They went first, disappearing into the stairwell. Patrick had one foot on the stairs when the pack of jaguars raced around the corner. He sent three mageglobes filled with explosive raw magic at the extension of Tezcatlipoca’s power and set them off. Patrick kept his footing as the mageglobes exploded, shaking the walls around them.
From above, Wade shouted, “I thought you said don’t bring down the building? Is this some do as I say, not as I do bullshit?”
“Shut up and run!” Patrick yelled.
Fucking teenagers.
Patrick dropped mageglobes on every landing, timed to explode every five seconds. His ears were ringing from the noise by the time he reached the last step, pitching himself into the room he remembered that used to house a vault.
The vault was gone now, pieces of it embedded in the walls, ceiling, and floor all around them. Sage had leaped over the shrapnel and through the doorway, the heavy steel door having already been torn off. Wade had run after her, his footsteps having melted the metal beneath them. That little detail was slightly more worrisome than the jaguars hunting them—but only slightly.
“Sage, I’m gonna need you in this fight,” Patrick yelled at her as he followed in Wade’s exact footsteps. “Put those two in a storage room, and I’ll ward the doors.”
Sage darted toward the broken open employees-only door at the end of the hallway that led into the club proper. Standing in human form between them and the fighting happening in the Crimson Diamond was Áłtsé Hashké.
“I will safeguard them,” the god said. “Go.”
The binding ward that had kept the two werecreatures secured to Sage on their mad dash out of the tunnels broke by way of a single touch from the god. Pain spiked through Patrick’s head as his magic disintegrated. He’d be angry about the god’s lack of care, but the furious snarls coming from behind him overrode his thoughts.
One quick glance over his shoulder proved the jaguars had made it topside.
“Run!” Patrick yelled, racing for the club.
Áłtsé Hashké pulled the werecreatures off Sage and carried them into the storage room. The door slammed shut and sealed with a burning light that made Patrick’s eyes water. Patrick, Sage, and Wade ran out of the back room and into the screaming mess of a fight between two Night Courts and the gods that oversaw it all.
20
Patrick took in the fight with a sweeping gaze. Despite the screaming guests huddled behind what cover they could find, and the bullets flying through the air from both sides, what caught and held his attention was Jono.
Relief washed through Patrick like a head rush. Oh, good. He’s not dead.
The cage made out of magic on the dance floor was still intact. Inside, Tremaine and Jono were squaring off, and it looked like Tremaine was on the losing side of the fight. The master vampire’s clothes were torn in multiple areas, his pale skin peeled open from slashes given by Jono’s claws. Tremaine wasn’t close to true death, but not for Jono’s lack of trying.
Werecreatures, when they shifted into their animal form, never resembled the animals from nature. Bigger, more monstrous, no one would confuse a werecreature with their mundane counterpart. That went double for Jono, whose wolf form was significantly larger than other werecreatures, wolf-bright blue eyes of his god pack heritage prominent in his huge head.
Patrick grabbed Wade by the arm and hauled the teenager with him across the dance floor. He laid down a wide spray of suppressive fire at a pair of Omacatl Cartel members to keep them at bay. Sage threw herself into the fight with a roar, and Patrick didn’t try to stop her. Skidding to a stop by the cage, he yanked out his dagger and slammed it into the magic.
Tremaine’s eyes barely flickered Patrick’s way, too intent on the threat right in front of him. The master vampire’s face was twisted into something monstrous, fangs bared and slick with Jono’s blood.
“Hey, asshole,” Patrick said as the magic started to disintegrate, heavenly white fire burning around the dagger’s matte-black blade. “Lucien wants a word with you.”
Wade pressed himself against Patrick’s back, fingers shaking when he grabbed at Patrick’s arm. “I don’t feel good.”
Tremaine lunged toward them, a blur Patrick couldn’t track. Before the master vampire even reached them, Jono was there, knocking the fucker out of midair with a headbutt that sounded like it hurt. Tremaine went flying, no longer trapped by a god’s magic, and landed in the scrum happening around them.
