Black Luck (Prof Croft Book 5)

by Brad Magnarella

I followed him down an affluent corridor into a large sitting room with antique furniture, dark oil paintings, and a stone fireplace. A tall woman was there, her white hair in a powerful coif. Pearls hung around the front of her black and tan dress. She was sipping wine from a stem glass, but she put it down upon seeing us and rose from her chair.

  “You must be Everson,” she said, offering her hand, her wrist bent in the manner of the wealthy.

  “I am,” I said, taking it. “It’s good to meet you.”

  “And it’s so good to finally meet you.”

  She had the voice of the socially powerful. In fact everything about her was powerful, from her large-boned frame to her bearing. I looked from her to Snodgrass and back. This was the woman he’d called weak?

  “For heaven’s sake, Winston. Offer Everson a seat.”

  “How about this one?” He waited for his wife’s approval before showing me to the chair beside hers.

  “And some wine?” she said.

  “Oh, ah, would you like white or red, Everson?”

  “I’ll have what Miriam is having,” I replied, which made her smile.

  Snodgrass poured the glass at a small bar beside the window, handed it to me, and then took a seat on my other side as if hoping to use me as a shield. I’d never seen him behave so timidly.

  “You’re not having any?” I asked him.

  He opened his mouth, but his wife answered for him. “We had to put a stop to his drinking years ago. Not that he was abusing it, Everson, but he would just become so emotional.”

  “Miriam, I don’t think Everson—”

  “Fits of crying, even at social engagements. Can you imagine? He had no control over himself.”

  “Is that so?” I had to fight from grinning.

  Snodgrass looked down at his fidgeting hands.

  “Oh, I don’t allow him to go anywhere where there’s going to be alcohol. It’s why you don’t see him at the faculty functions. Here is fine. He doesn’t feel compelled. But out there…” She lowered her voice to a whisper, even though her husband could still hear her. “I think it’s the social pressure.”

  “Probably,” I agreed and took another sip.

  This was turning out to be more fun than I’d thought.

  “So, Everson,” Miriam said with a smiling sigh. “I read all about your contributions to the mayor’s eradication program last year. So impressive. And to learn you’re an associate of Winston’s.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Well, not only that, but a friend!”

  I almost choked on my wine. Friend?

  “You can imagine my surprise when he told me, especially since I wasn’t aware he had any friends at the college. Academics and their petty backbiting.” She rolled her eyes at me as though that sort of thing was beneath us. “But Winston tells me you’re a professor of ancient mythology?”

  “Yes.” I paused to cough. “Tenured as of last year, in fact.”

  “Oh, good. History can be such a dry topic. It’s wonderful the students have something more imaginative to engage them. I just love mythology. Those stories endure for a reason, you know.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” I grinned over at Snodgrass, but he was still making every effort to avoid eye contact.

  “Miriam,” he ventured, “if dinner’s still going to be awhile, perhaps Everson can take a look at the problem now?”

  “Really, Winston. Is that any way to treat a guest? There will be plenty of time after dinner.”

  At mention of dinner, my stomach rumbled. I’d had nothing to eat since my one p.m. breakfast at Vega’s. Their chef appeared a moment later to announce the meal was ready, and we proceeded into the next room.

  The four-course meal was top notch. Miriam talked the whole time, mostly about herself, which was fine. I knew the type: socially gracious but wholly self-absorbed. I was content to eat while she went on about her various causes and societies. For his part, Snodgrass picked at his food and said nothing unless prompted, and then as little as possible.

  “So, I understand Winston told you about our cable snafu,” Miriam said as I was polishing off dessert: a fat square of tiramisu and an espresso. She snorted. “He tried to fix it himself, which only made the problem worse, I’m afraid. In any case, someone in your line of work suggested the problem involved the ley energy in the vicinity of the cable box.”

  “I’d be happy to take a look,” I said, setting my desert fork down.

  “Oh, that would be wonderful. Winston, could you…?” she gestured for him to show me.

  He got up and led me through a mudroom and out a back door.

  When we were alone, I said, “I have to tell you, Snodgrass, that was delightful.”

  He ignored the comment and snapped on a floodlight, illuminating the side of the house.

  “It’s over there,” he said, pointing to the cable box.

  “I’ll get right on it … friend.”

  He grunted. “Miriam hears what she wants to hear.”

  “Sure you weren’t trying to impress her?”

  “How long will this take?”

  “As long as it needs to.”

  But I had to hurry. The visit was already going on an hour plus, and I was only on the second loop. The black luck could roll back in at any moment. Opening my wizard’s senses, I squatted in front of the cable box.

  “Huh,” I said.

  “What?”

  The line of ley energy, which should normally have been running along the street—path of least resistance—was bending into the Snodgrass’s yard, right over the cable box. Ley energy and electronics usually coexisted more or less peacefully, but warped like this, the line was causing problems.

  “What?” Snodgrass repeated.

  “Shh,” I said.

  I followed the bulging line along the side yard, through a gate that Snodgrass unlocked, and out into the street. The deviation wasn’t huge, and the ley line not particularly strong, but it was strong enough. I wondered how many other households were experiencing glitches with this or that.

