Bodies, skeletons, it didn’t matter. The souls of the dead could animate flesh as well as bones.
Patrick raised his dagger and poured magic into another mageglobe, readying himself to step through his shields and fight them off. He never got the chance.
Hellish power crashed through Smithfield Market with a ferocity that cracked Patrick’s shields, drove Spencer to his knees, and knocked everyone else—whether they were dead or alive—to the ground. The spells surrounding the building shattered—and Jono’s furious howl echoed through the air.
Patrick slapped another layer over his wavering shields, drawing more magic from the ley line below through the soulbond. He ignored the zombies getting back to their feet or leg stumps, more concerned about Spencer, who looked so pale the skin on his face seemed translucent.
“Spencer,” Patrick bit out, kneeling to wrap an arm around his friend’s shoulders and offer support.
“I cast you out,” Spencer said, eyes wide and unseeing and filled with an inner cloudiness Patrick didn’t like.
Fatima exploded in light, wispy gray fog filling their immediate area, merging with Spencer’s magic. The pentagram and concentric circle pulsed like a quasar star, so bright it made Patrick’s eyes water. A coldness that reminded Patrick of walking through the veil expanded around them, but it wasn’t enough to stop the zombies.
It certainly wasn’t enough to stop Jono.
He came racing around the corner, larger than every other werecreature still standing, and went for the nearest werewolf, taking them down to the ground and tearing out their throat. Sage was a streak of orange and black behind him, her guttural roar causing more than one werecreature to flee the fight.
Patrick got to his feet as Nadine rounded the corner, half a dozen violet mageglobes trailing in her wake, followed by Wade. She and Patrick locked eyes over the crowd.
“I’ll cover him,” Nadine shouted, pointing at Spencer.
Violet magic rose up around the two of them in a shield more solid than any Patrick could ever make. A gap lingered long enough for Patrick to slip through before sealing shut behind him, keeping Spencer and Fatima safe.
Relatively speaking.
The banshee screamed again before the sound choked off with a gurgle. Patrick nearly tripped over a folding chair in his haste to get eyes on the fae while trying to stay out of reach of Rossiter’s bone whip. The Dullahan was back on his feet, not fazed in the least by the handful of zombies between them.
Patrick twisted out of reach of a zombie walking on its knees, legs having been ripped off, but not its arms. He slammed his dagger through its throat all the way to the hilt. The zombie jerked, spasming on the blade as heavenly magic ravaged what was left of its body. Patrick kicked it in the chest to shove it off his dagger. The zombie fell to the ground and didn’t rise again, the necromancy that had called the spirit forth and the black magic that let it walk cut by his dagger.
Spencer could do it quicker, and in larger numbers, but he was still busy trying to pry the demon from Cressida’s soul.
A furry blur streaked toward him but abruptly changed direction when Carmen appeared beside him, the wooden aconite rod in her hand. The poison it carried in its shape was strong enough to hurt a werecreature, but not to kill it. That’s what the Ka-Bar in her other hand was for.
“Isn’t that Lucien’s?” Patrick asked.
Carmen shifted her grip, holding the Ka-Bar behind the raised rod. “Not anymore.”
“Did he get the staff?”
“No.”
“Asshole had one job.”
Carmen said something rude in Italian that he ignored. Patrick spun on his feet, scanning the area for any signs of the banshee. Amidst the fighting, he caught sight of a body crumpled on the ground near half a dozen tipped-over chairs. He left Carmen to deal with the werewolf and headed toward the banshee.
A zombie lunged at him, broken jaw hanging low over a slashed-open throat, the one behind it still bleeding even though it was dead. Patrick slammed a mageglobe filled with raw magic into the zombies to clear his way forward. Blood and flesh splattered across his shields as he ran, leaping over a couple of tipped-over chairs.
He landed near the banshee, and even before Patrick made it to her side, he knew she was dead. A short sword he’d seen on display earlier for the auction stuck out from the center of her chest. Her eyes were sightless—until they weren’t. The banshee suddenly blinked, and the dead looked back at Patrick.
Steel-gauntleted hands curled like claws as her spine arched, limbs jerking as black magic filled her corpse. Her body twisted and jerked, snapping to her feet with a grotesque twist. The sword shifted in her chest, white outfit stained crimson from the mortal wound.
Patrick conjured up a mageglobe but hesitated to cast a spell into it. He didn’t know what kind of artifact that short sword was or how it would react to magic. Then the zombie opened her mouth, and newly dead or not, necromancy could still bring a fae’s power to life.
She never got the chance to scream.
Dragon fire washed over her with such force her entire body was consumed by it. Patrick threw up his arm to cover his face, the heat vicious even through his shields. He turned his head in time to see Wade cough out a fireball to clear his lungs. Red scales pushed through the skin of his face, neck, and arms, his eyes golden, cut through with reptilian pupils, but otherwise human.
“Zombies are gross,” Wade said.
Patrick groaned. “Then don’t eat them. They aren’t food!”
“I didn’t eat one! They tried to eat me!”
