Shadow Duel (Prof Croft Book 9) Brad Magnarella (the best novels to read .TXT) đ
- Author: Brad Magnarella
Book online «Shadow Duel (Prof Croft Book 9) Brad Magnarella (the best novels to read .TXT) đ». Author Brad Magnarella
âThe items donât fit what weâre looking for,â I said. âAnd âour guyâ wouldnât have surrendered to the police so easily. He needs the blood from his final victim.â
A door opened, and Vega walked in carrying a folded piece of paper.
âHowâs it going with Lassgard?â she asked.
âBetter if your husband wasnât being such a tool,â Hoffman said.
âHe got you this far, didnât he?â
While Hoffman grumbled, she opened the piece of paper.
âThe info on the Fludrocortisone,â she said, as I stepped around to peer over her shoulder.
âItâs a low blood pressure med, but itâs also prescribed in cases of orthostatic intolerance. The doctor admitted itâs a fallback when the problem canât be diagnosed.â She looked up at me. âEldred was having blackouts.â
My heart skipped. âWhen did they start?â
âLast month. He told the doctor heâd hear buzzing and then have about two minutes to lie down before he passed out. The episodes ranged anywhere from twenty minutes to a couple hours. It started suddenly with no triggers that he could think of. All of his scans and EEGs came back fine.â
I turned to Hoffman. âIs the Sup Squad still at the Discovery Society?â
âShould be,â he grunted.
âTell them to detain Eldred.â
He looked from me to the interview room and back. âWhat the hell for?â
The explanation fit with something Claudius had said at the Waldorf: If you existed in one realm but not the other, you traveled back and forth as you were. If you existed in both, you shifted from one form to the other.
âBecause Eldredâs shadow is the killer,â I said.
While Hoffman called the Sup Squad, I explained my thinking to Vega.
âThe Cronus artifact I had in mind never arrived here. It arrived there, in the shadow present. Eldredâs shadow found it, and it compelled him. Just like the Hermes Tablet compelled Sven. The difference is that Sven doesnât exist here, so heâs able to travel between the two realms. Eldred does, so his shadow has to occupy his form.â
âExplaining his sudden blackouts,â she said, nodding.
âI think the shadow Eldred had the artifact for a while. The shapeshifter is probably its guardian, much like the animations are for the Hermes box. He used the artifact and shifter to assume power there, transforming the Discovery Society from a scientific organization into a cult to Cronus.â I was going off what Svenâs classmate had told him.
âEldred became the âmaster of many places,ââ I continued. ââMany placesâ signifying the nature of the club. When the faith in Cronus reached a certain pitch, he was ordered to perform a powerful ritual that involved harvesting pure organs and blood.â My words were coming faster as I tried to keep pace with my avalanching thoughts. âBut, clean or not, the shadow organs werenât going to be potent enoughâhe needed the real articles. So he brewed a potion that would bind the fellows to their shadows, possessed the actual Eldred to slip the potion to them here, extracted the organs back there, and voila. He has the organs without leaving any evidence of his crimes in our reality.â
âBut what was it about the fellows?â Vega asked. âWhy harvest from them and not easier marks?â
âI think it relates to something Sunita told me. She said Bear was obsessed with a gene called 7Rb, a variant of whatâs known as the âexplorer gene.â He was funding research into it. The gene only exists in a small percentage of people, and in addition to exploration, itâs believed to spur innovation, one of the most important assets in Bearâs industry. He wanted to develop a therapy that could maximize the geneâs expression. Sunita said his profile for the gene was off the charts. Given Robert Strockâs and Walter Mimsâs pedigrees and achievements, I wouldnât be surprised if the same were true of their 7Rb expressions.â
âAnd you think they were singled out for that?â
My magic had been nodding along with me the whole time, and it wasnât stopping.
âThat particular variant didnât appear until about twenty-five hundred years ago, which also happened to be the height of ancient Greek culture. You wonât find this in any of the scientific journals, but I think the variant is an artifact of intense worship to one of the gods of travel, quite possibly Hermes. If so, its offering would give the Cronus essence a boost of god vitality. He was Hermesâs grandfather after all.â
Hoffman lowered his phone and stepped toward us. âThey found Eldred.â
âGood, we should put him in one of the warded cells in the Basement,â I said. âThat should keep his shadow fromâŠâ I tailed off when I saw Hoffman shaking his head.
âHe was swinging from a belt in his apartment.â
I stared at him. âEldred killed himself?â
âWell, he wasnât trying to grow another inch.â
âWhat does it mean?â Vega asked me.
An icy hand gripped my heart. âIt means his shadow has completed his work here. Heâs bonded the final victim.â
Snapping my eyes closed, I tuned into the amulet Iâd given Sunita. It wasnât signaling a hit on the potion, thank God, but I pulled out my phone and called her anyway, my pulse thumping in my ear.
âHello, Everson,â she answered.
âAre you still wearing the amulet?â
âYes, Iâm looking at it right now. Is everything all right?â
I was panting, but I couldnât help it. âItâs not glowing?â
âNo, itâs been dim since you gave it to me.â
âAnd you feel all right?â
âFine, except that youâre starting to scare me.â
âIâm sorry.â I exhaled, scrambling to think. âThe club members. Do any of them have explorer pedigrees?â
âMost are researchers. Well, except for Ludvigâhis great grandfather was the famous expeditionerâbut heâs not officially a member.â
I turned slowly toward the one-way mirror. Ludvig was still at the table, staring soberly at his cuffed hands.
âWhy?â Sunita asked.
Ludvig looked up as I entered the interview room.
Exploration is in my blood, I heard
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