  Returning to the cable box, I said, “I’ve found the issue.”

  “Can you fix it?” Snodgrass asked a little too anxiously.

  By now, it was clear what was going on. As high and mighty as Snodgrass acted at the college, he was scared shitless of his wife. That explained his desperation on Friday as well as tonight.

  “I think so. Is that your bedroom up there?”

  He followed my pointed finger to the second-story window and nodded.

  “Okay, I want you to go up and turn on the TV. When the picture clears, let me know.”

  He nodded again and ran inside.

  Poor bastard, I thought and closed my eyes.

  A moment later, I was aligned with the ley line. I summoned a small force invocation from my cane and walked the line out to the street. I could feel that it didn’t want to stay put, though.

  Digging into a pocket, I pulled out my tube of copper filings. At the edge of the front garden, I made a hole with the end of my cane and poured some of the filings inside. With a chant, I imbued the copper with just enough energy to repel the ley line. Slowly releasing the force invocation, I stepped back. The ley line remained in the street.

  It was still warped, but it no longer ran through the Snodgrass’s yard or cable box. When I had more time, I’d come back and figure out the source of the issue. It was Pierce’s turf, technically, and I wondered if the wayward line had anything to do with the work he’d been doing in the boroughs.

  As I was burying the copper, a knock sounded from the upstairs window. Snodgrass was waving and giving me a thumbs up.

  I waited to see whether I’d closed a second loop or just wasted the last hour. A moment later, the same feeling of lightness came over me that I’d experienced at Mae’s. It had worked.

  Hell, yes.

  27

  “You must come again,” Miriam said at the open front door, seizing my hand a final time and kissing both of my cheeks. She was
overjoyed the cable had been restored—and in time for their evening show. Apparently Snodgrass enjoyed the regency romance serial too.

  “I’d really like that,” I replied. “I had a wonderful time.”

  “How about next month, then? I’ll have Winston give you a date and time.”

  I smiled past her at my chairman. “Perfect.”

  Snodgrass mumbled something about yes, that being very nice, but it was getting late. As desperate as he’d been for me to come, he was even more desperate now that I leave.

  I bade them goodnight. There was no need to make the man suffer more than he already had. But that didn’t mean he was off the hook for the two hundred. As his wife turned, I made the money gesture with the thumb and first two fingers of my right hand. Snodgrass nodded quickly and closed the door. Beyond, I could hear Miriam scolding him for slamming it.

  I passed through the gate and was almost to the cab Miriam had called for me when my pager went off. Vega. I directed the driver to the nearest payphone and had him idle while I made the call.

  “What’s up?” I asked when she answered.

  “A couple of updates. Pierce located the final bag and it’s been neutralized.”

  “That’s great,” I said, meaning it. There had been too many innocent deaths.

  “But he’s still working on Quinton’s location. His painting is telling him Red Hook, and we have the neighborhood surrounded, so it should only be a matter of time before we have him and the necklace. What are you up to?”

  “Tying up some loose ends. Don’t worry, nothing related to the case.” I’d decided to spare her the song and dance about my black luck. It would take too long to explain and she had enough on her plate.

  “Is it something you can step away from for a few minutes?”

  I hadn’t identified a third loop yet, and time was running out. “What do you need?”

  “Well, something came up on Pierce’s painting that might have to do with you. I think it’s what he was talking about yesterday. Anyway, he was wondering if he could discuss it with you.”

  “That wouldn’t be considered interfering?” I asked, allowing some bitterness to enter my tone now.

  “You said you wanted to help,” she reminded me.

  Vega was right, and maybe, just maybe, this qualified as a loop.

  “Does he want me to call him?”

  “He’d prefer to talk to you at his place. He said he could send a car.”

  I paused, my suspicions from earlier rising inside me. Pierce showing up out of the blue, the way he’d meddled with my alarm system, his claim that my magic was interfering with his divination, reporting me to the Order. And now he wanted to talk at his place one on one? If Damien was running some kind of backdoor play, he would need someone up here to help execute it.

  Yeah, but the Order vetted him, I reminded myself.

  Then again, the Order had also sent me Gretchen.

  “Everson?” Vega prompted.

  But damned if this didn’t feel like a third loop. And time was running out. Once the next cycle rolled in, my only option would be to run home and soak in a stasis potion, assuming I made it there.

  “Ah, sure,” I said. “But I’ve got a cab. Tell Pierce I’ll be there in fifteen.”

  “Thanks, Everson. I know this isn’t easy for you.”

  You have no idea, I thought.

  “Let me know what you find,” she said.

  “I will.” I thought about telling Vega to exercise caution with Pierce, but if anything happened to me, she would know where I’d gone. She would exercise that caution as a matter of instinct and training. Love you, I almost added. It wasn’t a term we’d used yet, but it had never felt more natural to say.

  Instead, I said, “Talk to you soon.”

  Climbing back into the cab, I hit my head on the doorway hard enough to see stars. A lifetime spent getting in and out of cabs, and I’d never given myself a partial concussion like that.

  Which suggested the next cycle was rolling in.

