The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) Page 7

  “Heavens, no.” James clapped the book closed and tucked it under an arm. “It’s the one the collectors are most interested in.”

  Heat burned in my cheeks. “So what now?”

  “We have to send you and Bertrand out, I’m afraid,” James said.

  “Feed us to the wolves,” I said numbly.

  “Messy for you, but rather tidy for us.”

  Flor huffed. “You two are talking too much. The alternative is I shoot you.”

  “How sweet,” I muttered.

  James set the Book of Souls down and lifted Flor’s rifle. It was no accident she was carrying silver ammo, or that James had packed rock-salt necklaces. This was their work—looting ancient sites, some of them cursed, no doubt. “Let’s go,” James said. “We’ll pick up Bertrand on the way.”

  “Can I grab my backpack, at least?”

  “No.” Flor jabbed me in the side with the pistol, sending a spear through one of the spots she’d soothed last night. “Move your ass.”

  I considered running as I stumbled into the courtyard, but there was nowhere to run. Doing so would just get me shot. Bertrand’s and my best chance would be to do as they said. Once outside, we could scale a tree and wait until morning, attempt the journey down to the village then. It seemed a reasonable plan until I remembered the bear-like paws on the wolves. Something told me they would use them to climb after us.

  We arrived at Bertrand’s room and found him sitting in a corner, scribbling in a notepad on his propped-up knees. His hair jerked as he consulted open texts on either side of him.

  “Check out time,” James called.

  Bertrand’s face shot up, his eyes seeming to refocus from some distant realm. He swept his hair to one side and squinted at the pointed weapons, which glinted in the light of his small fire. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “You were right,” I told him. “They’re a couple of scoundrels. They’re going to send us out to the wolves and take the books to some collector so they can buy themselves iPods and fancy shoes.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a poor sport,” James said. “If you’d shown yourself a little more agreeable to our line of work, why, we might have asked you to join us. We’re in need of a new translator.”

  I remembered my reaction at dinner in the village when Flor suggested we split the spoils. Another test.

  “Why?” I growled. “What happened to your last one?”

  “We had a disagreement,” Flor said. “Now get moving. Both of you.”

  I had expected Bertrand to put up a fight, but he was on his hands and knees gathering his notepads.

  “Leave them,” Flor ordered. “They will do you no good out there.”

  “Oh, let him have them, love,” James whispered. “It’ll occupy his hands and we can get them out of here with less fuss.”

  Bertrand hobbled up beside me, notepads pressed to his chest, eyes shifting wildly. The discovery of the texts had meant everything to him. “They will not get away with this,” he spat. “I will be damned if they get away with this.”

  “Keep cool,” I whispered. “We’ll figure out something once we’re outside.”

  He ignored me, rifling through his notepads as James and Flor prodded us into the courtyard. The barricaded entrance wasn’t entirely barricaded anymore, I saw. Stones had been moved and one of the timber beams set aside for Bertrand and me to squeeze through. The cold wind funneling into the monastery carried the cries of wolves. Not close, but not too distant, either.

  Beside me, Bertrand’s grumbling turned to hard mutters.

  “Stay cool,” I repeated distractedly, trying to remember the terrain outside the monastery. If we could find a cave in the rock face, a place to fortify ourselves, we had a slim chance of surviving the night.

  Bertrand’s muttering rose in pitch.

  “Shut up,” Flor said—which were my thoughts, as well. He was going to get us both ventilated. But when I turned, I found that he was no longer muttering for muttering’s sake. He was reading from one of his notepads. And I recognized the words. The chant was an incantation meant to summon something dark and powerful, an idea that might have seemed insane to me only a few days ago.

  “Be careful,” I whispered, remembering a warning inside the Book of Souls. “Whatever you call up you’re going to have to put back down.”

  But the atmosphere of the monastery was already changing. Something was sucking out the oxygen, making it hard to breathe. And an unpleasant smell was rising. A sickly sweet odor that stuck like barbs in my throat. The odor of whatever Bertrand was summoning, I realized.

  “The Frenchman first,” Flor said as we arrived at the entranceway. “I cannot stand the sight of him any longer.”

