Death Mage (Prof Croft Book 4)

by Brad Magnarella

  “From the looks of ’em? Vagrants and junkies. The police eventually rounded them up, but it took all night. Like some kind of frigging Night of the Living Dead. Cost a few officers their lives too.” He shook his balding head. “Must be a nasty new drug on the streets.”

  Or a nasty new magic, I thought. One I potentially let through.

  If Whisperer magic was coming through, it might not have been powerful enough to influence sound minds—yet—but it looked as if it was worming its way into those already afflicted, dragging them into deeper madness. I thought about the patients in the psych ward Vega had mentioned, Olga’s alcoholic father, and now junkies.

  “You’re my last drop of the evening.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I said absently.

  “Gonna return the cab and go straight home to the missus. Bar the doors. No way I’m gonna be out and about with crap like this going on. Not worth it for a few extra bucks, you know?”

  I nodded as, with stinging, sleep-deprived eyes, I peered out the windows. We were climbing onto I-78, the setting sun throwing final, long shadows over the interstate. The west-bound lanes were clogged. It looked like the afternoon rush, but it was almost eight p.m.

  The cabbie snapped on the radio.

  “…mobs and mobs of them,” a woman said in a breathless voice. It sounded as though she was speaking through a telephone. “They’re going block by block, setting fire to anything that’ll light. We’ve got cars on fire, buildings on fire…” She took a sobbing breath. “…people on fire. Me and my husband barely got away. They’re … they’re crazy.”

  “Aw, Christ,” the cabbie said. “You hearing this?”

  “Are you somewhere safe now?” the male talk show host asked.

  “Yeah, I think so,” the woman replied, not sounding at all certain.

  “If you’re just joining us, ladies and gentlemen,” the host said in a grave voice, “the Bronx is burning. I repeat, the Bronx is burning. Roving gangs with no apparent affiliation began setting fire to the south Bronx about an hour ago, and their numbers have only grown despite the arrival of police on the scene. Something similar is happening in Staten Island and east Brooklyn, we’re being told, but the details at this time are sketchy. The mayor has declared a state of emergency and is recommending that those who can safely evacuate the city do so at this time. Everyone else should remain inside with their doors and windows locked.”

  I looked over at the lines of bumper-to-bumper cars in the opposite lanes. Even from my distance, I could see the fear and tension on the drivers’ faces, several of them with children in the back seats. I squinted and craned my neck until I could make out a brown haze rising in the north.

  “Evacuate the city?” the cabbie complained. “How am I gonna do that? My wife weighs five hundred plus. She’s practically bedbound.”

  My pager began to go off. Its signal had come back on in the airport in Romania, but no one had sent any pages. I dug into my pocket, pushing past the Ziploc bag of Romanian salt Olga had given me for protection, and found the pager. I pulled it out and checked the number. Vega’s.

  “Hey,” I said, “mind making a quick stop so I can make a call?”

  “You’re not carrying a phone?” he asked.

  “No.”

  I thought he was going to offer me his, which I would have had to turn down or risk exploding it, but he sighed and said, “I should probably fill up anyway. Let’s make it quick, though, huh?” He turned off the next exit ramp and pulled into a gas station with a payphone.

  I ran up to the phone and called.

  “Vega,” she answered.

  “Hey, it’s Everson. What’s going on?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” she said. “Are you back in the States?”

  “Yeah, just got in.”

  “The nuttiness I told you about yesterday? It’s gone into overdrive. Mayor Lowder’s been asking about you. He wants to know if there’s something supernatural at work and, if so, what you can do about it.”

  “I’m hoping I’ll have an answer shortly,” I said.

  “One that’ll put an end to this?”

  “Eventually.” I hope.

  Off to my left, stupid laughter filled the inside of a parked Plymouth station wagon, its windows cloudy with smoke. When the skunky smell of pot reached me, I turned the other way and blocked the fumes with my collar.

