Shadow Duel (Prof Croft Book 9) by Brad Magnarella (ereader with android .txt) 📕

at the other two. “Elspeth. Minna.” I recognized the hags by their auras, each a slightly different shade of bile. While Grizela continued with her charade of false friendliness, the two sisters rolled their eyes and smacked gum. I didn’t know if they’d binged on the rack of VHS teen flicks I’d seen on the way in, but they’d mastered the mannerisms.

“And who’s your friend?” Grizela asked.

“I’m Bree-yark,” he grunted from behind me.

“A goblin, huh?” Grizela’s smile hardened. “If we could boil the wrinkles out, he’d make a killer handbag.”

I braced for Bree-yark’s return shot, but he wisely stayed back and kept his mouth shut. I was guessing that if the salamander story hadn’t sufficiently spooked him, Doug’s life as a poorly watered plant had. Grizela’s piercing gaze remained on him as if gauging the impact of her arrow before returning to me.

“So,” she said. “Where were we?”

“Oh!” Elspeth chimed in. “The last time we were talking about his—”

“Listen,” I interrupted, pushing power into my wizard’s voice. “I’m looking for someone who may have purchased red tanzanite from you.”

The sisters broke into a bout of mocking laughter I hadn’t heard since high school.

“Name your price for the info,” I pressed. “I’ll consider anything within reason.”

“You’re such a killjoy,” Grizela said when she’d gotten control of herself. “Can’t we have a little fun first?”

“Fine,” I said. “Get it out of your systems.”

Though she continued to smile, her sparkling eyes narrowed as if I’d just thrown down a challenge.

“Let’s rehash, then, shall we?”

“Do your worst,” I muttered.

“Heidi Shih,” she said. “Poor, poor Heidi. Bloodied her nose, didn’t you?”

Heat warmed my cheeks as the sisters broke into laughter. Swamp hags had the ability to dig into someone’s psyche and haul out their gravest humiliations. In my case, that was the realm of women. Much like wizarding, I’d bumbled around a lot before finding my stride.

My girlfriend in the eighth grade, Heidi Shih was the first girl I’d ever kissed—or tried to. Buzzing with nerves, I’d ducked in too fast and bumped her nose. Grizela was exaggerating about the bloodied part, but the collision had made Heidi’s nose swell, effectively ending our three-week relationship.

Elspeth moved onto Sydney Rivera, and then Minna followed with Emily Schultz. The sisters were circling like vipers now, each lashing another episode off her tongue. Some were minor, others downright mortifying. After high school came college: Ally Palmer, Jennifer DeFazio, and Cassidy Cook.

Sinister enchantments accompanied the sisters’ words, visuals of my humiliations, but my neutralizing potion blunted them.

“Oh, and then there was Claire Tarbert,” Grizela said, forcing the taunt through her growing frustration. “She threw a basket of potpourri at you.”

This time I laughed along with them. That had been kind of funny.

Regardless, all of this was old material, episodes they’d dug up during my first visit, when I was struggling to balance wizarding with my love life. Convinced I was destined for a lonely future, I’d been vulnerable. Now, not at all. I was married to a solid woman with a child on the way and surrounded by friends.

“Well, if we’re done strolling down memory lane,” I said, “can we get to business?”

The sisters had begun to withdraw in quasi-defeat when Grizela’s eyes lit up. I realized my mistake too late. I’d relaxed my defenses just enough for her to snag the corner of something, dammit. As I struggled to pull it back, Elspeth and Minna joined in, and the three of them dragged it into full view.

“Married?” Elspeth exclaimed.

“Expecting?” Minna added.

“Oh, and that’s just the tip,” Grizela said. “Poor little Everson is terrified he won’t be able to protect them.”

“Is that right?” Minna asked, pouting out her lower lip. “The powerful magic-user can’t defend his wife and baby girl?”

“There’s more!” Elspeth shouted delightedly.

“He’s afraid he’s going to hurt them,” Grizela announced.

The sisters broke into a triumphant bout of laughter. Past humiliations I could talk down; present fears and protective instincts were another matter. When my cheeks warmed this time, it wasn’t from embarrassment, but rage.

“Oh, don’t be upset,” Grizela said. “I know how difficult it can be to live up to your parents’ example.”

A blade of light glinted in her eyes as her enchantment cut through my defenses. Images of my mother placing me in my grandparents’ care before falling to the Death Mage. My father plummeting into the nightmare portal created by the Whisperer. And finally, my deepest fear: returning home to an apartment engulfed in flames, with my wife, stepson, and newborn daughter trapped inside.

“Enough!” I boomed.

A blinding light burst from my hand, blasting through the image of my burning apartment and into the shrieking sisters.

16

“Stop!” the sisters screamed beyond the blinding light. “Spare us!”

Furniture crashed, portraits fell, and glass shattered. At one point, piano keys clashed. But I didn’t relent. The all-consuming wrath that stormed through my invocation felt good. Really good. I wanted these hags to know the fear and pain they’d inflicted on me.

I upped the power.

“Everson!” Bree-yark called.

When he shouted a second time, I glanced over. The goblin was stalking toward me, head bowed, forearm to his eyes. He began pushing his other hand toward the floor in a “tamp it down” motion. But I was too steeped in my rage lust to listen. The sisters continued to scream. More items broke.

“Still laughing?” I shouted.

Bree-yark seized my arm. “Enough!”

I tensed to shake him off, but stopped myself. Because for a brief, flaring second, I felt something I’d never felt toward Bree-yark before. Anger. I considered the source of light in my outstretched hand. That was wrong too. Nodding, I cycled down my breaths and pulled power back into the object.

“I’m good,” I said softly.

The light shrank back inside the glass orb. When the shop returned to view, it looked as if a tornado had visited. The sisters, returned to their true forms, were sprawled among the wreckage. They stared from wart-riddled faces and gray nests of hair, their gnarled fingers in conjuring postures, but I didn’t back from them. A shield