Patrick looked over his shoulder at Wade, his aura blinding. It felt as if Patrick had taken another hit of shine. Squinting, he watched as iridescent red scales flowed over Wade’s face in waves, leaving behind scaly patches. Bits of gold seeped into his brown eyes, pupils more oval than round now.
“Don’t shift,” Patrick said.
A panicked look crossed Wade’s face. “I’m not!”
The scales pushing through his skin proved otherwise.
Patrick wrenched his personal shields out of his bones and pushed his defense outward, far enough to encase Wade as well. Patrick let go of his rifle, the weight hanging heavily from the strap connecting it to his tactical vest. He averted his face as he reached behind to grab Wade by the arm with one hand and flipped his dagger around for a better grip in the other.
“You’re shifting, Wade. You need to stop.”
“I don’t know what’s happening!”
He sounded frantic, one heartbeat away from panicking and losing all control—which would be an absolute disaster in an enclosed space. Patrick tightened his grip on the teenager and dragged him forward. “I’m getting you out of here.”
Wade whimpered, but he didn’t dig in his heels. “My body doesn’t feel right.”
Patrick looked straight ahead at Jono, meeting the bright blue eyes staring back at him. “Make a hole to the exit.”
Jono growled an affirmative, then leaped forward, straight into the fray. A cartel member wielding an AK-47 screamed when Jono’s jaws clamped around his waist, and he was tossed into the air with a fierce shake of Jono’s head.
Patrick stayed on Jono’s six, pouring his magic out of his corrupted soul and into the shields wrapped around himself and Wade. The shields were invisible to the naked eye until spelled bullets impacted them, causing ripples of light to flash through the air. Patrick grunted, feeling the hits in his soul, but he kept moving.
They got past two tables and three clusters of vampires tearing the shit out of each other when two jaguars cleared downed bodies in a huge leap to land between Patrick and Jono. He skidded to a halt, never letting go of Wade. Raising the dagger, Patrick pointed it at the jaguars. Heavenly fire erupted from the double-edged blade in a warning.
Jono paused, half turning, but Patrick violently shook his head. “Keep going.”
Jono stayed put. Patrick could’ve throttled him.
Wade huddled behind Patrick, shivering in his grip. “Tloque Nahuaque is gonna kill me.”
“He’s gonna have to go through me first,” Patrick promised.
“That should be easy,” Tezcatlipoca said from behind them.
Patrick moved, wrenching Wade around and hopefully out of reach, but he wasn’t quick enough. Tezcatlipoca slammed through Patrick’s shields, breaking through the layers without care. Patrick grunted in pain as his soul took a hit he couldn’t afford right now. The immortal grabbed Wade’s other arm, his touch drawing a scream from Wade that shouldn’t have come from human-sized lungs. Patrick’s ears rang with it, throbbing with the need to block out the sound. Behind him, Jono howled, adding to the cacophony.
Tezcatlipoca was dressed as a warrior-god of old instead of a modern man. Gone was the linen suit, and in its place was a loincloth and obsidian studded armbands decorated with feathers. The burnished gold chest plate seemed larger, matching the grandeur of the heron-feather headdress he wore. The god’s long black hair fell loose to his waist, while black and yellow paint bisected his face over his cheeks and nose.
On his left foo
t was a leather sandal, the ties twisted around his ankle. His right foot remained the polished obsidian Patrick remembered, the glass shiny as a mirror, stretching halfway up his leg before melding with flesh.
“This,” Tezcatlipoca said, giving Wade a hard shake, “belongs to me.”
“Over my dead fucking body,” Patrick bit out right before he twisted around Wade and tried to stab Tezcatlipoca in the ribs.
It didn’t work.
Patrick was blown backward by a magical hit that was like taking a sledgehammer to the chest. He lost his grip on Wade, fingers closing on nothing. Patrick flew through the air and landed on a broken chair, a piece of the wooden leg cracking beneath him, or maybe it was a rib. Patrick couldn’t tell with the way all the air had been driven out of his lungs. His shields were like so much shattered glass around him.
He fucking hated gods.
A jaguar lunged at him, and Patrick couldn’t make his limbs work fast enough to get the fuck away. Then Jono was there, standing over Patrick in a protective manner that blocked out everything happening in the club. Patrick rolled to his side, sucking in a painful gasp of air as his lungs finally unlocked.
