front of the alcove. He had recovered his pistol and blown away my mother’s emo ball. Fury restored me from my shock.

  Thrusting my sword toward him, I shouted, “Vigore!”

  But one of the charging creatures came between us, dissolving the force invocation. Quinton wasn’t fazed. I slashed through the arriving creatures, desperate for another shot at Quinton. But the man was moving now, running low, stooping for something. Silver flashed in his hand as he grabbed the necklace from my casting circle. Then he disappeared down the tunnel I’d entered by.

  Shit.

  When I tried to chase him, a taloned hand broke through my shield and snagged the back of my coat. It tugged me backwards. I swung my blade wildly as creatures began piling on top of me. A jaw clamped the side of my neck, then another, the penetrating fangs like fire. Pain speared through my wrist as an imp bit down and shook. My sword fell from my grasp.

  Have to get these damned things off, I thought desperately as claws tore open my shirt, have to recover the necklace …

  I swung my staff, but there were too many of them. And I was losing blood.

  Above the carnage, Damien laughed. “Our friendship may have been short, but it wasn’t without excitement.”

  Drawing every last ounce of strength, I shouted, “Respingere!”

  Power detonated from my staff. The room shook, furniture shattering against the walls, but the creatures remained. I collapsed beneath their weight and onto my mother’s shattered emo ball, numb to everything except the crashing arrival of Thelonious.

  He was the reason I’d expended all of my power.

  He was my final hope.

  22

  I blinked, surprised to find myself in Thelonious’s world. In the past I would just black out, remembering nothing until the incubus had had his fill of carousing, or enough of my power had seeped back. But here I was, in his realm of vague shapes and throbbing bass notes. A place I hadn’t been since I’d invoked Thelonious for the first time twelve years before, in Romania.

  I looked around, but couldn’t see his large, corpulent form. Couldn’t hear his rich voice. As I listened, I noticed the bass line was off. It sounded irregular, out of tune. And the creamy colors had dulled.

  “Hello?” I called. “Thelonious?”

  “That Everson?”

  I turned to see something taking shape in the dull light. The being was large, like how I remembered the incubus spirit, but his voice had a weak, raspy quality. And he seemed to be limping.

  “Been awhile,” he said.

  “Almost a year,” I replied. The last time Thelonious had visited I’d been pushing too hard on a complex spell in my apartment, determined to reach the needed threshold. Fortunately, the wards had kept him indoors. Tabitha had smartly spent the night on the ledge, though. “So … what’s going on? What am I doing here?”

  “This is where you come every time.”

  “Really? I don’t remember ever coming here, except for that first time.”

  “That’s because when we switch, I’m in your head. I’ve got your memories.”

  “Why didn’t we switch this time?”

  Thelonious grunted as he sat down heavily. “Some bad stuff’s gone down, brother.”

  My shoulders sagged with the weight of his words. I wasn’t dumb. He was delivering me the news of my own death. I’d intentionally spent my remaining power in the dim hope Thelonious would destroy the demonic creatures so as not to lose me as a vessel. But he hadn’t done anything, and here we were.

  I stopped. If I was a goner, what was I doing in his realm?

  You’re still bound to him, I realized. This is your eternity.

  I looked around in horror. The incessant bass line alone was going to drive me insane. But spending eternity with a big, jive-talking incubus? No. I had to get the hell out of here.

  “You helped me once,” I said quickly. “In exchange I acted as your vessel for twelve years. I’m no more use to you now.” I tried not to imagine the demon spawn tearing apart my body. “We—or I guess you have had some good times. Now I need you to release me.”

  “What are you talking about, young blood?”

  “There’s no reason for me to spend eternity here.”

  “Eternity? Who said anything about eternity?”

  “Aren’t I … dead?”

  “Not yet. Time don’t mean much down here.”

  “So I’m still…”

  “However you left where you were is how you are now.”

  “Thank God,” I breathed. “But why aren’t you up there?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” he rumbled. “Bad stuff’s gone down.”

  “What bad stuff?”

  “Someone’s been asking about you. And not just asking. He about broke me, and Thelonious don’t break easy.”

  So that explained the damaged condition of the incubus spirit and his realm. “Someone tortured you to get information on me? Who?”

  Thelonious shook his head. “A rough customer is all I can tell you. Never met him before in my life. I mostly keep to myself. No one bothers Thelonious, and Thelonious don’t bother no one. Unless we’ve made a deal, of course.” He nodded toward me. “But this customer blows in here unannounced and first thing he does is to rip apart my women.”

  I remembered the sensual forms that had been attending to Thelonious’s various needs the last time I’d been here. A deep loneliness seemed to haunt his realm in their absence.

  “No way to treat the ladies,” Thelonious went on, “and I told him so. Next thing I know, he’s on top of me, and I’m in a world of pain. Was like he was twisting something deep inside me, to the verge of snapping. ‘Tell me about Everson Croft,’ this cat hissed. And no hard feelings, young blood, but I spilled everything. Down to your measurements. The pain, you see. When I finished, the cat only twisted harder. ‘No,’ he hissed. ‘Tell me what he’s been doing recently.’ The way he said that word, recently. Wish you could’ve heard it. Sent chills clear up and down me, and I’d like to think I’m a cool customer.”

  The timing of the interrogation with Damien’s appearance in New York probably wasn’t a coincidence. But what demon would care about me? Was Damien working for Sathanas, the demon lord I’d banished a couple of years earlier?

  “I told him I hadn’t seen you in awhile,” Thelonious continued. “I didn’t know
what you’d been doing. Cat didn’t like that answer, though. He hurt me, young blood. Hurt me for a long time. First I thought it was ’cause he didn’t believe me, but then I saw he was just enjoying himself.” He shook his head. “Been a long while since I was made helpless like that.”

  Despite being captive to our bargain, I found myself pitying Thelonious. The incubus spirit had mortified me many times, had left me in compromising situations, often without pants, but he had never hurt me.

  “Do you think it was a demon lord?” I asked.

  “Now I don’t know about that. But this cat is up there. And if he’s intent on getting to you…” Thelonious shook his head slowly. “I hate to say it, but I believe he’s going to find a way. Didn’t sound like he’d made it into your world, though. Not yet. But he can get to you here. And if he did, you’d wish you could spend eternity with me. I should let you get back. Not safe here.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not exactly safe up there, either. Can you help me?”

  Thelonious’s chuckle was a sad rumble. “I helped you one time, that was the deal. I’m in no shape to be making new deals. And even if I could, I’m in no shape to do much of anything with them. Might never be in that kind of shape again. Just brought you down to tell you what’s what. You’re a good man. Gave me some good times. But I’m broken up. Gonna have to send you back now.”

  “No, wait! I’m under a pile of demon spawn up there. I expended all my power with the idea you might step in. I-I’ve got nothing. You send me back, and I’m a dead man.”

  “No worries,” he said, his voice thick with sleepiness now. “Not gonna send you back to the moment you left there. I’ll let things roll forward a bit. Send you back a few hours later on.”

  “What? No, then I’ll be dead for sure! How about a few hours earlier?”

  “Yeah,” Thelonious rumbled as he rose unsteadily. “Few hours later on…”

  “No! Wait!”

  But Thelonious was already fading away as the creamy waves of his realm lapped over my consciousness.

  Darkness wrapped me in a thick cocoon. I slowly became aware of lying on my back. But I wasn’t on the hard floor of the goblin chamber. And demon spawn definitely weren’t feasting on me.