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

up and circled the venue until I was standing on the other side of the plant. When I cleared my throat, the figure jumped.

“They left,” I said.

“Who?”

“Bree-yark and his girlfriend. The ones you were hoping to spy on.”

My teacher, Gretchen, stepped from behind her cover. She was wearing a plain green housedress, probably chosen for its camouflaging properties, and a hat with a white plastic flower. She scanned the guests.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well, what?”

“Is she better looking than me?”

“She makes him happy. That’s all that matters.”

“So you’re saying she’s a cow.”

“I’m saying you need to get over it.”

Gretchen responded with a disconsolate grunt.

“Where have you been, anyway?” I asked. I hadn’t seen her since our showdown in her kitchen. I sent her a wedding invitation, never expecting her to show, but I’d underestimated the pull of jealousy.

“Around,” she said in a moping voice.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here. I never got a chance to thank you.”

“For what?” she snapped.

“For the massive assist. Yeah, don’t give me that face. You may not have known what you were doing, but coming from your magic, you knew it would help. The morning you transported me to the Met, you gave me a companion in Bree-yark, an enchanted item in Dropsy, and a major clue to Malphas’s plans—the Met was where I first learned about the Aristotelian Set. I wouldn’t have succeeded without them.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure, you don’t. How about joining us for some dessert?”

“Good gods, no. Crowds and I do not get along.” She burped loudly and drew an arm across her mouth.

“I would never have guessed,” I said.

“I hope you’re not planning a long honeymoon.”

“A couple of weeks on the Spanish coast. Why?”

“Because we have training to get back to, and you’ve missed too much already.”

It wasn’t worth pointing out that I’d only missed because she’d up and disappeared.

“Just tell me when,” I said. “I’m anxious to jump back in.”

“That makes one of us.”

Oddly, I took the casual insult to mean I was forgiven.

“Well, I have things to do,” she said abruptly, and disappeared.

I turned from the empty space beside the plant and looked over the courtyard. My gaze lingered once more on all of our friends, colleagues, and teammates, some mortal, many magical, before returning to my wife. She was standing now and waving at me. It took me a moment to realize the music had started.

I hurried through the crowd, absorbing their cheerful congratulations and shoulder claps, and met Vega in time for our first dance.

“I’m back,” I said.

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Blue Curse

(Blue Wolf, Book 1)

Preview of Blue Curse Blue Wolf Book 1

I watched the burqa-clad figure drift from one side of the dirt road to the other, coming nearer. She looked like a green specter through my night-vision goggles. A singing green specter. As she drew even with the compound two blocks from my position, I could hear the wavering notes rising above the clamor of the compound’s generator.

“Nice pipes,” I muttered.

Curling a finger over the trigger of my M4, I raised the rifle from the woman toward the rooftop of the cement building that stood above the compound’s high walls.

A magnified guard appeared in my sight picture. He leaned over the north side of the rooftop, an AK-47 propped against his shoulder, then called to a second guard behind him. The two peered down on the woman, unescorted and apparently drunk, out in the middle of the night. In the suburb of the conservative Waristani city, that would draw anyone’s attention.

Which was the whole point.

I centered the crosshairs on the nearer guard’s head. “Mario in sight,” I whispered into my headset.

“Roger that, Captain,” Segundo, my team sergeant and second-in-command, answered. “I have Luigi.”

“On three, two, one…”

Our M4s coughed a single round apiece, Segundo’s from three blocks away. In sprays of glowing green mist, the guards we’d nicknamed Mario and Luigi dropped from sight.

“Move,” I ordered, stepping from the corner of my building.

Four men in black camos and body armor followed me, weapons at the ready. We crossed the road and jogged the next block at a crouch, then proceeded single file along the compound’s outer wall. The woman who had distracted the guards met us. She shed her burqa and became Sergeant Calvin Parker.

The lankiest member of Team 5, Parker was the only one who could have passed for a female. I nodded at my cultural affairs officer to tell him good job. The young black man gave me a wry look as he ditched the burqa and readied his rifle and gear. He hadn’t been thrilled about the role.

I gave the signal, and two of my men dropped off to establish perimeter security. On the other side of the compound two men from the split team were doing the same. Ten feet from the compound’s north gate, my senior engineer moved to the front, pulling out C-4 charges to place on the hinges.

“Hot on the north,” he said over his radio.

“Hot on the south,” an engineer on the split team answered.

We crouched away, and both doors detonated. The hammering of the compound’s generator helped cover the dry bangs, but we still needed to move fast.

I took the lead, rushing low through the smoky doorway, three men following. We were in the compound’s west outer courtyard. I spotted the two guards immediately. They were beside a small outbuilding, fumbling their AK-47s into firing positions. We had interrupted their smoke break—one of many that aerial surveillance had shown us. Our rifles coughed. Each guard was hit at least twice before he collapsed to the ground. At the same time, suppressed shots echoed from the east courtyard. Not a single burst of answering gunfire so far.

Good. Execution is on point.

I led my team to the southern end of the courtyard where Segundo’s team was mining the metal door to the inner courtyard. The engineers cleared the blast area. Another dry bang. Segundo and I