Night Rune (Prof Croft Book 8)

by Brad Magnarella

  “And neither did my locket,” she said.

  25

  “Everson, you all right?” Bree-yark asked.

  I stumbled past him, reeling from the attack but also from the suggestion that we may have lost Caroline, not to mention our portal back to the present in Arnaud. With one hand, I clawed at the invisible bond cinching my neck. The other was already drawn into a fist, Grandpa’s ring aimed at Maggie’s face.

  “Balaur,” I rasped.

  But the expected boom didn’t follow.

  “Ye made the deal willingly,” Maggie said, pushing herself to her feet.

  I shook the ring and tried again, the Word emerging as a gasp this time, but she was right. Our agreement had effectively suspended the Brasov Pact, at least as it applied to the two of us. Now Maggie was using the energy of our broken agreement as a weapon to choke off my breath and voice.

  “Not only did ye fail to produce my locket,” she said, “you’ve destroyed it.”

  “Hey, what’re you doing to him?” Bree-yark shouted above his drawn blade.

  But as he rushed Maggie, her orphans appeared and were suddenly all over him. The goblin swore as he struggled to free himself. More of the diminutive blood slaves headed off Gorgantha, who had begun circling the vampire’s blind side, her right fist cocked.

  Hellcat Maggie’s inflamed eyes never left mine.

  “Do ye know what ye destroyed?” she demanded, limping toward me. “What it meant?”

  I gagged as she upped the strangling force. But driven by the fire’s intense heat, strong winds were gusting through the window now, tossing her hair. When a thick mass flipped across her eyes, I lunged forward and drove a heel into her prosthesis. Bolts snapped at the knee, and Maggie reeled.

  I landed a forearm against her neck and pushed with my legs. Maggie’s failing prosthesis buckled into a backward stumble until I had her pinned against the stone wall. Casting may have been out, but my blade didn’t require words, and the tip was already buried in her sternum.

  As smoke hissed from the penetration, Maggie’s body locked up, suggesting the blade’s silver edge had punctured a major vessel. Her head rocked back in a silent scream. Off to the side, Bree-yark and Gorgantha shook stunned blood slaves from them like they were rag dolls.

  I adjusted my grip in preparation to cleave Maggie’s vampiric heart. Destroying her would mean losing a possible lead to an Upholder, but we’d already lost that in the bonfire that had once been Barnum’s Museum. And the broken agreement would continue to strangle me until either she called it off or I finished her.

  “Don’t do it.”

  Caroline stood in the doorway, her hood down from her golden hair. She stepped into the room, Arnaud behind her. Though I’d sensed she had escaped the blaze, the sight of her sent relief rushing through me.

  “Withdraw your sword,” she said.

  Can’t breathe, I mouthed back. Vampire bond.

  She nodded as if she understood but then repeated her command. Hesitantly, I pulled the blade free. Maggie came to immediately. Her thrashing arms knocked me aside. I stumbled to a stop beside Bree-yark and Gorgantha, hoping Caroline knew what the hell she was doing.

  The vampire took quick stock of the room, her eyes wild from her near death. When she sighted her assemblage of blood slaves, her lips twitched up at the corners. But the smile quickly abandoned her mouth.

  “Well, go on!” she snapped, meaning for the slaves to attack us.

  Instead, they began turning and facing the wall like punished children. I sensed Caroline’s subtle enchantment. Maggie must have too, because she trained her full glare on Caroline now, lips drawing from her filed teeth. Wresting a slave from a vampire’s control was considered deeply insulting.

  “How dare ye,” she seethed.

  But Caroline’s demeanor remained unchallenging. “We’ve fulfilled the agreement.”

  “The fuck ye have.”

  Caroline reached into her cloak and withdrew something on a slender chain. The change that came over Maggie’s face was immediate. One moment it was scrunched up and venomous; in the next, it was a child’s on Christmas morning.

  Maggie stared at the locket that swung pendulum-like from Caroline’s fingers before heaving her damaged prosthesis into its first step. The vampire didn’t seem to notice her buckling gait or care. Caroline met the lurching vampire halfway. But when she held out the locket, Maggie paused.

