All Souls Near & Nigh (Soulbound Book 2)

by Hailey Turner

  Sergio Lopez looked as if he wanted to reach across the table and stab Patrick for his disrespect of Lucien, but the Anahuac Cartel member thought better of it when Jono growled, “Don’t even think about it, mate.”

  Normally, Patrick would be more than willing to defend himself, but he was still rattled from last night. Lying on that altar had jarred loose some memories he’d rather keep buried, and he desperately wanted another shower. He kept thinking he could feel Tremaine’s hands on him, and the sooner he could forget that moment, the better.

  Lucien seemed unbothered by the pair’s byplay, staring intently at the maps and blueprints strewn over the large card table one of his human servants had set up in Ginnungagap. It was past sunset, but even before Lucien’s Night Court woke up, there had been a steady stream of visitors.

  Patrick had been unaware the Anahuac Cartel was in town until a large group of them rolled up to Ginnungagap that afternoon. They’d brought offerings in the form of money, drugs, and weapons, which Carmen had accepted in Lucien’s stead. Patrick had taken one look at the cartel members and mentally revised the story he was going to have to tell his superiors about this case. Nothing said tainted evidence like palling around with a notorious drug cartel.

  When Lucien finally arrived with Einar, Irena, and a couple more vampires after sunset, Wade had quietly retreated to a corner to stress eat his way through the gigantic tote bag of snacks Emma had sent along with him. Honestly, Patrick wished he could join the teen.

  Sergio glared at Patrick, muscled arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t much older than Patrick, which meant he had to be a goddamn bloodthirsty monster in human skin to be heading up the United States branch of the cartel out of Chicago at Lucien’s behest. Sergio’s black hair was buzzed short on the side and left long on top, gelled back by thick product. He was clean-shaven, with a strong jaw and hooded eyes. He carried a pistol on his hip made out of gold-plated, warded metal, a sign of his rank more than a nod to stereotypes.

  His entire crew were deferential to the vampires on sight, though they gave Patrick and his group a wide berth. They knew what Jono was and treated that threat with a healthy dose of wariness. The fact that a god pack werecreature was sitting at the same table as Lucien and arguing with the master vampire without fear of dying meant they didn’t want to step on his toes.

  Quetzalcoatl had left Ginnungagap hours ago to help cover Patrick’s ass where the case was concerned. They’d finally agreed to pool their resources, something Patrick had been reluctant to do, but with two immortals aligned with the hells stalking the city streets, he’d had no choice. Looping Casale in had been a stressful one-hour phone call out in the alleyway since Ginnungagap still didn’t allow signal in and out.

  Sage reached across the table to grab one of the blueprints, dragging it closer. “Did Biyu only get blueprints for the building the Crimson Diamond is in, or did she get any of the adjacent buildings as well?”

  Biyu was one of Einar’s human servants, a petite, charming Chinese dissident and gifted hacker they had apparently pulled out of Beijing ten years ago. She’d learned how to hack within the Great Firewall of China without getting caught—until she did.

  Arrested, disappeared into a jail used to extract confessions the Chinese government could parade through the media as a warning, Biyu had been left to rot. Einar rescued her before she’d signed that contract and sold her soul to the government. Biyu had been with Lucien’s Night Court ever since, and her hacking skills explained a lot at how Lucien was able to cross international borders so easily these days.

  “No. Tremaine doesn’t hold those buildings as his territory,” Lucien said.

  Sage shuffled a few more maps and blueprints together, muttering about tracks under her breath. Patrick watched her while shoving another bite of chow mein into his mouth. The food was cold, having been delivered earlier, but Patrick didn’t care. He’d felt hollowed out since waking up that morning, craving something he refused to acknowledge. He’d already smoked a couple of cigarettes, which was more than he’d had in the last few weeks. Jono hadn’t said a single word about that, even though he had to smell the nicotine and smoke that lingered on Patrick.

  Fighting the desire to ask Lucien for another cigarette was easier than Patrick thought it would be, only because he didn’t want to owe the vampire anything more than he already did. Victoria’s potion had worn off hours ago, and the dull throbbing through his head and body made Patrick wish he had another potion to drink, no matter how disgusting they were.

