Cities never fared well when two god packs fought over territory. The NYPD’s Preternatural Crimes Bureau was aware of the burgeoning civil war, and Chief Giovanni Casale wasn’t happy about any of the fighting going on. Patrick had heard from Casale personally about the problem and the NYPD’s concern, which were never fun phone calls to take.
It put Patrick in an uncomfortable position. As a federal agent, he wasn’t supposed to have any overt biases that could impact his cases. Being the co-leader of a god pack—and not having informed anyone other than Setsuna of that fact—was going to be a problem at some point. Patrick risked all the cases he’d worked on for the past year being scrutinized and tossed out when word broke of his pack leadership, but he didn’t have a choice. This was the path the gods had told him to walk, and they didn’t believe in the rule of mortal law, only their own.
“What about you?” Jono asked, reaching out to settle his hand on Patrick’s thigh. “What happened with your meetings? I thought you weren’t coming home until tomorrow?”
Patrick curled his fingers around Jono’s and propped his right elbow against the edge of the window so he could rest his head against his fist. “Setsuna ordered me back early.”
“Why?”
“My grandmother is speaking to some members of Congress today. I had to leave.”
Jono tightened his fingers a little before relaxing his grip. “They still need to think you’re dead?”
Patrick grimaced, staring out the windshield. “Yeah.”
“Do you want to reach out to them?”
“I can’t.”
“But do you want to?”
Patrick opened his mouth to respond, but the words were jumbled in his head. He snapped his mouth shut and stared at the traffic ahead of them on the highway.
“Want is a meaningless desire. That was one of the first things Ashanti ever taught me,” Patrick said slowly.
Jono shook his head. “That’s a load of bollocks.”
“It doesn’t matter. Letting my mother’s side of the family know I’m alive would be a messy distraction I can’t afford right now. We have bigger problems.”
“Like what?”
Patrick straightened up enough that he could dig his cell phone out of his pocket. “Like we need to have a meeting with Lucien before we go home. The government needs his help.”
Jono made an aggravated sound. “Must we? I had plans. They involved you naked and under me.”
Patrick sighed wistfully even as he dialed the latest burner number to reach Carmen. “I’ll let you fuck me after we deal with Lucien.”
“This is why Sage always says you’re terrible at bargains. We should probably have her come with us and do the talking instead of you.”
“You think you’re funny, but you’re not.” Patrick pressed the phone to his ear, listening to it ring. “We can have a pack meeting after Lucien pisses me off.”
The line picked up and Carmen’s sultry voice drifted into his ear. The succubus was Lucien’s partner in all ways, and the face of his business ventures in daylight hours. While Lucien could walk in sunlight without burning—a gift courtesy of Ashanti—he didn’t like to advertise that particularly rare vampire trait.
“How was DC?” Carmen asked.
Patrick made a face even though she couldn’t see it. “Spying on me again?”
“It would be lax of us not to have eyes and ears in the governing bodies of every country we work in.”
“Right. Because you’re on the same scummy level as lobbyists. I need a meeting with Lucien.”
“He’s resting.”
“Then wake him up.”
Carmen’s voice became flat, the protectiveness she felt for Lucien evident in her tone. “He does not answer to you.”
“He can answer to the United States government, who I represent. Tell him General Reed sent me. There’s an offer on the table, and we need to know what he wants in exchange for helping us. We’ll meet you at Ginnungagap in an hour.”
Carmen hummed thoughtfully before ending the call without a word. Patrick pulled his phone away from his ear and scowled at it.
“What’s the offer?” Jono asked.
“We need Lucien to carry the invitation to the auction and buy the Morrígan’s staff,” Patrick said.
“He’ll run off with it.”
“Maybe not.”
“Why can’t you do it?”
“Because I don’t have the background necessary to pull something like that off. There’s a strong possibility Ethan may have warned whoever is running the auction about me, and to be on the lookout for government agents in general.”
Jono sighed. “All right. Where is the auction taking place?”
Patrick glanced over at Jono. “London.”
The way Jono’s grip tightened on the steering wheel said as much as the silence that settled between them. It lasted until they were halfway to the Queens Midtown Tunnel, but Patrick didn’t try to get Jono to talk until he was ready.
“London,” Jono finally said, voice empty of all emotion.
“Yeah. Our intelligence indicates the auction is being held there. Whoever is Medb’s intermediary, they’re selling it in the black market equivalent of Sotheby’s or some shit.”
“Do you have to go?”
“Probably. Lucien needs oversight.”
Jono looked at Patrick over the rims of his sunglasses. “You’re the last person he’d ever obey.”
Patrick snorted. “We’re gonna have to make it worth his while.”
“What’s it going to cost?”
“Not my soul.”
Jono pulled his hand free to smack Patrick lightly on the chest. “You aren’t funny.”
“You love my sense of humor.”
“I love you, even when you’re a right arsehole.”
Patrick didn’t fight the smile that came to his face. Jono’s love was something he didn’t ever want to take for granted, even if he couldn’t bring himself to voice the same words back. A year of being together and Patrick could arguably say he’d found the man he wanted to spend the rest of his life with—if he managed to survive.