  “It’s no longer warded,” Caroline said, lowering it into her hand.

  With the agreement fulfilled, the pressure left my throat, and I took several heaving breaths. Maggie touched the locket in her palm, as if to make absolutely sure it was real. I expected her to fasten it around her neck, but she placed it carefully in one of her skirt pockets. When she looked up, moisture sheened her eyes.

  “It’s done, then.” Maggie said it like a thank you, but her tone quickly turned vampiric. “Ye can find yer fellow traveler at the Old Bell Tavern at seven o’clock this evening.” She reached into her skirt and tossed me something. I bobbled it before securing it against my chest: a pocket watch, so we could keep track of the time.

  “Does the traveler have a name?” I asked.

  “Yes, Lazar.”

  If the man in question was indeed an Upholder, that meant Malachi or Jordan. But I’d never heard either one referred to as “Lazar.” We could be dealing with someone altogether different, possibly even demonic.

  “How about a description?” I pressed.

  “Ye can see for yourself tonight,” Maggie snapped.

  Following her elation at recovering the locket, the vampire seemed edgy now, anxious to return to her sanctuary. For no other reason, maybe, than to be alone with her prize. Her eyes flicked over each of us as she staggered toward the door. Released from Caroline’s enchantment, the children filed behind her.

  “Hey, what’s so special about that locket, anyway?” Bree-yark called. The question clumped up his brow in a way that reflected my own curiosity. I’d sensed no magic or special properties in the locket.

  Expecting the vampire to leave us guessing, I was surprised when she stopped. “It belonged to my little girl,” she said quietly, and left.

  A vampire who turned children—even a time catch version of them—made my blood cook. But Maggie’s parting words, and the tender way she’d spoken them, had me reconsidering her motives. I shook the notion from my head. Trying to moralize a vampire’s behavior was a blood-slick slope best left alone.

  Caroline joined us, Arnaud in tow.

  “Nice going,” I said to her. “But what happened to looking not touching?”

  A smile brushed Caroline’s lips. “P.T. Barnum’s office was well defended. But then alarms began to sound, and the guards locked the office and headed upstairs. When cries of fire followed, I doubted we’d get another shot at the locket. The door was easily breached, and the locket easily found, thanks to the ward. Barnum had stored it behind a false wall in his closet, along with some other artifacts.”

  “Was the ward powerful?” I asked.

  “The original would have challenged me, I’m sure, but being an echo, I was able to overcome it.” She knew what I’d been asking, because she added, “And yes, the magic was similar to your own.”

  I suppressed my emotions with a measured nod. The 1861 version of my grandfather may have left Barnum’s American Museum, possibly over the treatment of the other acts, but the active ward that resembled mine meant he was still around. Unfortunately, it didn’t put us any closer to finding him.

  Unless he’s Lazar, I thought suddenly.

  “I hate to interrupt,” Gorgantha said. “But someone wanna tell me who you cats are and what the crunk is going on?”

  “I’m Bree-yark,” he said, stepping forward and extending a hand.

  Gorgantha took it, even though he hadn’t really told her anything.

  “I’m Everson Croft and this is Caroline Reid,” I said. “You and I belonged to a team called the Upholders.
” Once again, I showed her the symbol on my hand before indicating hers. “There were three others: Seay Sherard, Jordan Derrow, and Malachi Wickstrom. It was a mutual defense arrangement. Three of your groups were infiltrated by demons. We traveled to 1776 New York from the early twenty-first century to confront them, but we all got separated. You ended up here somehow.”

  The mermaid’s scaly brow knitted as she studied the symbol below her webbing. “The Upholders,” she echoed. “That does make a little jing-a-ling in my head. And those other names are kicking around like they should mean something too.”

  “What’s your earliest memory?” Caroline asked.

  “Honestly?” She ran a hand along the burn scars of one arm. “Pain.”

  The way she said it made me cheer the fire raging three blocks away.

