The Ferris wheel crashed into the Children’s Museum and through the underlying base of the pier, breaking the pylons that supported the entire structure. The sound echoed like a bomb in Patrick’s ears, and he felt the hit vibrate through his body.
Navy Pier shuddered. Then it started to tip, everything sliding toward the cold waters of Lake Michigan that churned with the dead.
Eir lunged for Gungnir at the same time Loki appeared beside it, the trickster god having escaped Thor’s wrath once more. Before she could get her hands on the weapon, Loki snatched it up, thrusting it at Eir. Put on the defensive, Eir scrambled back out of range, because dying on Odin’s spear was a painful way to go.
“What say you, Fenrir?” Loki asked, staring at Jono but talking to the god in his soul. “Put your teeth in the Allfather, and we shall have our Ragnarök.”
Lightning exploded overhead, careening through the sky to slam into Thor’s hammer. It half blinded Patrick, making it impossible to see where the enemy stood.
“You shall not start our end, Loki,” Thor snarled, swinging his hammer around, lightning crackling through every inch of it.
“Oh, but our end is just beginning,” Loki said with a Cheshire cat smile as he turned to face Thor, still clutching Odin’s spear.
When they clashed, they left a hole in the pier, the smell of burning ozone thick in the air.
Patrick twisted around as the pier shuddered and heaved beneath his feet. Heart pounding in his chest, Brynhildr’s words heavy in his mind, Patrick scrambled back to Odin’s side. He didn’t think beyond what had to be done to break the spellwork.
He vaulted over a broken piece of the pier, scrabbling for purchase on the other side. In the flashes of lightning overhead, Patrick could just make out where Odin’s body lay, protected from sliding into the water by a jutting piece of debris.
Patrick used his feet and one free hand to stop his momentum, coming to rest beside the god. Odin’s eyes were open, staring up at the sky and the snowstorm churning there.
Odin’s stash of souls, gathered over many decades, had proven enough of a seed for Yggdrasil to put down roots, tear through the veil, and draw one of the Nine Worlds to Earth. No soultakers had been needed this time around when Odin had done all the taking to begin with.
Last time, Patrick had sacrificed Jono’s soul without meaning to in order to put an end to the madness. This time, they were outside the spellwork completely, but Odin was still tied to it, and he only knew of one way to break that connection.
Do it.
The voices of Muninn and Huginn ripped through his mind, making colored spots flash across his vision from the pain. All but one disappeared, turning into a brightly burning splotch that took Patrick a moment to realize it wasn’t his eyes producing it, but Odin’s.
The god’s right eye burned like a Vesuvius flame, and all Patrick had to do was put it out.
Patrick gripped his dagger with cold fingers and pressed it against the palm of his other hand. One quick cut was all it took to draw blood to the blade, a back door to whatever was left of Ethan’s spell buried in Odin’s existence. Patrick raised the weapon high before bringing it down with an accuracy that had nothing to do with training or luck and everything to do with fate.
Because this was no Ragnarök, and Hel had no right to drag her truth into a world that had long since forgotten it.
The dagger buried itself in Odin’s heart while the storm ripped Patrick’s command away from his lips.
“Close the veil!”
For a moment, the world went silent, as if time had frozen every breath, every wave, every snowflake on its journey down to the ground and stilled the wind itself.
Then lightning flashed over the entirety of Chicago, turning night to day, and the thunder that followed nearly deafened Patrick. An explosion of glittering light erupted from the wound in Odin’s chest, curling around the dagger. Power pulled at Patrick’s soul, and he sank his awareness deep into the magic unraveling from Odin.
The toxic ties of Ethan’s magic was curled deep around Odin’s godhead, and Patrick couldn’t let his father get a foothold in yet another godhead. Blood would always call to blood, no matter the years and lies separating them. Patrick used that familial connection to sever what Ethan hoped to hold on to—a chance at godhood.
“Break,” Patrick snarled, voice shredding on the word.
