Night Rune (Prof Croft Book 8)

by Brad Magnarella

  I checked to make sure my cane had made the journey, along with everything I’d stowed in my pockets. Globs of steaming yellow giblets spilled from my coat as I pushed myself to my feet. As the steam dissipated, a basement took shape around me, one I recognized from when the wizard Pierce owned the townhouse.

  Another of Arnaud’s victims, I thought.

  And another reminder of how dangerous the demon-vampire was.

  Himitsu paintings, the medium Pierce had used for his divinations, stood in stacks throughout the large space, but Gretchen’s hoard was taking over. In fact, the light source for the basement, a golden luminescence, was coming from an especially large pile of her crap.

  When something scuffed behind the pile, I readied my cane, but it was just an antique lantern. It peeked out at me before shrinking away in a contraction of light. One of Gretchen’s acquisitions from Faerie, no doubt.

  My annoyed thoughts turned to Claudius. Really, dude? You couldn’t have dropped me at the front door?

  Gretchen had a bad habit of not remembering me between her visits to the fae realm. If she thought I was an intruder—which was very likely—I’d be staring down the barrel of some nasty magic.

  Grumbling, I activated a tube of neutralizing potion and drank it. The potion would insulate me from her first attack, anyway. Maybe give me enough time to convince her who I was. As the potion spread through me in a tingling wave, I readied my sword and staff and started up the stairs. I was almost to the door when I picked out a pair of shouting voices coming from deeper in the house.

  “Who is she?” Gretchen asked.

  “Why does it have to be another woman?” Bree-yark barked back. “Maybe I’m just fed up.”

  “Fed up? With what?”

  “With everything!”

  It sounded like the goblin was finally having his breakup talk with Gretchen. I’d been cheerleading the move, but did it have to be now? Trying to solicit Gretchen’s help on a good day would have been challenging enough.

  “Well, where is this coming from?” she demanded.

  “I had a talk with someone,” Bree-yark said. “Came about ten years too late, but it was the medicine I needed.”

  “Who?” she demanded.

  Oh, c’mon, man. Please don’t tell her—

  “Your student,” he said. “Everson.”

  My shoulders slumped. Great.

  “Everson?” Gretchen repeated.

  “Might be young, but the kid’s got his head screwed on straight. It took jawing with him to get to the truth. This isn’t a relationship. This is you stringing along an ugly, lovesick goblin. Been that way ever since we met at that resort in the Mirthers.”

  “Everson Croft?” Gretchen repeated, this time in a roar.

  And here I’d been worried she wouldn’t remember me.

  I was debating whether to step in when something scuffed behind me. I turned to find the lantern a couple of steps below me on the staircase. All of its glass faces had been darkened by smoke save one. Cringing like a frightened child, the lantern rotated its clear face from the door to me.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “They’re just having a disagreement.”

  Gretchen paused long enough in her shouting to grunt. Something shattered against the floor. Great, now she was breaking shit.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Bree-yark said in a backing-away voice.

  I burst from the staircase and hustled down the main corridor, a shield glimmering into being around me. Though Gretchen was often moody, I’d never seen her in an all-out wrath. I didn’t know what she was capable of.

  I reached the kitchen to find her two-handing a casserole dish overhead. Unable to tell whether her target was the floor or Bree-yark, I thrust my cane forward and shouted, “Vigore!” The pulse shattered the dish in Gretchen’s hands, and a pile of what looked like brown cottage cheese and fish guts splatted over her head.

  Son of a bitch.

  She turned toward me, lips drawn into a bone-white line, eyes huge. Liquid from the mound atop her head began trickling through her wild hair, down her forehead, and off her hooked nose. Bree-yark, who had backed into a corner, grasped a small spatula from the counter and held it in front of his face as if it might hide him. When I waved him over, he wasted no time scuttling to my side.

  “Gretchen, listen,” I said. “I didn’t know there was anything in the—” I made a feeble gesture toward the shards of casserole dish. “I thought you were going to hurt—” I cocked my head at Bree-yark.

