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

water damaged and barely holding on by a staple. They were the lesson plans for my class all right, but why would he have labored over them if he’d planned on killing me the next morning? Another of his games, like debating me in class or going by a pseudonym that turned out to be a rearrangement of my own name? Whatever the reason, he’d clearly put thought into the plans, which was a godsend. Mental efforts imprinted almost as well as emotions.

I wasted no time building a casting circle and uttering the appropriate chants. Within minutes, wispy essence was curling from the pages into the opal end of my cane. The cane stiffened and kicked hard in my grip, as if hooking a fish. I pulled back until I had a clear direction and grinned.

Got you.

The hunting spell led me through Midtown until I was looking up at an iconic landmark. From the strength of the spell, I’d known Sven was close—so close that I dismissed my Sup Squad driver and jogged after the spell on foot—but I hadn’t been expecting the iconic entrance to Grand Central Terminal.

I passed under the Pershing Square Viaduct, entered the Terminal, and accessed the main concourse. From there, I followed the spell down a few ramps until it pulled me into a side stairwell. My chest started to tighten and my breaths to speed up—my longstanding phobia of going underground. The sounds of commuters and trains faded, and before long, I was in a restricted area of the station.

I crept down a steel staircase and through dust-covered machine rooms with giant rotary converters that once powered the old trains. Spots that could have been blood dotted the floor every few feet.

At a rusty metal door on which a faded “61” had been stamped, I realized where I was. The fabled Track 61, a hidden line that once spirited U.S. presidents from Grand Central to an elevator below the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Defunct for almost a century, it made for a great hiding place.

I inspected the riveted frame. On the floor, I caught the edge of a familiar sigil. Angular like the one Claudius had found in the aftermath of the explosion at my office, this one was intact and humming.

So Sven did set the trap yesterday.

After sliding my lesson plans under?

It didn’t make sense, but my priority right now was to find Sven.

I drained off the energy of the sigil and tested the door. It was locked, but a few grains of dragon sand in the keyhole remedied that. The melted bolt plopped to the floor as I eased the door open and pushed light from the shield enclosing me. The space beyond was bisected by a single track, a network of metal beams and pillars supporting the tunnel.

My spell tugged toward a lone box car in the center of Track 61.

I resisted the impulse to enclose the car in a sphere and pull out the available oxygen, rendering its occupant unconscious. If the door was warded, the car would be too, and that collision of magic could have ugly consequences. Right now Sven held the defensive advantage. Better to make him come to me.

“Sven Roe?” I called. “It’s Professor Croft.”

The words echoed briefly, the stuffy air down here quickly smothering them. Inside the box car, something scuffed.

“I’m alone,” I said. “I just want to talk to you.”

A moan grew into words: “Go away…”

Dark flames whooshed up on either side of the car and took humanoid forms.

Fire golems. Great.

And the two were armed with steel cables. I moved back as the lead golem lashed his cable, producing a whipcrack inches from my face. His buddy followed suit, his own crack leaving an imprint of flames in front of my retracted pelvis.

Sorry, guys, but Ricki may want another kid.

With a shout, I enclosed the lead golem in a sphere, while pulling a vial of ice crystals from a coat pocket. I’d gone to the ice well a couple times lately, but I was two for two, and if it wasn’t broke…

“Ghiaccio!”

A subzero cone blasted from the tube and engulfed the second golem in a plume of steam. Still shaky from last night’s beating, I struggled to maintain the two invocations while expelling oxygen from the sphere around the first golem. Sweat poured down the sides of my face and around my clenched jaw.

Shit, can’t do it.

With a gasp, I released the sphere, sending out a burst of flames. My ice attack wasn’t faring much better. The golem was bracing against the blast with folded arms, the fire at his core turning brighter as it pulled in more magic. I tossed away the exhausted vial and sidestepped, placing several pillars between us. The golems resumed their attack, their fiery cables sparking and clanging against metal.

I’d put down the landfill animation by dispelling the source of the magic, the metal box.

Probably in the box car, I thought, but Red and Hot here aren’t letting me get any closer.

Every time I stepped around, the golems did the same, blocking my path to the car and lashing their cables to keep me away.

I drew the sword from my cane. The light from the golems swam around the blade’s second symbol, the one for fire. The rune was potent enough that I’d only developed the capacity to really control it in the last couple months. But would it be powerful enough to absorb two fire animations?

One of the golems charged, giving me a chance to find out.

I grimaced against the bite of steel across my shielded back and drove my sword into his gut. Fire wrapped the blade. Aligned to the rune, I spoke its word. For a dizzying moment, I was back in the rock quarry holding the efreet, a primal white flame, the heart of all flames, flickering in her eyes. A sharp whoosh brought me back, and I blinked to find the golem twisting and diminishing into the rune.

It’s working, I thought through gritted