Shadow Duel (Prof Croft Book 9)

by Brad Magnarella

  “So much for organizing,” I muttered, still half dazed.

  I’d been hit by a concussive force, slammed into a wall, and half broiled, and it had all happened fast. Mere seconds from start to finish. Before I could get my bearings, doors opened along the corridor. Professors poked their heads out, some exclaiming over the explosion’s aftermath, while others just peered from behind thick lenses like owls. A couple emerged to check on me.

  “I don’t need an ambulance,” I assured them. “I’m okay.”

  “What’s going on out here?” a new voice called above the alarms.

  “Was okay,” I amended.

  Professor Snodgrass came bustling through the small congregation. He looked from the damage to me and back.

  “What’s this?” he demanded. “What did you do?”

  “I was nearly cooked. Do you want an apology?”

  “No, I want to know who’s responsible for the destruction!”

  I stared, not believing I’d ever felt sorry for this pathetic piece of—

  “Ah, there you are, Everson!” someone called breathlessly. “Are you all right?”

  I turned to see Claudius stumbling toward us as if he’d just been ejected from one of his portals. His presence was an immediate comfort. As he approached, he shook what looked like small slugs from his dyed-black hair, organisms from whatever realm he’d transited through. They dissolved as they struck the floor.

  “I heard the explosion, and then your line went dead,” he said.

  He skipped back from something underfoot, then stooped to pick it up. He handed me my flip phone, which had been blown from my ear during the explosion. I opened it, surprised to find it still worked.

  “Who are you?” Snodgrass asked Claudius.

  The elder member of my order was dressed in a black silk robe that matched his socks and lanky curtains of hair. The fact he’d come straight here, not even sparing a few seconds to step into slippers, moved me. But as far as Snodgrass was concerned, Claudius wasn’t faculty or staff, and he sure as hell wasn’t a student.

  “Oh, ah, I’m an associate of Everson’s,” he replied. “Well, friend, I suppose. You’d consider us friends by now, right?” he asked to be sure.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “How did you even get in here?” Snodgrass demanded, his voice verging on shrill.

  Claudius adjusted his blue-tinted glasses as he peered down at him. Completing his assessment of the man, he brushed a couple stray slugs from his shoulder in Snodgrass’s direction before returning his attention to me.

  “So what happened?” he asked.

  “Booby trap.” Following his example, I sidestepped from Snodgrass. “The moment I turned the key, I felt something trigger, like a sigil. It sucked in the surrounding energy and released it as high-concentration incendiary magic. If I hadn’t summoned a shield, you’d be sweeping me into a dust pan.”

  “Ooh.”

  He ran his gaze down the door frame, paused at the fractured bore space for the bolt, then squatted and searched along the floor. Realizing he was being ignored, Snodgrass scowled and paced off. The other professors peeled away to evacuate.

  “Ah, here it is,” Claudius said at last.

  I took a knee beside him and squinted at the spot on the floor beside his trembling finger. The fire had burned most of it off, but an edge of the sigil remained, under where the door had been. The instant the door moved, it had triggered. But it was fading now as the magic that once sustained it bled away.

  “Hmm, quite powerful,” he remarked.

  “Any idea where it came from?”

  “Drat. I was about to ask you that very question.”

  I lowered my head for a better look. “Do you see this part?” I traced over the edge of the sigil with a fingernail. “It has the same sharp angle as the patterns on the lid of that box I found.”

  I pulled out my phone and snapped the fading markings. I then accessed the photo I’d taken of the box the day before and held it beside the sigil on the floor for Claudius to compare. He frowned as his eyes bounced between the two.

  “Yes, yes, I see what you mean.”

  Claudius’s knees popped as he straightened. He cracked his back for good measure.

  I considered the fading sigil. If it did match to the box, then it was a safe bet that the same person who translocated into my lab yesterday morning just tried to murder me. Was it the same person who murdered Bear Goldburn and returned his body to the secure penthouse?

  “Well, let me take a gander inside the office,” Claudius said, “see if there are any more traps.”

  I warned him to be careful, but he was already picking his way through the destruction. I remained in the corridor and called Vega. It had only been a few minutes since she’d dropped me off, and she was still driving.

  “Miss me already?” she teased.

  “I’m going to preface this by saying I’m okay—”

  “Why?” she cut in. “What happened?”

  “The door to my office was booby-trapped with fire magic. The fire’s out, and like I said, I’m fine.” I glanced over a bare arm. Though it was still as red as a slapped ham, the wounds were closing. “The fire department is on the way, but I want the Sup Squad taking lead on the investigation.” The last thing I needed was someone treating this like a mundane case, something Vega understood as well.

  “I’ll make the call as soon as we’re done. Any idea who set the trap?”

  “There might be a connection to the box I found. As well as to Bear Goldburn’s murder.”

  I didn’t share the very disturbing idea that someone other than the Order had removed the box from my lab. The thought of an intruder breaching my protective wards while Tony was home made me sick to my stomach. I could only imagine what it would do to Vega. I would tell her, just not now.

  “Goldburn’s murder?” she echoed. “Maybe you’re closer to the truth than you thought.”

