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

I’d only ventured into those wilds once, and that was with a stealth potion. Even then, I’d nearly been flame-broiled by druids.

“Not worth it,” I said.

“Team of five,” Cole went on. “If they’re killed in action, not a huge loss.”

“It is if we have nothing to show for it.”

But the stern line of the captain’s lips told me he’d already made up his mind. He readied his headset to issue the command.

“We found something,” a voice crackled over the feed.

Cole and I turned simultaneously. The GPS display showed team members converging near the park’s southeast corner—a wooded area anchored by a horseshoe-shaped pond. My eyes cut to the nearby monitors. One of the feeds steadied on the base of a giant boulder. Several armored officers were clearing branches away from what I realized was the entrance to a tunnel.

“Careful,” I muttered.

Cole nodded. “Drop in a couple grenades,” he ordered.

As team members readied the grenades, I studied the tossed-off branches that had been used to screen the tunnel. Something about the concealment seemed too obvious. I eyed the GPS display. In the men’s eagerness for action, they had converged too quickly, were too close together.

“Have them spread apart,” I told Cole quickly. “There are probably other access points to the—”

The bangs of the exploding grenades cut me off. Fire blew from the hole, the retreating camera catching it as a white-green flare. The camera whipped around suddenly.

I drew in a sharp breath at the sight of small figures blurring past the trees. Thunks sounded, and the camera fell to the ground. Out ahead of the camera lens, beyond a spray of twigs, I could see two downed members of the Hundred, the seams in their body armor bristling with arrows.

A blow horn sounded, followed by a chorus of garbled cries.

“Son of a bitch,” I said, instinctively drawing my cane apart. “Goblins.”

“We have engagement!” Cole shouted into his headset. “I repeat, we have engagement!”

19

Unlike many of the creatures in the city, Goblins were not undead. Neither were they descended from the original demons. They had come up from the faerie realm in an age before fae kingdoms controlled the portals. Passing for stunted humans, they were a mean, marauding race. They never adopted modern weaponry, however, and were eventually killed or driven into hiding. But their love of human treasure kept them close to urban centers.

Several of the monitors showed small figures cutting in and out of view, pursued by bursts of gunfire. Arrows flashed at cameras in a deadly hail. Though more likely to pilfer than plunder these days, the goblins’ skill in battle had never left them.

“They’re everywhere,” a team leader called through one of the feeds. “Coming from all sides!”

“Everyone to the southeast quadrant,” Cole ordered. “Perimeter team, move in.”

“We don’t know how many there are,” I said. “There could be hundreds.”

“That’s not what you told us at the briefing,” Cole growled.

I stammered for a moment, but he was right. I’d told him and the mayor that we could expect a few dozen creatures, a number I’d extrapolated from the statistics on murders and attacks in and around south Central Park.

When I found my voice, I said, “So we pull back, reassess.”

“We’ve got personnel pinned down,” Cole answered. “They need backup.”

A nauseous heat broke out over my face. “There’s no telling how far the goblin tunnels extend. You could be sending your forces into a bigger trap.”

Cole ignored me, shouting more commands into his headset as he moved off.

I looked from my inert sword and staff to the frenzy of activity around me. On the monitors, more helmet-mounted cameras were staring at the ground or up into trees, their operators dead or dying. I’d underestimated the number of goblins. Underestimated their cunning. Once the sweep team had converged on the poorly hidden hole—a decoy, no doubt—the goblins had poured from surrounding holes and launched an ambush. And something told me the goblins had a second ambush in waiting for whatever backup arrived.

We were playing into their grubby little hands.

“Entering from Central Park South,” I heard a familiar voice report over one of the feeds.

Vega?

I ran over to where Cole was standing in front of the GPS display, barking coordinates. “You sent Detective Vega out there?” I asked.

He pushed me aside with a forearm and leaned over one of the communication technicians seated at a computer. He said something into his ear that I couldn’t hear.

“Hey!” I grabbed Cole’s shoulder. “I asked you a question.”

“She’s on the perimeter team,” he shouted. “We were short one.”

I was about to ask why in the hell he’d put her on the perimeter team when I remembered something else I’d said at the briefing. The perimeter team would be unlikely to see major action. They would be in place as a containing force. I swore and sprinted toward the tent door.

“Prof!” Cole shouted. “I can’t let you go out there!”

Yeah, I know, I thought cynically. I’m the face of this thing. But I’m also the reason for the current clusterfuck.

“Tell your team not to shoot at the white light,” I shouted back.

I broke out into a humid, halogen-suffused night and took a moment to orient myself. Armed NYPD officers stood around the perimeter of the plaza. A block away, news vans huddled. Voices rose in earnest at my appearance, and several cameras aimed their lenses at me.

“How’s it going so far, Mr. Croft?” a reporter called.

“Will you be joining the action?” another one wanted to know.

Awful, and I don’t have a choice.

I wheeled toward the distant popping of semi-automatic gunfire. Vega had said she was joining the combat from Central Park South, a street that bordered the bottom of the rectangular park. Police officers shouted after me as I left the plaza and accessed the street at a run. At the next block, I jumped a police barricade across a stone staircase and descended into the park itself.

“Protezione!” I said.

White light burst from my staff and hardened into a shield around me. I