The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) Brad Magnarella (ink book reader txt) 📖

I ignored him and picked my way down toward the others. The large monastery had been built like a fortress, tall stone walls with a crenellated tower at one corner. The rear of the building ended at the cliff face, as though the mountain had sheared it in half.

“Seems we aren’t the first ones here,” James said when I arrived beside him.

He was examining a doorway that looked to have been bricked over but later broken down, toppled stones cast to one side. I tilted a nearby stone with a shoe, revealing a deep pocket of earth underneath.

“This happened a while ago,” I said.

“Looters,” Flor announced, in what sounded like disdain. “They are everywhere.”

“Well, let’s just hope they left the manuscripts alone.”

“You don’t sound very optimistic,” James said.

“Because I’m not.” I donned my headlamp. “The manuscripts would have been worth a fortune on the black market.” And if they had been sold on the black market, I could kiss the Book of Souls goodbye. I would never be able to track it down in the dark network of buyers and sellers.

Flor stepped forward. “I wonder if they are the same ones who wrote this.” I followed her squinting gaze to a message scrawled beside the door in what looked like charcoal. “Prekliaty.”

“It’s the Slovak word for cursed,” I said.

“A warning?” James frowned. “Seems odd for looters to leave a public service announcement.”

“Or maybe the message was intended to keep looters away,” I said. “As a scare tactic.” I looked from the message back to the busted-up stones. “Though a lot of good it did.”

“Enough talk.” Flor snapped on a headlamp and stepped through the opening.

“Wait,” came Bertrand’s voice, his head appearing above the pass. “I don’t have a light!”

James filed in after Flor, and I took up the rear. We soon found ourselves on a covered walk that framed a stone-riddled courtyard. The open space had probably been a garden at one time, and it wasn’t hard to imagine robed monks strolling along its paths.

“Let’s split up,” I said, peering down the covered walk to our right and left, picking out the shadows of doorways. “We can take a quick inventory of what’s here before Bertrand arrives.”

James nodded. “I’ll search the tower, if you and Flor want to begin down here.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “And Flor, we’re just looking right now. Not taking, okay?”

“Bite me,” she snapped and marched away.

“Well, good luck everyone,” James said merrily before departing.

I set off in the opposite direction as Flor, my ego smarting from her parting words. What was it about me that put women off? My sarcasm? My face? As I shone my light overhead, the questions dissolved from my thoughts. Though the monastery had appeared forbidding from the outside, handsome stonework adorned the interior, including the walkway’s vaulted ceiling. Romanesque pillars stood every fifteen feet or so, though several had toppled.

Not a bad place to hang out for a few days.

I shot my beam into doorways, illuminating what looked to have been prayer cells and former dormitories, all empty now save for scattered rubble and fallen timber beams. In the wall opposite the one we’d entered through, an arched doorway opened into the cliff face. From either the chill air or my own foreboding, my arms broke out in fleshy bumps.

I ducked into the doorway and soon emerged into a room at the far end of a corridor. My beam found a gruesome monster’s face. Stifling a yell, I swung the beam over and hit the creature’s twin. I staggered backwards, nearly falling.

I hesitated, my heart slamming—and then let out a shaky laugh.

Gargoyles.

I walked up to the devilish works of stone, the pair crouched on pedestals that flanked a descending staircase. The details were impressive, down to the fangs that extended to the gargoyle’s knobby knees. The statues seemed at odds with the rest of the monastery, but I was more concerned about the staircase. My headlamp wavered into the deep darkness.

As much as I hated the word, I had a phobia of being underground, a condition that made it feel as if someone was sitting on my chest. Already, I was struggling to inhale a full breath.

I was debating whether to descend when, on a lintel above the steps, I caught sight of a chiseled word:

SCRIPTORIUM

The library!

In my excitement, I almost called for James before realizing I couldn’t do so without alerting Flor. Bertrand, too, if he had made it inside by now. Still not knowing their designs on the texts, I couldn’t take any chances—especially with Flor bearing a high-powered rifle.

Her echoing voice sounded from the courtyard. “Everson? Where are you?”

Before my phobia could gain the upper hand, I hurried down the steps, through cold currents of air and a growing odor of what smelled like garbage. I was almost to the bottom when my beam illuminated the smell’s source. Two bodies stretched across the stairs while a third rested on the library floor, face up. Flashlight parts lay scattered, broken plastic glinting around metal tubes.

I clapped a hand over my mouth and braced myself against the wall. They were the first corpses I had ever seen. When my heart settled, I stole up to the closer bodies. Faded clothing draped what remained of them, their dried skin vacuum-sealed to bone, skulls wispy with hair. From up the stairwell, footfalls echoed, and a pair of lights swelled into view.

“Down here,” I wheezed.

James squatted beside the body on the library floor, lips frowning. “Bruising over the face and torso, like the others. Broken limbs. Crushed skull.” He pinched a faded red sleeve. “Judging by the attire, I’d say gypsies.”

“And look at this.” My headlamp illuminated a black dagger with a shattered blade.

“Looters,” Flor decided for the second time that afternoon. “I found a room with their things. Bedding, pickaxes, backpacks.”

“Anything in the packs?” I asked hopefully.

“Just clothes and extra batteries, some rotten food.”

I felt my optimism crumple into a