  “Eventually?” The rawness in Detective Vega’s voice told me she hadn’t gotten much sleep either. “Croft, I’m not sure we have till eventually. The crazies are going after people now.”

  In her voice, I could also hear her fear for her son.

  “Yeah, they were just talking about that on the radio,” I said. “Look, I’ll contact you as soon as I know something. In the meantime, tell Budge I’m working on it.”

  “How bad can we expect it to get tonight?” she asked.

  I paused as I considered the question. Like black magic, Whisperer magic was probably more potent at night. And if today’s craziness had started before sunset… “Bad,” I said. “Probably the best you can do is get everyone vulnerable out of their path. I think Budge is on the right track with the evacuation order. I promise I’m doing everything I can.”

  We said goodbye, my hand trembling as I hung up.

  Had I unleashed this? Was I responsible for the death and destruction?

  “Hey!” the cabbie shouted. “The hell you think you’re doin’?”

  I turned to the island of gas station pumps, where the cabbie had pulled in to fill up. A man had been hanging around the pumps with a squeegee when we arrived, offering to wash car windows for a few bucks. Now he was wrestling my cabbie for the gasoline nozzle.

  “Help!” the cabbie gasped.

  I ran over as the cabbie sagged to the pavement, clutching his chest. Squeegee Man stepped on his stomach and wrested the nozzle the rest of the way from his grip. He stood back and aimed the nozzle at the cabbie like a gangster preparing an execution.

  I fumbled for my cane and shouted. The cabbie threw his arms to his ducked head as gasoline jetted from the nozzle—and hit my shield invocation. The gas poured off both sides and splashed to the pavement.

  At neighboring islands, people began to scream and back away. Squeegee man wheeled with the nozzle, jetting gallons of gasoline everywhere. Wild, red-rimmed eyes stared from a twitching face. The man was gone—but not far enough. His other hand was rooting inside a jacket pocket for what I rightly guessed was a lighter.

  As I caught the flash of red plastic, I thrust my cane at him and shouted, “Vigore!”

  The force blast caught him in the chest and shot him from the pumps. He dropped both lighter and nozzle en route to the side of a tractor trailer, where he slammed to a stop, then pancaked to the pavement.

  Exhaling, I turned back to the cabbie, who was using the side of his cab to climb to his feet. A tide of gasoline rolled toward a metal grate, its fumes bending the air and making my eyes water. Those who had fled began to venture back. A woman in business attire stooped for the dropped lighter.

  “Are you all right?” I asked my cabbie.

  “Did you see that?” he wheezed, still clutching his chest. “You see that?”

  Behind me, I heard the distinct snikt of a metal wheel. I turned to find the woman who had retrieved the plastic lighter holding it in front of her face, staring at the slender flame. She was an older woman, dressed in a pants suit and wearing expensive-looking jewelry, but like Squeegee Man, she didn’t seem all there.

  “Put that out!” I shouted.

  Her staring eyes fell to the tide of gasoline, some of it running under cars. With a strange flattening of her pupils, she knelt as though to touch the flame to the gas.

  “Protezione,” I called, enclosing the lighter in a shield. Without air, the flame died. The woman released the lighter and stepped back. I shrunk the shield until the lighter detonated inside it.

  The woman’s eyes shifted toward me. Her face began to contor
t, red lips peeling back from her teeth. I glanced around. Everyone else seemed fine. Maybe this lady had a touch of age-related dementia, making her more susceptible to Whisperer magic. I readied my cane reluctantly, not wanting to hit her with an invocation, but not sure I would have a choice.

  At that moment, two young men strolled into our midst, smoke wafting from their long hair and jackets. They were the ones who had been hot-boxing inside the Plymouth—and smelled the part.

  For the love of God.

  “Whoa, check it out,” one of them said. “It’s like a gasoline pond or something.”

  The other one gave a deep, throaty laugh of agreement. I watched in horror as a third member of their party slung his arm around the woman who had nearly finished Squeegee Man’s job.

  “What happened, lady?” he asked her.

