The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) Read online

  I mentioned how Grandpa never joined us at Sunday Mass? He had his reasons.

  “In part,” Arnaud replied at last. “But I have learned many things in my life, chief among them to not draw attention to my nature. Our kind inspires fear, yes, but also uncommon wrath.”

  Arnaud stood and, his glass dangling from his long fingers, strolled to the floor-to-ceiling window that cast the room in tannic brown light. Beyond and far below, I could see the wall that separated his domain from the rest of Manhattan. The streets beyond were clogged with cars and pedestrians, great knots converging on the checkpoints. For a moment, I saw the people as Arnaud must have—bearers of pikes and torches, castle-stormers.

  “I like to keep my activities quiet, you see.” He took another sip of scotch. “The brutal murder of one as exalted as Father Richard is anything but. Not that I regret what happened. If his death presents me with someone more amenable to financial pressure, well … let’s just say I won’t demur.”

  “So you had nothing to do with the murder?”

  “I believe I’ve answered your question, my boy.”

  He spoke with the self-possession of someone with nothing to hide, and I caught myself nodding.

  “What about Black Earth?” I asked.

  He turned to face me. “What about them?”

  Them? I straightened.

  “Are they a group?” I blurted before I could stop myself.

  Arnaud’s lips stretched into a wicked smile. Damn. He strolled back to his chair, this time sitting with his legs neatly crossed. He draped a wrist over his knee and jiggled his drained glass, making the ice clink.

  “It seems I have something you want,” he said.

  “Not necessarily. I mean, if you know something about Black Earth that I don’t, then—”

  He silenced me with a raised hand. “The cat is already out of its foul little bag, Mr. Croft. Why, there it is now, scampering about, the rascal.” His eyes darted around as though tracking it, then returned to mine. He studied me for a long moment, his gaze dipping once to my hand.

  “The ring,” he said.

  I curled my fingers protectively. “Huh?”

  “Yes. The ring for the information.”

  Though he sounded like someone proposing a simple business transaction, I sensed an underlying urgency. He didn’t like the idea of an enchanted item out there that could hurt him. For my part, I didn’t like the idea of not having that item. But with less than twenty-four hours to point Detective Vega in the direction of the killer, I needed to know what Black Earth meant.

  “A renewed truce?” I counter-offered.

  “The ring or nothing.”

  I studied the dragon embossed in the face of dark silver. I hadn’t thought the ring was anything more than symbolic. In fact, I’d only brought it to get inside and, once here, to remind Arnaud of the Pact. Fortunately for my immortal soul, the power of the Pact had been bound inside the ring through enchantment. It was a powerful artifact, and one I might need again.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t give this up,” I said.

  “Then it appears we’re done.”

  Before I could come up with another offer, Arnaud stood and clapped his hands sharply. The blood slave who had ushered me in opened the door.

  “Zarko,” Arnaud said. “Please show Mr. Croft down and return his belongings.” He rotated back to the window as though I had already been escorted out. Knowing further appeals would fall on deaf ears, I stood from my chair, drink untouched, and headed for the door.

  I was nearly to the threshold when Arnaud spoke again. “I’ve become fond of you in our short time together this afternoon, Mr. Croft.” The way his voice warped the word fond told me he’d become anything but. I turned anyway, alert in anticipation. “As such, I will tell you this. While the Pact may forbid me from coming after you, I cannot be held liable for the actions of my employees. No offense to good Zarko here, but they are rather mindless, after all. There is no telling what they might do if provoked.”

  “And what might provoke them?” I asked, edging from Zarko, whose pale lips had turned up at the corners.

  “Remain on your side of the Wall, my boy, and I doubt you’ll ever need know.”

  I clenched my jaw. In exchange for the vaguest acknowledgment that a group called Black Earth did exist, possibly even somewhere in the city, I’d relinquished my access to the bulk of downtown Manhattan—where St. Martin’s just happened to sit.

  “I won’t make any promises,” I muttered as I crossed the threshold.

  “Well, then neither will I,” Arnaud answered.

  20

  I left the Financial District on foot, dumping the bag of rice at the first garbage bin I encountered.

  As I stepped from the Wall’s shadow, I squinted around. I was still recovering from Arnaud’s poisonous presence (the dull afternoon light outside his building had nearly blinded me), but part of my splintering headache arose from irritation at myself. That was what risking my life for nothing tended to do.

  Well, not nothing, I thought as I tapped north. I felt I could safely cross Arnaud off the list of suspects. He was right. His survival had as much to do with amassing wealth and influence as keeping his vampiric activities on the down low. As badly as he wanted St. Martin’s out of his district, he was resigned to doing so through legal action and bribery.

  That left Wang Gang and the White Hand. Perhaps Black Earth was the name of an inner circle Caroline hadn’t known about? I still thought it was a long shot, given the language of the message, but Chinatown was all I had. One small problem, however—I didn’t have an in with the White Hand like I did with Arnaud. No family connections or…

  The thought trailed off as an idea took hold.

  Fifteen minutes later I was stepping beneath a string of paper lanterns and opening a door to a sharp tring.