  Jono shifted in his seat between Patrick and Lucien, the arm he had draped over the back of Patrick’s chair pressing against his shoulders. The line of heat would’ve been relaxing under any other circumstances, but even with the tension Patrick carried, having Jono with him made things easier.

  “All right?” Jono asked in a low voice. He bent his arm and settled his hand on the back of Patrick’s neck to gently massage the stiffness there.

  “This is a mess,” Patrick admitted quietly. He tilted his head to give Jono better access to the knots in his muscles, all the while staring at the maps getting shuffled around on the card table.

  “Seems that’s normal for us.”

  Patrick snorted. “I’ll take a new normal any day now.”

  Trying to make sense of the city grid through several different map styles and building blueprints from different decades was tough, but they were doing it. Patrick’s memories were hazy from last night, but he remembered the abandoned subway platform, and Jono knew the exact spot he’d been dragged through the veil by Áłtsé Hashké. Tracing back the steps took some work, but it was possible.

  All of it painted a mess of unsanctioned tunnels within the fringe of the veil that were laughably not up to code.

  Sage uncapped a pen with her teeth and started marking points on the maps, flipping rapidly through the sheets of paper. Lucien let her, watching in silence as Sage traced out a route from the Crimson Diamond to the abandoned subway platform Patrick was almost sacrificed in.

  On paper, the abandoned subway platform was probably located between the Canal Street Station and Spring Street Station. The subway had a mere handful of stations it had abandoned over the years, forcing reroutes during the time when it was being built. Most of those reasons hadn’t come with the blueprints, but Patrick could make a wild guess. Building structures through the veil was never easy or safe.

  “I know you vampires have to hide from the sun, but living in tunnels like rats is a ridiculous way to do it,” Patrick said.

  “Watch your mouth,” Lucien said.

  “Are you embarrassed by the truth? My heart bleeds.”

  “Can we focus?” Sage asked loudly before Lucien could go from contemplating murder to actually doing it. “I still have a brief to write when I get home tonight. I would like to finish up here as quickly as possible.”

  “What did you find?” Jono asked, leaning forward. He dropped his hand from Patrick’s neck to his thigh, giving a squeeze. The gesture was one of support and a warning to not antagonize the bloodsucking bastard.

  Sage tapped her pen against the paper. “There’s definitely a set of old tracks that run off the R line according to these records. Seems like the extension was scrapped last century when the city decided to give the A line its own route rather than connect the two. Tremaine’s been here long enough he could have taken it over with no one knowing.”

  “The tracks were rusted, but the tunnel looked open. You could still drive a train on them if you were desperate enough.” Patrick paused, fork halfway to his mouth. “There’s an idea.”

  “No police,” Lucien said.

  “Might not get your way on that, but I wasn’t talking about the police. I was talking about a train.”

  “You’d still have to send the request through the PCB,” Sage said. “Defense of the subway falls to the MTA and the PCB. You can’t loop in one without notifying the other in a situation like this.”

  “I’ll
think of something. We need to reach that back door, and we can’t get there on live tracks with the amount of people you want to bring down there for the fight, Lucien.”

  “You said the wards down there were broken. You do not have the skills necessary to diffuse them, nor do you have the strength,” Lucien said.

  Patrick resisted the urge to look at Jono.

  “The SOA would.” The look Lucien leveled him was distinctly unimpressed. Patrick shrugged. “My agency has artifacts on hand for situations like this. I can request usage of one.”

  “You still need to give a reason to them. That reason will not be my Night Court.”

  “So I’ll lie. Won’t be the first time.”

  “If you go through the tunnels, you’ll need a distraction on the street level,” Sergio said, tapping at the blueprint for the Crimson Diamond. “The bastard will be expecting you.”

  Jono leaned back in his chair and rubbed his mouth, wolf-bright eyes narrowed in thought. “What about a fight? We talked earlier about issuing a challenge. Think Tremaine would take the bait?”

