The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) Page 3

  “He is a fraud,” she said.

  “Really? In what way?”

  “What he told you last night?” She lowered her eyelids to half mast and affected a French accent. “‘I am star professor. I am coveted speaker. I am genius.’ It is all bullshit.”

  James laughed. “Not bad. And how did you discover that delightful gem?”

  “Google,” she said.

  “Google?” I peered back down toward the remote village. “Was there an internet cafe I missed?”

  “I have a satellite phone. I had someone look into his claims.”

  “Well,” James said. “A spy after my own heart.”

  Flor ignored the comment, which gave me private pleasure. While James and I might not have been academic rivals, I sensed a growing competition between us for Flor’s attention. A competition I was determined to win. “Bertrand teaches in Paris,” she said. “But at what they call a primaire.”

  “Wait,” I said. “He’s an elementary school teacher?”

  “So, his talk about Harvard and the Sorbonne?” James chimed in. “The book awards?”

  “His only publication is a personal web page,” Flor replied. “Pure drivel.”

  I snorted, unable to believe the man’s audacity. So what was he doing here? Trying to garner recognition? To become the academic celebrity he’d already invented for himself?

  “Wow,” I remarked, “and he had the nerve to call us amateurs.”

  “That settles that, I suppose,” James said. “But what about us, love?”

  Flor’s face whipped toward him. “What about you?”

  “Well, surely you didn’t stop with our good man Bertrand.”

  It took me a moment to understand what James was suggesting. Flor had her contact look into us as well.

  “Do not worry,” she snapped. “Your stories check out. So far.”

  And yours? I wanted to ask. But the road narrowed suddenly, the encroaching trees pressing us into a single file. Flor took the lead while I fell to the rear. Almost immediately, the temperature dropped several degrees, and the air thickened with humidity. A strange fatigue overcame me. But while I labored with each step, the other two marched ahead.

  “Hey, American,” Flor called through the foliage. “Move your ass. We have many kilometers to cover.”

  James turned around and tipped me a wink.

  6

  The first wolf call arrived late that afternoon, a long, chilling cry.

  Flor and James stopped to listen, allowing me time to catch up. I stood on shaky legs, searching the seams in the trees. The forest we were ascending through had grown darker and more knotted with each mile until it looked like something out of a Grimm’s fairytale. My gaze darted toward the sound of a snapping branch. I thought I caught a figure duck behind a black tree, but the forest had been playing tricks on my eyes all afternoon.

  “Sounded like quite a big one,” James said of the cry. “Assertive, too.”

  “Yes, but it is far away,” Flor said. “Kilometers. We need to keep going. Bertrand had a four-hour head start.”

  James consulted his GPS device. “We’re making decent time, in any case.”

  “It could be better,” Flor remarked, glancing over at me.

  Her shirt hiked up as she turned, and I caught myself gawking at a glistening show of skin above her right hip. I was going on six months since my last girlfriend kicked me to the curb, and the yearning for that kind of companionship was starting to feel like a clinical condition. Maybe when I returned to New York I’d look into getting a cat. Something uncomplicated.

  “How you holding up, mate?” James asked, slowing to match my pace.

  “Fine.” In fact, I was exhausted. “Hey, you’ve been talking to her most of the day,” I said in a lowered voice and with a shot of envy. “Any insights into her motive for wanting to go to the monastery? Or why she’s so hell bent on getting there ahead of Bertrand?”

  “I’m afraid not. And if you intend on taking up the question with her again, I advise you to step carefully. She’s a bit of a minefield, that one.”

  “So I’ve noticed.” My gaze locked onto the titanium case swinging from her arm.

  Before I could wonder aloud about its contents, James said, “The folklore in these parts should interest someone in your line of study. Did you know they have a version of a werewolf called a pricolici?”

  I ventured a glance at the dark forest behind us. “Is now really the best time?”