  A familiar pungency met me as I peered around. It had been years since I’d set foot inside Mr. Han’s Apothecary (Midge’s Medicinals in the West Village was more convenient), but it was much as I remembered. A tight maze work of shelves and small drawers packed with just about anything a spell-caster could want: roots, rare stones, ground bones, dried arachnids, some as large as my hand, seemingly empty bottles with labels like GOOD HOPE and INSANITY.

  I could browse in here all day.

  “That Mr. Croft?” an accented voice asked.

  I turned to the small register in the front of the store to find a late middle-aged man with jet-black hair, a collared shirt buttoned to his narrow throat. Just the fellow I was looking for.

  “Mr. Han! Hey, how are you?”

  “Oh, you know, just chilling out.” That must have been one of the first English phrases he’d learned because it was his answer to every inquiry into his or his family’s well being. I expected him to ask about my long absence, but he shifted immediately to business. “How can help you? Have good, good sale on scorpion today.” He nodded toward a fish bowl squirming with them.

  “Oh, no thanks.”

  “Boar tail? Sloth wee-wee?”

  For a moment I considered the second—it was great for encumbering spells—but I shook my head. “Actually, Mr. Han, I was hoping you could help me with a question.”

  “Have question?”

  I looked around to ensure the store’s emptiness before stooping toward his small counter. I studied the diminutive man, doubting his connection to the White Hand went any further than having to pay them a business tax. Even so, I would need to proceed with care.

  “Does the name Black Earth mean anything to you?”

  “Black Earth,” he repeated sharply. He said nothing for several moments. By his blank face, I couldn’t tell if he was even considering the question. But he was checking the name against a mental inventory because when he spoke again, he said, “Mr. Han no carry. Can order. Be here two week.”

  He thrust out a pair of fingers.

  “No, no,” I said with a chuckle. I’d always liked Mr. Han. “Bl
ack Earth isn’t an ingredient. It’s the name of a group, I think.”

  Another blank face.

  “Maybe one associated with, you know, the bosses?” I looked around to suggest greater Chinatown.

  “Boss? I only boss,” he said. “Father boss before me, but gone. Son next boss, but lazy.” He made a face of disgust and jerked his head to the right. “Play videogame but no learn business.”

  A pale green curtain fluttered over the doorway Mr. Han had indicated. Beyond, I could make out bursts of electronic gunfire.

  “Need Black Earth today?” he said, getting back to my question. “Go to North Wood. Central Park.”

  Sensing the line of inquiry was only going to elicit more confused answers, I decided to shift to the shrieker case. I pulled out my notepad and flipped to last night’s scribblings. I noticed my pencil was missing from the spiral binding, probably when the checkpoint guards had rifled my pockets.

  “Do you know a man named Chin Lau Ping?”

  “Chin drive bus.”

  Okay, so I had the right person. But because word of his death hadn’t seemed to have hit the streets yet, I was careful to phrase my next question in present tense. “Does he ever shop here?”

  “Chin come many, many time.”

  Sounded like another magic dabbler. I was trying to think of an appropriate follow-up question when Mr. Han turned toward the doorway to his living quarters and unleashed an explosion of Chinese. I looked in time to see a shadow recede from the other side of the diaphanous curtain. Mr. Han shook his head and returned his attention to me. “Chin funny man.”

  “You mean strange?”

  “No, tell funny joke.”

  I couldn’t match Mr. Han’s delighted laughter as he related the impossible-to-follow story involving chopsticks and fried bull testicles, but I chuckled at what I guessed to have been the punch line.

  “That’s … great,” I said.

  Hitting a dead end there as well, I rounded up a few spell items, including a vial of the sloth urine, and paid for them back at the counter. It looked like I was going to have to do my own research at home. Accepting the neat paper bag, I bid the apothecary owner farewell.

  “Chill out at Mr. Han anytime!” he called after me.

  21

  Back home, I reclined in my downstairs reading chair and shook open the afternoon edition of the Scream. The cheap tabloid focused on crime and vice, hence the need for two daily runs. Indeed, while the big city papers were entering their second decade of declining ad sales and readership, the Scream was in boom mode with no signs of slowing.

  On the second page, I found what I was looking for:

  Gruesome Evisceration In Harlem! Second In Chinatown!

  Though the three-column story was long on sensationalism and short on specifics, I picked out a few details. The Hamilton Heights conjurer had been twenty-eight-year-old Fred “Flash” Thomas. He’d worked at a fast-food joint in the neighborhood and was considered something of a prankster.

  According to a neighbor, one of his favorite tricks had been to throw his voice to make it sound as though complete strangers were insulting one another. “Started more than his share of fights,” the woman was quoted as saying. “Probably what got him killed.”

  Magic was what got him killed, actually. And with the voice projecting, it sounded as though he’d been dabbling in the art for a while. The article went on to list the city schools he’d attended, a couple of them reformatory, but nothing to help answer the question of where he’d picked up the spell.

  The coverage of the Chinatown conjurer wasn’t much more informative. I’d gotten the man’s name and occupation correct, though it seemed little more was known about him.