Jono’s hind paws dug into the floor, claws tearing up the carpet. Patrick froze as Jono lunged forward to get his jaws around the jaguar’s throat. With a wrench of his head, Jono sent the beast flying before retreating back to Patrick’s side. Patrick shoved himself to a sitting position, ignoring the ache in his chest beneath the tactical vest he wore.
“Wade!” Patrick coughed out.
Tezcatlipoca had one hand tangled in Wade’s hair, the other around his throat, but his eyes were focused somewhere else. “Let me gift you a life you have yet to experience, my love.”
Patrick dug his free hand into Jono’s fur and hauled himself to his feet. He followed Tezcatlipoca’s gaze across the club to a skeletal woman dressed all in black with her face painted like a Mexican sugar skull and wearing marigolds in her hair.
The smell of those flowers blossomed on Patrick’s tongue, sudden and floral, making him gag with the memories it brought. He froze, and he’d hate himself later for that, but Áłtsé Hashké didn’t hesitate.
“You have done enough harm to the children, cousin. I will not let you have this one,” Áłtsé Hashké said.
Patrick watched as the god reached around Tezcatlipoca and pried his hands off Wade with a strength none of them had. Jono lunged forward to grab Wade by his tactical vest and haul him out of reach. That left them both open to an attack by the jaguar on their left. Patrick put himself between them and the extension of Tezcatlipoca’s power, dagger at the ready. Bright heavenly fire reflected in the jaguar’s eyes.
“You have chosen the losing side, cousin,” Tezcatlipoca said, sounding furiously betrayed.
Tezcatlipoca wrenched free of Áłtsé Hashké’s grip, eyes glowing from an inner light. He twisted around to face off with the trickster god, only Áłtsé Hashké was no longer there. Tezcatlipoca let out a war cry that shook the building until Patrick realized the source of that reverberation came from the front of the club, not the rear.
“DEA!” someone shouted from behind a row of riot shields etched with protective wards as their backup swarmed the building. “Lower your weapons!”
Quetzalcoatl’s raid had begun.
As Patrick faced off with the jaguar, trapped between two gods allied with the hells, he made the decision to run because surviving was all that mattered.
Patrick grabbed Wade by the arm and held on tight. “Let’s go.”
It was like working with his old team again, the way he didn’t have to explain himself. Jono knew what he wanted, and maybe that was because of the soulbond tying them together, but Patrick didn’t care. Jono put himself between them and the threat with a growl that was only cut off when he got his jaws around the jaguar’s throat.
Wade was too warm in Patrick’s grip, even through gloves. The teen’s eyes were solidly gold now, the black pupils reptilian slits. Iridescent red scales covered his face and neck, his hair disappearing in patches. Patrick’s M4A1 carbine banged heavily against his hip as he dragged Wade forward, struggling to piece together his patchwork shields. The anchor points in his bones weren’t damaged, but that hit from Tezcatlipoca had siphoned off more of his magic than he liked to think about.
He needed to get Wade out of the Crimson Diamond.
Tremaine, like with Tezcatlipoca, didn’t want to let Wade go.
The master vampire slammed into them from the side, his sharp nails scraping over Patrick’s weakened shields. Patrick grunted as he twisted in between Wade and Tremaine, expanding his shields. Standing between the two brought the remembered smell of marigolds to his nose. Patrick swallowed against that unwanted memory and brought up his dagger, hoping for room to strike.
“Get the fuck out of my way,” Patrick said.
The cold itch at the edges of his mind was all Tremaine. This time, Patrick wasn’t half out of his mind while high on shine. He blocked Tremaine out of his thoughts by altering his shields, the pressure easing.
“That is not yours,” Tremaine said.
Patrick took a step to the side, bringing Wade with him. “He has a fucking name.”
Sage barreled her way through a pair of vampires on his left, aiming for Tremaine. The master vampire leaped out of her way—straight into Carmen’s painful right hook.
“Oh, child,” Carmen purred, the venom in her voice as she shot Tremaine in the back while he was on his knees impossible to miss. “Your daddy wants a word.”
