A Vigil in the Mourning (Soulbound Book 4)

by Hailey Turner

  “I thought that was the problem in general?” Hinon asked.

  Patrick grimaced, listing a little against the bar as he rubbed at his face. “The nexus under Lake Michigan has been illegally accessed, and weather updates show a reactionary storm brewing. I thought it was you and Thor messing around, but what’s forming over the water is ugly. The storm is likely going to hit today, and weather witches in the field office say a white-out blizzard might occur.”

  “That will make searching for the Allfather difficult, but not impossible,” a dark-skinned valkyrie said.

  “For you. It’s a risk for my pack to be out in weather like that.”

  “Eir will ride with you,” Brynhildr said.

  “I wasn’t asking for an escort.”

  “You’ll have one anyway.”

  The coolness of the valkyrie’s tone had Jono pressing against Patrick’s back as he eyed her over Patrick’s head. “We have one of yours with us already.”

  Brynhildr raised her glass to her lips, swallowing a mouthful of mead. “Loki’s get is not one I trust.”

  Jono opened his mouth to reply, but his voice was stolen by Fenrir, the god gaining control. “This is not the story any of us need or want.”

  Brynhildr slowly set her glass back down on the bar, staring at them. “Fenrir.”

  “Odin’s least favored valkyrie.”

  “I have a name. Use it.” Fenrir said nothing, and Brynhildr let go of her drink. “I have never trusted you. What’s to say this is not an attempt by you to kill the Allfather?”

  “Because this is not our Ragnarök, and the future remains uncertain. I chose your side to keep our stories alive. The gods of hell would throw their support behind a lie that will deliver nothing but forgetfulness and death to immortals. That aids none of us.”

  “Trickery works in such a manner.”

  “He’s no trickster,” Patrick said.

  “He was birthed by one.”

  Jono fought for control of his body and mind, shaking his head to clear it once Fenrir receded into his soul once more. “You lot gave me to Patrick as a weapon. We’re tied together by the soulbond. That should be enough of a surety, because I would never betray him.”

  Brynhildr studied him with those fathomless gray eyes of hers. “You might not. I wouldn’t put it past the wolf.”

  “Such faith you have in my children,” a new voice said, the words echoing in the bar.

  Thor punched the air in front of him, a sphere of ball lightning exploding around his fist that gave off so much heat Jono’s skin burned. The god pulled Mjölnir free, the great stone head of the hammer sucking up the lightning.

  “Loki,” Thor growled. “Show yourself.”

  The largest deer skull on the wall shifted on its nails before lifting away. The bone was the only solidly real bit of the ghostly skeleton that jumped to the floor, transparent hooves making no sound upon landing. Patrick moved to put himself between Jono and the construct, dagger held in one hand.

  The valkyries moved like lightning to surround the construct. They’d come into the bar empty-handed, but now each of them carried a spear in their hands, the differences in their carvings minimal, the magic in the weapons impossible to miss. The skull head swung from side to side. If it could grin, Jono thought it would.

  “You’ve thrown your lot in with the wrong side once again,” Brynhildr ground out.

  “I see nothing wrong about our freedom to choose,” Loki’s disembodied voice said through the construct.

  “Where is the Allfather?”

  The ghostly deer danced on its feet, and the head was tossed back, the solid antlers nearly hitting a blown-out light fixture. “What makes you think I know?”

  “Because you’re here to gloat. I’d sew your mouth shut if I thought it would do us any good.”

  “I have needle and thread in my bag. Say the word,” Eir said, the spear in her hands not moving a millimeter.

  Loki laughed in a way that made Jono’s bones hurt. Fenrir sank his claws into Jono’s soul but remained quiet. Jono didn’t know if it was out of fear or self-preservation.

  Thor vaulted over the bar counter, landing with a heavy thud. He straightened up to his full height, tiny lightning bolts arcing over Mjölnir’s corners, the short handle swallowed up in his grip. “Too scared to show your face in person, Loki?”