“You know, we missed our anniversary dinner because I was in DC,” Patrick said.
Jono turned his attention back on the road. “I thought we agreed it was after summer solstice?”
“Okay, so we missed our pre-anniversary dinner. I still think the first night we met needs to be celebrated.”
They could do without fighting a soultaker, but Patrick wouldn’t be averse to some wall sex.
“We could be celebrating it soon if we didn’t have to go see Lucien.”
Patrick groaned. “Stop reminding me about how much my job sucks.”
It was a means to an end on some days. Paid the bills on others. He was a pawn no matter how one looked at it, and when Jono finally turned down the alley that ran the length of Ginnungagap in Chelsea, Patrick was tired of the overtime already. A familiar motorcycle was parked by the side door ahead of them, which meant Lucien had arrived before them.
“Tell Fenrir not to interfere,” Patrick said as they got out of the car, the summer heat a heavy blanket of mugginess in the air around them.
“Might have better luck with you not having a row with Lucien,” Jono mused.
Patrick shoved him, but Jono barely moved. “Hilarious. Of the two of us, you tend to threaten to tear out Lucien’s throat more than me.”
“Because I have the teeth and claws to do it.” Jono flipped his sunglasses on top of his head, revealing his wolf-bright eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”
The side door was unlocked, the brass plate detailing out the name Ginnungagap gleaming in the sunlight. What lived in the building’s walls was a heavy pressure against Patrick’s shields as they crossed the threshold into a muffled silence that always echoed strangely in his ears. Ginnungagap, the yawning abyss, was a primordial void whose unearthly power reached through the veil to settle here.
Ashanti h
ad made a deal with the Norse pantheon for its use, or so the story went, and out of all her children, she’d left control of it to Lucien. Whether or not he could do anything with it outside of making a club that brought in humans for food and kept out most magic users due to the unsettling feeling Ginnungagap produced in people was up in the air.
Patrick was able to grit his teeth and stand within these walls because he had to. Fenrir was birthed out of the void, and from what Jono had told him, the god considered it a home away from home.
The club lights had all been turned on, chasing away the shadows. The air-conditioning had not. Patrick was sweating by the time they made it over to the bar on the first floor. Carmen sat perched on a stool, wearing jean shorts cut high over her hips, a lacy bandeau, and heeled sandals the same patent leather red as her lipstick and the pupils of her eyes. Her thick, black curly hair was pulled off her neck in a high ponytail, the curled horns of her kind twisted back over her skull. Despite the skimpy outfit, she wasn’t lacking in the weapons department.
The sexual desire all her kind exuded hung in the air like perfume around her. Patrick strengthened his shields against her power and ignored the smirk Carmen directed his way. Naheed, Lucien’s favorite human servant who doubled as Carmen’s bodyguard during daylight hours, stood behind the bar, sipping at a glass of water. The necklace of bite scars circling her throat were courtesy of Lucien’s teeth. The pistol that sat on the wooden counter within easy reach was an extension of her hand whenever she held it.
The master vampire in question still had blood on his lips from feeding off her. Lucien stared at them with black eyes like holes in his pale face, no sclera showing. The black jeans he wore were torn over the knees, and the shirt beneath his leather jacket was more gray than white. His dark hair was messy from the motorcycle helmet sitting on the bar counter.
Lucien had been sired by Ashanti directly, the last child she’d ever made. He was almost a thousand years old, born in the time of William the Conqueror, and better at changing with the times than any of his brethren. Patrick always thought Lucien’s desire for murder stemmed from his stint in that ancient army as much as the hunger for blood that drove him these days.
“I hear Reed can’t get the job done again,” Lucien said from where he lounged against the bar.
“General Reed has always gotten the job done, no thanks to you,” Patrick retorted.
“The battle at Cairo would have ended differently without help from us vampires. Your history books tend to gloss over that fact.” Lucien smiled, revealing sharp, jagged teeth. Vampire teeth weren’t pretty, despite what Hollywood showed on the big screen. “I’m curious what your government wants from me this time.”
Patrick and Jono came to a stop a couple of feet from Lucien. Patrick kept his hands loose by his side, his dagger and magic within easy reach. Despite the alliance they’d brokered with Lucien, Patrick would never trust him.
“We have a lead on the Morrígan’s staff. There’s an auction happening in London. Black market, deep pockets, and run by people like you,” Patrick said.
“There is no one like me.”
“Maybe, but everyone who got invited are all arrogant fucks like you, so you’ll fit right in.”
Lucien didn’t move for several seconds; his chest didn’t rise and fall because the undead had no need to breathe save to speak. When he finally did, he sounded viciously amused. “You want to use my name.”
Patrick nodded. “They’ll see me coming a mile off. Anyone the PIA tries to send in will get made, probably killed, and I’d bet good money the police would find their body dumped in the Thames. People who run in those kinds of circles know each other. They don’t trust outsiders.”
“And you think they will know me?”
“Everyone who matters in the shadows of the preternatural world knows you. If you walk into that auction carrying the invitation, they won’t question it. You’re a believable buyer.”
“All I hear is a job. I’m not hearing an offer.”