  Gretchen didn’t respond. She just continued to stare, arms above her head as if she were still holding the dish. A dollop of gunk fell from her fingers. When my right calf warmed, I looked down to find that the lantern had followed me into the kitchen and was peering out at Gretchen from behind my leg.

  “Hey, maybe we should split,” Bree-yark whispered.

  That would have been the smart move, but I still needed Gretchen’s help. I drew a steadying breath.

  “Before you do anything, I want you to hear me out,” I said. “The senior members of the Order are trapped in the Harkless Rift. Claudius tried, but he can’t reach them. There’s a good chance a demon is involved. The same demon has been using a time catch to manipulate energies so he can breach our world.” Gretchen squinted slightly, but I wasn’t sure whether that was something to be encouraged by. “I’m convinced that the answer to how to defeat the demon and free the Order is in the time catch.”

  I’d made up the last part. With Gretchen lacking a sentimental bone in her body, I didn’t dare tell her that my true motivation was to recover my teammates. But my magic stirred long enough to give a pair of hard nods.

  Holy crap, I thought, I’m onto something.

  Gretchen might have felt it too, because she slowly lowered her arms.

  “The fae helped me into the time catch the last time,” I said, “but I can’t reach them now. I need your help.”

  “You want me to help you?”

  Her voice was so calm, it was creepy.

  “Yes, to get back into the time catch.”

  Gretchen propped her chin on a fist now as though considering the question. The gesture sent a slab of food sliding from her head and splattering to the floor. Why she didn’t remove the pile, I had no idea—it would have been as simple for her as snapping her fingers. But why did Gretchen do half of what she did?

  “Let’s see, he breaks up my relationship…”

  “I lent an ear more than anything,” I interjected.

  “That’s true,” Bree-yark offered from beside me.

  “He breaks into my house…”

  “I didn’t break in, Claudius sent me.”

  “He breaks a casseruola di ricotta over my head…”

  “That you were about to break over Bree-yark’s,” I pointed out, growing testy. I didn’t have time for this crap.

  “And now he wants me to help him.”

  “Yes, and just so you know, I covered your bill for Vander Meer’s while you were away.” I was referring to her shopping spree at the Dutch furniture store. “That set me back almost three grand. I’m willing to call it even if you—”

  “He wants me to help him,” she repeated.

  “Yes,” I said, standing firm. “Look, I’m sorry about showing up like this and for the situation with your … casseruola, but this is bigger than any of that. Much bigger. If we don’t stop the demon master, Faerie will be threatened too.”

  “Faerie?” She made a scoffing sound.

  “It may already be happening,” I said, sheathing my sword back in the cane.

  I was riffing off what Arnaud had suggested, which was never a good idea, but if Gretchen had one soft spot, it was her infatuation with the place. Faerie for her was like Disney World for a princess-obsessed preteen. But Gretchen maintained a look of deep skepticism, fists set against her ample hips.

  I exhaled hard through my nose. The Order was trapped in the Harkless Rift, the Upholders were stuck in the time catch, a
major demon was plotting an attack that could lead to a full-scale demon apocalypse, and the one person who could help was looking at me like I was something she’d curb-scraped off her shoe.

  With a hand sign, I opened a small portal to my cubbyhole.

  “Here,” I said, reaching inside and withdrawing a thick book of maps. I flipped to the page I’d marked with a receipt from Mr. Han’s and held it open toward her. “The time catch is here. This is where I need to go.”

  “Is that right?” she said flatly.

  “Can you help me? Yes or no.”

  Gretchen looked from me to Bree-yark, her lips drawing into a scowl, then down at the lantern. The light source scooted further behind my leg. When Gretchen’s eyes returned to mine, her irises were changing colors.

  Crap, she’s gathering magic.

  I tossed the book back into the cubby hole. As the portal shrank around it, I drew my cane into sword and staff again. Gretchen’s eyes were twin kaleidoscopes now, the ever-shifting sequence of colors and patterns creating an effect almost as mesmerizing as it was scary.

  “C’mon, Everson,” Bree-yark whispered, tugging at the back of my coat.

