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

Eldred had been handling just moments ago. The blade had grown along with the handle such that the weapon Eldred gripped in both fists was now taller than him.

His eyes glinted zealously. “You won’t win.”

“Funny, I said the same thing about you before coming. And since we can’t both be right…”

I blocked his next blow, which came in from the side, and thrust my staff. He grunted as the invoked force that emerged from the wood blasted him across the room. I chased him down, closing the distance as he landed on his back in a skid. Though he was a small man, and he wielded the scythe awkwardly, I’d felt the power in both blows. I didn’t want to absorb any more if I didn’t have to.

“Entrapolarle,” I called.

With no protective shielding to interfere now, the air around his head warped, hardening into an airtight sphere. Returning my sword inside my staff, I arrived above him as he was pushing himself upright. When he saw me, he struggled to raise the scythe into striking position. I grabbed the handle.

“Why don’t you let go of that before you hurt yourself?” I said.

From inside the sphere, he released a soundless scream, then struggled like a man possessed. His eyes bugged and his tumor shook as he fought to wrench the scythe from my one-handed grasp. He kicked at me several times, but his legs came well short of the mark. Blood streamed from his mouth where he must have bitten his tongue.

I could have squeezed the sphere into a small ball and ended it, but he was a vessel, much like Sven. Anyway, his efforts were only succeeding in exhausting his oxygen. Even with the weaker energy here, I could keep the sphere airtight for as long as it took, which was only a matter of seconds now.

There we go.

His legs buckled, and he dropped to his knees. But by some fanatical reserve, he was still gripping the scythe, his fingernails caked with the blood offering he’d tried to shove back into the vat.

I touched my cane to his chest and released a minor force. His back slapped to the floor, head banging against concrete, and the scythe was mine. I could feel prodigious power humming the length of it, disorganized though that power was at the moment. The scythe needed to be destroyed here and now.

I was striding toward the vat, already digging in my pocket for my most important potion, when someone shouted, “Stop!”

I looked over and swore.

Shadow Vega had entered the basement and was approaching in her characteristic sidestep, service weapon aimed with both hands. Not enough time had passed for her to recover from the sleeping potion, meaning she’d escaped the temple room, only returning again when the mist had cleared. Backup must have helped her take the door down, but she’d entered alone, no doubt against her superiors’ wishes.

“Drop the weapon,” she ordered.

She was glancing around as she advanced, her professional eyes absorbing the scene. The cavern underworld may have thinned to almost nothing, but there was still plenty to look at: the toppled vat, the spilled organs and running blood, the mortician’s table, where Ludvig lay supine. Eldred was also out on his back—and I’d been walking away from him with a giant scythe over my shoulder.

“I know how this must look,” I said.

“Yeah, fucked up,” she snarled. “Like that stunt you pulled upstairs.”

But she was moving her weapon between me and Eldred now. That was progress.

“This is where he was storing the organs of his victims,” I said, nodding at the fridge. “And that’s Ludvig Lassgard, victim number four. It was a ritual sacrifice. The gloves he used are in that bin. There should be evidence all over them.”

“I still need you to drop the weapon and surrender,” she said firmly. “The investigation will sort everything out.”

“No it won’t, and you know that.”

Though her eyes appeared hard on the surface, I recognized the emotions swimming underneath: a mixture of defiance and despair. She’d joined the NYPD for noble reasons, only for her unit to be treated like a goon squad for the powerful. I didn’t know the extent of Eldred’s power here, but he and his Society clearly had pull with the police, either directly or through higher-ups in the city.

Vega was opening her mouth when the entire basement rocked. She staggered back, and I stumbled for my own footing, eventually going down.

Around me, the basement was becoming the cavern again. I may have cleared the space of the orphan energy, but the ritual had sent up enough of its own potency for the Cronus entity to resume his arrival. Regardless, the scythe was the focus element, and the objective remained the same. Destroy it.

“What’s going on?” Vega shouted.

“Stay put!” I shouted back.

I gained my feet as the shaking fell to tremors. I tried not to look at the mess around the vat as I righted it and pulled a tube from my pocket. Uttering the activation word, I spiked it into the large container. The tube shattered, and the iron gray liquid inside grew, steaming and bubbling, until it filled the entire vat. Thin green currents of enchantment-busting magic swam through the thick medium.

I plunged the scythe inside, blade first.

Now for the catalyst. As I drew my sword, shots cracked.

For an instant, I thought they were meant for me, but I looked over to find Vega aiming her weapon into the darkness, backing away from something. High above the floor, a serpentine head lunged, hissing, from the void. Another followed, and then ten more. A massive hydra lumbered into view.

Great, the ritual also restored the shifter, I thought, recognizing the eyes.

“Come to me!” I shouted at Vega, but the call was lost to her next series of shots.

I manifested a wall of hardened air between her and the hydra, then turned back to my work. The scythe stood on its head inside the bubbling vat, but the potion would need intense heat to