Shadow Duel (Prof Croft Book 9)

by Brad Magnarella

  “Stomach contents?”

  “Normal dinner-type crap.”

  “Can you get me a sample?”

  His swollen eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “I know you want to forget about the body shop, but what if my scrying spell didn’t crap the bed? No, just hear me out. Cole, or someone who’s assumed his form, picks up Bear from the apartment. They go to that bar and commiserate over Bear getting canned as CEO. All consistent with the evidence so far, right? When they leave, Cole has Bear drink something. Now what if it had a hallucinogenic effect, making Bear see and experience something that never happened? A scrying spell on a dead person isn’t an objective record—it shows what that person thought happened. Clearly, Bear was never at the body shop. He ended up somewhere else, where someone took his kidneys and then transported him back to his apartment.”

  “What’s that got to do with his stomach?”

  “If I can isolate what he drank, I might be able to track it.”

  I watched the understanding dawn in Hoffman’s spent eyes. “All right, I’ll arrange for you to go over there and do your thing. Might take a couple hours to set up. In the meantime, be looking for this guy.”

  “Who, Sven?”

  “Might be a connection to the case, might not. Either way, we’ve got him on attempted murder. And if he’s throwing around fireballs, I’d damned sure rather it be you chasing him than me. Use the Sup Squad. I’ve got plenty to follow up on with Cole. Plus, it means I don’t have to deal with you.”

  “Thanks.”

  He paused to look over my battered, half-torched state. “You all right?”

  “Yeah.” I gestured to his orthopedic boot. “How about you?”

  He lifted it up a couple inches. “Metatarsal fracture. Four to six weeks. But wanna know something funny? Seeing you like this makes me feel a whole lot better about myself.” His lips bent into a grin as he set the boot down again.

  I snorted. “Glad I could help.”

  “Now go find the bastard.”

  13

  By the time I swapped for a fresh outfit, the explosives experts completed their analysis of my office. Trevor gave me the report. No conventional material, as expected, but they detected trace amounts of lurite.

  “Mean anything to you?” he asked.

  I’d helped develop the NYPD’s protocols for supernatural investigations and apprehensions. I’d also advised on their particle detection systems and what to look for. To date, the Sup Squad had only needed me a couple times to interpret findings. Both times I had quick answers, but this one was going to take a little research.

  “Mind stepping into my temporary office?” I asked, opening the door to the faculty restroom from which I’d just emerged.

  Trevor frowned slightly before following. Double-checking to ensure we had it to ourselves, I locked the door and made a sign near the lockers. A small portal opened to my interplanar cubbyhole. I felt inside until my hand closed around an old alchemy book.

  “Let’s see…” I flipped open the gold-leaf pages of Verum Alchimia. “Lurite… Lurite….”

  Trevor stood at attention beside the urinals, making a good show of accepting our meeting space as normal.

  “Aha,” I said, stopping and scanning a half page of dense text. “Lurite is a byproduct of a reaction between silver and red tanzanite.” Meaning both had been components in the sigil that produced the fireball.

  “What’s tanzanite?” he asked.

  “A rare mineral, which helps us a lot. The red variety is hard to score.”

  “Know any suppliers around here?”

  “No, but I know someone who might.” Out of habit, I reached for my coat, which I usually draped over a stall when I changed in the faculty restroom, but I’d stuffed the burnt thing in the trash can. I checked that I had my cane and plastic bag of spell implements before unlocking the door. “I’m going to take a trip to talk to him. Let me know if the footage or canvassing turns up anything on Sven.”

  I avoided Snodgrass and the bevy of administrators clucking away outside my office and exited through the front doors of the college. I was scanning the busy street for a cab when a Hummer pulled up, the passenger window sliding down. A familiar goblin’s face leaned over the steering wheel.

  “Everson!” Bree-yark called.

  I hustled to the curb. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

  “I tried calling earlier, but I hit your wife’s number by mistake. She told me what happened. Thought you might need a little backup.”

  “I’m just about to run some errands in the city.”

  “Sounds good,” he said. “Get your scrawny butt in here.”