  But I couldn’t pull my gaze away, even under the protection of my neutralizing potion. Gretchen’s magic stalked slowly around me now: probing, sniffing, prodding.

  “You want my help?” she asked.

  “Everson.” Bree-yark tugged harder this time.

  Even the lantern was butting my leg, trying to herd me from the room. But I remained rooted to the spot, unable to do anything but stare into my teacher’s eyes. Because beyond their dizzying power, I sensed a promise. A dangerous promise, maybe, but a promise.

  “Yes,” I heard myself answer.

  Her kaleidoscopic irises contracted to points. In the next moment they pounced.

  Powerful colors exploded through me, and the kitchen disappeared beneath a mind-reeling series of images. Some of them I recognized as flashes from my past; others were entirely foreign. I tried to decipher them, but they were cycling through too hard and fast. My mind stretched at the joints, threatening to pull apart. Was this Gretchen’s idea of punishment?

  Stop, I pled.

  You want my help? she repeated, this time in my thoughts.

  Stop!

  And just like that, the cascade of images ceased. I was flat on my back, but not in the kitchen.

  I was in an abyss. Four others lay around me, and we were rotating as if on a giant millstone. Energy swirled and piled into giant storm clouds on all sides. I’d dreamt of this damned place. It had followed the dream with Arianna. I struggled to lift my head, to see who the others were—that felt important. But a force held me fast.

  “Liberare!” I shouted.

  Though energy poured through my prism, I remained pinned. Harsh lights crackled and burned the air. Thunder rumbled into low laughter. The sound came from above, where taloned hands were curling through a growing seam. A pair of eyes—enormous, demonic eyes—peered out. Flashes of harsh, ozone-like energy highlighted the contours of a craggy face. The eyes narrowed hungrily.

  It was Arnaud’s master, Malphas.

  I struggled with everything I had against the force restraining me.

  “This was inevitable, Croft,” Malphas rumbled. “You were inevitable.”

  He reached an arm through the void and punctured my forehead with a talon. A black pain split my head, threatening to drive me insane, but no blood ran. The tip of his talon was on my casting prism. I focused through the agony, focused all my energy on forcing him back out. But Malphas had stolen my power.

  “The great savior,” he mocked.

  His talon flicked.

  5

  Something cold and flat struck me across the face.

  I opened my eyes with a gasp to find Bree-yark straddling my chest, his knees pinning my arms to the ground. My lower body was bucking as if possessed by Saint Vitus, but the goblin, with his low center of gravity and compact mass, held fast. In his right fist he clutched the spatula from Gretchen’s kitchen.

  I sagged to a rest. “It’s all right,” I panted. “I’m back.”

  Bree-yark hesitated, the spatula back in striking position.

  “I’m good,” I said.

  With a grunt, he tossed the kitchen implement away and pushed himself off me. Even at a stocky four feet, he must have weighed close to two-hundred.

  Drawing a full breath, I sat up. We were on a grassy lawn planted with saplings. A palatial building rose before us. For a moment, I thought we were in Faerie, but when I saw scaffolding around the building’s stone wing, I recognized it as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in east Central Park.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Bree-yark looked at me askance. “What didn’t? One minute we were in Gretchen’s kitchen, and the next we ended up here. Only you were thrashing and screaming like a banshee. I thought for sure she’d snapped your mind as payback for your faceoff back there. Man, you and me must’ve wrestled for a good five minutes before I pinned you. Knew we should’ve taken off when we had the chance.”

  I could only imagine what our tussle had looked like, but I was thinking of the vision.

  You were inevitable, Malphas’s taunting voice echoed in my thoughts. The great savior.

  Had Gretchen been responsible for the vision? If so, why? As I considered the questions and the demon master’s words, I rubbed the spot on my cheek where Bree-yark had spatulaed me. For the first time I really felt the sting.

  “Yeah, sorry about the smack. Even pinned, you were outta control.”

  When I noticed the closest saplings leaning away from us, leaves blown from their thin branches, I remembered my effort to summon a release spell in the dream, or vision, or whatever the hell it had been.

