Black Luck (Prof Croft Book 5) Page 5

  “I’m here to help,” I said. “Would you mind if I talked to you for a minute?”

  The girl nodded and scooted over to make room. “My girlfriend’s still inside,” she said hollowly.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Star.”

  I settled onto the seat beside her, and Hoffman closed the door.

  “All right, Star. We’ll get your girlfriend out. But first I need to know what happened, as briefly as you can tell me.”

  “The second show had just begun when the theater started filling with smoke. I think we all thought it was an effect, ’cause it had this funny smell. But when the smoke thinned, there was a man standing in front of the screen.” Star stared straight ahead as she spoke. “I think it was because of the projector, but he looked really big. Someone yelled for him to sit down, and that’s when the fire came out of his body. A fire so red it looked black. He shot it at the girl who’d yelled, and she screamed, and it was like, it was like the life had been sucked from her body. She just shriveled up and fell over. Me and my girlfriend started running for the exit along with everyone else. I heard more screams behind me. And this horrible laughter. Someone knocked us over, and we got separated. I got out right before the door slammed shut. When I made it to the street, I saw people with horrible burns. Clothes melted to their skin. Another guy was carrying a shriveled body. I looked everywhere, but I couldn’t find my girlfriend. She—she’s still inside.”

  “You said the smoke smelled funny. What did it smell like?”

  She gave a slight shrug. “Rotten eggs?”

  Sulfur, I thought.

  “What’s your girlfriend’s name?”

  “Emma.”

  “I’m going to get Emma right now.” I gave Star’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze, but it remained stiff and cold. She didn’t even glance at me. I knocked on the window for Hoffman to open the door.

  “Her earrings are crosses,” Star said as I climbed out.

  “What’d I tell you?” Hoffman scoffed as he closed the door behind me. “Whacked out of her mind.”

  “She’s in shock, dipshit.”

  Vega silenced Hoffman’s comeback with a stern look. “Anything?” she asked me.

  “Said she smelled sulfur, which means we could have a dark mage casting from a demonic realm.” Probably what the wards had picked up tonight, though it bothered me they hadn’t detected anything earlier. Surely the mage had practiced before unleashing his infernal magic on the theater goers. So either the mage had come from somewhere else, or the wards had malfunctioned again.

  “Demonic?” Vega’s brow furrowed in concern. “Can you handle something like that?”

  I pulled my sword from my staff, then summoned enough energy to bat my coat and frizz out Hoffman’s wreath of curls. The question should be, I thought, can he handle something like me?

  Invisible power stormed around me as I marched toward the theater.

  “Keep everyone back!” I shouted.

  7

  After last summer’s successful campaign to eradicate the ghouls from the subway lines, an edgy nightlife had started to take hold again in the East Village. Recently profiled in The Village Voice, the Flicker Theater was one example. It catered to a diverse crowd of rebels, independent artists, and university students. Its two a.m. closing time would have been unheard of a year ago.

  As I approached the entrance, evidence of the stampede appeared ahead of me. Stray shoes, bags, and bits of clothing, some bloodied, littered the sidewalk and steps leading down to the closed door. Dark smoke curled around the door’s seams, breaking apart in a cone of street light.

  Underground, I thought. Always underground.

  But before my phobia could kick in, I replaced the grim thought with a silent affirmation. I will focus only on being the most powerful, most capable wizard I can be. My best wizard.

  The tightness in my chest released. Hardening my protective shield, I descended the steps and inspected the door. The dark tendrils of a locking spell writhed around the frame. With an uttered Word, the spell dissolved and joined the leaking smoke. My nose wrinkled. The eyewitness had been right about the smell, meaning our boy was dancing with the devil.

  I took a moment to visualize the next steps: open the door, expel the smoke, and hit the mage hard enough to make him think twice about getting back up. While I contained him in a shield, I’d locate Emma and the others trapped inside and get them out. If the mage had any fight left, I’d be happy to oblige. Then I’d find out who he was and where he’d developed his black art.

