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

I backed from the church threshold on shaky legs.

“He still has it,” Zarko announced.

Time’s up, I thought.

With the rapid patter of leather soles closing, I launched into a run and shouted, “Penetrare!” Light in the form of an arrow’s head took shape around my cane. Holding it in front of me, I stooped low, shoved with my right foot, and plunged head first into the roaring threshold.

44

I didn’t hurt. There was nothing to hurt. I was disembodied, detached. Anchored to no one and nothing. I drifted without sight, sensing darkness all around. The darkness seemed to shift like the black sands of a far-off shore—or the folds of the Grim Reaper’s robes.

At that second image, I paused. Wait a second…

I’d been under no illusions my invocation would pierce the threshold—I had just needed the field to yield a little at the point of contact. I was even prepared for some god-awful pain. But straight to death? Seriously?

Son of a bitch.

So now what? Was there supposed to be a light or something?

At the thought, one appeared. But it wasn’t the divine illumination I’d imagined. This light was pale yellow and fluttered like a candle’s flame. It seemed to turn a corner before drifting toward me.

I blinked twice. I had eyelids, apparently. And a cheek, which was flattened to something hard and cold. I wasn’t dead, just badly stunned. The effort to lift my head opened the storm gates of hell. I writhed around my gnashing teeth and gnarled cries, disembodied no more.

Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap…

It felt as though someone had flayed me open, pounded my insides to liquid, shoveled in hot coals, and then stitched me back up again, poorly. Death would have been a mercy. I stomped the floor and punched the air, as though to beat back the agony. Exhaustion eventually did the job.

I lay panting on my back as the pain slipped off by degrees and a coolness settled in.

I raised my head. Beyond my outstretched legs, energy hummed over the open doorway and night. No sign of Zarko and the blood slaves. They had either left me for dead, or Arnaud had recalled them to pursue me another day. Either way, he wasn’t going to have them test a cathedral threshold. I only had a little demon-like energy in me; they carried it in spades.

I remembered the candle flame and turned back to the glass doors. The light was gone now, but I hadn’t imagined it.

I found my cane and pressed myself to a knee. While I waited for the room to stop spinning, I performed a self check. I was crippled, bleeding, in shock, and stripped of all powers, save the small reserve holding Thelonious at bay. Otherwise, I was fine.

Standing all the way, I brought my face to the glass door. I could make out the cathedral’s cavernous nave, rows of pews proceeding to the raised chancel. Above, the stained-glass faces of saints were being tinged red by the demon moon, as though possessed themselves.

The candle-bearer was gone, but I knew who it was. That Father Vick was still trapped inside was a good sign. It meant the demon hadn’t carried out the sacrifice yet. But he’d seen me, I was sure.

There was no time to lose.

I tried the doors. Locked. The plate glass didn’t look very thick. I stepped back and brought my heel forward with everything I had. The glass shattered to my knee, taking some more skin with it. Reaching a hand through the opening, I fumbled for the bolt, turned it, and stumbled inside.

Glass crackled under my soles as I got my footing and looked around. I staggered down the corridor to the interior courtyard, crossed the blood-red flagstones, and pushed open the door to Father Vick’s apartment.

I flipped the light switch, but the power must have gone out. By the ambient moonlight, I could see he wasn’t here. I took a leather-bound Latin Bible from Father Vick’s desktop and then rifled the drawers of the desk until I found a silver crucifix. Turning to leave, my gaze fell to his white handkerchief. I lifted it from the object it had been draping and stumbled backwards at the sight of a nightmarish face.

My own, I quickly realized, staring back from the foggy glass of a scrying mirror. But the flame that fluttered up over my shoulder did not belong to me. Neither did the hooded head it illuminated.

My heart slammed as I spun, but it wasn’t Father Vick I faced.

“What are you doing here?” Malachi asked.

45

“No one’s supposed to be in here,” Malachi said in a cold monotone. The light from the candle swam in his watery gray eyes. His gaze was bolder than it had been that morning. I dropped my own gaze to his other hand, but it was hidden by the sleeve of his robe. A black robe, I noted.

“Where are they?” I demanded.

“Who?”

“Father Vick and the bishop?”

“Haven’t you heard.” He drew nearer. “They’re missing.”

His voice held its monotone as his narrow face fluttered in and out of the hood’s shadow. I caught a whiff of sour breath. With the backs of my legs pressed to the desk, I was boxed in.

“Why didn’t you evacuate with the others?” I asked, looking for his hidden hand again. He wasn’t who I had expected to find, and there was something off about him. He seemed … haunted.

“I hid,” he said, pressing nearer. “I needed to atone. I think I’m the cause of what happened.”

“What you found in the archives,” I said.

He stopped, his eyes seeming to sharpen in surprise.

“Bartholomew Higham, the fifth rector,” I continued. “The Church believed he’d become demon possessed. They killed him, but didn’t perform an exorcism, or didn’t perform it correctly.”

“Father Vick didn’t seem to think it had been done right,” Malachi said. “But Father Richard said to leave it alone. They argued terribly. And then—”

The flesh of Malachi’s other hand