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

  The fire stove in again, and the wolves inched forward a foot. Several snapped at one another for position, fangs bright and lethal in the firelight.

  “Hmm,” James said. “I see your point.”

  We raised our spray bottles.

  “Don’t,” Bertrand warned, his voice as taut as a guy wire. “They will attack.”

  “Three squirts,” I said to James. “You fan yours out a little that way. I’ll aim a little more this way.”

  “Got it.”

  “On my countdown,” I said, my hand trembling. “Three… two…”

  “No!” Bertrand leapt between us and brought his fist down on my forearm. The bottle fell to the ground. James’s grunt told me Bertrand had struck him as well. “I will not be a victim of your stupidity!”

  He kicked my bottle away and wrestled with James for his.

  I turned to where the bottle rolled to a stop, on the verge of the firelight. One of the wolves leaned forward to sniff it. Was it a wolf? Its snout seemed too thick, too blunt, teeth hooking over its lower jaw. And its front paw splayed out like a bear’s instead of a canine’s, ending in large claws. No wonder the driver’s scars had looked like the work of a grizzly. James’s account of the Romanian werewolf, the pricolici, flashed through my mind.

  The beast bared its fangs at the bottle, then up at me, as though assigning blame for the poison, before drawing back into the shadows again.

  Behind me, James spoke through clenched teeth, “You’re going about this rather roughly.”

  I looked to find him and Bertrand still grappling for the bottle. The barks and snarls from the ring of wolves rose in pitch. I hooked an arm around Bertrand’s throat and tried to pull him away.

  “Stop fighting, goddammit,” I hissed in his ear. “You’re exciting them.”

  “You are the ones … exciting them,” Bertrand grunted, pistoning a sharp elbow into my ribs.

  A single ragged cry went up and I felt, more than heard, the circle of wolves collapse. I released Bertrand and turned in time to meet the beast plowing into me. Two hundred pounds of brawn and thick, wet hair drove me onto my back, foul breath breaking against my face. The beast strained against my forearm, which I’d managed to brace against its throat. Lips drew from a double set of fanged teeth as its dense brow collapsed over furious eyes. Eyes that, save for their deep yellow irises, appeared almost human.

  I was struggling against its straining neck, and losing, when a tight explosion pierced the tumult.

  Something hot sprayed my face. The wolf on top of me crashed to its side and then tore at the ground to right itself. More explosions sounded, and the wolves fled, one dragging a blood-drenched hind leg.

  I thrashed to my feet, looking from the disappearing wolves to the source of the explosions. Across the fire, Flor stood holding what looked like a military-grade rifle. She scanned the woods in a three-hundred-sixty-degree arc, smoke drifting from the barrel. When she faced me once more, she said, “You wanted to know what was in the case?”

  My shocked gaze fell to the open titanium container at her feet, the black foam bed inside designed to hold the disassembled rifle.

  “Wow,” I said, wiping wolf blood from my face. “Good planning.”

  I turned to find James climbing from the ground, excitement coloring his pink cheeks. Bertrand, who had fallen to his back nearby, continued to slap the air as though the wolves were still attacking.

  “Are either of you injured?” I asked.

  James gave his spray bottle a light toss. “Your repellent worked a charm, my friend,” he said, catching it again. “Got two right in the old peepers before Flor here came to the rescue.”

  “Bertrand?” I asked, stooping beside him.

  He had stopped thrashing and was grasping his ankle in both hands now. Blood glistened between his fingers. “I told you not to excite them,” he hissed through his crooked teeth. “Why didn’t you imbeciles listen? And my food bag! They have taken my food bag!”

  I shoved down my annoyance and made him move his hands. The gash was bad, but more worrying was the swelling. One of the wolves had gotten its jaws around him pretty good. I raised my face to James and Flor. “Ankle looks ugly. Could be broken. Should we draw straws to see who takes him back?”

  “I cannot,” Flor said, not bothering to elaborate.

  James rubbed his neck. “And I’m afraid this is my one crack to graduate.”

