Night Rune (Prof Croft Book 8)

by Brad Magnarella

  I edged along the opening until I was standing opposite him. The man regarded me for a moment, tongue searching a rear molar, before unfolding his arms.

  “What’ll you be having?” he asked in an English accent.

  “Whiskey.”

  He prepared it quietly and set the small glass on the bar. Patrons shoved around me now, shouting out drink orders. The man raised a hand for their silence, his sober eyes remaining on mine. Though there was no magic in them, I saw an intelligence honed by decades of studying people.

  “What else?” he asked, less a question than an observation.

  “I’m looking for someone named Lazar.”

  “And what are you wanting with him?”

  I sensed everything depended on how I answered.

  “Someone believes we know each other.”

  “And who is this someone?”

  “Hellcat Maggie.”

  His slow blink may have been a reaction—I couldn’t tell. He walked over to his sons, leaned close to tell them something, then returned to me. He lifted a plank of bar and stepped aside for me to pass.

  I sensed Caroline behind me, still watching.

  As I joined the man, he lowered the plank again. Taking an oil lantern from the bar, he stepped out a back door and led the way across a small yard. I followed, reassured by having seen Gorgantha near the road. Given the dearth of ley energy, I was going to need backup if this were an ambush. The man stopped at an outbuilding, its door outlined in light.

  “Lazar?” he called.

  From inside came a moan and the sound of straw rustling.

  The man turned to me. “He started early today, so I’m not sure how clearheaded he is.”

  It took me a moment to get that he meant drinking. When the man reached for the knob, I stopped him.

  “Look, I’m not sure what I’m walking into here.”

  He lowered his hand. “Hm. Maggie’s boy indicated as much.”

  That explained why the tavern keeper had been keeping an eye out for me. Maggie had sent one of her blood slaves to arrange the meeting, probably even including a description of what I looked like.

  “I’m Everson, by the way.”

  I didn’t bother with an alias since Maggie had already overheard my name.

  “Jack,” he replied, gripping my hand. “What’re you wanting to know?”

  “Well, who Lazar is, for starters.”

  “No one can say. Turned up when a tenement house caught fire. Lazar delivered several women and children from the blaze, but got burned awful bad himself. When he pulled through, he was given the name Lazar, short for Lazarus. We gave him work here, mostly out of charity. He’s still not well.” He tapped his temple. “Helps out during the day, cleaning and such. But he drinks sometimes. When he does, he ends up like this. Other times, he wanders off. Sometimes for months.”

  “Where does he go?”

  Jack shrugged, which had me thinking about the time catches. “Makes his way back eventually,” he said, “but each time looking considerably worse for the wear. When Maggie’s boy said someone was coming to see about him, I’d hoped it was family. At this point, the old man needs caring after.”

  Old man?

  “I’ll leave you two,” Jack said, and before I was ready, he opened the door.

  Inside, a lit lantern hung from a peg. Against the opposite wall of a simple room, a man lay on a bed of straw-ticking. He was curled on his side, facing away from the door. A mass of gray hair burst from the top of his covers. I turned toward Jack, but he was already crossing the yard back to the tavern.

  “Lazar?” I ventured.

  The mattress rustled, and the man craned his neck around. A dirty hand emerged and cleared the hair from his face. The left half had been badly burned. A weeping gray eye peered from a bed of scar tissue.

  I could see right away that I didn’t know this person from Adam—if he was even a person. I gripped the handle of my cane sword. When the man’s eye sharpened, he drew a sharp breath that triggered a coughing fit from deep in his chest.

  I took a tentative step forward. “Are you all right?”

  He nodded as he got control of his hacks, then rasped, “That you, Everson?”

  I stopped and stared. Did he just say my name?

  The old man pushed his covers aside and sat on the edge of the mattress. He was dressed in tattered clothes, dirty bare feet crossed at the ankles. “You remember me, right?” he pled. “You haven’t forgotten?”

