Shadow Duel (Prof Croft Book 9)

by Brad Magnarella

  “Well, great seeing you,” I said. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we have work to do.”

  “Well, duh. Why do you think I tracked you down? The Order wants me to assist on your case.”

  I stopped and turned. “You’re going to assist?”

  She nodded agreeably.

  “On my case?”

  “Did a bird poop on my face? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because you’ve never willingly helped me on any of my cases ever.”

  “Oh, pshaw.” She looked over at Bree-yark. “He’s always exaggerating.”

  Bree-yark grunted noncommittally. I could only imagine his discomfort, but I was revisiting my conversation with Claudius from earlier. When he told me someone would be in touch had he meant Gretchen?

  “So, how are you going to help?” I asked, testing her.

  “For starters, I have some news on the box.” She began digging inside her handbag, but it was too awkward with the parasol. “Here, make yourself useful,” she snapped, handing me the frilly thing. As I took it, she produced a smartphone and began thumbing the screen clumsily. I’d never seen her use one and suspected she’d bought it as a trendy accessory. Confirming my hunch, she scowled and threw the phone back in her bag.

  “The markings on the lid are from an ancient cult in Attica,” she said impatiently. “They were devoted to the worship of Hermes.”

  “The Greek god?”

  “Well, I don’t mean the little fellow who turns tricks on Forty-second. And you were right—some of the glyphs were designed to animate available material into a guardian. So there’s your garbage monster.”

  “Any clues as to what was inside?”

  “Hold your crackers. I have my suspicions, but it could be any number of scripts or old relics. It would’ve helped if you’d been able to hold onto the thing. I’m still trying to figure out how you let someone snatch it from under your nose.” She was becoming the Gretchen I knew and dreaded, but I turned hopeful.

  “Any leads?”

  “Well, I took a trip to your lab this morning.”

  “Funny, I didn’t get a call that you were coming.”

  “Don’t worry, no one was home.” That wasn’t the point, but I let it pass. “Well, except for your cat. Moody thing. Anyway, your defenses could use some work, but those don’t appear to have been the problem.”

  “No?” I asked, confused.

  “There were no breaches.”

  “How is that possible?”

  She shrugged. “Beats the stuffing out of me. When we find who took it, we can ask them. I’d sure like to know.”

  “Well, you’re in luck,” I said. “We have a lead, but it takes us through Gowdie’s Antiques. I could use your help with them.”

  “Oh, I’d love to, but…” She peered around and cried, “Yoo-hoo!”

  I followed her fluttering fingers to a large man across the street. He was dressed in an Italian suit tailored to show off his broad shoulders and trim waist. A fedora hat shaded his face. When Gretchen waved for him to come over, he lifted the half dozen shopping bags in each hand to indicate his load.

  She giggled. “Enzo insisted on buying me gifts while we were down here.”

  “That’s Enzo?” I asked.

  “Well, I better get going. We have a reservation for lunch. At Le Bernardin,” she added, glancing down at Bree-yark. “I’ll be in touch.”

  She reclaimed her parasol, air-kissed my cheeks and then Bree-yark’s, and pranced across the street, nearly getting leveled by a taxi. Seeming to remember something, she returned, barely avoiding death a second time.

  “Arianna was sorry she couldn’t come herself,” she said, “but she wanted me to remind you to listen to your magic. She has a lot more faith in you than I do.”

  She peered over at Bree-yark as if to gauge his reaction a second time before hustling off. Safely across the street, she took her man’s arm, and they disappeared into the crowd beneath the bobbing parasol.

  Bree-yark squinted after them.

  “Well, that wasn’t weird or anything,” I said, trying to chuckle it off.

  But Bree-yark didn’t appear to want to talk about it. He gave his haircut a final critical look in the mirror and turned to me.

  “So, what’s the call?” he asked.

  What choice did we have?

  “Gowdie’s,” I muttered.

  15

  The sisters’ antique store was located in the tidal wetlands on Long Island. Bree-yark pulled into a gravel lot facing a collection of ramshackle buildings on wooden stilts and connected by boardwalks.

