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

lives in Chinatown. Mayor Alito swore by him.” He turned toward me. “Leaders don’t just use oracles in the myths, Professor. Anyway, I found out about her past at the Forty-second Street clubs. And also about her child.”

“I bet that upset you,” Vega said.

“Yeah, but not for the reason you might think. I came up in foster care, you see? Rough place for a kid. I couldn’t stand the thought of her kid in the same system, so I made sure Alexandra was put in a good school.”

“Wait.” I shook my head. “You were Mr. Smith, her sponsor?”

He looked over at me. “Found out about that too, huh? Thought it was the least I could do.”

“Did your wife know?” Vega asked.

Budge waved a hand. “Naw, she never talked about her, so I didn’t either. I put Alexandra through twelve years of school and had her all set up for college without Penny ever knowing. But then I hear Alexandra’s left the boarding school, and the diviner tells me that she’s … she’s turned into some kind of monster, that she’s killing people.”

“And he advised you to destroy her,” I said, trying to preserve the parts of Vega and my theory that still made sense. “To cover up any evidence that might connect Alexandra to your wife or to you.”

“That’s where you keep losing me,” Budge said. “I didn’t hire anyone to do anything like that.”

“But you hired someone to do something else,” I said, the truth rearranging itself and slotting into place. Vega and I had had the right theory, had found the right couple, but we’d reversed their roles. “You hired Arnaud to protect her.”

A nervous tongue darted across Budge’s lips. He dropped his head and nodded. “Hired him to capture her, actually. Takes a vampire to catch a vampire, you know? I wanted to get her some help.”

“And you made him promise not to tell anyone,” I said.

“Wait a sec.” Budge’s hands balled into hairy fists. “Was he the one who told you all of this?”

“No, in fact,” I said, which was the truth—and no doubt at least part of the point of Arnaud’s game. But what could Budge have possibly offered Arnaud in payment? The vampire was already a billionaire.

“Hold on a sec,” Vega said, realization now creeping over her face. “If you hired Arnaud to protect your daughter, then—”

“His wife must be the big, bad wolf,” someone finished.

I looked up, and there she was: the half-werewolf who wanted her daughter dead. Who wanted us dead. Penny Lowder strode down the staircase in a blue business skirt and jacket, her dyed-blond hair, usually fastened up, falling almost to her waist, loose and luxurious. Surgery no doubt masked her likeness to the young woman she’d once been. But with her veneer of submissiveness shed, I could feel her true nature, could see it radiating from her lupine eyes.

Vega trained her pistol on Penny, but the mayor’s wife wasn’t alone. Security guards flanked her, while others filled the two doorways to the sitting room. I sensed werewolf in them, too. With a Word, I reinforced the shield around Detective Vega and me, wondering how long I could hold it.

“Why don’t you go upstairs, honey,” Penny said to Budge. “We’ll discuss your naughtiness later.”

Budge nodded quickly, eyes large with fear, and hustled up the stairs and out of sight. I returned my attention to Penny, the power behind the mayoral throne. She stopped at a central landing.

“Now,” she said in a growling voice. “What to do with these two?”

37

“You’re the one who hired the vampire hunters and Moretti’s men,” I said, still not quite believing it. “You had Sonny killed. You put the hits on Vega and me and probably anyone else with information that would connect you to your daughter.”

“I’m not going to confirm or deny anything,” Penny said as the guards filed around her and down the steps. “But aren’t we all after the same thing? Getting a killer off the streets? Keeping the citizens of New York safe?”

“Making sure your husband is reelected?” Vega said. “Keeping your hold on power?”

“What you think you know about my motives or past is inconsequential. Especially under the present circumstances.” She glanced at the guards.

“If anything happens to us—” Vega started to say.

“Ah, the threat.” Penny grinned. “I heard everything you told my husband. The difference between my husband and me is that I can smell a lie.” Her narrow nostrils flared out. “And you’re giving off the sour odor, Detective. A good thing, because I do need you taken care of.”

I cinched my grip on my cane as I counted the guards. At least twelve that I could see.

“Kill the intruders,” Penny ordered.

The guards’ snarling faces elongated, sprouting teeth and hair. Arms thickened and burst from uniform sleeves.

I created a firing line in Vega’s shield as she squeezed off her first shots. A lunging werewolf seized his chest and fell forward, already reverting to his human form. Others swarmed over him, ears pinned back, jaws snapping against my shield. I had a cold flashback to Romania.

You possess magic now that you didn’t then, I reminded myself.

Even so, what magic I possessed would only keep them off us for so long.

I drew my revolver and patted where my outer coat pockets would have been before realizing I had left my coat on Alexandra. No coat meant no more ammo. I released the revolver’s cylinder and looked.

Three bullets.

A force jarred me, and the revolver fell from my hands. The werewolves were coordinating their attack, pulling back and then slamming into the shield at the same time, their supernatural strength rattling our protection all the way to my mental prism. And with the beasts coming in low, Vega’s shots were tearing into shoulders and heads more so than chests.

“Respingere!” I cried.

The shield pulsed, shoving the werewolves back, allowing me time to stoop and retrieve the revolver. But the chamber only held one bullet now. I found one of the dislodged bullets beside