All Souls Near & Nigh (Soulbound Book 2)

by Hailey Turner

  “Yeah, whatever. She owns it. Everyone else can get in line, is that it?”

  “Exactly.”

  Steeling himself, Patrick walked into the darkness, the blade of his dagger lighting the way. He blinked, able to make out the foyer, though everything was shadowy and dim save for the millions of marigold petals that covered the floor.

  “Okay. This looks bad,” Patrick said as everyone else joined him in the foyer.

  Lucien yanked the balaclava off his head and tossed it aside. “Try to have some fun.”

  “Dying isn’t fun, asshole.”

  They walked through a second set of doors, entering the Vanderbilt Hall. Everything was shaded-out gray and wrapped in shadows. Even the grand chandeliers up above didn’t let out any light. Straight ahead was an arched opening that led to the Main Concourse. Patrick could see the golden glow of the clock straight ahead against the darkness, shrouded in magic that seeped up from far below.

  Marigold petals puffed up with every step they took, the smell of the flowers something Patrick wished he could forget. Jono and Sage marched on either side of him, heat pouring off their bodies, but Patrick couldn’t shake off the cold.

  They passed swirls of heavy shadows that looked almost like fog until faces appeared in the grayness. Patrick realized they were people—souls—trapped in this strange darkness flowing up out of the fringe of the veil. Not quite dead, not quite alive, but some weird in-between brought on by the power of an immortal.

  As they entered the Main Concourse, Patrick’s gaze was drawn to the skeletal goddess standing in front of the information desk beneath that famous golden clock. Her black dress fell past her feet to the floor, disappearing into the marigold petals like an inky waterfall. Santa Muerte watched them come with a smile on her painted face, her scythe held in one hand, though the globe was missing.

  Death, in all her glory, was strangely beautiful.

  Santa Muerte extended an arm, pointing at Patrick. “You will lie down on my altar.”

  “I don’t fucking think so,” Patrick shot back. “Hermes, get us below.”

  Hermes made an exaggerated gesture at Santa Muerte. “You might want to deal with her first.”

  “Do I look like I’m immortal? You play bait this time.”

  Santa Muerte slammed the butt of her scythe against the floor. The shock wave barely made the marigold petals flutter, but it sent Patrick and everyone else flying through the air. He landed hard, rolling with the hit, petals filling his mouth and nose. He spat them out and shoved himself to his feet, dagger still in hand.

  The blade of the scythe glinted brightly, even in shadow, as it cut through the air toward him. Patrick twisted to the side and raised his dagger instead of his shields, locking his elbows. The dagger scraped against the head of the scythe before catching at the point where it attached to the black snaith. Patrick stared up into Santa Muerte’s grinning, skull-like face and hoped the prayers in his dagger would be enough to keep him from dying.

  Santa Muerte suddenly spun around, twisting the snaith in her hands. The curved blade cut through the air around her in an arc. Jono ducked beneath the blade and clamped his jaws around the black wood, white fire seeping out of his wolf-bright eyes.

  “Cousin, you are on the wrong side,” Santa Muerte said.

  Jono growled around the weapon caught between his teeth and didn’t let go.

  A hand grabbed Patrick by the back of his tactical vest, hauling him to his feet. He twisted in the grip, bringing his right arm around to stab whoever was behind him. A too-warm hand grabbed his wrist as an amused chuckle filled his ears.

  “That blade does not need my blood again,” Áłtsé Hashké said.

  Patrick stopped fighting, letting the trickster god pull him away from where Jono and Santa Muerte fought over control of the scythe.

  “I can’t leave him behind,” Patrick protested.

  “He will stay with you. The lady and I will have words about her desecration of the children.”

  “They aren’t of your people.”

  Áłtsé Hashké shook his head. “The beasts they carry are. All beasts belong to the Creator. Those are the souls I care about.”

  Lucien dropped down beside them, a shadow amongst all the gray as Áłtsé Hashké went to argue with death.

  “Tremaine is not on this level,” Lucien said.

  Patrick took a breath, held it, then let it out to clear his mind. “Then let’s get the fuck below.”

