A Veiled & Hallowed Eve

by Hailey Turner

  “Will that be enough?” Nadine asked worriedly.

  “I will be enough,” Patrick promised her.

  Lucien and Carmen were last, both of them already carrying blood on their faces from the battle. Patrick merely added to it.

  Jono had never understood the ins and outs of magic until Patrick came into his life, but he knew what blood ties meant these days. He had faith in Patrick to get them through to the other side. So when Patrick stepped forward, straight-backed and clear-eyed, Jono didn’t hesitate to follow him.

  The spellwork flared up with the first step Patrick took between the lines. Magic flashed, but Patrick squared his shoulders and kept walking, blood dripping from his fingers to the ground below. It hissed and bubbled when it hit, causing the magic there to grow dimmer. Patrick veered to the right a little, extending his arm so he could drag his dagger across the wall, and Jono followed.

  The spellwork cracked and burst where the blade touched, peeling off the sandstone. It wasn’t enough to unravel it completely, but between Patrick’s blood and dagger, he opened up a path for them. Jono stepped where Patrick did, and the farther they walked over the spellwork, the hotter Patrick’s blood smeared over his snout became.

  Steady, Fenrir said.

  The depth of the old fort’s walls was suffocating, the glow at the end of the short tunnel ugly and dangerous. Nadine raised a shield in front of them, keeping it moving at their pace as they marched forward. When they finally cleared the tunnel and made it to the courtyard, Jono expected a fight. What they got was an eerie stillness that made his hackles rise.

  Witchlights burned like tiny Vesuvius flames along the curved walls of the fort. Hundreds of Dominion Sect magic users stood shoulder to shoulder along the concentric circles of the spellwork, packed together like the Underground during rush hour, all of them blank-eyed and pale-faced, tied to magic that would never give them up. No one moved to attack them, all of the acolytes seemingly frozen in place. When Patrick carefully poked someone in the back with his dagger, they didn’t react.

  Wade landed on the fort’s ramparts above the entrance, shaking the entire historical building with his arrival. His wings were half-folded for balance as he spat fire in the direction of the park, guarding the way in so that no other enemy could follow them inside. They had enough to deal with as it was.

  “How many graves must I put you in before you lie down and die?” a voice Jono sometimes heard in his nightmares asked from up ahead, past the rows of silent, complicit witnesses.

  Patrick swallowed loudly, but when he spoke, his voice didn’t shake at all. “I’ll crawl out of every last one you dig.”

  Steeling himself, Jono and the others made their way toward the inner circle and a nightmare that was years in the making.

  29

  Patrick sensed Ethan before he saw him. Even through his shields, blood called to blood, and he knew where his father stood amidst the heart of the spellwork.

  He knew where Hannah was as well.

  Ashanti’s blood magic had worn off once he’d reached the Battery. What had faded without him realizing it was the tie connecting him to his twin that he’d first felt in Chicago after years of walling it off. Nothing but a frayed end existed now, peeling out of his soul, and the reason was laid out before him as they pushed past the final circle of frozen-in-place acolytes.

  Patrick couldn’t unsee what Ethan had done.

  In the center circle of the spellwork was a pentagram drawn with blood. Mages with magic burning at their fingertips and demon-backed hunters holding weapons in their hands surrounded the pentagram in a half circle.

  Lying on the ground within the star’s hexagon, arms outstretched toward two points, was Hannah. Patrick blinked, the sight coming to him in flashes, pieces of a nightmare that would haunt him the same way that basement in Salem had.

  Hannah wasn’t looking at him this time, her face turned toward the branches of Yggdrasil that obscured the sky. The only thing covering her body was blood, all of it hers, originating from the horrific wound carved into her stomach. What had been taken from her other than her agency and sanity—both long since lost—was the baby cradled in Ethan’s arms.

  The newborn didn’t make a sound, legs and arms drawn tight to their tiny body which was slick with blood and other fluid. They were surrounded by a shining aura that only a godhead could produce. The glow of it flowed from Hannah to the infant and tangled around Ethan, the three of them intrinsically linked.

