The fae in the white corset who had greeted them climbed up to the stage and tottered over to the small table situated near the podium where Rossiter stood. She sat in the chair there and opened up a leather-bound tome.
Rossiter leaned his weight against the podium and adjusted the microphone, smiling widely at the crowd. “Welcome to the Auction of Curiosities and Exceptional Items. I hope all of you have managed to ascertain which object is your heart’s desire. Be advised that I have some items up for bid which were held back from the viewing hour. Don’t forget to save some of your money for those.”
Rossiter gestured for his aides to come forward. A woman held aloft a golden birdcage with a fledgling phoenix inside it, flickers of fire burning at the tips of its tail feathers. It looked small and depressed, hiding its face and beak beneath one trembling wing.
“We’ll start with Lot 809137, a baby phoenix found in the Carpathian Mountains. Bidding shall begin at one million pounds sterling,” Rossiter said. “Do I have one million?”
His approach wasn’t rapid-fire, but he kept the momentum moving, coaxing a bid price out of a buyer that would’ve made even Marek raise an eyebrow. The fledgling phoenix was moved offstage, the buyer’s number written down in the record-keeping book, and the next item was brought up.
Rossiter kept things moving, raking in an amount of money in one hour that most people wouldn’t see in ten lifetimes. Patrick noticed the necromancer, like Lucien, didn’t bid on anything that had come up for auction so far—not until the Morrígan’s staff was carried onto the stage.
It took two aides to carry a long, heavy iron box onto the stage and set it down on the display table there. The woman who had been showing off items had exchanged her white cotton gloves for steel gauntlets this time around. The wards on the iron box glowed when Rossiter hissed out a set of command triggers in no language found on Earth, keeping clear of the box.
Patrick leaned forward when the woman lifted the Morrígan’s staff free of its confinement. He wasn’t the only one. Even through his shields Patrick could sense the deep, primordial power emanating from the staff. It set his teeth on edge.
The Morrígan’s staff looked exactly like the picture General Reed had shown Patrick last summer. The wooden staff was long, with a tip shod in iron and the dull quartz crystal at the head surrounded by twisted Celtic knotwork depicting leaves, ravens, and three phases of the moon linked together.
The aide was careful to keep the staff at arm’s length from her body, ensuring the iron tip pointed away from Rossiter. Iron would always be deadly to the fae, and Patrick thought it odd that the weapon of a Celtic war goddess would be made with some. Maybe it was supposed to be a deterrent to thieves, but that hadn’t helped much since it had gone missing decades ago.
“I did mention items that had not been put up for show,” Rossiter said with a wide smile as he angled his body toward the staff. “This is one such item. Made for the hands of a goddess, filled with magic that can be yours for a price, the staff is a work of priceless art perfect for any discerning collector. I’ll start the bidding at ten million pounds sterling.”
Lucien raised his number, looking almost bored. “Fifteen million.”
Ilya quickly lifted his own number. “Twenty million.”
“Thirty million,” someone behind them shouted.
“Forty million,” Lucien countered.
Ilya’s voice rang out again. “Fifty million.”
The price kept rising, and Patrick internally winced. Whatever number the staff sold at was going to be astronomical, and when Congress found out, he knew it wasn’t going to be pretty.
The shouts of bid amounts tapered off after a few minutes until it was only Lucien and Ilya calling out their bids. When it reached five hundred million pounds sterling, with no signs of stopping, Patrick thought he was going to crack a tooth from stress.
Turned out Rossiter was ready to do it for him.
“That is more than I actually thought anyone would be willing to pay,” Rossiter said in between bids, momentarily putting a stop to the one-upmanship going on. “Interesting to know this is the only item you both came here for.”
“I have half a billion pounds sterling more to spend,” Lucien said, staring Rossiter down. “Keep going.”
Rossiter smiled in a way that stretched his lips nearly to the sides of his head, like someone had cut through flesh and elongated his mouth. “No, I don’t think so. I think this is one item I’ll keep.”
The werecreatures surrounding the buyers moved, going in for the kill.
