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

“I merely saw an opportunity. And opportunities are my livelihood.”

I nodded to myself. Everything was in place.

“Cerrare,” I called.

Across the vault, the door rang with the power of the Word. The glow it cast outlined Arnaud and the fiend in a wavering blue light. Arnaud snapped his head toward the door and back to me. His blood-masked face remained placid, but I sensed surprise beyond his eyes.

“Perhaps you’re more resourceful than I’ve given you credit for.” His voice, though cutting, was slightly off. “You’ve tapped into some reserve of power, I see. But why seal yourself inside?”

I felt his talons plunge deeper into my thoughts. Or rather, what he believed to be my thoughts. In addition to restoring my magic, Caroline had cast a mental glamour: a mirage of my thoughts—in this case random jags of confusion and terror where none existed.

“The locking spell?” I replied evenly. “Oh, that’s to keep anyone from coming to help you.”

He stopped digging, eyes narrowing in on mine.

I grinned and shouted, “Balaur!”

Blue light crackled around the coin pendant over my chest and shot a bright beam at Arnaud. The power of the Pact was not only present in the pendant, but just as potent. With an ear-splitting scream, the fiend sliced in front of Arnaud, absorbing the beam into the shadow of its body. The fiend staggered to the floor, smoke rising from its twisting wings.

“That bit about not giving you enough credit…” Arnaud said from behind me.

I wheeled, but he had already pulled the necklace over my head.

“…I take it back.”

I lunged for the coin pendant. Arnaud smashed me in the jaw with a backhand. The vault whorled and dove as the sting of copper filled my mouth.

“Were you really trying to bait me into that clumsy trap?” he asked. “I don’t know whether to feel flattered or insulted.”

Another fist smashed me in the right temple, dropping me to my knees.

I pawed toward Arnaud, but the recovered fiend grasped me from behind. Though a shadow, the fiend was far from immaterial. The talons of one hand gripped my gut while the other hand clamped my mouth so I couldn’t cast. As its foul, bristling wings wrapped me around, I felt the jagged fangs of its underbite nestle into the shelf at the base of my skull.

“A moment,” Arnaud said, pacing to the center of the vault where he could face me.

I stared back at him, eyes pleading.

“I was prepared to make your death quick, Mr. Croft. A reward for your service, naively given, though it was.” He twirled the necklace around a finger. “But since you insist on being a petulant little bastard, I am going to allow the fiend to savor you while I watch. Perhaps it will help resolve some of the anger I’ve accrued toward your grandfather these past years.”

He wasn’t a thief, I thought so Arnaud could hear.

“No?” he answered. “The evidence suggests otherwise.”

The fiend ran its sharp tongue against the back of my head, leaving a burning trail of saliva. I grunted in pain but held still for fear that the slightest stimulus would send the fangs into my skull.

You don’t know what my grandfather’s intentions were, I thought. No one does.

“And never will, Mr. Croft. This closes the case as far as I’m concerned.” Arnaud raised his eyes to the fiend.

He helped you, goddammit!

“And deceived me. I do not suffer betrayal lightly.”

He gave the necklace another twirl and caught the coin pendant in his hand. As he stroked the symbol with a finger, I remembered the night Grandpa had appeared the necklace from his sleeve.

The necklace is an heirloom, he’d said. It is meant to protect.

Thank you, I’d replied. But protect against what?

Instead of answering, Grandpa had taken the necklace by the chain and placed it around my neck, the heavy coin settling over my sternum, where I could feel its deep, tidal energy.

Wear it in the city, he’d said, under your shirt.

“Oh, does this have sentimental value for you, Mr. Croft?” Arnaud asked in a teasing voice.

I raised my eyes to his. You don’t deserve to be in the same room with it, much less touching it.

The vampire cocked an eyebrow and placed the necklace around his armored neck. “I don’t know, Mr. Croft. I think it rather suits me.” He turned from side to side, the coin sliding over metal plating. “Perhaps it will become my sentimental piece, something to remember the end of the Croft line.”

He watched my eyes for my reaction.

I’d been keeping a silent countdown in my head. Things had moved more quickly than I’d planned, but through a series of challenges and subtle suggestions, I’d gotten Arnaud to don the necklace. Underneath the shadow fiend’s hand, my mashed lips twisted into a smile.

Checkmate, you arrogant son of a bitch.

Arnaud’s mouth straightened. “How dare you—”

The shield I’d built around the coin fractured. Amassed energy detonated in a nova of blinding white light, swallowing Arnaud. The explosion cannoned the fiend and me backwards. As we smashed through the wooden altar, I felt the fiend’s fangs clench, only to break into smoke.

Where Arnaud had been stood an afterimage, a formidable vampire one moment, a decimation of atoms the next. Blown apart by the power of the Pact. The vampire’s scream rang around the vault for several seconds, a shrill, fading echo. Beneath the pain, I heard raw rage. The wrath of a creature who had won centuries’ worth of battles only to lose the final war—and in the time it took to understand he’d been outwitted by a mortal.

Pushing myself to my feet, I coughed out a weak laugh. “Not bad for a petulant little bastard.”

In the center of the vault, Grandpa’s coin pendant rattled to a rest.

33

“So let’s see if we can break this down for everyone,” Courtney said. “You were acting as a double double agent?”

“Well, it’s sort of complicated,” I stammered.

I had sworn off press conferences, but Mayor Lowder argued this wouldn’t be a