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

believe there’s something in cannabis that alters brain chemistry, changes it in a way that doesn’t let the bad magic take hold. Makes the insanity go away. If you can get it in the air, light it, and drop it over the city…”

“You’re asking me to fumigate New York City with pot smoke?”

“It’s a temporary solution until we can tackle the problem at the source.”

“Hold on,” Vega said. I heard her shout something into the mass of voices around her. When she came back on, she said, “I got some funny looks, but the wheels are in motion. They’re desperate.”

“Good.”

“How’s it look around there?” she asked.

I peered down through the security bars of the nearest window. The mobs were arriving on the block. Several floors down, a window shattered. Fires blazed from parked cars. James’s car was surrounded, the mob trying to bang their way through the glimmering shield.

“Could be worse,” I said, which was never a lie. “But listen, I’m going to have James stay here to look after Tony and Camilla. Problem is, that leaves me without a ride. Any chance the NYPD could send a chopper?” There was no chance of driving back through the city now.

“Consider it sent,” Vega said, no hesitation. “They’ll pick you up on the roof.”

“Thanks.” I almost ended the call there. “Hey, listen. If for some reason I don’t, you know, make it back, I just wanted—”

“Shut up, Croft. I’ll see you soon.”

Despite everything, I smiled.

“Sounds good,” I said.

Air blasted beneath the glare of landing lights as the chopper set down on the apartment roof. James had agreed to stay behind, as much to keep Tony and Camilla safe as to give the city a wizard presence, someone Vega could call if new issues arose. James’s ready acceptance of the role suggested he didn’t think he would have been much help in the fight against Lich. I knew the feeling because I was thinking the same thing about myself.

I climbed into the back of the chopper and strapped myself in.

The woman pilot turned to face me. “Where to?” she shouted.

“Gehr Place in New Jersey,” I shouted back. “You can set me down in the cemetery across the street.”

She nodded, replaced the cup over her ear, and lifted off. When the helicopter cleared the surrounding rooftops, it batted west, through smoke and toward the apocalyptic scene that was Manhattan.

Welcome to the End of the World Tour, I thought. Sponsored in part by Everson Croft.

It still killed me that I had been manipulated into destroying the Elder book. As I looked over the spreading flames, I struggled for how I might have seen through the artifice, done something different. My hands balled into helpless fists. The copilot, a young man, turned around. “You the one who said we should dust the city with pot smoke?”

I nodded tiredly and awaited the inevitable punchline.

“Department thought it was crazy,” he shouted. “So they tested it out on a group they’d arrested earlier. Filled their holding cell with smoke. Know something? It calmed them right down.” He smiled wide enough to reveal his crooked lower teeth. “I believe you’re onto something.”

I nodded back, but the drug wasn’t a permanent fix. Something told me that as the Whisperer magic strengthened, it would overpower whatever blunting effect the cannabis was having—no pun intended. Which meant we couldn’t fail. Despite what James had said in the vault, I’d managed to hold on to the remote hope that Lich had overlooked something, that one of the items I’d dropped in the magic sack was the weapon that would destroy his pendant.

The key was in the syllables Grandpa had left behind: Gug-lugal-i.

Minutes later, the helicopter set down in the cemetery, both officers wishing me luck. I waved as they lifted off again, and I ran down the street to the safe house. From overhead, I had marked the mobs’ progress by the fires. They hadn’t pushed this far into Jersey yet, but they’d be here soon enough.

At the front door of the safe house, I stopped to make sure Lich hadn’t returned. I sensed nothing. That disturbed more than relieved me. He had made no effort to stop us, which suggested he hadn’t needed to.

I made my way down to the basement and stood in the casting circle.

Within moments, the wooden rafters and earthen floor disappeared, and I was standing in the moonlit clearing in the Refuge. “How did it go?” Marlow asked. He was alone this time.

“We took what we could find,” I said, holding up the sack. “A few items at the house, and one at the vault in Port Gurney. An old dagger. Unfortunately, the vault had been raided. And it sounds like Lich went down there as well. But there were some Akkadian syllables my grandfather had drawn on a wall: Gug-lugal-i. Does that mean anything to you?”

Marlow repeated the syllables as though testing their power. “It’s not a sound I’m familiar with, no.”

My heart sank. If one of the most powerful magic-users didn’t know what it meant, who would?

Marlow accepted the sack and beckoned for me to walk with him.

“And James?” he asked.

“He stayed behind to help out in the city. That was sort of an executive decision on my part. I hope that was all right.”

“A good decision,” Marlow said.

I looked over at him. I’d become so conditioned to being berated by the magical society to which I thought I’d belonged that being commended was almost jarring. And coming from my father…

“How does it look up there?” he asked.

“Honestly? Bad and getting worse.” I described the scene going and returning. “But through a series of, um, happenstances, James and I discovered that cannabis frustrates the effect of Whisperer magic.”

“Cannabis,” Marlow repeated reflectively. “We’ve been working on various spells and potions as a prophylactic against Dhuul’s influence, but that’s not an ingredient we’d considered.”

“Its effect may only be temporary.”

“That may be all we need,” Marlow said.

He closed his eyes and a vibratory energy moved around him.