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

she was walking under her own power. By some miracle, the candle in the skull’s socket had remained lit, and I removed it and handed it to her.

“You lead,” I said. “I’ll watch our rear.”

I followed her from the grotto. As we turned the corner, I saw that Sathanas’s impact had jarred the bones from the corridor walls such that we were facing larger drifts than when I’d arrived. With her short stature, the bishop had to crawl over the first pile. I peered nervously over a shoulder.

“Father Victor brought me down to the basement,” she said in a gravely voice, “allegedly to show me something. Then he pressed a cloth over my nose and mouth. Chloroform, I suspect.”

“That wasn’t Father Victor,” I said as I helped her over the next drift. “In trying to exorcise a malevolent presence from these grounds, he became possessed. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know what he was facing. The creature back there is an ancient demon lord. He murdered Father Richard and was preparing to do the same to you. Were it not for the will that remained in Father Victor, the demon would have succeeded and escaped. So please, remember him in that way.”

As had happened with my parting words to Malachi, another layer of my prism seemed to harden. More of my magic-born power returned.

“And who are you?” the bishop asked.

I thought for a moment. “Father Vick was a teacher and friend.”

We were halfway to the staircase when the catacombs began to shake again. A roar erupted from the grotto. Even as I tried to speed our pace, the bishop peered behind us, eyes huge.

“Wizard,” Sathanas’s voice boomed.

“Go,” I told her. “Those stairs lead to the basement. Climb them and get out of the cathedral. Then put all of the faith you have into the sanctity of this place. It will prevent him from escaping.”

“What are you going to do?”

I drew my cane apart and called light to my staff. “Delay him.”

A hand, strong and maternal, pressed between my shoulder blades. “I’ve never met you,” she said, “but I recognize you now, Everson. Father Victor spoke of you. He praised your benevolence. He said you would become a powerful ally one day, and he was right.”

Her warmth and words undermined my fear. For a moment, I glimpsed Father Vick beside us, a white robe swimming around him. When I turned to look, though, the illusion vanished, and there was only a mound of skeletal remains.

“Stupid wizard,” Sathanas boomed over his growing footfalls.

The warmth between my shoulder blades swelled with a gentle pressure that lingered even as I heard the bishop climbing away behind me. Cinching my grip on sword and staff, I stepped forward.

“I hear you, demon,” I said.

With any luck, my blast had weakened him. I couldn’t destroy him, but with the power I now possessed, I could offer a large enough speed bump for the bishop to escape. The demon would have nothing to draw on following my death. He would remain trapped. What happened next would be up to the Order, but hopefully I’d stirred up enough dust to get their attention.

When Sathanas rounded the corner, I staggered back. What I’d just said about him being weakened? Forget it. He was larger than ever, his horned and ripped physique radiating fiery power. He stooped into the corridor, bones smoking to black dust around him.

“Yes,” Sathanas said. “I saw into your feeble mind. I turned your wrath into mine.”

Feeble, indeed. Believing you could outwit a demon was like believing you could best the guy on the subway platform at three-card Monte. Sathanas had laid a trap inside of a trap. First by manipulating my wrath, then by getting me to believe the power of that wrath could harm him. Instead, he absorbed it. Now he commanded the strength to break the cathedral’s hold.

And I was all that stood in his way.

“Stop,” I shouted, setting my spent legs apart, sword and staff held out.

Sathanas stormed closer. “Do you wish to make me stronger still?”

Before I realized he’d thrashed it, his tail was driving toward me. I grunted out a “Protezione,” but my summoned shield shattered before the barbed tail. The hooked tip, diving for my heart, sunk beneath my left clavicle instead. With a sick crunch, it punched out my upper back.

I screamed, hands wringing my sword and staff, forearms hugging the tail.

Sathanas laughed as his tail lifted me from my feet and slammed me into the corridor wall. Remains tumbled around me as the pain cast me into a gray world between excruciating waking and bone-aching sleep. From far away came the piercing cries of shriekers.

“Do your hear that?” he asked. “My legion is circling.”

With another lash, he slammed me into the opposite wall.

“Soon, your world will belong to me.”

Into another wall I went, the corridor flickering in and out.

Sathanas curled his tail around until I was struggling to hold his looming horned face in focus. “You will be gone in a moment, wizard. But be reassured, when I emerge into the world, it will be known that Everson Croft freed me. What power you lacked in your pathetic life, I will grant you in death. A demon may not give selflessly, but he gives.”

In my hazy state, I could see the ley energy coursing up around us, warping the air. Any attempt to channel it would be suicide. The flow was too pure for me, too potent. It would blow my prism before destroying my mind. But if I wanted to slow Sathanas, it was the only option left.

Anyway, I thought with a wince, I’m already toast.

But first I needed to forgive all those I had sworn vengeance and death upon. Detective Vega, Chicory, the Church, even Professor Snodgrass. I would never wish on them what would befall humanity with Sathanas’s escape.

I also thought of my friend and fellow professor, Caroline Reid. A woman who, I could freely admit now, I was kind of, sort of in