A Vigil in the Mourning (Soulbound Book 4)

by Hailey Turner

  Patrick thought nothing could be colder than the blizzard beginning to rage through Chicago, but Frigg’s words froze him down to his soul. They echoed Persephone’s, the warning she’d given him by the River Styx filtering up through his memories.

  “The Dominion Sect has tried for centuries to break the veil between worlds and allow hell to reign on earth,” Patrick said slowly. “But that’s not what they really want, is it? Another pantheon’s hell is just a distraction. They never planned to give Earth up to any god of any hell out there. They never planned to share it. They want to make a brand-new one.”

  Ethan wanted to.

  Frigg smiled with a bitterness that stung like salt in a wound. “Are you ready for your world to become what Asgard is now? What all the gods’ homes are, whether in heaven or in hell? A story you hope someone will remember across the veil, in some other Earth that isn’t yours?”

  Patrick opened his mouth to speak, words a mess on his tongue, when the world upended itself.

  Pain ripped through his soul, an echo of the pulse that rippled through the ley lines passing deep beneath Chicago. For a second, everything whited out. Magic that wasn’t his burned the frayed edges of that long-forgotten tie to Hannah buried beneath the metaphysical scars he carried on his soul.

  It was like the cemetery all over again, only worse.

  Then the soulbond that tied him to Jono saturated his soul, blocking the old, worn-out connection like a wall that would never break. Patrick sucked in a shaky breath, blinking black spots from his vision as he stared up at the ceiling around Frigg’s head.

  Patrick unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “What…the fuck was that?”

  “Someone drew too much power through a ley line,” Frigg said, her eyes flickering with white fire. “The nexus will need to be guarded.”

  Patrick got an elbow underneath him and rolled to his side, feeling like his brain was about to leak out of his ears. “Fuck. That was backlash hitting the ley lines? Why did I feel it?”

  He shouldn’t have been able to, and if Frigg had an answer, she kept it to herself. She helped Patrick to his feet with firm hands, and he felt the room spin in his stomach. Then a cool finger touched the center of his forehead, and a rush of energy flowed through him. This time it didn’t hurt, more like a balm that soothed the rubbed-raw edges of his soul.

  Steadiness came back to him, just in time to be upright and not looking like death warmed over when Benjamin slammed open the door to the interview room. He took one look at Patrick before yelling over his shoulder, “Collins is conscious. What about the others?”

  “Others?” Patrick asked.

  Benjamin gestured at Patrick to follow him. “Every mage in the building just went down. We’re checking on everyone and those who haven’t made it in today. You should get checked out.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You seem to be the only one.”

  Patrick grimaced, thinking about why. “Yeah. How’s the SAIC?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Let’s go find out.”

  Benjamin left, already distracted by what was going on beyond the interview room. Patrick looked over at Frigg, who was pulling on the brown fur coat that had been draped over the back of her seat.

  “I’ll find your husband,” Patrick promised.

  Frigg nodded, looking for all the world like a queen, despite the drab surroundings. “See that you do.”

  The goddess left the interview room, perfectly capable of seeing herself out of the building. Patrick swore and pressed the heels of both hands against his eyes, rubbing them until colored spots were all he could see against the back of his eyelids. The sound of his phone going off had him fumbling it out of his pocket to answer it.

  “Are you all right?” Jono asked without even a hello.

  “Yeah. I’m fine,” Patrick said.

  “You’re such a bloody liar. I felt that.”

  “Something hit the ley lines.”

  “So why would you feel it?”

  Patrick hesitated. Without Jono, he couldn’t tap a ley line. The only answer he could think of pointed at Hannah, and nothing good would ever come from that. “I can’t talk about it here.”

  He didn’t want to talk about it ever, but he knew he had to tell Jono as soon as they were alone.

  “Right. Me and Wade are coming to you. We’ll find a Starbucks near your building, or anything that is open in this bloody weather, and wait for you to pick us up. If you need me”—Jono stressed the word, making it obvious what he meant without outright talking about the soulbond—“I’ll be close by.”

