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

Above the creaks, a pair of low whispers sounded.

16

I rose from beside Lazlo’s body, light radiating from my protective shield, and adjusted my grip on my sword. Shadows shifted on the wooden steps as the whispers grew. I remembered what Olga had said about no one coming here because of the ghosts. You will know them by their whispers, she’d said.

If Lazlo’s soul had been sacrificed to the Whisperer, then a conduit now existed between his body and Dhuul’s realm. Maybe no more than a seam, but enough for shadow entities to come and go, to feed on the lingering magic, of which there were still traces.

Those were the ghosts the villagers had seen. And now I was seeing them.

I shuffled back. Though immaterial, the man-sized beings were horrid. They descended on tentacled legs. More tentacles writhed from their shapeless bodies of matted hair and sharp beaks. They slowed as they neared the bottom of the steps, their whispers alien and wet. Multiple sets of pale eyes glowed into view, all of them watching me.

“Vigore!” I shouted.

In my fear, my force invocation lacked control. It rammed into the stairs, sending splintered timber ricocheting from the walls and off my shield. Shrieks sounded. I jumped back as something lashed out—a tentacle. It grazed my neck, suckers grasping for purchase, before recoiling back into the darkness behind the ruined staircase. The skin where it had touched me burned like fire.

My shield didn’t stop that thing, I thought in horror.

I backed from the shadowy creatures as they crawled from the ruins, their whispers turning to low hisses.

“Illuminare!” I called, channeling power through my coin pendant.

The coin glowed, limning the creatures in blue light. They slowed, eyes squinting away. The coin held an enchantment to ward off shadow creatures, but these shadows were from much farther down. The enchantment seemed to have a stalling effect, but it wasn’t stopping them.

Another tentacle lashed out. I grunted and brought my sword up in a parrying motion. The blade sliced harmlessly through the tentacle. The tip of the tentacle affixed to my chest, the contact like boiling acid. I screamed as I felt my soul lurch inside me, yanked toward the point of contact. I dug into my pockets, searching for … there!

I yanked out the glass vial Arianna had given me. Pulling the stopper free with my teeth, I splashed the creature with the clear liquid inside. The creature withdrew with a screaming hiss, its tentacle releasing me. I advanced on the two of them, splashing more liquid. Steam spewed from their forms.

“Go!” I commanded, my voice trembling from the pain in my chest. “Go back to your cursed realm.”

I splashed several more times. How much of this stuff would it take to banish them? The creatures had retreated, screaming, to the far corner of the cellar when I realized the vial was almost empty. Need to make tracks, I decided, easing back and recovering my sword.

The stairs were gone, but I could use a force invocation to launch myself like I’d done in the Refuge. I stood beneath the hole where the trap door had been, aimed my blade at the ground—and cried out as a tentacle whipped around my ankle. Fire enveloped my lower leg, and I could feel blood soaking into my sock.

A second tentacle seized my sword and wrenched it away. I heard it clatter off somewhere. Another tentacle wrapped around my staff. The light from the opal sputtered as the creature and I struggled for possession. Multiple pale eyes emerged from the shadows.

You’re not thinking, I chided myself through the pain. Don’t have to banish them … just have to close their portal.

My gaze shifted to Lazlo’s body. Burning it would shut the door on this end.

I plunged my free hand into another pocket and withdrew a vial of dragon sand. The tentacle around my ankle flexed. I landed prone with a grunt, out of range of Lazlo. Pain seared my stomach as a tentacle snaked underneath me. I could feel its suckers opening and closing.

Not suckers, I realized in horror. Mouths.

Each mouth had a ring of spiny teeth, and they were tearing at my soul, trying to suck it out. I imagined my body buried in toadstools, my soul trapped in a pit, in endless pain. Desperate not to meet my mentor’s fate, I clawed at the wooden floorboards.

I grunted as part of a fingernail tore off. The tentacles were winning. They flipped me onto my back and began dragging me toward the creatures’ gaping beaks. As I passed beneath the cellar doorway, rain spattered over my face. I squinted against it. In the fog of pain, it took me a moment to realize someone’s silhouette was framed in the doorway.

A deafening blast broke through the cellar. The creature holding me screamed. Its tentacles recoiled, releasing me. Another blast went off, but I was on hands and knees now, crawling toward Lazlo’s body. I reached him and shook a dose of dragon sand over him.

“Fuoco!” I shouted.

I reared back, forearms to my face, as searing flames billowed from his body. The creatures’ screams turned to piercing shrieks. I turned in time to see their shadow forms breaking apart as the fire from the dragon sand consumed Lazlo’s body, slamming closed the portal.

I recovered my sword and looked up. A thick rope now dangled through the cellar doorway. Sheathing my sword and sliding the cane through my belt, I seized the end of the rope.

“Got it,” I called.

In a jerky motion, I began to rise. After ten or so feet, I was able to reach up and grab the doorway frame. Grunting, I pulled myself through. Olga, who was larger than she had appeared in the truck was staring down at me, rain dripping from the bill of her newsboy hat.

“I heard screams. I thought you fell into ruins.”

“Thanks.” I gained my feet, the places where the tentacles had seized me still burning