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

“Who shot him?”

“It’s, ah, sort of a long story, but it happened in the shadow present. He’s the reason I made it back. He grabbed and transported me somehow. He also has the box I recovered from the landfill.” I’d zipped Sven’s sleeping bag up again, but I could still make out the small lump between his knees.

“He was the one who stole it back from our apartment?”

“I won’t know that until I can talk to him, and that’s where I need some help. A couple years ago, you called your EMT friend when you needed blood. We met him in a garage really close to here, in fact.”

She had been shot by a gang boss at Ferguson Towers. I’d removed the bullet and commenced a healing spell, but she’d insisted on continuing before she had fully recovered, nearly passing out. That had been our second case together, and the first time I realized I had more than professional feelings for her.

“Larry,” she said. “He and his wife were at our wedding,” she added thinly.

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. Well, do you think he’d be willing to treat someone off the books?”

“Why off the books? If you’re worried about the NYPD, I can take care of that.”

So much had just happened, I’d nearly forgotten about the police efforts to find him.

“Because he’s hiding down here,” I said, glancing around the dark box car. “And I don’t think it’s just from the NYPD.”

“All right, where are you exactly?”

“An old line under Grand Central.”

“That explains the connection. Is there a place you can bring him safely?”

I peered out the car’s window. Even if I found my way back up, I’d be carrying Sven into one of the busiest train stations in the country. As my eyes traced the tracks into the darkness, an idea hit me.

“Can you call the Waldorf Astoria and ask if their elevator to Track 61 still works?”

Miraculously, the hotel had restored the elevator two months earlier with plans to begin offering tours of the historical oddity. After a hike down the tracks that involved shooing away rats and a wandering soul eater, I stood before a large metal door, cradling Sven, still in his sleeping bag. Machinery clanked and rattled somewhere overhead. Before long, the door opened to reveal a hefty gray-haired man wearing blue scrubs.

“This our guy?” Larry asked from behind a wheelchair.

“I really appreciate you doing this,” I said, carrying Sven past a mechanic and into a large cargo space. The elevator had been built to carry presidential limos.

“Well, when Ricki asks a favor…” Larry paused to help me set Sven in the chair. “…she doesn’t really let you say no, does she?”

“True enough,” I chuckled, shaking out my aching arms.

Once Larry buckled Sven in place, he wasted no time inserting an IV cannula into his arm and attaching a bag of blood and a bag of saline. As the bags began to fill their drip chambers, the mechanic sent the elevator up. I’d carefully placed the Hermes box in Sven’s pack, leaving the soup cans in the car, and I adjusted it on my back now. Larry used the slow, rattling ascent to check Sven’s vitals.

“How is he?” The strength of concern in my voice surprised me. But Sven’s youth coupled with the fact he’d pulled me from the shadow present made me responsible for him.

“Pressure’s a little low, but the fluids will fix that. You seem to have a knack for stabilizing gunshot victims.”

“Well, you learn from experience,” I hedged. Larry didn’t know about my magic.

When the elevator stopped, the mechanic had us transfer to a personnel elevator. After a couple floors, he handed us off to a hotel official, who showed us to a room being watched by plainclothes officers.

I didn’t know the rules on bragging about your spouse, so I didn’t say anything, but Vega had delivered on everything.

Larry wheeled Sven into the room, and the two of us lifted him onto a sumptuous bed. While I removed his sleeping bag and arranged the covers, Larry transferred the fluid bags to a bedside pole and hooked Sven up to a monitor. He administered an antibiotic shot to his shoulder and cleaned the wounds.

“Not nearly as bad as I was expecting,” he remarked.

As he sutured the healing wounds closed, he said, “Oh, hey, forgot to ask Ricki. How’d you like that thingy we got you for your wedding?”

“Oh, it was … great,” I replied, my face already warming. I had no idea what he was talking about. “Much appreciated.”

“Use it?”

“Yeah, a few times now.”

He turned to me, his brow creased. “How’s that possible?”

Before things could go from socially awkward to disastrous, Sven stirred and opened his eyes. Larry tied off the suture and clipped it. “He’s all yours,” he whispered. “If you need me, I’ll be outside.”

I waited for him to close the door before approaching the bed.

Sharpness was returning to Sven’s dark eyes. He peered at me, then around the room. I could all but read his thoughts, especially when he began feeling around his legs, the sudden movement jiggling the fluid bags overhead.

“It’s in here,” I said, raising his pack.

Sven stopped searching for the box, but wariness remained in his eyes. I placed his pack on a chair close enough to calm him. Hopefully, the box too. I didn’t need it throwing up any more guardians.

Sven stared at it for several moments, long enough for the bags to go still again, before licking his bottom lip and returning his gaze to mine. I caught the craving—needing something but wishing he didn’t. When I shifted my senses to the astral realm, I could see the threads now that bound him to the box.

He cleared his throat, bringing me back.

“Hi, Professor.”

32

“Hi, Sven,” I said. “But that’s not your name, is it? And you’re not really my student.”

I doubted he was nineteen either, but that wasn’t high on my concern-list at the moment. Though his eyes remained fixed on mine, I could