A Vigil in the Mourning

by Hailey Turner

  The slightly blurry image of Jono standing with Leon and Austin in the playground, surrounded by Jamere’s vampires, made Jono’s breath catch in the back of his throat.

  Bloody hell.

  Maybe he should’ve brought Sage after all, filing deadline or not.

  “Now,” Casale said grimly. “The Brooklyn Night Court will say they were guarding their borders. That’s been their excuse for decades. The law says they have every right to do so, whether undead or not, within reason, especially in the face of hunters. What’s your excuse?”

  “Thought this was supposed to be a friendly chat?” Jono said slowly, staring at the photographs.

  “Murder isn’t friendly.”

  Jono looked away from the photographs to meet Casale’s gaze. “Did you ask me to come down so you could arrest me?”

  Casale shook his head. “The hunter died in vampire territory. They’ll claim self-defense all the way to the courts. I have detectives working the case who will talk to Jamere and take down whatever story he chooses to give us. You’re the outlier in this mess. I want to know what you were doing there and who is with you in the picture.”

  Jono straightened up, glad he had an easy answer to that question. “No.”

  “No isn’t going to cut it.”

  “No, I’m not telling you who was with me. They’re a pack under my protection, and they’re granted their right to privacy under federal law.”

  Casale frowned, tapping a finger against the table in a slow metronome. “So the rumors are true about you forming a second god pack.”

  Jono stood, and Casale didn’t tell him to sit back down. “I think we’re done.”

  “I think we’re just getting started.” Casale stared at him. “Or you are.”

  “And if I am?”

  “A civil war is never bloodless or victimless.”

  Jono smiled bitterly, thinking of Wade and the few werecreatures they’d saved from Tremaine last August. Of the packs who kept coming to Tempest looking for a drink and someone to save them.

  “Certain people think I’m a problem.” Jono nodded at the pictures. “Jamere didn’t.”

  “Vampires aren’t friendly with your kind.”

  “They’re friendly enough with me.”

  “Since when?”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  Casale shook his head slowly. “No.”

  “Then we’re done here. Call Sage next time you want to have a little chat with me.”

  Casale stood, the lines around his mouth deepening as he frowned. “New York City doesn’t need a civil war.”

  Jono headed for the door. “Sometimes war is inevitable, mate.”

  He half thought he’d be arrested once he left the room, but Jono only got the odd look or two from some of the detectives seated at their desks in the bull room. One of them got to her feet, waving at him to follow her toward the exit.

  “I’ll escort you out,” Detective Specialist Allison Ramirez said.

  “Cheers,” Jono said.

  Jono didn’t feel comfortable until he was outside the heavily warded building that housed the PCB in Lower Manhattan, breathing in cold winter air. He pulled his mobile out of his pocket and was about to ring his ride when a familiar Escalade pulled to the curb. The window rolled down halfway, and Emma stared at him from behind the steering wheel. The accusation in her gaze hadn’t faded since Ginnungagap.

  “Get in,” she said flatly.

  Jono bit back a wince. “Where did Leon go?”

  “We swapped babysitting duties.” Someone honked in the street behind her and she scowled. “Get in, Jono.”

  Jono climbed into the SUV and buckled up. Emma took her foot off the brake and stepped on the gas. She didn’t look at him.

  “Leon and I were supposed to go to Queens,” Jono said.

  “We swapped that duty, too.”

  Jono stretched out his legs and stared straight ahead. He knew why Emma was angry, that the row he could feel building was inevitable, but he figured the place to start was “I’m sorry.”

  Emma gripped the steering wheel so tight her knuckles went white. She clenched her jaw, muscles standing out in her slim throat. “I hate how your secrets keep getting doled out when we least expect it.”

  “They aren’t just my secrets, Em.”

  “This one is.” Emma flicked the turn signal before the next light, waiting to turn left. “Sage said she found out in December when you were all past the veil in Tír na nÓg and you told her not to tell us.”

  “You can’t be mad at her for keeping my secret.”