Einar shoved Patrick backward, causing his folding chair to tip over. The only reason he didn’t crack his head on the ground was because Spencer caught him. Patrick flailed for a couple of seconds before Spencer hauled them both to their feet amidst the melee that had sprung up around them, spurred by the London god pack’s surprise brutal attack on the auction buyers.
“Motherfucker,” Spencer snarled, a dark green mageglobe burning into existence by his shoulder. Fatima yowled at his feet, guarding his six, tail lashing back and forth.
Einar had put himself between Cressida and Lucien, but going toe-to-toe against a werecreature carrying a demon in her soul was a good way for Einar to end up permanently dead. Carmen had pulled her wooden telescoping aconite rod from somewhere—Patrick didn’t want to think about where she’d hidden it—and had put her back to Lucien’s.
“Exorcise the fucking demon,” Patrick snapped as he yanked his dagger free from its sheath.
White heavenly fire burned around the matte-black blade, drawing both Cressida’s and Rossiter’s attention. Rossiter reacted first, yanking the scarf free from his neck to reveal an ugly, rotten line encircling his throat. The smell of gangrenous flesh hit the air, and Patrick almost gagged.
The screams of people dying around them intermingled with the howls of werecreatures, flickering bursts of magic as people defended themselves, and the yells of people urging their compatriots to run.
But there was no running from what Rossiter was, or the alliance he’d formed with the demon riding Cressida’s soul.
Rossiter leaped from the stage into the crowd, landing somewhere behind Patrick. He thought the fae had miscalculated the distance, but when Patrick spun around, he realized that wasn’t true.
Rossiter slammed a man in a white robe to the ground with brutal strength. Kalid’s terrified face stared back at Patrick for just a moment. Then Rossiter punched a fist into Kalid’s back, and the man screamed, the sound cutting off with a gurgle when the fae tore Kalid’s spine out of his body in one gruesome pull.
The line of vertebrae ripped free, taking the skull with it, eyes still in their sockets hanging by thin nerves. Kalid’s skin sheared free from the force of the pull, and what was left of his body fell to the floor, his white robe turned red. Rossiter snapped the spine like a whip as he turned, spraying the undulating crowd of fighters and dead people with blood. Then he reached up with his free hand to grip his hair and pull.
Rotten skin stretched and tore, peeling apart like rancid fruit. Bone cracked and broke as Rossiter removed his head from his body, holding it aloft in his hand, smiling nightmarishly wide as blood stained his suit. Sickly yellow magic slithered down the human spine he carried, covering every inch of stolen bone.
“I will see you into a grave,” Rossiter said as he strode forward, stepping on the dead.
16
“What the fuck is that?” Spencer yelled, tossing a chair out of his way.
“The Dullahan,” Patrick replied.
“Fuck that shit. Give me the dead over creepy-ass fae any day of the week.”
Patrick wrenched open the soulbond, pouring his magic through the connection to reach deep below London for the ley lines running beneath the ancient city. They burned like a live wire to his senses as he manipulated the wild magic into the shape of half a dozen mageglobes.
Jono would know something was wrong, but Patrick didn’t know if Nadine would be s
trong enough to get through the magic wrapped around Smithfield Market. He couldn’t worry about that right now, because they needed to get the staff. Retrieving it was going to be a difficult task to do while fighting off werecreatures, a Dullahan, and the banshee the records-keeping fae turned out to be.
The banshee’s face was nothing like the one she’d worn while greeting them at the entrance. It was grotesque, misshapen, with slate-gray eyes that had no pupils and a too-large mouth. She attacked the frightened aide holding the staff and sent the weapon skidding across the stage, intent on ripping free the steel gauntlets from the woman’s hands. From the way the woman screamed, it sounded as if the banshee had ripped off her hands with them.
Patrick surged forward, intent on retrieving the staff before anyone else could, but didn’t get far. The banshee threw back her head and screamed, the preternatural sound high-pitched and agonizing.
