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

world anymore.” For the first time, a kind of vulnerability crept into her eyes. She was asking for her son and our daughter.

I squeezed her hands again and nodded. “Done.”

“So who’s going with you besides Caroline?”

“That would be me,” Bree-yark said, jumping up from his chair and hustling over. Dropsy hopped to catch up. “Oh, and of course this little girl. She’s good luck.” When he stopped to lift her, she kicked excitedly.

“A pet lantern?” Vega asked.

“She’s enchanted,” I said. “We found her at Gretchen’s.”

Vega nodded as if that explained everything. “Have you considered support? I could arrange a unit to go with you.” She cocked her head toward the members of the Sup Squad. “Help you keep an eye on Arnaud.”

“Their weapons and tech can’t make the journey. And without that stuff, they’d be more liability than asset.” I thought again of how human they were beneath their cutting-edge equipment.

“I’ll be all the support he needs,” Bree-yark told Vega with a hint of insult.

“She’s looking out for all of us,” I said. “Anyway, you’ve helped enough. You don’t—”

He thrust a palm at me, cutting me off. “Can it, Everson. You’re not gonna shake this runt. I admit, I don’t get everything that’s happening here, but if it affects Faerie, it affects goblin-kind too. Besides, I started this thing with you, I’m gonna see it through to the flaming end. Debate over.”

Vega smirked. “How can you argue with that?”

“I’m not even going to try,” I said.

Bree-yark craned his thick neck around. “Is there a bathroom down here? I think the raisin bran just caught up with me.”

“That way,” Vega told him.

As Bree-yark hurried off, I said, “If nothing else, he’ll be good company. And when we locate the Upholders, we’ll have immediate reinforcements. Plus, there’s the time catch version of my grandfather. If we need him, I know where to find him. We’re going to have all the support we can handle.”

“Still, it’s Arnaud,” Vega said. “He escaped Hell.”

“Which means I’ll be more careful with him than ever.”

Vega squinted toward his cell. Though we could only see a sliver of window from our angle, the demon-vampire hadn’t approached it. He remained in the back, waiting. Taking him into the time catch was the right call—I still believed that—but a part of me hadn’t stopped recoiling at the idea.

“So, what now?” Vega asked.

“We build our portable trap,” I said.

And make it damned strong.

18

I slick-gripped the door handle and pulled until only the oscillations in the charged air separated me from the demon-vampire.

“Mr. Croft,” Arnaud said from the back of the cell. “How nice to see you.”

The grin below his predatory stare caught slightly as I stepped through the wards. He hadn’t expected me to enter. Up close, I could see the sunken skin around his eyes better. Less than twenty-four hours after being cut off from the infernal realm, and he was starting to waste away. The demon-vampire kept his composure, though, back erect, thin fingers laced around his folded knee.

“I trust your outing was fruitful?” he asked.

“After giving the matter careful consideration,” I recited stiffly. “I’ve decided to enlist you in accessing the time catch.”

His eyes snapped past me to the two members of the Sup Squad positioned outside the door, weapons aimed. They were wearing noise cancellers inside their helmets in the event he tried to talk to them. His grin steepening, he returned his attention to me.

“Of course you have,” he purred. “Just as I foretold it.”

“Good. Then I’m going to need you to stand and face that wall.”

Arnaud chuckled. “You seem to be missing a key point, Mr. Croft. I am the sole proprietor of an asset you urgently need. More so now with the time you’ve squandered. Am I to surrender something so valuable without talk of recompense? Oh, no. That’s not how this is to go at all. Indeed, I have some terms.”

“Stand and face the wall,” I repeated.

Anger flashed in his eyes, and he released his knee. “I will not be talked to like a—”

“Balaur!” I shouted.

The power I’d been withholding detonated from Grandpa’s ring and drove Arnaud’s flailing body into the rear wall. The cell’s ward repulsed him, throwing him against the side wall, and then the wall opposite. Each collision wrung a scream from his scorched body. At last, he slumped at my feet, smoke drifting from his tangled robe.

I’d hoped the son of a bitch wouldn’t cooperate.

Even so, I had held back. We needed him alive.

Dropping a knee onto his low back, I pulled a set of manacles from the rear of my pants. Arnaud moaned as I secured his wrists and then clamped a connecting manacle around his neck, covering the brand of his master. A warded muzzle went over his mouth, and I cinched it as tightly as I could.

I never wanted to hear that fucking voice again.

The restraint system was one of several implements I’d custom-made for the NYPD for use on supernaturals. With a few modifications it would be suitable for Arnaud.

From a pocket, I produced a pen with a tungsten carbide tip and began scratching out sigils in the restraint’s alloy metal while uttering charged words in a long-dead language. The essential energies of the cell funneled through me and into Arnaud’s new confinement. When I finished, I tested each sigil, then hauled Arnaud to his feet.

“You want recompense?” I whispered in his ear. “How about no one gives a shit?”

I dragged him from the cell and threw him onto the polyethylene sheet I’d pulled from my cubbyhole and spread over the floor. He collapsed into the casting circle and pulled himself into a tremulous ball. I retrieved my coat and cane and walked over to where Vega and Bree-yark were watching.

Caroline’s turn.

As she knelt behind him, Arnaud’s gaze rolled up to her. Recognition seemed to take hold. He looked over at me, eyes staring with a kind of bloodshot desperation. I returned a smirk and a shrug.

We had cleared the basement of extra officers,