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

snarl sounded below me. The giant red wolf that had been leading the charge shook himself from the bloody melee and bounded up the steps. His baleful eyes fixed on mine as he slowed to a hunched stalk. I recognized those eyes.

I met Evan’s stare. “You miss your dead brother, huh? Maybe I can fix that.”

The challenge pierced his human and animal mind, and he sprang. I brought a mace around and slammed him with a shield invocation. He staggered back, then lunged again. I met him with a Word—“Respingere!”—and blew him aside, his back cracking against the base of a statue.

“Is that all you’ve got?” I asked.

Anger seethed in Evan’s eyes as he circled out in front of me, looking for an opening.

I didn’t wait. Thrusting one mace toward his legs, I hit him with a force blast. With the other mace, I brought the shield down on his head, pinning him against the landing. Evan snarled as he struggled to free himself. I walked toward him, shaping the shield into a stockade that wrapped his neck and wrists. Blood soaked his coat as he barked and thrashed, fury engorging his eyes. I honed the edges of the shield until they were razor sharp.

“Sorry, pal,” I said. “Bad day for revenge.”

I raised the other mace and, with a force invocation as a propellant, brought it crashing down on the back of his skull. The metal flanges sank into bone, and the wolf’s head sheared off at his neck. I dispersed the stockade as the wolf’s two parts thudded to the ground.

Blowing out my breath, I lifted my gaze to the battle. One less wolf, but still plenty more. Several had reached the gunmen in the windows and were hurling them to their deaths. The rest swarmed the plaza and park. Arnaud and the Undertaker fought with their mounts back to back, the Undertaker wielding a black broadsword now. But even with the reinforcements, we were outnumbered—and losing. I watched the way the wolves moved, ever shifting and reassembling, concentrating their attack where the vampires were weakest.

I looked around, trying to pick out whomever was coordinating them.

Did werewolves have the same psychic linkup as vampires? I didn’t think so. Which meant…

My gaze dropped to the severed head at my feet. In the hair around the wolf’s ear, I spotted what I was looking for. After ensuring no wolves were coming, I knelt and worked my fingers into the blood-matted hair. A crescent-shaped band had been affixed behind his ear. I worked the band free. With it came two slender filaments, one emerging from the wolf’s ear canal. That filament ended at a small speaker. Very carefully, I brought it to my own ear.

“…Alpha Three, move now. Flank them north. Alpha One … south … bef…”

The tinny voice crackled as my wizard’s aura killed the communication device. But I had already recognized the voice’s cadence. I examined the other filament, which ended at a dead lens.

Well, hello there, Captain, I thought and tossed the smoking device aside.

That explained the coordination between the NYPD and wolves. But Captain Cole would have to be lupine himself to command them, and I’d never sensed an aura around him. I thought about the powerful enchantment Arnaud had mentioned and remembered the ring with the dark gem Cole wore on his pinky finger. Besides controlling the wolves, it must have concealed his own wolf nature.

Across the plaza, the ferocious battle raged on. Arnaud and the Undertaker continued to hack and slash, but their slave battalions were dwindling. The wolves were too well coordinated. I looked high and low.

Where are you, Cole?

I knew from our work on the eradication campaign that he liked to site himself near the action. And what Vega had said on the phone about him being “down” at command-and-control seemed to confirm he was close. But how close?

I thought back to the view from Arnaud’s office window earlier. That tenting I’d glimpsed at the southern end of City Hall Park … I had assumed it was part of a construction project, but it was the same military-drab color as the tenting used in the other campaigns.

That’s where he was, I decided. Close to the campaign but shielded by the intervening skyscrapers.

I cupped my hands to the sides of my mouth. “Arnaud!”

The vampire discerned my voice amid the chaos and looked up. His mount reared as he swung it toward me, hacking and trampling a swath from the battle. I met him at the bottom of the steps. He was covered in gore, his mane of hair soaked in blood. Aiming a mace, I blasted back a pair of wolves that had broken from the battle to pursue him.

“You’ve found something?” Arnaud asked.

“There’s a tent at the southern end of City Hall Park,” I panted. “Captain Cole is inside, coordinating the assault. He’s the one controlling the wolves.”

Arnaud’s eyes sharpened in understanding. But as he activated his earpiece, I thought about the police officers and technicians who would also be in the tent. And if Vega had ended up there for any reason…

“Wait!” I said. “No mass casualties. Have a sniper take him out.”

Arnaud nodded and gave the order. His blood-bathed horse snorted, eager to rejoin the battle. I looked past Arnaud in time to see the Undertaker and his mount falling. The aging vampire’s wailing cries rose above the snarls and barks of the wolves diving down to tear into him.

With the Undertaker’s final moan, his blood slaves regained their mortality and stopped fighting. The ones he’d turned centuries before shriveled and broke apart. The younger ones aged, some crooking into the shapes of old men, others staring around in shock, wondering what kind of nightmare they had awakened to. The wolves showed no mercy.

Arnaud’s remaining slaves continued to battle fiercely, but the force had been halved. A mass of wolves, more than a hundred strong, turned toward us. Arnaud’s mount grunted and stamped the bricks at its feet. I squeezed the leather-bound