  “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to try something,” Caroline said. “An intervention to restore your memories.”

  Gorgantha looked over at me. As far as she was concerned, we’d just met, but she’d known me longer than Caroline, and I had the added cred of having just helped her escape the museum. “Let her,” I said. “There’s a lot missing from your memory, and restoring it could help us find the others.”

  She looked at Bree-yark, her other liberator, who also nodded his encouragement.

  “All right,” Gorgantha agreed.

  Several minutes later, Gorgantha was on her back, Caroline cradling her head from behind. To keep the mer from drying out, I’d soaked her with one of the water bottles I’d packed. The moisture also had a calming effect, allowing Caroline to induce a light trance.

  “Think it was her treatment at the museum that affected her memory?” I whispered.

  “More likely being in this period,” Caroline replied. “The longer one spends in a time catch, the harder it becomes to connect with outside memories. Yet another feature of the phenomenon.”

  “Are we in any danger?” I asked.

  “As long as we don’t get stuck here, no.”

  From my post by the door, I glanced over at where Bree-yark was guarding Arnaud, our ride home. We couldn’t leave before we’d found the others and the St. Martin’s site. I hoped Gorgantha would be able to help with the first.

  Magic stirred behind Caroline’s closed eyes and around her hands. I paced as she began restoring the connections between the mermaid’s mind and her far-off memories. A few times Gorgantha twitched and muttered, but Caroline’s magic quieted her again. At last, Caroline opened her eyes and gave Gorgantha’s head a gentle shake.

  “Wake up.”

  Gorgantha stared at the ceiling a moment, then pushed herself into a sitting position. She blinked her eyes and looked at each of us in turn. When her gaze settled on mine, a huge smile broke across her face.

  “You janky-ass player!”

  “Wait, is that a good thing?” I asked.

  But Gorgantha had already jumped up and seized me under the arms. She spun me like a child. As Caroline wheeled past my vision, I shot her with a little finger pistol. Whatever she’d done had evidently worked. Gorgantha pulled me into a spine-crunching hug and rocked me side to side before setting me back down.

  She wiped at her tears. “Didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

  When I rubbed her thick arm, I noticed that her session with Caroline had also healed her burn wounds. “So you remember what happened?” I asked. “After I left you guys on Governor’s Island?”

  Gorgantha blew out her breath. “More than I care to.”

  “Just take your time,” I told her, leaning against the windowsill.

  She began slowly, as if revisiting the memories with a flashlight. “Took maybe two, three hours till everyone could walk that night. Seay and her friends kept us hid with glamours, but most of the soldiers were still busy on the river, trying to figure out what happened to the big ships.” She was referring to the warships whose crews Pip and Twerk had enchanted. “We got to the pickup spot at the fort, or where we thought it was, and we waited. Nothing happened. We tried a few other places, but same story every time. No ride home.”

  “A demon compromised the fae,” I said, glancing over at Caroline. “That’s why they didn’t bring you back.”

  I cursed myself again for not marking the place where we’d arrived. But something told me that if the fae hadn’t used that loophole to deny the Upholders’ return, they would have come up with something else.

  “So Osgood left us hanging?” Gorgantha asked.

  “He was bound by orders,” Caroline explained. “Had it been up to him, he would have returned you.”

  “That’s why Caroline’s here,” I said.

  Gorgantha made a sound of semi-understanding and began walking the room in measured paces, her tail twitching. “It was gonna get light soon,” she continued, “and Seay’s gang was running low on glamour juice, so we returned to the boats, rowed over to Brooklyn. We found a wooded place to duck out. The druids used plant magic to make these wicked screens for us and the boats. By daylight, the warships had started moving again. Soldiers were rowing ashore, trying to find whoever had ganked the prison ship. The original plan was for us to stay put that day, try the fort again at night.”

  “But not everyone agreed,” I said, reading her grim expression.

  “No,” she confirmed. “Jordan wanted to go somewhere safer. He talked about crossing back over to Manhattan that night and laying low at your grandpa’s farm, waiting for things to settle down. He even mentioned joining his druid circle up in the forest. The two who’d helped us had flown back by then.”

