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

I hardened the air around her into a soundproof dome.

“Going up where?” he asked.

But Tabitha couldn’t hear him now, either. He returned to his cooking. I sustained the manifestation for another minute before removing it. Tabitha’s body rose and fell in a steady rhythm, the lack of oxygen having dropped her back to sleep. And now the potions were reduced enough that I could start pouring.

I filled several tubes with each potion, the sizzling downstairs providing the perfect sound screen. Very carefully, I loaded all the tubes save one into my pockets, then placed the range, pots, and wooden spoon back inside a large bin under the table. Steam burst out as I opened the stealth potion I’d set aside.

A half dose each for me and Arnaud should do the trick.

The tube was to my lips when I sensed movement.

“Vigore!” a voice shouted.

The potion exploded from my fingers. I wheeled toward the ladder, mouth already moving to manifest a shield. A wall of air slammed into me first. I went into the bookcase hard, tomes spilling as I came off it.

The time-catch me leapt up the final rungs of the ladder.

Even as I staggered for balance, I experienced a flush of pride at the way he’d snuck up on me. He must have sensed the dome I’d cast around Tabitha. He thrust his sword—actually, the time catch version of Grandpa’s sword, the Banebrand, that would one day destroy Lich. But my shield was in place now and stronger than his force invocation. He grunted and reeled from the blowback.

“Disfare!” he called.

My shield came apart beneath his dispel command. Made sense. We possessed the same mental prisms, which meant we were casting at identical frequencies. But talk about an inconvenience. I still held the edge in experience, though. Plus the advantage of knowing exactly what I’d have done in his situation.

“Disfare,” I said at the same moment he spoke.

The orb of hardened air he’d attempted to manifest around my head came apart.

His aimed sword trembled slightly as he looked me up and down. He was wearing a rumpled shirt, sleeves bunched past the elbows. A dark blue tie I still owned hung loosely from his collar. Even though I might as well have been looking into a mirror, I could only think of him as someone else.

“Who are you?” Everson demanded.

“I’m, ah, basically you in a few years.”

“Sure, courtesy of a mimicking spell. I want to know who you really are and what the hell you’re doing in my apartment.”

Wow, I actually looked a little menacing when I was angry.

I sighed. “Look, I could tell you about the scar on your first finger, inflicted by the same blade you’re holding. Or how you acquired an incubus while in Romania searching for the Book of Souls. Or that you have a thing for Caroline Reid. Or about the ingrown nail on your right big toe that you pack with Q-tip cotton because regular cotton isn’t thick enough. Or I could show you that we’re wearing the same ring or holding the exact same staff. But what’s it going to take to convince you?”

He maintained a skeptical expression, but his eyes gave him away. Only seven years into his gig as a magic-user—and largely self-taught—he had no idea what to make of me. He looked around the lab, probably to determine what I’d been doing up here. He had a little less gray at his temples, I noticed, and his face was slightly more filled out than mine. But considering all I’d been through in the years since his time, a side-by-side comparison would show I hadn’t aged too badly.

“This stain,” he said. “How did it get there?”

He touched his staff to a spot on the thigh of his khakis.

Oh, c’mon, I thought. You were always spilling crap on yourself.

Then it hit me. I’d left a ballpoint pen in my pocket before boarding a bus, and it snapped when I plopped down in the seat. Naturally, it had happened before class, probably that very morning, which was why he was—

“Illuminare!” he shouted.

Light detonated from the opal end of his staff, blinding me.

Son of a gun was only distracting me, I thought as I stumbled to one side. Once again, I couldn’t help but be impressed with my younger self.

I threw up a defensive shield as I tried to blink away the twin glares. I expected him to follow with a series of invocations—it’s what I would have done. Instead, he gargled on his next word. As my vision cleared, I saw why. Arnaud had sprung from his hiding spot and brought his manacles around my counterpart’s throat from behind. He’d also managed to hook a leg over his sword arm, pinning it to his side.

I panicked. Was he going to bite him? Turn him?

“Disarm him, you fool,” Arnaud seethed at me in a shaking voice.

I switched my sword’s aim to Everson’s flailing staff and dislodged it with a force invocation. I managed to do the same with his sword, even though Everson clung to it gamely. He drove his hands up under the manacles’ chain to create breathing space, his eyes frantic with the effort to breathe, the will to live.

“Release him!” I shouted at Arnaud.

Below the ridge of his compressed brow, the demon-vampire’s eyes burned with hatred, as if he intended to finish the job. But he relented. My counterpart responded by thrusting his weight back. He and Arnaud disappeared over the top of the ladder, falling into the main room below. The sounds of snarling and shuffling ensued.

When I rushed to the ladder, Everson was already on top of Arnaud, hands seizing his throat above his neck manacle. And he was speaking the Latin exorcism. Sulfurous smoke rose from his throttling contact.

Shit, he’s going to destroy Arnaud.

“Stop!” I shouted, scrambling down the ladder. “Ballpoint pen, ballpoint pen!”

But Everson was determined to end him. With a running dive, I tackled him off Arnaud,