Patrick jerked, his entire body vibrating from the wail that seemed to make the air shimmer around them. Then a dark blur slammed into Patrick with what could’ve been bone-breaking force if he didn’t expand his personal shields to keep claws from ripping into his skin. He hit the floor with a grunt, skidding a few feet before slamming into a pile of tipped-over chairs.
Wolf-bright blue eyes glared down at him as sharp fangs bit at his shields, causing sparks to ripple through the air. Patrick didn’t have much space to move, but it was more than enough to twist his right hand so his dagger pointed upward. He slammed it through his shield into the werewolf’s belly with a grunt. The blade cut deep, sinking into flesh with burning ease.
The werewolf howled at a pitch that rivaled the banshee’s wail before staggering off the dagger and away from Patrick. Blood gave shape to his personal shields for a second before he was on his feet again. Movement through the air forced Patrick to jump aside from the crashing hit of the Dullahan’s whip.
Kalid’s skull slammed into the spot where Patrick had stood, Rossiter’s magic keeping the bone intact. It had lost the eyes, and bits of brain were forced out of the eye sockets from the impact. Patrick ducked under the reverse whip strike, going to one knee and flinging a mageglobe at Rossiter. The Dullahan knocked his magic aside, the explosion of raw magic ripping through the air between them.
Patrick sought to use that brief respite to get to the stage but found his way blocked by Cressida, fingers dripping with blood he hoped didn’t belong to any of Lucien’s vampires. Patrick would never hear the end of it if that were the case.
“Spencer!” Patrick yelled, pointing his dagger at Cressida and thrusting his other hand with a mageglobe spinning at his fingertips toward Rossiter. “A little help here!”
“Not much without your pack, are you, Patrick?” Cressida growled. “I know it’s you beneath that face you’re wearing.”
“And I know you have a demon riding your soul.”
Cressida’s smile got wider, flashing her fangs, but the smug superiority vanished from her face when Fatima landed in between her and Patrick. The psychopomp yowled at her, a chill emanating from the ocelot-shaped spirit guide that made Patrick shiver.
“Watch my six,” Spencer demanded as he dodged around one of Lucien’s vampires to reach them. “This is going to take all my attention.”
Beyond Cressida, the banshee had quit wailing and was being protected from Lucien’s Night Court by several werecreatures. When Patrick tossed a mageglobe in their direction, a foreign one came out of nowhere to crash into his before it reached his target. Both exploded in midair, the sound deafening in the enclosed area.
Patrick’s head snapped around. Ilya stood within the protective circle of his followers, arms outstretched, ochre-colored magic glittering at his fingertips. Their eyes met across the fight-filled corridor, and Patrick gripped his dagger tighter.
The werecreatures got the banshee off the stage with preternatural speed under cover of magic and dragged her into the midst of the fighting all around them. Patrick’s attention drifted for only a second, but it was long enough for Ilya to disappear with the help of magic.
Patrick’s stomach twisted. If Ilya got to it first, they were fucked.
If the Dominion Sect representatives got to it first, everyone was fucked.
The Morrígan’s staff was still in the banshee’s possession, and they needed to steal it back. The only problem was Patrick refused to leave Spencer to fend for himself in the middle of a life-or-death fight against a high-ranked demon from hell. The gods would probably denounce his decision, but Patrick wasn’t going to turn his back on one of the few people he considered a friend.
He’d lost enough over the years.
“Fucking shit,” Patrick snarled, standing shoulder to shoulder with Spencer as he turned his attention to Rossiter. “Someone get that goddamn staff!”
Rossiter cracked the bone whip again, a cackling laugh escaping his too-wide mouth. His severed neck kept spilling blood down his suit, staining the fabric in a macabre way, while his head swung back and forth in his hand like some horrific lantern.
Patrick expanded his shields to surround himself and Spencer, tapping the ley line through the soulbond to power it. Spencer’s dark green magic haloed his entire body, swirls of power that twisted between him and Fatima as he raised his hands toward Cressida, a single mageglobe burning between them.