  “You’ve had an animal-god patron guiding you since you were infected. Do you know how fucking rare that is? More than half the packs in the United States have stopped believing in them. The power they bring is just myths these days.”

  “Did it look like I was carrying a myth?” Jono asked quietly.

  Emma snorted. “I’m assuming Patrick knows?”

  “He’s known since last summer.” Jono leaned his head back against the headrest and grimaced. “Ethan knows because he saw what was in my soul in preparation for his sacrifice. Lucien and Carmen found out when I left to get Patrick after he’d stayed at the Crimson Diamond to save Kennedy in August. Gerard and Keith know because they were there with us in the Spring Queen’s Court when I reinforced our bargain with the fae. Now you and Leon know.”

  “Ethan knows?” Emma asked after half a minute of silence.

  Jono closed his eyes and tried not to think about that time spent in Ethan’s hands. “He knew, somehow, about Fenrir, or that the gods were going to give me to Patrick. Either way, it made me a target at the time.”

  Emma didn’t speak again until they were driving north on the FDR, heading for Queensboro Bridge. “It kind of feels like you don’t want us to know anything.”

  “I…” Jono’s voice trailed off, and he opened his eyes, staring blankly at the red taillights stretched out before them. Evening rush-hour traffic was fucking terrible no matter the city. “Fenrir didn’t speak to me until after I got infected with the werevirus. I was making a right mess of things in London at the time. Then I woke up one day with his voice in my head and his claws in my soul and he wouldn’t leave.”

  “Did Marek know? When he went to London to bring you here?”

  Jono turned his head, staring at Emma’s profile limned in the faint shine of headlights and taillights. “No. He never mentioned Fenrir when he made his offer.”

  “Maybe he knew and just never said anything. Like you.”

  “Em.” Jono rubbed tiredly at his face. “Is this going to be a problem?”

  “You lying?”

  “Me obeying the gods because I had no bloody choice.”

  Some of the anger seemed to dissipate in her scent, her slim shoulders slumping. “I just don’t know why you couldn’t trust us.”

  Jono reached over and slid his hand beneath the thick fall of her hair to curl his fingers around the back of her neck. “I’ve trusted you since the day you picked me up from the airport when I first arrived. That’s never going to change. This wasn’t about trusting you, but about keeping you and the rest of your pack safe.”

  He took a breath, catching when the rest of her anger drained away into frustrated sadness, the sting of it making Jono swallow. Emma took her eyes off the road for a split second to glance his way, huffing out a sigh.

  “We told you for years we’d follow you.”

  Jono tapped his fingers against her spine before pulling back. “I know, but Patrick wasn’t here yet.”

  “Have you told him about what’s happened this week?”

  “No.”

  Emma rolled her eyes and focused on the road. “You’re in for a world of hurt with that one when you finally do. My couch is ready for your dumb ass.”

  “Ta,” Jono said wryly.

  The tension that had been between them since leaving Ginnungagap finally disappeared on the drive to Queens. Jono was grateful for the respit
e. He knew he’d been a shit friend over that decision, but he also knew he’d been in the right. He hadn’t been in any position to challenge anyone before Patrick showed up in New York City last year.

  Their lives had become a right mess since then, but Jono didn’t regret the path they were walking. He had a home and a pack now, just like Marek had promised. Jono wasn’t giving those up without a fight.

  Emma switched on the satellite radio and picked a music station at random. They didn’t talk much on the drive into Queens, but Jono didn’t mind. Traffic meant their progress was slow, but Emma eventually pulled off onto NY-25A, following it to Jackson Heights. The Queens neighborhood was blocks of residential buildings and a destination for middle-class families looking to escape the high costs of Manhattan.

  Several packs called Jackson Heights home, two of whom had asked Jono for protection. After the mess the other night, Jono had pushed back this meeting until he’d fully healed from being poisoned. Victoria’s potions had done their job, and while Jono felt better, he wasn’t keen on a repeat of the other night.