  I was feeling confident, yeah. Maybe even overconfident. But I was also willing to lay odds that my opponent hadn’t put a fraction of the practice into his craft as I had in the last year.

  “Time to Magical Me this assclown,” I muttered.

  With a shouted Word, I blew the door open. Foul smoke poured out. With another Word, I created a funnel to pull the smoke into the street. With the doorway clear, I entered low.

  The indie theater was smaller than I’d expected. Beyond a corner bar were rows of toppled chairs. Except for a low-budget movie still projecting onto a standing screen, the theater was dark. I picked out the kids who’d been trapped inside, their bodies now shriveled and smoking. A cross-shaped earring glinted from the ear of the nearest one. Star’s girlfriend.

  Dammit.

  On the surface, the victims looked like they’d been charbroiled. But my wizard’s senses showed me souls being yanked from their bodies with such force that their corpses had succumbed to the resulting vacuum, collapsing in on themselves. The mage had spared no one.

  I couldn’t let him out. But was he even here?

  My gaze swept the theater as I took two more steps forward. I was picking up a vibrating in my inner ear, as if from an energy source. A sudden scream made me start, but it was coming from the movie. On the screen, robed figures surrounded a desperate-looking man in a flannel shirt and glasses. Creepy organ music spiked and fell. Yeah, that’s not helping, I thought.

  I hit the speakers with a pair of low-level invocations.

  “What’s wrong?” a man’s voice asked in the sudden silence. “Not a fan of avant-garde cinema?”

  The ensuing laughter seemed to drip more than echo from the brick walls, the sound thick with malice. The mage. But where in the hell was he? I pivoted in a circle, careful not to step on any of the victims’ remains. Though I couldn’t see him, I could feel him watching me.

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  The laughter stopped. “Oh, you’re going to come to know me quite well in the coming days. If you survive tonight.”

  From nowhere, a wave of fire washed over my shield. I saw what the eyewitness had meant. The red fire was so dark, so intense, that it was nearly black. And I could feel its biting heat, even through my protection.

  With a grimace, I shouted, “Respingere!”

  Light and force detonated from my shield, knocking back the chairs in a wave and toppling the screen. The flames disappeared in what sounded like a sharp intake of breath. I’d surprised him.

  “Impressive,” he said.

  I looked around. The mage remained invisible to me. Meaning I had nowhere to direct my attack.

  “Who are you?” I repeated. “What do you want?”

  “In good time, my friend,” he replied with a chuckle. “In good time.”

  “Friend?” I peered behind the bar and then into the projection room. “Getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren’t we? Anyway, I try not to befriend mages with homicidal tendencies.”

  For the second time, the mage’s laughter ended with unnatural suddenness.

  “Very well, wizard.”

  Another burst of fire exploded over my shield, only this time it was accompanied by something else: a swarm of blazing imps. The screeching creatures threw themselves against my protection, sparks falling where they impacted. Like with the fire, I felt them: tiny gouges all over my body.

  Fueled by the souls
he’d claimed, the mage was calling up some demonic shit.

  I hacked and slashed at the creatures with my sword. I didn’t want to divert energy from my shield into another invocation. The runes glowed white as the blade cleaved through the imps’ pint-sized bodies, reducing them to smoke. But the cursed things found new life in the mage’s flames. They took fiery shape again and resumed their assault.

  Using my wizard’s voice, I shouted, “Be gone!”

  The creatures hesitated mid flight and looked at each other with soulless insect eyes.

  “Attack,” the mage countered softly.

  With a collective shriek, the imps complied, this time with even more fury. The mage was trying to wear down my defenses—and succeeding. I kept the creatures at bay with my blade while squinting past them. Beyond their bodies and the licks of red-black fire, I could see the movie projecting onto the wall. Only now a large shadow blocked half of the picture.

  There you are.

  I blew the creatures and flames back with an invocation. Then, thrusting my sword and staff at the shadow, I shouted, “Vigore!”