  “Ooh, dreadful creatures,” he went on. “Fast, powerful, smart as humans, but nigh impossible to kill. And they don’t abide by the moon cycles as far as their wolf forms go. That’s a constant condition. As far as their temperaments?” He gave a knowing laugh. “The waxing moon is supposed to make them more blood thirsty. And I do believe we’re coming on a full moon this week.”

  When another cycle of howling started, James’s eyes gleamed as though the wolves had just made his point for him.

  “Thanks for that info,” I muttered.

  While James trotted to catch up to Flor, I glanced around again, my anxiety needle trembling in the orange. Not that I believed in werewolves, or needed to—actual wolves were worrying enough. Then again, if magic could exist in our world, why not monsters? Because whatever I had witnessed from my grandfather’s closet that night had looked an awful lot like magic.

  Magic I wasn’t supposed to have seen.

  I stared at Grandpa’s face, shock icing over my own. His hazel-blue eyes studied the blood welling from my finger, the lines around his mouth turning down. One hand clamped my wrist, but I was more concerned by his other hand. The one gripping a sword that, only seconds before, had been his walking cane. A sword he had just drawn across my finger faster than I could blink.

  The wound began to sting, then burn, pulling a murmur from my lips.

  His eyes snapped to mine. Hard Germanic eyes. “You should not hide up here.”

  With those thick, accented words, the attic room seemed to take form again, everything returning from some gray haze. The antique desk, the crowded bookshelves, the old steamer trunk. Though I couldn’t see the closet I had been crouched inside, I could smell the stuffy coats behind me.

  “How did you get in?” he demanded.

  “Wh-what?”

  “How did you enter my room?”

  My gaze shifted to the door. No latching system. Not even a keyhole to peek through. But always locked. Through the dense wood, I had often picked up vibrations of muffled words, liturgical-like chants, and once, a high, chilling voice that sounded like nothing I’d ever heard. The voice gave me nightmares for a month. But it didn’t keep me from coming back to listen.

  “I-I opened the door.”

  “How?”

  The word. There was a strange word Grandpa would utter every time he stood outside his attic door before he turned the knob. As though he were muttering a brusque greeting to someone.

  “I said what you say.”

  His grip tightened on my wrist as he leaned closer. “And what do I say?”

  “Apri—” I cleared my throat. “Aprire.”

  As had happened when I’d spoken the word earlier, a current passed through me, and a pressure in the room seemed to release, like when your ears popped after an airplane flight. Grandpa blinked twice. He peered at the door for a full minute, then closed his eyes and exhaled through his large nostrils, as though he had just arrived at a grave conclusion.

  “You should not hide up here,” he repeated, releasing my wrist and straightening. “You should not even be in here. Ever.”

  I pulled my hand toward my chest, wounded finger extended, tears standing in my eyes. “Okay.”

  I flinched when he reached down, but it was only to wipe the blood away with his large thumb. He uttered something as he ran the blood-smeared thumb up and down the flat of the sword before sliding it back into the cane. He strode to the door, his dark linen suit stiff on his tall frame.

  I followed, ca
sting wary glances at the trunk, silent now, and the bookshelves that held encyclopedias and reference books once more. Had I imagined everything?

  “You are curious,” Grandpa said as he opened the door for me. “But you must not be foolish. Things heard cannot be unheard. Things seen unseen. Things spoken unspoken. And it is this last that is most important for those of our blood.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, not knowing what in the hell he was talking about.

  He stared at me sternly for another moment, then dismissed me with a nod.

  I pattered down the narrow staircase, scared and confused. I had been in Nana and Grandpa’s care ever since my mother had died, which was ever since I could remember, and neither had ever hurt me. And on my birthday?

  Arriving in my room, I closed the door behind me with a foot, blind to the opened presents spread over my bed. He sliced my finger, I thought. I was afraid to look, already anticipating the flayed fat pad, maybe even a bloody knot of bone. The slice had felt that deep.

  But when I looked down, all I saw was a faint white line.

