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

we must go together. That was why I chose you. Chose all of you.” He looked over at Gorgantha to include her. “It’s so clear to me, clear to me. The Upholders must face the forces of the demon apocalypse together.”

“But if we can disarm the site…” Caroline began.

Malachi shook his head, sending his hair in all directions. “No, no, no, no,” he repeated.

When he didn’t stop, I was afraid he was going to have a breakdown. “Malachi,” I said sharply, but he kept on. Bree-yark edged away from him, while Dropsy peered out cautiously from behind the woodpile.

But Caroline, who was on his other side, rested a hand on his back.

“Malachi, it’s all right,” she said in a soothing voice. “It was just a suggestion. We didn’t know.”

His words crumbled to sobs as he bowed his head to her shoulder. She stroked his head until it stopped shaking.

Eventually, he sat up. Tears wet the folds of his cheeks. In his eyes, I saw fifty years of fear, futility, and frustration. Even so, I checked him out again through my wizard’s senses. His aura was all over the place, but it was Malachi.

“The ones who chased us,” I said, “the soulless mobs. Have you encountered that before?”

Malachi sniffled. “From time to time, but not in those numbers. The Divine Power protects me, protects me and purges their evil.”

“You can say that again,” Gorgantha muttered, having just seen it in action and up close.

I wondered now if the demon Malphas had been using the soulless mobs to keep an eye on Malachi, only feeling threatened enough to deploy them en masse when we joined up with him. But what about the one who changed them?

“How about a demon?” I asked.

Malachi’s face darkened. “I’ve not seen any here.”

“Not even at the St. Martin’s site?” Caroline asked.

Malachi shook his head. “The energy I felt there was raw but not infernal.”

“Any visions?” I asked, hoping for some insights into this mystery demon’s doings.

“Of demons?” He let out a high laugh that verged on crazed. “That’s all I’ve been seeing. Nightmare visions of them flooding into the world. Wars, famine, pestilence, death. Billions of lives, of lives.” That seemed to line up with Tabitha’s premonitions that had her self-medicating with booze. Malachi swiped fiercely at the tears welling in his aged eyes. “We mustn’t let it happen.”

“We won’t,” I assured him.

“Not as long as I’m breathing,” Bree-yark put in, glancing at Gorgantha again.

I felt like a bastard for being disappointed Malachi lacked info on the mystery demon. His knowledge of the time catches alone was a game changer for us, huge. It was just that demons of Malphas’s caliber were incredibly hard to outmaneuver. And I couldn’t help but feel he was setting us up somehow.

“You mentioned something about a Night Rune,” I said. “What did you mean?”

The folds on the unburned half of Malachi’s face deepened. “Night Rune?” he repeated.

“Yes, back at the tavern. You said, ‘The elements of the Night Rune gather.’”

He gave me a pained look. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Tears stood in his eyes. “I don’t remember.”

“It’s all right,” I said before he could break down again. “Just let us know if it comes back to you. Night Rune.”

As he mouthed the words, I considered our next move. I was anxious to reach the St. Martin’s site, especially with the knowledge Malphas was mobilizing to stop us. But Malachi was convinced we needed to recover Seay and Jordan first, and I felt obligated to trust his Divine Voice. Maybe because he’d come around to my magic’s wisdom when it had led us to my grandfather in 1776. And Seay was only six miles away.

“What can you tell us about Seay and the other half-fae?” I asked him.

“They run a business in the settlement. Fashioning clothes from beaver pelts. Coats, capes, hats. Especially hats.”

“They worked in fashion in the modern era,” I explained to Bree-yark, who looked perplexed. “In the Garment District.”

“And you’ve encountered them?” Caroline asked Malachi.

“Oh yes, several times, several times. But Seay thinks I’m crazy.”

Before I could put the question to her, Caroline nodded at me. “I have enough power to restore her.”

“Good deal.”

And if all went well, we’d have twenty plus half-fae to help with glamours and enchantments, offloading the burden from Caroline. That made me feel better about recovering Seay before journeying to the St. Martin’s site. The question now, though, was how to approach the settlement and get our teammate alone.

Gorgantha backed from the cave entrance and spun toward the fire.

“Two boats coming downriver,” she whispered.

30

I spoke a Word, and the cave’s shadows deepened, cloaking us and reducing the firelight to a faint dance in the darkness. Gorgantha led us back to the mouth of the cave, where snow continued to slice over the Hudson.

“There,” she whispered.

Upriver, faint as ghosts, two boats were approaching. They were small, without sails, and as they drew nearer, I counted four paddlers in each.

“They’re fur traders,” Caroline said at my shoulder. “The front boat is Dutch made, the trailing one a canoe with native rowers, likely from one of the Algonquin-speaking tribes. Can you see the piles of pelts?”

“Yes, yes!” Malachi exclaimed.

One of the men stopped rowing and seemed to perk up. I clapped a hand over Malachi’s mouth, and the rest of the team instinctively drew back into the cavern even though the shadow invocation still hid us.

“We need to keep it down,” I whispered to Malachi.

His gray eyes flitted back and forth, still full of excitement. I waited for him to nod before removing my hand.

“Sorry,” he said in a rushed whisper. “But they’re going to New Amsterdam, to Seay!”

I watched the boats until the lead man resumed rowing. “How do you know?” I whispered back.

“When I was here before, I learned much about her operation, her operation. Most of the pelts are sold to merchants and shipped to Holland for tailoring into clothing for Europeans. But Seay and her friends created a local industry. She buys