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

suit, nodded earnestly. “I’ll run it right over.” He collected the bag and note and hustled out.

Vega turned toward me. “Guess we’ll be in touch.”

My legs wobbled slightly as I stood with my cane, unable to meet her eyes.

“Guess so,” I replied.

35

From One Police Plaza I caught an express subway to Midtown and then hurried the pair of blocks to the New York Public Library.

The looming bite-mark analysis had collapsed my window for finding and stopping the spell supplier, but I had the church in my sights. The next step was finding out what I could about Bartholomew Higham, the man who had been interred in that tomb. Someone at St. Martin’s, probably Malachi, had been interested in him in the days leading up to the rector’s murder.

I jogged up the marble steps to the library, passing between the iconic stone lions, Patience and Fortitude, and entered through the soaring central portico. Inside the vast stone hall, I paused to get my bearings and strategize. Because the Order was listening in—and without a strong threshold to buffer me—I was trying to veil my intentions with innocent curiosity. Whether it was working or not, I didn’t know and couldn’t afford to care.

The clock was ticking.

Near the information desk, I eyed a bank of computers, their screens inviting me to search the library’s online catalogue. I took a tentative step forward. Almost immediately, the screens began to flicker.

Dammit.

I hailed a slender, smooth-faced man behind the information desk, and he came around. His subtle aura told me he had a little bit of fairy in him—not enough to cast glamours or even basic magic, but enough to make him interesting.

“Excuse me,” I said. “My eyes are really sensitive to computer glow. Would you mind entering a search for me?”

“Certainly,” the part-fae replied.

I gave him the name and dates and stood safely back. A moment later he returned with a neat hand-printed list of sources. “Most of the hits are with the New York Evening Post,” he said, looking over the slip of paper. “That’s going to be in our newspaper archives, on microfilm. Will you need help with that as well?”

Because the microfilm machines were mechanical rather than digital, they would be mostly safe from my wizarding aura. “I should be all right, thanks,” I replied. “But if you could tell me how to get there?”

Fifteen minutes later I was sitting in front of a machine, a stack of small boxes holding thick rolls of film beside me. I loaded a roll and scrolled to the March 1814 issue that corresponded with the first hit. Images of aged paper and antiquated print shot past the viewer.

I soon reached the article I wanted. It was an announcement that Bartholomew Higham had been appointed the fifth rector of St. Martin’s Cathedral.

So, Father Richard’s distant predecessor. I jotted the fact down in my notepad, using a pencil in a box of them beside the machine. The write-up contained info about Higham’s studies and past offices, but nothing to indicate who he really was. The subsequent articles were little more than mentions—ceremonies or functions that the rector had attended or presided over.

But the next one caught my eye:

Exodus From St. Martin’s

I read the article with growing interest, mixing in what I knew of Manhattan’s history. In the early days, the land north of present-day downtown had consisted largely of farms and fields. Graveyards, too—some of them massive, like the one Effie had been buried in. As development moved up the island, many of the graveyards were dug up and the bones relocated. Unbeknownst to his congregation, Reverend Higham had accepted thousands of remains, for a fee. When the deed came to light, the congregation feared the “fell and malevolent spirits” he had surely brought into their hallowed sanctum. Many parishioners left the church.

Was this the history Father Richard had found so troubling? Father Vick had mentioned something about the church not always having been represented by honorable men.

The final hit was an obituary for Higham, only a month after his actions had been exposed.

Suddenly this morning, in the 52d year of his age, the Right Reverend Bartholomew Higham of Saint Martin's Cathedral in the City of New York, was seized with an attack of apoplexy which proved fatal.

I scrolled past his honorariums to the obituary’s abrupt end.

Due to his condition, Reverend Higham will not lie in state. A Rite of Transfer of the Body will be conducted in private.

His condition? I tapped the end of the pencil between my teeth as I reread the obituary. Apoplexy, which was old-time speak for a brain hemorrhage or stroke, shouldn't have affected the man’s appearance.

A thought hit me, and I bit down on the pencil.

Had he been Father Richard’s predecessor in more ways than one? Murdered, too? And if so, why the cover up? Was someone trying to keep the power of the church, already shaken by scandal, from becoming further compromised?

Or had his murder been sanctioned by the Church itself?

Something told me the answer was in the cathedral archives, and it was that which had bothered Father Richard.

The bottom of the page showed an image of the early nineteenth century reverend in a black cassock and stole. He exuded an intense, aristocratic air. I centered the viewer on his face and zoomed in. Parted, graying hair fell to a wiry set of mutton chops growing wild from his jowls. His lips were pressed to his teeth, as though in malice. While the look might have been standard for the time, something about the man seemed … off. I zoomed in on his staring eyes and stiffened.

I’d seen eyes like that in my own work. They were the eyes of someone entranced.

The part-fae, who seemed to materialize at the very moment I needed him, helped me print off the obituary from the microfilm machine, and I hurried from the library with just enough change in my pocket to call Father Vick.

I needed to find out what Malachi had dug