  “Lorcan and Failend,” I said, remembering their names. “Jordan was probably just worried for his wife.” Delphine’s abduction at the hands of the Stranger had driven him into an obsessive search, often involving recklessness. We’d had more than a few head-butting sessions. But after recovering her and the other druids, it sounded like Jordan had switched to an ultra-cautious mode to ensure their safe return.

  “Maybe, but Seay wasn’t having it,” Gorgantha went on. “She wanted to stick to the original plan. They argued about it half the day. The rest of us stepped in, finally getting Jordan to agree to try the fort again that night. So that’s what we did. But British backup had been arriving all day. That dirt fort looked like an anthill. The druids and half-fae had to push their magic to the max to keep all of us hid. We tried a few spots, like the night before, but nothing took.”

  I snuck a look at Caroline. She was listening with an elbow propped on her crossed arm, chin resting on curved fingers. Whatever guilt she may have felt was overshadowed by an expression of concern.

  “Finally, we rowed back to our spot in Brooklyn. And if I thought the arguing was bad the day before…” Gorgantha shook her head. “We could all agree the fort was a bust, but Jordan was set now on going to his druid circle, seeing if they could muster the kind of magic needed to return us. But Seay wanted to keep closer to home base. In case you came back for us.” She looked over at me. “The two went at it like a pair of bullheads, their groups lining up behind them. I tried to play referee, but without Malachi, we—”

  “What happened to Malachi?” I interrupted.

  “The day before, he was fine. Fact, he was the one who helped bring about the truce. But that day, he was acting all janky. Then he started saying things that didn’t make sense. How we couldn’t stay, but we couldn’t go either.”

  “Kind of like the song,” Bree-yark remarked.

  I shook my head while wondering if Malachi had had another one of his premonitions.

  “Thing is,” Gorgantha continued, “everyone was so busy scrapping with each other to notice that Malachi was coming unglued. At one point, he just up and disappeared. I found him off by himself, sitting under a tree. When I tried to bring him back to the group he started in about worlds colliding.”

  Caroline’s and my eyes met.

  “What happened next?” I pressed.

  “Well, we hadn’t eaten in more than a day, so
I offered to go into the city, fill up one of the boats. Figured some food might get everyone to chill. Also figured Jordan wouldn’t run off till I got back. So wearing Seay’s glamour, I set out. I stayed in the water for the trip, swimming behind the boat in case I needed to bail. I was maybe halfway across the river when a cannon went off. I didn’t know who it was aimed at, so I dove under and waited a few minutes before coming back up.”

  She stopped pacing to give us all a look that said, You’re not gonna believe this next part.

  “When I did come up, it was nighttime. Not only that, the city was all trees, right to the shore. Not a building or boat anywhere. And Everson, there were things swimming in that river I’d never seen before. When this huge sucker came at me, it was haul butt time. Whatever the thing was, it had flippers and crazy big teeth.”

  It sounded like she’d crossed the barrier into the prehistoric period.

  “I was too far from any shore,” she continued, “so I dove down to find somewhere I could crouch. That’s when I got snagged.”

  “In the weeds?” Bree-yark asked.

  “In a damned net,” she answered. “I was pulled out of the water and onto a boat. Daytime, now. And there was Manhattan again, all built up, even more than before. The warships were gone, but the river was full of boats.”

  She’d found one of the points into 1861.

  “I was too stressed about the net to be worrying about any of that, though,” she continued. “I was tangled from head to tail—and Seay’s glamour had come off. Men were all around, swearing and shouting for others to come see. I heard one of them say something about fetching a good price at ‘Barnum’s.’ Next thing I know, crack.” She drove a fist into her hand. “Clubbed in the head. When I woke up, I was in a tank at that damned museum.” She hesitated. There was more, but I could see she wasn’t ready to relive it. “Well, that’s pretty much how you found me,” she finished.

  “Fiji mermaid,” Bree-yark grumbled.

  “How long were you there?” Caroline asked.