Purge City (Prof Croft Book 3)

by Brad Magnarella

  I leaned further forward, the rest of my apartment seeming to disappear.

  Chicory nodded gravely. “By eavesdropping on the being’s whisperings, Lich learned secrets that could elevate him to the level of his siblings and possibly beyond. From those secrets, he cultivated power. And with that power, he confronted his eight brothers and sisters, demanding his rightful place among them. They questioned the source of his magic. When he told them, they attempted to close the fissure to the Deep Down. Lich fought back.”

  “What happened?”

  “A horrible battle. Indeed, the Order almost fell. But in the end, they destroyed Lich and sealed the opening to the domicile of the being who came to be known as the Whisperer.”

  I had always considered the Elders invincible. To hear that they’d been pushed to the brink sent a guilty jolt of pleasure through me while filling me with a deeper anxiety. “The Order almost fell?”

  “The Elders took steps to ensure nothing like that would ever happen again.” Chicory leveled his gaze at me. “Including creating a penalty system for wizards who insist on summoning beings they shouldn’t.”

  “I told you, it wasn’t really a summon—”

  “Silence, Everson.”

  I watched him watching me, the smoke from his pipe enshrouding him in a sinister mist. Story time was over. Time to dole out the punishment. A heavy stone rolled around my stomach. I watched him set his pipe on an end table and fold his stubby fingers over his small paunch.

  “Though you committed an infraction, that’s not why I came,” he said.

  “It’s n-not?”

  “I’m here on another errand. When I let myself in, I happened to sense the remnants of the summoning spell, which you’ve all but confessed to. There are penalties for such actions, Everson. But given that you banished a demon lord last fall, I’m only going to issue a warning this time. This time,” he emphasized, raising an eyebrow. “You’ll see no such leniency the next.”

  “I understand,” I said, touching my clasped hands to my forehead. “Thank you.”

  “I’m here about your mother.”

  I lowered my hands.

  “In response to your multiple inquiries into the circumstances surrounding your mother’s death, the Order has sent me to address them.”

  “That’s why you’re here?”

  “The answer, I’ve been told, is no.”

  “No?” I said. “What do they mean no?”

  “They have no more information for you.”

  “They have no more information period, or no more information they want to tell me?”

  “They hope this brings the matter to a close.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Brings the matter to a close? The hell it does! All it tells me is that the Order is hiding something.” I flattened my shaking hands against my thighs and took several deep breaths. “I’m going to ask you something, Chicory—you, not them—and I want the God’s honest truth.” I took another breath as I considered the question I’d been brooding over for the last four months. “Did the Order execute her?”

  The room seemed to waver around us.

  “I can tell you unequivocally that they did not.”

  I took a moment to decide whether or not I believed him. Chicory waited, a sober honesty standing in his eyes.

  “But there’s more,” I said. “There has to be more.”

  “If there is, the Elders have chosen not to disclose it. We must accept whatever wisdom guides their reasoning.”

  “But it’s my mother,” I said.

  “I know, Everson.”

  “Can you at least tell me whether she was a magic-user, a member of the Order?”

  “She passed away before my transfer here,” Chicory said. “But I don’t think the Order would object to my telling you there’s no record on her. None that I could locate, anyway. Not every generation manifests the power of Michael’s lineage. While your mother carried the genes, the genes may not have found expression in her. They found expression in you, though—something the Order was unaware of until your adventures in Romania.”

  “Can you ask them?” I pressed.

  Chicory sighed heavily.

  “Please.”

  He move his head side to side, as though deliberating. At last, he nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out. But I can’t tell you when to expect any information,” he added hurriedly. “I have a full caseload right now.”

  “I understand. Anything’s better than nothing.”

  “Very well.” He stood and returned his pipe to his pocket. “Was there anything else?”

  “Actually, the mayor is planning a program to eradicate ghouls and lesser creatures in the city. He wants me to act as a consultant. I told him I had to clear it with my higher ups.” Not wanting to convolute the request, I said nothing about the werewolves or Lady Bastet’s murder.

