Shadow Deep: Prof Croft 10 by Magnarella Brad

Author:Magnarella, Brad
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Croftverse Press
Published: 2021-11-20T16:00:00+00:00

25

As the night deepened, the college became a jungle. Savage barking, shrieks, and an occasional fit of laughter echoed from various sides. Things moved up and down the corridor. But the wards did their job. We slept in shifts, but I doubted any of us got much rest. I finally dozed off around five a.m., tumbling into a fragmented series of dreams.

In one, Alec was looking up at me with a grave expression. “I’m sorry,” he was saying. “I can’t help this.” I tried to ask what he meant, but I couldn’t talk. The dream changed to my apartment. My wife was walking into the living room holding our little girl’s hand as she toddled beside her. She must have been about ten months old, just learning to walk. I smiled, my heart bursting with love, but then I noticed that the booties on our daughter’s feet belonged to Emma, the missing girl. Fear seized me.

“Take them off!” I cried.

I had my voice, unlike in the Alec dream, but when I struggled to run toward them, to protect them, I couldn’t move. My wife and daughter looked toward the window. Something was blotting out the sunlight that had been pouring through, casting the room in cold, heavy shadows. And then complete darkness.

Something hard nudged my side.

I squinted my eyes open to find myself curled up on the floor of my classroom, shirt soaked in sweat. Across the room, Alec was seated against the wall, drawn-in knees supporting his head. Shadow Vega stood over me, ready to nudge me with her foot again, but seeing I was awake, she withdrew.

“You were moaning,” she said.

I scrubbed my eyes with a sleeve. “Weird dreams.”

“Six a.m. Time to call my NYPD contact.”

I sat up. By some circadian rhythm, the college had fallen quiet. I debated whether or not to awaken Alec before deciding to let him sleep. I stood and grabbed a water bottle, then joined Vega beside the covered window. While she punched in the number and brought the phone to her ear, I drank down half the bottle.

“No answer,” she said.

“Should we be worried?”

“He might not have been able to talk.”

“How risky is getting Alec’s mother out of there?” I asked as she pocketed the phone.

“I don’t know what the NYPD is like where you are, but it’s a smoking mess here. The right hand hardly knows what the left is doing—or that there even is a left hand half the time. Getting her released shouldn’t be too hard. My contact has rank.”

“What about the Iron Guard? You don’t think they’re going to be watching?”

“I doubt my husband ever told them about Alec or that he was holding his mom. He probably just said he could deliver you.”

“Are you going to call him?”

She shook her head and started to turn away, then stopped. “Look, the big dummy meant well, believe it or not. Grabbing Alec’s mom, delivering you to the Iron Guard—he was trying to restore my name and standing. It doesn’t

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