Shadow Duel (Prof Croft Book 9)

by Brad Magnarella

  “How did I end up here?” I asked.

  “General notified me you were in their ER, and I notified the Order. We got you out of there as soon as we could.”

  My heart ached for her as I imagined the late-night call, the long drive to the hospital, the hours of waiting for me to awaken, wondering if I was going to be okay. And all while in her late third trimester.

  “I’m really sorry about this,” I said, gesturing to my supine body.

  She leaned over and pressed her lips to mine. “Just shut up and tell me what happened.”

  “Which is it, shut up or tell you what happened?”

  When she frowned, I snorted a weak laugh. I then told her everything, from my trip to the Discovery Society to being transported into the shadow present to fighting the Cerberus shifter to finally returning to the actual present on West Seventieth Street. The only part I left out was my encounter with her shadow. I didn’t want her feeling guilty for something she’d had no control over. At one point, she touched the place where her shadow’s bullet had seared my cheek, a thin scar now.

  “What do you make of it all?” she asked when I finished.

  “Well, for starters—and Hoffman’s not going to like this—Bear Goldburn’s killer definitely isn’t Vince Cole. Bear wasn’t even killed here. Everything the scrying spell showed me happened in the shadow present.” That explained the heavily armed security I’d observed at the bar and thought was overkill. “The shifter took Bear to the body shop, where the shifter’s master removed his kidneys.”

  “And his kidneys disappeared from his real body?”

  “Apparently so. And I’m sure it has to do with the potion I found in his system. The same potion Robert Strock was carrying last night. I think he might be the ‘master’ in question. At the very least, it makes him a person of interest.”

  “Robert Strock died early this morning.”

  “What?” I pushed myself onto an elbow as she accessed the report on her phone.

  “Yeah, his wife got up to use the bathroom, and when she came back to bed, she found him jaundiced and unresponsive. The first responders couldn’t resuscitate him. He was declared dead at the hospital. But here’s the part that’s most interesting: ‘Imaging showed he was absent his liver,’” she read.

  “He was carrying the potion last night, just not in a bottle,” I said, wanting to kick myself. “It was in his system. Someone else gave it to him.”

  “Any ideas who?”

  “The two things the victims have in common are being among the city’s most powerful men and holding fellowship positions at the Discovery Society. Everyone and their mother is going to be talking about the first, but my gut and magic are saying the second. And look at what’s been taken. Kidneys and a liver.”

  “Purifying organs,” she remarked.

  “Suggesting this may not be a personal vendetta against the victims. The killer is after specific components from specific people. It also suggests they’re not done. What’s left among the purifying organs?” As part of her continuing education, Vega had recently completed a course in forensic anatomy.

  “The largest would be the lungs,” she said. “Arguably a couple minor organs.”

  “So at least one more victim, possibly more. And the most likely targets are the remaining fellows, Sunita Sharma and Walter Mims. I think the potion in the victims’ systems binds them to the fates of their shadow selves. Messy deaths over there, but complete mysteries here with no evidence or suspects.”

  “And if the perp is one of the fellows?”

  I thought about Sunita’s preternatural protection and Mims’s consternated look when he spotted me at the meeting. “Could very well be, but they could also be carrying the potion inside them, like Strock. Or on the verge.” I checked our bedside clock. It was a little after seven, meaning we had a shot at catching the two fellows at home. I lowered my legs off the side of the bed and sat up. “I need to see them,” I said as the room wavered and steadied again. “Can the NYPD get their contact info and notify them they’re in danger?”

  “On it. I’ll also put a watch on them. Guess who drew the case?”

  “Hoffman?” I asked, taking my first tentative steps toward the closet.

  “And you,” she said from my elbow. “At the mayor’s request. In fact, he wants you to call him as soon as possible.”

  Bear Goldburn and Robert Strock had been two of the cornerstones in Budge’s recovery plans for the city. And now both were dead. I could only imagine the panicked meetings happening over the phone.

