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

Flor huffed. “You two are talking too much. The alternative is I shoot you.”

“How sweet,” I muttered.

James set the Book of Souls down and lifted Flor’s rifle. It was no accident she was carrying silver ammo, or that James had packed rock-salt necklaces. This was their work—looting ancient sites, some of them cursed, no doubt. “Let’s go,” James said. “We’ll pick up Bertrand on the way.”

“Can I grab my backpack, at least?”

“No.” Flor jabbed me in the side with the pistol, sending a spear through one of the spots she’d soothed last night. “Move your ass.”

I considered running as I stumbled into the courtyard, but there was nowhere to run. Doing so would just get me shot. Bertrand’s and my best chance would be to do as they said. Once outside, we could scale a tree and wait until morning, attempt the journey down to the village then. It seemed a reasonable plan until I remembered the bear-like paws on the wolves. Something told me they would use them to climb after us.

We arrived at Bertrand’s room and found him sitting in a corner, scribbling in a notepad on his propped-up knees. His hair jerked as he consulted open texts on either side of him.

“Check out time,” James called.

Bertrand’s face shot up, his eyes seeming to refocus from some distant realm. He swept his hair to one side and squinted at the pointed weapons, which glinted in the light of his small fire. “What is the meaning of this?”

“You were right,” I told him. “They’re a couple of scoundrels. They’re going to send us out to the wolves and take the books to some collector so they can buy themselves iPods and fancy shoes.”

“Oh, don’t be such a poor sport,” James said. “If you’d shown yourself a little more agreeable to our line of work, why, we might have asked you to join us. We’re in need of a new translator.”

I remembered my reaction at dinner in the village when Flor suggested we split the spoils. Another test.

“Why?” I growled. “What happened to your last one?”

“We had a disagreement,” Flor said. “Now get moving. Both of you.”

I had expected Bertrand to put up a fight, but he was on his hands and knees gathering his notepads.

“Leave them,” Flor ordered. “They will do you no good out there.”

“Oh, let him have them, love,” James whispered. “It’ll occupy his hands and we can get them out of here with less fuss.”

Bertrand hobbled up beside me, notepads pressed to his chest, eyes shifting wildly. The discovery of the texts had meant everything to him. “They will not get away with this,” he spat. “I will be damned if they get away with this.”

“Keep cool,” I whispered. “We’ll figure out something once we’re outside.”

He ignored me, rifling through his notepads as James and Flor prodded us into the courtyard. The barricaded entrance wasn’t entirely barricaded anymore, I saw. Stones had been moved and one of the timber beams set aside for Bertrand and me to squeeze through. The cold wind funneling into the monastery carried the cries of wolves. Not close, but not too distant, either.

Beside me, Bertrand’s grumbling turned to hard mutters.

“Stay cool,” I repeated distractedly, trying to remember the terrain outside the monastery. If we could find a cave in the rock face, a place to fortify ourselves, we had a slim chance of surviving the night.

Bertrand’s muttering rose in pitch.

“Shut up,” Flor said—which were my thoughts, as well. He was going to get us both ventilated. But when I turned, I found that he was no longer muttering for muttering’s sake. He was reading from one of his notepads. And I recognized the words. The chant was an incantation meant to summon something dark and powerful, an idea that might have seemed insane to me only a few days ago.

“Be careful,” I whispered, remembering a warning inside the Book of Souls. “Whatever you call up you’re going to have to put back down.”

But the atmosphere of the monastery was already changing. Something was sucking out the oxygen, making it hard to breathe. And an unpleasant smell was rising. A sickly sweet odor that stuck like barbs in my throat. The odor of whatever Bertrand was summoning, I realized.

“The Frenchman first,” Flor said as we arrived at the entranceway. “I cannot stand the sight of him any longer.”

Bertrand snapped straight, the notepads spilling from his arms. He remained like that, eyes large and staring, until I thought he was having a seizure. I grabbed his rigid left arm and gave it a shake.

“Bertrand?”

When he turned, I released him and staggered back a step. Blackness had spread over his eyes like spilled ink. And his lips were stretching from his teeth, forming a smile so large it looked agonizing.

“You can no longer stand the sight of Bertrand?” he said to Flor in an alien voice, as though something was humming deep in his throat. “Well perhaps he can no longer stand the sight of you.”

His smile unhinged and a droning black cloud shot from his mouth. Wasps, I realized in horror. Flor had time to scream before the wasps swarmed her face and smothered her cries.

15

“S-stop that.” James’s huge eyes looked from Flor’s collapsed body to Bertrand—or whatever Bertrand had become. Seeming to remember he was holding a rifle, James raised it. “Stop! Get them off her!”

Bertrand laughed. “As you wish.”

He waved a hand and the hundreds upon hundreds of wasps lifted from Flor and swarmed James. He screamed and stumbled backwards, rifle shots cracking as though the swarm was a being whose heart he might pierce. I crouched beside Flor and moved the limp arm from across her face. She looked nothing like the woman of only moments ago. Her face had become a disfiguration of red welts, eyes a pair of glistening lines, lips a fruit that had burst in the sun.

Oh God. I lowered her lifeless arm.

Above me, Bertrand laughed, the sound a sick