“I cast you out from the mortal plane, demon,” Spencer said in the face of Cressida’s wordless, furious snarl as she lunged for them.
Patrick glanced over his shoulder in time to see Cressida caught in midair by brightly swirling lines of magic that twisted into the shape of a fiery pentagon. Her arms, legs, and head were wrenched toward each of the five points as three concentric circles expanded outward to contain her. The circles started to spin as Fatima got to all four paws, gray mist twisting around her.
Then a wave of power crashed through the area, and all Patrick could smell was sulfur as the demon in Cressida fought against Spencer’s magic with a strength that shook the ground.
“You have no power over me,” the demon raged, using Cressida’s mouth to speak.
Her body twisted in the binding spell Spencer held her in, skin bulging as if she were going to shift forms but couldn’t. Spencer squared his shoulders, and Patrick could sense how his soul opened in a way that made Patrick not want to be near him.
Spencer felt like death—empty and cold—even as he channeled magic through his soul.
“I cast you out,” Spencer commanded. His words came out harsh and shredded, magic spinning around himself and where Cressida floated in the air with enough power Patrick’s hair stood on end.
Flashes of black magic skittered over Cressida’s body, and the demon screamed. Patrick’s attention was wrenched away from Spencer’s attempt to carve a demon out of a human soul by the crash of the Dullahan’s bone whip against his shields. The hit vibrated through his magic all the way to his soul, and Patrick swore, readjusting his grip on his dagger.
His shields wavered, fae magic slicing into them over and over again with each strike of the bone whip. Rossiter’s head was still clenched in his left hand, mouth gaping wide and eyes staring right at Patrick. Around them, the auction buyers were still fighting for their lives, but the London god pack was getting pushed onto the defensive. The buyers had retaliated with what innate magic some of them had to save their own lives and, like Carmen, smuggled weaponry.
Then the dead rose.
“Uh, Spencer,” Patrick said, staring past Rossiter at where broken and viciously clawed bodies were jerkily getting to their feet.
Spencer ignored him. Cressida’s screams were guttural in a way that spoke of something else being channeled through her. The sound mingled with the banshee’s scream somewhere in that melee, and Patrick’s ears rang painfully from the noise.
“Spencer, there are motherfucking zombies walking around!”
The other man ignored him, all of Spencer’s focus on trying to exorcise the demon from Cressida’s soul. Spencer’s jaw
was clenched together so hard the tendons in his neck stood out, body rigid as he fought against a demon from hell. His entire focus was on breaking apart Cressida’s soul, and he had no attention to spare for the fight around them.
He normally never blocked out the world like this, and that worried Patrick. Right now, Spencer’s focus and power were both a strength and a liability, but Patrick wasn’t going to leave his side.
“Lucien!” Patrick yelled. “Where’s the fucking staff?”
He didn’t get an answer. He didn’t know where Lucien was, but Patrick hoped the bloodsucking bastard was keeping his side of the bargain.
Patrick spun up a mageglobe, filled it with a strike spell, and pushed it through his shields straight at Rossiter’s chest. The Dullahan was thrown back by the force of the explosion, slamming into a pile of folding chairs. He skidded over the floor and crashed into the metal security gate covering a display area. Patrick hoped he was dead, but the sickly magic lining the bone whip never faded, which spoke of shields saving the headless bastard.
Then what was left of Kalid stumbled toward them, body bent over at the hips, robe more red than white, the loose flesh of his face dragging against the floor with every step the zombie took. Behind him came more of the walking dead, but Patrick didn’t know where the fuck the necromancer was. As much as he wanted to do a wide strike spell, that would damage Smithfield Market more than they could afford, and it would put Lucien’s Night Court at risk.
Patrick added another layer to his shields as the zombies converged, powered by the souls of the dead, not deterred by magic in the least. Without shields, they’d tear a man to pieces in minutes, their strength backed by black magic. Fighting zombies was almost like fighting a hydra—you cut down one, but it never stayed dead, and everyone who died was fair game to be raised.
On the Wings of War (Soulbound Book 5) Page 20