  Patrick clenched his teeth against the bile wanting to crawl up his throat. Maybe it was madness, wanting something no mortal should ever have, but it was calculated cruelty that had driven Ethan to this, and Patrick would never forgive him for that.

  Ethan’s eyes, once the same shade of green as Patrick’s, held no color now, the shape of them bleached to an icy white by magic. Patrick couldn’t tell if his niece or nephew was alive or not, but he was determined to get them away from Ethan.

  “The gods of heaven wasted their efforts with you,” Ethan said, his voice holding echoes of a power that didn’t belong to him.

  Patrick gripped his dagger tight, trying to ignore how the smell of ozone was only growing stronger. “If that were the case, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “You won’t live to see the hell I’ll rule over.”

  “You won’t live to see it at all.”

  While the magic users surrounding them on the concentric circles didn’t move, the ones standing guard around the center of the pentagram let loose their spells with lethal intent. Nadine’s shield held up against the attack, but the barrier was thinner than Patrick would’ve liked. Fighting against gods had taken its toll on her magic, and it showed.

  “What’s the plan?” Spencer shouted, hands raised and holding a mageglobe between them. Fatima crouched low by his feet, ready to charge.

  “Carmen and I will handle the hunters,” Lucien said, eyeing his prey. “The rest of you deal with Ethan and the mages.”

  “In case it’s slipped your notice, he’s a god now,” Nadine said.

  “Not yet,” Patrick said, thinking about the aura shared between the three members of his blood family as the spark of a desperate idea took root. “Spencer, I’ll need you with me.”

  Sage growled before moving to position herself by Nadine in a clear signal of protection. Patrick glanced at Jono, finding Fenrir looking out of his lover’s eyes.

  “We shall face Ethan,” Fenrir said.

  “Don’t harm the child.”

  “Casualties are inevitable in war.”

  “My sister’s child won’t be one. You harm a hair on that baby’s head and I’ll find a way to fucking gut you.” Fenrir didn’t respond to that threat, and Patrick drew in a steadying breath. “Everyone, get ready.”

  Nadine opened the rear portion of her shield so Lucien and Carmen could slip back behind the first circle of acolytes. Patrick paid the pair no mind once they were out of sight, knowing they could take care of themselves.

  “Can you get a shield around Hannah?” Patrick asked. Nadine pressed her lips into a hard line as she nodded, most of her attention on holding off the frontal attack from Dominion Sect mages. “Then do it.”

  “That won’t stop Ethan’s spell,” she warned.

  “I know, but it’ll give Spencer some cover.”

  Spencer glanced at Patrick, understanding dawning on his face. “I don’t have the power to do what you’re thinking about.”

  Patrick raised his dagger, a dozen pale blue mageglobes forming in front of him. “I do. I just need you there to help me.”

  “Ready?” Nadine asked.

  Patrick nodded, breath coming faster than he’d like. “Ready.”

  She pulled back her shield, and Patrick let loose his mageglobes, aiming for the Dominion Sect mages rather than Ethan. Jono and Fenrir had that covered.

  Fenrir’s aura cracked wide open, his godhead pouring out around Jono’s form like incandescent fire. As they raced across the courtyard,
the shine of Fenrir’s godhead trailed behind them like a comet’s tail.

  Patrick followed after them, keeping his own personal shields up against the explosions of magic that rent the air in the courtyard. The force of the blasts was pressure against his shields, but he stayed upright.

  Spencer and Fatima veered sharply away from Patrick, heading for Hannah. Nadine had clamped a shield around Patrick’s twin, and though it was holding up against the pounding the Dominion Sect mages were giving it, he knew it might not last if Ethan set his sights on it.

  Which was why Patrick was intent on playing bait.

  This wasn’t like Cairo, where Patrick’s indecision had stayed his hand. It wasn’t like last year in Central Park, where the start of the end had begun. They were in the weeds of Ethan’s desire come to fruition, and the only way to stop him was to steal back what had never belonged to him in the first place.

  Patrick couldn’t save his sister, and he’d live with that guilt until the day he died, but he could save Hannah’s baby.

  He could save Macaria.

