He closed the box and called Ashanti, because Setsuna might be dead, but she hadn’t been the only one to keep an eye on him over the years. It took a few rings before the mother of all vampires picked up.
“What is it now?” Ashanti asked, not bothering with pleasantries.
“Did you know my mother’s family had ownership of the Salem nexus?” Patrick asked.
“No one owns a nexus.”
“The Pattersons say they do.”
“They guard it. They do not own it.”
The dismissive tone to her voice reminded Patrick of Lucien’s opinions about any contract or treaty. “You still knew.”
“Does it matter? It was never going to change your situation.”
“It matters if Ethan has Eloise.”
She made a soft, thoughtful noise. “Ah. The blood kin. It would be unwise to give him whatever he wants in exchange for her.”
Patrick closed his eyes. The idea churning in the back of his mind was bound to piss off Jono, but Patrick didn’t see a way through this mess without trying the impossible.
“I have a meeting to get to. They’re calling back Setsuna’s soul.”
“She is dead. She cannot help you.”
Patrick bit at the inside of his cheek. “You can. I need to talk to you after my meeting.”
“I am in Brooklyn ensuring my children’s territory is well guarded for the fight ahead.”
Patrick mentally calculated how long he thought the meeting might take, then doubled it. “I can meet you there around 1600.”
“Very well. If it’s that important to you, then we will meet. Call me when you get to Brooklyn, and I will direct you to a neutral location.”
Ashanti ended the call, and Patrick pulled the phone away from his ear. He glanced at the clock on the screen before turning it off and shoving it into his back pocket.
“Fuck,” he said tiredly, running a hand over his face.
He wished this wasn’t happening, but wishes had never changed anything in his life, and neither had praying, so Patrick left his office and went to do his job.
Hours later, sheet lightning illuminated the reactionary storm churning over New York City, sometimes forking down to crackle on the rods erected on top of every skyscraper and bridge. The wind was a cold, howling thing that drove the rain sideways with gale force speed. The black clouds moved in a way that reminded Patrick of the start of a tornadic supercell storm in the Midwest. Few people walked the streets, and if they did, umbrellas were useless.
Worse than the storm was the frightening pressure in the air that wasn’t just a barometric issue. Patrick remembered the weight of wild magic in Cairo, how it had hung over their heads like a guillotine during the fighting. All the sacrifices Ethan’s side had done back then to keep the tear between worlds open had caused that reactionary storm to be brutal. It’d taken close to a year for weather patterns to settle after the Thirty-Day War.
Patrick hoped that wouldn’t happen here.
He drove through the pouring rain, windshield wipers working frantically. He kept his eyes on the road as he oriented himself for the drive to Brooklyn. At the next red light, he finally turned on his cell phone.
He’d turned it off before the start of the long virtual meeting with Henry, the governor of the State of New York, the heads of the joint task force, the Dagda in his guise as the mayor, and the NYPD commissioner.
Their first order of business had been calling Setsuna’s soul back into her body, and Patrick hadn’t been able to make himself look at the television screen during that time. Hearing the echo of her voice, long after she was gone, had been difficult. His palms still throbbed with the cuts his fingernails had dug into his own flesh.
That hour had crawled by, and he’d asked no questions to the dead while everyone else had. When the necromancer finally put Setsuna back to rest, Patrick didn’t feel relieved, only hollowed out. The rest of the meeting was spent discussing the rapid deployment of the National Guard—who couldn’t arrive soon enough in Patrick’s opinion—and what magical defenses could be erected around Manhattan and the other boroughs, as well as the nexus in Salem.
It made him wish the barrier they’d set last year with the Greek coins and cliff roses had survived. But Cernunnos had destroyed it after sucking out all the life in every park to keep Hannah and her unborn child alive. Patrick didn’t trust the gods, but at this point, he’d take any help his side could get.
As soon as his phone was fully booted, the notifications started rolling in. Patrick’s heart skipped a beat at the number of missed calls, voice messages, and texts showing up on the screen. He didn’t bother reading any of the texts or listening to his voicemail. Instead, he called Jono, who picked up before the first ring even finished going off.
