Shadow Duel (Prof Croft Book 9)

by Brad Magnarella

  “So anyone could accidentally step through it?” she asked, concerned.

  “Or maybe it takes a magical bloodline to trigger. I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that I’ve found the answer to not only protecting our apartment, but catching the perp.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I’ll set a trap in the shadow present.”

  “You mean go back to that other apartment?”

  “If the perp wants me, that’s the route they’ll have to take to get past my wards.” Dressed now, I slipped the phone into my shirt pocket, checked myself in the mirror, and left the bedroom.

  “But how would you even get there again?” she asked.

  “If my theory about the weakness in the boundary is right, there are a couple things I can try when I get back tonight.” I waved goodbye to Tabitha, who responded by closing her eyes. Grabbing my coat and cane, I stepped carefully over the threshold, locked the door behind me, and hurried downstairs.

  “And you still think the perp is Sven?” she asked.

  “He did try to kill me using a sigil from the Attican cult.”

  “But if he can travel through this shadow present, why didn’t he plant the sigil from inside your office? Why do the deed in the hallway where anyone could see?”

  It was a great question, but as I stepped outside, our connection started to go staticky.

  “You’re breaking up,” I said, flagging an approaching cab. “I’ll call you after the lecture.”

  Trevor of the Sup Squad phoned me on the way to the club with an update on the Sven Roe investigation.

  “No match to the prints we lifted from his desk,” he said. “Just means he’s not in any of the crime databases. His picture went out this afternoon, and we’ve been getting some calls. Nothing solid yet. The facial recognition search is probably our best bet. If he’s active online, we’ll find him. A tech’s working on it.”

  I’d left him a message earlier about my dead-end search for the tanzanite, and I filled in the details before ending the call. The cab was pulling up to a line of five-story townhouses on the Upper West Side. We stopped in front of a handsome stone mansion, a metal plaque beside the door reading The Discovery Society.

  I paid the driver and hurried up the steps with about a minute to spare. A proper doorman who was long in years and short in stature confirmed my reservation number on a tablet, then ushered me down a wainscoted corridor lined with portraits. A large Discovery Society flag, like the one in Bear’s photo, presided over them.

  “The public should always arrive fifteen minutes before the start of a lecture,” the doorman tutted, a purple mole bobbing beside his nose.

  But distracted by the passing portraits of club luminaries, I only half heard him. I glimpsed one of Sir Edmund Hillary of Mount Everest fame and another of pilot Amelia Earhart. At a portrait of a man with copper-blond hair, I stopped.

  Bear Goldburn, the plaque read, followed by a list of expeditions.

  The doorman snapped his fingers and hissed, “Come! It’s about to start.”

  Opening a door, he motioned me inside. I stepped past him and into an antiquated library adorned with old maps and several taxidermy mounts, including a massive Bengal tiger and polar bear. Rows of chairs faced a wooden lectern where a thin man was organizing some notes, his mustache a perfectly inverted V. The audience consisted mostly of older gentlemen in sweaters and tweed, and it looked as if every chair was taken.

  “Psst!” someone called. “Over here.”

  A man with blond hair to his shoulders who looked to be about my age was motioning me over to an empty chair beside him. The doorman issued a final frown from the doorway before sealing it.

  “Don’t mind Eldred,” the blond-haired man said in an accent that sounded Scandinavian. “He is like that with everyone. The authority of letting people in and out of the club for so many years has gone to his head. He is drunk with power.”

  “I know a few people like that,” I muttered. “Thanks for the seat. I’m Everson.”

  “Ludvig,” he replied. His bright blue eyes crossed slightly above a broad smile of crooked teeth. The features conspired to give him a semi-crazed look. “So, what is your interest in asteroid families?”

  “Asteroid families?” The lecture topic, I realized. In the madness of the afternoon, I hadn’t taken a good look at it. I hadn’t even had time to consider a cover story. “I’m more interested in the club, really.” Not a lie, but it was about as much as I wanted to share on the subject. “What about you?”

