Black Luck (Prof Croft Book 5)

by Brad Magnarella

  I tilted my head sideways. The painting had been rendered in dark blue paint with lighter lines running here and there. With the adrenaline of my punch still pumping through my system, it took me a moment to recognize the shapes. “That’s Manhattan and the five boroughs.”

  “That’s right.” Though Pierce’s lip had healed, his tone had changed. He was talking to me like a peer. “I saw the Ark first, and then the converging of the Ark here, underground.” He indicated the southeast corner of Central Park. “The focus has shifted here, to south Brooklyn, where Quinton is hiding with the necklace. The city is safe until I learn his precise location. Quinton can’t risk emerging to create a new group, not with so many police down there. It’s really only a matter of time. But something’s bothering me.”

  “You think Damien has another play,” I said.

  He looked over at me in surprise. “Why do you say that?”

  “As much as I appreciate the earlier compliment about my investigative skills, that’s the problem, isn’t it? That, what, two days after Damien’s first attack we’re on the verge of putting him out of business? Hell, it might have been one day if I hadn’t boned things up,” I allowed. “Whatever Damien’s doing has been in the planning a long time. This feels sloppy. I think we’re seeing what he wants us to see. Chasing what he wants us to chase.”

  Pierce nodded. “That’s been a growing concern of mine as well. And there have been intimations of what you’re saying in my painting, though they come and go. I’ve not yet been able to interpret them. The strongest images are no longer here, but they had to do with you.”

  “How so?”

  “I explained mirror events to you.”

  “Right, past patterns repeating in the future.”

  “Well, we’re dealing with one now. How, I’m not certain yet. But what the painting depicted for a moment were two items belonging to you. Your coin amulet and your ring.”

  I remembered Pierce’s eyes touching on them at our first meeting, and I became conscious of their weight and grip now. “They were both gifts from my grandfather,” I said. “He gave me the necklace first, and then I found the ring among his things after he died.”

  “They hold enchantments, yes?”

  “Right, powerful protective enchantments. The ring contains the binding power of an ancient pact between wizards and vampires: the Brasov Pact. The coin wields more general protection.” I paused. “My grandfather also instilled the coin with the power of the Brasov Pact. As a backup.”

  “A backup,” Pierce said, turning to consult the painting.

  A bolt of understanding hit me. “There’s another cursed item out there.”

  Pierce remained silent, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Damien’s manipulation of Quinton and the Ark, the sensational attacks, the too-obvious clues. It had all been meant to divert attention from a second item, which was presently working on another person or group, only much more quietly. And with a more devastating finale, I concluded.

  “Yes, very likely,” Pierce murmured at last.

  “Are you going to be able to divine what the item is? Or where?”

  When Pierce spun from the painting, I realized too late he was holding his wand. White energy flared from the tip, transforming his grimacing face into a frightening mask of light and shadows.

  I threw my cane up and shouted, “Protezione!”

  But whatever reprieve I’d gotten from the black luck was spent. Instead of enclosing me, my own orb of light plowed into me, knocking me down and breaking apart in a light shower. Pierce’s attack shot past me and detonated in the doorway to the basement room.

  I managed to right my cane and shout a force invocation, but I was aiming with the wrong end. Before I could take it back, the blast caught me under the chin and sent me sliding the length of the studio. A stack of paintings broke my trajectory and clattered over me.

  Woozy and in a world of hurt, I struggled to push the paintings off me, but I only managed to punch myself in the face. I am so dead. But by the time I wriggled free, Pierce had lowered his wand. He wasn’t even looking at me. I turned to where his assistant had fallen onto her back in the doorway, smoke pluming around her. A gun lay beyond her outstretched hand.

  “I believe you and I are onto something,” Pierce said.

  28

  “Wait.” I struggled to my feet. “She was working for Damien?”

  “And I hired her six months ago, which suggests the extent of his planning. She’s been altering my paintings to keep me fixated on the Ark. To ensure we wouldn’t learn the larger plan.”

