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

We caught a taxi from what turned out to be a neighborhood north of Harlem. Caroline enchanted the driver so he wouldn’t see anything that would stand out in his mind, least of all a goblin holding a lantern that couldn’t sit still. The enchantment also gave Caroline and me the opportunity to discuss our plans openly.

When we reached 1 Police Plaza, I arranged passes for Caroline and Bree-yark and had the guard alert the Basement we were on our way. As we stepped off the elevator, I greeted the members of the Sup Squad. Armed and armored with Centurion’s monster-slaying tech, they looked formidable.

“How’s he doing?” I asked, referring to Arnaud.

“Doing?” one answered brusquely. “He’s just sitting there.”

Another gave me a look that suggested having six of them on the prisoner was a waste of personnel. The exchange reminded me how, underneath their impressive gear, the members of the Sup Squad were still very human. I thanked them anyway and led Caroline and Bree-yark into the holding area.

“Here it is,” I said to Caroline, opening an arm toward the cell beside Arnaud’s.

The day before it had held a newly minted vampire, released when the Sup Squad gunned down his master, restoring the young man’s humanity. The cell featured some of my most powerful wards. But more important in Caroline’s case were the dislocation sigils that would hide her from the rest of Faedom.

She looked them over now and nodded. “Yes, this will do.”

“I’ll power down the holding wards, but with the way everything is configured, other wards will have to stay up.”

“I understand.”

Caroline waited for me to perform the incantations before stepping inside. She took a seat on the bench against the back wall, the wards dissolving her glamour. Her hair and eyes lightened inside her hood, taking on the colors I knew.

I left the door open—there was no need to lock her inside. Still, she was putting a lot of trust in me. Maybe it was in the hopes I would reciprocate.

“She’s not being held,” I reminded the two officers at the desk. “This is just temporary.”

One nodded her understanding, but the male officer became distracted by Bree-yark. After making a circuit of the holding area, the goblin had hopped onto a chair and was massaging his right foot. Dropsy, whom he’d set beside him, hopped around the chair, training her light this way and that.

“Oh, they’re with me,” I said.

“Apparently so,” the male officer grunted.

“Hey, would you mind calling Detective Vega?” I asked.

I was not looking forward to our talk. Anything that involved keeping Arnaud alive was going to be thorny, but taking him with us into the time catch? I could already see the blowtorches in Vega’s eyes. But before either officer could lift a phone, footsteps entered the holding area.

“You don’t need to call her,” she said. “I’m right here.”

17

“I came this close to phoning your emergency contacts,” Vega said.

“Yeah, sorry about that. The portal we took back from Faerie shuttled us forward in time. Sort of a long story.”

“I’m just glad you’re back. Saw you on the monitor coming in.”

As I crossed the holding area to meet her, the skin across my girlfriend’s brow looked as taut as a drum. I felt horrible for worrying her, and here I was, about to hit her with more worry. But any inclination I had to back off was met by Mae Johnson’s stern admonition: You need to figure it out together.

I wrapped Vega in my arms and gave her a full-bodied hug. She reciprocated with a powerful embrace of her own. “I see you’re with Bree-yark and not the Upholders,” she said. “Was the time catch a bust?”

“Yes and no,” I sighed as we separated.

“All right, I recognize those bad-news eyes.” She circled her hand for me to spill it.

“The fae are compromised. Probably by Malphas. When we got to Crusspatch’s place, he was dead. Murdered. No doubt to deny my passage back to the time catch. Malphas must need more time for whatever he’s doing in there.”

“So what does that leave? Anything?”

“Well…” I shifted my gaze over to the cells.

Her eyes followed before cutting sharply back to mine. “Arnaud?”

“He has a direct line to the time catch that we can access.”

“So you’ll be depending on that scumbag to get you there?”

“And back,” I added.

“No. He’s not leaving that cell unless it’s in a dustpan.”

“I’ve tried everything else,” I said. “Claudius, Gretchen, the fae. It stinks to high hell, but this is what’s left.”

Gripping her arms across her body, Vega looked away and exhaled hard through her nose. “How long have you known?”

“I’m sorry?”

“How long have you known he offered a way back?”

She hadn’t taken the Arnaud news well, and now she suspected I’d withheld info. Which, of course, I had.

When her eyes returned to mine, they were hard as obsidian. Would she consider my admission endangering Tony? Our unborn child? Once more Mae’s frowning face appeared in my thoughts, nodding for me to go on and tell her. I opened my mouth. But before I could get the first word out, someone else spoke.

“I told him.”

I turned to find Caroline walking toward us. The hood of her cloak was down, and though her golden hair and cyan eyes were less radiant than they’d been in Faerie, they still suggested the supernatural.

“And you are…?” Vega asked.

“Caroline Reid,” she said, a hand appearing from her cloak as she arrived in front of us.

When Vega took it stiffly, I realized this was the first time the two most significant women in my adult life had met. And yet they couldn’t have been more different—an academic turned fae royalty and a child of the projects turned NYPD detective. Surreal didn’t come close to describing it.

I also noticed Caroline had used her maiden name.

“I think I remember you,” Vega said. “Reported missing a couple years ago?”

I looked between them in confusion, even more so when Caroline replied, “Yes.”

Holy crap, that’s right. The night Caroline had