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

hands buried inside her frizz of dyed-black hair, startled eyes fixed on a kitchen to my right where a balding man in a camelhair sweater was jabbing a broom between a counter and fridge.

“It’s going up the wall, Morty! There it is! Swat it!” Gert could have been talking about a mouse, but the spell paraphernalia, now spilling from the table, suggested otherwise.

I craned my neck for a better view. Beside the stainless-steel fridge, I glimpsed a scurry of legs that looked like human fingers. The crab-sized creature flattened itself to the wall and squeezed behind a row of ceiling-mounted cabinets. A whipcord tail disappeared last.

Crap. A riddler.

“It’s getting into the family china!” Gert cried. “Stop it! Get it out!”

“What’s it look like I’m doing?”

“Don’t,” I warned Morty, who had curled his thick fingers around the cabinet door. “Back away. Now.”

He and Gert turned toward me, Morty’s jowly face tilting in confusion. These were probably my least favorite moments as a wizard garbage collector, an informal title I still held. Or that held me. Never mind that I’d banished a demon lord in October. The feat had restored my good—or at least tolerable—standing with the Order, but six months later, and here I was, having to bail out a pair of amateurs who didn’t know toadstool from Toledo.

“That thing in there is dangerous,” I said, which was a bit understated. A riddler’s tail carried a razor-sharp ridge on the underside. One slash, and Morty would be looking at a severed broom and a fingerless hand—if he was lucky. Dangerous? Try lethal.

“Who are you supposed to be?” Gert asked in a New York-sharp accent, giving me a quick up and down. “Bruce Wayne?”

“Huh?” Oh, the tuxedo. “My name’s Everson Croft. I heard screaming and came to investigate. You’re in luck, I’ve dealt with these creatures before. I work in, um, extermination.”

Morty backed from the kitchen, gripping the broom in both hands. He looked from the sound of rattling plates to me and back. “I don’t even know where the thing came from.”

“What do you mean you don’t know where it came from?” Gert took my offered hand as she stepped carefully from the table to one of the chair seats, then down to the floor. She carried the powdered air of someone accustomed to being waited on and didn’t thank me. “It came from those silly books. I told you they were trouble. I told you not to fool with them.”

“You were the one who said we needed to start thinking outside the box.”

“Starting a home business, Morty. Selling some of our assets, Morty. That’s what I was talking about. Not whatever all of this is.” She threw her arms toward the table. “And now we have something crawling willy-nilly over the family china that Emerson says is dangerous.”

“It’s Everson, actually,” I said, eyeing the cabinets.

“And as an exterminator, he would know,” Gert finished.

“Well, you’re impossible to please,” Morty grumbled.

“I’m impossible? I’m impossible?” Gert hooked an arm around one of mine to get my attention. “I hired a designer last month, one of the Upper West Side’s best. She completely overhauled the apartment—I mean, completely. Did a wonderful job. Positive colors, feng shui, the whole shebang. Do you think Morty noticed? Do you think he voiced a single word of appreciation?”

Morty pulled on my other arm until I met his aggrieved eyes. “That was after I told her the apartment was fine as is, that we couldn’t afford a designer. Do you think she listened to me?”

They began raising their voices over one another, even as something in the kitchen shattered.

“Listen,” I said, freeing my arms and placing my hands on their backs. “I’d love to stand here and play Dr. Phil, but I have a job to do. I’m going to need some space.” They were too engrossed in their argument to respond, but they let me guide them into the hallway, where they continued firing cannonballs.

“I kill myself trying to make you happy,” came Morty’s fading voice, “and all I hear from you is how bad I’m screwing up.”

“Well, you are screwing up,” Gert assured him.

I closed a swinging door behind them and turned to the dining room table. I immediately spied the black book he had cast from and groaned. Translated from Sanskrit, the book promised the caster the ability to summon a wish-granting genie. But without a magical bloodline, the best an amateur could hope for was a bug from a shallow nether realm—which was just as well. The bugs could be deadly, but the so-called genies could be downright apocalyptic.

I stepped into the kitchen, drawing my cane into sword and staff. Another piece of dishware broke as the riddler scuttled inside the cabinets. I tracked the sound with my eyes, right to left.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I whispered.

In the cabinet above an eight-range stove, the clattering ceased. I took another step forward, a Word of Power on the tip of my tongue.

The cabinet door flew wide. In a pale flash, the riddler was launching toward my face, tail lashing, fleshy mouth slurping at the air.

I threw my staff and sword into an X in front of my face and shouted, “Protezione!”

A light shield crackled into being and sparked with the riddler’s impact. When something hot bit my neck, I realized the riddler had whipped its tail around. The creature was clinging to my spreading shield, mini plungers on its knuckled legs suckling for purchase.

“Respingere,” I cried, before it could lash me again. A force pulsed from the shield, blowing the creature back into the cabinets. Doors clapped, and several plates crash-landed to the tiled floor. The riddler ended up on the stovetop, legs kicking air before the tail popped it upright again.

I was preparing another blast when I felt blood welling from my neck wound, threatening to spill onto the tuxedo. “Oh, c’mon—this is a rental!” I cried. The last thing I needed was to lose my frigging deposit.

I entrapped the riddler in