“What happened?” Patrick asked tightly, gripping the steering wheel with both hands.
“We were attacked by hunters at Gentry & Thyme this morning. I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Sage took a blow meant for me and got gutted by a fucking poisoned blade,” Jono said, sounding tired and angry.
A ringing noise filled Patrick’s ears, drowning out the rain. The rattle in his chest was him trying to breathe. “Is she—”
“She’s alive but in the ICU at Bellevue. Whatever was on the blade is making it difficult for her to shift right now.”
Patrick opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words, heart pounding as if he were running a race. The light turned green, and he pressed on the gas pedal. “Will she be okay?”
“She’s stable. Marek and Wade are with her. Where are you?”
His stomach twisted, and he swallowed hard. “I just finished a meeting with the joint task force. I’m on my way to meet with Ashanti.”
“Why?”
Patrick wanted to lie to protect Jono, but he couldn’t find the will to do so. “I need her to do something for me.”
“You couldn’t ring her and ask?” At Patrick’s silence, Jono let out an angry laugh. “You promised me you wouldn’t fuck off without telling me first.”
“And I told you before I don’t have a choice.”
“Right, then. I’m putting you on speaker.”
The fury in Jono’s voice made Patrick flinch, but it didn’t stop him from driving toward the Brooklyn Bridge rather than Bellevue, despite everything in him that was demanding he turn around and go check on Sage.
“What the fuck is going on, Collins?” Gerard asked.
Patrick jerked at the sound of his old captain’s voice coming over the line but kept the steering wheel steady in his hands. “Gerard? When did you get here?”
“Today. I have the whole team with me, and we need a sitrep.”
Patrick clenched his teeth until his jaw ached before finally speaking. “Did Jono tell you Ethan has my grandmother?”
“We’ve been filled in.”
“Then you know the Salem Coven and my mother’s family are responsible for the protective wards around the Salem nexus. If we give up the piece of the Morrígan’s staff, I can get Eloise back and block Ethan’s power source.”
“We both know that’s a fucking lie. Don’t do it, Collins. Don’t trade yourself for her. The veil is tearing as we speak, and we need you here.”
“And what happens when Ethan drains that nexus dry? The SOA is going to send mages to barricade it, but the protective wards are generational. The SOA can’t just tear them down. Ethan will still be able to get through the defenses because of Eloise. She’s a back door to the damn thing like my sister is. She’s the only one that has the command trigger for those wards and can take them down.”
“He’s not related to her.”
“That doesn’t matter when Hannah is and he has my blood as well. But getting Eloise back means she can take down her family’s wards, and the SOA can block Ethan. It’s two fucked choices, but taking away a power source might buy us time to figure out where the hell Ethan is, because I guarantee you he isn’t in Salem.”
&nbs
p; “There are millions of zombies and demons and who knows what else waiting to break through the veil. Whatever time you think you’ll buy us isn’t going to mean shit if we spend days fighting that army. It’ll mean even less if Ethan has a working weapon.”
“Ashanti can help us track Hannah with my blood. We wouldn’t be fighting blind.”
“You’d have to be here for that spell to be useful.”
“Patrick,” Jono bit out, cutting into their argument. “Listen to Gerard. Don’t hand it over. You know Ethan won’t accept just the broken piece. He’ll want you as well, and you can’t give yourself over to him.”
The fear and anger in Jono’s voice made Patrick flinch. “I don’t plan on negotiating with him.”
“Yeah? Then who are you going to negotiate with?”
Patrick hesitated before steeling himself for his lover’s fury. “Hades.”
“Are you fucking mad?” Jono snarled.
“Patrick, that’s the stupidest idea you’ve had in years. Don’t give me another goddamn heart attack,” Gerard said.
“Hades has only stayed with Ethan because of Macaria. He’s said before he’s not leaving his daughter. If I have a way to get her back, then he might go along with it,” Patrick argued.
“No he fucking won’t.”
