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

Vega’s words only sank in when I’d forced a calming breath. “Wait, that’s it?” I asked her.

“You’re dismissed,” she affirmed.

I made sure Hoffman was out of earshot before lowering my voice. “Look, I think we need to collaborate on this one. Find out if it really is the work of wolves and, if so, what they’re up to.”

“I said you’re dismissed.”

“Allow me to translate.” Hoffman sauntered up behind her and jerked his thumb toward the door. “Take a hike, jackass.”

I searched Vega’s face for any sign that she might want to tell me something away from her partner. But her visage remained hard, hostile. Could she still be that angry with me?

“Fine,” I said, “but if you have any questions—”

“I already said we’d call you.” Vega turned away.

When Hoffman did the same, I unsheathed my sword and flicked my wrist. The path of the blade cut just behind Hoffman’s left ear. I caught the tuft of hair that fell from his curly brown wreath.

Might come in handy.

7

It was full dusk when I reached the sidewalk. Headlights swam up and down the street as my cane tapped a hollow rhythm beside me. I needed to be back there, helping with the investigation. I needed to be doing something, dammit.

But Vega wouldn’t allow it.

I racked my brain for a spell I could cast, one that would point to the killer. But lacking a target item, I came up blank. Did I even need a spell? I wondered. The crime scene had Penny’s wolves written all over it. That filled in the who. But ignoring the why for a moment, how would they have breached Lady Bastet’s defenses? How would they have overpowered her?

“Mr. Croft,” a deep voice called.

I peeked back. The broad-shouldered man was mostly in silhouette, but I could make out the dull glint of a badge, and it wasn’t NYPD. Shit. Penny’s pack worked in government security, and there wasn’t a chance in hell this man appearing on the heels of Lady Bastet’s murder was a coincidence. I lifted my shirt away from the revolver holstered above my hip. For the last four months, I hadn’t left home without it, a silver bullet in each cylinder.

“Mr. Croft,” he called again, walking faster. “Need to have a word with you.”

“I don’t know any Mr. Croft,” I called back. “You’ve got the wrong person.”

My heart thumped as I moved my cane to my front and readied a shield invocation. I could probably take him, but I wanted to reach the next intersection, where traffic was flashing past. The wolf would be less likely to shift in the open, giving me an advantage.

He wasn’t going to let me get there, though. The man bounded past and wheeled, a feral light burning in his eyes.

“Protezione!” I called, throwing a shield of light between us and drawing the revolver.

He tilted his nose up and sniffed the air. “Yeah, it’s him,” he called past me.

Huh?

I was halfway into my turn when a blow from a second wolf crushed the side of my head. My legs jiggled for a moment, and I fell to the street, revolver tumbling from my grip as my failed shield rained over me.

Voices, low and murky, seeped into my hearing. I squinted my eyes open. I was sitting in a padded chair in a small room. A warehouse office, judging by the corrugated metal and piles of old file boxes. Moths batted around a dangling bulb, some as large as sparrows. When one fluttered too close to my face, I tried to swat it away, but my arm wouldn’t budge.

Head throbbing, I looked down at my wrists. Plastic zip ties secured them to the armrests. A second pair bound my ankles to the chair’s legs.

Well, shit, I thought groggily.

I listened to the voices. I couldn’t make out words, but they were coming from beyond the office door. Men’s voices. Two sets. Probably the werewolves who had ambushed me. Meaning if I didn’t want to end up like Lady Bastet, I needed to get the hell out of here.

And without making a lot of noise.

My cane was nowhere in sight, my coin pendant absent from my neck. I trained my attention inward, to my casting prism, and found it fractured and wrapped in fog. When I tried a centering mantra to restore it, my lips wouldn’t separate. A strip of tape held them closed.

Great, someone knows who they’re dealing with.

After attempting to create a pocket inside the tape using my tongue, I gave up and studied the chair’s armrests. The foam padding around the right one had disintegrated down to a hard edge of metal. Sharp enough to cut through the plastic restraint? I moved my right arm back and forth in a minute sawing motion, a few millimeters each way, all the restraint would allow.

The voices drew nearer, their owners now casting shadows against the doorframe.

Crap crap crap crap.

I relaxed my arm as the werewolf I’d met in the alleyway entered, still in human form. He had dark red hair and arms the size of my thighs, though better sculpted. He was followed by a second hulking werewolf, no doubt the one who had smashed me in the head. They looked like brothers, especially in their matching security guard uniforms. I took an immediate dislike to both of them.

“Sleep well?” Brother One asked, smirking as he adjusted the belt holding his service weapon.

“He’s up,” Brother Two called to someone behind them.

I had been puzzling over who had ordered Lady Bastet’s murder. Now I had a gut-wringing feeling I was about to find out.

“What’s this?” a man’s voice demanded. Between the brothers’ shoulders, I caught a flash of lenses. A moment later, a pudgy figure shoved his way past the wolves. “Is he alive?”

It was Mayor Lowder.

Sorry to break it to you, sweetie, I thought to an imagined Caroline. But contrary to your assurances, I’m not only a target of the mayor’s eradication program, but part of phase one testing.

“He