  Patrick bit the inside of his lip, holding back all the words he wanted to say but couldn’t while in a building surrounded by SOA agents and workers. “Might have better luck with a Dunkin’ Donuts.”

  “I vote Dunkins,” Wade said loud enough that Patrick could hear him through the line.

  “You just ate,” Jono said.

  Patrick snorted. “Stay warm. Talk to you soon.”

  He ended the call and went to find SAIC Andrew Dabrowski.

  The Chicago SOA field office only employed about a dozen mages, half of which were assigned to the Rapid Response Division. The fluctuation had ricocheted through every mage, whether they were tapped into a ley line or not. It had caught people unawares, even through their shields.

  Which means Ethan doesn’t care if we know he’s taking that power. Patrick grimaced as he got in the nearest elevator and pushed the button for the twenty-ninth floor. Frigg is right. We’ll need to shield the nexus.

  His thought seemed to be shared by Dabrowski, because the second Patrick stepped into the SAIC’s crowded office and the older mage got eyes on him, Patrick became the center of attention.

  “Collins,” Dabrowski said, cracking open a potions bottle one of the witches on staff must have given him. He looked about as green as the potion he poured into a cut-crystal glass. “We’re shielding the nexus.”

  “Hope you don’t expect me to help with that, sir. My shields aren’t the greatest, and I can’t tap a ley line or nexus,” Patrick replied from the doorway.

  Dabrowski waved off his words. “I’m sending you and other agents to Lincoln Park. Special Agent Alara Bowen will locate the epicenter of the spell. Near as we can tell, the hit came from a ley line beneath that neighborhood. My guess is it’s the same bastards who came after you last night. I want to know what the hell they’re doing and why.”

  Hopefully not sacrificing a god, but Patrick didn’t put the odds in their favor. “Understood, sir.”

  Patrick didn’t know what they’d find in Lincoln Park, but he knew it wouldn’t be good.

  Wade stuck his arm between the two front seats, a frosted pink donut with sprinkles resting on a napkin. “Donut?”

  Patrick didn’t look away from the street he was driving down that had been recently cleared of snow, despite more falling. The snow plows and salt trucks were out in full force right now, and they apparently did not mess around. “Not now, Wade.”

  The donut disappeared. “Fine, then. More for me.”

  The sound of rustling paper bags came from the back seat of the SUV. “Don’t make a mess.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?” Jono asked from the front passenger seat.

  Patrick tightened his fingers on the steering wheel, wishing the SUV had sirens. He’d picked up Jono and Wade from the Dunkin’ Donuts where they’d found shelter, which put him behind the other agents in getting to the scene. The snowstorm was still terrible, but it wasn’t whiteout level yet. Weather witches were fighting to break it up. The reactionary storm had stalled over Lake Michigan, still aiming at Chicago, and Patrick didn’t know if that was due to magic or interference from any of the immortals running around Chicago looking for Odin.

  “Aksel Sigfodr turned out to be Odin. General Reed’s people were wrong about him knowing anything about the staff, but the government was righ
t about him being a criminal.”

  “How so?”

  “You know how I told you he’s big in Chicago politics? Odin runs a pay-to-play scheme for politicians, but money isn’t enough. Seems he wants souls instead of prayers for his pantheon. The Dean Westberg case I got assigned focuses on rent payment done through pawnshops, but they aren’t giving up antiques as collateral, just pieces of their souls. I’m pretty sure Westberg buys them up, then gives them to Odin as tithes,” Patrick said.

  “Sounds bloody awful.”

  “Odin didn’t think he was in danger. The Dominion Sect did a snatch and grab at the same time they hit Thor’s bar.” Patrick pushed at the windshield wiper controls, scowling when he realized they were already on their highest setting. “I don’t know what they used to contain him, or who.”