  “I wouldn’t have shown up at all if not for my traitorous son.” The skull swung to face Jono, its eye holes glowing with an eerie yellow light. “Hel will never welcome you again if you commit to this path. Would you give up your home for a war you can’t win?”

  Jono’s bones thrummed with a growl only he could hear. Patrick glanced back at him, and Jono half thought Fenrir would take control again, but the god remained silent.

  Loki’s laughter made Jono’s skin crawl. “If that is your choice, then war it shall be.”

  The ghostly skeleton flickered and disappeared, like a glitch on a computer screen. The bone skull clattered to the floor, every spear point following its fall.

  Brynhildr spun her spear to rest the metal-shod butt on the floor. She looked over at Thor, mouth pulled into a taut frown. “What are your orders?”

  “Ride,” Thor said.

  Brynhildr nodded sharply. She angled her spear to press the tip to her throat. Even as the weapon spun in the air, it shrank until it was once again the size of a pendant she hooked to the leather cord around her neck.

  “We’ll search for the Allfather. What will you do?” she asked.

  “There is a fundraiser dinner scheduled at Au Hall tomorrow night. There are meetings I must take today in Odin’s place.”

  “I thought you’d be out searching for him?” Patrick asked.

  “Odin would be displeased if we ignored the business of politics in this city.”

  Patrick snorted. “Keeping the throne warm?”

  Thor ignored him and turned to set Mjölnir on the bar counter near Wade, who stared at it with narrowed eyes and took a slow, contemplative bite of his apple.

  “Don’t steal his hammer,” Jono warned.

  “I wasn’t going to!” Wade protested.

  “You were thinking about it.”

  Hinon slid off his barstool and tugged his jacket straight over his shoulders. “I’ll help with your search from on high.”

  “Thank you, cousin,” Thor said.

  The immortal headed for the exit, knocking a fist against Thor’s shoulder as he went. “This is everyone’s war, not just yours. We’ll find Odin.”

  “What are we doing?” Wade asked.

  Patrick sheathed his dagger, scowling at Jono. “I drive you guys back to the hotel and Jono here tells me why Eir offered to heal him before I go back to work.”

  This time, Jono couldn’t bite back the wince.

  13

  “What happened?”

  Jono sighed. “Can we not do this in the car? I’m fine.”

  Patrick didn’t look away from the road. “But you weren’t.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Start talking.”

  “It can wait until you won’t run someone off the road.”

  Patrick’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Fuck you. I have better control than that. I’d just leave you by the side of the road.”

  “Not in this weather you wouldn’t.”

  “Try me.”

  Jono scowled out the window at the snow that had started to fall sometime while they were in the bar. They’d arrived in rain and left in snow, and none of them had liked what that meant. If the reactionary storm was going to hit Chicago with a blizzard, there was very little time to get ready for it.

  “Everything turned out fine,” Jono said. “I’ll tell you about what happened when we’re behind your wards.”

  Patrick didn’t respond, but his icy silence filled the car for the entire drive back. The one time Jono turned on the radio, Patrick reached over and turned it off. When he settled his hand on Patrick’s thigh, it st
ayed there for two seconds before Patrick moved it to the gearshift. Then Patrick’s scent cut out completely as he locked down his shields as tight as they could get. Jono couldn’t read him at all, and he huffed out a frustrated breath.

  “Ooh, you’re in trouble,” Wade said sotto voce from the back seat.

  Jono resisted the urge to snap at him, knowing that yelling at Wade wasn’t the right way to vent his frustration. Explaining himself had to wait until they were at the hotel and behind a silence ward.

  It took time to get there, simply because the unexpected snow was snarling traffic. Chicago was used to snow, but usually the city had more of a warning than an hour’s notice. If the reactionary storm was bringing a blizzard, no one was prepared for it.

