Night Rune (Prof Croft Book 8) Brad Magnarella (the red fox clan TXT) 📖

“The stain,” I tried again, this time in grunts. “Came from your ballpoint pen.”

“If you doppelganged me,” he grunted back, “then you’d have my thoughts too.”

I may have been the more experienced magic-user, but he was filled with fresh book knowledge. And he was absolutely right, dammit. I had to think of something we could verify that hadn’t happened yet, but I was coming up blank.

Meanwhile, our rolling tussle continued. Every time one of us uttered an invocation, the other shouted the dispersal Word, putting us at a casting stalemate. I was conscious of the vials clattering in my coat pockets, praying they wouldn’t break—especially the encumbering potion, which would reduce me to slug speed.

Our momentum carried us into the leg of the dining room table. As the mail spilled around us, one parcel caught my eye. I could only make out “Midtown College” on the top line of the return address, but the envelope’s slate gray color marked it as a Snodgrass letter. He believed, wrongly, that the color gave his missives added gravitas.

But now I had something.

Our arms had been locked, but Everson managed to glance a punch off my chin and seize my throat.

“Start talking,” he said, “or I’ll choke you out like I did your minion.”

“Wait,” I managed, gripping his throat back. “The Snodgrass letter.”

His eyes cut over and back. “What about it?”

“He’s moving the faculty bathrooms to the second floor. Reserving the ones on the first for department heads.” I remembered the letter at the start of that term vividly—and how much it had pissed me off.

“What?” For an instant, Everson’s fury shifted to Snodgrass.

“I know, it’s ridiculous, but it’s true. Open it and see for yourself.”

I released his throat and arm and scooted away, hands open to show I had no intention of resuming the attack. He looked from me to the envelope again before snatching it up. We stood at the same time, lest the other have the higher ground, and remained a safe distance apart. A glance back showed that Arnaud was still down and in bad shape. I’d get to him, but I had to sort this out first.

Tabitha, who was peering over a shoulder, smirked at Everson. “I told you that you were up in the lab,” she said.

Scowling, he tore the side of the envelope with a finger, drew out the letter, and shook it open. He glanced up several times to make sure I was staying back. But as he read, he became increasingly absorbed—and vexed. By the time he reached the end, his eyebrows were nearly touching in the center.

“That son of a bitch,” he muttered.

“Yeah, there will be a faculty petition and everything, but he’ll still go through with it.”

He let the arm holding the letter fall to his side as he looked back at me. “The secretary handed this to me on my way out today, so you couldn’t have read it.” He sighed. “Still, I need more info about … this.” He gestured toward me.

“No problem, but first I need to tend to my minion.”

Everson looked past me warily to where Arnaud was still smoking on the floor. “What is he?”

“A demon-vampire.” I didn’t mention the Arnaud part. While I was familiar with the name back then, I wouldn’t encounter him for another few years. “It’s a long story, but he’s my ticket back to my plane.”

“The future?”

I didn’t want to get into the time catch stuff either. “Yeah.”

“Go ahead,” he decided. “But do you mind if I grab my sword and staff? As insurance?”

“As long as this is an honest-to-God ceasefire,” I said. “I’m seriously pressed for time.”

Everson nodded in a way that told me he’d honor the truce. As he climbed the ladder, I opened Arnaud’s wards out again. A moment later, the foghorn alarm sounded upstairs, announcing that a demonic entity had just breached the city.

“Just us,” I called.

“No worries,” he said, shutting off the alarm.

I returned my attention to Arnaud. He lay there with his mouth open, eyelids at half-mast. A yellowish smoke still rose from where Everson had seized him. Just a day or two ago, I would have celebrated the beating my time-catch self had put on Arnaud, but now it placed our return in jeopardy.

I calibrated the wards until I found the happy medium again. Any weaker and the energy powering the dislocation sigil would be insufficient, and Malphas would find him. I lifted Arnaud’s limp body and placed it on the couch. As I arranged his legs, Tabitha wrinkled her nose and shrank from the sulfurous stench.

“Smells like a corpse’s turd,” she said.

“Can’t argue with you there,” I muttered.

Everson descended the ladder and slotted his sword inside the cane. He took stock of the scene, his gaze lingering a moment on mine, then turned toward the kitchen. The fish continued to sizzle on the stove.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

39

Ten minutes later, Everson, Tabitha, and I were sitting around a table set with plates of thick swordfish steaks, their seared tops buttered and dilled. Everson had also filled a large bowl with potato chips, which he set between us. My hunger had caught up to me, and I wasted no time digging in.

“I have a ton of questions, obviously,” he said.

“The long and short of it is that I’m from the future, but not in a linear sense.” As I paused to chew, I tried to remember if I’d been introduced to the concept of time catches five years ago. I didn’t think so. “I’m here to recover a friend, another ‘time traveler.’” I air-quoted the word. “And then we’re leaving. Again, I’m sorry for breaking into your apartment and surprising you. That was a dick move. I just needed to stock up on potions and check something out in your library. I also helped myself to a few lightning grenades,” I added sheepishly, even though I was confessing to myself.

He waved a hand. “I can always get more.”

“Yeah, but