  A torrent of energy stormed through my body, down my implements, and into the mage. The fire and imps disappeared entirely as the mage grunted and staggered backward.

  “Entrapolarle!” I called.

  Light burst from my staff and surrounded the mage in a crackling orb. Expecting the light to bare his features, I was surprised to see only a figure composed of what looked like smoke.

  “Tell me your name,” I said, shrinking his confinement.

  Grunting again, he motioned with his right hand and drew it into a fist. In the next moment, dark, taloned fingers appeared around my shield. Rank smoke rose from the manifestation, but the force was far from insubstantial. My protection buckled and pressed into me.

  I opened my prism further, channeling more energy into both my protection and my opponent’s confinement. I bore down on the orb around him, shrinking it further. He responded in kind, the infernal fingers digging my shield into my ribs as they gripped more tightly.

  We were locked in the ultimate nut-squeezing contest, but I was game. One of us would give, and it wasn’t going to be me. Not after all the hours of practice I’d amassed in the last year. Wincing, I focused through the pain and pressure. I blocked out everything but the twin invocations. I had grown my capacity, yes, but the efficiency remained key. I needed every last ounce of energy.

  When I felt his grip around me waver, I managed a trembling grin. The son of a bitch was weakening. “I’m not backing off … till you talk,” I said between pants. “Your choice.”

  Without warning, the orb confining him burst in an explosion of light. I squinted away, gasping with the release of energy. Expecting a follow-up attack, I drew the energy furiously into my own protection. But the mage was gone, I realized, along with the crushing fingers.

  “Are you all right?” a voice asked from behind me.

  I spun to find a figure standing at the theater entrance. I tensed my sword arm, an invocation on the tip of my tongue. The man stepped into the soft aura of my blade. Tall and dressed in a tailored blue suit, he looked to be in his mid forties. Gray touched the temples of his neat chestnut hair. My gaze fell to his hands. He was holding what looked like a slender wand.

  I shuffled back a step and opened my wizard’s senses. A subtle energy moved liquid-like around the man, but it felt nothing like the dark mage’s aura.

  “Everson Croft, I presume?” the man said with a slight smile.

  All in a moment, I put the man’s aura together with his English accent.

  “That’s right,” I answered, slotting my sword into my staff and dispersing my shield. “And you must be Pierce.”

  “Yes, Pierce Dalton.”

  It was James Wesson’s replacement, the wizard in charge of the boroughs.

  “I’m sorry for not getting in touch with you earlier,” I said. “There’s no excuse, really. I just…”

  I had extended a hand to shake, but he was already moving past me. His cool blue eyes took in the shriveled bodies, then the rest of the theater. “A rather bold attack,” he remarked. “Six souls ripped from their owners. Almost seven. A good job I arrived when I did.”

  I lowered my hand. “Actually, I had the situation under control.”

  “Did you?” he asked offhandedly, looking around the theater as if trying to locate something.

  I bristled at the insinuation. “Not only that, I was on the verge of getting him to talk.”

  “Oh, I doubt he would have said anything useful.”

  “And you know that how?”

  “You were grappling with a smoke golem. How do you think it dispersed so easily?” He collapsed the wand so that it was pen-sized and slipped it into the front pocket of his shirt.

  “A smoke golem?” I echoed. And easily?

  “Yes, a flimsy form animated from elsewhere.”

  I felt my face warm over. He was making it sound like child’s play.

  “Well, a golem can still be made to talk,” I countered. “The key is preventing the spell-caster from breaking the bond. With enough pressure, the caster will say anything to be released.” Not that any of that was forefront in my mind while I’d been tussling with the golem.

  “Yes, anything being the key term,” Pierce said. “Not necessarily the truth.”

  “My point is that I could have used a few more minutes with him.”