  Despite the immense stress I was under, I smiled. Once Bree-yark got it into his head he had a friend in need, there was no discouraging him. Plus, he was good company. I climbed into the passenger seat.

  “Where to?” he asked, lurching the large vehicle into traffic.

  “I’m headed to Chinatown, but let’s swing by the cleaners first. I need to pick up the coat I dropped off yesterday.”

  “You got it. So, a giant fireball, huh?”

  “Yeah, helluva way to start the day.” I filled him in on what had happened. The visor on my side was down, and as I talked, my gaze kept returning to the mirror. My right eyebrow had been singed to the roots, along with much of the hair on that side of my head. I pushed the visor back up as I finished.

  “Just wait’ll I get my hands on that little punk,” Bree-yark scowled.

  “We’ll have to find him first. How are you doing, by the way?”

  “Me? Fine.” He glanced over. “Why?”

  “We were worried about you yesterday.”

  “Oh, that.” He let out an embarrassed laugh. “Just got a little light headed. My electrolytes have been out of whack. Keep meaning to buy some of that Pedialyte. In fact, I think I clipped a coupon the other day…” He reached across me, his short arm coming a foot shy of the glove compartment.

  “Bree-yark, it’s me,” I said. “You can talk about it if you want.”

  Grunting, he withdrew his arm. “What’s there to talk about?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. You and Mae?”

  He gave me a panicked look. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

  “Of course not,” I said, relieved he didn’t ask if I’d told anyone. I doubted he knew the rule about cones of silence extending to spouses. He sat back in his seat and squinted over the steering wheel for the next block.

  “I don’t know if I’ve got it in me, Everson,” he said at last.

  “What, popping the question?”

  His arms went rigid as if he were on the verge of a seizure. I moved into position, ready to grab the wheel if he passed out again, but the alarm in his eyes dimmed after another moment, and he raised a hand to show me he was all right. He pounded his chest twice before returning his hand to the wheel.

  “Yeah,” he rasped. “Popping the question.”

  “Why, though? You’re braver than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “Not with this stuff. In my mind right now I’d rather challenge a wereboar to a pit fight than ask the most wonderful woman on Earth or Faerie to take me as her lawfully wedded. Is that messed up or what?”

  “She’s not going to say no.”

  “It’s not that. It’s the thought of asking. It builds and builds in my head. I start playing out all these scenarios, what could go wrong. My heart gets to racing, and next thing I know, I’m picking myself up off the floor.”

  “There are potions I could prepare, something to take the edge off.”

  “But then where would it end? Nah, if I’m going to do this, I need it to be clean, with a clear head. Not that I don’t appreciate the offer.”

  “No, I understand.”

  “Did you get like this when you asked Ricki?”

  “In the leadup I was anxious, yeah. But the moment itself was so spontaneous I forgot about all of that.”

  I went back to tha
t moment seven months earlier. I had just returned from defeating Malphas, and Star had just slain the demon-vampire Arnaud Thorne. Except for the fact I’d been in one of Claudius’s silk gowns, or that the room smelled faintly of undead, the moment couldn’t have been more perfect.

  “Spontaneous, huh?” Bree-yark said. “Sort of like ripping a bandage from a dried axe gash?”

  “Not the analogy I would have gone with, but … sort of?”

  “Hmm. That’s not a bad idea, Everson. Not bad at all.”

  “The point is to try not to think about it, and when the moment presents itself—”

  “Rip!” Bree-yark declared with a triumphant smile.

  “Rip,” I agreed.

  We picked up my coat from the cleaners, then drove back along Central Park South. After almost two years, Mayor Lowder had finally secured the funding to complete his massive restoration project, and for the first time since its napalming, the park to our left was green with freshly planted trees, sod, and other growing things. The full park wouldn’t be open for another year, but giant banners reminded everyone that the highly anticipated “Concert on the South Lawn” was scheduled for the following weekend.

  Budge was determined to prove that New York City was back, baby.

  In Chinatown, I called out the turns to Bree-yark, and before long we were pulling up in front of Mr. Han’s Apothecary.