  He released a high giggle that turned a few heads. “You are interested in membership?”

  “Oh, well, not right away or anything,” I stammered.

  “No, this is excellent! I will introduce you to some people after the lecture.”

  Wonderful.

  My plan had been to look around a little without drawing attention to myself. But if my magic had led me here, it may also have intended for me to meet Ludvig, an apparent insider. I nodded my thanks as the man with the inverted mustache tapped his notes into a pile and began speaking in a monotone.

  I was awakened by my head being nudged. I opened my eyes, startled to find I was still in the library at the Discovery Society. The lecture had apparently ended, and the audience was standing now, murmuring conversationally.

  I jerked my head from Ludvig’s shoulder. “Oh, man, I am so sorry. It’s been a long day.”

  He giggled. “It is all right. When you come here as long as I have, you learn little tricks for staying awake. You did much better than I did my first time.”

  I wiped my mouth with a handkerchief. “Are you an explorer?”

  “A statistician, but exploration is in my blood. My great grandfather was Jesper Lassgard. He was on both expeditions that were first to the North and South Poles. In fact, he was one of the club’s founders. I’m just an associate. One of the fellows is sponsoring me for full membership, but this can take time. I have to prove myself, and nowadays it is not enough to cross an ocean or trek to the poles. You must advance knowledge in some way.”

  Given the stuffy crowd, I couldn’t help but wonder if Ludvig’s odd mannerisms were as much a hindrance to his membership as anything.

  “The fellows?” I asked.

  “Yes, four sit on the Council. Well, three now.”

  “I was sorry to hear about Bear Goldburn,” I said, testing whether he was the subtracted fellow in question.

  Ludvig nodded. “He brought a lot of energy and standing to the Society.”

  I was trying to come up with a follow-up question when someone caught Ludvig’s eye. His chest convulsed with another giggle.

  “Wait here!” he said and darted into the dispersing crowd.

  Odd guy, but he seemed to know everyone. I used his absence to open my wizard’s senses and peer around. But like at Bear Goldburn’s penthouse apartment, there were no supernatural auras and nothing stood out on the astral level.

  All right, magic, I thought. Show me what I’m here for.

  I waded deeper until I felt the familiar shifting of tidal energies, but they were directionless and without guidance. My instinct was to be frustrated, but more and more I suspected that the seemingly random movement was my magic arranging things, ensuring I was in the right place at the right time.

  “Everson!” Ludvig called.

  The library returned to focus as he came rushing toward me, his face flush with excitement. “I’ve arranged for you to attend the private meeting of members and fellows. I’m going to find you a sponsor.”

  I stepped back. “What? Why?”

  “Because you’re the next frontier.”

  “Huh?”

  “The club’s original purpose was to further the exploration of land, sea, and air. It was later expanded to include space—but we’ve never explored the esoteric, not with any scientific rigor. You could change that. I recognized you the moment you walked in. You are Everson Croft, the great wizard!”

  His eyes
seemed to cross further as he spoke. I clutched my cane, muscles tensing with suspicion.

  “Yes, yes, I remember you from the mayor’s eradication campaign!”

  “Let’s not broadcast it,” I said in a lowered voice. “I just came out of curiosity.”

  He seized my arm and whispered, “There they are! The fellows of the Council!”

  I looked over at the three people walking toward us. One was the thin man with the V mustache who had just concluded his presentation. He was accompanied by a middle-aged woman in a red sari and a large gray-haired man, who looked vaguely familiar. When Ludvig waved, the large man returned an indifferent nod, suggesting I’d been right about the club’s view of him.

  My new friend was clutching me with both hands now and bouncing on his toes. The fellows continued past, toward the back of the library.

  “Yeah, that’s great,” I whispered, trying to wrest myself from his grip.

  I stopped suddenly and looked down at my cane. It was wiggling. When the fellows reached a doorway, the wiggling stopped. My hunting spell had just gotten a hit. One of the fellows was carrying the potion that had been in Bear Goldburn’s stomach.