The dagger—still buried in Odin’s chest—shone like a lone lighthouse beacon in a dark and raging storm. Patrick’s magic, guided by countless prayers gifted by the gods, cut through Ethan’s magic, giving Odin a way out. The burning essence of Odin’s godhood fled his immortal body, streaking toward the sky and disappearing into the storm.
The ground shuddered once more, the backlash from the spell breaking sending everything into an upheaval. Breathing heavily, Patrick scrambled to hold on to Odin’s body, not wanting it to be lost to Niflheim when Valhalla was the only hall Odin would ever sit in with the dead. His shaking fingers caught Odin by the shoulder, the dagger still protruding from the god’s chest. When Patrick yanked it free, heavenly fire poured out of the blade and into the wound like a waterfall.
A couple more pylons broke, and Navy Pier collapsed in on itself a little more. Patrick and his charge slipped farther down the broken pier, the entire structure seconds from going under.
Then teeth sank into Patrick’s shoulder, scraping against skin and drawing blood. Jono held on to him and dragged Patrick away from Hel’s domain and the twisting fog of the veil slowly stitching itself up again.
Lightning crashed overhead, illuminating Wade’s large form against the clouds and Hinon’s smaller one, the valkyries astride their pegasi, and the two huge ravens descending in a tight spiral.
Huginn and Muninn sank their talons into Odin’s body when they landed, and Patrick let the immortal go. The ravens flapped their great wings, gaining altitude, carrying the god with them into the storm. Patrick didn’t watch them leave, too busy trying to make it to solid land before Navy Pier collapsed completely, Jono standing steadfast by his side.
Jono hauled him the rest of the way there with preternatural speed and strength. Patrick didn’t let Jono go until they had dirt beneath their feet. Bodies were strewn around them—human and animal alike—but Ethan was gone. Werecreatures kept watch, ready to attack at a moment’s notice. Patrick pulled his leather jacket tight around his body, wet clothes like ice against his freezing skin even with active heat charms, and tried to remember how to breathe.
South of them, in Millennium Park, the light of Yggdrasil went out, the world tree withering in the face of a broken spell. Hel’s push to regain a foothold on Earth with Ethan’s help was stopped in the only way it could have been.
By the sacrifice of a god.
21
Monday arrived with overcast skies, chilly weather, and enough snow on the streets the snowplows would be running nonstop for the next twenty-four-hours.
Millennium Park was an uprooted mess that looked like a bomb had gone off. The roads running close to the shore all needed to be repaved due to the dead having destroyed the asphalt. Climbing out of a hell was rough going, and the construction cost for the street repairs was going to be high, but not as high as the rebuild for Navy Pier.
Navy Pier had been utterly destroyed, the remnants of it a crumbled pile in Lake Michigan. Retrieval of the debris would have to wait for warmer weather because construction workers would be at risk for hypothermia if they tried working on it now. Not to mention the sheer logistics of cleansing numerous parks and miles of shoreline to eradicate the lingering traces of black magic and taint from hell before anyone could set foot in it.
Dabrowski hadn’t been exactly pleased with the results of Patrick managing the case, but considering the alternative, he’d let it slide. Dabrowski had just looked at where Patrick had been sitting in the back of an ambulance—stripped of his soaked clothes and wrapped in a foil blanket burning with heat charms—and shook his head.
“I said scratch the Bean and leave everything else alone, not the other way around,” Dabrowski had said.
“Pretty sure the Bean got scratched,” Patrick had replied.
“The Bean got struck by what looks like lightning and had a hole blown through it.”
“Oops?”
Probably not the best answer to give a SAIC after wrecking Chicago’s waterfront, but Patrick hadn’t cared. He’d survived, and figuring out the lies to spin started in that ambulance.
That had been hours ago though, and the thirty-minute break Patrick had taken under the watchful eyes of an EMS crew felt like days. Dealing with the aftermath of a breach in the veil meant he’d declined a ride to the nearest hospital but had taken one to his borrowed SUV parked on the street. It had miraculously escaped damage.
