Getting an elbow underneath him, Patrick twisted onto his side and slammed the dagger into the demon’s hip. He flinched as the demon’s tongue dragged over the personal shield wrapped around his arm, its teeth snapping down around his elbow. Patrick’s shield wavered beneath its bite, but it only took seconds for the soultaker to burn to ash.
He didn’t have time to stop and breathe, not with a fight still happening around them. Gerard offered Patrick a hand up, and he took it. Staggering to his feet, Patrick turned to face where the Dominion Sect mages and hunters appeared to be on the defensive.
Walking their way came Kū, the Hawaiian god beheading a zombie with his shark-teeth-encrusted spear as he passed by a gravesite. “My Night Marchers tell me the demon summoned all the dead in Salem.”
“Of course he did,” Patrick muttered before coughing.
He scanned the cemetery turned battlefield, and his eyes widened when he saw who was running their way between a pair of Hellraisers.
“Patrick!” Madelyn called out, face white as a sheet, but the magic at her fingertips felt steady to his senses. Keeping pace beside her was Brittany.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he exclaimed.
“Making sure the generational wards are down,” Brittany said.
Patrick conjured up a mageglobe, fighting to keep its shape intact before filling it with magic. He cast a shaky shield around their little group once his aunt and cousin made it over. “This isn’t a fight for civilians.”
“Salem is our home, and the nexus is our responsibility.”
“We brought Eloise home before coming to get you, Collins. Some of your family insisted on coming with us,” Gerard said.
Patrick glared at him. “You should’ve said no.”
“They made a compelling argument about the spellwork.”
“Brittany and I are the next ones in line for control of the Salem Coven, and that includes the wards around the nexus. Eloise handed over the command triggers to us. Now that you’re clear of Ethan’s spellwork, we can take our family’s wards down. We had to make sure you were free first,” Madelyn said.
Gerard jerked his head in her direction. “See? Compelling argument.”
Patrick flipped him off but kept his attention on his aunt. “Andras summoned all the dead in Salem to fight for him. You need to get behind a threshold.”
He didn’t want them to die—couldn’t let them die—but this wasn’t where the fight was going to end. New York City and Jono were calling, and Patrick couldn’t stay.
Madelyn nodded jerkily. “Whatever is best.”
“Let’s get them back with the SOA agents for cover. Then we’ll go,” Gerard said.
Madelyn pulled out a small plastic bottle from her jacket pocket and offered it to Patrick. “Here. Drink this. It’s a restorative potion. It can’t heal you, but it’ll keep you moving for now.”
“I need a fucking vacation, not a potion,” Patrick said, but he took the bottle anyway, unscrewed the cap, and downed a drink that tasted sickeningly sweet.
The effects were immediate. The fog in his brain washed away, leaving him more clearheaded than he’d been in hours. It helped him focus, and while it didn’t cure the exhaustion, it enabled him to ignore it more easily.
He tossed the empty bottle over his shoulder and nodded at Gerard. “Ready when you are, sir.”
“Need to get you actual gear when we make it back to New York,” Gerard said, already moving toward where the fighting was still going on.
“I had a rifle.”
“You don’t have it now.”
“Blame Hermes.”
Patrick grabbed Brittany by the elbow and turned her around. Madelyn followed suit, sticking close to her daughter. Keith came up to flank them, and the other two Hellraisers took up the rearguard. Gerard had point, and Patrick kept his shield up as they ran across gravesites, taking shots at zombies as they went.
Several werecreatures came up from behind, helping to guard them. Patrick didn’t know if any of them were Georgelle, but he needed to remember to thank her at some point.
The Night Marchers helped clear a way forward, with Kū focusing on the Dominion Sect magic users. The number of witches, warlocks, and sorcerers supporting Zachary had been halved. Zachary was still standing, though Patrick didn’t have eyes on Andras. It left him feeling chilled in a way he couldn’t blame on the storm.
The second he got within arm’s reach of Hermes, he was taking back that rifle.