  “Given their ritualistic nature,” the article concluded, “the grisly killings are believed to have been perpetrated by the same sick, depraved individual.” My eyes wandered to a composite sketch below.

  “Of course,” I said.

  The staring eyes were too wide, the nose too large, and the lips too narrow, but I could imagine the back and forth as the elderly couple from the Hamilton Heights apartments described me to the police sketch artist. They’d even included the various scrapes and gouges on my face. My healing spell had all but taken care of those, fortunately, but the physical description of the man wanted for questioning was another matter.

  “Six-foot to six-two male,” I read aloud, “dark brown hair, hazel eyes … last seen running westbound on 142nd Street, near Fredrick Douglass Boulevard, carrying a wooden cane.”

  Thank God my projection spell had worked last night. Then again, having the jackass duo of Dempsey and Dipinski as alibis was no guarantee of anything.

  I thumbed through the rest of the paper. There was no coverage on the St. Martin’s murder yet, which suggested the church had paid the Scream for their silence—another way the paper raked in revenue. Church officials no doubt wanted to be able to break the news to the parishioners themselves, and more gently.

  The other murders in the last twenty-four hours were shootings, which was actually a relief. It meant the shriekers hadn’t fed since being loosed. Maybe the Order had sent someone to deal with them.

  I set the paper aside and checked my watch. The East Village conjurer remained under my mind-restoring magic, and would for another twelve to twenty-four. The man being my best source of where the spell had come from, I would need to be there when he woke up.

  In the meantime, I could focus on the cathedral murder, which meant trying to learn what Black Earth meant.

  Tabitha stirred as I passed her, the food plate and milk bowl beside the divan licked clean. I preempted my cat by saying, “Dinner after your tour.”

  “I’ve toured twice already, you tyrannical fu—”

  “Language,” I reminded her. “Anything to report?”

  She yawned and flopped onto her other side. “Your admirer was back.”

  An electric jolt shot through me. “The woman?” I’d checked the outside of the building before entering but hadn’t seen any average-looking brunettes watching. At least not in plain view.

  “Still can’t tell for sure,” Tabitha replied.

  “What time?”

  “One, two o’clock. I don’t know.”

  “Did you pick out any defining features like we talked about?”

  “Yeah, two. She was standing across the street, and her feet were together.”

  On my last visit to the dentist I was told I grind my teeth. Hmm, I wonder why. “Look, if you’re not going to try, then neither am I. How does water and Meow Mix sound?”

  Tabitha sighed. “She was in a dark coat, hair past her shoulders.”

  I tried to align the composite with people I knew and came up empty.

  “Next time you see her, come get me.”

  “Hard to do when you’re never home.”

  “Just…” She had a point. “Look, I have a ton on my plate. More than you’ll ever appreciate. All so we can continue to enjoy our present comfortable lifestyle, I should remind you.”

  Tabitha acted as though she wasn’t listening.

  “I’ll be upstairs. Working.”

  As I climbed the ladder to my library and lab, my irritation with Tabitha gave over to puzzlement about who was staking out the apartment. I ruled out plainclothes detective, since Tabitha had first seen the woman yesterday, before the killings in which my unflattering likeness was now the chief suspect. That left … who? Someone involved with the church murder? The shrieker conjurings?

  The hologram of the city was dim, anyway, which was a relief. I needed it to stay that way. I didn’t think I could handle another summoning tonight.

  I got right to work on the church case, poring through several thick tomes for anything that might relate to the message. I was a good hour in when I found something. In a section on spell-craft in ancient Britain, my eyes locked onto the name of a group who practiced a druidic form of magic.

  The monks had called themselves Nigra
Terra. Translation: Black Earth.

  I jotted down a page’s worth of notes on the fierce group, then leaned back in my desk chair in thought. There were a few druid cults in the city who dabbled in nature magic. Blessing trees and animals, that sort of thing. Harmless, really.

  But I’d heard rumors of a clandestine group whose activities were less well known. They hadn’t been summoning nether creatures—the alarm would have alerted me. Still, they practiced in Central Park which was telling, given the beings that roamed those wilds. The druid group was either more powerful than the resident creatures or aligned with them, somehow.

  I nearly tipped backwards in my chair as I remembered what Mr. Han had said that afternoon.

  Need Black Earth today? Go to North Wood. Central Park.

  Had he been trying to tell me something?

  I was considering the question when the flame on my table erupted in a red-purple column. A folded piece of paper shot from the peaking flame, unfolding as it fell, fluttering to the table top. It came to a rest in the table’s center, as neat as if someone had placed it there.

  From the Order? A response within twelve hours would be lightning speed for them. I rushed over to the message anyway, hoping for an update on the shrieker situation.

  To: Everson Croft

  After reviewing your reports on the recent summonings, we hereby order you to cease pursuit of the matter and discontinue all magic use until further notice. This decree goes into immediate effect.

  Signed: The Order

  I staggered backwards as though I’d been punched in the throat.

  “What?”

  22

  The Order had voiced displeasure with me in the past (the Thelonious issue remained a really touchy subject), but they had never taken away my practice of magic. Next to death, it was the harshest decree that could be handed down, reserved for magic users who drifted into the dark arts.