The clothes Jono and Wade had stashed in the trunk were gone—the pair having fled the scene with Naomi and Alejandro’s god pack—but Patrick’s had been there. He’d gotten dressed and gone back to work because that’s what an SOA agent did.
The national news was reporting on the Dominion Sect attack with a fervor Patrick usually attributed to sharks smelling blood in the water. The local Chicago news stations were focused on what had happened in Millennium Park, but they were also reporting on the news of the spellwork performed in Westberg’s Gold Coast property. Patrick gave it another day or so before some intrepid reporter linked the two incidents and every SOA agent in a one-hundred-mile radius was reduced to the tried-and-true no comment answer for everything.
Patrick gave it maybe an hour before reporters showed up in Wrigleyville, if they managed to get through the snowy streets.
“Ready?” Kelly asked as she and Benjamin approached where Patrick stood in front of yet another of Westberg’s personal properties.
Patrick had a raging headache, more bruises on his body than unmarked skin it felt like, and was so tired his eyes burned. But he’d been in this state too many times to count after a case or mission, and he was used to pressing on. It helped that he wasn’t hurt like he had been after the fight in Central Park last year. He hadn’t been the one to break the spell and close the veil—that had all been Odin’s doing this time around.
“Let’s go,” Patrick said.
As federal raids went, ransacking Westberg’s fourth property turned out to be more interesting than the last two. A federal judge had practically mass printed warrants for the SOA to raid Westberg’s homes, campaign office, and real estate corporate office once she’d reviewed the certified video of Westberg’s resurrection. Patrick had a feeling she’d also viewed some of the cell phone videos making the rounds on the internet.
Yggdrasil had been seen for miles, a beacon in that storm many people had taken pictures and videos of. The fight was the viral moment of the week, and Patrick was just grateful none of the video was clear enough to make out much of anyone through the snow. As evidence of the Dominion Sect’s intent went, it was fairly damning.
Westberg’s fourth home in Wrigleyville had been bought through several shell companies. Once they made it inside, Patrick understood why Westberg seemed to want to keep his name and affiliation buried beneath layers of paperwork.
The home, when the SOA agents and workers entered, was like a museum of artifacts. It was not something a conservative democrat with a well-known record of personal anti-magic and anti-anything supernatural politician would want to be known for owning.
Westberg had paid quite a small fortune for the home to be warded so no hint of magic would seep past the threshold. Inside, artifacts were displayed as if they were works of art being showcased in a museum. Considering the mix of magic, and the costs of individual wards to keep some of the more malignant artifacts contained, Westberg’s illicit pastime wouldn’t have endeared him to some of his donors.
Benjamin let out a low whistle, making sure to keep his hands to himself as they looked around the living room they found themselves in. “Guess he was living a double life after all.”
“Most politicians do in one way or another,” Kelly said.
“They’re announcing his death at a news conference later today after the family has been notified,” Patrick said, squinting at the glass display case inside a grandfather clock. The gris-gris there looked old, but the magic in its making felt strong.
“His name is still on the ballot. I think it’s too late to remove it since the election is so soon.”
Benjamin pursed his lips. “That’ll make for some messy voting.”
Patrick straightened up and fought back a yawn. “We’ll need a CSU team in here and someone from Archives. Tell them to bring a couple of warded transport vans. This is going to take longer than a day to tag, archive, and remove everything for evidence. Some of this stuff might not even be stable. The containment wards are all overlapping in a real bad way.”
“Maybe Westberg was a shitty archivist,” Kelly said.
“And a shitty politician,” Benjamin added.
“I’ll drink to that once we’re off shift.” Kelly sighed. “I wonder if it’s too much to hope he kept the records for all of this onsite somewhere.”
In Patrick’s experience, people who dealt with the black market rarely kept records. The less incriminating evidence lying around, the better. Patrick didn’t know what Westberg was thinking when he decided to create a veritable museum inside a house.
Three hours later, after clearing every room of any active spells meant to keep people out and do harm, Patrick decided it was all about the money.