  Bertrand snapped straight, the notepads spilling from his arms. He remained like that, eyes large and staring, until I thought he was having a seizure. I grabbed his rigid left arm and gave it a shake.

  “Bertrand?”

  When he turned, I released him and staggered back a step. Blackness had spread over his eyes like spilled ink. And his lips were stretching from his teeth, forming a smile so large it looked agonizing.

  “You can no longer stand the sight of Bertrand?” he said to Flor in an alien voice, as though something was humming deep in his throat. “Well perhaps he can no longer stand the sight of you.”

  His smile unhinged and a droning black cloud shot from his mouth. Wasps, I realized in horror. Flor had time to scream before the wasps swarmed her face and smothered her cries.

  15

  “S-stop that.” James’s huge eyes looked from Flor’s collapsed body to Bertrand—or whatever Bertrand had become. Seeming to remember he was holding a rifle, James raised it. “Stop! Get them off her!”

  Bertrand laughed. “As you wish.”

  He waved a hand and the hundreds upon hundreds of wasps lifted from Flor and swarmed James. He screamed and stumbled backwards, rifle shots cracking as though the swarm was a being whose heart he might pierce. I crouched beside Flor and moved the limp arm from across her face. She looked nothing like the woman of only moments ago. Her face had become a disfiguration of red welts, eyes a pair of glistening lines, lips a fruit that had burst in the sun.

  Oh God. I lowered her lifeless arm.

  Above me, Bertrand laughed, the sound a sick buzzing. “You dare insult a Wasp Demon, mother of the brood, matron of death.” I pressed a forearm to my nose, the cloying smell threatening to choke me.

  “Help me, Everson!” James shrieked above the thickening swarm. “For God’s sake, help me!”

  He tripped over a section of pillar. As he fell onto his back, the wasps descended over his blondness like a black blanket, muffling his cries. A moment later, his spastic arms collapsed out to his sides, the spent rifle clacking against stone.

  With Bertrand’s back to me, I left Flor’s body and edged toward the monastery entrance. The wasps rose from James and returned to Bertrand, funneling into his mouth. There had clearly been another spell book in the collection, a dark one that Bertrand had gotten his hands on. I didn’t know how possessions worked exactly, didn’t know how much of Bertrand remained in his body. But I wasn’t planning on sticking around to find out.

  I was almost to the opening when eyes flashed from the darkness beyond, and a thick, snapping snout lunged into the space.

  “Damn!” I cried, stumbling backwards.

  Front legs squeezed through as the wolf wriggled and pushed his head in. More fanged snouts jabbed into the surrounding gaps. I shot a glance back at Bertrand. He was finger-combing his hair with both hands, as though cleaning a pair of antennas. My gaze flew around the courtyard. All the monastery’s rooms were doorless. No places to shut out the wolves—or Bertrand. And my pepper spray would only keep them at bay for so long.

  The Book of Souls, I thought.

  I launched into a run toward the room where James had left it.

  Behind me, the wolf burst inside with a jagged cry, his thick nails scratching
over the stone, gaining speed. But a fresh buzzing was climbing over the sounds of the wolves.

  “Fly, my beauties,” Bertrand said. “Kill them.”

  Yes, please do.

  “The human, too.”

  Crap.

  I seized the side of the dormitory doorway with one hand and swung myself into Flor’s old room. The wolf overshot the door, skittering as he tried to brake. I kicked past Flor’s bag and titanium case, scooped up the Book of Souls, and pressed my back to the wall. I opened the book and flipped to the rear. Most of the book’s spells required something called a casting prism and Words of Power.

  But not summonings.

  A wasp landed on my neck, sending a molten barb down to my spine. I crushed it with my shoulder and turned more pages. Out in the courtyard, sharp cries and yelps went up in the thickening swarm. But the swarm hadn’t reached me—or the wolf who had been on my heels. A low growl sounded from the doorway. I glanced up to find the beast stalking toward me, ears twitching in the haze of wasps, impervious to their stings. Something told me this was the Alpha. Raising a leg in preparation to kick, I dropped my gaze to the page before me.