  “Did I cast?” I asked.

  “As if the screaming and thrashing weren’t enough,” he confirmed.

  Gaining my feet, I checked to make sure the starter potions in my coat pockets hadn’t burst. “Any idea why Gretchen sent us here?”

  Bree-yark snorted. “Are you really asking me why that woman did something?”

  He had a point, but I couldn’t forget the promise I’d felt behind her question: You want my help?

  “Well, maybe we should take a look around,” I said.

  “This is the Met, right?” Bree-yark glanced at it doubtfully. “Hell of a search area.”

  I looked over the scaffolding and piles of building material. The rear of the museum had suffered burn damage during the mayor’s napalm assault on the park during the purge campaign. Beyond our island of green, Central Park’s charred landscape stretched for blocks, much of it bulldozed into massive debris piles. Replanting was supposed to commence in the spring. Back at the museum, I considered the two million pieces that had been returned to the Met’s permanent collection.

  “Oh, fuck this,” I muttered, anger rippling hot inside me.

  I pulled out my phone and dialed Gretchen. No answer, and no way to leave a message. Cramming the phone back into a pocket, I oriented myself toward the road that would take me out of the park.

  “Hey, where ya going?” Bree-yark barked.

  “Back to Gretchen’s.”

  The goblin hustled after me. “Not a good idea.”

  “Have you got a better one?”

  “Wait, I didn’t tell you everything.”

  I slowed to face him. “What do you mean?”

  “She said something before she zapped us out of there.”

  I stopped. “What?”

  Bree-yark was wearing a bomber jacket over a turtleneck that matched his gray wool hat. He fidgeted with the jacket’s zipper before answering. “She said neither of us are welcome back there. Only she put it a lot more colorfully and with some serious threats thrown in.” By his downcast eyes, I could see he’d taken her words personally.

  “Well, that’s tough.” I resumed my march. “If she dropped me here to find something, she needs to tell me what the hell
it is.”

  Bree-yark jogged beside me. “Look, just give her some time to cool down.”

  “There isn’t time,” I growled. “That’s the point.”

  “Isn’t there something else you could be doing?”

  “No.”

  But as I scrambled down a cindery embankment leading to East Seventy-ninth, I wondered if I was only going to succeed in wasting more time. Gretchen was unlikely to answer her door, for starters. And even if she did, she would only stonewall me. I knew from past experience that any help she proffered was on her terms—and in this case, that help could have already begun. Whether it was the vision with Malphas or transporting me here or something else entirely. I tuned into my magic. Was that a nod?

  “Everson?” Bree-yark pressed.

  “Fine, I won’t go back to Gretchen’s.”

  “Thank the gods,” he exhaled as we reached the transverse road.

  “There’s a fae townhouse not far from here,” I said. “They’re the ones who delivered me into the time catch. I stopped by this morning, but no one answered. I want to try them again.”

  “The fae?” Bree-yark made a wary face.

  “It’s either that or…” I thought of Arnaud’s claim that he was my sole ticket to the time catch. “It’s either that or I’m out of options.”

  “Mind if I tag along?”

  I looked over, surprised. “To the townhouse? I should be fine.”

  “It’s not just about getting your back—which I’ve got any time, day or night, I hope you know that. No, it’s that I told Mae I’d stop by this morning, but I need some time to pull myself together. I’m still wound up from my talk with Gretchen. Mae would see something’s wrong and make a fuss, and I don’t like worrying her more than I already have. I mean, she’s letting me keep my stuff over there.”

  “She is?”

  “Good thing I had the sense to move it out of Gretchen’s, or I’d have never seen it again. I even parked my ride up there. It’s just until I can find my own place,” he added, as if defending Mae’s honor. “We’re not, you know, involved in that way.”

  “I get it.”

  “Well, not yet.”

  I was hurriedly saying that he was welcome to accompany me, when the scorched brush at our backs rustled. I spun, energy charging down my cane. But it was just Gretchen’s lantern peering at us from behind a bush. Realizing it had been spotted, the lantern dimmed. With a sigh, I recalled my magic.