  “Come,” Ludvig said. “The meeting’s about to start.”

  I let him seize my hand and pull me after him.

  20

  The meeting was held in a conference room that featured a massive pair of elephant tusks protruding from the far wall. By the time Ludvig and I entered, the fellows were taking their seats at an official-looking table on a dais. The remaining attendees congregated at a long table that bisected the room. I walked toward it with the aim of getting as close to the fellows as possible, but Ludvig grabbed my arm.

  “That’s for members,” he explained.

  He pulled me to a row of red-leather chairs along the side of the room. It took some tugging back on my part to get us into the two seats closest to the front, beside a large globe. My vibrating cane told me we were on the very edge of the spell’s range. I focused on the fellows, my gaze going from the two men’s jackets to the woman’s shoulder bag. The potion could be on any of them.

  “Who are they?” I whispered.

  “The big one is Robert Strock,” he said. “He is the club’s fifty-second president.”

  No wonder he looked familiar. “The real estate developer?”

  “Yes, but he also spends millions on research, especially deep sea. He’s a submarine enthusiast like his father, Harold Strock. Harold created one of the first comprehensive maps of the ocean floor. Robert has gone on many expeditions himself. His last one, to the Mariana Trench, discovered two new species of marine life. ”

  It was hard to imagine someone Robert Strock’s size spending any length of time in a deep-sea submersible, but my mind was too busy working out scenarios in which he would become involved with the occult or want Bear dead.

  “The woman is Sunita Sharma,” Ludvig continued, playing eager guide. “Her name is not as recognizable to lay people, but she is one of the top bioengineering researchers in the world. She and her team won the Nobel Prize three years ago for their work on gene splicing. I think she is very pretty, don’t you?”

  “Sure,” I said absently, searching Sunita’s green eyes for signs of magic or malice.

  “And finally, Walter Mims. You heard his lecture. Or at least the beginning.” He giggled loudly enough for heads to turn at the members’ table. “Walter is an astronomer and the youngest son of astronaut Gene Mims, one of the first ever in space. Walter is also my sponsor. He was the one who gave me permission to bring you to the meeting. We’ll find you a sponsor among the members.”

  As Ludvig was saying this, Walter’s smallish eyes met mine and pinched critically.

  “You didn’t mention the wizard part to him, did you?” I asked in a lowered voice.

  “Not yet.” Ludvig’s next giggle sounded like anticipation. “I just told him you were a foremost expert in your field.”

  “Let’s keep that to ourselves for now,” I said as Walter Mims looked away. He was probably upset I’d dozed off during his lecture.

  Ludvig had run down the fellows in a line, and I couldn’t help but notice the empty chair at the far end. A flag, like the one in Bear Goldburn’s photo and hanging in the hall of portraits, was folded into a triangle and set on the table in his place.

  “How did the others get along with Bear?”

  “Well, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.” Before Ludvig could elaborate, Strock brought the room to order.

  “Welcome to the one thousand two hundred and forty-third meeting of the Discovery Society,” he said in a husky voice that commanded attention. “First, I have a tragic announcement.” He motioned toward the empty chair. “As most of you know, Bear Goldburn lost his life this weekend. Besides being a dear friend, he epitomized the three d’s of the Discovery Society: devotion, diligence, and, of course, discovery.”

  Light glistened from the dark hair of Sunita Sharma’s bowed head, while Walter Mims compulsively smoothed his mustache with a finger and thumb.

  “During his four years on the Council,” Strock continued, “Bear led nine expeditions and published his findings in journals too numerous to mention. He was always pushing the boundaries of the known. And all while serving as CEO in one of the highest pressure industries there is. Second to real estate, of course,” he added, which drew some laughs from the somber room.

  “It’s no secret that Bear and I were competitive. We shouted, we fought—hell, I even threw a punch at him at the Founder’s Banquet last year. But I’d like to think I drove him, just as he drove me, and that those repeated collisions of our—let’s face it, our egos—hoisted the club’s flag that much higher.”

