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

The ringing phone made me jump.

I considered letting the call go to my answering service, but I was selective about who I shared my unlisted number with, and this could be important. I arrived downstairs and grabbed the receiver on the fifth ring.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Everson!” the mayor said. “Listen, I know we barely touched on it in our meeting yesterday, but I want you to go ahead and start drawing up plans for the next phase in the program.”

“Central Park?” That had been slated for late August.

Budge lowered his voice. “Between you and me, I was hoping for a solid month of coverage on the ghoul operation, but the press is already running out of steam. We’re looking at another week, tops. They want fresh stories on the program. Maybe we can divide up the park, do it in phases?”

“We’d have to,” I said, considering not only its size, but its creatures.

“Yeah, maybe a series of grab-and-hold operations,” Budge said. “We could even reopen parts of the park, host a big cookout with blankets, clowns, the works—you know, something tangible for the public. Don’t get me wrong. Ridding the lines of the ghouls was great, but it’s gonna take months to get those lines in good enough shape to run trains through again.”

I caught myself nodding. Despite that Budge had all but blackmailed me into pledging my continued cooperation, I was thankful to have another problem to divert my thoughts.

“All right, but listen,” I said. “This is going to be a lot different from the ghoul operation. For one, we’re dealing with a different class of creature. Goblins, hobgoblins—bad, bad dudes. They might not have the regenerative powers of ghouls, but they’re smarter, more tactical minded. Also, we won’t have anything like the subway tunnels. This is going to be jungle warfare.”

“Is that a problem?” Budge asked.

“It is if you’re trying to avoid casualties.”

“Hmm, good point,” Budge said. “At this phase, though, I think the public would be willing to stomach a few losses, don’t you? Shows them we’re taking the problem seriously. Just so long as the losses are minimal and they don’t include you. You’re still the face of this thing, remember.”

I let the remark go. “When do you need a plan by?”

“Have something Friday. If we want to maintain campaign momentum, Caroline’s saying we need to get the ball rolling by the following week. Otherwise, I’m bleeding points again.”

Mention of Caroline sent a raw charge of emotion through me. I wondered vaguely about the looming threat she was seeing. In light of recent developments, it didn’t seem so pressing.

I cleared my throat. “Friday it is, then.”

I still had the mage to worry about, and whether or not to tell the Order, but in my years as a scholar I’d found that shifting my focus to a secondary problem often yielded answers to a more pressing primary problem. Subconscious incubation, I’d heard it called. I hoped that would be the case here.

“The more spectacular, the better,” Budge said, and hung up.

A week later found me pacing the command-and-control center’s main tent, gripping a Styrofoam cup of bitter coffee. All around me, NYPD officers and technicians manned computers and communication equipment. For the second phase of the eradication program, we had set up in Grand Army Plaza, just outside Central Park’s southeast corner. As before, Captain Cole wanted us close to the action. Only this time, there was no action.

Across the tent, he shot me a stern look that said, Where are they?

I dropped my Styrofoam cup into a trashcan. Above me, a series of monitors showed grainy green images of woods, overgrown paths, a derelict amusement park—but no creatures. On the GPS display, the numbered points indicated that the sweep, begun at midnight, was nearly complete.

“Well?” Cole asked, voicing his displeasure now.

“It’s only the first action,” I said defensively. We had divided Central Park into six sections with the plan to clear them in successive actions, south to north. Tonight we were tackling the southernmost section, up to the transverse road at Sixty-fifth Street. While half the Hundred performed the sweep, the other half were stationed around the perimeter in armored vehicles. No creature was going to get out alive. That had been the idea, anyway.

Cole walked up to me. “You said we’d get engagement.”

“I said maybe we’d get engagement. I’m an academic, remember? Qualifiers are our stock and trade. I also said the heaviest concentration of creatures was going to be farther north. Either way, we secure the southern park and the mayor gets to throw his cookout. Everyone’s fat and happy, right?”

“This is about liberating, not securing,” Cole said in a menacing voice. “You don’t liberate a place by strolling through it and shouting ‘all clear.’ The local Cub Scout troop could’ve managed that.”

“Good,” I said, turning away. “Consult their den mother next time.”

Cole seized my wrist. “You know what I’m saying, Prof.”

I felt my other fist balling around my cane. It was late, my nerves were stretched, and—qualifiers or not—the operation was not going as planned. And here Cole was trying to make me the scapegoat. Monitors flickered. Cole must have sensed the crackle of magic too because he released my wrist.

“Look,” he said, “I hate the political B.S. as much as you, but it is what it is.”

“Yeah, I get it,” I said, a sigh dispersing the power that had rushed to my prism. “The press needs a monster count. Otherwise, this is going to look like an expensive publicity stunt—one the mayor’s opponent will jump on as yet another example of his reckless spending.”

“How dangerous would it be to send a team north to try to bag a few bodies?” he asked.

I followed his furrowed gaze to the map of Central Park. It was a large aerial shot that should have answered his question. The further north one ventured, the wilder and more rugged the park became—and thus, the more dangerous.