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

a couple of quick and ready recipes to fall back on. Into the left pot I scattered brown clumps of rabbit’s hair, a heaping spoonful of baking soda, and about half that of chameleon scales. With a wooden spoon engraved with casting symbols, I stirred the ingredients of the stealth potion.

“Furtiva,” I chanted, directing energy through the spoon.

The steaming liquid bubbled and thickened to a gray sludge. Satisfied the mixture was on its way to becoming the potion I wanted, I twisted the burner’s knob to low. In an hour or so, it would thin to a liquid I’d be able to drink.

One down, one to go.

I turned to the other steaming pot and took a focusing breath. This would be for self defense, and with a just-purchased vial of sloth urine on hand, I decided to go with an encumbering spell. I uncapped the vial and tipped it over the pot. To the absinthe and foul-smelling urine, I added a nugget of tungsten, a large syringe-full of condensed fog, and some Plaster of Paris. Following healthy doses of energy and intention, the mixture began to sludge and bubble, casting up a rancid odor.

“Christ,” I muttered against my sleeve. At least I wouldn’t have to drink that one. Woe to the unlucky bastard I squirted it at, though.

With my potions simmering, and an hour to kill, I climbed down from the lab and retrieved the music box and my revolver. It was a longish shot, but maybe Effie would have something for me by now.

Washington Square Park drifted with the chill mist of recently-fallen rain. I checked to make sure no ghouls were lurking before climbing into the drained wading pool and winding the music box.

“That you, Everson?”

“Hey, there.” I twisted to face the entity who would always remain the phantasmal likeness of an eight-year-old girl. Effie’s eyes widened as they moved past me.

“You brought me music box,” she cried, running toward it.

It was that whole echo thing. Unless redirected, ghosts tended to repeat themselves from one encounter to the next, and often several times within the same meeting, like video loops or skipping records.

“Hey, did you get a chance to talk to your friends?”

“ ’Bout whut?” she asked, focused on the box she couldn’t quite handle.

“About whether they’d been down to St. Martin’s in the last few weeks and seen anything unusual.”

“Oh, thas right.” She gave up on the box and started skipping in a circle, her shifting dress and clogs eerily silent over the damp leaves. “Jus’ Mary, but you can’t believe a word she tells ya.”

I frowned. Just what I needed, an unreliable witness.

“What kind of manure is she unloading this time?” I asked.

“Says she was there a fortnight ago, playing hide an’ seek with a feller at night.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Man with a funny robe and hood. Says ’e was in the graveyard, but ’e wouldn’t come from hiding, even when she found him.”

“Did Mary say where he was hiding?”

“Behind a crypt ’neath a scary tree.”

I perked up like an antenna. She was talking about the mossy tomb I’d walked past that morning, in the old part of the graveyard. A fortnight would have been about ten days before the murder. Had the robed man been staking out the cathedral? Plotting his crime?

“Did Mary notice anything else?” I asked.

“Jus’ that ’e was easy to find on ’count of his mumbling.”

Mumbling? “Could she make out any of the words?”

Either Effie’s ghost was tired of the questions or didn’t think anything from Mary’s mouth was worth exploring, because she didn’t answer. She stopped at her music box, and when she began to sing again, it was as though I was no longer there. I made a few attempts to bring her back to Mary’s story, but the ghost was too absorbed in her solemn lullaby.

I sat back in thought. Some druids were known to wear hooded robes. Not much of a lead, I admitted, but neither did the ghost’s account rule them out. I checked my watch. The potions would be about ready.

30

It was one a.m. by the time I reached Central Park. From the relative safety of West 110th Street, the North Woods looked perfectly forbidding. As my chatty cabbie had been all too enthused to point out (I suspected amphetamine use), the area had become known as “The Bone Yard” because of the gnawed human remains that turned up from time to time.

“So unless you’re trying to lose a whole lotta weight, guy, I’d steer clear.” His laughter had gone off like machine-gun fire in my face.

Hilarious.

I eyed the dense growth as the cab motored away, finding it hard to believe anyone would choose to venture in there, much less call it home—even a powerful cult of druids. But the bits of info I’d assembled pointed to just that.

“It’s just never easy,” I muttered, pulling a water bottle from inside my jacket and untwisting the cap. The stealth potion coated my throat as I gagged it down, the aftertaste like something you’d drain from an old car engine.

But as I ducked into the trees, the potion began to work its magic. A tingling force grew over me like a wool glove. An inspection of my body showed that I was blending into the surroundings. My footfalls softened until they made no sound. Though I didn’t have an animal’s sense of smell, I knew my odor was being suppressed as well.

After cresting a hill, I eased my way down a rocky ravine, where I could hear water flowing. The hidden moon diffused enough pale light through the low cloud ceiling to see by. When I encountered a family of cropping deer, I weaved through them as a test. None of them even raised a head.

“Yes!” I whispered, causing the deer to bolt.

Like much of magic, potion-making was unpredictable. A recipe followed the same way ten times could yield ten varying results, depending on the skill of the magic user. My consistency was improving, but it was