  Which was why he and Emma weren’t immediately heading for the packs, but to negotiate borders with Rajesh, the master vampire of the Queens Night Court.

  Lucien owned the Manhattan Night Court and held brutal influence over the rest of the Night Courts in the five boroughs. He wasn’t one to be crossed without consequences. Jono knew the master vampires outside Manhattan worked cautiously with Lucien when they had to, and tried to steer clear of him when they didn’t.

  An alliance with Lucien wasn’t a guarantee of compliance from the other Night Courts though, but Jono would be damned if he didn’t leverage Lucien’s reputation to get what he wanted. Namely, some bloody fucking reprieve for the packs under his protection when it came to borders brushing up against vampire-held territory and interference from Estelle and Youssef’s god pack.

  “Huh,” Emma said, breaking through his thoughts.

  Jono blinked, recognizing that furious tone in her voice. “What is it?”

  “Pretty sure we have a tail. That black Honda Civic has been following us since we got on the FDR.”

  Jono looked at the rearview mirror and the side mirror, picking out the car in question—two vehicles back, in the next lane over. He squinted, vision sharpening as he tried to make out who the driver was.

  “You think it’s a hunter?” Emma asked.

  “No,” Jono said slowly, catching the faintest gleam of amber in the driver’s eyes. “God pack.”

  “They could have hunters in the back seat or following us in another car.”

  Jono knew that was a possibility they couldn’t ignore. “Let’s get to our destination.”

  Jackson Heights was a sea of red-bricked apartment buildings and the occasional storefront. Most of it could have doubled for suburbia in a midsized town if one squinted. People lived out here to escape Manhattan rents and to still keep the cultural experience of a big city. There was a specific block of apartment buildings that Jono knew belonged to the Queens Night Court and which housed a good portion of their willing human servants.

  It was also, while not neutral territory, a potential kill box Jono was willing to risk to make a point.

  Emma sped up, taking the next corner sharply on a yellow light. The car following them ran the red, and Jono kept an eye on it in the mirrors. Then a faint blur on a passing rooftop caught Jono’s attention, and he angled his head to peer upward.

  “Got company,” he said.

  Emma scowled. “Hold on. Two more blocks.”

  She drove the Escalade like it was one of her many sports cars—fast, professionally, and with only half a thought to speed laws. Jono undid his seat belt and kept the fingers of his other hand resting against the door handle. Emma turned off the street into the entrance of the car park situated in the center of the block between apartment buildings, getting out of sight of the general public.

  Three cars followed after them, either not knowing or not caring about where they were. The second Emma braked to a halt, Jono was out of the vehicle, facing the car coming at them head-on. The driver didn’t brake to a stop so much as was forced to a stop by the vampire who landed on the bonnet. The front of the car crumpled from the landing, his weight heavy enough that it caused the rear wheels to momentarily lift up before crashing back down. Brakes screeched as the other two other cars came to a stop, their passengers getting out.

  Jono glanced up, eyes barely able to track movement against the clouds. Shadows blurred down from the rooftops, landing on the cement hard enough to crack it. The circle of vampires that surrounded them in the car park had Emma throwing herself out of the SUV, coming to stand by Jono’s side.

  Rajesh straightened up on the car he’d landed on, the dastaar of the Sikh religion he wore a deep, dark red. Then he moved, and the god pack werecreature behind the wheel of the car was dragged screaming through the windshield, shattered glass sticking out of her skin where it had broken off.

  “Hands off!” Nicholas Kavanaugh snarled as he got out of the back seat of the damaged car.

  Rajesh held the woman up by her throat, sharp fingernails cutting into skin and veins with preternatural force behind them before she could strike back or even shift. Blood poured over his fingers and down his wrist, soaking into the fabric of the jacket he wore. He easily dodged her weak attempts to fight back.

  “You’re trespassing,” Rajesh hissed right before he tore out the woman’s throat and then slammed her face-first down into the jagged metal of the damaged boot.

  Nicholas snarled loudly, the bones in his face shifting a little, but he didn’t move.

