Demon Moon (Prof Croft Book 1) Read Free Page A

off and an explosion of foul-smelling ectoplasm nearly knocked me down.
    There was a reason I’d waterproofed my coat, and it wasn’t for the shiny look.
    I opened my eyes to a steamy, tar-spattered room and exhaled. The shrieker was gone, cast back to its hellish pit.
    But at a price.
    The edges of my thoughts swam in creamy waves, a sensation that heralded the impending arrival of Thelonious. That incubus spirit I called up a decade ago? He was still around, clinging to my spirit like a parasite. Despite that he was thousands of years old, I pictured him as a cool cat in black shades and a glittering ’fro—probably because he shared a name with a famous musician. And my Thelonious had a jazzy way about him. As long as I didn’t push my limits, I could keep him at bay. Cross that line, and I became a vessel for Thelonious’s, ahem, festivities.
    And yeah, I’d just crossed that line.
    More creamy waves washed in. I would have to work quickly.
    The demonic gunk was evaporating as I drew my sword from the wall. I cleaned the blade against the thigh of my coat, resheathed it, and then returned to the fallen conjurer. Still out. I shone my light over his table, pocketing samples of spell ingredients for later study.
    “But where oh where is the recipe?” I muttered.
    I stopped at the flaky ashes of what appeared to have been a piece of college-ruled paper. The spell must have contained an incineration component, meant to destroy evidence of its origin.
    “Naturally.”
    Sliding my cane into the belt of my coat, I stooped for the conjurer. “Up you go,” I grunted. His head lolled as I carried him into the bedroom. I set him on the mattress, arranged his arms and legs into a semblance of order, then shook out the sheet and spread it over him.
    His mortal mind was blown, but not beyond repair.
    I touched my cane to the center of his brow and uttered ancient Words of healing. He murmured as a cottony light grew from the remaining power in the staff. The healing would take time, which was just as well. In a few more minutes, I wouldn’t be in much shape to question him.
    “I’ll be back in a couple of days,” I told the snoring man.
    The creamy waves crested, spilling into my final wells of free will. There was no good place to go now except away from people. I was turning to leave when my—or I should say, Thelonious’s—gaze fell to the space beneath the bed. A half-full bottle of tannic liquid leaned against one of the legs.
    I felt my lips stretch into a grin. Bourbon , Thelonious purred in his bass voice.
    My final memory of that night, the fire of alcohol in my throat, was tottering down a hallway toward a shaking generator and the siren screams of a pink-haired punker named Blade.
    Ooh, yeah…

5
    Swollen eyelids cracked open onto a room wall-papered in album jackets and cast in the gray light of morning. I was on a mattress on the floor, no doubt in the punk rockers’ apartment. I managed to extricate my naked torso from a tangle of sheets and sit up. The room revolved, making my brain hurt.
    “Sweet Jesus,” I muttered, dragging a hand through my salt-stiff hair, then clamping my temples.
    A mean smell of smoke lingered in my sinuses and beneath it, the cloying stink of last night’s shrieker. Not a pleasant combo, especially when you threw in a cheap eighty-proof hangover.
    At least the apartment was quiet, everyone probably still asleep.
    I drew the sheets from my legs. Evidently, I’d managed to retain my boxers and a single gray sock. That didn’t always happen. Oh, wait. I looked again. The sock wasn’t mine.
    Time to go.
    I stood and began shuffling around in search of my clothes and cane. My goal was to get at least ten blocks away before anyone awakened. Lord only knew what Thelonious had gotten up to last—
    “Morning,” a woman’s voice said.
    I wheeled to find pink spikes of hair jutting from a narrow tube of bedding at the mattress’s far side. The hair framed a face that, despite