“He will if Persephone can persuade him.” Patrick blew out a harsh breath. “I know none of you like this idea, and fuck knows neither do I, but this was never your debt to pay. I’m paying it the only way I know how.”
“Bollocks. Fucking bollocks. We’re a pack. You aren’t doing this alone,” Jono protested.
“I won’t be, because you’ll find me. You always do, and I need you to do that here.” Jono’s silence settled heavily over the line. Patrick kept driving. “Jono. You’ll find me.”
“I can’t leave New York City. I can’t leave Sage and everyone else to what’s coming through the veil. I have to hold the line for you here.”
The anguish in Jono’s voice cut right through Patrick, but he’d spent years flaying himself down to the bone for other people in order to keep moving forward. He couldn’t stop now. “Then stay. I’ll come back to you. I always do.”
“Patrick—”
A hideous electronic whine drowned out Jono’s voice before the call went dead, along with the car. Patrick braked hard and kept control of the wheel as all around him, other vehicles jolted to a stop. Lights in the buildings and streetlights all down the street went out. With the blanket of storm clouds overhead, the world was plunged into an eerie, almost twilight gloom.
“Fuck,” Patrick snarled, lifting his hips so he could shove his bricked phone into his back pocket.
He didn’t bother trying to start the engine again. He grabbed the iron box from the glove compartment, gripped it tight, and got out of the car. He ducked his head against the vicious wind and rain that slammed into his personal shields and started running.
The rain came down like a waterfall on his mad dash to the Brooklyn Bridge. More people were out in the storm now that the electrical grid was dead and Manhattan had gone dark. Cars clogged the streets, and those that weren’t tied to computers in order to function were boxed in and going nowhere fast. Patrick stuck to the sidewalks, shoving his way through throngs of people who didn’t know what was going on.
Patrick knew, and it kept him running.
When he finally turned onto the pedestrian pathway leading across the Brooklyn Bridge, heaving for air, the storm had gotten worse. As Patrick gained elevation, he paused for a moment to catch his breath and turned to look back at Manhattan.
The spinning heart of the reactionary storm spanned the length of the island now and was rapidly moving toward the outer boroughs. The weight of it pressed down on the air, blocking up his inner ear. The wind howled over the Brooklyn Bridge so loud Patrick could barely hear himself think.
It was a wonder, then, that he heard Ashanti at all or that she’d managed to find him in the midst of the burgeoning chaos. But gods were known to do the impossible, so he shouldn’t have been surprised.
“Look up.”
The words echoed in his ears, or maybe his mind, causing Patrick to turn and stare up at the first tower of the Brooklyn Bridge and the suspension wires that created a spiderweb effect around him. He squinted through the pouring rain, catching sight of a shadow drifting along the top of the tower against the glare of lightning.
Patrick headed up the path for the tower, the only one on the pedestrian portion of the bridge. He could see countless people in the lanes below hurrying between stalled cars, having left the safety of their vehicles.
The shadow became a blur that slid down one of the suspension wires before dropping to the ground in front of him. Ashanti’s clothes were waterlogged, her skirt clinging to her legs and bunching up around the ironshod curved bone hooks she stood on. Her bloodred hair was done up in Bantu knots this time around in deference to the weather.
Ashanti flashed her iron fangs at him, black eyes reflecting the lightning from above. “The veil is tearing.”
“I know,” Patrick said, raising his voice to be heard over the wind. “That’s why I’m here.”
Ashanti’s gaze flicked from his face to the iron box clenched in his hand and back again. “You come bearing a gift.”
Patrick tightened his grip around the iron box. “Not for you.”
“It wouldn’t be for anyone if you were smart.”
“I’ve been known to have stupid ideas before.”
“Patrick.”
“They have my grandmother, Ashanti. She has a generational access to the nexus under Salem. I can’t let Ethan do to her what he did to my mom and sister. We can’t let him have that power. He won’t need sacrifices and souls to turn himself into a god if he can mainline a fucking nexus to power his spell.”
“Some sacrifices must be made to win a war.”
Patrick swallowed against the dryness in his throat. “Not on his terms.”
