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

He removed the needle and held his thumb over the injection site. As he chanted softly, I felt the distilled blood diffusing through me, my father’s essence displacing my mother’s.

After a minute, he stepped back and nodded. “You’re ready.”

I took a steadying breath and stepped into the casting circle. This was it. When I turned to face Chicory, I noticed that Tabitha had come down, her green eyes swimming through the gloom outside the orb’s light. She sauntered up and rubbed her body against Chicory’s leg.

“Don’t give him a hard time while I’m away,” I said.

She snorted. “Compared to the drills you put me through, this is going to be a vacation.”

I shook my head before addressing Chicory. “Thanks for looking after her.”

“Not a problem.” He checked his pocket watch. “It’s almost dusk, though. We need to start the ritual while the barrier between our realms is thinnest.” From a jacket pocket, he produced a black book and opened it. While he wet his thumb and leafed through the pages, I reviewed the plan in my mind, up to finding and destroying Lich’s book. A frightening thought hit me.

“Wait!” I said. “How am I going to get back?”

“Ah, yes,” Chicory said as though he’d forgotten something minor. He reached forward and mashed his thumb between my brows. A small bolt of energy pierced my forebrain and smoldered behind my eyes and deep in my ears. A bonding spell. “There,” he said, stepping back again. “When you’re ready to come home, concentrate as hard as you can, and I’ll retrieve you.”

“Great,” I said, wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t said anything.

“And if this works, if Marlow is your father, I will see you again. You’re as reckless as a child sometimes, but you’re more than capable. You’ve proven that this week.”

“Thanks.” And I meant it.

Aiming his wand at the circle, Chicory uttered a Word. The circle glowed white and closed around me. Beyond the hum of energy, his lips moved as he read from a book of the First Order.

Tabitha watched with bored eyes.

I smiled back at her even as a lump swelled in my throat. I had to remind myself that if Marlow was not my father, the blood that coursed inside me wouldn’t allow me past his defenses. I would be repelled back here. Which meant the tide of emotions I was feeling at the prospect of never seeing Tabitha or Chicory again would be for nothing.

I was just beginning to settle into that thought when I realized I was no longer in the basement.

Except for a slight tingling, there had been no warning. One moment I was standing in Chicory’s casting circle, the next, I was in a forest. A cold breeze carrying a stench of decay batted my hair and clacked the branches overhead. Beyond a low ceiling of ashen clouds, the sun was setting. Or rather a sun was setting. I wasn’t in our world anymore. I was inside the Refuge.

Which means the Death Mage is my father.

The knowledge didn’t bowl me over. Ever since Chicory had told me of the Order’s suspicion, a part of me had begun to accept it as truth. Nana’s story about my father being a hippie had never jibed, not in my child’s mind and even less so when I discovered my magic as an adult. My grandparents were trying to protect me, God love them. This explained from what.

Stuffing down a swirl of emotions, I checked my belt and patted my various pockets. Everything had made the journey with me.

“Let’s go ahead and put you on, then,” I whispered, donning the robe of John the Baptist.

As had happened in the cathedral, a quiet descended over me and calmed my thumping heart. I peered around. The dark forest looked uniform in all directions, reminding me of my recurring dream. But I wasn’t a powerless child and I didn’t plan to wander aimlessly.

I had a target.

Kneeling, I wiped out a small circular area in the forest floor. The carpet of rotten leaves hid jelly-covered toadstools, which I wiped away, too. With my sword, I scratched my family’s casting circle into the earth and filled the grooves with copper filings. I then produced a Ziploc bag from one of my pockets and upended it over the circle. A clump of cat hair landed in its center—hair which held Marlow’s casting residue from when he’d murdered Lady Bastet.

A current of fear wormed through me. The last time I had cast through the hair, Marlow had sensed me. He’d attacked me. This time, Chicory assured me, he couldn’t. The distilled blood that had delivered me to the Refuge would veil me from Marlow’s detection.

Hope to hell Chicory’s right.

“Cerrare,” I said, closing the circle.

I incanted then, my staff aimed at the hair. The clump of hair shifted and rolled, sending up smoke, which the staff’s orb inhaled. I braced for a counterattack, but none came. Within moments, the staff was tugging me from the circle, in a direction opposite from where the sun had set.

He’s here.

Planting a foot against the tug, I returned what remained of the hair to the bag, pocketed it, and then broke the circle and covered it with debris. Veiled or not, I couldn’t get careless. The cane pulled me past trees, toward the man who had killed my mother.

Not to confront him, I reminded myself as black anger smoldered inside me. To find Lich’s book.

Before long, the forest thinned and opened onto a wide plain. A rocky hill rose from its center, an ancient palace at its plateaued pinnacle. Though impressive, the scene was hardly the stuff of postcards. The palace was made of black stone, the columned stories that stood atop one another unwieldy and wicked looking. Here and there firelight burned in windows.

Looks like someone’s home.

I scanned the open plain around the palace for guards. Instead, I spotted the silhouettes of what looked like large, hunchbacked dogs. Wargs, I realized, vicious predators with keen