  “Feel free to keep the engine running,” I told him. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  “Everson, there’s a guy out there trying to incinerate you.” He gave the emergency brake a decisive tug. “I’m going in too.”

  “All right, but, you know—”

  “Control myself? I’m as calm as a clam.”

  A sharp tring sounded as I opened the door off the busy sidewalk. Bree-yark followed me into the maze-like shop of shelves packed with tonics, dried insects, and medicinal ingredients, much of it good for spell-casting. My gaze lingered on a bag of lizard tongues. Could actually use some of those.

  “That Mr. Croft?” an accented voice asked.

  I finished turning the corner until I was facing the store’s socked-in register. Behind it, a late middle-aged man with jet-black hair was counting out money, his collarless shirt buttoned to the chin.

  “Hey, Mr. Han,” I said. “Been awhile. How are you?”

  I’d been a little nervous about coming here. On my last visit, the year before, I’d triggered a smoke golem, and the ensuing battle had destroyed half his shop. I could still see burn marks along the ceiling.

  But Mr. Han gave his standard response. “Oh, you know, just chilling out.” He finished counting the money, tapped it into neat stacks, and placed the stacks in the register drawer. “How can help you? Have special on blue beetle dung today. Five dollar for five nugget. Vacuum packed. Very, very fresh.”

  “I might take a look at that. Oh, this is my friend, Bree-yark.”

  “I hope he is not here to rent room.”

  The last friend of mine to have rented the room above the shop was Jason, also known as the Blue Wolf, and it ended up trashed and bloodied. “No, Bree-yark’s just keeping me company while I run errands.”

  Mr. Han glanced up, then did a double take. “Ahh. He is goblin, yes?”

  “Born and bred,” Bree-yark snarled. He turned from the blowfish sac he’d been prodding and pushed up his sleeves. “Got a problem with that?”

  My hand met his heaving chest. “Calm as a clam, remember?”

  “No problem,” Mr. Han said. “Just want to know if you are selling ears.”

  “My ears?”

  “I pay top dollar.”

  “Is that all my kind is to you?” he roared. “Something you can hack parts off of whenever it suits your bottom line?”

  “You misunderstood him,” I grunted, struggling to restrain his compact body. “He said hairs, not ears.”

  “Yes, yes, your hears,” Mr. Han said, putting more emphasis on the h this time. “They are very good medicine for, how you say, the heartbreaking?”

  “Oh.” Bree-yark stopped. “So… how much we talking?” He smoothed the thin strands atop his head as if readying them for market.

  As the two began negotiating, I took a basket and made a quick circuit of the shop, picking out ingredients I was low on as well as several for spells I might need. By the time I returned to the register, Mr. Han was placing Bree-yark’s hairs in an envelope and Bree-yark was flipping through a sheaf of small bills.

  “How come you never told me about this place?” he asked, smiling with his sharp teeth. “It’s a frigging gold mine.”

  “Best prices in city too,” Mr. Han put in.

  As he began ringing up my items, I said, “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know where someone can get red tanzanite, do you?”

  “Why want red tanzanite?”

  I had to be careful. Though you wouldn’t have known it to look at him, Mr. Han was connected to various illicit enterprises in the city. The Chinatown mafia, for one. Not only did Mr. Han pay the boss, Bashi, a protection tax, but his son had gotten involved with his White Hand enforcers. Mr. Han also dealt in specialty weapons and ammo, not all of them street legal. Meaning he was tied into at least one, but probably several, underground suppliers. That was all to say there were things that Mr. Han couldn’t disclose, whether for personal safety or his own personal code, probably both.

  “I’m not looking to buy,” I said. “I actually—”

  “Ninety-two dollar, forty-eight cents,” he declared.

  “Oh, the bill.” I paid him in cash. He took his time counting out the change and placing my items into a paper bag, which he folded over neatly. “So, about that tanzanite,” I said. “There are certain spells that only red tanzanite can power, and I guess I’m looking for a place I can score some in an emergency.”

