Power Game

by Brad Magnarella

  Power Game

  Prof Croft Book 6

  Brad Magnarella

  Copyright © 2018 by Brad Magnarella

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover image by Damonza.com

  Created with Vellum

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Available Now

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  The Croftverse Catalogue

  Acknowledgments

  The Prof Croft Series

  BOOK OF SOULS

  DEMON MOON

  BLOOD DEAL

  PURGE CITY

  DEATH MAGE

  BLACK LUCK

  POWER GAME

  *MORE TO COME*

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  1

  Palming a drink holder with four cups, I turned from the coffee bar and made my way past tables crowded with students, a few I recognized from Midtown College, and men and women in business wear. From a corner couch, the vampire hunters watched my approach. Maybe not the best place for our meeting.

  “Black eye with four extra shots of espresso,” I said, lifting out a tall cup and placing it on the coffee table in front of Blade. Without waiting for it to cool, the rail-thin punk rocker with a scythe of pink hair took a swallow and shrugged.

  “Kind of weak,” she said.

  “I’ll ask for cardiac-arrest strength next time.” I lifted out another cup. “Jumbo raspberry mocha freezer with whip.”

  Bullet raised a meaty finger, and I handed it to him. He wasted no time sucking half of it down, his tattooed face seeming to collapse toward the straw.

  I stared for a moment. “Easy there, big guy.”

  “He’s addicted to brain freeze,” Blade explained.

  Bullet winced sharply, then shuddered in a kind of ecstasy, causing the bandolier of shotgun shells that crisscrossed his large torso to rattle.

  Oookay, I thought.

  “And a chamomile tea, one bag.” I passed Dr. Z his drink.

  “Proper.” The young black man sporting green hair and shiny leathers with slots for his sai swords blew through the tea’s steam and relaxed back into the couch. Blade’s and Bullet’s weapons—a katana sword and shotgun, respectively—leaned beside them, within easy reach.

  “That leaves my Colombian dark roast,” I said, twisting it from the holder. I adjusted the cane I’d slid through my belt as I took a seat next to Dr. Z and looked over the three hunters.

  I’d met them a couple years earlier when I—or more accurately, Thelonious—crashed their apartment concert in the East Village. I’d woken up the next morning with the mother of all hangovers and in Blade’s bed. Nothing had happened, she said, except that I’d made a complete ass of myself. Pretty standard when my incubus came calling.

  I didn’t discover that Blade and her punk-rocking crew moonlighted as vampire hunters until months later when Vega and I were tracking the mayor’s half-vampire, half-werewolf stepdaughter. The three were more skillful than I would have guessed, sparing us from Arnaud’s blood slaves at one point. That they were still hunting—and still alive—spoke volumes.

  “Clock’s ticking,” Blade said.

  “Right, right.” I had been the one to call the meeting. With the Order still repairing the rips around our world, I hadn’t known who else to turn to. I leaned forward, propping my forearm on my knees. “I have a job for you.”

  “We’re listening,” Blade said. Though none of the hunters carried formal titles, she seemed to have taken on the role of leader.

  “You remember Arnaud Thorne, CEO of Chillington Capital, right?”

  “The vampire you blew up downtown? That whole shit show cost us a lot of business.”

  “Hey,” Dr. Z said to her, “fewer vamps and spawn means more time to jam. Our sets are tighter than ever.”

  “Bigger crowds too,” Bullet put in through a mouthful of his freeze.

  Blade made a face as if their points were hardly consolation and took another swallow of rocket fuel.

  “Then you’ll be happy to hear Arnaud could be back,” I growled.

  “Back?” Blade perked up. “In the city?”

  “Right now, it’s more a hunch than anything,” I said, feeling the chronic knot that had formed in my stomach two months earlier starting to tighten again. “When I ‘blew up’ Arnaud, he was attached to a shadow fiend. I’m worried he used that to his advantage in the Below and became something demonic.”

  “He survived the Pits?” Bullet asked, taking a break from his noisy slurping. “Whoa.”

  “A demon attacked Yankee Stadium in the fall, and this ring stopped him.” I angled my fist toward them so they could see the silver ingot with the rearing dragon. “It holds an enchantment that only works against vampires bonded by the Brasov Pact, an age-old agreement between their kind and mine. Arnaud falls into that category. Plus, the demon took a … well, an unusual interest in me.”

  I remembered the demon’s interrogation of Thelonious, something my incubus companion still hadn’t recovered from and maybe never would. I was happy to no longer be serving as his joyride, but if I had to choose between Thelonious and whatever Arnaud had in mind for me, I’d go with the big fellow.

  “And you two have history,” Blade said.