  “Get back!” I shouted.

  The three potheads turned toward me. “Dude, what’s your problem?” one of them asked.

  “She’s…” I almost said dangerous, but the woman was looking around now in uncertainty, eyes normal again. With a sound of disapproval, she drew the young man’s arm from around her shoulder and marched to her car—a shiny white Bonneville—got in, and drove away.

  “Can we get outta here already?” the cabbie asked me.

  The lights over the pumping stations turned on, pushing back the dusk. Near the diesel pumps, Squeegee Man was still down, a gas station employee standing over him to ensure he stayed that way. How long before the magic became strong enough to overwhelm the rest of us? I wondered.

  I turned back to the cabbie, who didn’t appear to have seen my magical exhibition.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Good idea.”

  When we pulled up to the safe house at Gehr Place twenty minutes later, I paid the cabbie double the fare.

  “You sure about this,” he asked, counting through the bills.

  “I feel responsible for what happened to you back there,” I said.

  “You weren’t the one who went apey with the gas hose.”

  No, I thought, but if I let that magic through, I might as well have been.

  “Stay safe,” I told him, clapping his large shoulder.

  “Thanks, you too.”

  The cab droned away as I climbed the front porch steps. At the threshold, I checked the house for wards or protective energy. Still down. Inside, I dropped my pack, then flicked on lights en route to Chicory’s room. A quick look around showed it to be in the same state of general disorder as when I’d left it four days ago. His gold cup still sat on the corner of his lab table.

  “Fuoco,” I said.

  From the bottom of the cup, a red flame jetted up and stood in a spire. I watched it for several minutes, waiting for messages to begin spouting forth. I had only been present a handful of times when messages arrived through my own flame—pieces of parchment paper that would unfold as they descended, coming to a neat rest in the center of my desk as though someone had set them there.

  But Chicory’s flame only hissed quietly.

  What did that tell me? That Chicory had locked his own cup with an enchantment? Or that he wasn’t Lich? Given the insanity unfolding outside, I was leaning more and more toward the first.

  But was I certain enough to return to the Refuge?

  The answer was not yet. “Goddammit,” I hissed at myself.

  I was considering my options when the front door opened.

  My chest locked around my slamming heart, and I froze.

  The door closed. A stuffy silence followed, as though the person were standing in the foyer, studying my pack.

  Cutting the light, I whispered, “Spegnere.” But the flame from Chicory’s cup continued to burn. I tiptoed over to it, removed the cup from the table top, and placed it behind a stack of books on the floor. The corner of the room glowed as if from a night light, but the flame was no longer in plain view. As I was creeping into a position behind the door, sword sliding from staff, a floorboard creaked under my foot. I stiffened, swearing at myself.

  “Hello?” someone called.

  Footsteps began to click down the hallway.

  “Everson? Is that you?”

  It was Chicory.

  19

  “Everson?” Chicory called again. “Are you in here?”

  My throat tightened and I swallowed with a dry click. I couldn’t have answered if I’d wanted to. His return on the fourth day meant he was Lich, didn’t it? Or was there some other explanation for his return? As his footsteps drew nearer, a corkscrew of dizziness hit me. I risked another few steps to make my way to the wall beside the door, out of sight.

  “Oscurare,” I whispered, deepening the shadows in the room and drawing back my sword.

  Chicory began muttering to himself in his curmudgeonly way. He sounded so familiar, so … harmless. Was it all a guise? His footsteps stopped in the doorway. I could see his hand pawing the wall before it found the light switch. When he stepped in, his mop of gray hair gave a little hop.

  “Everson!” he exclaimed, his lips breaking into a smile. “Goodness, I feared I’d lost you!”

  He stepped forward as though to clap my shoulder, but I showed him the ends of my sword and staff. “Stay right there,” I said, backing away, my voice low and husky. “Reach for your wand or utter the first foreign syllable, and I swear to God, I’ll end you.”

  Chicory frowned sternly. “They got to you, didn’t they?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I want to hear how you’re alive.”