  “Altered the paintings? But how would Damien have even known…” The question trailed off as I remembered that Thelonious had told the demon “everything.” The incubus had access to my memories when he took over my body. And the last time that had happened, months before, the Order had already told me a little about Pierce and his Himitsu paintings.

  “Sora was a student of Himitsu,” he said, confirming my suspicion. “Damien used her knowledge to keep me in the dark.” He walked over and looked down at her, stern lines across his brow.

  “She was possessed?”

  “No, I would have sensed that. More likely someone under Damien’s control paid her off. I had no idea until I felt her outside the door just now.” Using his magic, he wrapped her in a blanket he must have translocated from upstairs.

  I’d never heard Pierce admit a shortcoming, and I wasn’t sure what to say.

  “It wasn’t your magic interfering; it was her.” He turned toward me. “My apologies, Everson. I’ll let the Order know.”

  I nodded, still at a loss. Pierce returned to the painting, took up the brush, and began to work. Wispy, transparent magic moved around the bristles. I couldn’t see what he was doing—he wasn’t using paint—but he was touching the brush here and there, making patterns that looked like small sigils before they dissipated. He did this for several minutes, not saying anything.

  At last he stood back. “I’ve managed to restore some of what Sora altered, and yes, a second pattern has emerged. Up here.” He gestured to the upper half of Manhattan. “But it will take time for the information to resolve into something we can act on. Hours, perhaps.”

  “We might not have hours,” I pointed out.

  “Fortunately, I know where Quinton is now.” On the painting, he indicated a location in Red Hook. “Once I have the necklace, I’ll be able to locate any other item or items the demon cursed. But we have to act now.” He grabbed his shirt from the back of a chair and was halfway to the door before he realized I wasn’t following. His eyebrows went up in question.

  Coming here hadn’t had the same result as my visits to Mae and Snodgrass. I hadn’t felt the same lightening effect. I hadn’t felt a damned thing. “I’ve got a little curse problem,” I said.

  “Curse?”

  “Black luck. It’s sort of a long story, but I’m not going to be able to help.” Hell, I was going to be lucky to last the cycle.

  Pierce’s eyes shifted, and I sensed him examining my aura. At last he nodded. “You have so much going on, I missed it earlier.” He drew his wand and aimed it at me. Though he said nothing, I felt a wave of energy growing around me, forming a gentle layer of protection. “That will blunt its effects while I’m away. Combined with my wards, you should be safe until my return.” He raised a stern finger. “But don’t go anywhere, or the protection will lose all effectiveness.”

  It was a relief knowing I wasn’t going to die in the next hour, but now I felt like a hopeless waste of space. “Thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry I can’t do a damn thing to help you.”

  “You just did,” Pierce said, his eyes cutting to the painting. “There will be plenty more opportunities for future collaboration. Indeed, once we get your magic sorted, you and I are going to be a force in this city.”

  When he grinned, my face flushed with an odd sense of satisfaction. Apparently straight men were no less susceptible to his
charm than women. Pierce had turned out to be a good guy.

  “Be careful,” I said.

  He nodded and disappeared through the doorway. A moment later, I felt a subtle wave of pressure, telling me he had translocated.

  Just hope he’s right about the necklace, I thought, turning back to the painting.

  Now that Damien knew we were on to him, he would be putting the pedal to the metal. And that meant executing the plan he’d taken pains to keep veiled. I looked at the part of the city Pierce had indicated with a broad sweep of his hand. The wards hadn’t picked up anything in the upper half of Manhattan, which suggested there had been no breaches into our world.

  I turned from the painting and began to pace the length of the studio. That I was able to do so without tripping over my feet or choking on my own breath told me Pierce’s magic was having the desired effect.

  “What do demons value over everything, even depravity?” I asked aloud.

  “Power,” I answered.

  “And how do they amass power?”

  “By claiming souls.”