  “What happened at the bar?”

  “Zachary was there. He brought Hel along. Thor went after her, and I drew Zachary and his people into the cemetery. Hannah showed up in the cemetery. I felt her,” Patrick said slowly as he flexed his fingers against the steering wheel, chewing on his bottom lip. “In my soul.”

  Jono’s hand settled on his thigh, giving a gentle squeeze. Patrick was still pissed at him, but not enough to pull away. “How is that possible?”

  “She’s my twin. We had a connection when we were younger, but Ethan broke it with soultakers. At least, I thought he had.”

  “You’ve never felt her before, have you?”

  Patrick shook his head. “Not since we were kids. When that connection cut, I thought she was dead. I kept thinking that until I saw her in Cairo.”

  “What about today?”

  “Backlash hit the ley lines from a surge.”

  Jono frowned, turning his head to look at him. “You weren’t tapped into a ley line through me though. How did you feel it? Because I felt it through the soulbond.”

  “I know. I think it was Hannah.” Patrick laughed hollowly. “I don’t know what Ethan did when he tried to kill us. I didn’t think I had a connection, but maybe something stuck.”

  Some small, selfish part of Patrick hoped it hadn’t. The idea that he might have had a connection to his sister all this time while she was at Ethan’s mercy made him want to throw up. Because the thought that maybe he could have found her before now was something he didn’t want to contemplate. He swallowed against the urge and instead focused on where his magic was leading him.

  He hadn’t been given an address when leaving the SOA field office, just a general direction to Lincoln Park. Fine-tuning the location was up to Bowen. He’d given her his cell phone number, but she hadn’t called to give him an update yet. She was a mage who could follow the ley lines, and despite getting knocked on her ass from the backlash, she was back in the field doing her job.

  What Patrick could pick up the closer they got to the urban park that carried the Lincoln namesake were traces of black magic. Whatever spell had been cast, the remnants of it were drifting on storm-driven winds, settling on snow-covered rooftops of people unaware their souls were in danger.

  “Trying to track down everyone who might need their soul stripped of black magic in this weather is going to be a mess,” Patrick muttered.

  Patrick’s phone beeped with a text message. Jono picked it up for him and unlocked it. “It’s an address.”

  “Plug it into the GPS, will you?”

  Jono did, and the GPS recalibrated. When the computerized voice spoke the destination, Patrick blinked in surprise. “Wait, what’s the address again?”

  Jono repeated it and gave him a questioning look. “Do you know it?”

  Patrick wanted to press on the gas, but speeding in this weather was a good way to slide into an unmoving object, like a parked car or the nearest powerline post. “That’s one of Dean Westberg’s personal properties.”

  “The candidate guy?” Wade asked. “Oh, man. That can’t be good.”

  “Maybe someone got revenge on the bloke for messing around with souls,” Jono said.

  “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  It took fifteen minutes to get three blocks over. When Patrick turned down the street in question, it was blocked by government cars taking up most of the street. Patrick put the SUV into park and activated the emergency brake. He left the keys in the ignition so the heater would keep running, but still wrote a heat charm onto the roof.

  “Stay put,” Patrick told them as he pulled on his gloves before opening the car door.

  “I have one bag of donuts left,” Wade warned.

  Patrick rolled his eyes and left Jono to deal with Wade’s never-ending hunger. He zipped up his leather jacket and shoved his gloved hands into the pockets to keep them warm as he trekked toward the house that was surrounded by agents. The beanie kept his head warm, and his boots held up in the snow well enough, but he’d rather be indoors and out of the elements.

  Recognition was a bitter burn in his soul from the black magic lingering in the air. The house in question was a four-story, red-bricked mansion with a set of stone steps leading up to a porch and the front door. The lights were off, no one was home, but the entire building was leaking residual black magic like a broken dam.

  “Anyone send out a shelter in place order yet?” Patrick asked once he made it past the perimeter and met up with Bowden on the sidewalk in front of the house.