  “Thelonious,” I boomed, pushing energy into the word, making each syllable count. I didn’t know who or what I was invoking, but when the alternative was certain death, there was no time to be choosy. “I beseech you for aid,” I said in the old Latin. “I offer myself as a vessel in exchange.”

  Creamy white light fluttered on the verge of my vision, then roared in, like a strong surf. I could no longer see the wolf, the wasps, the room, the book in my own hands. Just the frothy light that rolled up in layers, growing thicker. From beneath the roaring light came a slow, throbbing sound, like a bass line. The sound was compelling, arousing. I could have been inside a West Village jazz club, men and women grooving and bumping bodies.

  “Yesss?” came a rich voice.

  I squinted at where the creamy light seemed to thicken around a large, inchoate form. A Buddha. It was clear, though, that this Buddha was no esthetic. Sensual forms moved around his corpulent body, attending to his needs, which seemed to include food, drink … other things.

  “Are you Thelonious?” I asked.

  “Indeed,” he replied with a pleasant bass laugh. He seemed benign, at least.

  “I need your help.”

  Though my heart beat slammed through my words, I sensed Thelonious had drawn me into some sort of parallel plane, outside space and time.

  “I’d say so.” Feminine titters accompanied the spirit’s rumbling laughter. “But I’m busy at the moment.”

  “Look, I’m only twenty-three,” I babbled. “My life’s not perfect, but I’m not ready for it to end. I live in New York—the greatest city on Earth. I love my chosen field. I’m the youngest PhD candidate in my department and just a thesis away from graduating. I’m a, ah, a lifelong Mets fan—and they’re actually doing well this year.” I was really grasping now, but if he rejected my appeal and cast me back, I was a dead man. Simple as that.

  Thelonious chuckled. “Long time since I’ve been in New York. Are there still dance halls?”

  “Oh man, a ton.”

  “And the women?”

  “Millions, and they’re all beautiful.”

  He made a noise of interest, then heaved himself up, sending his harem streaming away. “And you say you’re a young man?” He circled me as though in assessment. “Learned … enjoys sport.” He stopped in front of me. “If I help you this once, you’ll give yourself as a vessel for all time?”

  I hesitated. “And what does that entail, exactly?”

  He rumbled more laughter as something like a hand descended onto my shoulder. “Nothing but good times.”

  “So we’ll be running my body like, what, a time share?”

  “When the itch for city life needs scratching, Thelonious will come calling.”

  “Otherwise, my body’s my own?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “And you won’t be doing anything illegal in here, right?”

  He released more rich laughter. “Not unless you consider loving and living crimes.”

  As the bass line and creamy lights of his world throbbed through me, I found myself nodding. Maybe an occasional visit by Thelonious would do me good, get me out of my studio apartment now and again. Given my sad social life, it certainly couldn’t make things worse.

  “All right,” I said, not wanting to think about it too hard. “I agree to your terms. In exchange for helping me with the wolves and wasp demon, I pledge myself as your vessel, whenever the, um … itch needs scratching.” I probably should have asked for an estimate on how often that would be.

  “Right on, brother. Right on.”

  Thelonious gave me the equivalent of a soul shake, and I was back in the monastery, the Book of Souls open in my hands, one leg raised, and a huge wolf stalking me through a growing fog of wasps.

  “Kill them all!” Bertrand cried from the courtyard, his voice a phlegmy buzz now, as though he were choking on the wasps he spawned. The ensuing laughter sounded like someone coughing up a lung.

  I glanced around for my own summoned being, wincing as another wasp stung my brow.

  “Thelonious?”

  16

  The Book of Souls tumbled from my trembling hands. Three more stings seared my upper back, spreading like a deep burn. I flailed to slap the wasps away, the motion exciting the wolf. He snarled and charged.

  I cringed against the wall and kicked out. My heel caught the wolf’s jaw, harder than I’d struck anything in my life. Bone crunched, and the two-hundred-pound wolf staggered backwards. He righted himself drunkenly, a rope of pink saliva hanging from his crooked mouth.

  “That’s right!” I cried, my fear swelling into anger. “There’s more where that came from.”

  Nice one, a bass voice rumbled.

