Godly Wars

  Prof Croft 11

  Brad Magnarella

  Copyright © 2022 by Brad Magnarella

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover image by Damonza.com

  bradmagnarella.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Next up…

  Free Books, Anyone?

  Be the Croftverse

  Author’s Notes

  Croftverse Catalogue

  About the Author

  The Prof Croft Series

  PREQUELS

  Book of Souls

  Siren Call

  MAIN SERIES

  Demon Moon

  Blood Deal

  Purge City

  Death Mage

  Black Luck

  Power Game

  Druid Bond

  Night Rune

  Shadow Duel

  Shadow Deep

  Godly Wars

  Angel Doom

  MORE COMING!

  1

  “I need you to stay put,” I told Tabitha.

  “Do I look like I’m on the verge of springing into jumping jacks?”

  I glanced over at the pet bed I’d brought down to my new basement-level lab. My cat not only filled out the bed, intended for dogs, but her stomach was slumping over the side. She stared at me with hooded lids.

  “No,” I said, “but I’m going to try to penetrate this thing—”

  “Kinky.”

  “And,” I spoke over her, “it could produce some fireworks. This is for your safety as much as mine.”

  I circled the iron-topped island on which an elaborate casting circle had begun to glow. A tactical whip rested at the circle’s center, a weapon I’d recovered from the shadow realm. It looked simple enough—a duct tape-wrapped handle and a two-foot length of steel cable—but it was infused with powerful magic. Magic a red-bearded biker had used to take me down and nearly finish me.

  So far, my reveal spells had revealed only a robust layer of protection. If I wanted to see past it, I would need to up the risk factor.

  Tabitha looked around with a sour face. “What am I even doing in this miserable cave?”

  “Ricki needs her rest,” I said, referring to my very pregnant wife, “and you weren’t helping.”

  “I was just trying to be conversational.”

  “Asking if she’s having triplets, when you already know the answer, is poor conversation.”

  “Well, you have to admit, she’s looking appallingly large to be carrying a lone child.”

  I snorted. “‘Appallingly large’? Coming from you?” Ricki looked fine—Tabitha had been goading her all morning, and now she was testing me. Before she could fire back, I said, “All right, shush now, shut up. This is serious.”

  Tabitha scowled, then made several attempts to flop onto her other side. “Darling?” she asked.

  “Vigore,” I muttered, flicking my fingers. A small force invocation crossed the room and helped her complete the roll.

  As she settled into place, I cracked my knuckles and lifted a scalpel-like instrument from beside the casting circle. Silvery light glistened along the blade’s enchanted edge. After checking to ensure both my feet were inside my protective circle, I leaned over the whip’s cable like a surgeon assessing a spine. I lowered the blade into position, poised to make a very fine, very subtle incision through the protection.

  Thank God Bree-yark had completed the buildout of my basement space when he did. I wasn’t sure I would have attempted this in our apartment. Tensing my jaw, I drew a short line with the blade.

  Easy does it…

  The tip passed between two of the whip’s coiled strands, not quite touching steel. A crackle of magic on magic sounded and then a faint hiss, like escaping air.

  It was working. The whip’s protection was separating along the incision, coming open.

  CRACK!

  I squinted from a violent flash of light. The whip kicked upright, its cable branching into a terrifying tree of steel cords.

  The cords began to writhe and snap like lightning, igniting a searing pain in my chest: an echo of the weapon’s assault on me in the shadow realm. With the next flash, I caught the silhouette of a looming figure.

  “Damn,” I grunted.

  Fist to my heart, I drew my cane from my belt. But the casting circle was working as designed. In a swirling column of copper, it climbed around the whip, shrouding the figure. More flashes and cracks erupted, but they were muted, like heat lightning in a dust storm.

  Tapping into one of the casting circle’s sigils, I called, “Inspirare!”

  Magic coursed around the sigil’s elaborate lines, and an oscillating hum took up. It rattled the books and spell implements on my shelves. And then everything collapsed back to the table, including the deafening sound.

  I lowered my hands from my ears.

  The whip lay inert, its protective layer intact again. The casting circle around it had gone dim, save for my special sigil which pulsed gently. Closer inspection showed a faint mist darting around the sigil’s mazelike trap.

  “Yes!” I’d captured a quantum of the magic powering the whip.

  The next step was to prep it for examination, to discover the origin of the energy. I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever powered the whip was somehow connected to the absence of magic-users in the shadow realm, including me. Remembering the looming figure, I wondered if we were dealing with another god.

