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

“No eyewitnesses?” I asked.

“If so, no one’s talking.”

“What about the cats?”

“What about ’em?” he sneered. “You think one of them saw something?”

“No, smartass. Any bite marks? Anything to suggest how they were decapitated?”

“Well, it wasn’t from a blade. Those heads were torn off.” He glanced over at me, his jaw working as though deciding whether or not to tell me something.

I tapped my shirt pocket containing the photos.

“We found something odd in the fur,” he said at last.

“What?”

“Some sort of residue. Lab says it’s mostly sulfur.”

I kicked that around. Sulfur could mean a demonic presence. Had someone aided the wolves?

“So, we good?” Hoffman asked, his temples shiny with sweat.

“Not quite. I need a couple of things.”

Hoffman’s lips pressed together. “What?”

“First a sample of the residue.”

“What else?”

“You should have a piece of hair in evidence. Light brown. About this long.” I held my two index fingers a foot apart. “I want that, too.”

“You’re asking me to tamper with evidence?”

“Like you’ve never done that before,” I said dryly. “This time, you’ll actually be doing the investigation a favor. The hair belongs to me. Well, not me me, but someone I know. I brought it in for Lady Bastet to do a reading on. It would’ve ended up right around the murder scene. I want it back. Look at it this way. It’ll be one less lead to track down.”

“Anything else, Columbo?” he asked irritably.

“Yeah. Keep me up to date on the investigation.”

“And you’ll hand over the photos?”

“Every last one,” I promised.

11

“They’re slowing,” a team leader’s voice crackled over the feed.

In the tent serving as our command center, black-and-white monitors showed subway lines from the perspectives of the three below-ground teams. The message had come from the southbound team. Like the other two feeds, theirs depicted a graffiti-tagged tunnel narrowing into darkness. Save for the occasional bone pile and mound of excrement, the tunnel had been empty, the ghouls keeping well ahead of the rolling spotlights. Now, hulking shapes took form.

“How many?” Captain Cole asked into his headset.

“Their numbers have been building,” the team leader answered, his slow steps rocking the feed from his helmet-mounted camera. “Right now we’re probably looking at a hundred or so. And they’re getting louder.”

Grunts and whooping cries echoed through the feed.

Cole turned and looked at me. Beside him, the GPS map showed the three teams converging on the station below our feet. We were roughly fifteen minutes from a completed mission and with zero casualties. How do we preserve this? the captain’s eyes were asking me.

I estimated the ghouls to be a hundred feet ahead of the southbound team. Not enough of a buffer.

“Have them turn up the lights and continue advancing,” I advised. “But slowly.”

“Did you catch that?” the captain asked through his headset.

“Roger that,” the team leader replied. “Lights up!” he called.

The feed flared white before the camera adjusted and restored the grainy image. For a moment, the ghouls were exposed, hands and forearms guarding their eyes. They scrambled over one another to escape the full-spectrum light. My released breath relaxed my shoulders. If the ghouls had charged, the southbound team would have been in big trouble.

“Go ahead and have the other teams do the same,” I said, “to be safe.”

Cole gave the order. My heart lurched as the other two feeds lit up to show even larger crowds of ghouls. Damn, more down there than I thought. I was praying my defensive sigils would be up to the job, when the leader of the southbound team’s voice returned, his tone urgent.

“One of them’s stopping.”

On the feed, an especially large ghoul had lingered behind the others. He stood in a half crouch, an enormous knuckled hand shielding his face. Members of the armed team began to shout and squeeze air horns as they’d been instructed. But though the ghoul flinched, he didn’t retreat. Beyond him, other ghouls began to slow, their misshapen heads turning to watch.

Their numbers are starting to embolden them, I thought.

“What’s the call?” the captain asked me.

“Stop advancing, but continue with the noise,” I said.

With the lights blinding their infrared vision, the ghouls didn’t know who or what was bearing down on them. I needed them to think it was a larger, more terrifying force—despite that the ghouls held a ten to one advantage. The rest of the Hundred were acting as an aboveground backup force, ready to drop in if needed. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but this idiot wasn’t helping. The ghoul squinted above his hand before taking a sidestep toward the stalled team.

“Prof?” the captain prompted.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m thinking,” I said.

Each team was armed with automatic rifles and pistols, as well as concussion grenades—any one of which might do the job. But they could also throw the ghouls into a panic, sending the creatures stampeding toward the team. A warning seemed the safest move, something to inflict pain while being clear where the source of that pain had originated.

“The flamethrower,” I said. “Just a burst, though. Enough to get it moving.”

“Hit it with the flame,” the captain said. “To injure, not kill.”

“Roger that.”

On the feed, a team member moved to the fore, a small flame dancing at the end of a flamethrower’s barrel. I held my breath, more sweat spreading over the back of my shirt. Either the flamethrower idea would work, or things were about to get really, really ugly.

“Be ready to drop in,” Cole radioed to the backup team.

With a harsh whoosh, the feed turned bright white. A primal scream sounded as flames washed over the ghoul. A battle cry? But when the flames relented, the ghoul was loping away, the jacket of fire over its head and back guttering out. The ghouls that had stopped to watch fell into his bellowing wake until they were beyond the reach of the spotlights once more.

Thank God, I thought.

“Resume the advance,” Cole ordered.

“The teams are ten minutes from the target area,” a tech said from in front of the