  I thought about the Ark and their infernal bags. The activated bags had claimed seventy souls. Though devastating, the number was little more than an appetizer for a high-level demon. No, Damien wanted thousands of souls. That meant a giant infernal bag…

  “And a large concentration of people,” I finished.

  I rushed back to the painting and, head angled sideways, looked at the top half. Yankee Stadium was up there. Game six of the American League Championship was starting in—I checked my watch—just over an hour. With the city subsidizing ticket prices, the attendance would be north of fifty thousand. The NYPD had surely searched the stadium already, but they had done the same at the museum, and look what happened that afternoon.

  As my heart slammed in my chest, I reminded myself that this was all guess work. Once Pierce tapped into the necklace, we’d know for sure. Plus, the Order’s wards weren’t sensing anything around the stadium. I’d just checked when I was at the Snodgrass’s place.

  “Wait a second…” I muttered.

  I pulled the pencil from my pocket notepad.

  Yankee Stadium is here, I thought, making a point on the painting. The Snodgrass’s house is a few blocks down this way … and the ley line was warped in this direction. I sketched the line out. It bent away from the stadium. I extended the line into a large circle, then working inward, drew concentric circles until I arrived at the epicenter: Yankee Stadium.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Damien had pushed the ley lines away from the stadium, not unlike what I’d done at the Snodgrass’s, but on a larger scale and requiring a lot more power. The point? To create a dead zone in the stadium the wards wouldn’t detect. But the zone had created a ripple effect, altering the ley lines for blocks—including the line that ran along the Snodgrass’s street.

  The stadium was Damien’s play.

  But how in the hell to get ahold of Pierce?

  Vega, I thought.

  I ran up the stairs to Pierce’s office and picked up his desk phone. It was a modern model, but the spell he’d cast seemed not only to have tempered the black luck but controlled my aura as well.

  I dialed her number. Straight to voice mail.

  “Ricki, listen, it’s me. Pierce just left for Red Hook, he knows where Quinton is. But the demon’s play is Yankee Stadium. He’s after the crowd. Pierce needs to get up there ASAP. I’d go myself but, well…” I thought about Pierce’s warning that I not leave the house. “I’ve been cursed,” I finished lamely. “In the meantime I need you to evacuate the stadium. I repeat, evacuate the stadium.”

  I tried Hoffman and then the Homicide Department and got voicemails at both as well. I left messages, asking them to compile a list of everyone who worked on the crews in Lower Manhattan and then cross-check it against current Yankee employees and contractors. If Quinton had found his cursed artifact in the debris downtown, there was a chance Damien’s other vessel had too.

  I then tried the mayor’s office but was told he was unavailable. I called my apartment. I knew what Gretchen had said about not wanting to get involved, but I couldn’t believe she was serious. Not in a situation like this. Tabitha answered.

  “Put Gretchen on,” I said.

  “She left about ten minutes ago.”

  “Where?”

  “She doesn’t talk to me, remember? But I did catch her saying something about the faerie realm.”

  “What?”

  “She seemed determined to find some decent entertainment this evening.”

  I blew out my breath. “All right,” I said. “I’ve gotta go.”

  I hung up and called the Order. When Claudius answered, I filled him in as quickly as I could. By now the urgency of the situation was pounding my head and making a fist of my stomach.

  “I see,” Claudius said once I’d finished. “I’ll let Arianna and the others know right away. They’re occupied in other tasks and other realms, obviously, but perhaps one of them can be there by morning.”

  “It will be too late by morning!”

  “Oh?”

  “Claudius, listen to me. If we don’t clear that stadium and defuse whatever the demon’s planted, he’s going to claim thousands of lives. With that kind of power, he’ll emerge and claim thousands more.”

  “Yes, yes, we’ll see what we can do.”

  I recalled what Gretchen had said about Claudius being senile. I’d thought it was a stretch at the time, but now I wasn’t so sure.

  “Call them,” I said and hung up.

