Shadow Duel (Prof Croft Book 9) Brad Magnarella (the best novels to read .TXT) đ
- Author: Brad Magnarella
Book online «Shadow Duel (Prof Croft Book 9) Brad Magnarella (the best novels to read .TXT) đ». Author Brad Magnarella
âOokayâŠâ
âWhen I was looking over the penthouse for anomalies, my magic directed me to this picture on his wall. I think I was specifically meant to see the flag. Itâs not a country flagâI already checkedâand the symbols on the center stripe are odd. Not from any of the pictographic alphabets. While Hoffmanâs rounding up the usual suspects, Iâd like to find out what the flag means, whether itâs relevant.â
âI can isolate it and do an image search.â
âExcellent. Iâll go ahead and get started on the spell, then. The extra-safe spell,â I emphasized.
âArenât you forgetting something? You were going to tell me what was up with Bree-yark.â
âOh, that.â I scratched my neck. âWellll⊠I sort of took a cone-of-silence vow.â
âAnd youâre married now, so that cone extends to your wife.â
âIs that how it works?â
She cocked her head. âDo you really need me to explain that to you?â
âAll right, all right.â I peeked over at Tony and Tabitha, then crouched until I was level with her ear. âHeâs considering proposing.â
She turned to me, eyes wide.
âYeah, but just considering,â I emphasized. âYou saw what happened this morning. I think Gretchenâs actually right about the whole âemotional stress overwhelming a goblinâs nervous systemâ thing.â
âWell, try to work on him. Theyâd be so good for each other.â
âSure, but if heâs going to lay out every time she turns up, maybe theyâre better off dating.â
Tabitha cleared her throat. âAnd to whom are you referring?â
âNo one,â Vega and I said simultaneously.
8
I made a couple nervous adjustments to Bearâs hair sample, then stood back and looked over the arrangement on my lab floor. Satisfied, I activated and downed a slick wizard potion in the unlikely event something tried to grab me. I did the same with a second potion, this one to strengthen the bond to my casting circle.
As I smacked on the bitter aftertastes, I thought of my promise to Vega.
The scrying spell would be as harmless as Iâd swornâbut Iâd omitted one detail. With deaths, particularly violent ones, memories stuck to cells. Seers projected those memories onto scrying objects, but since I wasnât a seer, I was left with absorbing the memories, essentially becoming a scrying object myself. More than just observing Bearâs final moments, I would be experiencing them.
Safe, yes. Pleasant, not at all.
âLetâs get this over with,â I muttered.
As my skin turned slippery with the slick wizard potion, I lit a pair of silver candles and killed the light. The candles swelled on either side of a round mirror Iâd placed on the floor. Beyond the mirror, three of Bearâs hairs lay in a fresh casting circle, a sigil-enhanced line running back to the circle around my feet.
Tapping into my circle, I pushed energy until the symbols glowed the color of heated copper. The warm energy flowed out along the line, haloing the mirror and enclosing the smaller casting circle with the hairs.
A resonant hum took up in the lab. We were connected.
I drew a final potion from my coat, this one an Elixir of Seeing. It was the last of my potent â48 batch, and I choked it down, dregs and all. Almost immediately, I began to feel light and insubstantial.
As a growing pressure built above and between my eyes, I lowered myself to my knees until I was peering at my own reflection. As I began to incant, my mind made a note to do a better shave job along the groove of my neck. But a mist was drifting in from the sides now, occluding the dark swath of bristles.
And here comes the fun partâŠ
I drew a hissing breath as the pressure in the center of my brow turned to a gougeâthe opening of my third eye. The sharp pain relented. With it went the mist, and I was suddenly staring into a pair of blue eyes: Bear Goldburnâs.
Then, in a terrifying inversion, I was him.
A hand clapped down on my shoulder.
I was hunched over, forearms bracketing a glass of something on a shiny bar. Bourbon, maybe. Hard to tell. Everything in my vision was washed out and dim. Drink, bar, the shelves of bottles opposite me.
The hand that had clapped down squeezed now. It belonged to an arm across my back.
âWe just need to give it some air,â its owner said. The voice was male, friendly, and familiar to Bear. I wanted to turn, but I was merely an observer in his memories. I sipped my drink and shook my head.
âItâs bullshit,â I said, slurring the words. âThe whole thing is bullshit.â
Though drunkenness rolled through me, I was furious. And it was a kind of fury Iâd never quite experienced as Everson Croft. I was in the head of someone who lived life at the extreme of extremes. This was a nuclear-rod level furyâcontained for now, but hot and dangerous.
âOf course itâs bullshit,â the voice replied. âBut itâs too soon. Anything you do now is going to come off as desperate. Guilty, even. We need to assemble the right legal team. We need experts in data. We need a strategy.â
âSpeak for yourself,â I said. âIâm ready to kill someone.â
Though I was observing, I was also parsing through Bearâs memories, trying to piece together what was happening. I couldnât go deep. All I had were his associations to what was happening in that present moment.
The location was a bar in Brooklyn, a place he liked to go when he wanted to drink incognito. It was Friday night. The referenced âbullshitâ had to do with his position at Ramsa Inc. There had been an emergency board meeting that day, a vote. Heâd been ousted as CEO over something on an email server. Evidence, or at least a strong suggestion, heâd leaked design secrets to a competitor.
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