Werecreatures tore through zombies on either side of them, their ferocity enough to keep their area clear of danger. The Dominion Sect magic users were being whittled down in numbers, but several had come back as zombies. The Night Marchers were dealing with those particular walking dead.
Gerard led them behind the front line the SOA magic users had set up, handing Madelyn and Brittany back over to federal protection. They weren’t dressed for a fight, and Patrick hated the thought of leaving them there, but he couldn’t put their lives over everyone else’s, even if they were related.
“Undo the generational wards around the nexus, then let the SOA know when they’re down. The agents here will look after you. Keep your shields up, and do what they say,” Patrick said, raising his voice to be heard over the thunder crashing overhead.
“What about you?” Brittany asked, eyes wide in her pale face.
“Pattycakes here has a soul debt to pay,” Hermes said, slipping between two Hellraisers to come stand beside Patrick.
He was empty-handed.
“Where’s my rifle?” Patrick demanded.
“It wasn’t yours, and besides, I ran out of bullets.”
Lightning flashed above, reflecting in Hermes’ eyes. The hissing crackle in the air didn’t come from the storm but the mageglobes careening their way.
“Someone get shields up!” Gerard yelled.
An SOA sorceress managed to cobble together a defense just in time, and the strike spells crashed against a shield that wavered in a threatening way. The color of the dissipating magic was all Zachary’s signature, and Patrick knew they couldn’t leave here until the asshole was taken care of.
Patrick grabbed Gerard by the arm, getting his attention. “Is Andras on the field?”
Gerard shook his head. “The demon left once the zombies were raised.”
“He didn’t take Zachary with him?”
“Maybe he thinks the fucker has a chance at keeping the spellwork going with some other person in your mother’s family.”
Patrick scowled. “We aren’t leaving until Zachary is dead.”
“You want that kill?”
Patrick gestured with his dagger, dragging heavenly fire through the rain. “You’re the one with the long-range weapon.”
Gerard grunted wordlessly before shaking off Patrick’s hand. “Stay here.”
Patrick didn’t want to obey the order, but he’d spent years following Gerard in and out of battlefields. With his aunt and cousin behind him, Patrick watched as Gerard signaled whoever was holding up the shield to let him pass through.
Keith sidled up to Patrick, knocking him on the shoulder with a gentle fist. “Give him a minute. He’s been wanting to murder someone for days now.”
The Night Marchers swarmed the space between where the two sides fought, and Patrick lost sight of Gerard in the midst of those ghostly warriors. The SOA agents kept their focus on the fight with Dominion Sect magic users while the Hellraisers and werecreatures handled the zombies.
Beyond the graveyard, the little area of Salem’s historical center should’ve been empty, but Patrick could see figures racing through the dark in the aftermath of every lightning strike. He couldn’t tell if they were friendlies or not.
“Anyone call for reinforcements?” Patrick asked.
“We got backup coming from Boston,” one SOA agent said without looking away from the spell she was casting.
Patrick’s attention turned from the people coming toward them to the man Gerard
tossed with ease into their midst as they broke free of the Night Marchers.
“Now you’re close range,” Gerard said, wiping someone else’s blood off his face.
Zachary was missing both hands, blood pouring from the stumps of his wrists, pale in a way that spoke of bad blood loss. The Gáe Bulg’s spearpoint was smeared with red along the edge, and Gerard’s face was etched in fury in the glow of magic.
Out of the corner of his eye, Patrick saw Brittany turn her face into her mother’s shoulder, but Madelyn never looked away.
“I didn’t think you were allowed to interfere in the payment of my soul debt,” Patrick said.
Gerard looked at Patrick, his aura a crackling thing to Patrick’s senses. “I told you once before that you are part of my story. The same can be said of me in yours. There is no point in adhering to the restrictions set upon myself and those like me that prevent interference during the creation of something new when what may result is our own eradication.”