  But Pierce was no longer listening. He had stopped in front of the wall on the left side of the theater and was running his slender fingers over the glazed bricks. “Hm,” he said, pausing at one and donning a pair of latex gloves. Who in the hell carried latex gloves? He jiggled a loose brick free, set it on the floor, and reached inside the hole. I watched his lips work as he probed around. A moment later, his hand reappeared holding a small leather pouch.

  I walked over. “A hex bag?”

  “An infernal bag.” He undid the black lock of hair holding it closed, and the gray pouch opened in his hand. Removing his collapsible wand from his pocket, he poked around the bag’s contents. “Black powder, magnesium, devil’s ear…”

  I winced inwardly at suggesting it had been a hex bag. “So the caster planted it here to animate the golem and claim unsuspecting souls,” I said, trying to redeem myself.

  Pierce raised his wand above the pouch and moved his lips. A transparent light glowed throughout the pouch’s contents, then quickly retreated. I felt the bag’s lingering energy discharge in a dark rush. The sensation had me tasting bile, but it didn’t appear to effect Pierce.

  “Shouldn’t we have tried to trace the energy back to the source?” I asked.

  “Any caster worth his salt would have covered his tracks, and our friend is no exception. I checked.”

  “You checked already?” I usually needed a casting circle for that.

  “It’s all right to come down!” he called past me.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Vega and Hoffman entered the room. That Pierce had been the one to give the all-clear bothered me. It felt like an invasion of my turf. That he had given the all-clear to Vega bothered me even more. I walked over to meet her before he could.

  Vega’s concerned eyes inspected me for injuries. Finding none, she scanned the room. “What are we looking at?”

  “Well, someone, a magic-user presumably, stashed what’s known as an infernal bag in the wall.” I pointed to the dark gap left by the brick. “He used it to animate a smoke golem, which claimed six souls. To what purpose, I’m not sure yet. Maybe just to empower himself.”

  “Great,” Vega muttered. “Any leads on who he might be?”

  “Not yet,” I admitted. “I had him—or his golem—entrapped. He was about to talk when—”

  “I believe I have enough information that I can have an answer within a day or two,” Pierce interjected. He had walked up behind me. When I turned, I realized just how tall he was. And, yeah, good-looking. His face was lined in a wa
y that spoke to experience rather than age. He also had one of those tanned complexions that looked so damned effortless.

  “That would be excellent,” Vega said.

  Hoffman, who was kneeling over one of the victims, snorted.

  Pierce turned toward him. “Is there a problem, Detective?” The inquiry sounded innocent on the surface, but it wielded a dangerous edge underneath. Hoffman looked like he was about to say something before thinking better of it and returning his attention to the victim.

  “Here’s the bag Everson mentioned,” Pierce said. “It’s quite harmless now.”

  Vega called a crime technician over, and Pierce handed him the evidence.

  “You have my card, right?” Vega asked Pierce.

  He smiled as he stripped off his gloves. “I do. You gave it to me outside.”

  “That’s right.” Vega’s face flushed slightly. “Then we’ll take it from here. Thanks for your help.”

  Pierce nodded politely and stepped past us.

  I stared at Vega for another moment—I couldn’t remember ever seeing her blush—and then hurried to catch up to Pierce.

  “Hey, uh, mind holding on a sec?”

  Pierce had been speeding up, as if he had somewhere to be, but he slowed to a stop and faced me. “Yes?”

  “If you think you have a lead, we should meet up,” I said. “Discuss strategy. The mage said something about us getting to know him ‘quite well’ in the coming days, which suggests that whoever we’re dealing with isn’t done. He could have more bags stashed around the city.”

  Pierce watched me with compressed lips as I spoke, eyes squinting slightly. It took me a moment to understand he was considering something, but not what I was saying. His eyes returned to focus.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” he said absently. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and snapped out a white business card. “Call this number and my assistant will set something up.”

  Assistant?

  I looked down at the sleek card. The embossed print read:

  Pierce Dalton

  Art Appraisals

  “Art, huh? Does that have anything to do with Himitsu paintings?”