  You’re not supposed to exist, Red Beard had told me.

  I buried the tactical whip in a bag of gray salt and placed it inside my warded safe. From a bin of bottles, I retrieved one with a dropper lid. The charged tip slid easily into the sigil’s small opening. As the dropper inhaled the misty essence, my phone buzzed on a nearby shelf.

  “You’re gonna have to wait,” I called, my voice tense as a guy-wire. I couldn’t afford to lose focus now.

  Upon drawing out the remaining essence, I squeezed it into the bottle and sealed the cap tightly. Only after placing the bottle beside the bag of salt in the warded safe, did I release my breath.

  When the phone buzzed again, I retrieved it, expecting to find Bree-yark’s name on the display—he’d been coming over most days to add features to the hidden entertainment room—but it was Detective Hoffman.

  “Hey,” I answered. “Everything all right?”

  “I should be asking you that,” he growled. “You’re late.”

  A quick perusal of my memory produced the forgotten deadline. “Crap. That’s today, isn’t it?”

  “This morning.”

  We were talking about the release of Arimanius, a Greek god Hermes had delivered from the shadow realm and set loose in the city. During his time in New York, Arimanius had directed a host of wererats to kidnap civilians in an attempt to kickstart a comedy career—despite the god lacking a comedic bone in his body. Fortunately, we apprehended “Mr. Funny” before he could do more damage. Unfortunately, the amount of time the NYPD could hold him without charges had just expired.

  “Nothing from Hermes?” Hoffman asked.

  “No. Alec has been, well, Alec,” I said, referring to the son of my shadow, who was under the influence of the Greek god.

  “Great,” Hoffman grumbled. “Know of any place we can stick this guy?”

  Hermes had claimed to be holding the god as insurance, in the event he needed him for a war against Persephone. He didn’t seem terribly worried about securing him, though. Did I mention I was sick of the Greek gods?

  I peered around. “I suppose I can hold him down here.”

  “Fine. I’ve got the Sup Squad on standby for transport.”

  “Just give me a few minutes to prep the space and I’ll head right over.”

  “You’ve grown on me, Croft, but if I have to song-and-danc
e the DA’s office to buy us another couple hours, that might change.”

  “I’ll work fast,” I promised.

  I ended the call and surveyed the basement again. Already warded, it just needed a couple modifications to hold the minor god. But first I needed to clear the space of all extraneous lifeforms. Across the room, Tabitha remained facing the wall. Miraculously, she’d slept through the entire ordeal with the whip.

  “Good news, Tabs. You just pulled a ‘get out of jail free’ card.”

  Ricki wasn’t going to be happy, but hopefully she’d managed to get some rest. When Tabitha didn’t stir, I took a second look at her. Something was off.

  “Tabby?” I called, crossing the room. Her side wasn’t heaving and sinking. No snores, either. When I touched her, fear bit the back of my throat. She was stiff. With some effort, I rolled her toward me.

  “Tabitha!” I yelled.

  2

  “What’s going on?” Ricki asked, sitting up from the couch.

  I shoved the apartment door closed with a foot and, teetering under the weight of my cat, carried her toward her divan. “Not sure exactly,” I panted. “One minute she was the Tabitha we know and tolerate, and in the next, she was like this. Stiff as a board.”

  As I set her down on the cushion, my wife arrived beside me. She passed a hand in front of Tabitha’s staring green eyes, then prodded her. Normally, her finger would have sunk to the knuckle, but it stopped cold. Ricki leaned an ear down to my cat’s bared teeth and checked her neck for a pulse.

  “I’m not feeling anything, Everson.”

  “I didn’t either. But she’s not dead,” I hastened to add.

  When Ricki lifted her eyes to mine, they were sympathetic but serious. “She’s already in rigor mortis.”

  “I’ll explain in a sec. Can you watch her while I grab something?”

  I scrambled up the ladder to my loft and searched around. Because I was still in the process of moving things to the basement, the space was in disarray. I hopped over a pile of spell books and began digging through a container of pre-made potions. There! I seized the smoky bottle and hurried back down to the main floor.

  Ricki stepped aside, holding the pregnant swell of her belly.

  “She’s in a state of suspended animation,” I said, shaking the bottle. “Attivare.” The charge that shot down my arm ignited a collection of tiny granules in the bottle, setting them off like fireflies. “It’s a self-preservation technique. All of Tabitha’s essence withdrew into a space at her core about the size of a charcoal briquette.”