  When they finally made it back to the hotel, Patrick silently handed over the car keys to the valet. He wouldn’t look at Jono as he strode toward the entrance with Wade on his heels. Jono followed them inside, taking a quick breath to get a read on who might be waiting for them. He smelled werecreatures, but not as many as before. When they made it to the lobby, he didn’t see Monica, but the front desk clerk was there, wearing a dastaar.

  It reminded him of the long meeting with Rajesh last night, and not in a good way. The master vampire had been reticent to acknowledge the borders Jono wanted to establish for the packs in Queens, but they had at least opened a dialogue. That was more than what Estelle and Youssef had with some of the vampires.

  When they reached the lifts, Wade didn’t get in with them. “You know what? I’m going to go find something to eat.”

  “It’s snowing and only going to get worse. Stay in the hotel,” Patrick told him.

  “The hotel doesn’t have Target snacks. Target has Target snacks.” Wade pointed finger guns at them and rocked back on his heels. “I’m gonna get some.”

  The door slid shut on his smirking face.

  “At least he won’t freeze,” Jono said.

  Patrick didn’t respond, angrily stabbing the button for the twelfth floor. They rode up in silence, and Patrick exited first once the doors dinged open on their floor. Jono followed him to the hotel room, watching as he wrote a silence ward on the wall opposite the bathroom with angry motions once they were inside. Static bloomed outward through the wall, blocking out the distant sound of traffic below on the street.

  “Start talking,” Patrick ordered as he yanked off his jacket and tossed it on the bed closest to the bathroom. “Maybe strip while you’re at it so I can see whatever wound you’re sporting that made Eir offer to heal you.”

  “Victoria’s potions were enough to fix me,” Jono said.

  Patrick glared at him. “What the fuck did you need potions for?”

  Jono crossed his arms over his chest. “Remember when I texted you I was going to Brooklyn earlier this week?”

  “For pack border issues, yeah, I remember. Don’t tell me they were plants and betrayed you?”

  “Austin? No, his pack is on our side. We found ourselves in a bit of a mess by the end of our territory marking.”

  “Define a bit of a mess.”

  “Ran into some hunters. Krossed Knights, to be precise. We led the arseholes into vampire territory, but one nicked me with his silver knife laced with aconite.”

  Patrick stared at him, quiet for all of two seconds before he lost his head.

  “You’re being targeted by the Krossed Knights and you didn’t tell me the second you realized what was going on?” Patrick yelled.

  Jono was glad for the silence ward, because the volume of Patrick’s voice would’ve reached the end of the hall. “I didn’t want you to worry when you were off doing your job.”

  “Because telling me after the fact is so much fucking better!” Patrick went still, his eyes narrowing as he glared at Jono. “Wait a minute. When I called Sage the other night, she was pissed off. Was that because she knew what had happened to you?”

  “I told her not to tell you.”

  “You fucking asshole,” Patrick ground out, taking a step forward, hands balled into fists. “Why the fuck would you keep something like this from me?”

  “Because you were here in Chicago dealing with a case and gods again, and I didn’t want you to worry,” Jono snapped.

  “You’re being targeted for death by the Krossed Knights! What makes you think I wasn’t going to worry no matter when you told me?”

  “At least this way you could focus.”

  Patrick let out a harsh laugh. “I focused just fine on the front lines while in the military. Did you think I wouldn’t be able to do my job if you told me? I’m a goddamn professional, Jono. I know how to fucking compartmentalize shit.”

  “I know you are, but I thought it could wait until you got home and I could tell you in person. What could you have done while out here? You couldn’t leave.”

  “It doesn’t matter because you never fucking told me before you got here!” Patrick raked a hand through his hair and shook his head. “For fuck’s sake, Jono. The Krossed Knights have a higher kill rate than any other hunter group the SOA has in its database. Those fuckers don’t mess around, and you didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell me?”

  “We handled it.”