  “Place reeks,” he remarked.

  “Probably as much from the sisters as the marsh,” I said. “They are swamp hags.”

  “Reminds me of the time my battalion was on a night march through the Ungling Bog. Our lead was this goblin named Cuirk. Strange kid, but had a nose like you wouldn’t believe. Anyway, it was coming on midnight when we heard him shout, ‘Hag!’ The rest of us scattered. Never did see Cuirk again, though a salamander turned up at camp that night and wouldn’t leave. Might’ve been coincidence, but who knows? We kept the thing just in case.”

  I finished activating a pair of pre-made potions, popped the tops off, and handed one to Bree-yark.

  His nostrils wrinkled from the steam. “What’s this?”

  “Neutralizing potion,” I said. “So we don’t end up like Cuirk.”

  He shrugged and drank it down. I grabbed the empty tube before he could chuck it out the window, then drank mine. As the potion tingled through my system, I checked my coat pockets to ensure my casting implements were at hand before grabbing my cane.

  “Ready?”

  “Yeah,” he grunted, tightening the buckle of a blade strapped to his lower leg.

  We made our way down the warped boardwalk toward the main building. Bree-yark was right about the stench. It was rank, and the midday sun on the stagnant water wasn’t helping. Farther back in the reeds, I spotted three squat houses. In addition to their antiques business, the sisters also called the swamp home.

  At the door to the main building, I stopped between a pair of potted shrubs and turned to Bree-yark. Though he hadn’t brought it up on the ride here, I could tell the encounter with Gretchen and her boyfriend had bothered him. And there was no telling how that might manifest under stress.

  “Listen, there can’t be any outbursts,” I said. “Not with these three. I’m going to have my hands full as it is.”

  “No, no, I get it.”

  We’d discussed the plan on the way here. It basically amounted to me taking the brunt of their viciousness until they wearied and told me what they wanted in exchange for the info on the tanzanite. That they would want something was guaranteed. And it wouldn’t be hair and fingernail clippings.

  “With any luck, two are out sick today,” I muttered.

  “No, they’re all here,” someone said. “Unfortunately.”

  Bree-yark and I looked around, but we were the only ones on the boardwalk.

  “A little lower.”

  “Holy thunder!” Bree-yark exclaimed, jumping back.

  The voice was coming from the scraggly two-foot-tall shrub to the right of the door. Except for appearing in need of water, it looked commonplace. I couldn’t even see where a mouth would go.

  I followed Bree-yark’s gaze to the other shrub.

  “That one doesn’t talk,” the first shrub said. “Just me.”

  “Must be some sort of enchanted growth,” I told Bree-yark. “Probably for security.”

  “I wish,” the shrub said. “No, a few months back I tried to haggle the sisters down on a rocking chair. They didn’t react very well.”

  “They turned you into this for trying to haggle?” Bree-yark asked, incredulous.

  “Well, I was being sort of an ass about it.”

  “Do you have a name?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but I forget it now. Plant memory isn’t the same
as human. Doug, I think. Anyway, I overheard you talking about the sisters, and I wanted to warn you that they’re in a really weird mood today. Might want to come back another time.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Bree-yark said, jerking his eyes back toward the lot.

  “Unfortunately, we need something from them,” I said. “And it’s time sensitive.”

  Doug blew out his breath.

  “Any advice?” Bree-yark asked.

  “You want advice from a shrub? I mean, what can I say? Don’t be me?”

  I lowered my voice. “Listen, I have friends in the magical community who might be able to restore you.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I may not remember my old life, but I know I’m a lot less stressed. And my buddy over there isn’t bad company.” Bree-yark and I followed his subtle twist to the other shrub. It was half dead and listing to one side.

  “Can we at least get you some water?” Bree-yark asked.

  “A Diet Coke would be nice, actually. Haven’t had one of those in ages. There’s a machine in the store.”

