Black Luck (Prof Croft Book 5) Page 12

  A crowd was gathered out front. A wiry woman with frizzy hair was telling everyone in frenetic gestures what had happened.

  “…paid for my lox bagel and I was coming out when this blast of heat hit me from behind. The doors slammed and I heard screams and smelled smoke and I just clutched my bagel and ran!”

  “How many people were in there?” I asked.

  “A couple dozen, at least. Oh God, it was horrible!”

  The crowd murmured excitedly as I stepped past them.

  “We already tried,” a man called. “Door’s melted shut. The fire department’s on its way.”

  I ignored him and the distant wail of sirens and went down. I summoned a protective shield and hit the door with a force invocation. Cries rose from the street as a burst of sulfurous smoke blew past me. Through the haze, I could already make out the victims. They were everywhere, some sitting at tables, others piled on the floor in front of the counter as well as behind it, their bodies violently shriveled, just like the victims of the theater attack.

  It was horrible. They hadn’t stood a chance.

  I waded into the smoke, my sword and staff drawn, but the golem was gone. The cane-tugging had petered out by the time we’d pulled up, and my watch was no longer flashing. No vibrating in my ears either.

  I swallowed hard and did the math. The six from last night plus the couple dozen here meant we were up to thirty souls. That put us past the realm of lower demon. We were looking at something middling to large.

  I peered around the deli for the infernal bag. A shelf along a back wall held gift items such as wrapped salamis and cheese wheels. On the bottom shelf, behind jars of pickles, I found the leather pouch. I doubted there was anything more to glean, but I cast a protective orb around the bag and pocketed it anyway. At the very least I could neutralize its residual magic.

  As I surfaced, I considered looking for a payphone to call Vega before remembering I’d killed her device. I still had no idea how that had happened, but it had not been intentional. Just as well. My priority right now was to get home and check my eavesdropping spell.

  I arrived back to an even messier apartment than the one I’d left a couple of hours earlier. The disorder in the kitchen had spread to the living room, where my chairs and couch had been shoved around. I noticed my bedroom door open a crack, but I couldn’t hear anyone inside.

  “Where’s Gretchen?” I asked.

  Tabitha moaned and rolled onto her back so that her head hung off the divan, mouth open. She looked half dead.

  “You all right?”

  “No, darling … I’m terrible.”

  “What happened?”

  “Your teacher ran off to some play. She left the rest of her dinner out for me. At first it was delectable. But when it landed in my stomach, it turned sour and crappy.”

  “It was sour and crappy,” I said, looking over the kitchen. Empty jars and packaging littered the counter. I picked up the nauseating scent of fermented fish. “She probably disguised it with a glamour.”

  “Why would she do that?” Tabitha demanded.

  “Vanity? Malice? There’s no telling with the fae touched.”

  As Tabitha held her swollen belly, her next moan turned into a loud caterwaul.

  I sighed. I was never going to get any work done with her carrying on like that. “Here,” I said. “Let’s see what I can do.”

  I swirled the end of my cane over her stomach and started into a healing chant. Soon, white light wrapped her in a misty halo. Her caterwaul softened and became a noise of satisfaction.

  “Oh, that feels so much better, dar—”

  A jet of vomit shot from her mouth and soaked the front of my pants.

  Twenty minutes later, following a shower and a change of clothes, I was up in my library/lab.

  I had placed another one of my ear hairs into a casting circle, and I concentrated toward it now, fingers pinching the corners of my closed eyes. The equivalent of white static filled my head. Pairing with an eavesdropping object was like tuning a radio. The key was finding the right…

  “…I want to stay…”

  There!

  I dialed back a little until I recovered the frequency. Then I accessed the listening spell from the moment I had activated the hair. I would hear everything that had gone on in her apartment in the last hour.

  “Hey, it’s me,” Becky said.

  “What were the cops doing at your playth?”

