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

“Save it for someone who needs it,” he barked.

He snuck a peek at Gorgantha, clearly wanting to impress her. I hoped he wasn’t forgetting Mae, but this felt more like hero worship than attraction. At least he hadn’t mentioned Gretchen again.

Gorgantha remained near the mouth of the cave, water puddling around her feet following a plunge in the river to rehydrate.

“Aren’t you freezing?” Bree-yark asked her.

“For a New England mer, this is beach weather. That fire would dry my scaly ass out. I’ll keep watch on the river.”

Appearing disappointed, Bree-yark pulled Dropsy from his pouch and set her in the spot he’d apparently been saving for his new idol. The lantern peered around, but soon abandoned the fire ring to explore the rest of the cave. Across the flames, Malachi was back to muttering and ticking his fingers.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

When he saw the rest of us watching, he chuckled nervously and stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. I realized it was the same jacket—hell, the same everything—he’d entered the original time catch with. Nothing else would have made the transitions, much like the watch Maggie had given me. Gone now.

“I have a system for keeping track of the time catches,” he explained. “Where to get in, where to get out.”

“How did you find the interfaces?” Caroline asked.

“Some through wandering, others by divine inspiration.”

Malachi used to have dreamtime visions, and I wondered now if the power that had boosted his banishment abilities had also done the same for his divine sight. It might also have helped preserve his clothing.

“How many time catches are we talking?” Bree-yark asked.

“Oh, hundreds probably,” Malachi said offhandedly. “Most are from long ago, before there were people. I avoid those, but sometimes you have to go through one to arrive at another, to arrive at another.”

Despite the repeats, he seemed more coherent than he’d been back at the tavern before Caroline’s intervention. But I still wanted to test him. “Do you remember entering the first time catch with the rest of us?”

“That was a long time ago, but yes. I remember being worried about the British soldiers, the British soldiers.”

“How long is long?” Caroline asked.

He searched the ceiling of the cave, lips pursed. “Fifty years?”

“Holy thunder,” Bree-yark muttered.

I exchanged a glance with Caroline before saying, “You’ve been in the time catches for fifty years?”

“I’m estimating, but around that, yes.”

“What have you been doing?” I pressed.

“At first, looking for you and the others, the others. I don’t remember quite how, but we were separated. You went after a demon, I think…” He trailed off. “Is that him?”

I followed his gaze to Arnaud, whom I’d sat on the floor beside me. Above his muzzle, hollow eyes stared at the flames. His infernal energy had dipped, likely from exposure to the extreme cold. I was hoping the heat would restore him.

“Long story, but yeah,” I said. “And we need to protect him, keep him warm. He’s our ride home.” I cinched Arnaud’s wrist restraints, which had begun to loosen around his emaciating limbs.

Turning to Gorgantha, Malachi continued his story. “You swam to the city for something. And, and Seay and Jordan had a fight. Went their own ways.” He paused as though searching deeper inside his memories. “The Divine Voice was telling me that worlds were on a collision course, collision course. I only understood when I crossed into another time. It took me years to find the others.”

Gorgantha made a confused face. “I was in that museum months, not years.”

“It was different for you,” Caroline explained. “You only passed through two time catches. Malachi here has transitioned through hundreds, each one with a different temporal structure. And all warped.”

I was still trying to get my brain around the concept, but I was a professor of mythology, not theoretical physics.

Malachi continued as if we hadn’t been talking. “The thing was, I couldn’t make any of the Upholders recognize me. Tried everything I could think of, could think of. Went back more times than I can count. They thought I was drunk or, or crazy. But the Divine Voice kept saying I needed them, needed them.” He wrung the dingy end of his jacket in frustration. The burned skin where his symbol had been gleamed in the firelight. “Then the Divine Voice told me to find the St. Martin’s plot.”

“The 1776 one?” I asked to be sure.

“Yes, the burned one. There are a few others, a few others, but a church occupies those sites in one form or another.”

Making it too dangerous for the demon Malphas to attempt to manipulate that ley energy, I thought. Hence the focus on the 1776 site, after faith had shaped the fount and the Great Fire had torn down the channeling structure.

“That’s where the demon apocalypse would commence, the Divine Voice told me,” Malachi continued. “It took me twenty years, maybe more, but I finally found it, found it. A platform had been built.”

I sat up a little straighter. “A platform? On the site?”

“Or what looked like a platform. I couldn’t get close enough, close enough to tell. When I tried, I was met by a force. Felt like my skin was melting from my bones, my soul shaking loose. The energy was so raw, so intense.” He drew his burned hand into a fist, the passion of old returning to his eyes.

It sounded as though the copper plates were active, directing ley energy back at the massive fount, making it too strong to approach. I wondered now if the smarter course was to journey to the St. Martin’s site first. We could shut down the plates, effectively thwarting Malphas’s plans. That would also introduce some stability to the time catches. Who knew how much longer these realities would remain solvent?

“What if we went there now?” I asked Malachi.

A dreadful look came over his face. “Now?” He drew his fingers down his scraggly cheeks. “No, no,