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

“Hey!” Detective Vega had finished signing in with the officer and was waving for me to follow.

I eyed the wrought doors of the cathedral again, sweat breaking across my upper back. I mentioned my phobia of being underground? Places of worship were almost as anxiety-causing. In this case, though, it wasn’t that such places repulsed me, but that I seemed to repulse them.

“Croft!” she snapped.

I watched her watching me, one hand bracing the strong curve of her cocked hip. Her NYPD shield glinted at her belt, and I could see the bulge of a sidearm holstered beside it, beneath her jacket. Six months was no guarantee of salvation, but it was half my remaining sentence.

I took a deep breath and made my head nod.

“Coming.”

9

My legs seemed to be hauling large iron balls as I ascended the three steps leading to the set of bronze doors. Detective Vega powered right between them, but I had to stop.

In addition to being places of worship, religious houses had a long history of providing sanctuary against evil. The longer-standing the house, the stronger the protection—especially if the house stood on a fount of ley energy. The protection was felt most palpably at thresholds, and St. Martin’s threshold was all but thrusting me back into the street.

It wasn’t that I was evil, but I had that little Thelonious problem. He wasn’t demonic, per se, but as an incubus, he gave off a similar vibe. And thresholds weren’t in the business of splitting hairs.

I peered past the doorway into the vaulted interior. Detective Vega was already passing through a propped-open set of glass doors to the deep pew-lined nave, where police personnel consulted and a few robed church officials drifted in monastic sorrow. Realizing I wasn’t behind her, Vega turned and gestured sharply.

“Croft,” she whispered.

At the sound of my name, one of the church officials raised his head and moved toward me. He wore a white tunic over a long black cassock. What looked like a grieving stole, heavy and dark, draped his neck. When his face swam from the gloom, I recognized him.

“Is that Everson Croft?” he asked, stopping a few feet from me. His parted red hair was going white, I saw. And he sported a trim beard now, denser around his lips, like an unintended goatee. But his eyes were the same seashell blue I remembered from childhood.

“Father Victor,” I said, smiling.

He had been in charge of the youth programs when I attended, and I remembered him as good-humored and kind, a natural with kids. He had risen in the church ranks since, and word on the supernatural street was that he performed shadow exorcisms. My kind of guy.

“Please, I still go by Vick,” he said. “How long has it been? Fifteen years?”

“Closer to twenty.” I caught myself stubbing a toe against the concrete. Even though Father Vick’s tone wasn’t the least bit insinuating, my long absenteeism still stirred up a cloud of guilt. I struggled to meet his eyes. “Listen,” I said, “I’m really sorry about your rector.”

I hadn’t known the man. The rector from my time had retired, his replacement coming from another diocese.

Father Vick nodded. “Yes. A terrible thing.”

“I’m actually here to help with the investigation, as a consultant.”

I peeked past him to where Detective Vega appeared on her last nerve.

Father Vick stepped to one side and made a humble gesture with his arm. “Please, do come in.”

At those words, the threshold relented. Invitations to enter calmed them. A clammy wave of nausea rippled through me as I stepped inside, but it was better than being burned like a square of toast. Even so, I felt a good chunk of my wizarding powers fall away.

That was something else thresholds could do.

Father Vick placed a comforting hand on my upper back and guided me into the nave. Something about his touch, which hummed with the supernatural power of faith, and the fact he was two inches taller than me, evoked memories of being a young parishioner here.

“Thank you,” I said, the sanctity of the cathedral reducing my voice to a whisper.

“I know you have work to do,” he said, “but I hope we’ll have the opportunity to catch up soon.”

He slipped a card into my hand as he left me with Detective Vega.

“Old friend?” she asked when he was out of earshot.

“Something like that.” I tucked his card into my pocket.

“Well, don’t get too cozy. At this point everyone in here’s a suspect.”

I snorted. “Reminds me of another case.”

She shot me a dark look. We both knew the NYPD hadn’t had sufficient cause to try me. But in their nigh-impossible campaign to clear cases, all sorts of protocols were being skirted, if not sledge-hammered. Though I hadn’t been charged with murder, getting the obstruction charge to stick had no doubt been sufficient to toss the case into the “good enough” basket.

“Here,” she said, clipping a plastic card to my coat lapel, the big NYPD letters stamped in yellow.

“Am I being deputized?”

She frowned. “This way.”

I followed her down the cathedral’s center aisle. To either side, muted light fell through steep Gothic windows. Ahead of us, a majestic stained-glass window glowed softly. During services, I used to study its depiction of hallowed saints and angels, one of them my forebear, Michael. The sections of colored glass seemed to endow them with magic. With that pleasant memory came others: the smells of starched suits and faint perfumes, the warmth of the cushioned pew beside my Nana, her hand absently stroking my hair.

Grandpa had never joined us, for reasons I wouldn’t understand until much later.

We climbed the wooden steps to the chancel, ducked under a ribbon of police tape, and rounded a cloth-draped altar. A pair of policemen stood guard at a door on the left. A table beside them held a set of cardboard cartons.

“The body’s still inside, but it’s covered,” Vega told me. “We’re waiting on forensics, so you’ll need