  The only thing standing in the way of that was Ethan.

  He didn’t know what kind of god Ethan had tried to become, but the underlying power choking the very air around them was proof enough of a strength Patrick couldn’t hope to win against alone. Which was why he let Fenrir and Jono take point, and the rest of his pack and the last straggle of allies with them guarded his six.

  Ethan’s magic built up like a tsunami, crashing into him with an amount of force that should have driven Patrick to his knees. He kept his dagger up, left forearm braced against his right, and the point of the gods-given weapon aimed at his father. The explosion of heavenly light at the tip formed a glittering golden barrier that expanded around Patrick, taking the brunt of Ethan’s attack in a way his own magic couldn’t handle.

  Through the glare of Ethan’s magic, Patrick watched Fenrir dodge the first blast aimed his way, then a second, intent on his prey in a way Patrick had never seen before. Jono’s fur shimmered with the outline of an impossibly larger wolf, the stretched-out shape of the god hidden in the shadow that followed his every step.

  Magic cut Patrick’s way from his right, and he sent three mageglobes in that direction to intercept them. The shockwave spell he let off knocked a couple of hunters over, but the Dominion Sect magic users standing on the spellwork around them never moved. The lines of the spellwork were a sinister shade of bloodred, crawling up their bodies to anchor them in place.

  Thunder rumbled loudly above, the rain and wind from the reactionary storm rising in strength. Patrick gritted his teeth and forced himself to take a step, then another, shoulders aching from the strength it took to hold up the dagger.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a hunter running toward him, the demon staring out of her eyes with enough hate to be personal. Then a green mageglobe slammed into her, exploding against her back with enough force that her spine protruded through the front of her rib cage.

  With Nadine and Spencer keeping watch, Patrick focused on Ethan. The pressure of magic against his dagger let up only because Fenrir had finally gotten within range to inflict damage with teeth and claws. Ethan could want to murder Patrick all he liked, but not when he had to face off against an actual god.

  Ethan’s magical attack abruptly dissipated. Patrick stumbled before getting his feet back under him. He conjured up a couple more mageglobes to hold in reserve and kept moving, knowing that to stand still in a fight was a good way to die.

  Fenrir had forced Ethan away from the altar, looking larger than life amidst the glow from the spellwork. The god snapped his teeth at Ethan’s arm, the snarl he let out reverberating through the air. Ethan stepped back out of reach with a fluid quickness no mundane human would ever possess. He still held Hannah’s baby in his other arm, the twisted connection of their souls and the godhead shining in the air around them.

  Patrick ran toward them, not sure how to get between the two without coming to harm, when his forward momentum was abruptly reversed. The explosion that erupted right in front of him threw him off his feet and sent him flying across the courtyard.

  He expected to hit the ground—was preparing himself for the crash landing—when strong arms caught him around the waist in midair and broke his fall. Patrick twisted with Lucien, the both of them slamming into several of the magic users standing on the concentric circles of the spellwork.

  “Fuck,” Patrick gasped out as they landed on something softer than the ground.

  Lucien shoved him off and sat up. “You’re a fucking idiot. A head-on rush was never going to work.”

  Patrick could barely hear Lucien over the ringing in his ears. “I need to get Hannah’s baby.”

  “Dying won’t help you with that.”

  The people they’d crashed into had fallen like dominoes and weren’t moving. The spellwork they’d stood on grated against Patrick’s shield, the taint in it resonating in his soul. He leaned over and dragged the matte-black blade over the wide line, cutting through the magic there. Heavenly white fire corroded the area, smoke drifting up from the damage. A quick glance at Ethan showed his father hadn’t noticed.

  Lucien dragged Patrick back to his feet with a bruising grip. “Find another way.”

  Ethan had gone after gods to use as sacrifices before using this same sort of spell. Trying to drain a nexus through Patrick’s mother’s family, channeled through Hannah, had been the catalyst to extract Macaria’s godhead this time around. Blood called to blood, but Patrick knew souls were different.

  “Taking the baby from Ethan is the only way,” Patrick said.