  He didn’t know which exit they needed to take, but with Áłtsé Hashké confronting Santa Muerte, they had a five-second window to escape.

  “This way,” Hermes said, sliding out of the shadows.

  Santa Muerte screamed her fury behind them, but no one looked back.

  Jono and Sage caught up to Patrick in their race through Grand Central for a side route off-limits to the general public. They bypassed an old elevator with an Out of Service sign on it, following Hermes to a nondescript door with a scan-card access. It should have been locked, but the fringe of the veil that Santa Muerte had called forth meant the electronics weren’t working right. The door opened onto a dark stairwell, every step covered in marigold petals.

  “I am so sick of going underground,” Patrick said.

  Hermes stepped aside, waving at the stairwell. “I’ll stay up here. Santa Muerte might listen to me if Áłtsé Hashké can’t talk sense into her.”

  “She strikes me as a goddess who doesn’t listen to anyone.”

  “She listened to Tezcatlipoca.”

  Patrick remembered the altar they’d put him on and shook his head. “She listened to the prayers, not to him.”

  Patrick took point, with Jono right behind him, heading down into the bedrock of the city. A mageglobe formed against the palm of his free hand, the washed-out blue glow the only hint of light in the shadows they descended through.

  Patrick kept track of the landings, the walls changing from cement to ancient Manhattan Schist in the last few stairwells. The door on the final landing was broken open; a man in an MTA uniform lay beyond the damaged metal barrier. His head was twisted at a sharp angle, the vertebrae in his neck broken from the attack.

  Lying near the body, surrounded by marigold petals, was a black Santa Muerte idol.

  “Tremaine is here,” Patrick said quietly, giving the idol a wide berth as he entered the M42 sub-basement.

  Lucien and his Night Court advanced into the space, blurring into the shadows as they searched for their wayward rat. Patrick swore and followed them deeper into the sub-basement. It was brighter down here than up above, even with the shroud around them. The reason for that was the protective wards.

  The machinery around them was from early in the last century. The old rotary convertors that once channeled electricity and magic were now solely used as the anchor points for the large-scale protective wards snaking through the New York City subway system. The solid-state convertors currently in use to power the trains were in a different section of the sub-basement.

  Patrick turned his back on the area with modern machines, focusing on the ones that mattered. Magic seeped through the old iron, shining through the dark with a persistence that hadn’t dulled in over a hundred years.

  On top of every single rotary convertor, tied to an anchor point, was a Santa Muerte idol.

  “Oh, fuck me,” Patrick breathed.

  He eyed the intricate protective wards that linked each anchor point together, the powerful base that connected some of the city’s oldest, most continuously running magic. The magic bowed around where the idols touched, the wards there changing color from the threat of multiple artifacts. Magic needed guidance, and the wards down here provided it for the entire subway system.

  Tremaine, at the behest of Santa Muerte, was intent on ripping all of it away.

  “We need to—”

  Patrick broke off with a grunt as Sage slammed into him, knocking him over. His arm was caught in Jono’s mouth and Patrick was quickly dragged
in between two of the rotary convertors. He looked back at where he’d stood, seeing Sage squaring off with empty air.

  Then the shadows sloughed away, Santa Muerte’s shroud retreating to reveal her favored disciple. Tremaine stood in the walkway, one hand holding a golden globe that crackled with electric magic backed by a god.

  “Command trigger,” Patrick yelled, yanking himself free of Jono’s teeth and scrambling to his feet, panic choking him. “Don’t let him drop it!”

  Sage lunged forward, but it was too late.

  Tremaine let the globe fall.

  Patrick lashed out with his own magic, but it was useless. The globe easily deflected his attempt to erect a shield around it. When the globe hit the ground, the world exploded with magic powered by a god, driven by a strong, cold wind that should not have reached them underground.

  Jono was lifted clean off his paws and slammed against the far wall. Patrick was thrown backward and skidded over the floor. Patrick grunted and hooked an elbow around the nearest railing that surrounded a rotary convertor.

