Purge City (Prof Croft Book 3) by Brad Magnarella

Author:Brad Magnarella [Magnarella, Brad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-02-12T16:00:00+00:00

A week later found me pacing the command-and-control center’s main tent, gripping a Styrofoam cup of bitter coffee. All around me, NYPD officers and technicians manned computers and communication equipment. For the second phase of the eradication program, we had set up in Grand Army Plaza, just outside Central Park’s southeast corner. As before, Captain Cole wanted us close to the action. Only this time, there was no action.

Across the tent, he shot me a stern look that said, Where are they?

I dropped my Styrofoam cup into a trashcan. Above me, a series of monitors showed grainy green images of woods, overgrown paths, a derelict amusement park—but no creatures. On the GPS display, the numbered points indicated that the sweep, begun at midnight, was nearly complete.

“Well?” Cole asked, voicing his displeasure now.

“It’s only the first action,” I said defensively. We had divided Central Park into six sections with the plan to clear them in successive actions, south to north. Tonight we were tackling the southernmost section, up to the transverse road at Sixty-fifth Street. While half the Hundred performed the sweep, the other half were stationed around the perimeter in armored vehicles. No creature was going to get out alive. That had been the idea, anyway.

Cole walked up to me. “You said we’d get engagement.”

“I said maybe we’d get engagement. I’m an academic, remember? Qualifiers are our stock and trade. I also said the heaviest concentration of creatures was going to be farther north. Either way, we secure the southern park and the mayor gets to throw his cookout. Everyone’s fat and happy, right?”

“This is about liberating, not securing,” Cole said in a menacing voice. “You don’t liberate a place by strolling through it and shouting ‘all clear.’ The local Cub Scout troop could’ve managed that.”

“Good,” I said, turning away. “Consult their den mother next time.”

Cole seized my wrist. “You know what I’m saying, Prof.”

I felt my other fist balling around my cane. It was late, my nerves were stretched, and—qualifiers or not—the operation was not going as planned. And here Cole was trying to make me the scapegoat. Monitors flickered. Cole must have sensed the crackle of magic too because he released my wrist.

“Look,” he said, “I hate the political B.S. as much as you, but it is what it is.”

“Yeah, I get it,” I said, a sigh dispersing the power that had rushed to my prism. “The press needs a monster count. Otherwise, this is going to look like an expensive publicity stunt—one the mayor’s opponent will jump on as yet another example of his reckless spending.”

“How dangerous would it be to send a team north to try to bag a few bodies?” he asked.

I followed his furrowed gaze to the map of Central Park. It was a large aerial shot that should have answered his question. The further north one ventured, the wilder and more rugged the park became—and thus, the more dangerous. I’d only ventured into those wilds once, and that was with a stealth potion. Even then, I’d nearly been flame-broiled by druids.

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