  “By throwing them at the vampires?” When Jono hesitated in responding, Patrick zeroed in on that tell like a heat-seeking missile. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

  “Estelle and Youssef are the ones who hired the hunters. We don’t have contractual proof, not enough to bring it to the police, but Estelle was meeting with one of the hunters at their home when I dropped off the body that Carmen brought us.”

  “Carmen brought you a body,” Patrick said slowly, dragging out the words. “Why were you talking to her?”

  “Because I told Jamere I wanted to meet with Lucien.”

  Patrick dragged a hand down his face before turning his back on Jono. He paced to the window before looping back around to where Jono stood by the bed. “You met with Lucien?”

  Jono refused to look away, so he was in prime position to watch all the blood drain out of Patrick’s face when he said, “I made a bargain with him.”

  “Lucien doesn’t make bargains.”

  “He did with me. With our pack.”

  Patrick shook his head and turned his back on Jono again, lifting both arms so he could link his hands behind his skull. Jono watched the skin over Patrick’s knuckles go white and tried not to feel like he’d made the wrong decisions when he knew he hadn’t.

  “I can’t fucking believe you did that,” Patrick ground out. “What did you give up? Lucien doesn’t give anything away for free, if he gives anything at all. So what the fuck did you offer him in return?”

  “That our pack and all the ones under our protection would pray to Ashanti.”

  Patrick’s entire body stiffened, and Jono stepped closer, reaching for him. His fingertips brushed Patrick’s shoulder, but the other man jerked away, spinning around on stumbling feet. He knocked Jono’s hand aside, high spots of color on his pale cheeks from the anger Jono still couldn’t smell through his locked-down shields.

  “You what?” Patrick asked in a low, furious voice.

  “We need to look after our borders. Estelle and Youssef keep breaching ours. None of the packs we protect are close enough to help each other if they go for a full attack, but we’re all within Night Court territory. The vampires can get to the packs in trouble in the other boroughs quicker than we can. We have a fae alliance. I thought, why not get one with the vampires?”

  “Because it’s Lucien you fucking got one with! You can’t trust him, Jono!”

  “He’s kept his promise to Ashanti about you,” Jono shot back stubbornly. “It shows he’ll keep his word.”

  “It proves he’s biding his time to murder my fucking ass, is what it shows.”

  “I’d never let that happen.”

  “You’d never see him coming if he had the chance.”

  Jono crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you thin
k so little of me that I wouldn’t do whatever it takes to keep you safe?”

  “I don’t know what you were thinking when you went to him. Maybe it was the silver and aconite poisoning messing with your head. The poisoning you didn’t tell me about.”

  “I thought I was doing what was best for our god pack,” Jono growled. “We don’t have the numbers to fight Estelle and Youssef for territory. Alliances are all we have right now, and we needed more than just the fae.”

  “You didn’t have to make one with Lucien.”

  “Are you mad because I made the bargain or that I didn’t ask for your permission? Because I don’t need it.”

  “We’re supposed to make these kinds of decisions together.”

  “You were in Chicago—”

  “You could have fucking called me!”

  “You have a job, and this is mine!” Jono snarled. “You need to trust me to do it.”

  “I don’t trust Lucien.” Patrick stepped back, his face closing off with a blankness Jono hadn’t seen since they first met. “And apparently you don’t trust me.”

  “That isn’t what this is about—”

  “You should’ve told me the second you knew it was the Krossed Knights hunting you,” Patrick cut in. “That group doesn’t stop hunting until their target is dead. Do you understand that? I’m going to need to notify the police about their presence in New York City and that they’re after you.”

  “Casale already knows.”

  Patrick stared at him, grinding his teeth so hard Jono could hear it loud and clear. “Were you smart enough to call him and put the PCB on notice you’re a target?”

  “The PCB found one of the bodies Jamere left on the playground. I got called in because they had screenshots from CCTV of us together.”

  “Fucking hell, Jono. You realize how that looks? You can’t afford to get slapped with a murder charge. Hell, you can’t afford any kind of charge, not when one could get your green card revoked and you kicked out of the country.”