  He gathered hair from his face with both hands now. The scarring on the left half extended from his hairline down to a threadbare chin. He tilted his head so the good half caught more lantern light. I examined the gaunt angles and leathery skin for some clue to his identity.

  “I’m … I’m afraid I don’t recognize you,” I said.

  He released his hair from his sagging face. “No one does.” Then very softly, “It’s Malachi.”

  Malachi?

  I dropped to my knees and seized his hands. Where the bond would have been was more fire-scarred skin. Pushing his hair from his face, I searched one gray eye, then the other. Age had paled the irises, but I could see the resemblance to the young man I’d known. I switched to my wizard’s senses. Amid the chaotic pattern of his aura, I picked out familiar touchstones, including currents of St. Martin’s, where he’d spent so much time.

  “Malachi Wickstrom?” I asked.

  A light took hold in his eyes. “You remember?”

  “Malachi Wickstrom of St. Martin’s Cathedral?” I asked. “Of the Upholders?”

  Clutching my hands, he sprang up and began shuffling his bare feet back and forth over the plank floor. “Yes, yes! You’re the only one, but you remember!” He leaned his head back, his mouth opening to reveal a set of teeth ground down to pebbles. “He remembers!” he cried to the heavens.

  Stunned by the revelation that this old man was somehow my teammate, I let myself be carried into his dance. But how in the hell was that possible? Malachi stopped suddenly and gripped my wrists.

  “I chose you,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, the smell of gin breaking against my face. “Just as I chose the others. But time is short, is short.” He looked wildly around. “The elements of the Night Rune gather.”

  “The Night Rune?”

  “Come!” he cried.

  He released me and dug under his mattress, eventually emerging with a Latin Bible that looked like it had survived hell. But even tattered and burned, I recognized it as the same one he’d carried into the time catch. He ignored the shoes at the foot of his bed and staggered past me, bare feet scuffing toward the door.

  “Hold on a sec,” I said, catching his arm. “You need to fill me in on what’s going on.”

  Malachi thrashed his bony arm with surprising strength. “Time is short!” When I didn’t release him, he started swatting my hand with the Bible. “Let go of me, dammit! Time is short!”

  “Time for what?”

  “To reach St. Martin’s in, in, in 1776!”

  I hesitated. “You know where the 1776 St. Martin’s site is?”

  He nodded fervently, sending his wild hair everywhere. “And the others!”

  “The others—you mean the Upholders?” I stammered. “Seay and Jordan?”

  “Yes, yes, but time is short, is short!”

  “I understand, but let’s sit down for a minute.”

  “No, the elements of the Night Rune gather!” he screeched. “The apocalypse is nigh! The demon apoc—”

  Without warning, he swooned in my grasp. I caught him before he collapsed to the floor and lowered him down to the mattress. He was still breathing. The combination of elation, exertion, and inebriation had overwhelmed his aging body. When I examined his face again, I could see Malachi more clearly.

  But what in the hell could have happened to him?

  Heart thudding, I called for Caroline.

  28

  I stood back from the bed as Caroline worked on Malachi,
fae energy already bathing his head. I’d called Gorgantha too, knowing she would want to see her teammate. When she arrived with Arnaud, I left the door open to keep a line of sight on Bree-yark. He remained on watch outside, Dropsy glowing sedately in his grasp.

  “Damn!” Gorgantha exclaimed.

  “I told you he’d aged,” I said in a hushed voice.

  She lowered her voice to my level. “Aged? He looks like a troll. How did this happen?”

  “That’s what Caroline’s checking out. But he claims to know where Seay and Jordan are.”

  “Then why aren’t they here?”

  “Same thing probably happened to them as you—being in the time catches too long. I’m guessing Malachi tried to get through to them but couldn’t. He said I was the only one who remembered him.”

  Gorgantha thrust her lower lip at Malachi. “How did he remember?”

  Still in her male glamour, Caroline sat back from him. “Because he never spent enough time in one time catch. Driven to stop the demon apocalypse, he’s been jumping from one to another. The upshot is that he’s retained his memories—or most of them. But the transitions also sped his aging.”