  “Thelonious!”

  Either my body was growing or my share of it becoming smaller as the chuckling spirit eased all the way in. The warm, creamy light from earlier undulated through me—an ecstatic force of strength and virulence. As its aura pulsed from me, the attacking wasps wavered and fell to the stone floor.

  We stepped toward the wolf, wasp husks crunching underfoot. The Alpha backed away like a scolded house dog, whimpering and trailing urine. When his haunches hit a wall, he pressed himself flat. I—or rather, Thelonious—laughed and reached down to scratch his ear, the hair surprisingly smooth. The Alpha licked our hand before succumbing to his stings.

  “Incubus!” Out in the courtyard, Bertrand stood in a black storm of wasps, arms open, clothes crawling. “Leave the human to his fate.”

  “What are you prepared to deal for him?” Thelonious asked through my mouth.

  Hey! I said. You and I are already locked into a deal!

  Ignoring me, Thelonious walked us through the storm, his creamy light illuminating the courtyard in swimmy waves. Wasps peppered us from all sides only to drop in a steady hail. It was like being inside an armored tank, but one I had no control over and that might eject me at any moment.

  “I will spare you the agony of feeling him die, incubus,” Bertrand answered. “Now leave him to me!”

  Thelonious shook his head. “Bad deal.”

  He thrust my arms forward, and I watched my hands close around Bertrand’s throat. Wasps writhed beneath his skin where I squeezed. His enormous black eyes startled, but more in insult it seemed than pain. He opened his mouth, unleashing another torrent of insects. As I tried to wince back, Thelonious only seemed to grow larger and more powerful.

  “Go back to your own joint.” He forced the possessed Frenchman to his knees. Bertrand buzz-shrieked, his arms breaking into more wasps as he beat at our hands. “You’re killing the mood here,” Thelonious said.

  In a final explosion of dying wasps, the rest of Bertrand came apart. But something grotesque remained—a huge queen wasp, curled at his core. Her sticky wings opened out and vibrated, the sudden wind pu
shing us back. With an angry scream, the queen rose, as though to escape the monastery through the open-air courtyard. But Thelonious jumped and seized her by a rear leg.

  Watch the stinger!

  I had hardly formed the thought when the stinger skewered my right forearm. I clenched my teeth, but the excruciating pain never came. “The sharper the thorn,” Thelonious said, pulling out the stinger and snapping it from the queen’s body. “The sweeter the fruit.”

  Um … what?

  Thelonious tossed the stinger away and dragged the queen to the courtyard floor, flipping her so her wings were pinned beneath her. The queen kicked her legs and rotated her alien head.

  Wait, you’re not planning on…

  With a rumbling purr, Thelonious brought his mouth—our mouth—down to the queens pincher jaws.

  Oh God, you are.

  I tried to recoil, to twist my head away, but an instant before our lips closed around the gnashing mandibles, Thelonious stopped and began to draw from her. The queen strained back, but her essence was leaving her, being pulled into Thelonious. Hers was a spiny, spiteful essence, full of poison, but at its center was a single, sweet drop. The feminine nectar Thelonious was after.

  When the queen fell still, Thelonious rolled us off her, contented. “That was all right,” he rumbled.

  Yeah, for you, maybe. I peeked over at the dead queen. Is this going to be par for the course?

  “Know something, young blood?” he said in a languid voice. “Believe I’m gonna enjoy this partnership.”

  Thelonious’s creamy white energy that had seemed so benign and good-time a moment before collapsed into something dense and black. I choked as it burrowed deeper into me, like a parasite, affixing itself to my soul with hundreds of piercing hooks. The shock of the binding pitched my mind into an oblivion as pitiless as the being I had just bargained with.

  17

  I cracked my eyes open onto a diffusion of pale light. I was peering at the sky above the courtyard, the sun a white smear beyond a wash of gray clouds. I pushed myself up, wincing from my wasp stings, and squinted around. The wasps and demon were gone—as though evaporated into mist—but not their victims. The bodies of a dozen or more large wolves lay stiff and bloated. Near the entrance, I spotted James and Flor, where they had fallen.