  “The priority right now is denying the perp any more victims,” I said. “I’ll have to call the mayor from the road.”

  I had a shirt halfway off its hanger, when Vega seized my wrist. Her intense eyes reminded me of her shadow. “I have a couple questions first,” she said. “We’re assuming the perp sent you to this alternate present, right? What’s to stop them from sending you again?”

  It was a great question. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a great answer.

  “I need to figure out how the perp managed it. It wasn’t through the potion—if it’d been in my system, the hunting spell would have alerted me—which leaves remote magic of some kind. I’ll prepare some potions before I head out again. I also have an idea for an enhanced weapon. If I do end up back there, I’ll be ready.”

  I kissed her forehead, but her eyes remained grave.

  “Who came from the Order?” I asked, changing the subject. “Arianna?”

  “No, Gretchen.”

  I tuned into the currents of healing magic—traditional, but with odd fae-like swirls. And it was doing its job. I could barely feel the throbbing in my thigh now. Guilt twanged inside me. Maybe I’d been too hard on Gretchen.

  “And guess who drove her to the hospital?”

  With one leg inside my pants, I looked over. “No.”

  Vega nodded. “Bree-yark wanted to hang around until you’d recovered, but Gretchen insisted she needed to be taken home, and off they went.”

  “He promised he wouldn’t talk to her.”

  “Oh, believe me, I gave him plenty of looks to let him know exactly how I felt. I think he was relieved to get out of there.”

  “Well, he’ll be my first call this morning,” I said. “I’m going to ask him to pick up a couple things for me.”

  “I’ll get some coffee started while I call the department about the fellows.”

  When Vega left the room, I lowered myself to where she’d been keeping vigil and released a shaky breath. I’d kept it from her, but I was rattled to the core. She was right. There was nothing stopping the perp from casting me back to the shadow present, an even darker, more dangerous place than I’d let on.

  A place where I’d nearly died.

  But with the fear came a growing anger. By targeting me, the perp was threatening to make a widow of my wife, a fatherless child of my future daughter. And that thought pissed me off more than anything. When my hands ached, I realized I’d drawn them into fists. I pushed myself up again.

  You want to duel, I thought at the perp. Let’s fucking duel.

  25

  I had to force Vega to take a nap while I worked in my lab. We were both spent, but her rest was more important, and I had a lot to do and not much time.

  While beakers bubbled over burners, I ran another hunting spell on the potion that had been in Bear Goldburn’s stomach. I siphoned a share of the essence into my cane and distributed the rest between a pair of amulets. I would be delivering one to Sunita Sharma and the other to Walter Mims. The NYPD had already contacted them, explained the danger, and told them to stay home. Cars were watching both places. So far, the two were complying.

  With my potions needing another few minutes to reduce, I called Gretchen.

  “What?” she answered.

  “First, thanks for the healing last night. I feel a lot better.”

  “Well, it wasn’t pleasant. You looked like something that got chewed up and shat ou
t.”

  “Nice. Though I have to say, that’s not far from what nearly happened.”

  Knowing her short attention span, I gave her the Cliff’s Notes version of events. I’d apparently caught her in the middle of breakfast, because she smacked, slurped, and burped throughout my account.

  “A Cerberus, huh?” she said, releasing a final belch.

  “You’re still helping on the case, right? I need to know a couple things. Mainly, how the perp shifted me to the shadow present. When you healed me, did you feel anything?”

  “I felt a few things,” she said coyly, “but it was completely necessary, I assure you. Anything energetic, though?” She cycled through her thinking noises. “Now that you mention it, there was a silver tint I thought odd. I just figured it was a residue from one of your spells. You’ve always been a slob in that department.”

  I tried to access it, but I couldn’t feel anything. “Would you mind checking it out?”

