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

I was down to the dregs of my own potion when I caught movement near the mouth of the alley. Four figures were separating from a pile of garbage. I wheeled toward them, a shield crackling to life around us. Spiking another of my empty tubes against the pavement, Bree-yark fixed Dropsy to his belt and readied his bow.

The figures’ shambling approach had me thinking zombies, my mind quickly attaching them to Caroline’s warning about my hunter being from the realm of the dead. But as the figures entered an amber cone of streetlight, I could see wool hats, newspaper-stuffed coats, and dragging pant cuffs.

“Bums?” I asked.

“Glamoured fae,” Bree-yark answered.

Crap, he was right. A very thin, very faint sliver of magic glimmered around them. And the four were spreading out, blocking our escape. I glanced back. Beyond the chain-link fence two more glamoured fae were approaching. I peered up, weighing the odds of gaining a rooftop with a force invocation, but the buildings were too damned high. The group of four were about fifty yards from us and closing.

“Must’ve been staking out the nexus points,” I muttered, palming the cold iron amulet in my pocket.

“Yeah, either that or your friend set us up.”

“Listen, there are two behind us,” I said, ignoring his remark. “Can you take leftie?”

We needed to move this fight from what felt like a claustrophobic shooting range to somewhere with better cover. And the alley beyond the fence opened out in a series of angles in the buildings’ brick sides.

Bree-yark nocked an iron-tipped arrow. “Just give the word.”

Bolts of silver light slammed into my shield as the four approaching fae unleashed an attack. Our protection wavered and shed sparks, but courtesy of the neutralizing magic, it held.

“Now!” I said.

Bree-yark and I spun toward the other end of the alley, the goblin’s arrow already whistling from his bow. It threaded a diamond in the chain-link fence, and thudded into the shoulder of his target. The fae fell with a cry. Aiming my amulet to the right, I shouted, “Attivare!” A column of blue light shot from the charm and pummeled the second fae. He reeled backwards and went down with a hard splash.

I took off toward the fence, Bree-yark’s bare feet slapping at my heels.

More blasts nailed my shield from behind. I incanted to reinforce it, but the potion fortifying me against fae enchantments was nearly exhausted. Shaping a force from my reserves, I aimed my cane at the approaching fence. The booming release flattened it in eruptions of metal links and concrete.

Bree-yark and I trampled over the fence and between the two fallen fae. The glamours that had made them appear common vagrants were dissolving now, revealing the elvish blue-skinned beings they were. Henchmen from Angelus’s kingdom? The ease with which they’d gone down pegged them as lower-level, but there were still four at our backs, and my shield was starting to glimmer out.

With a muttered invocation, I took the hardened air and spanned it across the alley behind us. I then shoved Bree-yark toward a recess in the building to our right, while I stumbled toward the one opposite his.

“Use the light as a blind!” I shouted.

“What light?” Bree-yark barked back.

The fae’s next assault took down the shield in a brilliant curtain of sparks.

“Gotcha,” he said.

Nocking another arrow, he let it fly. The iron-tipped projectile punched through the light show and into the side of a disoriented fae, dropping him. Bree-yark let out a triumphant bark. “Want some more?” he called to the others.

I felled another fae with an amulet blast. But as my light blind glimmered out, the two remaining fae sighted on us. I ducked back an instant before a bolt nailed the corner of my building, blasting me with brick dust. Bree-yark poked his head out, then withdrew with a grunt as his own corner was hit.

We need another distraction.

I was wrist deep in a pocket of lightning grenades when the air warmed, and faint streams of gold and turquoise flowed past. When I noticed the fae had stopped firing, I peeked out cautiously. The lights were swimming around their heads. As the fae swooned and collapsed, the mesmerizing lights coalesced into the shape of a flowing hooded figure.

“It’s safe,” Caroline called to us, hardening into form.

Bree-yark looked over at me. Even across the alley, I could see the doubt in his eyes.

Raising a hand to tell him it was all right, I stepped from my cover. “Why the hold up?”

Glamoured in her male guise, Caroline strode toward us. “I was partway through the lunar door when I recognized the ambush. I backed out in time to escape detection and returned when their focus was elsewhere.”

I gave a dry laugh. “A little warning would’ve been nice.”

“Yeah, and you sure took your sweet time getting back here,” Bree-yark added.

“A lunar door holds the consciousness of its creator god,” she said. “Every passage requires a negotiation. I arrived as soon as I could.”

Bree-yark gave a skeptical grunt, but her claim lined up with what I’d read about lunar doors. She peered at the downed fae, then over at the hovering nexus. “The kingdom is covering all transport points,” she said. “Even potential ones. They’ll soon discover they lost their sentry. We must go straight to Arnaud.”

“We had a deal,” I said. “Vega first.”

Caroline trained her glamoured eyes on mine. “The kingdom suspects I’m in Faerie. Once they know I’m here, no amount of fae magic will hide me. If we’re to enter the time catch, it must be now.”

“Not before I talk to my fiancée.”

“Everson, there isn’t time.” Her plea sounded more human now than fae. “Please.”

I glanced over at Bree-yark, who had come up beside me, his face set in a scowl.

I was beginning to think we’d hit an impasse when something occurred to me. “What if I can keep you safe while I talk to her?” I asked.

The skin between Caroline’s brows