  Not knowing what else to do, I punched three numbers.

  “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

  “There’s a bomb at Yankee Stadium.”

  “Oh, really?” the operator said in a bored voice.

  “I’m serious. You need to get everyone out.”

  “Can I have your name?” she asked.

  “My name? Who cares about my name? Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yeah, and do you know how many bomb threats we get every time the Yankees take the field? It’s not exactly original. You’re the fourth caller tonight.”

  “You aren’t going to do anything?” I asked, incredulous.

  “A crew was there this afternoon, dogs and everything. They didn’t find squat.”

  “Evacuate. Now.”

  She hung up.

  I slammed down the phone and paced a frantic circle in the office. Pierce was down in Red Hook. I couldn’t reach Vega, Hoffman, or the mayor. Gretchen was literally in la-la land. The powerful members of the Order were hours out. I couldn’t get the police to clear the stadium. And if I attempted to leave Pierce’s house, the black luck would have me by the throat. I wouldn’t make it two blocks, much less all the way to Yankee Stadium.

  But you have to try. You’re all the city has.

  I walked to the front door, opened it, and teetered on the threshold. I had barely survived the last cycle. I wasn’t going to survive this one. I thought about Vega. How bad was this going to hurt her?

  Then I thought about my parents, who had sacrificed their lives in service to the Order. I drew my father’s blade from my cane and gazed at its runes. What would he have done?

  I snorted. Did I even have to ask?

  Sheathing the blade, I stepped over the threshold.

  29

  As I made my way down the walkway, I felt Pierce’s protection thin. By the time I reached the sidewalk, it was gone. A cab was coming, which seemed unusually lucky under the circumstances. But as I waved it down, a black muscle car tore around a corner from the other direction and slewed into the cab’s lane. The cab driver reacted, jerking the steering wheel. In a burst of sparks, he jumped the curb as the muscle car swerved away, bass thumping.

  “Vigore!” I shouted.

  The force invocation caught the cab’s front fender and, feet from me, heaved the vehicle back onto the street.

  I released my breath. The invocation h
ad actually worked.

  I jogged over to where the cab had jounced to a stop and climbed into the back seat. The driver was gripping the steering wheel in both hands and muttering a prayer of thanks.

  “Yankee Stadium,” I said. “As fast as you can get me there.”

  As the words left my mouth, something happened. The sensation that had come over me following my visits to Mae and Snodgrass returned, only this time it was a complete lifting.

  Holy crap.

  By committing to this course, I’d just closed the third loop. My black luck was gone.

  I waved my arms wildly around my head to make certain. Sure enough, I didn’t punch myself. Then I cast a small shield invocation. It manifested without a hitch. I was back in business.

  But the cab wasn’t moving.

  I looked at the driver’s ID card. “Hey, Kumar? This is sort of an emergency.”

  The driver lifted his head from the wheel and looked in the rearview mirror. Damn, I knew him. It was the Bangladeshi driver the Blue Wolf and I had all but hijacked last summer. I dipped my head into my jacket collar and looked away. To my surprise, we began rolling forward. He hadn’t recognized me. I wondered if the black luck had been setting up a situation where, even if the cab hadn’t maimed or killed me, the driver would have refused to drive me.

  Damned fae magic.

  “An extra hundred if you can get me to the stadium in the next fifteen minutes.”

  “Don’t want to miss baseball?” he asked.

  “Something like that.”

  As the cab sped north onto Broadway, I relaxed enough to center myself. I was still carrying a few spell items from earlier, but I was banking on my one remaining potion. The important thing now was to ensure that both my mental prism and mental acuity were operating at full capacity. I may have been rid of the black luck, but I had forfeited my luck quotient. I wouldn’t be able to depend on it. This was going to be all Everson.

  It wasn’t until we hit the one hundreds that I remembered my promise to Mae.

  Fuck.

  “Mae!” I shouted, pounding her door with the side of my fist. “It’s Everson Croft!”