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

“Holy thunder,” Bree-yark breathed, coming up beside me.

An enormous crowd had gathered around the museum, but now they were screaming and beating it the other way as animals from the live collection began spilling out. The albino tiger bolted down Broadway, a gaggle of men in pursuit, while the two-headed monkey scaled a building across the street in a shrill duet of chattering.

I glanced back to find Gorgantha peering past our heads, her lips set in a grim line. West of the museum, I spotted Biggs the ogre. He was holding the reins of an African elephant as if it were a pony, leading it to safety. Giraffes galloped past. My eyes cut back to the museum just as the rear section sagged.

“It’s still in there?” Maggie repeated, heat rising in her throat.

“Where’s Caroline?” I demanded. “The woman who was with us?”

Maggie would have had blood slaves watching the front door too.

“She never came out,” the vampire replied in a scorched whisper.

I staggered back with a wheeze as the chill energy of the vampiric bond gathered around my neck and squeezed.

“And neither did my locket,” she said.

25

“Everson, you all right?” Bree-yark asked.

I stumbled past him, reeling from the attack but also from the suggestion that we may have lost Caroline, not to mention our portal back to the present in Arnaud. With one hand, I clawed at the invisible bond cinching my neck. The other was already drawn into a fist, Grandpa’s ring aimed at Maggie’s face.

“Balaur,” I rasped.

But the expected boom didn’t follow.

“Ye made the deal willingly,” Maggie said, pushing herself to her feet.

I shook the ring and tried again, the Word emerging as a gasp this time, but she was right. Our agreement had effectively suspended the Brasov Pact, at least as it applied to the two of us. Now Maggie was using the energy of our broken agreement as a weapon to choke off my breath and voice.

“Not only did ye fail to produce my locket,” she said, “you’ve destroyed it.”

“Hey, what’re you doing to him?” Bree-yark shouted above his drawn blade.

But as he rushed Maggie, her orphans appeared and were suddenly all over him. The goblin swore as he struggled to free himself. More of the diminutive blood slaves headed off Gorgantha, who had begun circling the vampire’s blind side, her right fist cocked.

Hellcat Maggie’s inflamed eyes never left mine.

“Do ye know what ye destroyed?” she demanded, limping toward me. “What it meant?”

I gagged as she upped the strangling force. But driven by the fire’s intense heat, strong winds were gusting through the window now, tossing her hair. When a thick mass flipped across her eyes, I lunged forward and drove a heel into her prosthesis. Bolts snapped at the knee, and Maggie reeled.

I landed a forearm against her neck and pushed with my legs. Maggie’s failing prosthesis buckled into a backward stumble until I had her pinned against the stone wall. Casting may have been out, but my blade didn’t require words, and the tip was already buried in her sternum.

As smoke hissed from the penetration, Maggie’s body locked up, suggesting the blade’s silver edge had punctured a major vessel. Her head rocked back in a silent scream. Off to the side, Bree-yark and Gorgantha shook stunned blood slaves from them like they were rag dolls.

I adjusted my grip in preparation to cleave Maggie’s vampiric heart. Destroying her would mean losing a possible lead to an Upholder, but we’d already lost that in the bonfire that had once been Barnum’s Museum. And the broken agreement would continue to strangle me until either she called it off or I finished her.

“Don’t do it.”

Caroline stood in the doorway, her hood down from her golden hair. She stepped into the room, Arnaud behind her. Though I’d sensed she had escaped the blaze, the sight of her sent relief rushing through me.

“Withdraw your sword,” she said.

Can’t breathe, I mouthed back. Vampire bond.

She nodded as if she understood but then repeated her command. Hesitantly, I pulled the blade free. Maggie came to immediately. Her thrashing arms knocked me aside. I stumbled to a stop beside Bree-yark and Gorgantha, hoping Caroline knew what the hell she was doing.

The vampire took quick stock of the room, her eyes wild from her near death. When she sighted her assemblage of blood slaves, her lips twitched up at the corners. But the smile quickly abandoned her mouth.

“Well, go on!” she snapped, meaning for the slaves to attack us.

Instead, they began turning and facing the wall like punished children. I sensed Caroline’s subtle enchantment. Maggie must have too, because she trained her full glare on Caroline now, lips drawing from her filed teeth. Wresting a slave from a vampire’s control was considered deeply insulting.

“How dare ye,” she seethed.

But Caroline’s demeanor remained unchallenging. “We’ve fulfilled the agreement.”

“The fuck ye have.”

Caroline reached into her cloak and withdrew something on a slender chain. The change that came over Maggie’s face was immediate. One moment it was scrunched up and venomous; in the next, it was a child’s on Christmas morning.

Maggie stared at the locket that swung pendulum-like from Caroline’s fingers before heaving her damaged prosthesis into its first step. The vampire didn’t seem to notice her buckling gait or care. Caroline met the lurching vampire halfway. But when she held out the locket, Maggie paused.

“It’s no longer warded,” Caroline said, lowering it into her hand.

With the agreement fulfilled, the pressure left my throat, and I took several heaving breaths. Maggie touched the locket in her palm, as if to make absolutely sure it was real. I expected her to fasten it around her neck, but she placed it carefully in one of her skirt pockets. When she looked up, moisture sheened her eyes.

“It’s done, then.” Maggie said it like a thank you, but her tone quickly turned vampiric. “Ye can find yer fellow traveler at the Old Bell Tavern at seven o’clock this evening.” She reached into her skirt and tossed me something. I bobbled