Patrick grimaced. “Price isn’t an issue. Whatever you want, the government will pay.”
Lucien didn’t react, but Carmen sat up straighter, a slow smile curving her mouth. “Carte blanche is a dangerous offer. Your president must be desperate.”
“The government believes Ethan getting control of the Morrígan’s staff is a worse situation than whatever threat your Night Court poses,” Patrick said.
“You don’t know what I’d demand in payment,” Lucien said.
“If it is within the government’s ability to pay, then they will pay it.”
Carmen slid off the barstool and sauntered closer to Lucien. She wrapped an arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. “We won’t be asking for money.”
“Got enough dosh?” Jono asked. “That’s a first. I thought you were the greedy sort?”
Lucien blinked slowly, a sleepy-eyed predator hunting for prey. “Money is useful, and I have a lot of it. What I don’t have is the legal freedom to walk upon these shores.”
Patrick stared at Lucien before shaking his head. “I thought you didn’t care about pieces of paper that confer rights on a person?”
Lucien draped one arm around Carmen’s shoulders. “I don’t, but you humans do.”
“I’m pretty sure the government would draw the line at handing over a state or two for you to rule. Us Americans are allergic to monarchies in this country.”
“If your government wants my help, then it will let me and my Night Court remain in the United States without being arrested or spied on. I’ll take that guarantee in writing.” Lucien smirked. “Consider it diplomatic immunity.”
“So you want the government to just look the other way every time you break the law?” Patrick asked incredulously.
“It can’t be a difficult task,” Carmen said. “They do it for you.”
Patrick wanted to argue that wasn’t true, but he’d be lying if he did. Setsuna did her best to cover for him while he followed the gods’ orders, but even she had limits. So far, his ability to get the job done despite the property destruction was enough of a defense against the resentment he ran into. He knew that wouldn’t hold up forever.
“Diplomatic immunity. Right. I’ll pass it along,” Patrick said.
“You have twenty-four hours,” Lucien said.
Patrick scowled. “That’s not enough time to make the government agree on anything.”
Lucien smiled, fangs pricking his pale lips, all the blood licked clean. “Twenty-four hours. If my terms aren’t met, then the deal is off the table and you lose the staff.”
“You lose your food if the Dominion Sect turns Earth into a brand-new hell,” Jono shot back.
“Then consider the deadline an incentive to get shit done.”
Patrick dug out his cell phone and dialed Setsuna’s latest burner phone number. The signal wasn’t the best inside Ginnungagap, but it eventually connected. When the line rang, he hung up. He repeated the action two more times before calling a fourth time and staying on the line. It picked up after the fifth ring.
“I’m about to leave for a hearing. Make it quick,” Setsuna said.
“My criminal informant will agree to show up if we give them diplomatic immunity. The deal is on the table for twenty-four hours,” Patrick said, giving the news in the bland descriptions like they’d agreed on. They were risking a phone call now because they didn’t have time for Patrick to fly back and forth as a courier.
Setsuna sucked in a sharp breath. “Understood. I’ll relay the terms.”
She hung up and Patrick shoved his phone back into his pocket. He raised an eyebrow at Lucien. “Happy?”
“We’ll let our lawyer take a look at whatever contract the government comes up with,” Carmen said.
“You have a lawyer on retainer?”
“Don’t sound so shocked. Anyone can be bought for the right price.”
“We’re buying you,” Lucien pointed out.
�
��The hell you’re buying me. I’ve been off the market since I was eight,” Patrick said.
Lucien slipped free of Carmen’s arms, sauntering toward them. Jono took a step forward, not getting in the way of Patrick’s line of sight, but making his presence known nonetheless. Jono and Lucien had gone toe-to-toe several times in the past, both of them fighting to a draw.
“Twenty-four hours,” Lucien said, keeping his attention on Patrick. “Now get out of my fucking club.”
Patrick turned his back on Lucien when smarter people never did. He knew Jono would keep him safe. He also knew Lucien was bound by a promise he’d made to his mother to keep Patrick alive in the fight against the Dominion Sect.
Patrick still expected to be stabbed in the back one day.
Jono’s footsteps behind him drew closer until they were walking side by side. They left Ginnungagap for the muggy heat outside, city noises rushing back into his ears once they crossed the threshold. Patrick pulled the collar of his T-shirt away from his scarred chest, trying to get some air flowing against his skin.
“We should get everyone together for a pack meeting,” Patrick said.
Jono beeped the alarm off and opened the driver’s-side door while Patrick looped around to the other side. Jono looked over the top of the car at him. “Do you want to call them, or should I?”
“You drive. I’ll call.”
“Where are we meeting them?”
“Marek’s place. It won’t be as crowded.”
Their two-bedroom apartment in a Chelsea brownstone could handle their close group of friends, but Patrick had been cooped up in committee rooms and airplanes for the past week. He wanted space, and Marek owned an entire Art Deco building in the Upper East Side. Pack meetings were easier to conduct there when they needed to include people other than the four that made up their god pack.
“Everyone’s working,” Jono reminded him.
“Not anymore.”
Sometimes pack business had to come first.
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On the Wings of War (Soulbound Book 5) Page 3