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

She stopped, webbed hands pressed to the glass—and there was the faint pattern of the druid bond below her right thumb. Her orblike eyes searched until they found me again. I raised a hand to let her know I recognized her. But my mind was reeling. I needed to get her out of here, but how? Tonight, when the museum would be mostly empty? I pushed my palm toward her to say, Hang tight.

“Do a trick!” a woman shrieked.

Gorgantha’s mouth pulled to one side, and she thrashed wildly for the next several seconds.

That time, I caught the sparks. They had appeared in the back of the tank where a metallic box housed something. New York was still twenty years away from electrification, but not from the batteries that powered their telegraphs. Horror and rage stormed through me. They were shocking her.

The crowd began leaping now, faces shiny with elation, demanding more.

“C’mon!” I called to Bree-yark, and began shouldering my way down the row, making a special point of knocking patrons aside. A few protests went up, but most of the row was too transfixed on the stage to notice us.

I reached the aisle just as Gorgantha’s tank was hit with another charge. This time, she shot straight up, colliding into the tank’s sealed lid. Something dark and viscous spread from her brow—blood. I sprinted now, past the fist-pumping, throat-straining edges of a mob that wanted more, more, more. By now I could see the cable running from the tank’s box to the side of the stage.

Whoever’s at the controls, you just made the biggest mistake of your life.

I looked back to make sure Bree-yark was behind me. The stocky goblin, glamoured as a junior street tough, was shoving his way out into the aisle. A mustachioed man who took offense reached down and twisted one of his ears. Bree-yark responded by driving a fist into the man’s kidney, dropping him.

Attaboy.

By the time I straightened, a pair of young ushers had stepped between me and the stage. I didn’t slow. Inspired by Bree-yark, I thrust the blunt end of my cane into the first usher’s belly, then reversed direction and smashed the other one in the jaw with the handle. Unfortunately, I didn’t wield goblin strength, and the youth of nineteenth century New York were a hardier breed than your average Gen Z’er.

Grinning through bloodied teeth, the one I’d struck in the mouth answered with a roundhouse that caught me behind the ear. The theater swooned. The other usher stepped in and brought his fist up into my stomach.

As the air grunted out of me, Bree-yark arrived in my peripheral vision and tackled the gut-punching usher. But more were coming, eager for a fight. I hadn’t wanted to resort to magic, not yet, but…

“Protezione!” I called, hardening the air around Bree-yark and me. Then, “Respingere!”

The pulse from the shield blasted the ushers in all directions, sending several into the seats. The crowd’s attention was torn now between the spectacle on stage and the battle taking place in the aisle. Here and there, large men began wading toward us, laborers from the looks of them. Several pushed up their sleeves to reveal forearms as thick as cured hams. We were on the verge of a full-scale brawl.

In the tank, Gorgantha was thrashing from yet another shock.

All right, fuck this. Extending my cane, I shouted, “Forza dura!”

The emerging force didn’t crack the tank. It demolished it. In a cascade of crashing glass, the front half of the tank was no longer there. Screams went up as thousands of gallons of salt water surged toward the audience.

“Grab hold!” I said, showing Bree-yark my back.

He climbed on and wrapped me tightly. Aiming my cane at the ground now, I summoned another force. The explosive counterforce sent us airborne, and we sailed over the hump of water dumping off the stage’s lip and onto the first rows. Beyond the tank, I cushioned our landing with another invocation and came to a running stop. Bree-yark hopped from my back, and we both turned.

The water had already inundated the front of general seating. Entire families lay with their hair and clothes plastered to their bodies, children red-faced and shrieking. Beyond them, the audience was splashing and scrambling over seats—and one another—to reach the exits. The balcony levels were clearing out too.

My gaze dropped to the stage where the water had shoved Gorgantha’s massive form to one side. I feared now my invocation had harmed her.

Rushing toward her, I nearly tripped over the battery line that ran from the tank. I peered over, tracing the cable to the side of the stage where, at the controls of a small booth, the barker sat in his top hat and flannel suit. The man responsible for shocking Gorgantha. My eyes narrowed as a growl rumbled from my chest.

The barker swallowed. “Did you, ah, enjoy the show?”

“Check on your teammate,” Bree-yark said. “I’ll handle this clown.”

“Don’t go easy on him.”

“I wouldn’t know how.”

I continued to where Gorgantha was struggling to sit upright. At the sound of my approach, her fin-like ears cocked. She turned her head, dank hair spilling over one eye, until we were facing one another. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t the roar and swipe of a taloned hand that greeted me.

I skipped out of range and showed my palms. “Gorgantha, it’s me! Everson Croft!”

She glared up from a three-point stance, her free hand drawn back for another strike. I tried to read her uncovered eye. Fluid from the gash she’d suffered ran around it. She’d been staring at me earlier—I hadn’t mistaken that—but instead of recognition, her eye held a fog-searching quality.

It was as if my face should have meant something, but damned if she knew what.

I took a steadying breath. “I’m Everson Croft. We were on the same team. We called ourselves the Upholders. We were separated in a time catch in