  A lisp. Just as I’d hoped, she’d phoned Harelip right after I left. Even better, she was using her phone’s speaker feature. I hunkered my head down to hear better.

  “It was just a search,” she replied.

  “Just a search, my assth. One of them chased me.”

  “They didn’t catch you, right? So what?”

  “Shut up and listhen! Everything was supposed to be random. Random! Random! Random! And you went and fucked it up. Now we’ve got polith searching your place and chasing me.”

  “Yeah, random. So how do you know it was me? How do you know one of the others didn’t stick it there?”

  I stiffened. Were they talking about the infernal bags?

  “Because you’re a vindictive little bitch,” Harelip replied. “And I asked them.”

  Becky fell quiet for a moment. “Well, the cops didn’t find anything. There’s nothing here to even find.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You broke the pact.”

  “So what do you want me to do?” she asked.

  “Not over the phone. Hardman’s.”

  “When?” Her voice broke slightly.

  “Now.”

  A double beep signified the end of the call. I listened to hear if Becky would dial anyone else, but for the next few minutes, I could only pick up pacing and indistinct whispers. She was talking to herself, debating something. Her footfalls faded into the back of her apartment, then returned several minutes later, only now in heels. Having come to some decision, she picked up a set of keys and opened the door. When it closed again, I heard her lock it.

  “Oh,” she muttered. “That dumbass’s card.”

  She’d just spotted the card with my contact info, fallen to the floor when she’d opened the door.

  Please, take the dumbass’s card, I pled, tapping my foot.

  I winced at the harsh sound of my ear hair brushing something. I heard more footsteps, then the ding of the elevator. She’d put the card in her pocket. Which meant I’d not only be able to hear her, but hunt her down—along with Harelip and whomever else she was going to meet.

  I pulsed the spell forward until I heard her getting into a taxi.

  “Ninth and West Twelfth,” she told the driver.

  A charge went off in my chest. That was only a few blocks away, in the old Meatpacking District. I considered casting a hunting spell and heading there myself, but I needed to find out what I’d be walking into. I pulsed the eavesdropping spell forward some more until I heard the slamming of a car door and the clopping of heels over pavement. I was getting close to real time. Moments later, Becky used her phone again.

  “I’m here,” she said.

  For an answer, a metal door rolled up and then back down again. Two sets of footsteps, one sharp, the other heavy and dull, echoed together. When Becky spoke again, the acoustics warped her voice.

  “I want to stay in the Ark,” she said with what sounded like equal parts fear and resolve. “I’ll take the penalty.”

  “Fine. Then do as I say. Shtand there.”

  “Here? I can barely see anything.”

  “Shh,” Harelip said.

  “Hey! What the fuck are you—”

  My gut knotted up as Becky’s words became lost to gargles and the muffled sounds of struggle. I stood and grabbed my cane. For a split second, I considered casting a hunting spell, but there was no time. I was still on a slight delay, meaning what I was hearing had happened minutes before. And what I was hearing was clear enough: Harelip meant to kill her.

  “Help!” she
gasped right before I broke the connection.

  A minute later, I was breaking out of my building and bolting northwest on Bleeker Street.

  18

  I arrived, heaving for air, at Ninth and West Twelfth. It was a historic intersection of brick row houses as well as large slaughterhouses and packing plants that had been converted into stores and restaurants, though many had closed following the Crash and never reopened.

  All right, I thought, looking around. She got out of the cab and walked for about a half minute to a roll-down metal door.

  I didn’t see any metal doors. I peered down several streets until a narrow lane caught my eye. I hustled toward it, wary of the uneven cobblestone street. I’d already fallen enough for one day, not to mention blown up a phone, gotten stuck on an elevator, and been hurled on by my cat—though whatever had been responsible for the accidents seemed to have left my system.

  It probably had been some lingering effect of the Slick Willie potion.