“Zombies don’t eat people. They just want to kill you so their master can raise you.” Patrick wrapped a shield around the zombie banshee burning to a crisp, not wanting to spread the fire to any other part of the building. “Have you seen the Morrígan’s staff?”
“No, I—”
Wade cut himself off, eyes going wide. Then he grabbed Patrick by the arm and yanked him to the side. Patrick’s feet left the ground with the force of the pull, the bones in his elbow joint grinding together beneath Wade’s grip. The pain was better than having the Dullahan’s bone whip slam down against him. Even with his shields, he’d have felt that hit.
Kalid’s skull and spine had yet to break, fortified by Rossiter’s magic. The bone whip cut through the air again, crashing against the shield Patrick raised between them. Rossiter stalked forward, holding his head high to see as he cracked the whip again.
Jono vaulted over two zombies and landed in between them, massive jaws snapping down on Rossiter’s head. It burst like a ripe melon, blood and brain exploding out from between Jono’s teeth. Patrick didn’t know how he got through Rossiter’s shields until he saw the white fire burning in Jono’s eyes.
Not Jono—Fenrir.
The Dullahan collapsed, the bone whip splitting apart, vertebrae clattering to the floor. Fenrir crunched Rossiter’s skull into so many pieces using Jono’s teeth. Then he spat it out, blood coating his fangs.
“Ew,” Wade gagged. “That can’t taste good.”
“You eat demons,” Patrick said, looking past Jono at Cressida.
“As a last resort!”
The roiling hellish magic pouring out of Cressida’s body fought against Spencer’s. She was still trapped in his spell, tendrils of his magic twisting through her flesh and seeking to sever the demon from her soul. Nadine had fought her way to his side, standing outside the shield and doing her best to cut down the zombies and what few werecreatures remained.
That was the problem with the walking dead in a fight like this. When someone died, they could easily be raised and thrust back into the fight, or wandering souls were captured to fill someone else’s body or bones. By Patrick’s count, there were less zombies than there had been after the auction turned into a bloodbath, and the newly dead were staying dead.
He didn’t see Ilya or his followers.
Maybe it was too much to hope the fucker was a body on the ground.
; “Has anyone seen the goddamn staff?” Patrick shouted.
No one answered him, and he had the sinking feeling someone had run off with it during the chaos of the ambush. Before panic could really set in, Cressida screamed, the sound shrill and ugly before growing deep and furious. A roar filled the wing of Smithfield Market, reminding Patrick of a waterfall thundering over the side of a cliff.
Spencer’s magic exploded around Cressida like a star gone nova, but it wasn’t bright enough to block out the swirling darkness that wrenched itself free of her body. The shapeless shadow streaked away from her like smoke, and the inhuman deepness of her voice shaded back to its normal tone.
“Andras!” Cressida screamed, sounding scared and mournful in a way Patrick didn’t expect. “Don’t leave me!”
Spencer’s magic folded around her, bearing Cressida’s limp body to the ground. The god pack alpha no longer fought the magical bindings holding her in place, face wet with tears, more in shock than anything else. What werecreatures remained in Smithfield Market fled, not a single one of them attempting to save their alpha.
Spencer didn’t look like he was in any condition to put to rest the handful of zombies left, but Lucien’s Night Court were handling that threat just fine. Patrick did a quick head count, coming up with the same number of vampires as when they’d arrived. His pack was still standing, too many buyers were dead, and those who had survived had already fled the scene or were in the process of doing so.
Patrick let them go. No point in chasing after them when their entire reason for coming to London wasn’t anywhere to be found.
“Fuck,” Patrick ground out. “Fuck.”
Nadine drew down her shields, hauling Spencer to his feet. He was white-faced, eyes like holes in his head, but at least he was conscious. Fatima stalked forward to sit on Cressida’s chest, staring down at her with eyes filled with veil mist in their depths. Cressida jerked before going limp, head lolling from unconsciousness.
“We need to get out of here,” Nadine said, violet light playing over her face from her mageglobe.
Jono stepped closer to Patrick, his eyes gone back to their normal wolf-bright blue. Sage stood in the midst of broken chairs and bodies while Lucien and his Night Court went about ensuring no one on the ground was left alive.
“What about the authorities?” Patrick asked.
“I’ll call Gael, but we aren’t staying here. The United States government can’t be caught red-handed executing a mission behind an ally’s back inside their borders.”
Patrick wanted to punch something. “We can’t go to the hotel like this.”
Nadine hauled Spencer with her. “We’ll go to Lucien’s.”
“None of you are welcome,” Lucien called out irritably.
“Tough shit.”
Jono went to where Cressida lay and grabbed her shoulder with his teeth. Fatima latched her claws into Cressida’s chest, refusing to move, the psychopomp’s strangely colored eyes riveted on the werewolf’s slack face. Jono dragged her toward the exit, not careful in the least.
Patrick cast a slew of look-away wards, letting his magic spin around all of them as they fled Smithfield Market, the Morrígan’s staff having slipped through their fingers, nowhere to be found.
17
“I think she’s waking up,” Wade said.
Órlaith, seated in the front passenger seat, didn’t bother looking over her shoulder at their temporary prisoner. “Cressida is not waking up.”