  “It does matter,” Chicory countered. “Don’t you remember what I told you before you left? How long did they hold you for?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “Well, long enough to poison you thoroughly, I can see that much. Come, there’s no time to waste. This is going to take Elder-level magic, but I can at least contain the poison, keep it from consuming the rest of your mind.”

  “How are you alive?” I repeated.

  Ignoring my earlier warning, Chicory began bustling around the room plucking spell items from the mess. “I’ll tell you everything after we’ve begun,” he said. “No telling how much time you have left.”

  I pressed the tip of the blade to his back. “No,” I said. “You’ll tell me now.”

  The coldness in my voice seemed to get through. He stopped and let out a huff. “I never died, Everson.”

  “Bullshit. I saw you get run through down there.”

  “You saw a doppelganger get run through down there.”

  “Doppelganger? You better start making sense.”

  Chicory turned to face me. “When I received the message that you had destroyed the book, I tried to retrieve you, but the defensive magic around the realm was too strong. I then tried to go there myself, but the same magic repelled me. My only recourse was to send a doppelganger. A weaker version of myself that I managed to imbue with your father’s essence. It got in but was slain before my doppelganger was able to kill Marlow and pull you out. An unfortunate turn of events, certainly. But that’s what you saw. Not me.”

  “What happened to the real you?” I challenged. “Tabitha said you never came back.”

  “The death of one’s doppelganger is like suffering a mini-death oneself. I transported myself to a healing plane where I went into a coma to speed my recovery. I would have been recuperating for months, otherwise.”

  Could the Front have known that?

  “Then why didn’t the Order come for me?” I asked.

  “The Order didn’t know you were there, and that’s … well, that’s my fault, Everson.” He gave an apologetic shrug. “In all the excitement, I neglected to tell them I was sending you in.”

  I shook my head. “Nice try, but I sent them a message when I was in the Refuge.”

  “I don’t doubt you did, Everson—or at least tried. The message never would have gotten past their defenses.”

  I thought about Connell’s lack of concern upon seeing the cup I’d manifested.

  “What about the messages I sent when I
got back?” I pressed. I was about to mention the messages James had sent as well but felt a sudden protective instinct for him and held back.

  “Still going up the chain of command, no doubt,” Chicory said. “Once we get you stabilized, I’ll use my direct line to the Elders to update them and arrange to have you cleaned. Listen to me, Everson.” Despite my aimed sword, he leaned nearer, eyes growing sterner. “Whatever they did to you down there, whatever they told you, it was with the aim of turning you against the Order. That’s what Whisperer magic does. It takes any doubts you may have and bends them so that their version of the truth seems the only one that can be believed.”

  I wanted to trust him, but I steeled myself.

  “If I destroyed Lich’s book,” I said, “then how come things are falling apart out there?”

  “Falling apart?” He looked around in confusion. “I just came from the city. I got my coordinates mixed up when I returned from the healing plane and ended up on Roosevelt Island.” He chuckled at his own carelessness. “In any case, I didn’t notice anything amiss.”

  “So the fires didn’t raise a red flag for you, or the riots, or the mass evacuation?”

  “Everson,” he said, pulling one side of his jacket slowly open until I could see his wand in the inside pocket. “I’m going to draw my wand and use it to cast a spell to stop the spreading magic.”

  “Try it, and I’ll run you through for real.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” he insisted.

  “Oh, so that’s it? I’m crazy? Is that the game?”

  “Not crazy,” he said. “Under the influence of magic.”

  I stared at him, trying to arrange my thoughts into something coherent, but they were slamming around like bumper cars. Everything Connell had told me about my mother, my grandfather … it had all fit. But if what Chicory was saying about Whisperer magic was true, of course it would all fit.

  “Lazlo’s dead,” I said suddenly.

  “What?” Chicory asked, looking genuinely surprised. “When did this happen?”

  “Five years ago.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  “I went to Romania. I saw his body.”