Night Rune (Prof Croft Book 8) by Brad Magnarella (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

While he spoke, I recited a silent centering mantra to keep his words from taking lurid form in my thoughts. I wasn’t entirely successful. Flashes of the bloody mess he’d left at the vampire hunters’ apartment kept intruding. But I held his gaze, refusing to shrink from his insinuations this time.

“So you see,” he said, “even though the odds favor you mightily, sending me to Malphas isn’t foolproof, which makes it a non-option. I doubt you even told your lady friend you were considering it.”

“She’s not here,” I said. “Is she.”

Instead of responding, Arnaud’s eyes gleamed devilishly.

“Good, so let me rehash,” I said. “Refuse to help me, and you’ll meet your master. Give me something useful—”

“And you’ll simply incinerate me?”

“That’s right.”

He drummed his first two talons against his chin as though pondering the question, but it was an act. I could practically hear the cogs whirring in his scheming mind. Even faced with death, he was working out something.

“Why come to me and not the fae?” he asked after a moment.

The question caught me off guard. My morning’s first stop had been the fae townhouse on the Upper East Side. I wanted the butler Osgood to tell me why he hadn’t delivered the rest of the Upholders from the time catch—and if needed, to send me back there. But no one answered the door.

“The fae?” I repeated.

“Surely you trust them more than you do me.”

Something in the angle of his voice bothered me. “What do they have to do with anything?”

“Oh, come, Professor. A man of your academic standing shouldn’t have to be led to the obvious.”

Was he saying the fae were the reason the others never returned? I shook my head. No, this was just more of the demon-vampire’s deceit.

“I can understand your reluctance to consider the question,” he continued. “After all, you had history with your contact inside the fae.”

He was referring to my relationship with Caroline, something he would have known from possessing me the year before. But he was wrong. She wouldn’t have double-crossed me. Could someone have overruled her, though?

Dammit, Arnaud was getting inside my head again, rattling me.

“Perhaps you should have followed your own advice and been more skeptical toward them,” he pressed.

My fists clenched below his view. “I’ll repeat my offer—”

Arnaud waved a tired hand. “Yes, yes, I’m well aware of my fate. Cast down to the master or sent up in smoke. But here’s the real kicker.” He turned toward me with a triumphant air. “You can’t do either.”

I laughed, but it came out all wrong. Did he suspect I needed him for something more?

Before entering the time catch, I’d had a sequence of vivid dreams. In the first, I was with Vega and Tony in my apartment, holding our baby girl. In the next, I was at the blood-soaked scene of the vampire hunters’ massacre. A half-dead Blade rasped that Arnaud had acquired a bond-negating scepter—which turned out to be true. Blade then transformed into one of the senior members of my Order, Arianna, who said she and the others were trapped in the Harkless Rift. She told me to find Arnaud.

Done, but now what?

Arianna hadn’t returned, either in material or ethereal form, and I damned sure couldn’t ask Arnaud what she’d meant. He would use the knowledge that I needed him to maximum advantage. I had no choice but to wait on Arianna’s next communique, which meant keeping Arnaud alive until that happened.

“And why not?” I challenged.

“Because I’m the only one who can place you in the time catch.”

I relaxed slightly—he didn’t know about my other need. “Yeah, sure you are.”

“And yes, that’s where your friends are.”

I eyed him for any hint of trickery. “Why didn’t they return?”

“You’ll have to ask the fae.”

“They’re not talking to me.”

“Hm. That alone should tell you something.”

“What do you know?”

Arnaud returned to the bench at the back of his cell. “You asked me where your friends were, Mr. Croft, and I’ve answered the question. So go ahead, fire up your magic. Incinerate me as agreed.”

He refolded his legs, clasping the topmost knee.

The powerful wards I’d constructed brimmed with lethal energies. At a Word, I could release them into him, reducing the demon-vampire to smoke. A part of me burned to do just that—to rid the world of his evil, avenge the lives he’d savaged and destroyed, and protect my family. I caught myself shaping the Word in my mind. But even as the sigils began to glow, Arnaud held my gaze steadily.

“Well?” he goaded.

Swearing silently, I dispersed the gathering energy. The sigils faded.

Arnaud smiled and clapped his hands. “A stay of execution! Splendid!”

“Yeah, don’t get too comfortable. I need to check out your claim before I do anything.”

“About your friends being in the time catch? Oh, you know that’s exactly where they are, but do what you must. In fact, I’d prefer it. Once you discover I’m your one hope of re-entering that place, and you will, our talks will go more swiftly. Especially when I explain the urgency factor.”

I had started to leave, but I stopped. Reacting to his teaser was stupid—I knew that—but right now he was my sole source of intel.

“And what’s that?” I asked.

“After the hostile way in which you’ve conducted this interview, Mr. Croft, I’m inclined to withhold that information. But very well. I was managing some especially powerful energies in that space. You experienced them firsthand, I believe. Well, what do you think is happening without anyone at the controls?”

As the corners of his mouth forked up, I pictured violent currents of ley energy snaking in directions they weren’t intended, bending essential struts, rendering an unstable environment even more so. My final image was of a massive implosion, swallowing everyone and everything inside the time catch.

“Exactly,” he hissed.

My heart thumped sickly in my chest as I strode from Arnaud’s view.

“I’ll be waiting,” he called before I could kill the speaker.

2

I arrived upstairs in Homicide