  Marigold petals swirled through the air, making it difficult to see. Patrick used the railing to haul himself to his feet beneath the force of the wind. His feet skidded a little on the floor, the world tinged in orange against the shadows. Patrick dug out the coin Hermes had given him and squinted at the idol situated on top of the massive anchor point.

  The gears of the rotary convertor rose out of the floor like a ship’s propeller, encased in a metal support structure taller than Patrick. The idol sat on the highest point of the arch, Santa Muerte’s magic seeping into the intricate wards like poison. Despite the supernatural wind, Patrick didn’t hesitate to throw the coin at the idol, knowing that whatever magic Hermes had imbued it with, the coin would find its way to where it needed to be.

  Patrick only had a second to confirm the coin hit its target when Jono howled a warning—all that saved him from a broken arm. Patrick loosened his hold on the railing right as Tremaine slammed into him, driving him to the floor. All the air left his lungs with the impact, marigold petals rising in a cloud around him. Some slipped past his lips to twist against his teeth and tongue. The taste made Patrick want to gag.

  Jono snarled, but the threat went unheeded by Tremaine. The master vampire loomed over Patrick in a way that reminded him too much of the altar in the subway. One cold hand wrapped around his throat so tightly Patrick couldn’t breathe. The strength behind that grip was capable of snapping his neck and Patrick didn’t try to pull free.

  Before Patrick could get his bearings and stab Tremaine, the master vampire pinned his right wrist to the floor. Tremaine’s cold fingers dug into the tendons in his wrist, forcing his own fingers to loosen around the dagger’s hilt. Tremaine jerked his hand to the side and the dagger clattered free of his grip.

  “This feels familiar,” Tremaine said, smiling down at Patrick, revealing red-tinged fangs.

  Patrick wished it didn’t. He would’ve said as much if he could speak. Only he didn’t have enough air to get the words out, much less the scream that wanted passage through his throat when Tremaine placed the black Santa Muerte idol from the door on his chest.

  Black lightning erupted from the artifact, slamming through his shields and his body with enough power to make his spine arch on its own accord. Patrick’s heels slid against the floor as he convulsed from the shock of Santa Muerte’s magic coursing through him. His shields frayed at the edges, skin hot beneath his tactical uniform.

  Black spots ate away at the edge of Patrick’s vision, the burn in his throat—in his lungs—hotter than the foreign magic assailing him. Above him, ugly satisfaction twisted Tremaine’s face into something monstrous as the wards popped around them, going off like fireworks. Santa Muerte’s magic embedded in the artifacts warred with the lone barrier ward erected by the coin—but Hermes’ magic was holding.

  Patrick couldn’t reach his dagger, and Santa Muerte’s magic was like a binding ward around him. What magic was left in his soul wouldn’t be enough to defend himself.

  Except Patrick’s soul wasn’t the only one he had access to.

  He closed his eyes to block out Tremaine’s face and focus on the howling in his ears that wasn’t the wind, but Jono. The soulbond resonated between them, a link to power Patrick had lost three years ago and never thought he’d find again.

  He’d never wanted to find it like this.

  It reminded him too much of what Ethan had done to Hannah—tying souls together for power they each had no right to take. Patrick’s tainted soul was scarred and broken in ways he’d learned to live with. He had never wanted what now tied him and Jono together.

  He’d never wanted to be like his father.

  I’m sorry.

  The silent apology rattled through Patrick’s brain even as he cracked open both their souls.

  It hurt, like stretching long unused muscles for the first time in ages. Patrick reached through the soulbond connecting them, Santa Muerte’s magic incapable of keeping their souls apart. Patrick poured his magic through Jono’s soul in search of the ley lines that fed the nexus that lived deep beneath New York City.

  Ethan hadn’t completely damaged the nexus back in June, but Patrick didn’t trust his control enough to access that deep reservoir of wild magic. Instead, he tapped a ley line, the rush of external magic like the best high as he drew it out through Jono’s soul and formed a mageglobe with it.

  His magic crackled to life between himself and Tremaine. He opened his eyes, seeing the shine of his magic reflected in Tremaine’s blue eyes for an instant before Patrick exploded the mageglobe.

  Patrick’s thinned-out shields held.

  Tremaine wasn’t so lucky.

