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

fulfill it from inside the system, blind and broken as it may be. Making the city safer. Protecting the vulnerable. Protecting your son.”

She had moved to my coat pockets, turning out the spell items, but now I thought I felt her slow.

“It’s why you listened to me tonight,” I said.

“The hell are you even talking about?” she growled.

“You took your son someplace safe, like I asked. That’s where you’re coming back from.” It was an educated guess. She could just as well have been staking out her apartment to see who might show.

“Or maybe I just want to keep him safe from you,” she shot back.

I gave a knowing chuckle as she resumed her rough excavation of my remaining pockets. “Why did you bring me in on the St. Martin’s investigation?”

“That was a mistake,” she muttered.

“I’m not the only authority on ancient languages in this city. You could have gone to any number of experts, none of them carrying the stain of probation. Care to hear my theory?”

“No.”

“You wanted to size me up. You knew I had no hand in that murder last year, because when you followed the evidence, it didn’t point to me. In fact, it didn’t point to anything explicable. But like a good soldier, you obeyed the orders of your higher ups. You went deeper, looking for any angle that would implicate me in the man’s death. What you found instead were strange rumors about who I was and what I could do. When you connected the dots, you realized I’d been trying to help the victim, even if it was in a way that didn’t make sense to you.”

She finished her search. I craned my neck around until our eyes met. And there was the look, the one that spoke to deeper knowledge. What I’d missed before was the angle of curiosity.

“The decision to arrest me for obstruction didn’t come from you. You followed orders—and felt bad about having to, I’m sure—but you didn’t forget what you’d found out. So when you needed an expert on ancient languages, you came looking for me. To see what I was all about.”

Vega narrowed her gaze, though whether because I’d made her feel transparent again or that I was way off the mark, I couldn’t tell. “Stand up,” she ordered in a voice that could have suggested either.

“None of this changes the fact that you’re in danger,” I said.

“You want to tell me what you were doing at Mr. Chin’s?” The pistol she held on me drifted from my head to my midsection as I rose. “Or up in Hamilton Heights, for that matter?”

“Trying to help,” I said, looking directly into her eyes. “And you know that.”

Her gaze moved to the torn and bloody shoulder of my coat. I could see her trying to work up her anger again, and it wasn’t because she thought I was a degenerate. No, her anger originated from a struggle between her wanting and not wanting to understand a world that challenged the more rational, order-based parts of her mind, which was most of it.

“Who killed them?” she asked.

“What killed them,” I amended, “are the same creatures that came after me tonight—and that could show up here any second.”

The spell items arrayed across the floor between us seemed a boundary between the rational and the irrational, the mundane and the magical. I imagined the struggle behind Vega’s hardened face. To trust me meant throwing a radical switch in her head, altering her thinking, her language.

“If you’re fucking with me, Croft, so help me God…”

“I’m not.”

She assessed me for another moment. An urgent timer ticked down in my head, but gaining her trust was the more immediate need. If I failed, she would arrest me, and my warning would go unheeded.

“You can lower your arms,” she said at last, giving a small nod.

Relief swam through me as I unlaced my hands and let them down.

“On whose order were those people killed?” she asked, holstering her pistol into her pants in back.

“The same person who murdered the rector.”

Her hands froze at her back, and she blinked up at me. “Come again?”

“I’ll explain, but we should probably go inside. I’m going to need to demonstrate some of what I’m about to tell you.” She didn’t stop me when I started scooping the spell items from the floor and returning them to my pockets. When I retrieved the vial of copper filings, I assessed its weight. I should have topped it off, but there was enough inside to protect Vega.

She wasn’t going to like it, though.

42

“A spirit is behind all of this?” Detective Vega watched dubiously as I sprinkled the last of the copper filings from the vial.

To her credit, she’d remained mostly silent during my explanation.

“A demonic entity,” I reminded her. “I know how that sounds, but think about the evisceration cases, all the evidence you’ve had to explain away. The summoning circles, for example.” I stood up from the one I’d just completed. “They were in the same room as every one of the victims, contained the same casting elements. You concluded the slayings were ritualistic, but how do you explain the absence of forced entries—just forced exits?”

“We have some theories,” she said in a defensive voice.

“Yeah, and I bet they require feats of mental gymnastics. But do they have the explanatory power of what I’ve just told you?”

Instead of answering, she glanced around her two-bedroom unit. The apartment was simple and functional, with a few potted plants. Framed photos of her son and what I guessed to be extended family lined the walls, infusing the space with color and warmth. I had chosen a spot in the corner of the living room for the circle, scooting out a small table and standing lamp. Now I followed her gaze across the room to the lone couch, one end littered with toy trucks.

When she looked back at the circle, I could see her mind working. She still didn’t want to believe me, but could