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

“Though maybe he sped their demises too,” Malachi said. “He did get us to jump from 1660 to the present to 1776, bam, bam, bam.”

“Still, it seems too risky. The whole thing.”

“Maybe another reason for placing it in your hands. You seem to succeed where so many others would have failed.”

“That doesn’t explain the fae intercepting us, though.”

“Yes, I’ve been puzzling over that.” Malachi paced in a circle, rubbing his ear. “The demon twins corrupted Angelus through their common bloodline. Still, he’s a powerful fae, and then there’s his love for his wife. Those factors may have overwhelmed the demonic influence, but what did Malphas care if Angelus reclaimed his wife at that point? She’d already served her purpose, and it would mean one less wild card at the end. That was the plan, I believe. Take Caroline and let the rest of us go on our way. The attack, the battle—unexpected, but you wouldn’t have held your own against them otherwise.”

“We didn’t,” I said, feeling vindicated to have something solid to push back with. “They overwhelmed us and would have slaughtered us if you hadn’t shown up and holy-blasted…” I trailed off, seeing my teammate with fresh eyes.

“What?” he asked.

Malachi had freaked out when I suggested we skip to here before recovering all of our teammates. The Upholders must face the forces of the demon apocalypse together, he’d insisted. He was also the one who had rescued Seay from the collapsing time catch and then steered us unerringly through a failing downtown Manhattan. And he seemed to have deduced an awful lot about Malphas’s plans.

I noticed something else too.

“You’re not repeating yourself anymore.”

His mess of hair spilled to one side as he cocked his head. “Huh?”

“Ever since we found you, you’ve been skipping like a record. But start pontificating on Malphas’s brilliant deceit, and presto—you smooth out. Not only that, you actually sound lucid.”

Though the lion’s share of ley energy was being redirected at the St. Martin’s site, an energetic field had taken hold around it, one I could draw from and draw powerfully. I summoned a form-fitting shield and activated the sword’s banishment rune until the entire blade sang with resonant white light.

I was also remembering how the 1660 version of Arnaud claimed to have had several encounters with a demon in the small settlement of New Amsterdam, but Seay reported none. Just a few run-ins with a crazy man, who had turned out to be Malachi.

His burned skin glistened as he continued to squint at me in apparent confusion.

“I don’t think you holy-blasted anyone,” I said, stepping back. “Not the soulless mobs, not the fae demons. The light you manifested was a cover to conceal the fact you were absorbing their infernal essences. And it got the rest of us to deepen our trust in you, to follow you without question.”

I shifted to my wizard’s senses. It was Malachi, but through what must have been untold tortures, the demon had fragmented my friend’s mind and faith, giving himself gray regions to hide out in.

“The only Divine Voice you heard was Malphas’s,” I said. “You’re his final demon.”

By the time I refocused, a shrewd, almost gleeful look had come over my teammate’s face.

“Admit it, Everson.” He tore the Bible in half and flung the pieces aside. “We played your ass like a fiddle.”

In his grip, a fiery sword and shield roared to life.

46

By the demon’s smugness, I could tell he had wanted me to find out who Malachi really was. Just as he’d wanted me to understand how thoroughly his master, Malphas, had deceived me. Arnaud was right about demons. Incurable gloaters.

“Do you have a name?” I snarled.

“Yes, but you can call me Forneus.”

Good, because thinking of the demon as Malachi sickened me. Distorted fragments of my old teammate remained—enough to have fooled me, to have fooled all of us—but the question now was whether he would survive a banishment. Or was this infernal parasite the only thing holding him together?

“Malachi,” I shouted, “can you hear me?”

Forneus laughed. “You might as well be talking to a vegetable. He hasn’t had an original thought in the equivalent of fifty years. I wouldn’t count on him starting now.”

But I didn’t believe him. Malachi had leaked about the “Night Ruin,” and from there we’d pieced together what the demon Malphas was building.

“You should also know the fae won’t be riding to the rescue,” Forneus said. “Now that they’ve served their purpose, we’ve sealed the time catch against them. It’s just us and your poor friends. Malphas’s elements.”

“Vigore!” I shouted.

Force and divine light stormed from my extended sword. But Forneus brought his shield up. The collision of holy and infernal energies threw off a crackling fount of sparks.

I uttered another invocation, hardening the air around him. He cleaved it with a savage twist of his sword. Energy from the collapsing manifestation rushed back into me, stealing my breath. The field around St. Martin’s was enabling me to cast at a high level, but Forneus was matching it somehow.

“You must be wondering how we got to Malachi.”

I turned as he circled me, each of us looking for an opening.

“Let me guess,” I said. “More of your master’s sparkling brilliance?”

“We were lucky, actually. Following the mess with the time catches, Malachi came back to the city and wandered into Arnaud’s fortress. Upon entering his sanctum, he found the demon circle.”

The same circle we’d arrived in when Caroline hacked Arnaud’s infernal line.

Perhaps seeing my recognition, Forneus said, “Yes, the residual energy in the circle was intended for you, but Malphas saw how he could use Malachi instead, to prepare the way for your arrival. He was a servant of the Church, yes. But once inside the demon circle, the sorry mortal had no chance.” In Forneus’s eyes, I saw him reliving the evils he had visited on Malachi. My teammate’s burns, which had conveniently destroyed his bonding sigil, hadn’t come from any tenement fire. That whole story had been