Shadow Duel (Prof Croft Book 9) by Brad Magnarella (ereader with android .txt) 📕

must not have gone public yet, I thought. It would have been massive news in the city.

“Bear, baby,” the man said, giving my shoulder another squeeze. “There are ways to come out of this even stronger. Trust me.”

“But it’s a fucking lie!” I roared.

Several heads turned, but Bear didn’t care. He hadn’t shared any trade secrets, intentionally or otherwise. Someone had set him up. He had a list of suspects, but it was long and scattered. I couldn’t get a precise fix on any of them. Beneath the rage, I began to pick up other emotions now. Betrayal at being undermined by someone he’d apparently trusted. Sadness at being forced from a position he loved.

And fear, profound fear, that he’d lost his wife for good.

“I know,” the man spoke softly. “But we need evidence. We need a strategy. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

I turned my head finally. The black man in a blazer and crisp shirt had one of those boyish middle-aged faces that was hard not to like. The edges of his pupils glinted strangely, but Bear’s memory supplied a name: Vince Cole, his personal attorney and friend. Vince removed his arm from my back and jerked his thumb toward the door.

“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s take a drive.”

My gaze fell to my unfinished drink, but Vince slid it out of reach.

“Forget about that,” he said. “I’ve got better stuff in the car.”

As Everson, red flags were unfurling. The events I was accessing could last seconds or minutes, but not much longer. Bear’s death was fast approaching.

I was scared for him—hell, scared for me. But as a magic-user, I was also curious. Somehow, someway, Vince was either going to remove Bear’s kidneys without making an incision or, more likely, deliver Bear to someone who could. It was like anticipating the secret to a magician’s confounding trick.

Bear, of course, didn’t have a clue.

I left my drink and staggered after Vince. A pair of guards with heavy armor and weapons flanked the entrance of the bar. Seemed like overkill. Out front, the valet delivered a tank of a car, and Vince helped me into the passenger seat. We talked as he drove, rehashing the events of the last twelve hours. As Everson, I only half listened. I was noting passing landmarks and blurry street signs. Several times, I searched Bear’s memories, trying to find the odd flag from the photo, but it wasn’t foremost in his thoughts.

“Where’s the good stuff?” I asked.

Vince pointed. “Glove compartment.”

I opened it and pulled out a small crystalline bottle that held a shot’s worth of dark liquid. With the dim effect of the scrying spell, I couldn’t see the color. “What is this?” I asked, giving it a clumsy shake.

“Go ahead, you’ll thank me.”

Though I resisted as Everson—imaginary brake pedal pressed firmly to floorboard—as Bear, I unstoppered the bottle and took an exploratory sip. An alcoholic sweetness washed over my tongue.

“I don’t do girlie drinks,” I said, replacing the stopper.

“Just wait.”

In the next moment, a euphoria washed over me. The dark fury and fear in my head morphed into fluffy clouds bathed in brilliant sunshine. I felt more unburdened, more carefree than I ever had—as Bear or Everson.

“Holy shit,” I murmured.

Vince grinned over at me. “What’d I tell you?”

I took the rest down in a single swallow. For the next minute, wave after wave of bliss pummeled me, each cycle stronger than the last. They carried away the events of the day, sent them drifting out to a dazzling sea, where they dissolved like salt. I slumped against the door, a mass of pleasure putty.

As the final wave receded, I tried to say something, but I couldn’t talk. I tried to roll my head toward Vince, but I couldn’t move. I didn’t know what I’d drunk, but I didn’t care. Ramsa Inc. felt a million miles away.

Did Vince slip him an enchanted roofie? I wondered from a distance.

As warehouses and a large sprawling junkyard zoomed past, I noted we were on the outer edges of Brooklyn. Vince turned into an old garage. WILSON’S BODY SHOP was written in faded paint over an office with broken windows. He drove through an open bay door beside it and past a single, dark pillar. Ahead, the headlights illuminated a clear space. Standing in the center was a gleaming mortician’s table.

Oh, fuck no.

“Well, here we are,” Vince said cheerfully as the car came to a stop.

I could feel the distant question in Bear’s mind, but he still felt too good to care what they were doing at Wilson’s Body Shop. As Everson, I considered shaping the Word that would return me to the casting circle.

But I didn’t.

I had my perpetrator and crime scene, but if I hung around I could still get means and possibly motive.

My door opened. Lifting me out with surprising strength, Vince slung me over his shoulder. A moment later, he slammed me prone onto the metal table. It was the first shock to the drug’s disarming effect, but soon the table was softening beneath me, whispering assurances that made me smile.

Someone began to whistle a tune. Vince? I couldn’t tell anymore.

Further down the table, I caught the clinks of instruments being set beside me. A pair of surgical scissors bisected my shirt and jacket in back, and hands ripped them open, exposing bare skin.

“I’m sorry about this, buddy,” Vince said. “I really am.”

I felt Bear wanting to ask what he meant, but the question broke off in a mental scream.

A blade had punched into my low back, sending blood gushing down my side.

I jerked upright, the word Retirare! still ringing in my head. I was back in my lab, propped on my forearms, the reflection in the sweat-spattered mirror mine once more. Panting, I pushed myself back onto my heels.

“Are you all right?”

I blinked around until Vega’s concerned eyes were peering at me over the top rung of the ladder to my lab. I wasn’t sure what I felt worse about, the worry