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

across the room and clambered up the ladder to my library/lab, my mind going a mile a second. What if the perp wasn’t translocating, but using a parallel reality to travel in and out of this one? How I’d ended up in that reality was another question, but the golems would have to wait.

I had research to do.

19

My phone’s ringtone broke my concentration. I looked up from my book-heaped desk and hunted for the phone, finding it in the pocket of my coat, which I’d slung over the back of the chair. The caller was Vega.

“Hi, hon,” I answered.

“Are you on your way?”

“On my way where? Oh, crap.” I drew the phone back to check the time. The lecture at the Discovery Society started in twenty minutes. “Ah, not quite. I’m going to put you on speaker while I get ready.”

I grabbed my notes and scrambled down the ladder.

“I’m at my brothers’ place,” she said, making me think for a second. That’s right—Tony was going to spend the week there. “I’m staying for dinner. Call me when the presentation ends, and I’ll pick you up on my way home. Hoffman said you found something in the stomach contents?”

Tabitha’s ears flattened at the sound of Vega’s broadcast voice. “God, she’s here even when she isn’t,” she complained.

I entered my bedroom and closed the door. “Sort of,” I said, telling Vega about the weakness of the hunting spell and how it would need to come within fifteen feet of the potion to get any kind of reaction.

“Maybe your golems will get lucky,” she said, echoing what I’d told Hoffman.

“Well, I sort of got sidetracked and never made them. When I came home earlier, I stepped into a shadow present.”

“A shadow what?”

Tossing the phone onto the bed, I started pulling clean clothes from the closet. I checked both corners to make sure no one was hiding inside.

“The idea is basically this,” I said. “Our reality unfolds in a linear sequence. Point A to B to C and so on. But in fact, reality is a sequence of probabilities—what’s most likely to happen in any given moment. The probabilities that don’t become our reality don’t just fail to appear, though. They live on as alternate realities, shadows of the one we know. Less real, but still there. Are you with me so far?”

“I think so.”

“Well, I first read about shadow presents in a book on soothsaying. The reason good diviners are as rare as hen’s teeth is because they have to distinguish between reality and probable realities, often over a span of years or decades. One wrong turn, and they’re chasing events through a shadow realm that will never manifest.”

That was why I was trying not to dwell too much on the Doideag’s prophecy about my death or even the war she’d mentioned.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Vega said.

“The thing is, I didn’t know these realms could be visited outside of soothsaying, but that’s exactly what happened to me this afternoon. I opened our door and, bam, I was in a shadow present. Physically. The apartment was here, but another family was squatting in it. They were hiding in our bedroom, in fact—a man, woman, and a couple kids. Anyway, when the episode ended, I was in our actual bedroom. Tabitha confirmed I never entered the apartment. I manifested from a probable reality back to our present one.” Even though I’d experienced it myself just a few hours earlier, the idea still seemed impossible.

“But … how?” Vega asked.

“That’s what I’ve been looking into. Turns out there’s one recorded case of shadow travel, and it goes back to an ancient Greek cult. The Atticans.”

“The one whose markings were on the box?”

“Yup, the Hermes devotees. The info on them is scant, but they were connected to a thieves’ guild. Hermes was a patron of thieves among other things—including border crossings. Through worship of the Hermes essence, and with the help of powerful magic, the cult may have developed the ability to cross in and out of the shadow present.”

“Must’ve been one hell of a thieves’ guild.”

“Right? A disappearing hoagie taught me that objects can be moved between the realities. Meaning that whatever the thieves stole could be shifted undetected through a shadow reality. I’m betting that’s how the perp got my box. He entered the apartment through the shadow present, manifested in my lab long enough to seize it, and then left the way he’d entered. I couldn’t find much more on the cult except that they were executed en masse, probably for their crimes. But they must have endowed their magic in an object for it to still exist. Dollars to donuts, that’s what was in the box.”

“Do you still see a connection to the Goldburn murder?”

“In my gut, yeah. I just haven’t worked out the hows yet.”

“Well, I’ll run interference on Hoffman until you do. But I still don’t understand how you entered this shadow present.”

“I haven’t quite figured that part out yet either. The perp’s passage into my lab may have left a weakness in the boundary, one my wards preserved somehow. I haven’t had time to check it out.”

“So anyone could accidentally step through it?” she asked, concerned.

“Or maybe it takes a magical bloodline to trigger. I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that I’ve found the answer to not only protecting our apartment, but catching the perp.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’ll set a trap in the shadow present.”

“You mean go back to that other apartment?”

“If the perp wants me, that’s the route they’ll have to take to get past my wards.” Dressed now, I slipped the phone into my shirt pocket, checked myself in the mirror, and left the bedroom.

“But how would you even get there again?” she asked.

“If my theory about the weakness in the boundary is right, there are a couple things I can try when I get back tonight.” I waved goodbye to Tabitha, who responded by closing her eyes. Grabbing my coat and cane, I stepped