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

Only it wasn’t so little anymore. The bed jumped when the shrieker dropped onto the headboard, taloned feet gripping the metal bar. The white caul over its eyes was thinning, too, goat-like pupils peering out. As I crept nearer, the creature’s appearance stirred in me equal parts fascination and revulsion. Its wings spread to reveal a wrinkled body mapped in throbbing black vessels.

Okay, now it was just revulsion.

The shrieker put everything into its next scream. The light energy over my right ear broke apart. A sensation like shattered glass filled my head. Hunching my shoulder to my naked ear, I threw my weight into a sword thrust and grunted as hot fluid sprayed over me.

The shrieker fell silent, staring at me as though trying to comprehend what I had done. Its eyes fell to the sword, which had skewered its chest and driven a solid inch into the wall behind it. But it wasn’t enough to physically wound such creatures. They had to be dispersed.

“Disfare,” I shouted, concentrating force along the blade.

The shrieker’s wings trembled, then began to flail. Unfortunately, the more power it took to summon a creature into our world, the more power it required to send it back. And the homeless appearance of the conjurer aside, some damned powerful magic had called this thing up.

“Disfare!” I repeated, louder.

The shrieker thrashed more fiercely, the tarry fluid that bubbled from its mouth drowning its hideous cry. But its form remained intact. And I was pushing my limits, a lead-like fatigue beginning to weigh on my limbs. The shrieker’s wings folded down, and a pair of bat-like hands seized the blade.

“What the…?”

The creature gave a pull and skewered itself toward me.

“Hey, stop that!” I yelled pointlessly.

I pressed my glowing staff against its chin, but with another tug, the shrieker was an inch closer. It snapped at my staff with gunky teeth, then swiped with a clawed hand, narrowly missing my reared-back face.

I considered ditching my sword, but then what? I wasn’t dealing with flesh and blood here. The second the shrieker came off the hilt, it would reconfigure itself, becoming larger and more powerful. And if it overwhelmed me, the conjurer would be next, followed by the head-bangers one floor down. An image of the party as a bloody scene of carnage jagged through my mind’s eye.

“DISFARE!” I boomed.

A tidal wave of energy burst from my mental prism, shook down the length of my arm, through my sword, and then out the creature. I squeezed my eyes closed as the creature’s gargling shriek cut off and an explosion of foul-smelling phlegm nearly knocked me down.

There was a reason I’d waterproofed my coat, and it wasn’t for the shiny look.

I opened my eyes to a steamy, tar-spattered room and exhaled. The shrieker was gone, cast back to its hellish pit.

But at a price.

The edges of my thoughts swam in creamy waves, a sensation that heralded the impending arrival of Thelonious. That incubus spirit I called up a decade ago? He was still around, clinging to my spirit like a parasite. Despite that he was thousands of years old, I pictured him as a cool cat in black shades and a glittering ’fro—probably because he shared a name with a famous musician. And my Thelonious had a jazzy way about him. As long as I didn’t push my limits, I could keep him at bay. Cross that line, and I became a vessel for Thelonious’s, ahem, festivities.

And yeah, I’d just crossed that line.

More creamy waves washed in. I would have to work quickly.

The demonic gunk was evaporating as I drew my sword from the wall. I cleaned the blade against the thigh of my coat, resheathed it, and then returned to the fallen conjurer. Still out. I shone my light over his table, pocketing samples of spell ingredients for later study.

“But where oh where is the recipe?” I muttered.

I stopped at the flaky ashes of what appeared to have been a piece of college-ruled paper. The spell must have contained an incineration component, meant to destroy evidence of its origin.

“Naturally.”

Sliding my cane into the belt of my coat, I stooped for the conjurer. “Up you go,” I grunted. His head lolled as I carried him into the bedroom. I set him on the mattress, arranged his arms and legs into a semblance of order, then shook out the sheet and spread it over him.

His mortal mind was blown, but not beyond repair.

I touched my cane to the center of his brow and uttered ancient Words of healing. He murmured as a cottony light grew from the remaining power in the staff. The healing would take time, which was just as well. In a few more minutes, I wouldn’t be in much shape to question him.

“I’ll be back in a couple of days,” I told the snoring man.

The creamy waves crested, spilling into my final wells of free will. There was no good place to go now except away from people. I was turning to leave when my—or I should say, Thelonious’s—gaze fell to the space beneath the bed. A half-full bottle of tannic liquid leaned against one of the legs.

I felt my lips stretch into a grin. Bourbon, Thelonious purred in his bass voice.

My final memory of that night, the fire of alcohol in my throat, was tottering down a hallway toward a shaking generator and the siren screams of a pink-haired punker named Blade.

Ooh, yeah…

5

Swollen eyelids cracked open onto a room wall-papered in album jackets and cast in the gray light of morning. I was on a mattress on the floor, no doubt in the punk rockers’ apartment. I managed to extricate my naked torso from a tangle of sheets and sit up. The room revolved, making my brain hurt.

“Sweet Jesus,” I muttered, dragging a hand through my salt-stiff hair, then clamping my temples.

A mean smell of smoke lingered in my sinuses and beneath it, the cloying stink of last night’s shrieker. Not a pleasant