  “How many transitions we talking?” Gorgantha asked.

  “Hundreds, possibly thousands,” Caroline said.

  Gorgantha’s eyes popped wide. “Thousands?”

  “It may sound implausible,” Caroline said, “but the time structures are hopelessly distorted down here.”

  “And he’s survived?” I wondered aloud.

  “He’s created a mental map of the time catches,” Caroline said, eyes closing again. “Quite comprehensive. So, although his thoughts are fragmented, I believe he knows where to find the others and the St. Martin’s site. I can’t see details of the map, unfortunately. His mind is too … chaotic. He’ll have to lead us.”

  “Is he in any condition?” I asked.

  “My enchantment will restore what it can. But he’s made these journeys before.”

  I looked down at Malachi, who rested quietly now. The picture of what he’d become—a crazed mind inside a wasted body—kicked me in the heart. I remembered the timid acolyte he’d been at St. Martin’s. He led me to the cathedral’s catacombs, where I managed to channel the power of the church into the demon lord Sathanas.

  When visions of an apocalypse began visiting Malachi’s sleep, he became a de facto demonologist. He located Gorgantha, Seay, and Jordan, whose groups had been infiltrated by demonic Strangers, and he created the Upholders. Then, for reasons he’d yet to fully divine, he recruited me. By that time a zealotry to stop the demon apocalypse gripped him. But he retained an innocence that made me feel responsible for him, like an older brother for his younger sibling.

  On the straw-tick mattress, the scarred corner of his mouth twitched.

  “Did you find anything about a Night Rune?” I asked Caroline. “When talking about the apocalypse, he said ‘the elements of the Night Rune gather.’”

  She shook her head as she rose. “His thoughts are too tangled. Restoring them is beyond the magic I can invest, perhaps beyond any magic. I’ve smoothed as much as I could. He should be more coherent when he awakens.”

  “How long will that be?” With a host of fae on their way to head us off and a revenant tracking me, I was anxious to be moving again.

  “As long as it requires.” She smiled faintly. “How’s that for a fae answer?”

  “Not bad,” I allowed, looking around the room. We’d left Arnaud in a shadowy corner, and as my gaze moved past him, the skin around his eyes seemed a little too tense for someone entranced. But by the time I took a second look, his eyes had assumed their prior slackness. A trick of the light?

  “How do Arnaud’s restraints seem to you?” I asked Caroline.

  I kept a close watch on him as she walked up beside me. “Intact. Why?”

  They felt intact to me too, humming with the warding energy that negated his powers and cut him off from the infernal realm. Arnaud’s face continued to exhibit the sunken look that had begun to concern me in the restaurant. When I snapped my fingers in front of his eyes, they remained empty globes.

  “Hey, guys?” Gorgantha called from the doorway. “Bree-yark’s signaling.”

  I turned from Arnaud. Past the mermaid’s body, Dropsy’s light was pulsing an emergency sequence from the road.

  Shit, I thought, pulling my cane into sword and staff.

  “Mind staying here with these two?” I asked Caroline, gesturing to Arnaud and Malachi. Now that she was drawing from a limited reservoir, we needed to preserve every ounce of fae energy for the essential work: glamours, Arnaud, and restoring the Upholders—not to mention getting us back to the present.

  “Go carefully,” Caroline said.

  As I hurried from the building, Gorgantha fell into step behind me. I gathered the weak currents of ley energy and firmed the air into a shield, though I didn’t know how much protection it would actually afford us.

  We were halfway across the yard when Bree-yark backed into our view. He had hooked Dropsy to his belt and drawn his goblin blade. When he saw us approaching, he hustled into the yard to meet us.

  “We’ve got a mob coming,” he said. “And they don’t look right.”

  I ventured past him to the road. Large crowds were coming down Bloomingdale Road from both directions, torches blazing above a sea of heads. But unlike the human stampede I’d encountered in Five Points, these crowds moved in utter silence. The only sounds were the march of boots and crackling of torch fire. Yeah, eerie as fuck. I opened my wizard’s senses and swore some more.