  I leaned my hands against my thighs and sighed. I could ask James to locate the Book of Souls, transcribe as much as he could, and mail the notes to me back in the States. I would compensate him, of course. But man, to be this close…

  “All right,” I said to Bertrand. “Looks like it’s you and me. We’ll head down in the morning.”

  He shoved me away. “Nonsense! I will not go back and have these two ruin what may be the most important finding of our lifetimes.” He struggled to his knees, then to one foot. But when he attempted to step with his injured leg, he screamed and fell to the ground again.

  “Would you look at yourself?” I said. “You can’t even walk.”

  “It is only a sprain. Splint it and you will see. Tomorrow, I will be ready to travel.”

  “Your bag’s gone,” I reminded him. “You have no food.”

  Grunting, Bertrand crawled on hands and knees to his tent, zipping it closed behind him.

  “Just what we need,” I muttered. “Dead weight.”

  “Well,” James said cheerily. “Shall we gather some more wood, then get a little shut eye before we’re off again?”

  “I will take the remaining shifts,” Flor declared, rifle propped over her shoulder.

  Neither James nor I argued.

  9

  We set out the next morning, Bertrand cursing with every hopping step. We had fashioned a splint for him using cut-up sections of my backpack’s interior frame and some sports tape Flor happened to be carrying.

  “You doing all right?” I called back to him.

  “Do not worry about me,” he snapped, leaning on his branches-cum-crutches. “I know the way.”

  Sure you do, prof.

  I imagined the injury had thrown a wrench into whatever he’d been planning. On the flip side, the injury meant one less worry for the rest of us. Far easier to keep tabs on a crippled fraud than an able-bodied one.

  Late in the afternoon, James signaled to us. “It should be just over the pass.”

  Thank God. The dread of camping in the forest again had been building like a migraine. There was still the return journey to the village, but I’d worry about that in a few days.

  Behind me, I could hear Bertrand grunting to catch up, probably hoping to overtake us, but James and Flor were too far ahead. Before long, their voices rose in excitement. When I arrived at the mountain pass, I saw why. Where the trees began to thin, a sizeable stone structure took shape against a cliff face. Exhilaration surged through me.

  Dolhasca, the forgotten monastery.

  “Wait!” Bertrand called after us. “We should enter by seniority!”

  I ignored him and picked my way down toward the others. The large monastery had been built like a fortress, tall stone walls with a crenellated tower at one corner. The rear of the building ended at the cliff face, as though the mountain had sheared it in half.

  “Seems we aren’t the first ones here,” James said when I arrived beside him.

  He was examining a doorway that looked to have been bricked over but later broken down, toppled stones cast to one side. I tilted a nearby stone with a shoe, revealing a deep pocket of earth underneath.

  “This happened a while ago,” I said.

  “Looters,” Flor announced, in what sounded like disdain. “They are everywhere.”

  “Well, let’s just hope they left the manuscripts alone.”

  “You don’t sound very optimistic,” James said.

  “Because I’m not.” I donned my headlamp. “The manuscripts would have been worth a fortune on the black market.
” And if they had been sold on the black market, I could kiss the Book of Souls goodbye. I would never be able to track it down in the dark network of buyers and sellers.

  Flor stepped forward. “I wonder if they are the same ones who wrote this.” I followed her squinting gaze to a message scrawled beside the door in what looked like charcoal. “Prekliaty.”

  “It’s the Slovak word for cursed,” I said.

  “A warning?” James frowned. “Seems odd for looters to leave a public service announcement.”

  “Or maybe the message was intended to keep looters away,” I said. “As a scare tactic.” I looked from the message back to the busted-up stones. “Though a lot of good it did.”

  “Enough talk.” Flor snapped on a headlamp and stepped through the opening.

  “Wait,” came Bertrand’s voice, his head appearing above the pass. “I don’t have a light!”

  James filed in after Flor, and I took up the rear. We soon found ourselves on a covered walk that framed a stone-riddled courtyard. The open space had probably been a garden at one time, and it wasn’t hard to imagine robed monks strolling along its paths.