  “That sounds fine,” Chicory said. “It’s why Michael sired children, after all. Just don’t let it interfere with your other duties.” Chicory shot me a final reproving look. “And no more summonings—or leaving doors open, as you call it. Not from the In Between, not from anywhere.”

  “No more leaving doors open,” I agreed.

  Chicory’s cocked eyebrow issued all the warning I needed. Not only would I face extreme punishment, but I could forget about learning anything more about my mother.

  “G’night, love,” he said to Tabitha, giving her a final scratch behind the ears.

  Tabitha shifted and purred in her sleep.

  9

  I met with the mayor twice that week, official meetings in his City Hall office. No more being beaten and grabbed off the street. For Budge’s part, he acted as if that episode had never happened. We spent most of the first meeting discussing the supernatural geography of the city, narrowing in on the ghoul-infested subway lines and the wilds of Central Park.

  Budge frowned down at the map spread over his desk. “Which one should we nail first?”

  “Well, if the goal is to get the most bang for your buck in the shortest amount of time…” I tapped the defunct Broadway line in lower Manhattan. “…I’d go after the ghouls. With them gone, murders and disappearances will drop immediately. A hard stat you can point to.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Budge said.

  “Not to mention you’ll be able to restore service to that line, something the public’s been clamoring for.”

  “Great minds think alike.” Budge checked his watch. “I’ve got a meeting with the MTA boss in a couple minutes. Sort of a blow hard, but that’s between you and me. In any case, let’s sit down again tomorrow, same time. I want you to talk Captain Cole and me through the nuts and bolts.”

  We shook on it. As had been the case all meeting, I couldn’t find an ulterior motive. The eradication program seemed to be just what Budge had said it would be: a high-profile injection of money and resources into the problem of marauding monsters. If the program produced the results Budge needed, he had a chance of eking out a win in November.

  I spent the rest of that day in my library/lab. I gathered all of the information I could on ghouls, distilled the information down to its essence, and then devised a way to eradicate them en masse. I studied maps of the subway lines. I tested various defensive sigils and magical incendiaries. Satisfied, I typed out a plan and carried it to the mayor’s office the next day.

  Lance Cole, the man appointed to head the Hundred, was sitting in a chair facing the mayor’s desk in his captain’s uniform. He greeted me with a nod that was hard to read amid the age lines creasing his dark face. As I went over my strategy with Budge, Cole sat back and listened.

  When I finished, Budge turned to him. “What do you think?”

  Captain Cole pressed the dark gemstone of a fraternal ring to his mustache and reread my proposal. When he reached the bottom of the page, he gave a single nod. “If you can cover the lights, and Everson here this part”—he brushed the bullet points with the pinky ring�
��“we can take care of the rest.”

  “How soon?” Budge asked.

  “I can have the team ready inside of a week,” Cole answered.

  “How’s that sound, Everson?”

  “Works for me.”

  Budge beamed at both of us. “It’s why I hired the best.”

  “Um, just one more thing,” I said. “I’d like to have Detective Hoffman from Homicide advising as well.”

  Captain Cole’s forehead wrinkled. “We already have Detective Vega helping out.”

  “Right, but Hoffman’s worked on supernatural cases too,” I said. “And he brings a different perspective.” Which was to say he remained a stubborn-ass skeptic about the supernatural despite any and all evidence to the contrary. But that’s not why I wanted him.

  Cole appeared to chew on that for a moment before nodding. “Fine. I’m going to have you present your plan to the Hundred on Thursday. I’ll make sure both detectives are there.”

  Excellent, I thought. But it doesn’t give me much time.

  I stopped at a camera store on my way home. In the vintage section, I found and paid for an old Polaroid camera and several packs of film.

