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

I dropped my duffel bag and checked my voicemail. No messages.

Good.

According to Arianna, I had four days until Lich reconstituted his form. A narrow window, which might have been the point—to compel me to dive straight into the investigative work.

Instead, I climbed the ladder to my library/lab and glanced over my hologram of Manhattan. Though I’d been gone for two weeks, the hologram was dim. It had been Chicory’s job to maintain the magic-detecting wards throughout the city. No Chicory probably meant no more wards, which meant no alarms. Another senior magic-user in the Order would have to restore them.

Assuming there are any left, the insidious voice inside my head whispered.

I pressed my lips together and turned to the plum-colored flame on the table. No new messages. At my desk, I sat and penned an update to the Order. I waved it over the flame, the orange flare telling me the message had been received.

But is anyone even home? the voice taunted.

“Shut it,” I said.

With a Word, I revealed my books, then pulled down a tome on potions. I flipped until I found the most powerful one for dispelling magic that I could reasonably cook. It would take the rest of the day to prepare the potion, and I wasn’t even sure it would work against Whisperer magic, but I needed to try. I wouldn’t get anywhere if I couldn’t trust my own thoughts.

I pulled out my burner and pots and got to work.

The next morning, with the bitter dispel potion cramping my stomach, I drove Chicory’s car downtown. At the checkpoint at One Police Plaza, guards examined my ID and waved me through. Detectives Vega and Hoffman were waiting for me in the front of the building, Hoffman holding the handle of a large, four-wheeled dolly.

“Great. You again,” he said when I got out.

I grinned. “Admit it, Hoffman. You missed me.”

“Yeah, like a leaking appendix.”

“Are those the files?” Vega asked, nodding toward the back seat.

“Yeah, and there are some more back here,” I said, unlocking and raising the trunk door.

While the potion had been cooking, I had called Vega and filled her in on my trip to the Refuge. She had agreed to take the files as evidence in the Lady Bastet murder investigation. I had also called Caroline, my former colleague and now a fae princess. At the very least, I’d wanted to find out what the fae knew about the Whisperer. But Caroline’s old number was no longer in service and she hadn’t been seen in the mayor’s office in several days. Were the fae evacuating our world? I had considered going to the fae townhouse in the Upper East Side to find out, but I couldn’t risk losing my magic again.

Vega gestured to Hoffman, who grumbled and began loading the boxes onto the dolly. She and I walked several paces away from the car until we were out of his earshot.

“Are you all right?” she asked, the skin between her eyebrows folding in.

“Yeah. I think so, anyway.”

“So your father didn’t kill your mother?”

“At this point, I honestly don’t know. But either way, the same person who killed her killed Lady Bastet. That much I can say with confidence. The murderer wanted to suppress the truth. Whatever that truth is,” I added in a mumble, feeling just as confused as before I gagged down the potion.

“And the perp might be the person whose files we’re taking in? This Chicory?” She jotted down his license plate number.

“There’s a small chance,” I said, hating that I was even considering it. “I appreciate you doing this, by the way.”

“What are we looking for exactly?”

“The files contain info about other magic-users like me, maybe. I just need you to find out what you can about them, who they are, where they live, whether they knew Chicory, when they last saw him.”

“There must be hundreds,” she said, eyeing the growing pile of boxes on the dolly.

“Which is why I need all the help I can get.” I remembered something I wanted to ask her. “Hey, last month when you and I were on the outs, didn’t you say something about consulting another magic-user in the city?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, that guy.”

“Do you happen to remember his name?”

“James Wesson.”

A charge went through me. His name had been on the other folder in Chicory’s room.

“I should still have his info,” Vega said, pulling a wallet from her back pocket and flipping through a batch of business cards. “Here it is.” She separated out the card and handed it to me.

The card stated his name and phone number, nothing else. “I’ll give him a call,” I said. “See if I can’t stop in and talk to him myself.”

“Have fun,” she said dryly.

“Why? What’s wrong with him?”

“You’ll see.”

“Where did you find him?”

“Yellow pages. He’s listed under both ‘Sorcerer’ and ‘Supernatural Consultant.’”

That sounded odd for a member of the Order. I’d always assumed those listings were posted by frauds. “Was he helpful?”

“You mean when he decided to do some actual work? Yeah, he came up with a few insights. Namely that the murder wasn’t the work of werewolves, and magic had decapitated the cats.”

I reread the card and put it away. “Sounds like he knows his stuff, anyway.”

“Said he was going to run a test on the residue, but that was around the time you and I patched things up. I had the department cut him a check and tell him his services were no longer needed.”

I thought about how that could be my in, telling this James that I had taken over the consulting gig and wanted to compare notes. I could then introduce questions about the Order, see how much he knew.

“So are you back for good?” Vega asked.

“Only until tonight. There’s a trip I need to take.”

“Where?”

“Romania.”

“Romania? What’s over there?”

“It’s where my first mentor trained me, someone named Lazlo.”

“Wouldn’t a phone call be easier?”

“He doesn’t own one—or at least he didn’t ten years ago.