During the course of clearing the building, he’d discovered a veritable knot of spells and wards over a portrait of Westberg’s wife in the master bedroom. Judging by the structure of the walls and the layout of the room, he was pretty certain there was a safe behind the portrait.
Getting through to it took two more hours of delicate spellwork performed by a sorceress Patrick was never going to introduce Wade to because the teen didn’t need to know her job existed.
Agent Sasha Kuznetsova, out of Archives, had an affiliation for spell breaking, which, in layman’s terms, meant she was a thief.
“But I’m an approved government thief,” she’d told Patrick with a cheeky grin before getting to work.
Thief or evidence collector, it didn’t matter, because Sasha’s ability to unweave spells got them past the portrait to the safe underneath.
And then Patrick happily blew the lock off with a focused blast spell when it was decided by the higher-ups that waiting for a day to get someone in to crack the electronics on the safe would take too long.
Once they were in, Patrick pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves, ignored how badly he wanted to sleep, and nodded at Sasha. “Ready?”
Sasha picked up her camera. The stack of empty evidence bags for collection purposes, and her clipboard of forms, were on the nearby desk within easy reach. “Let’s get started.”
Inside the safe were stacks of money in various currency, three bars of gold without serial numbers, a hard drive, and a small stack of files that Patrick went for first. Between him and Sasha, they managed to sort and log every file. He flipped through each one, skimming over notes in shorthand that was probably Westberg’s personal code. A few had pictures of items that were probably in the house or maybe in the process of being sold.
In the second to last file, Patrick found a slip of paper that was all too familiar.
The People’s Pawn Shop logo was listed up top on the carbon copy. The name printed and signing over ownership of an invitation was Phoebe Westberg, the cost set in return making Patrick’s eyebrows creep toward his hairline.
“Idols and not money?” Sasha asked, glancing at the carbon copy receipt. “That’s weird.”
“Yeah,” Patrick said in a voice leached of all emotion.
He reached for a small evidence bag, tucked the flimsy paper inside before sealing it, and then slipped it into his jacket pocket. Sasha pointed her pen at him. “That’s evidence.”
“I
know, but it might also be evidence in another case I’m running. Don’t worry, it won’t ever leave my hands. Chain of evidence will remain intact, but I need to take it with me.”
“Where are you going?”
Patrick turned on his heel. “Shopping.”
“I’m driving,” Jono said, taking the keys from Patrick’s hand. “You’re so bloody knackered you might drive off the road.”
“I drove here,” Patrick grumbled.
“Yeah, and I’m surprised you didn’t veer into a snowdrift.”
Patrick rubbed at his eyes, wincing at how dry they were. The warmth of the Chicago god pack’s home was seeping into his bones. If Patrick spent too much longer inside, he’d end up like Wade, who was currently wrapped up in a large blanket, lying in front of the fireplace, with his bare feet in the fire burning there, while playing a game on his phone. A bowl of chips was precariously balanced on his stomach. As Patrick watched, one of Naomi’s god pack members approached him to refill the bowl from a bag of Doritos.
“Wade,” Patrick said.
“What?” Wade asked through a mouthful of chips.
“Don’t get crumbs everywhere.”
“Shows what you know. The crumbs are going in my mouth and nowhere else because chips are tasty.”
Patrick looked at where Naomi and Alejandro stood a little past Jono in the living room. “Sorry, he’s still a little feral.”
“I am not!” Wade protested before diving into his chip bowl again.
“Put your shoes on. We’re getting on the road.”
Wade grumbled but started to unwrap himself from the blanket.
Naomi quirked a faint smile at Patrick. “He’s welcome to stay, as are you.”
Patrick shook his head. “He can eat through room service at the hotel rather than your kitchen.”
“She means the pack, love,” Jono said. Patrick just stared at him, hoping at any moment that sentence would make sense. Jono reached out and settled his hand on the back of Patrick’s neck, reeling him in to kiss him on the forehead. “Members of a traveling god pack usually stay with the local one if they reside in the city or town.”
A Vigil in the Mourning (Soulbound Book 4) Page 29