  The master vampire threw himself off Patrick, but he wasn’t quick enough to escape the blast radius. The blast caught him in the arm and his side, sending him flying through the air. Patrick drew in a harsh lungful of air, his throat burning with it.

  “Fuck,” he coughed out.

  Shoving aside the pain, Patrick solidified his shields and rolled to his side, soul still open to the ley line. The motion dislodged the idol and it clattered to the petal-covered floor, its eyes staring right at him. Santa Muerte’s magic sloughed off his shields. Patrick made a sweeping gesture with his arm and sent the figurine careening away from him with the help of magic.

  Breathing hurt. His entire body hurt, nerves doing that annoying pins and needles sensation in every limb. It left him clumsy and shaky, but he still had enough coordination to wrap his fingers around his dagger.

  The unearthly wind hadn’t died down, the force of it still keeping Patrick and Jono physically separated. The soulbond hummed between them, and Patrick sank into it, letting its stability help clear his head. He got his knees underneath him and shoved himself upright. He stared at the magic above arcing from anchor point to anchor point like some demented Tesla oscillator.

  If it exploded, they—and too many others—would die.

  The idols needed to be destroyed all at once to ensure the damage to the protective wards didn’t get any worse. The magic in Hermes’ coin had slipped between one of the idols and the anchor point, disrupting Santa Muerte’s power, but it couldn’t cover all of them.

  It was still a weakness in the goddess’ power that Patrick intended to use.

  He conjured up another mageglobe, casting a spell through it that he hadn’t used in three years and counting. A military grade fusillade spell could be rated up or down a scale of power depending on the target, but the underlying framework of the spell within the mageglobe was something only a mage could keep stable. It required a lot of magic to power because a spell like that was meant for a precision attack with a continuous flow of magic to ensure eradication of the target.

  If Patrick needed to be precise about anything, it was this.

  Santa Muerte’s magic arced between the rotary machines, the damage it caused in the protective wards spreading. Patrick focused his magic and released the f
usillade spell on a silent command. Magic poured through Jono’s soul into his, feeding the spell with power and bolstering Patrick’s strength.

  His magic targeted every single Santa Muerte idol standing on top of the anchor points at once, pouring his magic into them. Drawing power from the ley line gave the spell enough of a boost so that Patrick could overload Santa Muerte’s idols.

  It took effort, and a focus Patrick fought to keep on his target, but he could feel the idols crack beneath his attack. Pinned between the barrier ward and Patrick’s magic, every last idol exploded in a riot of brightly colored light that cut through the shadows. The sound of their destruction echoed loud enough in the sub-basement to make Patrick’s ears ring.

  White lightning erupted from the Greek coin and crackled over every rotary machine. The barrier ward embedded in the gold coin spread over the damage on the anchor points like a tsunami, holding the base of the protective wards together.

  The shadows melted away, taking with them the marigold petals that covered the floor. Fluorescent light gradually shone down on them, revealing bright wards that covered the walls and floor all around them in a cascade of old magic.

  In the sudden echoing silence, Patrick heard Lucien speak.

  “Santa Muerte was no mother to you, Tremaine.”

  Patrick looked over his shoulder, wincing at the pain in his neck. Tremaine knelt on the floor in the spot he’d landed in after Patrick’s attack. His left arm was blown apart to the elbow, thick black blood dripping from the stump around shattered bone and ragged flesh.

  Lucien knelt behind him, digging his fingers deep into the side of Tremaine’s neck. Black blood flowed from the wound like a waterfall. The sound of breaking bone and tearing flesh indicated Lucien was going for Tremaine’s heart with his other hand. Tremaine’s mouth moved soundlessly as Lucien worked a hand through his rib cage from behind, his entire body jerking from the internal excavation.

  Lucien pressed his mouth to Tremaine’s ear, his voice rough and unforgiving as the space around them was suddenly filled with the vampires who’d joined them underground. “If you had stayed, I wouldn’t have punished you like this. If you had come crawling back on your knees, I would have welcomed you home. But you chose to run, and you didn’t run far enough. That’s one lesson you never learned, child.”