  “Maybe,” I allowed. “In the meantime, I think it would be a good idea for Mae to take Tony up to her place until we can figure out what’s going on.”

  “Wouldn’t the apartment be safer?”

  “I don’t know who or what we’re dealing with. If they came after me here, they could try the same there.”

  “All right. But you’re sure you’re okay?”

  The don’t bullshit me came through loud and clear.

  “I might’ve caught on fire a little, but everything’s healing. My coat didn’t make it, though.”

  “Coats can be replaced. In fact, I was getting ready to burn that one myself.”

  “I thought that might cheer you up.”

  “I could never replace you, though,” she said, turning serious again. “I know you’re trying to live up to your responsibilities, but you’re a target now. Ask for whatever you need, whether it’s from the Order, the city, or me. I mean it.”

  “I hear you, and I will.”

  By the time police and fire arrived, Claudius had completed his inspection of my office. He padded over in wet socks to where I’d gathered the members of the Sup Squad. Clad in their formidable gear, they’d listened attentively to my account, their leader entering the info on a forearm tablet built into his suit.

  “Well,” Claudius said, dusting his hands off as he arrived among us. “No more sigils or traps.”

  “Any evidence of how the perp came or went?” I asked. Though Claudius had forgotten much of his magic over the years, he remained a pro in translocating. He was light years beyond me in that area.

  “Some distortions,” he replied, “but those probably resulted from the release of energy. I’ll need to check back after things settle down.”

  “And tell the Order I need to talk to them ASAP.”

  “Of course, of course. Well, if that’s all for now, I should probably get back to the phones.”

  Smiling, Claudius rapped a knuckle against a Sup Squad member’s chest plate, then signed an opening into the wall beside hi
m. A force sucked him through the portal and closed again. Though the Squad members looked at one another, they refrained from comment. Another reason I’d wanted them.

  As a pair of explosives experts went into the office to begin evidence-collecting, I turned to the Squad leader, a thick-built guy named Trevor whom I’d helped train when he was a member of the Hundred.

  “What do you need from me?” I asked.

  He pointed out the hallway’s cameras. “I arranged for campus security to pull the footage for the last twenty-four hours. Let’s go take a look, see if anything stands out.”

  By the time Trevor and I arrived at the office of campus security, a young woman was awaiting us at a large monitor.

  “No activity around the door until about an hour ago,” she said.

  “Let’s see it,” Trevor said.

  As he and I took positions on either side of her, she started the recording from where it was paused. On the black-and-white feed, a figure entered from screen right. He stopped at my door, knocked, then appeared to try the knob. He brought a backpack around to his front, and for the next minute squatted with his back to the feed, arms working. As I watched, an ice floe grew in my stomach.

  “Recognize him?” Trevor asked.

  “He’s a student here,” I said. “His name’s Sven Roe.”

  12

  The security officer replayed the segment twice more. The feed was clear enough that there was no doubt. It was Sven’s build, Sven’s hair, Sven’s manner of moving. And he was wearing the dark pack I’d seen over his shoulder that morning. The same pack he’d hiked up and sped away with when I called his name.

  “Sven Roe,” I repeated. “R-O-E.”

  I wrote his name in all caps in my notepad, ripped the page out, and handed it to Trevor.

  While he called it in, a campus security officer left to pull Sven’s registration info. I asked the young woman to fast-forward to the blast. She slowed to quarter speed as my recorded self neared the office, phone to my ear.

  “Can you zoom in on the bottom half of the door?” I asked.

  Just as the door started to move, I spotted a distortion in the space near my right foot, like a tiny jet of released gas. The sigil triggering. A moment later the fireball was erupting into the corridor.

  I had her zoom out again as it enveloped me.

  “How did you even survive that?” she asked.

  “Magic,” I said absently, prompting a surprised laugh.

  For the next few seconds, my actions on screen were engulfed in fire and steam. I thought about the incendiary circle Sven had drawn and left on my desk the day before. A brazen act of foreshadowing?

  “There’s no Sven Roe in the system,” the returning officer said. “Are you sure he’s a student here?”

  Still dazed by the events and revelations of the morning, it took me a moment to process what he’d said. “I guess not,” I replied at last. “He showed up to my class, but I never checked to see if he was registered.”

  “Nothing on him in the city computers either,” Trevor said, handing the torn-out page back to me. “Is that the right spelling?”

  “That’s what he told me,” I said, looking over the name I’d written down. I stopped. “Wait a sec.” Taking my pencil, I drew a mark through the first E in his name, then crossed out the V right before it. I continued, mouthing the remaining letters. At N, there were no more letters to strike out.

  “Son of a bitch,” I muttered.

  “What is it?” Trevor asked.

  Still shaking my head, I wrote another name beneath the one Sven had given me and held it up for Trevor to see.

  “‘Sven Roe’ is just a rearrangement of the letters in my name: ‘Everson.’”

  So not only had the little shit just tried to burn me to a crisp, he’d been toying with me. I remembered too how he’d offered to show me his ID after class yesterday to prove his age. More toying.