  “A reaction to the work you were doing?”

  “Most likely. When I opened the whip’s defenses, the entire thing jumped to life with this wild, crackling energy. The casting circle should have contained it, but some must have leaked out. Tabitha’s succubus nature reacted to it, I’m guessing.” I eyed the raised bottle as I spoke, waiting for the potion to finish activating.

  “Exactly how urgent is this?”

  I looked over at her. “What do you mean?”

  “If it’s not life-threatening, can’t she just… stay like this for a while?”

  “If she were young and healthy, sure. I’d let her essence return in its own sweet time. I get it—we could all use the break, my wallet included. Her tastes aren’t cheap. But that’s the problem. Thanks to Tabitha’s eating habits, and her resulting mass, she’s at risk of crushing that briquette right out of existence.”

  Ricki raised a slender eyebrow in a way that asked, Is that a problem?

  “We could lose her for good,” I said, surprised by the emotion in my voice. Like a patched coat or a faulty appliance only I could operate, she’d become a habitual part of my life, oddly comforting. “Look, I know she’s a forty-pound pain in the butt, but she’s family. I mean, I tolerate your brother Carlos for the same reason.”

  Ricki smirked. “Fair enough. What’s that going to do?”

  The potion in my hand had begun to glow with silvery light.

  “It’s a stimulant. Though not specifically designed for cases like hers, it should excite her essence enough to return to her body.”

  I pulled a plastic syringe from a coat pocket, drew out half the potion, and rolled Tabitha’s statuesque body over so her face was aimed toward the ceiling. Inserting the syringe into her mouth, I plunged the potion down her throat. “Hey, mind handing me those books beside my reading chair?”

  When Ricki brought them over, I used the thick books to prop Tabitha in position so the potion wouldn’t come back out.

  “Okay,” I breathed.

  “How long will it take to act?”

  “Not long once it seeps into her system. The problem is she’s locked up so tight, the seeping-into-her-system part could be a while. She’s going to need to stay positioned like this for the rest of the day.”

  “Well, a break’s a break,” Ricki sighed.

  When my phone rang, I pulled it from my pocket and checked the display. “Crap, it’s Hoffman. I’m overdue at 1PP.” I silenced the phone. “Would you mind checking on her now and again while I run downtown. Our time’s up on holding the rat god, and I told Hoffman we could stick him in the downstairs unit.”

  “Here?”

  “Just until I can come up with something better, or Hermes decides he doesn’t need him.” I peered past her at the closed door of our guest bedroom, where the son of my shadow had been staying for the past week. Having him here felt surreal and natural at the same time. Wonderful, in either case.

  “Is Alec still sleeping?” I asked.

  “He left about an hour ago, fully dressed and sporting his pack. I offered him breakfast, but he said there were some things he needed to do.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. He’d said the same thing to me a couple times that week. I suspected he was traveling to the shadow realm to check on his mother, which was dangerous enough. My greater concern, though, was that he was running errands for Hermes, who was in a standoff against a vindictive version of Persephone. Though Alec claimed Hermes hadn’t visited lately, he really had no way of knowing. The disturbing reality was that no matter how much I trained Alec or how frequently Claudius or Mae loosened his bonds, the Tablet of Hermes had too powerful a hold over him.

  Ricki’s hand smoothed my brow, and she kissed my cheek.

  “Go, babe,” she said. “I’ve got everything covered here. Any special instructions for when Sleeping Beauty wakes up?”

  “More like Queen Maleficent,” I muttered. “Warm goat’s milk would be good. A tuna steak, if she feels up to it—the fish oils will help lube out any remaining stiffness. She may just want to sleep, though.”

  “No, she’ll want to eat.”

  I laughed. “You know her too well.”

  “She’s not exactly an enigma.” Ricki’s smile straightened. “We’ll get through this.” She didn’t mean Tabitha now. “We always do.”

  “I know.”

  But was it too much to ask for a clear board for our daughter’s arrival? No more warring gods or shadow realms or threats to our existence? I rubbed the beautiful swell of Ricki’s belly, kissed her softly, and drew my cane from my belt. The sooner I could straighten out this god mess, the better.

  3

  “Sorry I’m late,” I announced, arriving in a special holding area of NYPD headquarters known as the Basement.

  “Yeah, what else is new?” Detective Hoffman grumbled, closing a folder and pushing himself up from a desk. The crinkly state of his polyester suit coupled with his messy wreath of tight brown curls suggested he’d been up late the night before on at least one homicide case, possibly several.