  7

  The wolf calls grew in number with the fading light. They volleyed back and forth, as though several had picked up our scent and were telling the others. When an especially loud cry rent the air, I jogged to catch up to James and Flor.

  “I say we make camp,” I blurted. “Build a nice fire, set up some kind of watch.” My heart beat hard in my chest as I pointed off to the right. “There’s a flat spot over there, plenty of fallen limbs.”

  James nodded his approval, then turned to Flor.

  She looked at her watch and sighed. “Fine.”

  I went to work on the fire while James and Flor set up their tents. Using hand sanitizer as starter fuel, I got a decent-sized blaze going before dusk became full dark. After gathering up a reserve of limbs to last the night, the three of us ate our dinners around the fire. I noticed Flor didn’t have my homemade repellent at hand.

  “Where’s your bottle?” I asked.

  “I left it at the pension.”

  “On purpose?”

  “The wolves will not come close to the fire.”

  Deeper in the forest, above her right shoulder, a golden pair of eyes flashed and disappeared. And they weren’t the only ones. More sets of eyes winked in and out of the trees, like coins from a dark well. “Better rethink that logic,” I said, “because they’re already here.”

  I shot to my feet, fingers wrapping the trigger of my spray bottle—which suddenly felt puny to the task. James rose with his bottle as well, but more in curiosity than fear, it seemed.

  Flor remained seated. “That is as close as they will come.”

  “Don’t know about that, love,” James said. “At least one of them sounds determined to make a fireside appearance.”

  I turned to where James was aiming his bottle, away from the flashing of eyes. Then I heard it too: the sound of something large running through wet leaves, coming straight for us. A moment later, a shadow broke into the light.

  Squinting, I rapid-fired the plastic trigger.

  Shouts went up. Too late, I saw the figure wasn’t a wolf, but a person. The aerosol of pepper spray that enveloped the man sent him shrieking to the ground, hands to his eyes. I noted the hair flapping from his slipping hood, and then the lumpy pack on the man’s back.

  “My God, is that Bertrand?” James asked.

  If there was any doubt, his stuffy voice removed it. “You animals!” Bertrand cried. “What kind of poison have you put into my eyes?”

  “Just stop rubbing them,” I said with the annoyance of someone who’s just had the crap needlessly scared from him. I hurried to my pack and returned with a bottle of milk, which I’d stowed in the event of an accident.

  “What are you doing?” Bertrand sputtered, as the milk splashed over his face.

  “Neutralizing the pepper, you idiot. Now hold still and let it flush everything out.”

  He stopped slapping and writhing long enough to blink the milk into his bloodshot eyes.

  “There,” I said, recapping the bottle with a sigh. “Give it a few seconds.”

  James offered him a handkerchief, which Bertrand snatched away and used to mop his face and then pinch into the corners of his eyes. I noticed Flor had remained on her side of the fire the whole time, a smile slanting her lips. My face flushed as I imagined how slap-sticky we must have looked. But the commotion must also have scared the wolves away, because I could no longer see their eyes.

  I turned back to Bertrand, who was pushing himself to his knees.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, “but was that you fleeing for your life?” I was still bristling over the American-is-afraid jab. Not to mention his whole intellectual façade. “It couldn’t have had anything to do with those wolf tales, as you called them last night, could it?”

  “Don’t be preposterous,” he replied stiffly, gaining his feet. “I was preparing my own camp over there when I saw your fire. It made no sense to pass the night alone, so I decided to join you.”

  “Which involved running here at full speed.”

  “Walk? Run? What does it matter how I arrived?” he spat. “Though I am beginning to see my mistake.”

  I studied his black slicker and lined it up with the shadows I’d glimpsed earlier, the snapping of branches, the feeling of being watched. “How long have you been following us?”

