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

voice, “you don’t need to apologize about my wife. I was there last spring. I saw what happened. Heat of battle, and all that.” He snuffed out a laugh. “She was a helluva fighter, though, huh? I wanted her to pull through, I did, but … The damned thing of it is, if she’d lived to know you finished off Arnaud, she’d have forgiven you everything.”

“Really?”

“Hey, I know my Penny.” He smiled sadly before changing the subject. “Do you know how long you’re gonna be away?”

“I don’t,” I said, thinking about the Order, blood magic, my mother…

“Well, be sure to check in when you get back. I could use you around here for my second term.”

As he gave my hand a final solid shake, it struck me that from our meeting in the warehouse until now, a few attempts at coercion aside, Budge had shot pretty straight with me.

“Will do,” I said.

I watched him walk to the wing of the stage, where Angelus and Caroline were waiting for him. Caroline glanced past his shoulder. When our gazes met, her face showed recognition but nothing deeper. Per her arrangement, her feelings for me had vanished. Poof.

I raised a hand anyway. She responded with a nod before turning and disappearing with her husband and the mayor.

I stared after her for several seconds.

You didn’t have a choice, I reminded myself. Neither of you did.

And the truth was she was becoming more and more fae by the day. Her sacrifice to help me had only sped her departure from my world. I thought about our final moments in Columbus Park, her awesome power riffling through the conduit that connected Ed back to me, restoring my mind, my magic. I would have had to let her go eventually. The knowledge didn’t make it hurt any less, though. I blinked and rubbed the heels of my palms across my eyes.

“There he is.”

I gave myself another moment before turning. I spotted Vega limping up the steps to the stage, her son clinging to her trailing hand. She flashed a smile when she saw me walking over.

“Somebody’s been dying to meet you,” she said to me.

When my brow wrinkled in question she cocked her head down at her son.

“Oh, yeah?” I lowered myself to a knee and extended a hand. “Tony, right?”

The one time I’d seen him had been after Arnaud’s slaves had returned him to Vega. He’d probably been too shocked to remember me then, and I was frankly surprised Vega was introducing him to me now. I guess blowing up the vampire responsible for his kidnapping had boosted my stock in Vega’s portfolio. I smiled when the six-year-old boy edged further behind her braced leg.

“Go on,” Vega said to him. “Shake the man’s hand.”

Eyes fixed on Grandpa’s ring, which I’d recovered from a vault in Arnaud’s office, Tony stretched an arm forward and clasped my fingers.

“He’s been talking about you ever since the story broke,” Vega said. “Thinks you’re a superhero.”

I shook his warm hand and stood again. “What, and you don’t?”

“Well, you’ve got more lives than anyone I’ve ever met. I’ll give you that.”

“You’re partly to blame this time,” I pointed out.

“And you managed to make me not regret it.”

We both smiled and looked over at Tony, who had picked up my cane from the chair I’d been sitting in for the interview.

“It’s all right,” I said before she could tell her son to leave it alone. “It’s safe. He won’t be able to open it.” For several seconds, we watched him cane-fight an imaginary foe.

“So what’s this about you taking time off?” she asked.

I reflected on the past several weeks. In one form or another, I’d been involved with clearing the ghouls from the subway lines, the goblins from Central Park, not to mention decimating the city’s werewolf and vampire populations. And that was on top of learning about the dark mage. “I haven’t earned it?” I teased Vega. “Nah, it’s just some personal time.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Anything to do with Lady Bastet’s murder?”

Crap. We’d never buried that hatchet. “A lot, actually,” I admitted. “I think the person who killed her also killed my mother.”

“You never told me your mother was murdered.”

“I didn’t know until that night you caught me at LB’s. I saw something in her scrying globe.”

“Do you have a name for me?”

“Not yet.” I checked my watch. “And I’ve gotta run.”

“We’re not gonna play this game again, are we?” she asked.

She was right. I owed her more. “I’ll tell you anything I find out. If,” I added, “you let me call the shots.” And if, I thought, I’m not in terminal trouble with the Order. “This is a whole different level of menace.”

Vega’s lips torqued as she considered my terms.

A small hand tugged at my pant leg. I looked down to find Tony holding my cane up for me.

“Here, Mr. Croft,” he said, his brown eyes as intense as his mother’s. “To fight the monsters.”

“Thanks, big man.” I smiled at Vega. “He’d make a great sidekick.”

She ruffled his feathery curls. “Yeah, when he’s not too busy making trouble.”

“Hey, listen,” I said. “I’m glad we’re talking again.”

When she replied, it was with an edge of warning. “Let’s try to keep it that way.”

“I’ll be in touch,” I assured her.

“I’m counting on it.”

I kissed her cheek in farewell—why not?—and gave Tony a high five. Vega seemed not to mind either gesture. As I pattered down the auditorium steps, her son’s voice rang out behind me.

“Bye-bye, Mr. Croft!”

34

“You’re late,” Chicory said when I entered my apartment.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” I hung my cane on the coat rack and hustled to the sitting area in front of the stone fireplace. “The interview went longer than expected. Can I get you anything?” I ran through a mental inventory of what I had on hand. “Water? Um … cheese?”

“No,” he said. “Have a seat.”

From the reading chair, my mentor nodded to the couch opposite him. He was buried under Tabitha whose purrs sounded like a small