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

Vega was right. An evil like his couldn’t be allowed in our world.

When a third attack hit me, this one carrying a stench of putrescence and death, I realized something. The pain wasn’t coming from the demonic agreement. Shuffling footsteps echoed down the corridor.

“Um, Everson?” Vega whispered when I’d caught my breath.

I followed her gaze to where a figure stood across the holding area, a long blade extending from one hand. Vega pivoted her service pistol, but I placed a hand on her forearm and brought it down.

“It’s all right,” I said, standing again.

Vega’s nose wrinkled sharply. “What in the hell is it?”

I turned back to Arnaud. “Since visiting your cell yesterday morning, everything you’ve told me has been true. You didn’t deceive me once. Though I suppose that was a play in itself—accumulate trust points so that when it really mattered, I’d be more prone to give you what you wanted.”

Arnaud had been trying to see who Vega and I were talking about. Now his eyes slashed back to mine. “Free me,” he said, insistence scoring the words. He might not have been able to see the presence, but he could feel it.

“I believe, from our talk in my library, that you were a decent person in life,” I continued. “From the sounds of it, you were attacked and left for dead, probably for your cargo. And that’s how a vampire found you, much how you would later find Maggie. I believe your claim that you resisted the bloodlust for as long as possible before it became all-consuming, and you accepted the creature you had become.”

Arnaud winced as the footsteps shuffled across the holding space. I could see the figure in my peripheral vision, the swinging blade glinting under the fluorescence. Vega seized my arm, but I kept my gaze fixed on Arnaud.

“The same with your demonism,” I said. “I don’t question the power lust that grows inside you like an infernal blaze, the bloody ambitions it feeds. It’s who you’ve become. It’s your nature now. The thing is, I can’t allow it. Not in our world.”

“We have a deal,” he seethed.

“We do,” I agreed. “But she doesn’t.”

I stepped back as the revenant arrived. Arnaud’s eyes shot wide, and he recoiled with his whole body. I couldn’t blame him.

Blade looked even more gruesome than the night I’d discovered her slaughtered body in her apartment. Dried blood spattered her disheveled scythe of pink hair. A hoodie jacket hung around a tank top that was blood-brown and in tatters. Arnaud had driven the vampire hunter through multiple times with her own katana swords, then left her pinned to the wall. From a pale green face, Blade’s vengeance-hardened eyes swung toward him.

“No, no,” Arnaud babbled. “You can’t hire anyone to come after me. It goes against the agreement.”

“My contract with Blade ended with her murder,” I replied. “This is between you two now.”

In desperation, Arnaud flung himself at the doorway. The ward met him in a burst of force and flames and threw him to the floor. He kicked himself backwards, smoke scattering from his trembling body.

“Per our agreement,” I said to him, “I release you.”

As the oscillating wards disappeared, my pain vanished along with the energy of the demon bargain.

I gestured Blade toward the open doorway. “He’s all yours.”

She nodded and stepped inside with her enchanted sword. There was a brief scuffle followed by Arnaud’s shrill scream and the crunch of metal spearing demon flesh. Mercifully, Blade closed the door behind her, muting what followed.

“Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?” Vega asked in a shaky voice.

“At some point in her life, Blade underwent a ceremony with a powerful necromancer,” I said, walking her a few paces from the cell. “Maybe as payment for a job, I don’t know. But it ensured that were she ever murdered, she would return as a powerful spirit, a revenant, to avenge her death.” That seemed like Blade. “The thing is, because of the dislocation sigil I’d placed on Arnaud, she couldn’t find him.”

“So she locked onto you.”

“Exactly. She knew I’d been hunting him, so she calculated I could lead her to him. She came to my apartment yesterday morning, then tracked me to the Upper East Side. She also managed to find me in the time catch. Because her revenant powers were set on me, I reacted in the same way her intended target would have. It’s awful, like exploratory bowel surgery but without the anesthesia.”

Vega held up a hand. “I get the picture.”

“But I was never in danger. Blade’s objective was always Arnaud. Caroline used an enchantment to hide me, but when she had to leave, so did the enchantment’s effect. Blade tracked me here.”

“Damned good timing,” Vega remarked.

The door to the cell swung out. For a moment, I was afraid Arnaud was going to step around the door, a victorious grin on his bloody lips. But it was Blade who came into view, wiping her sword on the leg of her cargo pants. Though she was still covered in dried blood, a healthy flush had replaced her green tone from earlier. As she looked at us, her eyes softened, becoming more human, more living.

“Paybacks are a bitch,” she muttered.

“Blade,” I stammered. “Are you … all right?”

I felt like an idiot for asking, but I’d never talked to a revenant before.

“Am now,” she said, sliding her sword into the sheath on her back. “Sorry for going psycho stalker on you.”

“No worries,” I said. “I’m just sorry for what happened to you and the others.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t be. We knew the risks when we got into the business. It’s why I took out this little insurance policy.” She gestured down her vengeful spirit body and winked.

Vega whispered to me, “What happens now?”

Assuming she really has destroyed Arnaud, she passes on, I thought. The fact she was still here made me nervous. Maybe she had only cast him back to the Below,