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

followed Zarko to the end of the hallway, where he opened the office door. As I stepped past him and onto the plush carpet, I thought about my two prior visits. The first time, Arnaud had nearly sunk his teeth into my throat before banning me from the Financial District. The second time, he had coerced me into a deal that had led to Vega’s son being imperiled.

Third time’s a charm? I thought cynically.

I joined Arnaud beside the window that took up the far wall. Through the brown-tinted glass, we looked over the battlefield. Smoke billowed here and there, probably from artillery fire and downed helicopters. Along the Wall, automatic weapons popped. Gas jetted out as an antitank missile took flight. Its target, an armored vehicle rolling down Broadway, exploded in flames.

“Sadly, it’s a recurring scene in our history,” Arnaud remarked, as though watching a television documentary. “A city come to storm the fortress walls, to drive our kind from their midst. But that is the advantage of immortality, no? One eventually knows what to expect.”

Zarko appeared with two glasses of scotch. I shook my head, but Arnaud accepted his glass and took a thoughtful sip. I looked over at him, incredulous. How could he be indulging at a time like this?

A helicopter chopped past our view, gunfire bursting from a pair of muzzles. I shouted and reared back.

Arnaud swirled his glass. “At ease, Mr. Croft. The windows are made of reinforced laminate. The building is similarly blast resistant. It would take several direct hits for us to become imperiled, and the city’s forces presently have their hands full.”

The helicopter appeared again, this time spiraling beneath a trail of black smoke. Below us, it collided into a neighboring skyscraper, fire mushrooming from the impact site.

I peered up at the sky. “What’s to stop them from dropping a giant bomb?”

“Resources, for one. I doubt they have anything like that in their arsenal. Money, for another. It’s already going to cost the mayor a pretty piece of his budget to restore Central Park. Now imagine having to rebuild lower Manhattan from the ground up. Not even the federal government will spot the city that kind of capital.” City Hall was hidden by a cluster of intervening skyscrapers, but a wedge of its park peered out. By the tenting, I guessed there was some construction going on. “No, the initial assault is meant to punch some holes in our defenses in preparation for the next wave,” Arnaud went on. “Ah, and here it comes.”

I squinted past the Wall. Though I didn’t possess Arnaud’s preternatural vision, I could see the tide of foot soldiers racing down the north-south corridors. More than a hundred of them. And too fast to be humans.

“Werewolves?” I asked.

“I knew Penny was amassing an army before her untimely bullet wound, but I must applaud her ambition. She apparently got her hands on some enchanted item or other. A half wolf couldn’t have managed this kind of control otherwise.”

Automatic fire popped from the Wall. The advancing wolves were undeterred, converging toward several sections of the Wall that looked to have been damaged by tank fire.

“You, ah, planned for this, right?” I asked.

“The wolves, yes,” Arnaud said, taking another sip of scotch. “But not necessarily the numbers. We’re looking at the population of much of New England. It seems we’re going to be getting our hands dirty, after all.” Without looking, he handed his half-empty glass over his shoulder, where Zarko was standing. “Come,” he said to me. “You too, Zarko.”

“Hey, uh, I’m sort of weaponless.”

With Grandpa’s ring secure on my finger, I was no longer so concerned about the vampires. Werewolves were another story. Arnaud stopped and looked me up and down.

“I may have something for you in the armory,” he said.

“Armory?”

Without a word, he and Zarko sped from the office. I pursued them down the corridor and into the elevator. We descended and stepped into a bunker-like basement. I had to run to keep up as they traversed a long corridor. Another elevator carried us up a short distance.

We stepped out into a warehouse-sized space. Colonies of blood slaves moved among rows of storage shelves. They no longer wore business attire, but suits of glittering chainmail. Several carried medieval weapons. As if silently summoned, one of the blood slaves darted over and stopped in front of us, chainmail hugging his body like a second skin.

“Isn’t it beautiful? Titanium-silver alloy.” Arnaud ran his fingers across the blood slave’s chest, which, along with the shoulders and neck of his suit, featured extra plating. I noted he was wearing a blue armband with the corporate logo for Chillington Capital. In his hands, the slave clasped a pair of punching daggers—also silver. “Neither of our kinds react well to the element,” Arnaud went on, “but it is especially toxic to wolves. Imagine their shock when they seize this man by the throat. Zarko, be a dear and find a suit for our friend.”

Zarko bowed. “This way, Mr. Croft.”

I followed him to an open dressing room with racks and racks of armor. Locker room-type benches crossed the space in rows. Zarko left and reappeared a moment later with a chain mail suit.

“I believe this is your size,” he said.

I accepted the suit and stripped down to my shirt and boxers. The suit was cold going over my skin, but much lighter than I’d expected. Zarko turned me around several times, tugging the chainmail here and there, before securing the waist with a thick leather belt. I sat to don the chainmail shoes. When I stood again, I jogged in place and circled my arms a few times.

“Not bad,” I said. “What about offense?”

Zarko led me to the other end of the room, past racks of conventional weapons, to a display case that stood apart from the others. “These belonged to wizards once,” he said.

“Donations, I assume?”

I could feel Zarko’s grin behind me as I peered down at the items. There were wands of various woods