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

my throat. “Oh, you pathetic man. Trying to fire a bullet without a—”

The explosion kicked the shell from my seared fingers and blew the bullet into Penny. I caught her as she collapsed forward. Twisting, I deposited her on the floor on her back. Her eyes stared at the ceiling while blood bubbled and smoked from the wound below her chest. I had hit a large vessel, but missed her heart.

I collapsed against the couch, exhausted, my own blood soaking the arm of my jacket.

Budge hustled down the stairs and splashed into the sitting room. “Oh God,” he cried, staring down at his wife. “Oh, Penny.”

“She didn’t give me a choice,” I said.

His large eyes shifted to mine. They looked almost sad as he raised his gun.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said.

His silence seemed worse than any assertion he might have spoken. The gun’s bore stared at my face. My magic spent, I squinted away, hoping Vega and I had done enough to fulfill Arnaud’s terms.

“Stop!”

I rolled my head to find Vega standing in front of the broken window she’d climbed through, her pistol pointed at the mayor. Though Budge’s gun remained on me, his eyes wavered with uncertainty.

“A couple of ways we can play this,” Vega said. “One, you shoot Everson, then I shoot you. Two, you let Everson walk, and we make a deal that you never come after either of us.”

“Why would I do that?” the mayor asked.

“Because I just got off the phone with someone,” Vega said. “And I told this person everything that Everson and I know. Your wife was right; I was bluffing before. But not this time.” Her eyes were dead serious. “Rest assured, the information is safe with this person. But should anything happen to Everson, myself, or anyone close to us, they know what to do, who to contact. And I’m talking political opponents, media outlets, bloggers. You really will be finished.”

The mayor’s gaze moved between me and Vega, then fell to his bleeding wife. He lowered his gun.

“Go on,” he said softly. “Get out of here.”

39

Vega powered down the bollards blocking our exit and climbed back into the sedan.

“Any word from Arnaud?” I asked as she pulled from the driveway of the mayor’s mansion.

“Nothing. You all right?”

I grunted as I pulled my arm from my blood-soaked jacket. “I will be. How about you?”

The bruising under her right eye had spread to include shades of pink and deep blue. She turned onto East Eighty-sixth Street and scanned the brightening sidewalks. “Where the hell are they?”

I squinted around. “Sunlight won’t kill a blood slave, but it does strip their powers. They tend to avoid it.”

“I’m through with this shit.” At Third Avenue, Vega took a hard left, snapped on her siren, and weaved through the growing traffic.

“Where are you going?”

“Where do you think?”

“The Financial District?”

“He has my son.”

“We’ll never get through the—”

“What would you have me do, Croft? We followed every one of his goddamned leads, and now he decides to go mute. Hasn’t answered any of my texts or calls. I’m done playing his games.”

I tented my fingers over my bullet wound and uttered a Word. With an agonizing tear, the bullet dislodged from bone and shot into my palm as though to a magnet.

“Christ,” I hissed, dropping the bullet on the dashboard.

Vega glanced over. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”

I touched my cane to my chest and incanted until healing energy cauterized the wound and anesthetized the shredded tissue. I sagged against the seat, the sweat that had sprung out over my body now soothing me.

“I can drop you off somewhere,” Vega said.

I shook my head. “I’ll go with you. But I need you to call Lady Bastet.”

“Why?”

“Penny guessed where Alexandra was. She ordered her husband to send wolves down there. If I had killed Penny, I’d say Alexandra’s safe, but I missed her heart. She could still pull through.”

Vega drew out her phone and called.

“Yes?” Lady Bastet said over the speaker.

“It’s Everson and Detective Vega,” I shouted toward the phone while keeping myself a safe distance from the device. “Look, there’s a good chance some werewolves are on their way to your store. You need to get yourself and Alexandra out of there and someplace safe.”

“Do not worry, Everson. Alexandra is already someplace safe.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I foresaw the danger,” she said. “I also divined who was in the best position to protect her. She’s in their care now.”

“Who?” Vega asked.

“The fewer who know, the better. Wouldn’t you agree?”

I nodded at her logic. If and when Penny recovered, she would order a full-scale search for her daughter. She would squeeze the location out of whomever she could. “Well, what about you?” I asked.

“Wolves do not concern me, Everson. I will be fine.”

I thought about the mystic’s impressive powers as well as the protective wards I’d sensed in her store. “All right,” I said. “But be careful. And thanks for your help.”

One less worry anyway, I thought as the connection clicked off.

Seconds later, the phone rang. Vega checked the number and pressed the phone to her ear. “What’s going on, Camilla?”

I could make out a fit of sobbing punctuated by attempts at speech.

“I can’t understand you,” Vega said. “Take a deep breath and try again.”

There was a pause as her sitter inhaled, but her exhale turned into a sobbing wail. Amid the bawling, all I could make out was a name. An ice-cold hand closed around my heart.

“What about Tony?” Vega said.

Sobs surrounded more distorted word fragments.

“What about my son?” Vega repeated, shouting over the noise. “Are you at the apartment? Stay there, I’m on my way.”

Vega hung up and stared at the road ahead, the engine rising another octave.

I pictured the beautiful, curly-haired boy in the photo Vega had given Hoffman.

God, please let him be okay.

I followed Vega as she sprinted up the stairwell of her apartment building and charged onto her floor. At her broken door, Vega stopped, firearm drawn. She pushed