Night Rune (Prof Croft Book 8) by Brad Magnarella (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

“Crusspatch?” I called.

The man wore a colorful robe. Long white hair fell from under a stocking cap, draping his knees and nearly touching his slippered feet. A thick book lay off to one side, presumably dropped when he’d dozed off.

“Crusspatch?” I tried, more loudly.

When he didn’t respond, I eyed the threshold, then tested it with my cane. No protections, or at least none that I could feel. I wondered now if Crusspatch relied on his reputation to serve that function.

The other explanation, of course, was that someone had already breached his protections.

I moved the amulet across the cottage before stretching a leg over the threshold. Nothing blew up. Within a few cautious steps, I was close enough to prod Crusspatch’s shoulder with my cane. His head lolled, showing his face.

I jumped back, a scream wedged in my throat. The fae exile’s mouth was open, jaw canted to the side. But where his eyes should have been were blackened holes. The smoke corkscrewing from them carried the stench of sulfur.

A demon attack.

“You’re too late,” someone spoke in a low male’s voice.

Shouting the Word to activate my blade’s banishment rune, I dropped my amulet into a pocket and separated my cane into sword and staff. As I pivoted from the dead fae, my rune pulsed with holy power. But though the voice had spoken from mere feet away, I couldn’t see anyone in the sudden play of light and shadow.

“Show yourself!” I called, heart pounding through the words.

A scuff sounded, and a hooded figure who hadn’t been there a moment before stepped from behind the table. I pushed more power into the rune until the glow highlighted a blade-like nose and a chin of iron stubble.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

The hooded figure didn’t flinch from the light of banishment. “An ally.”

I opened my wizard’s senses, but a powerful cloaking spell covered him. I was only seeing him because he’d allowed it. Whoever he was, his presence near Crusspatch’s body couldn’t have been a coincidence. We were either talking powerful demon or the fae who had fallen under shadow.

“I need a name,” I said, pushing power into my wizard’s voice, “or so help me God, I’ll assume you’re a demon and treat you like one.”

“Yeah,” Bree-yark barked.

He arrived in the doorway, goblin blade glinting in my light. When the figure’s hands came up, I braced for an attack. But he drew his hood back by the sides. Dark hair spilled out, framing a rogue’s face with cunning black eyes. Regardless, I didn’t know him. Before I could say as much, he brought a finger to his lips.

“You once called me ‘Sub.’”

As I repeated the name to myself, the fae’s face began to smooth. His dark hair lightened and turned honey-blond. His lips filled out. I felt my sword arm sag as a pair of familiar, feminine eyes peered back at me.

Holy crap.

15

I’d given her the nickname “Sub” back when we had neighboring classrooms and I would show up late to find her teaching in my place. She had been Caroline Reid then, my friend, colleague, and crush. We’d made love once. Now she was a powerful princess who had bargained away her feelings for me.

She was also in the cottage of a dead fae.

“What are you doing here?” I asked carefully.

“Crusspatch was dangerous. He might have helped you, but not without harming you.”

I glanced over at the slumped figure in the chair. My last hope to access the time catch. “So you killed him?”

“I planned to intervene, not harm him. The deed was done before I arrived.”

Caroline held my gaze as if inviting me to weigh the truth of her words. Two years had passed since she’d helped me cast Arnaud into the Below. But having spent most of the intervening time in Faerie, she’d aged ten times that. While her face remained fae smooth, a certain hardness possessed her blue-green eyes.

Do not engage her, Angelus had warned. She is not herself.

I could feel the weight of the calling stone in my pocket. By holding it and speaking the word, I could summon him. As casually as I could, I moved the sword from my damaged right hand over to my staff hand.

“You’re supposed to be missing,” I said.

“My kingdom is compromised. I left of my own free will.”

“Compromised how?”

“A demonic presence moves among us.”

That jibed with what I’d gathered from Pip and Twerk’s warning, but I needed an assurance that she wasn’t the one doing the moving among. She remained strongly glamoured, either to hide from her kingdom or to conceal the truth from me, possibly both.

“Your husband’s looking for you,” I said.

Like I’d done with Angelus, I watched for her reaction, but she only nodded. “He doesn’t see the danger.”

“So you’ve been, what, hiding out in the Fae Wilds?”

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

I slipped the hand into my pocket. “Me?”

“Osgood said you would come here.”

My suspicions spiked. I hadn’t even been considering this trip when I’d gone to the fae townhouse that morning. But as my fingers closed around the stone, I realized that Osgood would have overheard the Upholders and me discussing the Crusspatch option the day he’d intruded on our meeting. With my aid from the fae cut off, he might have divined that I would revisit that option.

“Why not just go to my apartment?”

“The portals between our worlds are being watched.”

“Why are you helping me?” I asked pointedly.

“Because the demon threat is real, and the answer is in the time catch.”

My magic had given me its first strong assertion when I’d said the same thing to Gretchen that morning.

“How do you know?”

She peered over at Crusspatch’s body. “Because something is intent on preventing your return.”

“There are no other fae who can send me? What about Osgood?”

Despite my suspicions of her, fresh hope crackled inside me. If she had been in contact with Osgood, maybe the powerful fae butler was back in play. But Caroline quickly smothered the notion.

“The entire kingdom