Night Rune (Prof Croft Book 8) by Brad Magnarella (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

His voice and butler attire were the same, but his bearing had always conveyed a hint of good humor, however subtle. Now he stood as rigid as a statue, his face a porcelain mask. I picked up an undercurrent that was inhospitable, verging on hostile. But it was him. I could sense his prodigious power.

“The time catch,” I said. “You delivered us there yesterday evening. You were supposed to bring everyone back.”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I gave your companions specific instructions. Had they followed them, I would have returned them as agreed.”

“What?”

“Think back, Mr. Croft.”

Subtle magic stirred around me, and it was suddenly evening. I was standing in Fort Jay’s central quadrangle with Malachi, Gorgantha, Seay, and Jordan, crumbling buildings rising around us. But everyone and everything appeared spectral. The only solid entity was Osgood. “The best way to return will be from this location,” he told us, tapping his foot twice. “Note it when you arrive.”

I don’t fucking believe this, I thought as the illusion thinned away. He meant that exact spot.

Two intersecting walkways marked the present location, but in the time catch, it had been a random place inside an earthworks manned by British soldiers. Short of planting a stake, the Upholders wouldn’t have found it.

“So you left them over a technicality?” I said.

I was also cursing myself. I should have known to mark the damned spot on our arrival, the fae being the fae. But things weren’t adding up. The cheap trick felt beneath Osgood, one. And two, he’d been under orders from Caroline. I couldn’t fathom her letting him abandon my teammates.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Croft,” Osgood said. “Was there anything else?”

“Yes, there is. You’re going to bring them back. Now.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible. Not without—”

“Not without them standing in your little spot?” I interrupted. “All right, so here’s what you’re going to do. You send me back there. I’ll see to it personally that we’re all where we need to be, and then you’ll be obligated to return us.”

“I can’t send you.”

“Why not?”

“Because that agreement was fulfilled.”

“Then we’ll make a new one.”

“I lack the authority.”

“But not the power.”

From the shadow of the entranceway, Osgood returned my stare.

I leaned toward him and lowered my voice. “Do you want to tell me what the hell’s going on here?”

Osgood glanced over at Bree-yark, who was still swinging the animated lantern. The goblin stopped and returned a stern nod.

“I believe you have all the essential information,” Osgood said.

“So you’re not going to return me to the time catch?”

“No, Mr. Croft.” For the first time, a tiny wrinkle of what might have been regret showed beneath Osgood’s lower lip.

“Then I’m going to ask you to do something else,” I said, bringing my voice back under control. I reached into a coat pocket and withdrew a letter. “I need you to deliver this to Caroline.” I’d written it hastily that morning, but it explained the situation and the urgency of recovering my teammates.

Osgood shook his head. “I’m afraid I cannot, Mr. Croft.”

“Under whose order?” I demanded.

“No one’s.”

“Bullshit.”

“I can’t deliver your letter,” he said, “because Mrs. Caroline is missing.”

My arm thrusting the letter toward him fell to my side. “Missing?”

“Now if that’s all.”

With my mind juggling everything thrown at me in the last minute, and now this revelation about Caroline, I was too slow to react to the door closing between us. My brain synapses kicked back to life. “Wait!” I cried, thrusting my cane toward the narrowing space. But a thick arm wrapped my body.

“What the—?”

“Whoa, there,” Bree-yark grunted, leaning back with his weight until my feet left the ground.

The door closed over my best chance of recovering my teammates. As powerful fae magic sealed the frame, I sagged in Bree-yark’s grip. He’d been right to restrain me. The protections over the door were one thing, but those over the threshold would have annihilated my neutralizing magic and protection and then some.

“Didn’t want you breaking your own rules,” Bree-yark said.

“No, you did good.” I patted the goblin’s leathery hand. “Thanks.”

When he set me back on my feet, I rapped the door several times with my cane, sending up more tendrils of fae magic. Predictably, no one answered this time.

“Dammit,” I muttered.

Bree-yark switched the lantern to his other hand. “So what do you think’s really going on?”

It sounded like something had gotten to the fae, maybe the same entity responsible for Caroline’s disappearance. But I wasn’t ready to go there. Arnaud was already right about my teammates being trapped in the time catch. If he were right about the fae being compromised, then I was going to have to consider his next claim—that he was the only one capable of getting me into the time catch.

I blew out my breath. “I don’t know, man.”

I paced the landing, not ready to give up. I’d gone through Claudius, Gretchen, and now Osgood. Who did that leave? I checked to make sure Osgood hadn’t taken the letter like he had the last one, but I was still clutching the envelope to Caroline. I’d addressed it to her P.O. box in the event no one answered. After giving the door a final pair of bangs, I jerked my head for Bree-yark to follow.

“Let’s drop this in the mail.”

“The letter?” he asked. “But didn’t shiny pants say she was AWOL?”

“Coming from the fae that could mean anything.”

“True enough,” he grunted.

We backtracked two blocks to a mailbox. I licked the envelope and dropped it in, hoping somehow, someway, it would find Caroline. She was my last shot. The alternative was having to tell Ricki I was contemplating a second conversation with Arnaud, this one a negotiation to enter the time catch.

The letter had barely landed when hot pins erupted through my body—the same warning my magic had sent up outside 1 Police Plaza. I spoke quickly, hardening the surrounding air into a protective shield.

“What’s up?” Bree-yark asked, sensing the change.

“Someone or something’s watching us,” I whispered, taking furtive stock of the street and sidewalks.

The goblin’s eyes cut