  “You’ve got it,” I said. “Well… good meeting you, Doug.”

  “Yeah,” Bree-yark put in. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “Be careful,” he called.

  We entered the main building. The large space was filled from floor to ceiling with furniture, framed paintings, vintage collectibles, and memorabilia—everything well organized and in excellent condition. Thanks to hag magic, it was also illusory. Within a year of the purchase of a Gowdie rarity, the varnish would start to thin, the paint to flake, and rot to set in. Just enough time that the buyer would question their own care for the now-worthless item rather than blame the sisters.

  The hags also dealt in hard-to-find ingredients, but those they didn’t dare sully. Most magic types would spot the fraud and peg the blame where it actually belonged. The sisters hadn’t remained in business for more than a century by pissing off customers they couldn’t turn into shrubs.

  “Place is kinda cool,” Bree-yark said. “I mean, enchantments aside.”

  A door opened in back, and ominous footsteps approached. The elderly sisters had been wearing Victorian-era funeral dresses the last time I was here, so I expected something similar. Definitely not the prep school diva who stepped into view.

  She was wearing knee high socks with a pleated green skirt and matching jacket. Blond hair fell neatly past her shoulders. But it was the face that nailed it. Besides the teenage smoothness, she’d mastered the snobbishness. Her two sisters fell in behind her, both similarly glamoured, though with brunette and auburn hair to accent their own bitch-faces.

  “Weird is right,” Bree-yark muttered, recalling what Doug had said.

  The lead hag looked me up and down critically. “Can I help you?” she demanded in a Valley Girl voice.

  “It’s Everson,” I said.

  She squinted before the angles of her face softened, and she broke into a brilliant smile. “Everson Croft? Where have you been, babe? It’s been, like, forevs.”

  “Grizela,” I said in greeting, then nodded at the other two. “Elspeth. Minna.” I recognized the hags by their auras, each a slightly different shade of bile. While Grizela continued with her charade of false friendliness, the two sisters rolled their eyes and smacked gum. I didn’t know if they’d binged on the rack of VHS teen flicks I’d seen on the way in, but they’d mastered the mannerisms.

  “And who’s your friend?” Grizela asked.

  “I’m Bree-yark,” he grunted from behind me.

  “A goblin, huh?” Grizela’s smile hardened. “If we could boil the wrinkles out, he’d make a killer handbag.”

  I braced for Bree-yark’s return shot, but he wisely stayed back and kept his mouth shut. I was guessing that if the salamander story hadn’t sufficiently spooked him, Doug’s life as a poorly watered plant had. Grizela’s piercing gaze remained on him as if gauging the impact of her arrow before returning to me.

  “So,” she said. “Where were we?”

  “Oh!” Elspeth chimed in. “The last time we were talking about his—”

  “Listen,” I interrupted, pushing power into my wizard’s voice. “I’m looking for someone who may have purchased red tanzanite from you.”

  The sisters broke into a bout of mocking laughter I hadn’t heard since high school.

  “Name your price for the info,” I pressed. “I’ll consider anything within reason.”

  “You’re such a killjoy,” Grizela said when she’d gotten control of herself. “Can’t we have a little fun first?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Get it out of your systems.”

  Though she continued to smile, her sparkling eyes narrowed as if I’d just thrown down a challenge.

  “Let’s rehash, then, shall we?”

  “Do your worst,” I muttered.

  “Heidi Shih,” she said. “Poor, poor Heidi. Bloodied her nose, didn’t you?”

  Heat warmed my cheeks as the sisters broke into laughter. Swamp hags had the ability to dig into someone’s psyche and haul out their gravest humiliations. In my case, that was the realm of women. Much like wizarding, I’d bumbled around a lot before finding my stride.

  My girlfriend in the eighth grade, Heidi Shih was the first girl I’d ever kissed—or tried to. Buzzing with nerves, I’d ducked in too fast and bumped her nose. Grizela was exaggerating about the bloodied part, but the collision had made Heidi’s nose swell, effectively ending our three-week relationship.