  “Sure,” she said, surprising me to the point of suspicion. “I have a few errands to run, but I’ll look for you as soon as I’m done. You said you needed to know a couple things. Is there a number two?”

  “Yeah, do you know of any rituals that use livers, kidneys, and other purifying organs?”

  “Hmm, not sure about rituals, but I once used them in a tasty quiche. Had to double up on the seasoning, though.”

  “I’m talking about human organs.”

  “Well, those came from an owl bear. I remember because it involved grating the beak for thickener. Boy, I really had to put my shoulder into that. Things are like rocks.”

  “Getting back to the ritual, is that something you could look into? I’d do it myself, but I’m desperately short on time.”

  Not only did I have to prepare for any future leaps into the shadow present, I needed to deny our perp any more organs, and that meant getting to the remaining two fellows, like an hour ago. As much as I was burning to find and hammer the killer, I needed to set up my defensive pieces first.

  “I’ll try to have some info when I come,” Gretchen said, surprising me a second time. “Will Bree-yark be there?”

  And there it was, the reason she was being so helpful.

  “I’m not sure,” I lied as a knock sounded downstairs.

  Gretchen heard it too. “Is that Bree-yark?”

  “I’ve gotta go. Thanks again for your help.”

  I ended the call and climbed down from the lab to answer the door. Tabitha, who didn’t appear to have budged since the day before, squinted at me from her divan.

  “What’s a girl have to do to get a few calories around here?”

  “I’ll be happy to take your goat’s milk out of the fridge, but you’ll have to heat it up.”

  “God,” she complained. “With this place wall-to-wall, you’d think someone would make themselves useful.”

  I answered the door to find Bree-yark carrying a brand new trench coat in the crook of his elbow and clutching a plastic shopping bag.

  “Thanks a lot, man,” I said, taking both items off him and jerking my head for him to enter.

  He craned his stout neck as if to ensure the coast was clear before crossing the threshold. “Boy, am I happy to see you up and about!” he said, clapping my shoulder hard enough to knock me off balance. But his expression quickly turned stern. “You were supposed to call me when you headed out again.”

  “Sorry, I ran out of time. Barely made it to the Discovery Society myself.”

  I checked the receipts of the items he’d bought and pulled several twenties from my wallet. When he tried to refuse them, I tucked the folded bills into the breast pocket of his denim overalls. He started to pull them out, then appeared to think better of it. His pension from the goblin army barely got him through the month.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  “Nah, I grabbed a pizza on the way over. Hey, Tabby!”

  “Hi,” she said, disconsolately. “Sorry, but that’s all I have the energy for.”

  “Yeah, ’cause you’ve been cooped up inside this place too long,” he said. “Everson and I are going on a couple house calls. Wanna come?”

  I made a throat-slashing gesture—time was of the essence, and the last thing we needed was forty pounds of attitude weighing us down—but Bree-yark didn’t catch on. He strode to the divan and stood over her.

  “C’mon, I’ll fix us a couple meals to go. That all right, Everson?”

  Tabitha lifted her head. “Prepared meals, you say? Do we still have those tuna steaks?” she called past him.

  “I think so,” I said, and immediately regretted it.

  “I suppose three or four spice-rubbed steaks with a balsamic drizzle wouldn’t hurt,” she moped.

  Bree-yark ruffled the hair on her head, which she tolerated with flattened ears. “Attagirl!” he said. That told me just how much she liked him. For anyone else, the gesture would have meant certain death.

  “And a half gallon of goat’s milk warmed to one-twenty,” she added.

  As Bree-yark headed into the kitchen to get started, I made a mental note to pack a dropper bottle of knock-out potion.

  “I’m assuming your wife told you?” Bree-yark said as he drove.

  We were in his Hummer, his and Tabitha’s lunches packed and my new trench coat heavy with spell items. Tabitha had made herself comfortable in the back seat on a throw blanket that she’d had Bree-yark refold several times.

  “About you and Gretchen showing up together last night?” I said.

