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

Marlow.

“I did nothing,” my mother told him.

Marlow stopped in front of us. “Nothing? You joined the Front as a sworn rebel against tyranny. You pledged your allegiance, your life. Only for us to learn that you’re a plant for the Order.”

“That’s a lie,” she said.

The mage drew a wand that smelled of elderwood. “Then you shouldn’t have a problem submitting to a mind flaying.”

“I will submit to nothing,” my mother said.

I lunged for Marlow’s wand, but my hands passed through it. He seemed not to notice me.

“Then you are admitting guilt,” he said.

“If that’s what you want to believe,” she replied.

“Vigore!” I shouted, thrusting my palms toward him. The energy of the force blast rippled through the dreamscape. When it subsided, everything wavered still again, and Marlow remained in front of us.

“It’s the truth, traitor,” he said, raising his wand. “And you know the penalty.”

“Do your worst.”

“No!” I shouted.

The force from the mage’s wand threw my mother against a stone pillar. She grunted in pain. Marlow spoke another Word, and vines writhed up through cracks in the floor, binding my mother to the pillar. An especially thick tendril wrapped her throat, making her gag.

“It didn’t have to end this way, Eve,” he said before turning to the others. “Behold the penalty for treachery. Death by fire.”

Yes, I had witnessed this scene before, from inside my mother’s memory. I had felt her fear, her pain. I raced back to her, intent on pulling the vines away. But when I reached for the thick tendril encircling her throat, my hands passed through it, as they’d done with the wand. Sadness filled my mother’s eyes as they met mine.

“What can I do?” I pled. “How can I help you?”

A whisper strained from her lips.

“What?” I asked, leaning closer.

I love you, Everson, she mouthed.

“Fuoco!” Marlow shouted behind me.

Flames exploded from the floor, engulfing my mother and throwing me backward. I pulled off my shirt and ran at the fire to beat it out. But the fire became a reflection in a gold mask, and I was standing in front of Marlow, staring up at him, and he was suddenly huge.

Run, my mother had said. Don’t let him know about you.

The rest of the room darkened as the mage’s face canted down. Beyond the eyeholes, a pair of lights burned in recognition. His hand shot out and seized my wrist. A cold, aching power emanated from his grip. I strained against him, but I was a small child again.

“You’ve come to join us,” he whispered.

I shook my head, unable to make a sound.

“To join the cluster.” He lifted me from my feet.

When our faces were even, Marlow reached for his mask, which continued to glisten with the fire that consumed my mother. Terror paralyzed me as he began to pull the mask away. I didn’t want to see his face … but a part of me had to, had to know if this man was my father.

“To become one,” he whispered.

Metal separated from skin in a wet squelching.

“Everson … verson … son.”

2

A pair of ochre-green eyes stared at me through the dark. I snort-gasped and tried to flail back. Tendrils were wrapping my arms, my torso. I heaved with my legs. The top of my head hit something solid.

A snort sounded. “Nice to see you, too.”

“Tabitha?” I shook my arms from the sheets and slid a hand between the headboard and my aching crown. I fought to get my bearings. I’d been in a dream, Marlow about to remove his gold mask. My cat calling my name must have awakened me. I looked around. Except for a crescent moon high in the window, the room was dark. “What time is it?”

Her eyes blinked slowly. “Apparently, time for you to moan in your sleep again.”

I set my legs over the side of the bed and sat up, the horror of the dream still prickling through me. “Sorry about that.”

“I told you to lay off the magic before bed.”

“Oh, should I have eaten my weight in rib eye instead?”

Tabitha narrowed her eyes at me, then thudded down from the end table and sauntered back to her ottoman beneath the window. It wasn’t as comfortable as her divan at home—a fact she reminded me of daily—but we weren’t at home. The week before, Chicory had loaded us into his Volkswagen Rabbit and driven us to a safe house in New Jersey, an unassuming blue affair across the Hudson River. “To train you for your mission,” he’d explained. Though all he’d done so far was fuss inside his lab, shooing me away anytime I asked what he was up to. Even now, I could hear his muttering voice down the hallway.

“I’m not the one having nightmares,” Tabitha said as she arranged herself into a large mound. “The fifth in five nights?”

“Yeah … except this one was different.” I coughed to clear my sleep-clogged throat. “I was lost in a forest again, calling for my mother. She found me, but this time she didn’t have any answers. Couldn’t tell me how to get out. She just told me to run and hide.”

“Run from what?” Tabitha asked.

“From whom,” I said, remembering the way the flames had danced in the gold mask. “The Death Mage.”

“He is all you’ve been talking about for the last week. No wonder you’re having nightmares.” She yawned and smacked her lips. “Waking everyone up,” she added in a mutter, eyelids sliding closed.

“Everyone meaning you?” I asked testily. “Look, I don’t know if it’s occurred to you, but I’m shipping out soon, and there’s a chance—hell, maybe a good chance—I won’t be coming back.”

The thought lanced through me. As punishment for willingly giving my blood to Lady Bastet, which was then stolen by Marlow, the Order was mandating that I infiltrate Marlow’s hideout and destroy Lich’s book. It was a daunting mission. Magic-users more powerful than me had tried and failed, my mother among them. Hence Marlow’s