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

do at least once a day. “Well, here you are, Professor Croft,” she said, pulling up to the curb near the entrance closest to my office. “Midtown College.”

“Thanks.” I lingered a couple extra seconds on our goodbye kiss. I needed it this morning. “Have a great day.”

“You too, babe. Try to get done early so you can come home and take a nap.”

I didn’t have a class until later that morning, but I had a good deal of organizing to accomplish in my office. Waving as Vega pulled away, I turned in time to see my graduate assistant coming out of the side entrance.

“Sven!” I called.

I may have fumbled the murder and punted on the box, but I could definitely handle the stunt he pulled yesterday. He glanced over enough that I thought he’d seen me, but then he hiked up his dark pack and speed-walked the other way. I called his name again, at the exact moment a bus chose to blast its horn. It also looked as if Sven was wearing earbuds. As I hurried to catch him, my phone intoned in my pocket. I drew it out irritably, ready to silence the thing, but the caller was Claudius.

I flipped it open. “Hello?”

“Ah, yes, Everson? Is this Everson?”

“It’s me, Claudius.”

I was still trying to keep pace with Sven, or at least keep him in sight, but my satchel was swinging in a way that worked against my forward momentum, and the kid had fifteen years of youth on me.

“Good, good,” Claudius breathed, as if he’d dialed a few wrong numbers before reaching me. “Well, I got your message about the murder and passed the information to the Order. They were concerned. Yes, very, very concerned.” Papers shuffled in the background. “They’re, ah, looking into it. Someone should be in touch shortly.”

Ahead, Sven reached the street and got the perfect opening to make his way across four lanes of morning traffic. I pulled up beside a bus stop, swearing under my breath, and watched him disappear.

“Everson, you still there?” Claudius asked.

“Yeah, you said someone’s going to be in touch.” I headed back toward the campus. I’d catch Sven in class Thursday. “How about the box? Any updates?”

The line went quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry … the box?”

“Yes, Claudius,” I said as patiently as I could manage. “The one you picked up yesterday morning?”

“Ah, I was going to ask you about that.”

“Sure, what do you want to know?”

“Well, for starters,” he said, “what did you do with it?”

“Huh? I left it in the casting circle in my lab. You picked it up yesterday morning.”

There were days when Claudius was as sharp as my blade, but this wasn’t one of them.

“Yes, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. When I arrived in your lab, it wasn’t there.”

How was that even possible? Already straightening the ID on my lanyard to show the security guard, I pulled open the door to the college. “Did you check all the places you might have set it?” I asked him as the guard nodded and waved me through. “Your desk, your bookshelves, the back of your toilet?”

“Everson,” he said, “it wasn’t there.”

“Well, could you have taken two trips to my lab and, I don’t know, neglected to remember the first?” As I accessed the stairs to the second floor, I had to remind myself it wasn’t Claudius I was annoyed at, but the Order. How could they have entrusted him with something that important?

“Oh, most definitely not. If I take more than one round trip per day, my regularity goes right out the window.”

“Your what?”

“It’s one of the side effects of translocation they don’t tell you about in the books, and no amount of laxative aid helps. Believe me, I’ve tried them all. Even Blast Root.” He gave a little chuckle, as if I understood.

“All right, no need to paint me a picture.”

“This morning, though?” he continued. “Everything dropped on schedule. So definitely just the one trip.”

I winced at the visual. “And no one else from the Order would have picked it up?”

“No, no, the other members couldn’t be spared. They’re working on a stubborn tear that’s scarred around the edges. All hands on deck, as they say. Have you considered whether someone in your household moved it? There was an awful lot of hullabaloo when I arrived.”

It was a fair question, and I gave it its due. Mae wouldn’t have touched it, much less gone up to my lab in the first place. Tony wouldn’t have, either. If his being a good kid weren’t enough, I’d warded the space against him at Vega’s urging. Buster was out too. My magic didn’t play nice with nether creatures.

That left Tabitha. I considered her vocal displeasure at having the loft taken over, but hiding the box? When Tabitha did something punitive, she usually let me know that a.) she’d done it, and b.) zero fucks were harmed in the act.

“I can check,” I said, “but I doubt it.”

“Well, what’s the alternative? The box has to be somewhere.”

As I approached my office, my thoughts spun a thread between the missing box, Bear’s murder, and the question of translocation. A clammy heat spread over my face.

“Let me ask you a hypothetical question,” I said. “You can translocate into my lab because we worked out a handshake, right?” I was referring to the pattern of sigils we’d installed so my magic would recognize his, allowing him to come and go. “Could you translocate there even if we hadn’t?”

He made a sputtering sound with his lips as if considering different options. “Not without some very unpleasant consequences. But if the magic-user in question were powerful enough, I suppose it’s possible.”

“Someone came and took the box,” I said. “Possibly the same person who murdered Bear Goldburn.”

I was unlocking my office when Claudius responded, but I didn’t hear him. A fireball erupted from the door, splintering it to pieces and swallowing me in a violent roar.

11

I slammed into the far side of