  “Look, it’s not what you think. She came to my place to tell me you were in the hospital. She offered to ride with me—you know, use her magic so we’d get there faster. What was I supposed to do? I was freaking out.”

  His concern was moving, but I wasn’t about to let him off the hook. “Where did you go after the hospital?”

  “I took her home.”

  “And you just dropped her off, right?”

  “Well, she might’ve invited me in for some pickled anchovies on rye. I was starving, Everson. And, well … it’s my favorite snack.”

  As if Gretchen hadn’t known that.

  “How long did you stay?”

  “An hour? Maybe two? We just talked,” he added quickly. “But you know, it was kinda nice.” His lips spread into a reflective smile. “She was actually interested in what I’ve been up to. And when I talked, she listened. That never happened when we were together. She’s like another person.”

  Nope, I thought. Same Gretchen, different game.

  “Bree-yark, you promised me you wouldn’t talk to her.”

  “Yeah, well, what was the harm? Nothing came of it.”

  Not this time, but Gretchen’s machinations were wearing him down. It wasn’t a question of if, but when.

  “Did you enjoy the hoagie?” he asked out of the blue.

  “Huh? Oh, actually, I dropped it in the shadow present and it didn’t make the trip back. Sorry about that.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  “There I go, what?”

  “That was the deal. I promised not to talk to her if you promised to eat the hoagie.”

  I scoffed. “One, I had no control over that. And two, you didn’t know I hadn’t eaten the hoagie before you talked to her.”

  “A deal’s still a deal.”

  Seeing his way free on a technicality, Bree-yark wasn’t about to concede. He redoubled his grip on the steering wheel.

  “Just think about Mae,” I said. “Think about what that would do to her. Most importantly, think about what you’d be giving up. Honestly, compare a typical day with Gretchen to a typical day with Mae.”

  I watched his eyes dim then light up.

  “See? There you go. I rest my case.”

  His eyes went dim again. “It’s just…”

  “Just what?”

  “Gretchen said Enzo is about to propose.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t believe that for a second.”

  “No, no, he took her to
a jeweler after lunch yesterday to have her finger measured. She showed me the card and everything. She’s really torn. She likes his company, but she’s not sure he’s the one. At the same time, she doesn’t want to be alone.”

  “And how is that your problem?”

  “Everson’s right,” Tabitha said from the back seat. “I’m no fan of Mae and that thing she calls her pet, but if I had to see Gretchen every day, I’d hang myself with my own tail. She’s revolting. Even talking about her makes me nauseous.”

  Seeing he was outnumbered, Bree-yark grunted and became interested in the road.

  Sunita’s place was across the Hudson River in New Jersey. We pulled up in front of a modest house with red trim and a neat yard. Two unmarked surveillance vehicles were parked nearby. The NYPD knew we were coming but Sunita didn’t. I pulled out my phone and called her.

  “No answer,” I said after the fifth ring.

  Bree-yark and I got out and walked to the front door. I moved stiffly, thanks to a sawed-off shotgun holstered under my coat. The gun was from Bree-yark’s collection and loaded with rock-salt shells that he’d purchased for me and I’d soaked in an enhancer. If the “master of many places” whisked me back to the shadow present again, his “shadow of many faces” wasn’t going to be a happy shifter.

  I rang the doorbell.

  When no one came, my heart pounded.

  “Maybe she’s out back,” Bree-yark offered.

  The gate to the fenced backyard was latched. I released it with an invocation, and it opened onto a mini Eden. Footpaths tracked through lush gardens and around a pond. I crept forward, too anxious to appreciate any of it.

  “Sunita?” I called.

  Our path led to a set of steps climbing to a small deck. As I eyed the back door, I wondered if we were going to enter to find her on the floor, her face blue, hollow cavities where her lungs had been.

  A splash sounded in the pond behind us, too large for a koi. I turned to find the water churning, waves lapping into the surrounding garden.