  As Trevor took the paper back, I pressed a knuckle to my bottom lip, vaguely aware of how absurd I looked in my sleeveless coat and singed pants. But I was too preoccupied with this latest piece of the puzzle to care.

  What was Sven doing? How was he mixed up in this? Of course if the perp were assuming different forms—something I’d considered following the scrying spell—Sven wasn’t mixed up in anything.

  He was this.

  Could explain why he targeted me.

  But no, the timeline was off. He’d shown up in my class before the scrying spell—hell, before Hoffman had even brought me in on the case. Had he anticipated my involvement and wanted to keep tabs on me? If so, the incendiary circle may have been meant to pique my interest. Perhaps enough to take him on as an apprentice, even share details of the case I was working on. But with the scrying spell, maybe I’d gotten too close to something he hadn’t wanted me to see. Hence the fireball.

  Vega may have been right about that.

  “Do we have any leads to his real identity?” Trevor asked.

  That was the key question, the one that would begin to unlock the others. But how to find him? With something of his, I could attempt a hunting spell. But the only tangible item I could come up with was the sigil he’d drawn under the door, which had conveniently disappeared right after the attack.

  “I’ll show you where he sat in my classroom yesterday,” I said. “Also, if your explosives guys detect any unusual residue in the office, let me know. The composition could give us a clue.” I turned to the young woman at the monitor. “In the meantime, can you follow his movements this morning?”

  “Sure, just about everywhere but the classrooms.” She was already pulling up an adjacent feed.

  “It’s a long shot, but look for anything he might have dropped or set down. Also, anyone he talked to.”

  “And grab a decent image with his face,” Trevor put in. “We’ll need it to canvas the campus and post for the public.”

  “Post what for the public?” a gruff voice asked.

  Detective Hoffman entered the office in the same crumpled brown suit from the night before, his wreath of hair in disarray. He was also lurching to one side. When he rounded a desk, I saw why. A cumbersome orthopedic boot encased his right foot—the same foot he’d used to kick the filing cabinet at the body shop.

  This was not going to be pleasant.

  “There was an attempt on Everson’s life,” Trevor started to explain.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Hoffman waved an irritable hand. “Vega already told me, and I read the report from your team.” He trained his bloodshot eyes on me, the fleshy bags underneath confirming the man was on no sleep. “You think this is related to the Goldburn case?”

  “Are you still on it?” I asked to be sure.

  “Yeah, no thanks to you. Anything I can use here?”

  That was surprisingly tame for Hoffman, which suggested Vega was right again: Mayor Lowder wanted to keep me involved.

  “Possibly,” I hedged, having learned my lesson from the night before. “The sigil that triggered the explosion had markings that I saw on an enchanted box I recovered yesterday.”

  “So?”

  “The same box was stolen from my lab later in the day.”

  “Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.”

  “Possibly through translocation,” I continued. “And there are strong suggestions translocation was involved in Goldburn’s murder.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see about that,” he muttered.

  “Anyway, this guy who was posing as my student planted the explosive.” I pointed to the monitor. “We don’t have a name, so Trevor was talking about getting an image of his face to show the public.”

  I expected some kind of pushback, but Hoffman squinted at the footage for another moment before nodding. “Can you handle the campus canvassing?” he asked Trevor, who replied in the affirmative. “Good, get me two or three good images and send them to my office. They’ll take care of the media outreach. Can I have a word, Croft?”

  I followed him as he limped to a rem
ote corner of the room.

  “All right, look,” he said. “For both our sakes, we’re just gonna forget about last night. I don’t know what kind of magic juice you were tripping on, or what you thought you saw, but here’s the thing.” He glanced around before lowering his voice. “You might’ve been onto something with that lawyer friend.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “We’ve been going over the security footage from Goldburn’s building. The doorman’s helping us, a guy who’s been on the job twenty-odd years. Has his own apartment on the ground floor and everything. Anyway, the medical examiner narrowed the time of death to an eight-hour window between Friday night and Saturday morning. All the traffic in and out around that time was other residents and their visitors—the doorman knows ’em by name. No one came for Goldburn, but the camera caught him leaving Friday night. Switch to the outdoor cam, and guess who’s picking him up?”

  “Vince Cole?” I asked.

  “Vince fucking Cole,” Hoffman confirmed. “And neither one came back. Based on the examiner’s report and the footage, we secured a search warrant for Cole’s home and office. A good one this time, one that frigging suit can’t fight.” Hoffman looked so smug, I hesitated to share what I was thinking.

  “You need to be extra sure it was him.”

  Hoffman’s face darkened. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s magic that can change someone’s appearance, make them a dead ringer for someone else. Don’t get mad, but a few years ago I used your likeness to enter the Financial District. All it took was a tuft of your hair.”

  “You did what?”

  I’d been holding onto that nugget for a while now, and I would be lying if I said a part of me didn’t relish his outrage. “My point is that the person you thought you saw on the camera may not have been him.”

  “Goddamned magic-users,” he grumbled. “Well, we’ve got the warrant anyway. We’ll see what turns up.”

  “What did the tox report say?”

  Hoffman shook his head. “No poisons or drugs in his system at the time of death. Just alcohol. High levels, but nothing lethal.”