  “I don’t understand you,” he said.

  “No?”

  “Not with all that bullshit in your mouth.”

  Bree-yark laughed, prompting Mr. Han to slide him a smile.

  “It is no problem, Mr. Croft,” he said, releasing a hearty laugh himself now. “You want tanzanite, I get it for you. Four hundred dollar, one ounce.”

  Damn, he wasn’t going to give up the supplier.

  “Listen,” Bree-yark cut in. “Someone tried to blow Everson to shit this morning, and the main ingredient was red tanzanite. We just want to know where the jerkoff got it so we can find and stomp him to a pulp. That’s all. The supplier’s not gonna be in any trouble, and neither are you. Our lips are sealed. Aren’t they, Everson?”

  I looked from him to Mr. Han in horror. The man’s face had gone blank. What he was thinking, I couldn’t begin to guess. I’d never been that blunt about his criminal connections. I braced for him to throw us out of his shop, maybe even order us to never come back.

  “I tell you for goblin nails,” he said suddenly.

  “Bree-yark’s fingernails?” I asked to be sure I’d heard right. “I don’t know…”

  “It’s cool,” Bree-yark said, then whispered to me, “I’m actually overdue a trim.”

  Mr. Han disappeared behind a curtain and reappeared with a pair of guillotine clippers. I watched to make sure he was only removing the ends of the spike-shaped talons and not the entire things.

  “So what miracle cure are these used for?” Bree-yark asked proudly as Mr. Han placed each nail carefully into a bag.

  “Very good for, how you say, the genital itching?”

  Bree-yark’s ears sagged. “Are they ground into a salve or something?”

  “No, no. I glue them to stick.”

  Bree-yark’s ears drooped further as he looked over his remaining nails. “Hear that, Everson? These are going to be scratching someone’s junk.”

  When Mr. Han finished, he placed the clippers and bag of clippings into a fanny pack, then lowered his head. I instinctively did the same. Bree-yark shuffled forward until our brows were nearly touching.

  “One place in city have re
d tanzanite,” Mr. Han whispered. “Gowdie’s.”

  “That’s the only place?” I asked from our huddle. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, only place.”

  “Crap,” I muttered.

  14

  “What’s the problem?” Bree-yark asked as we returned outside.

  “Gowdie’s is an antique store owned by three sisters. Three hag sisters.”

  “Fae hags?” When I nodded, he said, “Crap is right, then.”

  Had we been dealing with a mortal supplier, there would have been ways to get the info from them, possibly nothing more than my wizard’s voice. But the frigging Gowdies? I sighed. Besides being powerful, the three were nasty as all get out. They made the Gray Sisters from mythology look like the Golden Girls.

  “In my novice years of magic-using,” I said, “when I didn’t know any better, I went to their place looking for a rare root. I still have nightmares.”

  “Did they threaten you or something?”

  “Let’s just leave it at ‘or something.’” I didn’t care to revisit the episode.

  When Bree-yark fell silent, I looked over to find him eyeing the scattered bristles on his head in the Hummer’s side mirror. “This is actually a half decent cut,” he remarked. “And to think it cures heartbreak.”

  “Between that and your nails, you’ve got relationships covered.”

  “Ha, ha,” he deadpanned, stepping back from the mirror. “So, what’s the plan?”

  I was blowing out my breath when someone exclaimed, “Boys?”

  Down the crowded sidewalk, a colorful parasol bobbed toward us. A familiar nose protruded from its shade.

  “Speaking of hags,” I muttered at the same time Bree-yark said, “What’s she doing here?”

  Gretchen arrived in front of us, fanning her face with a gloved hand. She was wearing a flowing kaftan dress, and her face looked way too cheerful. “There you are!”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be on your world tour?” I asked.

  “Yes, well, it’s been postponed.”

  “Really. What a shame.”

  As I’d suspected, there had never been any trip. The whole thing had been a ruse to stoke Bree-yark’s jealousy. Having gotten a reaction yesterday, Gretchen was here to push her advantage, but I’d be damned if I was going to allow her another fainting goblin.