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

that esoteric groups exist in the city, but my work takes me into the lives of individuals. Those who have lapsed beyond doubt into darkness, aligned with the shadows that dwell there. I’ve never believed the church’s role should be castigation, Everson. We should offer sanctuary and, when possible, healing. Like that young boy in my Sunday school class, I don’t like to see people hurt.”

He hadn’t answered my question, but before I could try again, a sharp pain stole my breath away. Father Vick had raised two fingers, and a force was stabbing through me.

I stared back at him. What in the hell…?

But he wasn’t causing the pain, I realized, not directly.

Thelonious had been caught off guard and was now burrowing into my energy like a giant tick. Father Vick’s powers of exorcism were strong, but not strong enough to dislodge a determined incubus. I raised a hand to show him I was okay. The force and pain relented.

I searched for words to paper over the awkward moment, but Father Vick’s pale eyes were gazing past me. I turned and jumped a little to discover someone standing just outside the cracked-open door—a young woman in a white robe, from the segment I could see.

“Come in, Malachi,” Father Vick said.

Malachi? The door opened wider, and I saw the person was, in fact, a dude. Though he must have been twenty or so, his nervous, narrow face remained in smooth adolescence. His hair had also thrown me, brown hair long enough to have been gathered into a ponytail in back.

“Malachi is our resident acolyte,” Father Vick informed me as way of introduction. “He’s interested in St. Martin’s history and has been going through our vast archives. Some fascinating items in there.”

I stood and shook the boy’s pliant hand. “Everson Croft.”

The young man mumbled something that was barely audible, his smallish eyes flitting around my gaze.

“Did you have something to tell me?” Father Vick asked him.

“Um, the police are here. They want to see you again.”

I knew there was a chance of that happening, but crap.

“Have them wait for me in the nave. We shouldn’t be more than another minute.”

As the door closed behind Malachi, Father Vick gave me an ironic smile. “It looks like your colleagues have more questions.” He shrugged as he stood. “Given the circumstances, who can blame them? By all appearances, the murder was committed by someone inside these old walls.”

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Besides no one having any grievances against Brother Richard? Cyrus is too old to have carried out so violent an attack, and Malachi too gentle. There is no malice in either of them.”

Father Vick did have that perceptual ability, but I noticed he’d left himself out.

“I have to ask,” I said, already wincing inwardly at what I was about to say. “Did the two of you have any conflicts? I mean, you seem to have been divided on the issue of magic.”

“A fair question,” he replied, holding my gaze. “And yes, we did argue about the matter. But you don’t have to see eye to eye on every issue to be close.” Grief clouded his face. “If you had siblings, you would understand.”

I nodded and lowered my gaze. Congratulations, Everson, you’ve just leveled up in shittiness.

Father Vick placed his hands warmly on my shoulders. “It has been good to see you, Everson. And I meant what I said. You’re welcome at St. Martin’s anytime. You’re not the exile you seem to believe yourself to be.”

“Good to see you too, Father.”

With a final smile, he stepped past me. “Well, I suppose I need to get to another meeting. And if I read your earlier reaction correctly, you need a back door to depart through.”

“I guess investigators have their own conflicts,” I said sheepishly.

“Say no more. You can leave through the graveyard.” He led me out to the covered walk that ran around the courtyard. I noticed he took care to lock the door behind him. “I’ll have Cyrus let you out.”

I glimpsed something dark and shining in his ear.

“Father, you’re bleeding.” I pointed to my right ear.

He touched his hair-thatched canal, then inspected the blood on the tip of his finger. “Yes, that happens sometimes.” He reached out and washed his finger beneath a string of water falling from the eave of the courtyard. “We are mortals channeling forces far beyond us, after all.”

25

I saw what Father Vick meant about Cyrus. The stooped and palsied groundskeeper could hardly heft his ring of keys, much less bring a chalice down on a man’s head with enough force to smite him. And I sensed no magic around him.

I followed Cyrus out a back door and along a path beaten in the grass. We were in an older part of the graveyard behind the church. Dark, weathered tombstones rose like crooked teeth. Raised sarcophagi leaned here and there, a particularly mossy one in a solitary corner, beneath a knotted willow. Though the rain had passed, the chill air was stippled with moisture. A good day for a blazing fire.

Cyrus unlocked a door in the iron gate that ran along Washington Street. I thanked him and stepped through the curtain of energy that protected the sanctuary. Definitely weaker, I noted.

My plan was to get home and prepare some spells for a trip to Central Park that night. Yeah, yeah, magic verboten. But I’d already worked it out—I was going to play the dumb card: Ohhh, I thought you meant no magic in relation to the shrieker case. Cue smacking of forehead.

Would the Order buy it? Who knew, but this was bigger than saving my job. I was thinking about Father Vick now, a man whose paternal concern was still palpable twenty years later. And the way he’d looked when I made him talk about the rector’s death and even suggested he might have had a motive in his slaying?

So yeah, screw the Order. I’d deal with the fallout later. The more immediate challenge was going to be