  I ducked into the lane. Halfway down the block, I spotted a roll-down metal door, the first of three. The faded words above the doors read HARDMAN’S MEATS—where Harelip had told her to meet him.

  I summoned a shield and seized the handle of the first door, but it wouldn’t budge. I blew out the lock with a force invocation and tried again. This time, the door rattled up and slammed into the space above, the sound crashing through the building’s dark interior.

  “Illuminare,” I whispered.

  The light from my staff lit up what looked like a large storage space, but the junked conveyances and rows of hanging hooks identified it as an old packing plant. Rusting support beams broke up the open space.

  I peered around, but didn’t see any sign of Harelip or Becky. Wispy currents of dim black energy eddied inside the space, but they felt like remnants of something no longer active.

  “Becky?” I called.

  A choked rasp sounded from the back of the plant. A support beam blocked my view of its source. I hurried across the plant, sword drawn. In the middle of the floor my light glowed over a large demonic symbol, recently drawn and surrounded by thick melted candle stubs.

  It was looking more and more like I’d found my “mages.”

  I skirted the symbol, stepped around the beam, and came face to face with Becky. She was suspended, impaled on a large hook. The cruel metal had entered beneath her right shoulder blade and punched out through the front of her tank top, just below her breast. Harelip had also done a number on her face. Her jaw was lumpy, one eye nearly swollen shut.

  But she was still alive, her bloodied lips moving, her good eye imploring me to help her.

  “I’m getting you down,” I told her.

  I touched my staff to her head and uttered an incantation. It was the precursor to a healing spell, meant to dump endorphins into her system. I didn’t want her tissue to start repairing while she was still impaled, but I didn’t want her in agony either. When her eye rolled up, I slid my sword and staff through my belt and gripped her in both hands above the waist.

  Three … two … one.

  With the aid of a gentle force invocation, I lifted her up along the curve of the hook until she was free and falling into my arms. I expanded the light shield to protect both of us. She gurgled against my ear as I stooped and set her against the support beam, her right lung no doubt collapsed. Her arms flopped out to her sides as blood began to pool on the floor.

  Have to work fast.

  Touching the staff to her torso wound, I began my healing incantation. Soft white light grew from the opal and moved around her, thickening over her injuries like pads of gauze. I caught myself standing to one side of her while I worked. Once hurled on, twice shy.

  After several moments, the blood pool stopped growing. Her good eye rolled back into view, and I could see her other eye now between the healing lids. Both of them found me, pupils glowing from the soft light.

  “Who are you?” she rasped.

  “Everson Croft. I was at your apartment earlier.”

  “No…” She paused to cough. “I mean, how are you doing that thing with your stick?”

  “I’m a wizard,” I said.

  She snorted weakly. “Of course.”

  I guessed she didn’t read the papers.

  “Listen, the man who tried to kill you—”

  “Quinton,” she said. “Quinton Weeks.”

  I waited. Though her breathing was improving, it still required work, and there was more she wanted to say.

  “I didn’t know the bags would kill…”

  “The infernal bags,” I said.

  She nodded. “We were told they created fear. That’s why I put mine in the theater. The guy managing it, Brad … he was skimming from the register. Stealing from the owner. When I confronted him, he said I…” She drew a wheezing breath. “Said I was the one stealing. Owner sided with him. If the bag was gonna scare anyone, I wanted it to be those assholes.”

  “Were the bags Quinton’s idea?”

  “No, Damien’s.”

  “Who’s Damien?”

  “The one who talks to us.” Her eyes moved past me to the pentagram on the floor, her body giving a small shudder.

  “How many of you does he talk to?”

  “Five of us. Calls us the Ark.”

  “The Ark,” I repeated. The name was probably the demon’s idea of a joke. More important was the number five, a member for each point on the pentagram. “What does Damien want?”

