The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) by Brad Magnarella (best business books of all time txt) 📕

too, my heart pounding with anger and futility. There was no sense calling back. I would have had to go to her either way, but I’d hoped to convince her to usher her son someplace safe in the meantime. Vega wouldn’t be able to hide herself. With the binding nature of the hunting spell, the shriekers would draw a bead on her, not where she lived. The only positive to glean from our chat was that the creatures had yet to arrive. I still had time.

But first I had to face the nightmare version of the Bobbsey Twins and then get out before Dempsey and Dipinski arrived.

I squeezed Meredith’s arm until she opened her sealed eyelids. “I want you to lock the door after I step out and then stay here until well after the alarm stops. Do you understand?”

“Can’t I just leave?” she asked, tears threatening her mascara.

“The alarm probably went off for a reason. You’ll be okay as long as you stay in here.”

She didn’t need to see her professor battling a pair of creatures from the pits of hell, I decided. I only prayed that if I failed, those same creatures would bugle a mission accomplished and sail home, sparing Meredith and the others in the building a messy fate.

I gave my student a nod of reassurance, then slipped from the bathroom and closed the door. I waited for the knob to jiggle, indicating she had locked it, before replacing my ear shields. In the ringing of the sudden quiet, I took a steadying breath. Then I rounded the kitchen counter until the front door came into view.

At the sight of me, the shriekers went spazoid, scrabbling up the field with taloned feet, swiping it with gnarly hands, beating it with black-veined wings. The wards held, knocking the creatures against the far wall of the corridor, which was faring far worse. Blown-out plaster and sections of wainscoting littered the floor. Thankfully, no one from the building had come up to investigate. No bloody remains among the detritus, anyway. In post-Crash New York there was a name for those who had learned to keep their heads down: survivors.

Not an option for this New Yorker.

I strode forward until I was ten feet from the door, then drew my cane into sword and staff. Under most circumstances, I would be no match for these guys. I’d barely handled their kid brother. But wards and years of cumulative energy? There was my ticket.

“Soglia,” I whispered, aligning my energy with the defenses over my threshold. My plan was to release the pent-up power into the shriekers. A daisy bomb of magical energy. If that didn’t destroy them, it would weaken the creatures enough for me to finish them off.

I fixed my feet in a swordsman’s stance as I watched the shriekers, waiting for them to hit the threshold at the same…

“Liberare!” I boomed.

For a moment all of the energy seemed to be sucked from the room. I leaned back, the force pressing my coattail flat to my calves and flapping the sides toward the warping threshold. Hanging pictures rocked on their nails. Something shattered in the kitchen. The furniture began to slide toward the exit en masse. My leg muscles screamed as my planted soles stuttered.

An instant before I could topple forward—and conclude that this had been the worst idea ever—the doorway flashed like an exploding star. Mostly away from me, thank God.

I staggered from the violent release, blinking at the bursting afterimage. Then I righted myself and powered into a run. Through the dust of demolition, I could see the doorframe hanging from the wall. Beyond the threshold, a hulking shadow twitched on the floor.

Down, but not out, dammit.

I tossed my sword up to switch to an overhand grip. Arriving above the shrieker, I plunged the blade between the spot where its wings erupted from a back just human enough to be grotesque. A mewling cry sounded as black fluid bubbled over the striated muscles. Its wings flapped crookedly, the left one twisting around to get a hooked horn into me.

I leaned away and shouted, “Disfare!”

With a final mewl, the shrieker exploded in a torrent of black phlegm.

A gusher caught me in the face, the demonic scent blasting up my nose. Pawing for a clean section of coat to wipe away the mess, I could hear the remaining gobs pelting the length of the corridor.

I’d pushed more energy into the shrieker than necessary, but with the amount of adrenaline pumping, who could blame me? Plus, I needed to make sure it did the job. I just hoped I’d kept enough in the tank. There was still one shrieker to go, and it was clawing its way to its feet.

Sponging the remaining gunk from my eye sockets, I backed from where the shrieker had landed, down the corridor. I could hear it stumbling from wall to wall, its wings like the slapping of canvas sails, the beginnings of a wail from its nightmarish mouth an approaching squall.

I thrust my sword toward it and shouted, “Vigore!”

The middling force was sufficient to send the shrieker clattering back. I staggered over my threshold into the apartment to allow the last of the gunk to evaporate from my eyes. I had just blinked my sight clear when the shrieker appeared in the doorway, clawed hands gripping the blown-out frame. Its eyes, milky and goat-like, fixed on mine. There were no wards to keep it out. With a fresh scream, it shot forward.

I slid right and slashed my sword through one of its unfurling wings, tearing sinew and vessels before notching a black horn. The impact of metal on exoskeleton rang to my elbow. I grunted and spun away as the shrieker snapped its jaw of hooked teeth at my head.

Through the ear shields, I made out Meredith’s straining voice. “Is it okay to come out now?”

“Not yet!” I called back.

The shrieker went for me again, its talons scrabbling over the slick of its spilled fluids like