  “Tremaine would bill it as a headliner if you were in that ring,” Wade spoke up from behind them. “Tloque Nahuaque would try to kill you.”

  “He can try,” Jono said with a snort.

  Patrick glanced over his shoulder at Wade. He’d left his tote bag of snacks over by the stairs and had sneaked up on them. Wade still didn’t know how to contain his aura, which meant his soul was a bright halo around his body and always would be until he learned control. Patrick’s eyes watered and he blinked rapidly to try to clear his vision.

  “Have you ever been down in any of those tunnels?” Patrick asked.

  Wade shoved his hands into his jean pockets, shoulders hunched up to his ears. “Yes.”

  The answer came out in a monotone, the tone telling. Wade was a minefield of trauma Patrick had to carefully navigate. “Did they ever take you to an altar?”

  Wade flinched with his entire body. After a moment, he jerked his head in a sharp nod. Patrick wished he could leave Wade’s memories alone, but they had a goddess of death skulking around the subway, being courted by another immortal whose chosen gifts came in the form of sacrifices. As much as he wanted to protect Wade, the gods wouldn’t let him, not if it interfered with Patrick’s ability to finish the task they’d assigned him.

  “If you went down there with us, could you lead us up to the club?”

  “Patrick,” Sage said warningly.

  She was thinking about Wade’s mental health over the lives of everyone else in New York City. Patrick understood that. He could admire her willingness to protect the teen when he wasn’t able to, but Wade had on-the-ground information they needed. Patrick couldn’t pass that up. His soul debt didn’t allow him the luxury to stop.

  Patrick had learned to be ruthless because that was the only way to survive. If Wade didn’t want to come with them down into the tunnels, Patrick would have no other choice but to lean hard into General Reed’s order for Wade to stay with him. It was a tactic he’d apologize for later, after the fact, when they saw the other side of this fight.

  It still left a bad taste in his mouth.

  “You’ve seen who I have to deal with, right?” Patrick asked Wade. “The gods who annoy the shit out of me?”

  Wade rolled his eyes. “Yeah.”

  “Long story short, the Dominion Sect tried to get Tezcatlipoca and Santa Muerte to hand me over to them. Fighting against gods isn’t new to me. I just prefer to do my fighting with as much of an upper hand as I can get. That means I need you down there with me. You’re the only one of us who can navigate those tunnels. Would you do it with us?”

  Before Wade could answer, Lucien’s head snapped up, his black eyes locked on the entrance to Ginnungagap.

  “We have company,” Lucien said, fangs pricking his chapped lips.

  Patrick stood, as did Jono. Sage slapped all the maps and blueprints together, rolled them up messily, and darted toward the stairs to hide them up on the mezzanine and out of sight. Wade scrambled after her, grabbing his tote bag of snacks and bringing it with him as he took the steps two at a time.

  Einar went to answer the door with Irena at his back. She’d unearthed an AK-47 from somewhere and had it braced against her shoulder with steady hands. She wasn’t the only one armed. Patrick watched as cartel members and other vampires reached for their weapons. The human servants placed themselves close to things that could be used as cover, all of them armed with pistols.

  Lucien didn’t move beyond draping his arm over Carmen’s shoulders when she came to stand by his side, a show of force most people knew better than to cross. Carmen tossed her hair over her shoulder, the curls shifting around her horns.

  Einar opened the door, keeping his body angled out of the way of Irena’s line of sight. The master vampire who stood in the dark alleyway with her inner circle was a surprise that made Patrick lock down his personal shields.

  “Greetings, Lucien,” Maria of the Bronx Night Court said, not moving a millimeter over the threshold. “I’ve come to negotiate territory.”

  “Yours?” Lucien drawled.

  The vampires at Maria’s back bristled at the implication, but she didn’t blink an eye. “Tremaine’s.”

  Lucien didn’t invite Maria in. Patrick could sense the threshold around Ginnungagap strengthen in the face of the threat at its door. Lucien walked forward with Carmen held close to his side, the pair of them in lockstep as they approached the local master vampire. Patrick followed, wanting a better view and needing to hear what would be said. Jono joined him.

