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

I had always considered the Elders invincible. To hear that they’d been pushed to the brink sent a guilty jolt of pleasure through me while filling me with a deeper anxiety. “The Order almost fell?”

“The Elders took steps to ensure nothing like that would ever happen again.” Chicory leveled his gaze at me. “Including creating a penalty system for wizards who insist on summoning beings they shouldn’t.”

“I told you, it wasn’t really a summon—”

“Silence, Everson.”

I watched him watching me, the smoke from his pipe enshrouding him in a sinister mist. Story time was over. Time to dole out the punishment. A heavy stone rolled around my stomach. Chicory set his pipe on an end table and folded his stubby fingers over his small paunch.

“Though you committed an infraction, that’s not why I came,” he said.

“It’s n-not?”

“I’m here on another errand. When I let myself in, I happened to sense the remnants of the summoning spell, which you’ve all but confessed to. There are penalties for such actions, Everson. But given that you banished a demon lord last fall, I’m only going to issue a warning this time. This time,” he emphasized, raising an eyebrow. “You’ll see no such leniency the next.”

“I understand,” I said, touching my clasped hands to my forehead. “Thank you.”

“I’m here about your mother.”

I lowered my hands.

“In response to your multiple inquiries into the circumstances surrounding your mother’s death, the Order has sent me to address them.”

“That’s why you’re here?”

“The answer, I’ve been told, is no.”

“No?” I said. “What do they mean no?”

“They have no more information for you.”

“They have no more information period, or no more information they want to tell me?”

“They hope this brings the matter to a close.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Brings the matter to a close? The hell it does! All it tells me is that the Order is hiding something.” I flattened my shaking hands against my thighs and took several deep breaths. “I’m going to ask you something, Chicory—you, not them—and I want the God’s honest truth.” I took another breath as I considered the question I’d been brooding over for the last four months. “Did the Order execute her?”

The room seemed to waver around us.

“I can tell you unequivocally that they did not.”

I took a moment to decide whether or not I believed him. Chicory waited, a sober honesty standing in his eyes.

“But there’s more,” I said. “There has to be more.”

“If there is, the Elders have chosen not to disclose it. We must accept whatever wisdom guides their reasoning.”

“But it’s my mother,” I said.

“I know, Everson.”

“Can you at least tell me whether she was a magic-user, a member of the Order?”

“She passed away before my transfer here,” Chicory said. “But I don’t think the Order would object to my telling you there’s no record on her. None that I could locate, anyway. Not every generation manifests the power of Michael’s lineage. While your mother carried the genes, the genes may not have found expression in her. They found expression in you, though—something the Order was unaware of until your adventures in Romania.”

“Can you ask them?” I pressed.

Chicory sighed heavily.

“Please.”

He move his head side to side as though deliberating. At last, he nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out. But I can’t tell you when to expect any information,” he added hurriedly. “I have a full caseload right now.”

“I understand. Anything’s better than nothing.”

“Very well.” He stood and returned his pipe to his pocket. “Was there anything else?”

“Actually, the mayor is planning a program to eradicate ghouls and lesser creatures in the city. He wants me to act as a consultant. I told him I had to clear it with my higher ups.” Not wanting to convolute the request, I said nothing about the werewolves or Lady Bastet’s murder.

“That sounds fine,” Chicory said. “It’s why Michael sired children, after all. Just don’t let it interfere with your other duties.” Chicory shot me a final reproving look. “And no more summonings—or leaving doors open, as you call it. Not from the In Between, not from anywhere.”

“No more leaving doors open,” I agreed.

Chicory’s cocked eyebrow issued all the warning I needed. Not only would I face extreme punishment, but I could forget about learning anything more about my mother.

“G’night, love,” he said to Tabitha, giving her a final scratch behind the ears.

Tabitha shifted and purred in her sleep.

9

I met with the mayor twice that week, official meetings in his City Hall office. No more being beaten and grabbed off the street. For Budge’s part, he acted as if that episode had never happened. We spent most of the first meeting discussing the supernatural geography of the city, narrowing in on the ghoul-infested subway lines and the wilds of Central Park.

Budge frowned down at the map spread over his desk. “Which one should we nail first?”

“Well, if the goal is to get the most bang for your buck in the shortest amount of time…” I tapped the defunct Broadway line in lower Manhattan. “…I’d go after the ghouls. With them gone, murders and disappearances will drop immediately. A hard stat you can point to.”

“I like the sound of that,” Budge said.

“Not to mention you’ll be able to restore service to that line, something the public’s been clamoring for.”

“Great minds think alike.” Budge checked his watch. “I’ve got a meeting with the MTA boss in a couple minutes. Sort of a blow hard, but that’s between you and me. In any case, let’s sit down again tomorrow, same time. I want you to talk Captain Cole and me through the nuts and bolts.”

We shook on it. As had been the case all meeting, I couldn’t find an ulterior motive. The eradication program seemed to be just what Budge had said it would be: a high-profile injection of money and resources into the problem of marauding monsters. If the program produced the results Budge needed, he had a chance of eking out a win in November.

I spent the rest of