  Back in my apartment lab I placed the tuft of hair I’d cut from Hoffman at the crime scene into my silver casting circle. On the floor beside it, I created a second, larger circle. Inside that one, I set a mound of wet, gray clay that I kept in a plastic garbage container. I then sprinkled the clay with black ash, grated mandrake root, and two tablespoons of my own blood.

  Pulling a spell book from a shelf, I consulted a set of Coptic instructions. For spying, there was scrying, projecting, and summoning lesser beings. But I needed recorded evidence, and that meant animation. I winced at the memory of my last attempt, the result a screaming golem that had run around punching himself in the jewels before I force-blasted him out of existence. Clay had rained everywhere and taken me weeks to clean from my rugs.

  Impure clay, I reminded myself, hoping that had been the reason for the masochistic display. I aimed my staff at the mound of high-grade clay and recited the incantation, careful to pronounce each syllable precisely.

  “Vivere … pulsare … respirare … levarsi…”

  Energy coursed through my mental prism. I pushed that energy, along with some of my own essence, into the clay. After a minute of nothing, the clay began to squelch and fold in on itself. The blood thinned into a network of vessels. Within moments, a shape became evident: a tadpole-like creature with large pods for eyes. It writhed and flopped on the floor, its shrinking tail soon replaced by sprouting legs. Arms pushed from beneath a head that was becoming less embryonic, more human. The eyes shrank and migrated inward until I was looking at an infant. The infant opened its mouth in a silent cry as it elongated, its C-shaped back becoming more lordotic. It was a boy. With growing limbs, the golem began pushing himself upright, tottering as dark hair sprouted from his molding head.

  By the time the golem steadied and opened his hazel-colored eyes, I was at face level with a crude likeness of myself. I waited a moment, a force invocation on the tip of my tongue, but the animation didn’t start screaming or swinging his fists. He only watched, waiting for my command.

  “Dress,” I said, spreading a pile of clothes at his feet.

  The golem stared at the clothes before something took hold in his rudimentary mind. He reached for the plaid boxers first, stepping into them stiffly—left leg, then right—and pulling them up. Next he donned the socks in the same left-right order. It was how I dressed, which made sense, considering he was operating off a dimmer version of my own knowledge and memories.

  He finished by putting on a necklace that featured a copper amulet, one I had infused with energy to sustain the being for the next several days. He even tucked it inside his shirt as I did with my own coin pendant.

  “Ready to get to work?” I asked.

  The golem regarded me with an expression not unlike a clothing store mannequin’s.

  “That’s the spirit. But first we need a name for you. How does Ed sound?”

  “Ed,” he repeated in monotone.

  “You like that, huh?” I chuckled and clapped his shoulder. “Well, I’ve got a job for you, Ed.”

  I trained my attention on the silver circle, where I’d set Hoffman’s hair. Incanting, I drew the detective’s essence into my staff and then directed the essence into Ed’s amulet, turning it into a homing beacon. I waved Ed over to where I had set the Polaroid camera on the end of the lab table.

  I spoke slowly. “Load the camera with film and take my picture.”

  Ed fumbled with the film’s metallic wrapping, eventually shedding it and slotting the film into the camera. I smiled broadly as the golem raised the Polaroid to his right eye and clicked. A white-framed photo emerged from the camera’s mouth.

  “Good,” I said, pulling the photo free.

  As the image of me developed, I considered what I was doing. In the last couple of days, I had begun to see the eradication program as an opportunity to not only protect myself, but to get close to the Lady Bastet investigation. I needed info on who was behind the hit and why. I also wanted to recover my mother’s final hair. Obtaining either from Vega wasn’t going to be easy, but Hoffman was another story. Mr. Moretti had already proven the man could be bought. I had considered waving some cash under Hoffman’s nose, but blackmail felt like a surer bet.

  Plus it was cheaper.