  As he patted the folded flag in Bear’s place, I whispered, “Competitive over what?”

  “Everything,” Ludvig answered. “Bear used to go around saying Strock’s contributions to exploration were shit, mostly because he didn’t write his own research. Bear didn’t think he should be the club’s president.”

  Power struggle, I noted.

  Strock started into a story about an expedition he and Bear co-funded.

  “Was it the same way with Sunita?” I asked.

  “Not quite,” Ludvig whispered back. “They were … very friendly.”

  I looked over in surprise. He nodded, his crossed eyes bright over his crooked teeth. “Oh, yes. Worst-kept secret in the club. Bear ended it after his wife separated from him.”

  Spurned lover? I noted, this one with a question mark.

  “How did Bear get along with your sponsor?” I asked.

  “They were as different as two people could be. Bear was very loud and outspoken. He enjoyed an audience. Walter prefers the quiet of an observatory or his office. As far as I know, they barely talked.”

  Strock concluded his eulogy with a minute of silence. The meeting then proceeded to announcements and votes. All the while, I made small adjustments to my cane, trying to draw a precise bead on the potion, but no dice. I would need to wait for the end of the meeting to get closer to the fellows.

  “Is anyone here applying for membership?” Sunita asked the room.

  I was almost too slow to grab Ludvig’s hand as it went up. A few heads turned toward our ensuing scuffle, but when no one spoke, Sunita nodded.

  “That concludes our meeting, then.”

  “Why did you do that?” Ludvig asked with a wounded expression.

  I stood, releasing his hand. “I just think I should get a feel for the club first. You know, walk around, talk to some people.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” he said, then called, “Walter!”

  The thin man, who was consulting with the other two fellows, looked over irritably. When Ludvig continued to wave, he came over.

  “What is it?” he asked as he arrived in front of us, sounding more like Ludvig’s babysitter than his sponsor.

  “This is Everson Croft. The prospective member I told you about.”

&nb
sp; “Indeed.” Walter Mims gave me a critical up and down. “And what is your expertise, Mr. Croft?”

  “Mythology and lore. I’m a professor at Midtown College.”

  “Mythology and lore.” He sniffed. “Well, perhaps you’ll be interested in our community program. It comes with a discount on lectures and a Discovery Society pin. Now if you’ll both excuse me…”

  Ludvig looked disappointed as his mentor walked away, but I’d gotten what I’d wanted from the exchange. Walter wasn’t the potion carrier. That left Strock and Sunita. The first had waded onto the main floor, where members thronged him. Sunita was still at the fellows’ table, stowing meeting materials into her bag.

  “Wait here,” I told Ludvig and approached her.

  Sunita was younger than she’d appeared from a distance. Her jet black hair was brushed to a sheen that hung neatly over one shoulder of her red, gold-beaded sari. She also possessed a mystical quality I couldn’t quite pinpoint. She glanced up and caught me staring.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, her green eyes narrowing slightly.

  I was scrambling for something to say when I noticed a gold pin on the shoulder of her sari. It depicted a thick hand with a pointed object pinched between its first finger and thumb. “The right hand of Ganesh?” I asked.

  She touched the pin, a curious smile playing across her lips. “How do you know about the right hand?”

  “Years ago I did a study on protective symbols across cultures. I won’t bore you with the details. I just wanted to say it’s beautiful.”

  “Thanks,” she said, the touch becoming a caress. “It was handed down through my family.”

  That was where the mystical quality was coming from. The right hand of the elephant god, Ganesh, exuded a subtle protective energy. The pointed object between his finger and thumb was the broken end of his tusk.

  “Dr. Sharma?” someone asked.

  I turned to find a member waiting to talk to her. I motioned for him to go ahead and said goodbye to Sunita. Though her pin was interesting, she wasn’t the potion-carrier either. That left Strock.