Night Rune (Prof Croft Book 8), Brad Magnarella [e novels to read .TXT] 📗

“Right,” I said. “Is there any way you can—”

“Get you there?” Claudius finished for me.

After the Chagrath’s lair, I couldn’t believe I was even considering the question, but I gave a slight nod.

“Well, I’ve never attempted a portal to a time catch. I’d need time, no pun intended, and even then there’s a good chance you’d lose a lot more than the hair off the back of your head. Have you tried the fae?”

“They’re ignoring me.”

“Hm. Then maybe you should consult your teacher.”

“Gretchen?” I snorted. “She’s worse than they are.”

“She was rather brusque when she called this morning.”

I straightened so suddenly, I spilled half my remaining tea. “Gretchen called you this morning? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Well, I don’t know.” He paused to dip a crescent of cookie into his cup. “I suppose because you didn’t ask.”

“She’s back from Faerie?”

“She suggested as much.”

I dug out my phone and accessed the number I’d managed to wheedle from Gretchen, but no one answered. Swearing, I stood and looked around. Where did Claudius say we were? Maryland? Illinois?

“How do I get back to New York? And don’t tell me through the Chagrath’s lair.”

“No, no, don’t worry.” Claudius finished his cookie before setting his tea down and dusting the crumbs from his lap. “I have a direct portal to Gretchen’s place. But here, take some gingersnaps. I’ll eat them all otherwise.”

“Yeah, there’s not really time.”

But he’d already set a pile of cookies in the center of the tinfoil and was folding it into a clumpy package. He handed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said, quickly pocketing the cookies in my coat. “Do we need to go back downstairs?”

“No, no, right here is fine.”

Claudius signed in the air and turned me around. A portal stood inches from my nose. Before I could weigh the wisdom of chancing another of Claudius’s portals, the fleshy-looking void sucked me inside.

“Good luck!” he called in a fading voice.

4

I had no idea what kind of portal I’d entered, but it felt like being squeezed through something’s digestive tract. Before I knew it, I was being shoved out the other end with explosive force, landing hard on my hands and knees.

“Holy hell,” I grunted.

I checked to make sure my cane had made the journey, along with everything I’d stowed in my pockets. Globs of steaming yellow giblets spilled from my coat as I pushed myself to my feet. As the steam dissipated, a basement took shape around me, one I recognized from when the wizard Pierce owned the townhouse.

Another of Arnaud’s victims, I thought.

And another reminder of how dangerous the demon-vampire was.

Himitsu paintings, the medium Pierce had used for his divinations, stood in stacks throughout the large space, but Gretchen’s hoard was taking over. In fact, the light source for the basement, a golden luminescence, was coming from an especially large pile of her crap.

When something scuffed behind the pile, I readied my cane, but it was just an antique lantern. It peeked out at me before shrinking away in a contraction of light. One of Gretchen’s acquisitions from Faerie, no doubt.

My annoyed thoughts turned to Claudius. Really, dude? You couldn’t have dropped me at the front door?

Gretchen had a bad habit of not remembering me between her visits to the fae realm. If she thought I was an intruder—which was very likely—I’d be staring down the barrel of some nasty magic.

Grumbling, I activated a tube of neutralizing potion and drank it. The potion would insulate me from her first attack, anyway. Maybe give me enough time to convince her who I was. As the potion spread through me in a tingling wave, I readied my sword and staff and started up the stairs. I was almost to the door when I picked out a pair of shouting voices coming from deeper in the house.

“Who is she?” Gretchen asked.

“Why does it have to be another woman?” Bree-yark barked back. “Maybe I’m just fed up.”

“Fed up? With what?”

“With everything!”

It sounded like the goblin was finally having his breakup talk with Gretchen. I’d been cheerleading the move, but did it have to be now? Trying to solicit Gretchen’s help on a good day would have been challenging enough.

“Well, where is this coming from?” she demanded.

“I had a talk with someone,” Bree-yark said. “Came about ten years too late, but it was the medicine I needed.”

“Who?” she demanded.

Oh, c’mon, man. Please don’t tell her—

“Your student,” he said. “Everson.”

My shoulders slumped. Great.

“Everson?” Gretchen repeated.

“Might be young, but the kid’s got his head screwed on straight. It took jawing with him to get to the truth. This isn’t a relationship. This is you stringing along an ugly, lovesick goblin. Been that way ever since we met at that resort in the Mirthers.”

“Everson Croft?” Gretchen repeated, this time in a roar.

And here I’d been worried she wouldn’t remember me.

I was debating whether to step in when something scuffed behind me. I turned to find the lantern a couple of steps below me on the staircase. All of its glass faces had been darkened by smoke save one. Cringing like a frightened child, the lantern rotated its clear face from the door to me.

“It’s all right,” I said. “They’re just having a disagreement.”

Gretchen paused long enough in her shouting to grunt. Something shattered against the floor. Great, now she was breaking shit.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Bree-yark said in a backing-away voice.

I burst from the staircase and hustled down the main corridor, a shield glimmering into being around me. Though Gretchen was often moody, I’d never seen her in an all-out wrath. I didn’t know what she was capable of.

I reached the kitchen to find her two-handing a casserole dish overhead. Unable to tell whether her target was the floor or Bree-yark, I thrust my cane forward and shouted, “Vigore!” The pulse shattered the dish in Gretchen’s hands, and a pile of what looked like brown cottage cheese and fish guts splatted over her head.

Son of a bitch.

She turned toward me, lips drawn into a bone-white line, eyes