Black Luck (Prof Croft Book 5) Page 14

  One of the dying imps let out a croak.

  “I, ah, think you’ve got something breeding in your pipes.”

  The managers rushed past me, exclaiming over the spectacle. Knowing the imps were harmless, I used the excitement to squish my way through the restaurant and out the front door.

  One down, one to go, I thought as I hailed a cab.

  Actually, thirteen to go, but until Becky could talk…

  20

  Thirty minutes later, I was running out of the Cerulean Store. More accurately, I was being chased by four associates in khakis and blue polo shirts, lanyard IDs swinging from their necks. Electric buzzes sounded as they activated the tasers on their high-tech phones.

  My night was starting to look like my afternoon—a series of mishaps. Though I’d taken pains to be inconspicuous, one of the Cerulean associates had wandered into the utility room at exactly the wrong moment. My hand wrist-deep in the fuse box, he’d concluded I was a competitor trying to sabotage the store. The biggest provider of smartphones in the city, the Cerulean Store was a popular spot for people to play around with the newest devices, even if they couldn’t afford them. Becky had chosen her target well. There had been a good thirty people in the store this evening.

  I managed to snag her infernal bag, though, and was holding onto it for dear life. I just needed to ditch these guys so I could deactivate the damn thing. But after two blocks, they weren’t giving up.

  “Who do you work for?” one of them shouted.

  “Apple?” shouted another. “Samsung?”

  Wait, a minute, I thought, slowing down. You’re running away from a nerd herd.

  When I turned to face them, they spread into a semi-circle around me. The crackling nodes on their devices glinted from glasses and bared braces. I decided to level with them.

  “Look, guys, I consult for the NYPD. I received a tip that someone had planted this in your store.” I held up the infernal bag. “It contains combustible material that I need to deactivate. So if you would let me do my job.”

  “He works for Huawei!” one of them decided.

  Oh, screw this.

  As they rushed in, I jagged out my aura. Once again, probably not how my father would have handled things, but it had the desired effect. Their phones erupted in smoke, and two or three exploded.

  “My Gamlon!” an associate screamed.

  The rest of them stopped, the destruction of their devices seeming to emasculate them. Because I’d never been able to operate a smartphone myself, I couldn’t quite grasp people’s attachments to them. One of the associates began to weep. But something was happening to the infernal bag. It began to squirm and bulge in my grip. A faint pressure grew in my ears.

  Crap, need to get this away from them.

  No one gave chase when I ran this time. I cut into an alleyway a block and a half away. Behind a Dumpster, I found a large puddle left over from the afternoon’s downpour. Wasting no time, I dropped the infernal bag into the water and poured the neutralizing potion around it.

  I incanted quickly, one word slamming into the next. But though the brown puddle turned a shade of purple, no capillaries were forming. The potion wasn’t draining the black magic from the bag. The pressure in my ears turned to vibrating.

  C’mon, already!

  Then I remembered what Damien had said about adapting. After the last bag, he must have already developed a defense against the neutralizing potion. As smoke began to stream from the bag, I tossed the potion bottle aside, reached into a pocket, and withdrew a vial of dragon sand.

  Let’s see how you handle a two-thousand-degree inferno, you smoking prick.

  With my shield in place, I dumped the contents around the bag and shouted, “Fuoco!”

  The dragon sand detonated in a pluming fireball, enveloping the infernal bag and knocking me back several feet. The heat was so intense it made instant steam of the puddle.

  From the cover of the Dumpster, I squinted at the bag. A smoke golem was taking shape above it. But the animation was off. It swelled to impossibly large proportions before breaking apart in a fiery roar. The wind swirled up the golem’s remains and swept them away.

  I waited until the dragon sand was spent and the bag had burned down to a crispy husk before lowering my arm and stealing forward. I prodded the infernal bag with my cane. When it broke apart, I was satisfied the magic had too.

  That’s the last of Becky’s stash, I thought.

  But there was a problem. If the bags could adapt—and not just the smoke golems Damien controlled—I was going to run out of ways to destroy them. And twelve still remained.

  First I have to find them.

  I dug around for my pager—maybe Vega or Gretchen had called—but I couldn’t find the damned thing. Must have fallen out when I was running. I retraced my steps. When the pager didn’t turn up, I went in search of a payphone. I found one a few blocks away, shoved a pair of quarters in, and called Homicide.

  Hoffman answered again.

  “It’s Everson,” I said. “Any word from your partner?”

  “We sent officers to those addresses,” he said, not answering my question. “No one’s home. Any idea where they ran off to?” Though he was speaking in his typical surly voice, I could hear how badly he wanted these guys. I wondered if it had anything to do with wanting to get out from under his partner’s shadow. Given my situation with Pierce, I could understand the urge. Maybe he and I had more in common than I’d thought.

  But what Hoffman was telling me seemed to confirm my worst fears. If the members weren’t home, there was a good chance they were en route to the ceremony, along with their newest inductee.

  “I’m, ah, working on something,” I said. “Still no word from Vega?”

  “No. And I heard what you said before you hung up the last time, smartass.”

  “Hoffman, I’ve gotta go.”