  “What is it?” Gorgantha asked when I returned.

  “Remember the soulless soldiers from 1776?”

  “That some kind of tongue twister?” Bree-yark grunted.

  “Yeah, I remember,” Gorgantha said, massaging a fist. “Cracked a knuckle on one of their noggins.”

  “Well, we’ve got two soulless mobs coming our way.” I turned to include Caroline, whose glamoured figure split the light from the outbuilding. “It means there’s a demon active in this time catch. One of Malphas’s, judging from the interest in us. We’ve got about a minute to get Malachi out of here.”

  “I’ll grab him,” Gorgantha said.

  Caroline emerged with Arnaud. “How many?” she asked.

  “Fifty?” I guessed. “Too many to take on.” Especially with ley energy scant and fae power at a premium.

  “We could squeeze out through there.” Bree-yark pointed to a space between the out building and tavern where some old beer barrels had been stacked. “That’ll take us east, away from the mobs.”

  I nodded quickly as Gorgantha emerged with Malachi cradled in one of her massive arms. She’d hung his shoes around his neck by the laces and tucked his Bible into the waist of his loose pants. I took lead, shoving the barrels aside. Behind the wall of the tavern, drunken laughter sounded. I was almost through when I spotted a third mob coming from the direction of Central Park.

  How many frigging souls did he claim?

  Signaling for everyone to stay low, I led the way around the back of the outbuilding and then cut northeast through a field of chicken coops. We were too exposed in this part of the city. Central Park would give us cover. But the southbound mob wasn’t fooled. The glow of their torches veered from the road to head us off.

  “I can glamour us,” Caroline whispered from behind me.

  “Let me try something first. You, Malachi, and Arnaud down here, against the coop.” As Gorgantha set Malachi on the ground, I turned to Bree-yark and signaled for him to pass Dropsy to Caroline. He unclasped the lantern from his belt and handed her over. Caroline nodded, catching on to what I was planning.

  “All right, everyone in close,” I whispered.

  Bree-yark, Gorgantha, and I arranged our bodies into a shield around the other three. Caroline’s free hand was gripping Arnaud’s far shoulder, holding him to her side. I searched the demon-vampire’s eyes for any signs of cognizance,
but they remained sunken and empty.

  Caroline whispered to the lantern, and Dropsy’s light pulled in, wrapping herself in a glamour of invisibility. The glamour swelled to encompass Caroline, Malachi, and Arnaud, but only caught the edges of the rest of us.

  Knowing that might happen, I whispered, “Oscurare.”

  The shadow of the coop deepened around us until we were as concealed as we were going to be.

  The southbound mob arrived moments later. They spread throughout the plot in a silent mass, torch light reflected in their hollow eyes. Judging by their appearances, the demon had selected them from the poor streets and shipyards—men and women who wouldn’t be missed. As the mob neared, torches warped the shadows around the others coops, but the one concealing us remained an immovable block.

  The westbound mob joined them, several members wandering within feet of us. I gripped my sword, ready to activate the banishment rune, but the lantern’s glamour coupled with my low-level invocation were doing their jobs.

  Soon, both mobs were beyond us. I waited to be sure no stragglers were coming up behind them before releasing the invocation with a shaky breath. As the coop’s shadow lightened around us, the lantern’s glamour contracted back inside the glass, and Caroline, Malachi, and Arnaud returned to visibility.

  I peered over the top of the coop at the diminishing torch lights. The mobs were moving east, which meant Central Park was out. While Gorgantha lifted Malachi, I helped Caroline to her feet.

  “Know of anywhere nearby we might be able to lay low?” I asked.

  I’d cycled through a few places before exhausting my knowledge of the period. My first thought, of course, had been a church—St. Martin’s, even—but the threshold would strip my powers. Plus, through regular exposure, Malphas’s demons had immunized themselves against the churches in the time catches. Our protection would be questionable.