  I grunted a laugh. “Yeah, just a little.”

  “If the ring stopped him, what’s the problem?” Dr. Z asked. He was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, holding his tea with a pinky extended. He could have been at a garden party discussing someone’s problematic pool man.

  “The ring blew the demon from his host,” I replied, “but I’m concerned that some of his essence came through.”

  I thought about the hole Arianna had described in the host’s body, as if a large grub had squirmed from his core. She had found no trace of whatever had emerged, suggesting the being couldn’t sustain itself up here. But my gut was of a different opinion. I’d been researching the hell out of demon germ ever since.

  “If he did come through,” I continued, “he would have been weak. Really weak. His priority would have been feeding. Small animals first. Assuming he survived that phase, he’d have moved on to higher life forms.”

  Blade raised a stud-lined eyebrow. “Humans?”

  “Maybe,” I replied. “If not now, then soon.”

  “And you want us to find this thing that may or may not exist,” Dr. Z said.

  “Right now, I just want yo
u to keep your eyes and ears open. If Arnaud is back in the city, he won’t look like he did. Not yet anyway. He’ll be smaller, grayer. He may even appear a little amphibious. And you’re right—he might not be here at all. But if he is, we need to nail him while he’s weak.” I stopped myself from hammering the coffee table for emphasis, but it was everything to me. “Put him down for good.”

  “Will this be different than hunting a vampire?” Blade asked. “’Cause if so, it’s not really our expertise.”

  “According to what I’ve learned, it shouldn’t be much different. At this stage, he’s susceptible to silver through the heart, decapitation, cremation—the standard vampire-slaying tactics.”

  Blade gave me a look that said I didn’t need to tell her their job.

  “Anyway,” I continued, “his vampiric powers will be limited. His demonic powers even more so. That doesn’t mean you should take him lightly, though.”

  Blade’s lips pursed as she took in what I was saying. “Can you give us a minute?” she asked.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  I stood and, retreating out of earshot, watched the three hunters huddle over their drinks.

  I wasn’t entirely comfortable handing off the job to a group who might not take the threat as seriously as I did. But after hunting Arnaud for more than two months—often at the expense of my teaching and wizarding duties, not to mention my training with Gretchen—it was time to outsource. And whom better to outsource to than this trio of hunters who knew the city and its undead creatures as well as anyone.

  After a minute, Blade jerked her head to tell me I could come back.

  “Here’s what we’ve decided,” she said as I took my seat. “Two K a week for the hunt, and that starts on day one. We don’t do partials. Thirty for a kill.”

  “Thousand?” I exclaimed.

  “It’s normally twenty,” Blade said with a smirk. “But since the quarry’s part demon…”

  I crunched the numbers in my head. Between the Order and my tenured professorship at Midtown College, I did well, but I wasn’t exactly sitting on a mountain of cash. “How negotiable are your rates?”

  Blade shrugged a shoulder. “Like Bullet said, we’re getting pretty good audiences now, more bookings. And without the occupational hazards of hunting.”

  I looked at Bullet and Dr. Z, but they returned poker faces. Blade was the boss, and she was basically saying they could walk away, no skin off their backs. I dragged a hand through my hair.

  “How about this?” I said. “Let’s just start with the hunt. If you get a lead or find him, tell me.”

  “So, don’t kill him?” Blade asked.

  “Not for thirty thousand I don’t have.”

  “If we destroy him in self-defense, you’re still on the hook,” she pointed out.

  “As long as it’s in self-defense.” But it wasn’t like I could prove they hadn’t acted in self-defense.

  “Then that’s two thousand for week one,” she said.

  Blade had informed me over the phone that they dealt in cash only, so I’d arrived prepared. I pulled a bank envelope from my inside coat pocket and walked my fingers through the sheaf of hundreds until I’d counted out the amount. Blade checked my math before stuffing the thick billfold into her front pocket.

  “What’s the best way to reach you?” she asked.

  “The number I called from. It forwards to my cell when I’m not home.” I held up my new flip phone proudly. It had taken considerable work and practice, but a neutralizing spell coupled with some subtle changes to my casting technique, and I could actually handle something with a circuit board now.

  Blade looked from the phone back to me, completely unimpressed.

  “You do realize the rest of the world has moved on?” Dr. Z asked.

  Muttering that it was different for wizards, I returned the phone to my pocket. Flip phone or not, it was a big step for me.

  “All right, Everson,” Blade said, setting her finished drink down. “We’re on it.”

  How she wasn’t bouncing off the walls from the toxic dose of caffeine, I couldn’t begin to understand. As she stood and slid her sword into the scabbard on her back, I eyed the bulk of bills in her pocket.

