The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) by Brad Magnarella (best business books of all time txt) 📕

that day in my library/lab. I gathered all of the information I could on ghouls, distilled the information down to its essence, and then devised a way to eradicate them en masse. I studied maps of the subway lines. I tested various defensive sigils and magical incendiaries. Satisfied, I typed out a plan and carried it to the mayor’s office the next day.

Lance Cole, the man appointed to head the Hundred, was sitting in a chair facing the mayor’s desk in his captain’s uniform. He greeted me with a nod that was hard to read amid the age lines creasing his dark face. As I went over my strategy with Budge, Cole sat back and listened.

When I finished, Budge turned to him. “What do you think?”

Captain Cole pressed the dark gemstone of a fraternal ring to his mustache and reread my proposal. When he reached the bottom of the page, he gave a single nod. “If you can cover the lights, and Everson here this part”—he brushed the bullet points with the pinky ring—“we can take care of the rest.”

“How soon?” Budge asked.

“I can have the team ready inside of a week,” Cole answered.

“How’s that sound, Everson?”

“Works for me.”

Budge beamed at both of us. “It’s why I hired the best.”

“Um, just one more thing,” I said. “I’d like to have Detective Hoffman from Homicide advising as well.”

Captain Cole’s forehead wrinkled. “We already have Detective Vega helping out.”

“Right, but Hoffman’s worked on supernatural cases too,” I said. “And he brings a different perspective.” Which was to say he remained a stubborn-ass skeptic about the supernatural despite any and all evidence to the contrary. But that’s not why I wanted him.

Cole appeared to chew on that for a moment before nodding. “Fine. I’m going to have you present your plan to the Hundred on Thursday. I’ll make sure both detectives are there.”

Excellent, I thought. But it doesn’t give me much time.

I stopped at a camera store on my way home. In the vintage section, I found and paid for an old Polaroid camera and several packs of film.

Back in my apartment lab I placed the tuft of hair I’d cut from Hoffman at the crime scene into my silver casting circle. On the floor beside it, I created a second, larger circle. Inside that one, I set a mound of wet, gray clay that I kept in a plastic garbage container. I then sprinkled the clay with black ash, grated mandrake root, and two tablespoons of my own blood.

Pulling a spell book from a shelf, I consulted a set of Coptic instructions. For spying, there was scrying, projecting, and summoning lesser beings. But I needed recorded evidence, and that meant animation. I winced at the memory of my last attempt, the result a screaming golem that had run around punching himself in the jewels before I force-blasted him out of existence. Clay had rained everywhere and taken me weeks to clean from my rugs.

Impure clay, I reminded myself, hoping that had been the reason for the masochistic display. I aimed my staff at the mound of high-grade clay and recited the incantation, careful to pronounce each syllable precisely.

“Vivere … pulsare … respirare … levarsi…”

Energy coursed through my mental prism. I pushed that energy, along with some of my own essence, into the clay. After a minute of nothing, the clay began to squelch and fold in on itself. The blood thinned into a network of vessels. Within moments, a shape became evident: a tadpole-like creature with large pods for eyes. It writhed and flopped on the floor, its shrinking tail soon replaced by sprouting legs. Arms pushed from beneath a head that was becoming less embryonic, more human. The eyes shrank and migrated inward until I was looking at an infant. The infant opened its mouth in a silent cry as it elongated, its C-shaped back becoming more lordotic. It was a boy. With growing limbs, the golem began pushing himself upright, tottering as dark hair sprouted from his molding head.

By the time the golem steadied and opened his hazel-colored eyes, I was at face level with a crude likeness of myself. I waited a moment, a force invocation on the tip of my tongue, but the animation didn’t start screaming or swinging his fists. He only watched, waiting for my command.

“Dress,” I said, spreading a pile of clothes at his feet.

The golem stared at the clothes before something took hold in his rudimentary mind. He reached for the plaid boxers first, stepping into them stiffly—left leg, then right—and pulling them up. Next he donned the socks in the same left-right order. It was how I dressed, which made sense, considering he was operating off a dimmer version of my own knowledge and memories.

He finished by putting on a necklace that featured a copper amulet, one I had infused with energy to sustain the being for the next several days. He even tucked it inside his shirt as I did with my own coin pendant.

“Ready to get to work?” I asked.

The golem regarded me with an expression not unlike a clothing store mannequin’s.

“That’s the spirit. But first we need a name for you. How does Ed sound?”

“Ed,” he repeated in monotone.

“You like that, huh?” I chuckled and clapped his shoulder. “Well, I’ve got a job for you, Ed.”

I trained my attention on the silver circle, where I’d set Hoffman’s hair. Incanting, I drew the detective’s essence into my staff and then directed the essence into Ed’s amulet, turning it into a homing beacon. I waved Ed over to where I had set the Polaroid camera on the end of the lab table.

I spoke slowly. “Load the camera with film and take my picture.”

Ed fumbled with the film’s metallic wrapping, eventually shedding it and slotting the film into the camera. I smiled broadly as the golem raised the Polaroid to his right eye and clicked. A white-framed photo emerged from the camera’s mouth.

“Good,” I said, pulling the photo free.

As the image