  Elspeth moved onto Sydney Rivera, and then Minna followed with Emily Schultz. The sisters were circling like vipers now, each lashing another episode off her tongue. Some were minor, others downright mortifying. After high school came college: Ally Palmer, Jennifer DeFazio, and Cassidy Cook.

  Sinister enchantments accompanied the sisters’ words, visuals of my humiliations, but my neutralizing potion blunted them.

  “Oh, and then there was Claire Tarbert,” Grizela said, forcing the taunt through her growing frustration. “She threw a basket of potpourri at you.”

  This time I laughed along with them. That had been kind of funny.

  Regardless, all of this was old material, episodes they’d dug up during my first visit, when I was struggling to balance wizarding with my love life. Convinced I was destined for a lonely future, I’d been vulnerable. Now, not at all. I was married to a solid woman with a child on the way and surrounded by friends.

  “Well, if we’re done strolling down memory lane,” I said, “can we get to business?”

  The sisters had begun to withdraw in quasi-defeat when Grizela’s eyes lit up. I realized my mistake too late. I’d relaxed my defenses just enough for her to snag the corner of something, dammit. As I struggled to pull it back, Elspeth and Minna joined in, and the three of them dragged it into full view.

  “Married?” Elspeth exclaimed.

  “Expecting?” Minna added.

  “Oh, and that’s just the tip,” Grizela said. “Poor little Everson is terrified he won’t be able to protect them.”

  “Is that right?” Minna asked, pouting out her lower lip. “The powerful magic-user can’t defend his wife and baby girl?”

  “There’s more!” Elspeth shouted delightedly.

  “He’s afraid he’s going to hurt them,” Grizela announced.

  The sisters broke into a triumphant bout of laughter. Past humiliations I could talk down; present fears and protective instincts were another matter. When my cheeks warmed this time, it wasn’t from embarrassment, but rage.

  “Oh, don’t be upset,” Grizela said. “I know how difficult it can be to live up to your parents’ example.”

  A blade of light glinted in her eyes as her enchantment cut through my defenses. Images of my mother placing me in my grandparents’ care before falling to the Death Mage. My father plummeting into the nightmare portal created by the Whisperer. And finally, my deepest fear: returning home to an apartment engulfed i
n flames, with my wife, stepson, and newborn daughter trapped inside.

  “Enough!” I boomed.

  A blinding light burst from my hand, blasting through the image of my burning apartment and into the shrieking sisters.

  16

  “Stop!” the sisters screamed beyond the blinding light. “Spare us!”

  Furniture crashed, portraits fell, and glass shattered. At one point, piano keys clashed. But I didn’t relent. The all-consuming wrath that stormed through my invocation felt good. Really good. I wanted these hags to know the fear and pain they’d inflicted on me.

  I upped the power.

  “Everson!” Bree-yark called.

  When he shouted a second time, I glanced over. The goblin was stalking toward me, head bowed, forearm to his eyes. He began pushing his other hand toward the floor in a “tamp it down” motion. But I was too steeped in my rage lust to listen. The sisters continued to scream. More items broke.

  “Still laughing?” I shouted.

  Bree-yark seized my arm. “Enough!”

  I tensed to shake him off, but stopped myself. Because for a brief, flaring second, I felt something I’d never felt toward Bree-yark before. Anger. I considered the source of light in my outstretched hand. That was wrong too. Nodding, I cycled down my breaths and pulled power back into the object.

  “I’m good,” I said softly.

  The light shrank back inside the glass orb. When the shop returned to view, it looked as if a tornado had visited. The sisters, returned to their true forms, were sprawled among the wreckage. They stared from wart-riddled faces and gray nests of hair, their gnarled fingers in conjuring postures, but I didn’t back from them. A shield coupled with the neutralizing potion would negate anything they tried to cast. During their circling and taunting, I’d realized something. While my powers had grown considerably in the last ten years, theirs had stagnated, like the swamp they lived in.

  I wasn’t afraid of them.