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

My gaze followed the pool to the far end where a tall figure presided over the chanting, one arm raised. The green flames that rose from the pyres on either side of him glistened from a gold mask inside his hood. My stomach clenched into a nauseous fist.

It’s him.

I picked up the chanting as I watched him. The words were nonsensical, but they evoked visceral sensations of death and decay. At the end of the verse, something stirred inside the pool’s foul waters. Another elemental? I could just make out a viscous web-work of black energy that seemed to unite the chanters to whatever lurked below the waters.

The Whisperer, I realized. This is the ritual that opens the portal. It was work Lich had begun centuries before and that Marlow had resumed upon finding his book. The larger the portal, the more powerful Marlow and the Front would become, and the more likely they would be to defeat the Order.

Ultimately, the Whisperer itself would emerge.

My eyes fell back to the pool in time to see a tentacle lash up before disappearing into the depths again. Beyond the pool, Marlow dropped his hand momentarily before raising it and resuming the chant.

A charge shot through me. A book. He just turned the page of a book. I eased forward, squinting. Yes, it was hard to see, but it was there, his black robe camouflaging the tome he palmed at his chest, tendrils of dark magic twisting from its pages.

Okay, I thought, deep breaths.

I slid my staff into my belt and reached into a pocket until I encountered a vial. A light shake told me it was the dragon sand. With a trembling hand, I loosened the cap. I doubted Marlow kept the book on him twenty four-seven. I could hold out for a more opportune moment, but with a pair of corpses downstairs waiting to be discovered, the risk felt too great.

I had to strike now.

I gauged the distance to the book and aimed my sword at it. The tip of the blade wavered as I drew a breath.

“Vigore!” I shouted, drawing the sword sharply back.

The force invocation hooked the book and yanked it from Marlow’s grasp. The book shot across the room, over the pool, between the chanters, and into the doorway, where it smacked into my raised hand like a fastball into a catcher’s mitt. I ducked around the side of the doorway, already bringing the book down and flipping through the leather-bound tome.

“Someone’s taken the codex,” Marlow shouted. “Stop him!”

The chanting broke into a confusion of shouts, and I could hear more splashing from the pool.

This is the book. This is it!

Heart slamming, I dropped the book at my feet and pierced it with the blade. The magic swirling around it fractured and broke apart. The plan was actually working! Emptying the vial of dragon sand over the defenseless tome, I leaped back and shouted, “Fuoco!”

Flames exploded from the book and gushed into the altar doorway. Voices and shrieks sounded from beyond. The pages of the incinerated tome floated up and disintegrated into ash.

Chicory! I called through our link as I backed away. It’s done! The book’s destroyed!

I chucked away the empty vial of dragon sand and drew the staff from my belt. I raised it just as a black bolt of energy shot past the flames. The enhanced staff drew the bolt inside, where the energy swirled. With shouts, two of the chanters broke through the flames.

“Rifleterre,” I commanded, aiming the staff at them in turn.

The energy absorbed by the staff discharged twice, nailing the chanters and knocking them to the ground.

Did you catch that Chicory? I called again. I’m ready to come home!

More figures moved beyond the flames. I jammed a hand into a pocket holding several lightning grenades and pulled two of them out. “Attivare!” I shouted, throwing them into the doorway. Lightning ripped from the heavens and slammed through beam and stone, collapsing the entranceway.

Ears ringing, I wheeled and sprinted across the courtyard toward the stairwell I’d arrived by. I was nearly there when a battalion of the fish-headed creatures came swarming up. Gargling at one another, they fanned around me, scimitars in hand. I enclosed myself in a crackling shield as the first wave moved in. Blades slashing, they set upon the shield.

“Respingere!” I called.

A potent white pulse detonated from the shield, sending the attackers tumbling over the courtyard and each other. Before they could fully recover, I hacked a path through them to the stairwell and descended, throwing a shield over the opening behind me to block their pursuit.

Chicory? I tried again. Now would be a really good time.

I was beginning to worry that the link wasn’t working, that he couldn’t hear me, when the place on my forehead where he’d mashed his thumb began to tingle. The sensation spread over my body. Any moment I expected to find myself back in the basement. But as quickly as the sensation came, it began to fade. Chicory’s voice echoed through my thoughts.

Go back to the place where you arrived.

The forest? I asked, still racing down the stairs. Why not here?

The barrier is thinner there.

But I destroyed the book—there shouldn’t be a barrier!

His voice broke in and out, but I caught something about the dissolution process taking time. The tingling sensation disappeared from my forehead. A pressure remained behind my eyes and deep in my ears, but those had persisted since he’d first stamped me.

Chicory? I tried again.

No answer.

Great, so I was going to be escaping the palace and re-crossing the plain of wargs with the place on full alert. I grunted out a curse. The hunting spell had shown me the shortest route in; retracing my steps seemed the surest bet for getting back out. If I could remember the way.

I emerged from the staircase, raced down a corridor, and found myself in the pillared room where my mother had been executed and I had slain the two creatures. It still smelled of burned