  “At first he said he wanted to help us. We were the ‘Chosen Ones.’” She air-quoted the word with the fingers of one hand. “Told us we were being held down by those who feared our awesome power.” Her Mohawk glistened as she shook her head. “He was going to open us to our true potential, turn us into supernatural warriors. I feel so stupid now.”

  “Most likely you were under a form of possession,” I said, remembering the gray I’d picked up in her aura earlier. “How did Damien first contact you?”

  “Quinton was working on a cleanup crew downtown. He found a necklace. Said it called to him. When he put it on, Damien spoke in his head. Told Quinton to gather his four most trusted friends.”

  A cursed object, I thought bitterly. But from where?

  “Quinton and the rest of us go back a while. We used to crash together at different pads in the East Village, before it got really dangerous. Quinton was the depressed one, moping around all the time. But after finding the necklace, he had all this energy. There was a light in his eyes I’d never seen. A manic light. It was because of what Damien was telling him. He couldn’t wait to share it.” Her eyes teared up. “I can’t believe he just tried to…”

  “He wasn’t himself,” I said.

  Becky sniffled. “Damien told Quinton to perform an induction ceremony. Symbol, candles, strange chants. Right over there.” Her eyes cut past me again. “The rest of us went along, mainly for kicks. But then we heard another voice—Damien’s. That’s when he told us about being the Chosen Ones.”

  I nodded for her to continue. Time was short, but I needed to learn as much as I could.

  “I wanted to believe him,” Becky said, her voice gaining strength. “I think we all did. None of us had been doing so hot. Hell, I’d just lost my third job in eight months. To prove what he was saying, Damien told us to wish for something and he would grant it. I was sick of not having enough money, of having to put up with other people’s shit. I wished to never need money again. A few weeks later, a lawyer called. My grandparents had kicked it and, for some reason, willed everything to me. I hadn’t talked to them in years. Similar things happened to the others. Jodi won a share of the state lottery. Jake found a guitar that made him sound like the second coming of Jimi Hendrix. Just Jake, though.”

  “And Quinton?” I asked.

  “Being the direct line to Damien was enough for him.”

  “But Damien asked for something in return,” I said. The name Damien sounded a lot like demon—probably another one of the creat
ure’s jokes—and I knew demons all too well.

  Becky nodded. “He told us how to make the bags and then had us place them around the city.”

  “How many bags?”

  “Three each.”

  “Fifteen bags?” I asked to be sure.

  “Well, Quinton had five, so I guess seventeen.”

  Three had been activated, which left fourteen.

  “I need to know where they are.”

  “I know where I put mine, but I have no idea about the others. Damien told us to stash them in secret. If we told anyone, even someone in the Ark, we’d suffer the Penalty, capital P. That’s what Damien called the punishment for disobedience. I didn’t know the Penalty was d-death.”

  I watched Becky sympathetically. When Damien gave Quinton the execution order, he must have released her from his possession, which explained her recovering senses and morality.

  “Where did you put your bags?” I asked.

  “I put one in the Flicker Theater, but I swear, I didn’t know it would kill people. I didn’t. You have to tell the police—”

  “I believe you. What about the other two?”

  Horror took hold in her eyes as the implications dawned on her. “Oh my God. More people are going to die, aren’t they?” She struggled to stand, but I placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “We’ll take care of them. Just tell me where they are.”

  “I put one in Café Agora, in the ladies’ room. Do you know where that is?” I nodded. “I stuck it behind a foam tile in the ceiling over the toilet. I put the other one in the Cerulean Store on Fourteenth Street. There’s a fuse box in the very back with a deep well. It’s down there.”

  I pulled out my notepad and wrote down the locations.

  “I need the names of the other members and where I can find them.”

  Becky drew in a trembling breath and released it. “Quinton Weeks, Jodi Rice, Jake Hornsby, and Arlen Hart.” She gave me their addresses. Some had recently relocated because of their newfound wealth or status, but they were all in or close to the city. “I’d give you their numbers, but Quinton took my phone.”