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

“Please do,” Cowper said. “It will really help out enrollment. Especially in this department.” He looked pointedly at Snodgrass before issuing a final lip smack and moving off with the others.

I grinned down at my department chair. “It just keeps getting better.”

A tremor moved across Snodgrass’s blanching face. “I don’t care what you are,” he said, shoving the newspaper against my chest and pointing past me. “I want those cretins out of your classroom. Now.”

“What’s the matter? Afraid your department will be overrun by ancient mythology and lore majors?”

“It’s a—a—a—” His lips sputtered, unable to spit out the word.

“Tell you what. While you’re figuring out what it is, I’ll go ahead and start my lecture.”

I pivoted on my cane.

“This isn’t over, Croft!” he shouted at my back.

I waggled my fingers over a shoulder in farewell before opening the door and wading into my new fan base.

After class—a two-hour session that featured a lecture on the ghoul myth across cultures, a long Q&A about my role in yesterday’s operation (which I played way down), and ended with me adding twenty-two new students to the course—I called Hoffman and arranged to meet him at a deli down the street from the college.

The detective arrived, shaking his head. “Must really think you’re hot stuff, huh? ‘Local Wizard Stars in Effort,’” he said, reciting the Gazette headline. “What a bunch of crap.”

I shrugged in answer. Hoffman tossed a pile of paperwork onto the far end of the booth seat and collapsed opposite me. His tie was loosened and the sleeves of his sweat-stained shirt bunched up to his elbows.

“Tough morning on the bribery circuit?” I asked.

Hoffman’s cheeks clenched at the dig. “I saw your little photographer buddy earlier.”

I straightened and peered around. It had been several days since I’d last seen Ed. When he didn’t come home for good, I assumed the spell had expired and he’d collapsed into a clay mound somewhere. I’d been planning a hunting spell to retrieve the amulet. “Where?” I asked.

“I was gonna give him a fat lip,” Hoffman went on, “but the weasel took off. Ran like a little girl.”

“And yet it was enough to outrun you,” I pointed out.

Before Hoffman could respond, the waitress arrived with the two coffees I’d ordered. As she walked away, Hoffman leveled a thick finger at me through the steam.

“I’ll say it again. Those photos don’t show what you think they do. I’m just going along with this ’cause I don’t want you making a goddamned mess of my operation. Do you have the photos?”

“The info first,” I said.

Hoffman peered around, then hunched over the table. “The lab’s still going through the trace evidence. So far it all matches up with the woman’s clients. We’re interviewing them. No suspects yet.”

“Any of them work in security?” I asked, thinking about the werewolves.

“The clients?” He snorted. “They’re about the farthest thing from security you can get. They were seeing her for potions and palm readings. Bunch of fruitcakes if you ask me.”

That didn’t make any sense. The wolves had to have left something.

A Ziploc bag landed in front of me. Inside was a clump of gray hair.

“Your residue,” Hoffman said. “Techs still don’t know where the stuff came from.”

While Hoffman gulped his coffee, I held the bag up to my eyes. Squinting, I could make out a fine yellow dust on the ends of the cat hairs. When I unsealed the bag, the faintest odor of rotten eggs leaked out. Definitely sulfurous. I resealed the bag, folded it over, and placed it inside my leather satchel. I would run some spells on the residue back at my apartment.

“How about the human hair I asked for?” I said.

“Not in evidence.”

“What?”

“You said light brown and about a foot long, right?”

I nodded, remembering the final hair I’d drawn from my mother’s brush.

“I checked the log,” Hoffman said. “Nothing like that was collected. They found a little shriveled-up piece of hair on the victim’s lap, though. The DNA was too corrupted to test.”

“Her lap?”

Heat shriveled hair, but so did intense magic. I recalled how I’d discovered the mystic: slumped in her chair, arms at her sides. She had probably been yanked into that position from behind, the hair she had been handling falling onto her lap. Had Lady Bastet completed the reading before her murder? Had she seen who killed my mother?

Hoffman’s voice broke through my racing thoughts. “We done here?”

I collected myself. “One more question.”

“That’s all I know about the case.”

“Not about the case. It’s about, um, Vega.”

“What, you got a little thing for her?” He smirked. “I’ll tell you what, buddy, she sure doesn’t like you anymore.”

“Did she say why?”

I got that we had hit a nasty bump in the spring, but that had been four months ago. Could she still be that upset? I considered how she’d treated me at the crime scene, the look she’d shot me at my presentation on the ghoul operation. There had to be another reason.

“Hey, your problem, not mine,” Hoffman said with a harsh laugh. “Ask me, she recovered her senses.” He finished off the rest of his coffee and held out a hand. “The photos.”

I pulled a stack of Polaroids from my satchel. “These are most of them.”

“What do you mean, ‘most of ’em’?” Hoffman snatched the photos away and flipped through them like they were playing cards.

“I’m keeping the rest. You can earn them back by finding me suspects.”

The thick flesh of Hoffman’s brow collapsed down. “Listen, you little smartass—”

His voice broke off as a large shadow fell across our table. The redheaded werewolf brothers were looming over us.

I reached for where I kept my revolver before remembering those two had destroyed it. For a moment, I remembered how Grandpa’s possessions had existed in twos. In his tool shed, he’d kept two sets of everything—hand drills, claw hammers, awls—and always the same kind. Ditto his night robe and slippers, his pocket watch, his fedora. I snuck