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

“Security cam’s out, too,” a voice squawked back. “Exhibit still there?”

The guard’s light illuminated the ringer. “Still here,” he confirmed.

“All right, we’re calling the NYPD. Let them handle it.”

“Fine by me,” the guard said.

He gave the baptistery a final pass with his flashlight, the beam hitting me once more, before leaving. I trailed him to the front of the church. The guard hadn’t the faintest idea I was on his heels. When he opened the door ten minutes later to let the police in—Officers Dempsey and Dipinski, it turned out—I slipped out behind them and pattered down the cathedral steps to the street.

I waited until I was a few blocks from the cathedral before I removed the robe and stuffed it into the back of my pants under my shirt. The heist had been a success, but my confidence was in the crapper. A mission that should have been a cinch had nearly gotten me killed.

With a wave and sharp whistle, I flagged down a cab.

Time to give Chicory that earful.

5

“How did it go?” Chicory called as I slammed the front door behind me.

Around the corner from the entranceway, I found my mentor in the living room in a plush chair, stocking feet poking out from beneath Tabitha’s bulk. He was stroking my cat’s purring head while taking contented puffs from his pipe. An orange-tinted liqueur sat in a snifter on the end table. The thought that he had been relaxing while I was being dunked in a baptistery pool by a water serpent raised my hackles even more.

“How did it go?” I asked. “Other than nearly drowning?”

“Drowning?” Chicory’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

I pulled the wand from my pocket and tossed the two pieces onto the coffee table. “This thing that you assured me was ready for use had enough frigging magic in it to call up a water elemental.”

He frowned down at the broken instrument. “But you retrieved the robe?”

Sighing, I pulled it from the back of my pants and dropped it beside the wand pieces.

His face brightened. “Well, there you go! All’s well that ends well, as I like to say.”

“No, Chicory, you’re not hearing me. You gave me a magical item that nearly killed me.”

“And you said you wanted a test.”

I glared at him. “Are you telling me you did that intentionally?”

He took another puff from his pipe, seeming to consider the question. “Well, no, actually,” he said after a moment. “I must have missed some enchantment or other—but that’s beside the point. The point is I can’t prepare you for every eventuality. If you’re to have any chance, you’ll need to improvise on the fly. Tonight was good practice. You encountered an unexpected challenge and you overcame it. Well done. Though I do wish you wouldn’t have snapped it in half. Wands of that caliber are incredibly hard to come by.”

“Look,” I said, deciding to let the wand comment go, “it’s one thing for the unexpected to come from your opponent, but it’s a hell of another for it to come from your own corner man.”

“I’m not following, I’m afraid.”

I pressed my lips together. “Any day now I’m going to be sent to the Refuge. Up until tonight I was afraid that I wouldn’t be prepared, that it would be a one-way trip. But now I’m terrified the preparations are going to kill me before the Death Mage ever gets a crack. I mean, you send me off with a cursed wand, my staff and sword are in pieces, and the blood you’re distilling … I’m seriously starting to wonder if I should let you inject me with it.”

Chicory chuckled.

“What the hell’s so funny?”

He set his pipe down beside the snifter, lifted Tabitha with both hands, resettled her on the ottoman, and stood and waved for me to follow.

“Where are we going?” I asked in annoyance.

“Just come along.”

Muttering, I followed him to a door beneath the staircase to the attic. For the past week, I’d assumed it led onto a closet, but when Chicory opened it, I could see the top of a wooden staircase descending into darkness. The thought of going underground stretched the skin over my chest like a drum and thinned my breaths.

“I’m not going down there.”

“Believe me,” he said, “you’ll want to.”

Chicory waved his wand, manifesting a bobbing orb of white light. Chicory gave the wand another flick, and the orb began to descend the stairwell, illuminating the way. Chicory followed it down. I fell in behind him despite my anger, his words just vague enough to entice me.

After a steep descent of several sharp turns, the stairwell deposited us onto the dirt floor of a basement. Chicory flicked the wand again, and the orb rose to a set of rafters fifteen feet above us, suffusing the entire basement with light. The space was surprisingly large and must have extended beyond the house to the borders of the property.

“I believe that belongs to you,” Chicory said.

I looked at where he nodded. About twenty feet ahead of us lay Grandpa’s cane.

“It’s in one piece,” I observed.

“Aye.”

But does it still work? I thought dubiously.

I arrived at the cane, almost afraid to touch it. I lifted it from the ground and tested the white opal with a finger. It was re-embedded in the wood, as secure as ever. Runes lined the staff. Not the chicken scratch I’d seen that morning, but ornate letters, each one seeming to hum with power. I drew a breath and pulled the sword from the staff. The blade released easily. I made a few thrusts and cuts, half expecting the blade to feel loose or clunky—or even fall off—but it was as light and sturdy as I remembered, and even seemed to zing.

“I’ll be damned,” I muttered. “You actually fixed it.”

And hadn’t he said something about an enhancement?

“En garde!” Chicory shouted.

I wheeled just as a fireball ripped from his wand and sped toward my head. With