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

my table. She lowered her head to her paws. I waited another moment to ensure she would stay silent before I opened the plastic bag and emptied the contents into the casting circle. Stepping into my protective circle on the floor, I drew my staff and called energy to my prism.

“Cerrare,” I said.

Energy infused the sigils and moved around the concentric circles, closing them. Brow furrowed, I concentrated toward the cat hair. My first spell would be a simple detection spell to determine the nature of the residue, to learn what sort of being had deposited it.

“Rivelare,” I said, staff pointed at the circle.

The hair swirled and amassed at the circle’s center. In the next moment, small popping noises sounded, and a yellow smoke drifted from the clump of hair. The sulfurous smell intensified, but now it carried something else: a distinct odor of ozone. That went with casting.

“The residue originated from a spell,” I said.

“And not from a demonic spell,” Tabitha put in.

“No?” I hadn’t progressed that far.

“I have a nose for my own. That carries the taint of human.”

“Black magic, then.” I gave another sniff, opening my wizard’s senses further. “Cast from elder wood.”

I withdrew energy from the detection spell. A fellow magic-user. And if he or she had disabled Lady Bastet’s glyphs and killed her without a struggle, then we were talking about a powerful one. Personal enmity between the mage and the mystic? Maybe, but I didn’t like the timing.

“Let’s do a little hunting,” I said.

“Knock yourself out,” Tabitha murmured.

With a spoken Word, I shifted half the hair to one side of the circle as a reserve and kept the other half in the circle’s center. I aimed my staff at the small pile and incanted.

After several moments, a subtle pull took hold on my cane as it began to absorb the residue’s essence. The pull grew stronger, which was a relief. I’d feared the mage had covered his tracks and that the spell would crap out. That he hadn’t cast a spell to avoid detection suggested the mage either wasn’t as powerful as I’d thought or so powerful that he didn’t care.

“I see you.”

I jumped at the distorted voice. My gaze searched the circle, but there was no one and nothing there. To the circle’s right, Tabitha had shuffled back into a threatening crouch. Her hair was puffed out, ears flat to her skull. But her dilated eyes weren’t aimed at the circle. They were glaring at me.

“Yes,” she said, “I see you, Everson Croft.”

“Tabitha?”

But it wasn’t Tabitha. A hunting spell worked like a plumbing snake, reaching through the essence of something to hook a target. But that conduit ran both ways, enabling an adept target to lash back and hook the casting circle. Which was exactly what had happened. The minute I knew we weren’t dealing with a demon, I should have reconfigured the circle. Not only that, but I’d been careless in removing Tabitha’s errant hairs. A few must have remained inside the circle, allowing the mage to take possession of my cat.

I cycled through Word after Word to break the hunting spell, but Tabitha’s lips only forked into a grin.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“I was of no concern to you, Everson Croft,” the mage said through Tabitha.

“How do you know my name?”

“I know a lot about you. I own something vital of yours.”

The confidence with which the mage spoke sent a cold shudder through me. What in the world was he talking about?

“Leave it, Everson,” he warned, “or you will join others who have waded into matters beyond their purview. Indeed, crossing paths with me a second time would be very bad luck.”

He was speaking as though in riddle. Bad luck and crossing paths called to mind black cats. And a second time?

In a sudden flash, I remembered the cat that had darted out when I’d blown open Lady Bastet’s door. I had assumed the cat with the sleek midnight coat to have been the lone survivor of the massacre, but something told me the feline hadn’t belonged to Lady Bastet.

Had I crossed paths with the departing mage?

To test the theory, I said, “You killed Lady Bastet.”

Tabitha’s black eyes moved back and forth over mine. At last, her lips grinned again. “You’re more astute than you appear,” the mage said. “But don’t mistake astuteness for adeptness. You’re still a babe in the woods.”

The satisfaction in the mage’s voice stoked a raw rage inside me. Without forethought, I called a tidal wave of power to my prism. “Uccidere!” I shouted, unleashing the power through the conduit, the force shoving me backwards. Tabitha recoiled too, eyes startling wide.

A moment later, though, her body shook with laughter.

“You’re a tempestuous one,” the mage said. “It looks like you require a more tactile warning.”

Before I could raise my staff, Tabitha sprang, claws flashing. Her rear legs kicked me in the chest, toppling me backwards. Hot tines raked my right cheek. I landed hard, cracking my head against the edge of a bookshelf. The room blurred as I struck out my arms in defense.

“Are you all right, darling?”

I blinked over to where Tabitha was sauntering up. I started to shrink away before sensing she was herself again. A quick check showed me the hunting spell had been broken.

Tabitha’s pupils narrowed inside her green irises as she leaned down to inspect my cheek. “Who did you manage to piss off this time?”

“A mage,” I replied, understanding that Tabitha had no memory of the possession.

I touched the knot on the back of my head and inspected my fingers. I wasn’t bleeding there, anyway. My face was another matter. I looked down at the blood spattering the thigh of my pants. The claw marks felt deep enough to leave scars, even with healing magic. No doubt the mage’s intention. I drew a handkerchief from my pocket, balled it up, and pressed it to my cheek. I then used the bookcase to pull myself to my feet.

“So the hunting spell was a