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

“Where are you taking me?” I demanded.

Flint touched an earpiece. “We’ve got him.”

Who was he talking to? The pack’s second in command?

Evan drew a key and unlocked a door that opened onto a narrow, empty corridor. The wolves turned their wide frames such that Flint was pulling me, Evan pushing me. They hadn’t confiscated my weapon, which seemed odd. Still, Caroline’s warning flashed hot in my mind.

You’re not as safe as you think you are.

“Respingere!” I cried.

From the opal in my cane, white light detonated. My arms wrenched violently as the force blasted Flint down the corridor and Evan back into the door we’d just entered through. The pain in my left shoulder registered a moment later, as well as the familiar clunk of dislocation.

Dammit.

Supporting the infirm arm at the elbow, I ran back toward the door. It had collapsed out into the main hallway with Evan’s impact, along with Evan. But in the next instant, Evan sprang up and activated his earpiece. If he was calling for backup, the hallway would soon be swarming with wolves. He pawed for his holstered firearm. Another deal breaker.

I stopped and reversed course. Down the narrow corridor, Flint was slower to recover. He staggered to his feet, blood on his brow. If I could get past him, I could search for a rear exit. When he saw me coming, he sank to his haunches, a deep growl growing from his chest.

Have to keep going. Have to hit him hard enough to make him stay down.

Fumbling my cane apart, I held the staff weakly in my left hand. Manifesting a shield, I used additional Words to shape it into something resembling a battering ram. I sensed Evan bounding up from behind. With my right hand, I aimed the sword behind me at an acute angle to the floor. I’d managed this once before in a car but never while running.

“Forza dura!” I shouted.

The power that stormed from the sword hit the floor and launched me forward like a rocket. I hurtled down the corridor. Flint tried to throw himself out of the way, but in an explosion of sparks, the battering shield rammed into him and left him tumbling in my wake.

The floor rose quickly as the blast from the sword petered out. My front foot caught the carpet, and I was thrown into a bruising roll that shot fresh pain through my shoulder. My head absorbed some solid shots as well.

I stood and staggered in two nauseating circles to collect my weapons and orient myself. My casting prism was shot, but behind me, Flint was still down. I turned back toward the end of the corridor, where a door with a red crash bar read: EMERGENCY EXIT.

Just need to get out of here.

I shambled toward the exit—and nearly collided into a side door that swung out in front of me. A man wearing a headset and Prada sunglasses peered out. “There you are!” he exclaimed in a prissy voice. “Get in here!”

I stared for a moment, trying to figure out if I should know him. The man’s frosted hair stood in a voluminous coif, while his black designer shirt opened on a thin, hairless chest. His sleeves flapped as he motioned for me to come. Though the eyes beyond the tinted lenses were animated, I could discern no werewolf in them. A touch of faerie, maybe.

“Come on!” He seized my wrist with dainty, but insistent, force.

I glanced back at the wolves. Flint was struggling to his hands and knees, and Evan had disappeared from view, probably to intercept me on the other side of the emergency exit. In my still-woozy state, I allowed the man to pull me after him. He led me through a warren of corridors.

“I’m Marcus, by the way—goodness!” he exclaimed, glancing at me over a shoulder. “You look absolutely hideous.”

“Huh?” I was still struggling to work out who the man was and what he wanted.

“I have him, but he needs work. Can you hold them off for another ten.” I realized Marcus was talking into his headset. He let out a dramatic sigh. “I need to work on him, Dwayne. He’s an utter disaster.”

I pulled against him. “Look, this is where we’re going to have to part ways.”

Marcus pushed me into a brightly lit room and looked me up and down. “Wrong hair, wrong fashion, wrong, wrong, wrong!”

He stamped a foot for emphasis, making me jump back. I bumped into something at thigh level and lost my balance. A padded chair caught me. Marcus swiveled the chair until I was staring at a dressing-room mirror. He frowned studiously over my right shoulder as he turned the chair each way and then began finger-teasing the hair on the sides of my head.

“Ugh. I can’t work with this,” he decided.

Before I could stand from the chair, it collapsed backwards and I was looking at the ceiling. Warm water gushed against my brow. In the next moment, Marcus was massaging cold conditioner into my hair. “I want elegant for you,” he said, “with a touch of rakish, a touch of … le mystérieux.”

I struggled from Marcus’s fingers and threw myself over the side of the chair. I landed on my hands and knees, sputtering as conditioner streamed down my face and into my eyes. Someone jerked my cane away, and a pair of hands seized me roughly by the arms. I was lifted into the air and slammed into the chair with enough force to relocate my left shoulder.

“Stay put until he’s done,” a gruff voice ordered.

I squinted my stinging eyes open to find Flint and Evan standing in the doorway, wearing pissed-off expressions. But they weren’t coming at me. I looked from their earpieces to Marcus’s headset. Was this who they’d been trying to deliver me to?

Marcus sighed as fresh water showered over my face and hair. “Are all wizards this difficult?”

With the werewolves standing guard, my cane in their possession and my casting