  “Hey, don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, “but how will I know you’re actually working on finding him and not, you know, screwing around on your instruments?”

  “Because we trade on our reputation,” Blade said as the others retrieved their weapons. “If you’re paying, we’re hunting. And if he’s out there, we’ll find him.”

  “Truth,” Dr. Z said.

  “And you’ll call me,” I reminded them.

  “And we’ll call you,” Blade said.

  “Immediately,” I stressed.

  Hooding her eyes to show impatience, Blade turned away. I joined the end of their line as the three hunters filed from the coffee shop. Our armed procession drew a few disconcerted stares, which is why I preferred places like Two Story Coffee to this Midtown chain, but it had been more convenient to meet here.

  By the time we stepped onto the sidewalk, the street lights were blinking to life. Their amber halos pushed against the cold, cloudy dusk moving over the city. I shuddered and cinched my trench coat. I didn’t know if it was the coming winter or my magic talking to me, but I felt a premonition of death.

  Bullet pistoned his elbow into my side. “Hey, we’re gonna grab some pizza. Wanna come with?”

  Blade patted the pocket with my payment. “It’s on us.”

  The gem in my watch began to pulse red as my cane kicked to life. “Ah, no can do. I’m being summoned.”

  “To what?” Bullet asked.

  “My work.”

  2

  “Vigore!”

  I ducked and charged into the wake of my force invocation, splinters and door parts blasting off my shield. Beyond was a one-room efficiency. I absorbed the vital info at a glance: an open spell book, two casting circles, and one whimpering young man moments from learning that amateur conjuring had consequences.

  But the nasty being holding him by the shirt was no shallow nether creature. It was too large, its shape too humanoid. A cracked surface of black magma covered its body, fire licking from the fissures.

  Demon?

  When the creature’s horn-ringed head jerked around, I braced for Arnaud, even though I sensed it wasn’t him. The creature’s face was gargoyle-like and grotesque. Red pupils smoldered in a pair of dark pits. Slitted nostrils opened and closed in a fiery wheeze.

  “Is that wizard I smell?”

  He sounded nothing like Arnaud either.

  “Full-blooded,” I replied. “Must be your lucky day.”

  I flicked my sword and spoke an invocation. The force flashed across the room, landing across the demon’s face with a sharp slap. Flames burst up on impact. Need to keep this joker’s attention on me until I can get the conjurer to safety.

  I was preparing an invocation to shield the young man, but the demon released him. The conjurer thudded to the floor and began kicking himself backwards while slapping out the flames on his hooded sweatshirt.

  “Help me!” he gasped.

  With a pair of invocations, I shoved the conjurer into the bathroom and sealed the door behind him. “Stay in there!” I shouted.

  The demon, who had been cupping the place where I’d smacked him, rose to his full height. Shards of plaster fell as the tips of his horns gouged the low ceiling. Yeah, definitely not a shallow nether creature.

  “Why waste effort on a puny mortal when I can feast on wizard?” he asked. Smoke broke around his cloven feet as he stalked toward me. His horns left tracks in the ceiling. “It’s as if Satan himself delivered you.”

  “Yeah, I doubt that,” I said.

  The force invocation that ripped down the length of my sword slammed the demon into the far wall, throwing up a pluming cloud of smoke. Hanging pots clattered to the floor of a nearby kitchenette.

  But as the foul cloud broke apart,
the pinned demon was grinning.

  He spoke his own Word, an evil one, and flames burst over the doorway.

  “Really? You’re barring my escape?” I asked, incredulous.

  “I can already taste you,” he said, licking his lips with a charred tongue.

  “Taste this.”

  The creature choked on a gargle as I pinned him harder. I was dealing with an arrogant low-level demon, one small enough to have wormed his way through the various rips between our worlds, biding his time until he could hitch a ride on an amateur summoning through the final layer. That’s what certain arcane spell books plus a city humming with potent ley energy could accomplish in this day and age.

  The smart play was to put him down hard and fast and then alert the Order. You didn’t screw around with demons, even low-level ones. But I wanted some info first. Maybe the demon was a blessing in disguise.

  “I’m looking for someone,” I said, stalking toward him, my trench coat batting with the power radiating off me. “Cooperate, and I’ll simply cast you down to the Pits. Give me crap, and I’ll reduce you to ashes.” So six of one, half a dozen of the other.

  The demon laughed derisively. “You lack the power to banish me. You’re not even bearing anything holy.”

  “Oh, no?”

  Black magma fell to the floor as I thrust my sword into his gut and shouted a new Word. The grooves of the blade’s topmost rune began to glow. Holy light enveloped the demon, causing him to shriek.