  “Let’s split up,” I said, peering down the covered walk to our right and left, picking out the shadows of doorways. “We can take a quick inventory of what’s here before Bertrand arrives.”

  James nodded. “I’ll search the tower, if you and Flor want to begin down here.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said. “And Flor, we’re just looking right now. Not taking, okay?”

  “Bite me,” she snapped and marched away.

  “Well, good luck everyone,” James said merrily before departing.

  I set off in the opposite direction as Flor, my ego smarting from her parting words. What was it about me that put women off? My sarcasm? My face? As I shone my light overhead, the questions dissolved from my thoughts. Though the monastery had appeared forbidding from the outside, handsome stonework adorned the interior, including the walkway’s vaulted ceiling. Romanesque pillars stood every fifteen feet or so, though several had toppled.

  Not a bad place to hang out for a few days.

  I shot my beam into doorways, illuminating what looked to have been prayer cells and former dormitories, all empty now save for scattered rubble and fallen timber beams. In the wall opposite the one we’d entered through, an arched doorway opened into the cliff face. From either the chill air or my own foreboding, my arms broke out in fleshy bumps.

  I ducked into the doorway and soon emerged into a room at the far end of a corridor. My beam found a gruesome monster’s face. Stifling a yell, I swung the beam over and hit the creature’s twin. I staggered backwards, nearly falling.

  I hesitated, my heart slamming—and then let out a shaky laugh.

  Gargoyles.

  I walked up to the devilish works of stone, the pair crouched on pedestals that flanked a descending staircase. The details were impressive, down to the fangs that extended to the gargoyle’s knobby knees. The statues seemed at odds with the rest of the monastery, but I was more concerned about the staircase. My headlamp wavered into the deep darkness.

  As much as I hated the word, I had a phobia of being underground, a condition that made it feel as if someone was sitting on my chest. Already, I was struggling to inhale a full breath.

  I was debating whether to descend when, on a lintel above the steps, I caught sight of a chiseled word:

  SCRIPTORIUM

  The library!

  In my excitement, I almost called for James before realizing I couldn’t do so without alerting Flor. Bertrand, too, if he had made it inside by now. Still not knowing their designs on the texts, I couldn’t take any chances—especially with Flor bearing a high-powered rifle.

  Her echoing voice sounded from the courtyard. “Everson? Where are you?”

  Before my phobia could gain the upper hand, I hurried down the steps, through cold currents of air and a growing odor of what smelled like garbage. I was almost to the bottom when my beam illuminated the smell’s source. Two bodies stretched across the stairs while a third rested on the library floor, face up. Flashlight parts lay scattered, broken plastic glinting around metal tubes.

  I clapped a hand over my mouth and braced myself against the wall. They were the first corpses I had ever seen. When my heart settled, I stole up to the closer bodies. Faded clothing draped what remained of them, their dried skin vacuum-sealed to bone, skulls wispy with hair. From up the stairwell, footfalls echoed, and a pair of lights swelled into view.

  “Down here,” I wheezed.

  James squatted beside the body on the library floor, lips frowning. “Bruising over the face and torso, like the others. Broken limbs. Crushed skull.” He pinched a faded red sleeve. “Judging by the attire, I’d say gypsies.”

  “And look at this.” My headlamp illuminated a black dagger with a shattered blade.

  “Looters,” Flor decided for the second time that afternoon. “I found a room with their things. Bedding, pickaxes, backpacks.”

  “Anything in the packs?” I asked hopefully.

  “Just clothes and extra batteries, some rotten food.”

  I felt my optimism crumple into a wad as I worked out what had likely happened. “Someone in their party must have murdered the other three and then made off with the loot. Probably the manuscripts, given that it occurred down here.” I eyed the rifle slung across Flor’s back, wondering if that had been her intention. She seemed to know a lot about looting.

  “No. There is bedding for four upstairs,” she said. “And there are still four bags.”