Tremaine wasn’t crippled by the bullet. Patrick could see a bulletproof vest beneath his torn dress shirt as the vampire looked over his shoulder.
“I owe him nothing,” Tremaine snarled.
“Of all the things to get with the times on, you had to go for body armor.”
Tremaine moved out of the way of Carmen’s next bullet, a shadowy blur who would rather run than face what passed as his family.
“You’re a fucking coward, Tremaine,” Patrick yelled.
The fact that he was running headfirst toward Quetzalcoatl and a defensive line of federal agents and NYPD officers just made Patrick’s day worse. He needed Tremaine out of police custody in order to keep his promise to Lucien.
A shudder ran through Wade’s entire body, muscles fighting against Patrick’s grip. He looked at the teen in his custody and made a choice he knew he wouldn’t regret. Making sure Lucien got Tremaine’s head on a proverbial platter was relegated to second place. Wade came first.
“Sage!” Patrick shouted, gaining her attention.
That large, monstrous head whipped around, the curved fangs in her mouth glistening with blood. Her teeth resembled a saber-tooth tiger’s rather than a modern one, and Patrick was thankful she was on their side as Sage quickly closed the distance between them.
Wade felt heavier in his hands than a teenager had any right to be. All the hair was gone from his head now, and the fingernails on each hand had turned black. The frightened expression on his scaly face made Patrick wish he could give the kid a normal life.
“You know what? Don’t fight it,” Patrick said as he helped Wade onto Sage’s back. “Sage, you stay with him for as long as possible.”
Wade wrapped his arms around Sage’s neck, her fur too short for him to hang on to. Wade opened his mouth to talk, but whatever he was going to say was drowned out by the collective roar of jaguars from behind them. Sage didn’t wait for Patrick’s order, she just ran.
“Delgado, clear the exit!” Patrick yelled, pitching his voice loud enough to be heard over the fighting and gunshots. This was just another battlefield they all had to survive, and the only way they’d live was if the building didn’t come down on top of them.
That meant getting Wade to the street.
Which would have been so much easier if they didn’t have gods in the mix.
Jono landed next to him and crouched low on his front paws. Patrick took the hint and scrambled on top
of Jono’s back after sheathing his dagger. Patrick barely got a good grip on Jono’s shaggy fur before Jono leaped forward, intent on chasing after Sage.
Patrick looked over his shoulder only once, seeing Tezcatlipoca’s jaguars coming straight for them. Refocusing ahead, Patrick wrapped his shields around the both of them. He thought maybe they’d actually make it, but Patrick was never that lucky.
Up ahead, Sage went down, and Wade went with her. Patrick’s heart crawled into his throat, thinking they were dead, when a long reptilian tail cut through the air before slamming into the floor. Broken pieces of tables and chairs went flying as a large, leathery wing unfolded into the air, the leading edge dragging over the floor.
Patrick threw himself off Jono, crashing to his knees. He conjured up a mageglobe and tossed it to Sage and Wade’s position, creating a wide shield around them to keep the bullets at bay. He couldn’t do anything about the jaguars on their six.
Quetzalcoatl was a different story altogether. The immortal barreled his way forward from the left, a bullet-proof vest beneath his DEA windbreaker and not caring about cover at all. If he was human, Patrick would’ve been furious, but gods could survive anything save their last follower dying and taking their name with them.
Brown eyes glowed in his face as Quetzalcoatl ignored his gun and instead tackled the leading jaguar, punching clean through the creature’s ribcage. Blood exploded out of the jaguar’s mouth, nose, and eyes as it shuddered and died, its life fading and returning to Tezcatlipoca. The rest of the jaguars howled a challenge but didn’t stop, intent on escaping in the same direction Tremaine had gone.
Patrick could only hope they’d eat the fucker.
Quetzalcoatl stood, pulling his arm free of the jaguar’s body. Blood coated his hand and forearm, fingers clenched around a still-beating heart that dripped blood. Fire flickered at Quetzalcoatl’s fingertips, engulfing the muscle and burning it to ash in seconds.
“The fledgling needs to spread his wings,” Quetzalcoatl said.
All Souls Near & Nigh (Soulbound Book 2) Page 28