Patrick knelt, keeping one knee on Zachary’s chest as he settled all his weight onto the wounded mage. No hands meant the tattoos Zachary had used as permanent anchors for his magic were gone, and command triggers were difficult to hold in one’s mind when you were in the amount of pain he had to be in at the moment. The sputtering flicker of magic that never formed into a mageglobe proved Zachary’s concentration was gone.
Patrick settled his dagger against Zachary’s throat, the glow of heavenly white fire washing the other man out, or maybe it was the blood loss.
“Where is Ethan performing the spellwork to turn himself into a god?” Patrick asked.
Zachary’s lips peeled back from his teeth, eyes almost too bright in his face but losing focus. “He will rise and be remembered.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
There wasn’t any point in saving Zachary for further questioning. He was too much of a zealot, held too much adherence to Ethan’s dreams of godhood. Patrick didn’t wait for Zachary to bleed out on the ground beneath him. He slit Zachary’s throat with his dagger in a single movement, the matte-black blade cutting deep. Zachary heaved beneath him, the stumps of his arms pushing at Patrick’s body, but it didn’t matter.
He was never getting up again.
“That’s for Hannah,” Patrick said, his words quiet beneath the roar of the storm, but he knew Zachary heard him before death stole the mage away.
When Patrick looked up, Madelyn was staring right at him, but there was no judgment in his aunt’s face, no disgust or horror. She looked at him with a fierce sort of grief in her eyes as she held Brittany close, keeping her daughter’s face tucked close to her shoulder to keep from seeing what Patrick had done.
“Thank you,” Madelyn said in a raw voice.
Patrick might have lost his mother, but Madelyn and everyone else had lost a sister and daughter and, later, an aunt. Nothing would bring her back, but closure was still something the Patterson family could get.
That Patrick could get.
Gerard helped Patrick to his feet. The Dominion Sect magic users were faltering beneath the attack now that Andras was gone and Zachary was dead.
“We need to go back to New York,” Patrick said.
“I’ll get us there,” Gerard promised.
Hermes spread his hands and nodded at Madelyn and Brittany. “I’ll see these two behind a threshold. Persephone won’t speak to me for decades if I let her high priestess die. I’ll join you in New York once they are safe.”
It was probably the kindest thing Hermes had ever done for Patrick, but really, it was to the god’s benefit more than anyone else’s. Persephone could hold a grudge if the way she’d frosted out Hades over the years as if she was a goddess of winter and not spring was anything to go by. Patrick didn’t doubt she’d blame Hermes for any grievance she took on behalf of her followers, and the messenger god still had to work with her in the Underworld.
“Kū!” Gerard called out. “Gather your warriors and let’s go!”
The Hawaiian war god lifted his spear in silent acknowledgment, letting out a fierce cry that served to draw the Night Marchers to his position. Gerard hefted the Gáe Bulg with both hands and used it to carve open the veil.
The rush of cold air that followed the fog spilling into the cemetery made Patrick’s teeth ache. It looked as if it didn’t take any effort at all to open the veil, and that didn’t bode well for what they’d find on the other side.
“Is it Samhain?” Patrick asked.
“It’s Tuesday night. Samhain is three days away,” Madelyn said.
Gerard rotated his spear around, gripping it with just one hand. “It took us almost a day to reach you. It could be longer than that this time when we go through.”
There was only one way to find out.
Patrick stepped up to grab Gerard’s shoulder strap on his Kevlar vest, still holding his dagger. “Let’s go.”
Keith grabbed Patrick by the jacket collar as the rest of the Hellraisers lined up to pass through the veil, Kū and his Night Marchers taking up the rear. Gerard spared a glance over his shoulder to see that everyone was accounted for before plunging into the tear between worlds, and Patrick could only follow.
22
A perpetual twilight had fallen over Manhattan, making it impossible to figure out what day it was or even the time. The drifting fog, the unceasing rain, and the stormy sky above that never changed left them fighting in a strange stretch of timelessness. The one silver lining of that dodginess meant the vampires weren’t bound by a sun because it didn’t rise and didn’t set and didn’t seem to exist at all in the new world Ethan was trying to build in increments.