  I arrived at Pierce’s on foot after a car rear-ended my cab at a light. Knowing it could have been worse, I paid the shouting cabbie and walked the remaining two blocks wary of every variable around me, moving or static. I still managed to almost get run over by a garbage truck backing from an alleyway at full speed.

  Pierce’s assistant met me at the door. I tried to read her cold eyes and set jaw. Displeasure at Pierce? Then I remembered how I’d spoken to her on the phone the last couple of times I’d called.

  “Pierce is in the studio,” Sora said. “This way.”

  I managed to keep my feet as I followed her down the corridor, but I did knock down a painting when we turned a corner. She frowned at me over a shoulder.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  At last we descended a staircase and entered a large basement room that had been converted into an art studio. Paintings of all sizes and in various states of completion leaned against the walls. Across from me was an especially long painting on an easel. Pierce was facing it, his back to us, a fist propping his chin. He was wearing a white undershirt that showcased his lean, muscular build. A slender brush dangled from his other hand.

  “Mr. Croft is here,” Sora announced.

  Pierce studied the painting for several more seconds before turning.

  “Ah, yes,” he said, as though returning to the here and now. “Thank you, Sora. Come in, Everson.”

  As Sora left us, something told me she wouldn’t be returning with tea this time. As I crossed the threshold, I could feel the magic in the room resonating with the healing magic that still lingered in my system. That was another factor I needed to consider in my suspicion toward Pierce. He could have let me die in the goblin tunnels.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “Much better than last night. Hey, thanks for bailing me out.”

  He gave a modest smile. “Nothing you wouldn’t have done for me. But that’s twice now.”

  “Twice?” When I realized he was referring to the theater, a muscle at the corner of my mouth began to twitch. I hadn’t needed saving that night, but Pierce continued before I could point that out.

  “Yes, but a pity about last night. Your partner no doubt told you we were en route to intercept the perpetrators as they emerged from the tunnels. Who knows? We might have put this whole thing to bed.” He shook his head, then shrugged as if to say, What’s done is done. But I could see in his cool eyes that he was blaming me for the forty killed at the museum that afternoon—or at least trying to make me feel responsible.

  “Funny your paintings didn’t have anything to say about that,” I shot back.

  “Well, like I told the Order, the Himitsu paintings seem to be reacting to your involvement. No hard feelings, I hope.”

  “Oh, cut the crap.”

  He tilted his head in a show of puzzlement.

  “Look, you saved my life, and I’ve thanked you. We’re past that now. Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”

  “Right,” I scoffed. “Mr. Innocent. You cancel my wards, you go to the mayor’s meeting in my place—to ‘help’ me.” I air-quoted the word. “You edge me out of the investigation. You call the Order. Why? And don’t give me any more of your high-bred horseshit.”

  I thought I caught a tensing in Pierce’s neck. He nodded once, set down his paintbrush on the easel, and showed his hands, which were smudged with blue paint. “I assure you, Everson, everything I’ve done has been with either your or the city’s best interest in mind.”

  “My best interest. Really.”

  “All right.” He leveled his gaze at me. “I didn’t want to have to come out and say it, but since you’re so insistent … You’ve done an admirable job in the city, Everson. But you’re in over your head.”

  “This coming from a guy whose ley lines are all over the frigging map.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. The jo
bs I canceled were either unnecessary or beyond your skills. I attended the meeting because I could assure the mayor of success whereas you could only make uninformed promises. When it became clear my Himitsu paintings were reacting to your magic, I had no choice but to call the Order. Your involvement was interfering, prolonging what should have been a one-day ordeal. I know you don’t see it that way, but how could you? I perceive where you can’t. It’s that old sphere and circle analogy. It—”

  Before I could stop myself, I stepped forward and threw a right cross. The black luck must have been as fed up as I was because there were no mishaps. My fist caught him solidly in the jaw. Pierce blinked and staggered back two steps before landing hard on the seat of his pants.

  “I’d like to see a circle do that,” I snarled.

  Pierce stared at me for several moments, then brought the back of his hand to his mouth. There was a little blood on his lower lip.

  If this had been the third loop, I’d just effed it up royally. But I’d gotten something else I’d wanted: an assurance that Pierce wasn’t a danger to Vega or the city. His rationale for why he’d been working against me made more sense than him working for Damien.

  That was before he removed his extensible wand from his back pocket. I fumbled to raise my cane, but he only touched the tip of the wand to his mouth. Faint white energy swirled around the swelling wound.

  “Well,” he said mildly, replacing the wand. “Have you gotten that out of your system?”

  I considered his question, my heart pumping hard and strong. “Yeah,” I decided. “I have.”

  Pierce looked at my offered hand before accepting it. Something in his grip told me he could have flipped and pinned me, but he let me help him up, again without mishap.

  “I wish you had let me finish,” he said as he straightened his shirt. “I was going to commend you on the fact that your investigation led you to the same conclusions as my divinations. I was also going to confess that, despite my earlier misgivings, I need your help.”

  “Oh?” I said lamely.

  Pierce turned to the painting on the easel.

  “This is the work I’ve been divining from,” he said. “Do you recognize it?”