  “Keep me in the loop,” he warned.

  I hung up, fed two more quarters into the slot, and called home. Tabitha answered.

  “Is Gretchen back?”

  “Yes, and she’s not happy that someone’s in her bed.”

  “Did she read the note?”

  “Yes, and promptly ripped it apart.”

  “She ripped it apart?”

  “The play was a big disappointment, apparently. Oh, it was a modern interpretation of Hello, Dolly! She left at the intermission and returned in a foul mood. When she found someone in her bed…”

  “My bed,” I interjected.

  “Well, when she found someone there, she threw a fit. I’ve never seen anything like it. That’s when she ripped apart your note. She said she wasn’t here to babysit, and I’m quoting this part: ‘Why can’t he get that through his shit for brains?’ Her eyes are turning all sorts of colors, darling. She’s starting to frighten me.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “The bathroom.” Her voice dropped to a low whisper. “Oh, wait, she just came out.” I pictured Tabitha hunkered with the phone behind one of the girder-like columns that ran along the kitchen counter.

  “Put her on,” I said.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Do it,” I growled.

  Tabitha cleared her throat. “Um, Gretchen? Everson’s on the phone.”

  Gretchen muttered as she stomped over. I heard the loud thud and skitter of Tabitha clearing out.

  “What’s the big idea?” she demanded.

  “You mean asking you to help someone whose soul was attacked?” I shot back. “Who holds key information that—”

  “We had a deal,” she said over me. “I train you, and you keep your business out of my business. I come home, and not only is your business in my business, it’s in my bed.”

  I clenched my jaw. “One, we never made a deal. Two, when have you ever trained me? And three, it’s my bed.”

  “One, yes we did. Two, what do you think we did this afternoon? And three—”

  “Wait a minute. W
hat do you mean, ‘What do you think we did this afternoon?’ You had me close my eyes for like two minutes while you got ready to go shopping. You call that training?”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to make you watch me change.”

  “The point is,” I said through gritted teeth, “there’s a demon trying to break into our world, and that woman has info on how I can stop it.”

  “And my point is that the woman in question is in my bed.”

  “Fine. Heal her soul, and you can have your bed back.”

  “Why would I do that? I can just boot her out the door and get the same result.”

  “You’re a member of the Order, goddammit! Don’t you know our history? Our creed? Our whole purpose is to protect the innocent against evil, especially demons. That’s what we do! But all you do is eat, sleep, and—and go to plays. Never mind that there’s a major breach in progress or that the city’s about to be demon-fucked. You just care that someone’s in your bed!”

  “Don’t you mean your bed?”

  “What do you want?” I cried in exasperation.

  “Now you’re speaking my language.”

  I stopped as her words sunk in. In fae style, she wanted to make a bargain.

  “You want something in exchange for healing her?”

  “If it’s juicy enough.”

  “Fine. What?”

  “You tell me.”

  I sighed. “I don’t have time for games. I have no idea what you could want from me. My blood?”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “Then what?”

  “That’s what I’m waiting to hear,” she said with exaggerated patience.

  As frustrated as I was, I was also desperate. I calmed my breathing and tried to think like a fae. The thing was, they were so damned strange. Their bargains tended to tilt steeply in their favor, but they also liked to make the other party suffer, depriving them of something they valued. In fact, that alone could be enough.

  I resolved not to bring Vega into this. No matter how uncertain our relationship felt, I wasn’t going to allow a fae bargain to even breathe on what we had. I’d learned my lesson with Caroline.

  So what else did I value?

  I thought about the associates crying over their destroyed phones. While I couldn’t understand the obsession with their devices, I’d been accused recently of being similarly obsessed.

  “My Magical Me book?” I said.

  “You mean that taped-up mess under the divan?”

  “It’s back under the divan?” I shouted.

  Gretchen laughed until she began to snort. “Relax, it’s right here. Is that what you’re offering? And I don’t mean just the book. The daily exercises, the affirmations…” I could hear her flipping through it.

  I surprised myself by hesitating.

  “Everson?”

  “Yeah, yes, of course,” I said. “The book and … the practices.”

  “Then you’ve got yourself a deal. Let me go rouse sleeping beauty.”

  As Gretchen set the phone down, I shook my head. With everything at stake, had I really just balked at giving up my Magical Me program? But I’d made progress with that program in the last year. Not as much as I’d hoped, but still … It had gotten me to levels I wouldn’t have reached without it. If the training with Gretchen didn’t pan out, I might need it again. Plus, as sappy as it sounded, giving up the book felt like losing a close friend.

  “Okey-dokey,” Gretchen said after several minutes. “It’s done.”

  “You healed her already? She’s coherent?”

  “Do you want to talk to her? She’s right here.”

  Before I could answer, I heard a murmured exchange. The next voice was Becky’s. “Everson?”

  “Hey!” I said in honest surprise. Given the speed with which Gretchen had come back on the line, I thought she was pulling my leg again. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like crap, but I understand it could’ve been worse. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. I found the bags you told me about. They’ve been defused.”

  “Thank God,” she breathed.