“You give Ethan a path to everything he wants if you give him that bit of the Morrígan’s staff, because you will be handing yourself over to him as well. This isn’t how I taught you to weigh costs.”
The Morrígan’s staff was made to raise the dead but the almost-sentient power that lived inside that horrific weapon wasn’t one Ethan could channel, not without godly sacrifices. He had no gods save those from the hells who’d made whatever bargains they could to fight with him instead of die for him. Removing the nexus beneath Salem from Ethan’s control would deny him power for the altar he was building up New York City to be.
“No, but you taught me to be a weapon. This is me wielding myself. If I take Eloise’s place, I have a better chance at keeping Ethan from the nexus.”
“We need you here to find him, not out of reach in Salem.”
Patrick blinked rain out of his eyes, licking it off his lips. “I promised to bleed for you, and I will. But I need to do this first.”
“You are blood kin to both Eloise and Ethan. His magic will walk right through yours.”
“Maybe. But I have a soulbond. Jono might be enough to help me keep Ethan at bay.”
“If your wolf is to come after you, he best leave soon. Manhattan will soon be impassable.”
Patrick hesitated, wishing his phone worked to pass on that warning. “Jono needs to stay here. Sage is hurt, and the rest of the packs and our allies need guidance. Gerard’s in town. If Jono can’t leave New York to come after me, Gerard will.”
“Cú Chulainn is needed on the front lines where he belongs.”
Patrick narrowed his eyes at her. “Did you always know who he was?”
“What do you think?”
He should’ve been angry about that, but he’d already lost Setsuna, and regret was still a bitter taste in his mouth even these many days later. Being angry at Ashanti wasn’t worth it now, not with what they were facing down.
“I think the gods all hate what you taught me.”
To question;
to fight; to survive. Patrick had lost a lot in his life, but he was still standing, and his foundation wasn’t laid at Persephone’s feet, but Ashanti’s and Setsuna’s in ways he was only recently beginning to recognize.
Ashanti stepped closer, tilting her head back a little so she could look him in the eye. The incline on the pedestrian pathway wasn’t so steep that she stood above him, but Patrick hadn’t felt so small beneath a person’s gaze in a long, long while.
Then Ashanti smiled, a hard curve of her mouth, and the laugh she let out was stolen by the wind. “The end has always started with a sacrifice. Let it be yours then, and let us win this war.”
Patrick swallowed, throat dry, and hoped he wasn’t making a mistake. “I need to find Hades. If you know where he is, can you take me to him?”
“She can’t, but I can, Pattycakes,” Hermes said from behind him.
Patrick jerked around, coming face-to-face with the Greek messenger god. The immortal’s aura was cracked open and burned Patrick’s vision, causing him to squint. Hermes was unbothered by the storm, dry beneath the rain due to magic. His dyed blue curls were faded, dark roots showing when he raked a hand through them, grinning at Patrick with a light in his gold-brown eyes that made him look manic.
“Where’s Hades?” Patrick asked.
“Not in the Underworld, so lucky you, there’s no payment involved for this trip,” Hermes said.
“Shows what you know. I’ll need you to take me to him after our first stop.”
“And why should I do that?” Hermes pointed at the iron box, smile disappearing from his face. “This doesn’t belong to him, to any of them. Giving it up is not how you pay what you owe us.”
“It buys us time.”
Hermes gestured at the city behind him. “Time is irrelevant now.”
Patrick’s gaze was drawn to the fog creeping through the skyscrapers of Manhattan, a familiar darkness he remembered from Cairo all those years ago building deep inside the city.
“Bullshit. It’s not Samhain. Ethan can’t break the world until then.”
“Are you willing to bet the world on that?”
“I’ll bet it on my pack.” Patrick stepped closer until he stood toe-to-toe with Hermes. “Ethan has mercenaries in Salem. He hasn’t removed them from the field. Whatever he’s planning, he needs power from that nexus, which means Eloise is probably still in Salem somewhere. Wherever she’s being kept, Hades can take us to her if he isn’t with her already.”
A Veiled & Hallowed Eve Page 20