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

“They’re going to be looking for a city bus,” I called.

“We’re on it,” Seay answered. “Want anything special?”

“Yeah, not a city bus.”

Fae magic stirred, and when I checked the side mirror, I saw that I was now driving one of those pink party buses. I couldn’t complain though. The half-fae were also glamouring the traffic lights, giving me green clearance for as far as the eye could see. I only had to slow to round Union Square before picking up Broadway right before it angled south toward the spires of the Financial District.

Beside me, Arnaud had fallen silent. Something in his small, pensive frown suggested the mortal he’d once been.

I blew through the Village and Soho, and before long we were passing City Hall and the intersection where Barnum’s Museum had once stood. The formidable Wall loomed ahead along Liberty Street. Only there were four armed guards at the checkpoint, all signaling for me to slow down.

C’mon, kid, I thought. Tell me you got there ahead of us.

I kept my foot on the gas, but cast a shield over the front of the bus to be safe.

When I got to within two blocks of the Wall, the guards raised their rifles. At one block, a force scattered them. A row of bollards that had begun to rise from the pavement behind them, sank again, clearing our way.

“Hell, yeah!” I shouted, pumping a fist and pressing the accelerator.

As our pink bus sped through the checkpoint, I gave a thumbs-up to the phantom in the control booth, a young man who looked remarkably like me. I then narrowed my eyes toward Wall Street, needing to reach our target before the time catch version of Arnaud reacted to the egregious breach of his domain.

At the next block, the bedrock under Manhattan shuddered.

Forget the damned vampire. The time catch is starting to fail.

Pedestrians fell to the sidewalks and red brake lights glared ahead of us. I swerved around a line of cars pulling over, then slowed to push between a pair of cabs stopped in the middle of the street. Metal keened as the bus shoved them apart. I accelerated again, our destination just blocks away now.

Hold it together a little longer, I told the time catch.

A violent rumble shook the bus, tottering it onto one set of wheels and then the other. Ahead, the asphalt undulated like waves. Water shot from a sudden fracture in the street, soon joined by fire from a ruptured gas line.

“Shit,” I muttered, veering onto Cedar Street.

“The buildings are really swaying,” Bree-yark said in a worried voice.

In the rearview mirror, I caught him angling his neck to peer upward. I straightened my gaze as chunks of masonry began landing around us. One flattened a sleek Mercedes Benz I was passing, its glass spraying the side of the bus. As I extended my shield to cover our rooftop, Malachi shoved his wild head of hair between me and Arnaud.

“How’s it going?”

“Oh, could be better,” I said, jerking our ride south to avoid a yawning crevasse.

“At the next intersection, turn right,” Malachi said.

“I was going to try to hook back up with Broadway.”

He shook his head. “No, no, that way’s blocked.” He jabbed a finger at the upcoming turn. “Right, right!”

I followed his direction. “Divine Voice?”

“Divine Voice,” he said, his own voice wild with conviction. “It’s going to get us there.”

After what I’d seen him do to the twin demons, I believed him. Still, the world was coming apart fast, and we were getting farther from our target.

“Left!” he cried.

“There’s no turn.”

“Left!”

I swerved onto the sidewalk, blowing through a line of vendor wagons. Hotdog and falafel carts exploded to either side of the bus, while their umbrellas tumbled past my view. The ground shuddered as two massive pieces of falling building burst against the road where I’d just been.

“Good call,” I said in a shaky voice.

From there, I followed every command Malachi gave, avoiding more falling building parts, while swerving around ruptures, geysers, and sudden gouts of fire. As smoke closed around us, his directions became even more essential. I found the switch for the headlights, but I could barely make out the street signs now.

“The portal is at the bottom of an excavation site,” he said during a rare lull.

“I thought it was at the Morton Building.”

“Behind the Morton Building. It was a planned addition, planned addition.”

“Financed by Chillington Capital,” Arnaud put in, referencing his old firm.

“Construction was put on hold during the Crash,” Malachi said, prompting Arnaud to mutter something about a spineless builder.

“How deep a pit are we talking?” I asked.

“The project had only begun,” Arnaud said. “So, not very.”

“Turn!” Malachi called.

I followed his jabbing finger to the right. Suddenly, we were rushing up on a block ringed in tall construction fencing and yellow signs. The street shook violently, and the rumbling around us turned into a roar. I didn’t have to look to know that buildings were coming down. Before I could ask Malachi what to do, the time catch itself bent. Our street fractured and canted down, sending us straight toward the fence.

“The entrance!” Malachi shouted.

I angled the bus toward a short ramp that ended at a closed gate in the fencing.

“Hold on, everyone!” I shouted, peering up at the mirror. They were already hunkered down.

Beyond them, a pale cloud of smoke and debris was charging toward us. We smashed through the gate at the same moment the cloud swallowed us. Darkness filled the bus. I stomped the brakes and incanted another layer of protection around us. The bus banged and rattled and then the nose veered down.

Holy shit, we’re plunging.

As I gripped the wheel helplessly, Malachi remained at my shoulder.

“It’s okay, the portal is below!” he shouted. “The final reckoning is at hand, is at hand!”

A dizzying show of lights rippled around us, and then blackness.

45

The cool breeze that brushed my face smelled of salt and marsh.

Seized by a feeling of plunging, I shoved myself upright. The world rocked violently for