  “All right,” I said to the golem, who had been facing me patiently. “You’re going to tail Hoffman for the next few days. Any time he meets with someone other than fellow NYPD, I want you to snap a picture. Above all, be discreet. If he spots you, run.” I handed him several folded-over twenties and watched him insert them into his pants pocket. “That will cover cab fares. You’ll stop back here once a day to drop off the pictures and pick up fresh film. When you feel the amulet’s energy running low, I want you to return here for good. Understand?”

  The instructions were rudimentary, intended to ensure we were on the same page. If I had performed the spell correctly, enough of my own intelligence now echoed inside Ed’s head to steer him.

  “Understand,” he repeated in a blocky voice.

  I looked my creation over once more. He was too clunky to appear fully human, but that was hardly a deal breaker in New York. I placed a Mets baseball cap on his head, pulling the bill low to cast a shadow over his face. Then, wheeling him around, I swatted his clay butt.

  “Go get ’em, tiger.”

  10

  I looked from my notes scattered over the lectern to the packed auditorium. The men and women sitting ramrod straight in dark blue uniforms had been selected from the NYPD’s elite tactical teams, the best of the best. True to Mayor Lowder’s word, they were all human. No werewolves. Even so, the Hundred was the most intimidating audience I had ever lectured to.

  Sure ain’t Midtown College, I mused, thinking of my six students.

  I tapped my notes into a pile and, assuming a professorial air, leaned toward the mounted microphone. The sound system whined feedback until I remembered my wizarding aura and backed away.

  “Good afternoon,” I said.

  The Hundred stared back with hard eyes and set jaws.

  “Great. How about we dive right in?” I signaled to a technician. The lights dimmed, and everyone’s eyes shifted to the digital screen behind me. I didn’t need to turn to see the image of the gray monstrosity glaring back at them. I was pleased to catch a few winces.

  “Ghouls,” I began. “They range in height from six to eight feet tall and can weigh in excess of four hundred pounds. But don’t let the size fool you. In addition to super strength, they’re twice as fast as all of you here. Note the razor-sharp claws and incisors … A ghoul’s preferred diet is rotting flesh, but they’ll take whatever they can find, living or dead. When they hunt, it’s almost always in packs. For years they’ve gone after low-hanging fruit: drunks and junkies, mostly in the East Village and Lower East Side.
But they’ve grown bolder in recent months, coming up earlier in the evening and venturing farther afield.”

  I had the technician advance to an image of a bloody crime scene on a narrow street.

  “Two weeks ago, scraps of an NYU student were found on Bond Street. Friends say she was walking home after a late-night party. The entire process from pursuit to capture to devouring probably took the ghoul pack less than a minute. Even armed with a snub-nosed pistol, the young woman had no chance.”

  The audience eyed the image in rapt attention. I could feel their minds wrapping around the idea that they would be facing an opponent most of them had dismissed as fiction until recently. Captain Cole, who had introduced me minutes earlier, leaned against a wall to my right.

  I signaled for the tech to skip ahead several screens. I’d made my point.

  “All right, so here’s the defunct Broadway line and its east-west services,” I said, turning toward the map of subway routes in lower Manhattan. “Most of the ghouls are concentrated inside that red box, south of Fourteenth Street and west of Brooklyn. A couple of hundred, probably.”

  “If these things even exist,” someone asked, “what do you need a SWAT team for? Why not just gas the lines?”

  I focused on the back row until I could see the speaker, one of two plainclothes cops in attendance. “If it were only that easy, Detective,” I replied, suppressing a smile. Hoffman had come. “Ghouls can go for days without air, making them immune to the kinds of gases you have in mind. I should add that their regenerative abilities also make them immune to most weapons.”

  “So what does that leave?” he asked. “Kryptonite?”

  “Sunlight and fire,” I replied.

  “Sunlight? In the tunnels?”

  “Let the professor talk,” Captain Cole said sternly.

  Hoffman scowled and settled back in his chair. I slid my gaze over to Detective Vega, who was sitting beside him. She looked back with a sour expression, clearly irritated by my inclusion in the eradication program.