  Maria wore a hoodie instead of a tiara of fangs this time around, along with plain dark clothes. As disguises went, it was terrible, but Patrick figured this visit was a quick in-and-out run through Manhattan. The gold rings and necklaces she wore prickled with magic that Patrick didn’t trust, though he trusted Ginnungagap to keep it out.

  “Tremaine owns nothing,” Lucien said. Irena stepped aside to give him room but never lowered her weapon.

  “Of course. He is yours.” Maria’s plum-colored lips quirked upward at the corners, pulling at the skin of her face. “As I never will be. I know what your eyes mean, Lucien. I have not lived this long by being ignorant of change. I am here merely to say Tremaine has asked for solidarity amongst our five Night Courts against your presence in the city. We owe Tremaine nothing and will not join his fight.”

  “You lie well enough, but I know what Tremaine learned from me. Whatever promises you gave him over the years will belong to me. He is my child, after all.”

  Maria’s smile looked tacked on, her eyes cold. “No one owns me.”

  Lucien moved too quick to follow. Before Maria or her followers could react, Lucien had her by the throat with one hand, nails cutting into her skin until she bled. He pulled her halfway over the threshold, and Ginnungagap reacted to Maria’s presence by tossing aside her followers the same way it had dealt with the god pack.

  Magic twisted around Maria’s feet and legs, rising from the ground like burning vines. Her mouth opened on a scream Lucien choked off with tight fingers. He brought his face close to hers, staring into her eyes and pushing his will through her.

  Maria shuddered in his grip, fighting him, but Patrick knew she would lose.

  “Stay out of my business,” Lucien said in a low voice. “Our mother made me before you ever walked this earth in life or death. I will own you for that reason alone.”

  With that threat given, Lucien threw Maria into the alley and didn’t wait to see where she landed before slamming the door.

  “Dramatic much?” Patrick said into the silence.

  “Not the time, Pat,” Jono muttered.

  “Shows what you know.”

  “Sounds like the other Night Courts are banking on Lucien taking over and are currying favor,” Sage said as she came down the stairs, carrying the blueprints and maps. “At the mediation the other night, Tremaine was trying to get them on board with run
ning Lucien out of town.”

  “Isn’t telling us that breaking client confidentiality?” Patrick asked.

  “They broke it first when they started killing independent werecreatures.”

  “Touché.” Patrick didn’t back off when Lucien turned to face them. “If there’s a chance the other Night Courts won’t come to Tremaine’s defense, then we shouldn’t waste this opportunity.”

  “So eager to help for once?” Carmen asked.

  “Eager to pay up and move on,” Patrick shot back before waving Sage over. “Leave the maps. Lucien can formulate a plan while I get us a train and some artifacts to deal with the subway wards.”

  “Don’t bring your agency or the cops into this,” Lucien warned.

  “It’s a little late for that.”

  “What about Tremaine and Tloque Nahuaque?” Wade wanted to know as he hurried their way. The teen still couldn’t bring himself to call Tezcatlipoca by his true name.

  Patrick sucked air between his teeth. “Lucien? You got his number?”

  Lucien’s black eyes flickered toward his Night Court. “Biyu.”

  The woman in question peeled off from the group of human servants at Lucien’s call. Her thick black hair was tied up in a high ponytail, showing off the necklace of bite mark scars wrapped around her throat. Patrick pulled out his phone at her approach. She recited the number from memory in a firm voice and Patrick saved it.

  “I’ll let you know how it goes,” Patrick said as Jono opened the door, peering out carefully in case any vampires had decided to stick around.

  “Tonight.”

  Patrick ignored that order, ducking out of Ginnungagap after Jono. Sage and Wade followed him. He conjured up a tiny mageglobe and let it rest against his palm as they hustled back to the Mustang parked a block away. He’d had to move the car earlier when Sergio and his crew arrived. They weren’t ambushed on the way, but the lack of a fight didn’t lower Patrick’s paranoia any.

  “I’ll drop you off back home,” Patrick told Sage as she and Wade got into the back seat.