  Lucien took aim at a hunter coming their way and blew out the man’s throat. The snap of negative light around the body indicated the demon opted to flee rather than fight. “You have a death wish.”

  “I didn’t come this far to let Ethan get what he wants.”

  “He’s within grasp of it.”

  Patrick tracked where Fenrir and Jono faced off against Ethan, having taken down a row of acolytes and trampled their bodies. Ethan still clutched the baby tightly to him, but he had made no move to escape the fort. A twisted bit of magic still tying him to Hannah prevented that. Which meant the spell wasn’t finished.

  “Quit whining and get the baby for me while I distract him.”

  Lucien reloaded his weapon without even looking, black eyes locked on Jono, Fenrir, and Ethan. “You better not fuck this up.”

  “If I do, you can punch me in the afterlife.”

  Lucien shoved him toward the pentagram. “Don’t tempt me.”

  Patrick ran, casting mageglobes at the ones coming his way. There were fewer of them, courtesy of Spencer and Nadine. Carmen had engaged the remaining hunters with a viciousness that left body parts on the ground, none of them hers.

  The split-second assessment allowed Patrick to focus on his target, knowing that most of the other threats were handled. Lucien ran toward Ethan, a shadowy blur that let off bullets Ethan deflected with ease. Fenrir snarled as he and Lucien maneuvered Ethan between them.

  Patrick kept his attention locked on his own target. The tangled tie of souls and a godhead that ran from Ethan to Hannah was getting thinner. The shine of it was brighter on Ethan’s end, the baby acting as a channel for what had resided in Hannah’s soul for so long.

  Ethan was half turned away from Patrick, fighting Fenrir and Lucien to a draw with magic that looked similar to Hades’ hellfire. But even with a split attention, Ethan still knew when Patrick lunged for that shimmering connection and got his dagger into it. The matte-black blade sliced into the bright shine of a stretched-thin godhead, and the sound Ethan let out was loud enough to shake the branches of the world tree.

  A blast of raw power hit Patrick in the side with enough force to send him flying. It drove all the air out of his lungs as he crashed to the ground near the center of the pentagram where Hannah lay. The protective charms on his leather jacket shattered from the blow, taking
the brunt of an almost-god’s power. The crackle of broken magic seared his skin, and he opened his mouth on a scream that wouldn’t come.

  Then a fist pounded on his chest with enough strength to almost crack a rib as one of Nadine’s shields slammed down around him. Fire exploded around it, but her magic held firm for now. Patrick’s chest expanded, air filling his lungs in a painful, heaving breath. He stared up at Lucien, eyes tracking over the raw, burned skin on the left side of the master vampire’s face and the ash drifting away from the ever-growing wound.

  “Lucien,” Patrick croaked out.

  “It’s not sunlight,” Lucien hissed out before dropping something tiny and too-bright onto his chest. “Here. Take your niece.”

  Patrick’s arms automatically came up to cradle the infant, angling the dagger away from the baby’s small body. “You’re burning up.”

  Lucien’s smile was a twisted thing. “I am my mother’s child.”

  Maybe that heritage would be enough to survive what Ethan had hit him with, maybe not, but Patrick couldn’t let Lucien die here the way Ashanti had died in Cairo. There would be no bringing him back if Patrick let whatever Ethan had done to Lucien continue to burn. As much as he wanted to never see the asshole again some days, Patrick owed him too much for a permanent goodbye.

  “The godhead belongs to me!” Ethan yelled, his voice echoing strangely with a depth that only gods would ever hold.

  Patrick turned his head and watched Ethan stalk their way. The fire in his hands was the same color as the magic sustaining the spellwork beneath the feet of his followers, rancid and terrible.

  Fenrir put himself between them, blocking Patrick’s view of Ethan’s approach. Ethan’s next attack was snapped out of the air by Fenrir, magic breaking apart between Jono’s teeth. “You deserve nothing.”

  Patrick knew he couldn’t win a fight with a god, even with his dagger. What he could do was try to save Lucien while Fenrir and Jono held the line.

  He raised his left hand toward Lucien’s face, canting his wrist back, the wound there splitting wider. “Take it freely.”