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

“I think so, yeah,” I replied, my heart beating urgently. Like Olga’s rock salt, sometimes the best magic was no magic at all. “How soon can we leave for the train station?”

“As soon as you are ready,” she said.

I stood quickly. “Give me five minutes.”

I’ve got a gold cup to hack.

18

Somewhere over Spain it occurred to me that I might not have to hack Chicory’s cup. My own cup required an incantation to send messages, but not to receive them. As long as my cup was jetting a flame, the messages arrived on their own. Hopefully, Chicory’s cup operated the same way—in which case, it would just be a matter of igniting the oil crystal.

By the time the plane touched down at Newark International, I was running on unhealthy levels of adrenaline and caffeine and little else. I shouldered my way through the crowds and stood in the taxi line outside.

“Where to?” a cabbie asked when my turn came.

I climbed into his backseat with my pack. “Gehr Place. Near 495.”

He nodded and shifted his ample bulk as he put the cab in gear and reset the meter. “Where you coming in from?”

“Eastern Europe.”

He snorted. “Surprised you were in a hurry to get back.”

“What do you mean?”

“You haven’t been following? The city’s a flipping zoo. Last night, we had maniacs running around the streets, climbing buildings, breaking windows. A couple of ’em tried tipping over my taxi on East Fourteenth. Told dispatch I was done for the night. Screw that.”

“Who were they?” I asked.

“From the looks of ’em? Vagrants and junkies. The police eventually rounded them up, but it took all night. Like some kind of frigging Night of the Living Dead. Cost a few officers their lives too.” He shook his balding head. “Must be a nasty new drug on the streets.”

Or a nasty new magic, I thought. One I potentially let through.

If Whisperer magic was coming through, it might not have been powerful enough to influence sound minds—yet—but it looked as if it was worming its way into those already afflicted, dragging them into deeper madness. I thought about the patients in the psych ward Vega had mentioned, Olga’s alcoholic father, and now junkies.

“You’re my last drop of the evening.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said absently.

“Gonna return the cab and go straight home to the missus. Bar the doors. No way I’m gonna be out and about with crap like this going on. Not worth it for a few extra bucks, you know?”

I nodded as, with stinging, sleep-deprived eyes, I peered out the windows. We were climbing onto I-78, the setting sun throwing final, long shadows over the interstate. The west-bound lanes were clogged. It looked like the afternoon rush, but it was almost eight p.m.

The cabbie snapped on the radio.

“…mobs and mobs of them,” a woman said in a breathless voice. It sounded as though she was speaking through a telephone. “They’re going block by block, setting fire to anything that’ll light. We’ve got cars on fire, buildings on fire…” She took a sobbing breath. “…people on fire. Me and my husband barely got away. They’re … they’re crazy.”

“Aw, Christ,” the cabbie said. “You hearing this?”

“Are you somewhere safe now?” the male talk show host asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” the woman replied, not sounding at all certain.

“If you’re just joining us, ladies and gentlemen,” the host said in a grave voice, “the Bronx is burning. I repeat, the Bronx is burning. Roving gangs with no apparent affiliation began setting fire to the south Bronx about an hour ago, and their numbers have only grown despite the arrival of police on the scene. Something similar is happening in Staten Island and east Brooklyn, we’re being told, but the details at this time are sketchy. The mayor has declared a state of emergency and is recommending that those who can safely evacuate the city do so at this time. Everyone else should remain inside with their doors and windows locked.”

I looked over at the lines of bumper-to-bumper cars in the opposite lanes. Even from my distance, I could see the fear and tension on the drivers’ faces, several of them with children in the back seats. I squinted and craned my neck until I could make out a brown haze rising in the north.

“Evacuate the city?” the cabbie complained. “How am I gonna do that? My wife weighs five hundred plus. She’s practically bedbound.”

My pager began to go off. Its signal had come back on in the airport in Romania, but no one had sent any pages. I dug into my pocket, pushing past the Ziploc bag of Romanian salt Olga had given me for protection, and found the pager. I pulled it out and checked the number. Vega’s.

“Hey,” I said, “mind making a quick stop so I can make a call?”

“You’re not carrying a phone?” he asked.

“No.”

I thought he was going to offer me his, which I would have had to turn down or risk exploding it, but he sighed and said, “I should probably fill up anyway. Let’s make it quick, though, huh?” He turned off the next exit ramp and pulled into a gas station with a payphone.

I ran up to the phone and called.

“Vega,” she answered.

“Hey, it’s Everson. What’s going on?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” she said. “Are you back in the States?”

“Yeah, just got in.”

“The nuttiness I told you about yesterday? It’s gone into overdrive. Mayor Lowder’s been asking about you. He wants to know if there’s something supernatural at work and, if so, what you can do about it.”

“I’m hoping I’ll have an answer shortly,” I said.

“One that’ll put an end to this?”

“Eventually.” I hoped.

Off to my left, stupid laughter filled the inside of a parked Plymouth station wagon, its windows cloudy with smoke. When the skunky smell of pot reached me, I turned the other way and blocked the fumes with my collar.

“Eventually?” The rawness in Detective Vega’s voice told me she hadn’t gotten