  He blinked and straightened. “How dare you suggest—”

  “Oh, spare us the dramatics,” I said. “That’s why you set out early, isn’t it? Not to get a head start, but to hide until we’d passed and then tail us. You don’t know the precise location of the monastery. Your plan was to let us lead you there and then run ahead and claim the discovery and anything inside for yourself. It was all going along just hunky-dory until the wolves turned up. And then your little scheme didn’t seem so cunning, did it?”

  “You have been watching too many stupid American movies,” he muttered, even as he shot nervous glances into the forest.

  “Very good,” James said, stepping between us. “The important thing is that we’re all safe. Now, how should we divide up the shifts?”

  “After all this excitement, you boys need your rest,” Flor said. “I will take the first.”

  “And I the second,” Bertrand announced. “Which leaves you to take the third, and you the fourth.” He pointed to me and James in turn, as though we were his teaching assistants.

  “Can you believe this guy?” I said, anger climbing my neck. “You’re not even a prof—”

  “That will work just fine,” James interrupted. After Bertrand had given a self-satisfied nod and begun unpacking his shelter, James guided me a few steps away. “Better he doesn’t know we’re onto him, hmm?”

  I narrowed my eyes at Bertrand. I had never been able to stand officious jerks, especially lying ones.

  “And why’s that?” I asked.

  “Well, if he suspects we know his true story, he’s likely to behave more carefully, cover his tracks. Then we may never learn what he’s doing here. We keep a sly eye on him, and sooner or later he’ll slip up.”

  I nodded reluctantly. “And Flor?”

  “Oh, she’s on board. We had the same chat earlier.”

  “No, I mean, shouldn’t we be keeping an eye on her, as well?”

  “Why, you’re quite right,” James said.

  I noticed that ever since we’d arrived at the campsite, her titanium case had never been more than an arm’s length away from her. I nodded at it now. “I’ll use my shift to see if I can get a peek at whatever’s she’s carrying. Maybe it’ll tip us off to what she’s doing here.”

  “Careful, mate,” he said. “Minefield, remember?”

  “Yeah, I’m used to those.”

  8

  I was awakened by muttered curses and red light against my eyelids, growing brighter. I had fallen asleep to a modest campfire, an ample reserve of wood stacked beside it. Now I squinted my eyes op
en to a furious blaze. One onto which Bertrand was dumping the final thick branches.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” I hissed, kicking away my sleeping bag and unzipping my fly net. “You’re using up all the fuel!”

  Bertrand acknowledged me with a tight glance before wiping off his hands and sweeping his gaze over the forest. When I focused past him, all the fight fell out of me. The wolves were back and crowding against the boundary between firelight and darkness, flashing eyes set in long, gray faces. There were more of them than earlier, and whether it was some trick of light, they looked like small bulls.

  “They were closer before I fed the blaze,” Bertrand said.

  “That’s genius, professor, but we’re out of wood now.”

  I scanned our campsite, but we had cleared it of branches. The only fuel lay beyond the ring of predators, who watched silently. No more pack to call. They were all here.

  I flinched when the fire snapped behind me and stove in slightly. As the orb of light shrank, the wolves inched nearer. The closest ones were only thirty feet away.

  “Everyone up!” I called, rustling James’s tent and Flor’s tarp. “We’ve got company.”

  James emerged first and looked around sleepily. “Well, I’d say.”

  “Get your repellent,” I told him.

  “I do applaud your ingenuity,” he said, arriving beside me. He peered from our bottles back to the wolves. “However, it looks as if the current advantage lies with our furry friends.”

  I shook my bottle to stir up the pepper dregs. “You saw what this stuff did to the professor. It doesn’t take much. I say we release a few sprays into the wind, enough to warn them away.”

  “Or more likely provoke them into an attack,” Bertrand said from behind us.

  “Funny coming from a man who said they were harmless,” I growled.

  James turned to me. “Bertrand does make a case.”

  I checked my watch and did the math. “The sun doesn’t come up for another five hours. Our fire, whose exhaustion the brilliant professor here saw fit to hasten, isn’t going to last another two.”