  “Listen, when we were trying to leave the packing plant, you started to tell me about the location of an induction ceremony? The one where Damien had you all meet to replace Trevor?”

  “Oh, right. It was at the southeast corner of Central Park. You know where that big pond is? Well, at the end near the old skating rink, there’s a huge pile of boulders. Damien had us go down a hole around there. We followed an underground passageway to a big room.”

  The old goblin tunnels, I thought anxiously. “All right, I want you to stay at my place until I tell you it’s safe to leave.” If Damien’s Ark was restored, the demon would send the members to silence her.

  “Okay,” she said, then lowered her voice. “But I don’t think this woman wants me here.”

  “Gretchen’s bark is worse than her bite—though you might want to relocate to the couch. Oh, and don’t eat anything she cooks. Remember, stay put until you hear back from me.”

  “Gotcha,” she said. “And … thanks for everything.”

  I could hear by the awkwardness that thank yous didn’t come easy for her.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  I hung up and called Homicide again. Hoffman answered.

  “Anything from Vega?”

  “Still nothing.”

  I wasn’t sure whether or not to believe him, but time was too precious.

  “Okay, listen,” I said. “If you want in on this, here’s what I need you to do. Set up a perimeter around the southeast corner of Central Park, from Sixty-Fifth down. Have it in place in thirty minutes. Grab anyone who tries to go in or come out. I’ll be in touch. Deal?”

  “Sure. But where are you gonna be?”

  I swallowed. “Underground.”

  21

  It was drizzling again by the time the cab dropped me off on Central Park South. I raised my collar and stepped into an amber cone of streetlight, thin droplets splintering around me. Something else I’d improved on in the past year was channeling energy in the presence of water.

  I invoked a shield and scanned the dark expanse ahead of me. The fires from the year before had incinerated the growth and overgrowth, making the roads that wound through the park mostly navigable again. I made my way toward East Drive, which curved in the direction of the old skating rink. A set of tire tracks appeared in the wet cinders.

  Someone had come this way recently.

  I broke into a jog, my coat bouncing with spell items, until I could see the skating pavilion. Parked behind it was the vehicle that had left the tracks: a large SUV.

  South of the rink, I spotted the boulders Becky had mentioned. As I picked my way over to them, it occurred to me that I was at the other end of the pond where Vega and I had fought the bugbear the summer before, narrowly escaping the overgrown park ahead of the napalm drops. The current charred landscape with tree trunks rising like spires couldn’t have looked more alien.

  When I arrived at the boulders, I circled them, searching for the hole. I risked a bit of light from my staff until I spotted several sets of footprints coming from the direction of the skating pavilion.

  I followed them, and I was soon edging sideways between two large boulders.

  I spotted the hole that thick growth had once concealed. Budge was supposed to have had the goblin tunnels filled, but a backlog of projects, including the park’s restoration, were on hold until the downtown was finished. His eradication program had helped get him reelected, but it had also caused billions in damage. While new businesses and residences had begun to take hold in some of the formerly afflicted areas, the city’s coffers weren’t exactly overflowing.

  As I approached the hole, my light shone over a crude staircase descending steeply. I listened but couldn’t hear anything beyond the blackness.

  Oh boy, I thought as my chest began to tighten.

  I started into one of the Magical Me affirmations befor
e catching myself. Bad things tended to happen to those who went back on their fae bargains. I wasn’t sure how enforceable our bargain was, given Gretchen wasn’t actually fae, but I couldn’t afford any badness right now. Especially after seeming to have gotten over my second bout of bad luck.

  Old goblin odors, putrid and reptilian, moved around me as I reinforced my shield and started down the staircase. After a twenty-foot descent, I arrived in a low passageway supported by rough-hewn scaffolding. The remains of several goblins that had tried to flee the napalm attack lay off to one side, bones and rags now. The fingers of a hand still clutched the grip of a burnt bow.

  I turned from the remains and listened. Within moments, I picked up what sounded like distant moaning, but I couldn’t tell whether it was voices or some flue-like effect of the tunnels.

  I followed the passageway forward, rehearsing my plan in my mind. I stopped when, a few yards ahead, I could see the tunnel splitting in two. The moaning was coming from the right one—and, yes, it was made up of voices.

  I followed the sound past small rooms and through two more intersections. Eventually, light flickered at the bend of the tunnel ahead. I killed my own light and stole forward.

  The tunnel opened into a high-ceilinged room large enough to have served as a goblin mess hall. An assortment of small tables and chairs had been shoved to the room’s sides. In the cleared center was a pentagram, similar to the one at the old packing plant. I took in the three men and two women, each standing at a different point on the pentagram. Heads bowed, they clasped hands to form a circle. Dozens of thick candles flickered around them.

  Their moans were a collective chant, low and drawn out. Dark demonic energy stirred at the pentagram’s center. The sharp pressure in my ears told me it was Damien. I looked from member to member, stopping at Quinton’s bald head. He was standing across from me, his voice the loudest. My gaze dropped to the necklace glinting on the front of his chest.

  Step one, I thought, grab the cursed item.

  I pulled my cane apart and aimed my sword. “Vigore!”