It had been a hard fight downtown to get to where they were after they’d left Tempest pack territory by Central Park. A couple of hours’ respite in some apartment buildings across two blocks that were being shielded by covens and the Cailleach Bheur hadn’t been enough time to drive the exhaustion out of Jono. He could only run on adrenaline for so long, could only ask the same of those fighting beside him, before it became too much.
It didn’t matter that he carried Fenrir in his soul. The god could do nothing with a body incapable of going on.
A streak of shadows up ahead in the fog caught Jono’s eyes, but he kept walking. He could smell who it was. Ashanti had ordered some of the vampires with them to scout ahead and around their constantly moving position. Not all of them had returned over the hours, something Jono knew Lucien would hold against their pack if any of them turned out to belong to his Night Court.
Takoma landed on the road some meters ahead with a fellow vampire. The Native American vampire straightened from his crouched position, eyeing Jono before giving a respectful nod to his mother.
“The military is set up on the Park Avenue Viaduct up ahead. Their concern seems to be Grand Central Station,” Takoma said.
“Why?” Ashanti asked.
Takoma flexed his hands, his nails more like claws. “It smells dead.”
“Zombies,” Spencer said grimly.
“The subway’s protective wards are broken. It would be easier to move the dead through the tunnels than the streets, even with trains in the way,” Nadine said.
“This is not where we stand our ground. We must keep moving,” Órlaith said from astride her steed.
“I could use a restock on our way through Midtown,” Spencer said, glancing down at his rifle.
Nadine nodded. “Me too.”
Jono huffed and started forward again, not blinking at the glittering violet shield Nadine raised in front of his nose. Despite knowing that whoever waited up ahead had to be on their side, Jono couldn’t stop wondering about the safety of his pack. The soulbond was quiet, and Jono didn’t know where Sage or Wade were, if any of them were safe and alive. But Jono couldn’t let himself dwell on the terrible what-ifs plaguing him. That helped no one, least of all the people he was fighting with or for.
They trudged through the rain, weaving around abandoned
vehicles, shoving some aside to create space for the fae’s steeds to more easily move through. The fog shifted around them, wind peeling it away from the road ahead.
They’d reached the Park Avenue Viaduct between Grand Central Station and a hotel. As Takoma had reported, the road teemed with soldiers and police officers. Thunder rumbled through the air so loudly that Jono could feel the vibrations in his paws as he walked forward with Nadine and Spencer to his left, while Ashanti kept pace on his right. He’d yet to shift back to human since they’d left the Upper East Side, letting Fenrir speak for him when he needed to give orders.
The malevolent power brewing inside Grand Central Terminal didn’t bode well to the people stationed outside it. The soldiers manning a hastily built barricade consisting of abandoned cars kept their weapons trained on them as they approached. No one was shooting—yet—but Nadine hadn’t lowered her defensive shield.
“I’m PIA Special Agent Nadine Mulroney,” Nadine said loudly. “I’m with allies.”
“Looks like you’re with werecreatures and vampires,” someone shouted.
“Like I said. Allies.”
“If they don’t let us pass, we’ll go through them,” Lucien said as he sauntered up to stand by Ashanti.
Jono turned his wolf’s head to keep the master vampire in his sights. Lucien’s pale face was splattered with blood from the demons and hunters he’d killed on their push downtown. He cradled a rifle with the casual expertise of someone who rarely went anywhere without a weapon.
“We’re with the joint task force,” Spencer called out.
The murmur of voices spiked, and Jono dialed up his hearing to catch what he could beneath the roar of the reactionary storm. Fenrir’s presence settled on the surface of Jono’s mind, a thought away from taking control if things went south. Finally, someone with some sort of rank waved them forward with a commanding gesture.
“Mulroney, was it?” the woman in uniform asked. “General Reed said to provide your group support if we crossed paths.”
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