  Rajesh let the woman go and jumped off the car; she never moved again. The vampire eyed Nicholas with disdain before turning to face Jono. He licked the blood off his hands with slow swipes of his tongue as he paced forward.

  “I prefer human blood, but I’m never one to turn down werecreatures when they breach my territory,” Rajesh said.

  “Would’ve given you a ring, but I didn’t have your number,” Jono said.

  “This is not your territory.”

  “Two of the packs under my protection reside in Queens. I’ve come to ensure they’re protected from you”—Jono nodded in Nicholas’ direction—“and from them.”

  “Those packs have been exiled and need to leave New York. The god pack alphas ordered it,” Nicholas said.

  Rajesh bared his fangs in a hard smile as he stared at Jono. “Did you?”

  “My packs aren’t leaving. I’m here to talk borders,” Jono said.

  Nicholas stepped forward. “That fucker isn’t in charge.”

  Rajesh held up his bloody hand to Nicholas, but he never took his eyes off Jono. “Wasn’t talking to you. One more word and I’ll take your tongue in payment.”

  It was telling that Nicholas shut up. He might be the dire of Estelle and Youssef’s god pack, but whatever treaties they’d managed to secure with the vampires when Tremaine was in charge had been ripped to shreds when Lucien took over.

  Jono stood his ground. “Heard from Lucien, have you?”

  Rajesh lowered his hand, flicking blood off his fingers onto the cement. “That one acts as the mouth to our mother. Disobedience earns us no favors.”

  Clever teeth, Fenrir growled in his mind.

  Jono could admit the lie Lucien was telling as truth formed a sound enough story. Jono was mindful of Patrick’s stories, of his guilt over the dead and how the world hadn’t yet learned of Ashanti’s death. He was aware of how her children still prayed to a goddess who would never hear their words again.

  “Then I suppose we’re going to have ourselves a chat. I have something to attend to first.”

  Jono moved past Rajesh and stalked toward Nicholas, not fazed by the god pack werecreatures who formed a protective half circle around the other man. Jono stopped in front of them, staring at Nicholas over their shoulders.

  “You’ve been sniffing around the packs who are my responsibili
ty,” Jono said.

  “They’ve been ordered to leave,” Nicholas said.

  “They came to me, asking for protection yours never gave them. My law rules them, not any of yours.” Jono’s fingers twitched, the shift from nails to claws a subtle change that came easier now that he was healed. “Your pack put a contract out on my head with the Krossed Knights. I’d be flattered, but I don’t hold with consorting with demons.”

  Nicholas’ gaze cut away to the vampires who had them surrounded. “Seems you’re consorting with them just fine.”

  “The undead aren’t demons. Right bloody bastards, but the hells want nothing to do with them, unlike your masters.” Jono nodded at the car with the body buried in its boot. “Take your dead and get out. You come sniffing about my packs and I’ll let the Night Courts have their way with you.”

  “The Night Courts—”

  “Have an understanding with me and mine. They aren’t the only ones. You tell Estelle and Youssef if they want a fight, then they’ll have one. Now get the fuck out.”

  Jono turned his back on them and walked with a measured stride back to where Emma stood. She kept her attention on the werecreatures behind him, fingers flexing, the claws at the tips curved and sharp.

  “What about the car Rajesh crunched?” she asked.

  “Not our problem,” Jono said.

  “It’s got evidence on it.”

  “It will be dealt with,” Rajesh replied.

  Emma glanced his way, shoulders tight. She smelled angry, which was better than fear or stress. “Surprised the cops aren’t here.”

  Rajesh licked blood off his jagged teeth, watching as Nicholas and the god pack members that had come with him got back in their remaining vehicles and fled the scene. “No one who lives here will call them, and the cops know better than to get in my way when I protect my territory.”

  Jono wondered if any of the police were on the take. Considering how long Rajesh had laid claim to Queens, the NYPD probably had a whole set of rules when patrolling to not piss off the master vampire.