  “The SAIC is getting it issued,” Bowden said, her breath coming out in white puffs. She glanced at him, her dark brown eyes reflecting the light of the vibrant green mageglobe that hovered near her shoulder. “No one answered when we knocked, but we can’t get the door open.”

  “Warded?” Patrick asked.

  Bowden shook her head. “Spelled. We can’t get through it. I stopped anyone from trying once I got a read on the spell. The casting looks military grade to me. Figured that’s more your expertise than mine.”

  Patrick sighed and took his hands out of his pockets, flexing his fingers. “I’ll take a look. Anyone get in contact with Westberg yet?”

  “Someone is handling it. This isn’t going to look good for him once the media picks up on it.”

  “Maybe he shouldn’t be dealing in magic, then.”

  There was a lot more that Patrick wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut. Taking the steps two at a time to the porch, Patrick slowed to a stop in front of the closed door. The sickly magic emanating from it scratched against his shields with a familiar sort of deadliness he remembered from his time in the field with the Hellraisers.

  “Trying to ruin everyone’s day,” he muttered under his breath as he raised both hands and conjured up a mageglobe. “Assholes.”

  The tripwire spell was a messy one, meant to turn whoever walked through it and anyone in the immediate area into so much meat. Patrick conjured up a tiny mageglobe, cradling it against his palm as he traced the spellwork with a single finger. Pale blue light sank into ugly red-orange, highlighting the lines of the spell and leading him to the origination point near the peephole.

  It wasn’t unlike the spells he’d cleared in hot zones while in the Mage Corps. Undoing it took some focus, a precise cut of magic, and the willpower to unravel the spell piece by piece. It took a couple of minutes, but Patrick eventually lifted what was left of the tripwire spell off the door and burned it with mage fire. The smell of the magic made him gag. To get away from the smell, he unlocked the door with a key charm that was strong enough to override the home’s threshold.

  The door swung open and Patrick unholstered his gun, switching off the safety. He heard Bowden and some of the other agents follow him inside as he cleared the front living area.

  “Clear,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear.

  SOA workers worked to clear every room and level of the home. Patrick followed the heaviest traces of black magic to the third floor on unerring feet, coming into what might have been an entertainment room. It had been ruined by whatever high-level casting had happened in the home, one strong enough to send a wave of backlash thr
ough the ley lines and any mages within Chicago.

  The pentagram burned onto the hardwood floor, the black and red candle wax melted into clumps around carved idols at the five points, and the concentric circles filled with the blood of a baby boar ruined the vibe of the place. The dead animal’s throat had been cut, all its blood drained out, before being tossed into a corner.

  Scattered in the spaces between the concentric circles were flower petals of a color not found on Earth. They reminded him of the plants blooming in the forests surrounding the Spring Queen’s court in Tír na nÓg. Lying in the exact center of the pentagram was a single lock of dark red hair, burned at one end. It made him wonder what else Ethan’s acolytes had stolen from the fae when they’d gone after Órlaith.

  The residual in the room was black magic mixed with sex, reminding Patrick of how it felt to be around Carmen when she was really leaning into her power of desire. Beneath all that was a shadow charge of electricity that spoke of the presence of a god. Patrick wondered if Ethan had put Odin in the middle of that circle, or someone else, because it didn’t feel as if a god had died here.

  Patrick tightened his shields as he lowered his gun a little, staring at the sacrificial circle and wondering just what the hell sort of spell had been performed here. Despite the lingering traces of black magic, the space didn’t feel like death.

  It felt more like life.

  Patrick didn’t step any farther into the room, wanting to preserve the scene until the Evidence Response Team arrived. What he could see wasn’t good, and he didn’t like what it could mean.

  “No one enter this room until the evidence is catalogued,” Bowden said loudly. She pointed at another agent. “Stay here and keep watch. I don’t want anyone to enter or disturb the scene.”