  James stood and shone his light around. “Suggesting there must be a fourth body somewhere.”

  “Or the fourth person fled,” I suggested.

  “Fled what?” Flor snapped.

  I was thinking of the scrawled message outside the front door—cursed—almost certain now the fourth looter had left it after fleeing whatever had killed his companions. But I didn’t say anything.

  “Well, we’re here,” James pointed out with a smile. “What say we have a look about?”

  The library was just large enough for us to spread apart while keeping an eye on one another, which we all seemed to be doing. Though whether for each other’s safety or from suspicion, I couldn’t tell. Probably both. Pillars and empty shelves loomed in and out of view. I toed through the dust on the floor, turning up small brass nails and, in a far corner, a leather cover.

  The three of us met in the rear of the room where an archway stood over another stairwell. James was leaning toward a stone in the wall beside the opening, running a finger over a faint engraving.

  “Vault of forbidden texts,” I translated from Latin.

  “This is it,” Flor declared. She started down, James and I following closely.

  “It’s funny, mate,” James whispered to me. “If the texts are forbidden, I would have expected a thick door, a hidden wall, something to keep people from nosing about. But there were no signs the stairwell had been broken into.”

  I nodded. That was bothering me too. We arrived in a lower chamber, passing through what felt like a chilly curtain of energy. Our lights sliced around a cylindrical room the size of a gazebo. Deep shelves had been cut into the stone wall—all of them empty.

  “Mierda,” Flor cursed.

  “This is a disappointment,” James agreed.

  Disappointment? My heart felt as though it had been pulled from my chest and set adrift. With no living family to speak of, the Book of Souls was to have been my line to Grandpa, to who he was. Not the bull about him working in insurance, but who he had really been. Why he spoke in unusual tongues. Why strange forces held his door closed. Why things in his room talked and changed. And why, on the night he had caught me in his study, he had spoken with such gravity about the responsibilities of “those of our blood.”

  “Do you hear that?” Flor asked.

  James and I followed her dark gaze to the ceiling. A moment later, I heard it too. Clunking footstep
s, crossing the floor of the main library. Too heavy to be Bertrand’s.

  I swallowed dryly. “Were either of you expecting company?”

  10

  Flor signaled for us to kill our lights. When we did, a coal-black darkness collapsed against us. In the absence of sight, my hearing sharpened. I could make out Flor’s and James’s shallow breaths, and one floor up, those heavy footfalls, coming nearer.

  Two sets of them.

  Fabric whispered—Flor sliding her rifle around to her front. “We are too vulnerable down here,” she whispered. “We need to go up, see who it is.”

  I felt Flor edge past me, her foot scuffing lightly onto the bottom step. I swam an arm after her until my hand met the stairwell’s cold wall. I ascended slowly, aware of Flor’s progress ahead and James’s behind, glad as hell we had all come together.

  But who were we dealing with? Fellow researchers? More looters?

  Not realizing the stairs had ended, I stepped awkwardly and stumbled against Flor’s back. Holding her taut shoulders, I stared around the darkness as James bumped up beside me. I had expected to see flashlight beams or candles out ahead of us, but I couldn’t even hear the footsteps anymore.

  “One o’clock,” Flor whispered.

  I released her shoulders and listened. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Fingers on your light switches.” Flor’s quiet voice hummed with tension. “Now!”

  Our lights blew open the darkness at the same time. And there they were—the frigging gargoyles from upstairs. With the sound of grinding stone, their heads swiveled toward us.

  “Mother f—”

  Explosions from Flor’s rifle obliterated the rest of my mind-blown expletive. Sparks flew from the charging monstrosities and bullets caromed, one whining past my head. But I couldn’t move.

  “Spread out!” Flor called.

  With the gargoyles almost on top of us, something kick-started in my brain. I took off to the left, weaving around pillars, my headlamp jostling madly. Okay, this makes no sense. No flipping sense whatsoever. When I turned to check on the others, one of the gargoyles rose over me.