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

“Fine, then,” Mimi said. “Shall we have a seat?”

“I ate … uh … I mean, I already had two for breakfast.”

Bree-yark, who had seen enough, jumped to his feet. “This is an outrage!” he shouted.

Never mind his fear of ogres or that he couldn’t stand pixies. They were all on team Faerie, and as far as Bree-yark was concerned, these two were making a fool of said team. Thankfully, his protest was buried under another tempest of stomping and laughter, and I managed to pull him back to his seat.

“This has already happened, remember?” I said between gritted teeth. “Causing a scene changes nothing.”

He shifted like an unruly kid, hands balled into fists. “I still don’t have to like it.”

“Then close your eyes and plug your ears.”

Following a few more rounds of give and take, Mimi climbed onto Biggs’s lowered hand to show that they were, in fact, good friends, and they bowed. The crowd gave them a standing ovation as the curtains closed again.

“How about that Mimi?” the barker asked, hustling back to the fore. “I wouldn’t want to try putting anything over on her.”

Bree-yark gave me an exasperated look.

The barker’s voice dropped an octave. “Now it’s time for a journey to the mysterious, the esoteric, the arcane. And by that, of course, I mean magic. P.T. Barnum discovered him in a castle perched above the blackest forest in Prussia, perfecting his secret art. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome…”

I leaned forward in my seat.

“…Asmus the Great!”

A bolt of exhilaration shot through me. This time the curtains didn’t part. Instead, a door opened on the side of the stage and out walked a tall man in a top hat, shiny black shoes, and long swallowtail coat. The limelight followed him as he approached the barker, who stood waiting, right hand extended.

“Great to see you again, Asmus.”

But instead of shaking hands, the magician pulled a wand from inside his coat. Thrusting it toward the barker, he boomed, “Sparire!”

A burst of smoke engulfed the rotund man to the shock of the spectators. Producing a handkerchief, seemingly from thin air, the magician waved it until the smoke dispersed. Predictably, the barker was gone. The collective gasps quickly morphed into an appreciative swell of applause.

“Your grandfather’s pretty good,” Bree-yark said.

“Yeah, but it’s not him,” I said, disappointment collapsing around the words.

“What d’ya mean? They introduced him as Asmus, right?”

“The eyes. My grandfather’s were pale blue. Even in the full light, this guy’s are way too dark. Plus, his proportions, his movements—they’re all wrong.” Grandpa had probably already come and gone by this time, but they were still using his name for continuity. Maybe to save on printing.

“What about the magic?” Bree-yark said. “He made that guy disappear.”

“Stage magic.”

I’d seen the smoke erupt from the floor and the curtain rustle prior to the barker vanishing. More applause sounded now as the magician passed the handkerchief through his other hand, changing the square of cloth from white to red—and then revealing that it was but the first in an endless stream of colorful cloths. A tired trick in the modern era, but no doubt still new in the 1860s.

“Sorry, man,” Bree-yark said.

“Well, it’s not necessarily a dead end. I’ll catch the barker after the show, see if he knows where I can find the real Asmus.”

We sat through the rest of the act, which included more sleights of hand and stage trickery. All well executed, but I was still bitter over him not being Grandpa. For the finale, the magician pulled a kicking white rabbit from his top hat, showed it to the audience, then transformed it into a small flock of doves that went flapping into the rafters. As he paced back toward the side door, the applause was thunderous.

Just before disappearing, he turned and tossed something. A plume of smoke went up in the middle of the stage, and the barker stumbled out in pretend confusion before gaining his footing and fixing his hat.

“I just had the strangest dream,” he told us.

Bree-yark let out a chortle before catching himself and resetting his jaw.

“And finally,” the barker said, “our most recent acquisition. Discovered in the Pacific Isles, this creature took more than thirty native sailors to capture, six of whom lost their lives, God rest their swarthy souls. But now, claimed, detained, and mostly tamed, I present to you the incredible, the horrifying … Fiji Mermaid!”

The curtains parted on a water-filled tank that must have taken the entire last act to roll onto center stage. The audience fell silent and, starting with the front row, rose to their feet in a hypnotic wave. I followed, my breath catching at the sight of a muscled being with razor-sharp fins and turquoise skin suspended beyond the glass. From inside a floating mass of dark hair, a pair of orbs stared back at me.

It was Gorgantha.

23

I picked up snatches of the crowd’s murmurs. They wanted to know whether the mermaid was alive or dead or even real. But Gorgantha was alive, and she was damned sure real. I could see the gills below her jaw—seamless lines when she was out of water—open now and cycling oxygen. And there was no mistaking that her eyes were fixed on mine. Waves of relief and sickness hammered me from all sides.

How in the hell had she ended up in here? Were the others around?

“What’s going on?” Bree-yark demanded, straining on his tiptoes to see over the shoulder of the man in front of him. “What is it?”

“An Upholder,” I said.

“One of yours?” He climbed onto his seat and turned to face the stage. “Holy thunder.”

By now, the crowd’s confusion was turning to impatience. The spectacle of the Fiji Mermaid was one thing, but they didn’t want her just floating there. They wanted her doing something.

“Swim!” a man’s vulgar voice shouted. Others in the audience took up the call.

As if in response, Gorgantha’s body spasmed, and with a thrash of her legs and tail, propelled herself to the other