“She twitched.”
“She’s unconscious, Wade,” Jono said, keeping both hands on the steering wheel. “Eat your chip butty.”
“I’ll eat my chip butty because I like it, not because you told me to.”
Jono glanced at the rearview mirror in time to see Wade take a large bite out of the road trip snack he’d insisted on bringing along, still side-eyeing Cressida. Sage sat in the back seat between Cressida and Wade, hands clasped in her lap and appearing serene. Jono couldn’t smell her, not with the fae pendant she wore, but she hadn’t been thrilled about delivering Cressida back to her pack rather than the police or the WSA.
Cressida sat slumped against the side door, unconscious from whatever spell Órlaith had cast on her when the Summer Lady arrived that morning. Cressida’s hands were bound behind her back with a set of metal cuffs Órlaith had set with a binding spell that would prevent her from shifting and keep her preternatural strength in check.
Cressida’s shoulder and clothes were a bloody mess from Jono’s teeth, though the wound itself was long since healed. She was pale, her blonde curls a tangled mess. She seemed to have aged over the course of hours, face ravaged by the loss of the demon she had carried in her soul. Jono didn’t know if that was a byproduct of possession or not. He’d meant to ask Spencer, but they’d left the mage asleep on Lucien’s sofa with Fatima curled on his chest, still recuperating from his efforts at Smithfield Market.
Last night had been a shitshow. They’d lost the Morrígan’s staff and didn’t know who’d run off with it. After holing up at Lucien’s flat to clean up and change clothes, Patrick and Nadine had been summoned to the WSA headquarters in the middle of the night. Jono didn’t envy them having to explain their actions and face the consequences of lying to their country’s allies.
Lucien had grudgingly let them stay at his flat until Órlaith showed up midmorning. Cressida had been a handful until the Summer Lady arrived. Jono had used that time to contact the London god pack. Finley hadn’t been thrilled when Jono demanded a meeting after announcing Cressida was his pack’s prisoner. Finley had promised a fight when all Jono wanted was a chat, which was why Órlaith was coming along and Wade had been given full permission to shift mass if things went tits up.
They might not have had any mages with them for this meeting, but Órlaith was a demi-goddess in her own right, and she let that fact be known when they pulled into the long drive of the country house in Farningham. Jono could smell the werecreatures in the home and on the grounds, but all their righteous anger was suddenly drowned out by the wave of power that rippled away from Órlaith as she got out of the car.
She smelled like a mix of summer rain and green things Jono had no name for and wouldn’t recognize if he hadn’t crossed the veil into Tír na nÓg last December. Órlaith exuded otherworldly power that stilled Finley’s feet at the threshold to the home, the god pack alpha watching her the way prey eyed a predator.
“Wolf,” Órlaith said coolly. “I come as an ally to the New York City god pack. You will stay your hand, or I will take this land of yours for the fae on their behalf.”
Jono got out of the car, as did Wade and Sage, but he was the one who pulled Cressida from the back seat. He didn’t bother being gentle, letting her body fall heavily to the ground. He scanned the crowd of werecreatures, gaze lingering on Bryson only a couple of seconds longer before focusing all his attention on Finley.
Órlaith was a tall, fierce defense that kept Finley rooted where he stood. The rest of the London god pack took their cue from their alpha and didn’t move. Jono met Finley’s furious gaze with his own.
“We’ll do this in your challenge ring,” Jono said.
“Come back to take what you think is yours?” Finley spat out.
Jono smiled nastily. “I don’t want your sodding pack. I have one of my own. I just know better than to cross your home’s threshold.”
Órlaith led the way, with Sage taking up the rear as Jono dragged Cressida around the home and to the back field that pushed up against the reserve. By the time they got there, the London god pack had filled the space around the challenge ring, all eyes on them. Jono weathered their attention easily, keeping his focus on Finley.
The other alpha’s expression was a grim mask where he stood on the edge of the challenge ring, his pack arrayed around him. It was far more people than had been present the other night, and many of them looked ready for a fight.
Órlaith came to a stop on the grass some meters away from the edge of
the challenge ring. Jono slowed to a halt beside her. Sage and Wade lined up beside him, but there was still enough space between them for Jono to swing Cressida around and toss her to the ground between their two sides.
“Wake up,” Órlaith commanded.
Cressida jerked, body heaving against the ground. She gasped for air, hands clenching into fists behind her back as she fought the metal cuffs that kept her trapped in human form. She rolled from her side onto her back, eyes flicking back and forth as she took in her predicament. Órlaith calmly stepped forward to slam her foot down onto Cressida’s chest, pinning the woman to the ground like one would pin a bug.
“You cunt,” Cressida gasped out.
“Rude,” Wade retorted. “She’s a princess.”
Órlaith looked at Jono, her riot of red-orange hair falling in thick waves past her hips, eyes calm in her too-beautiful face. “Speak your truth. I will keep this one in her place.”
Jono’s gaze slid back to Finley, the other man scowling so hard Jono could see nearly all his teeth. “We’ve come in peace, with no desire for your territory. All we want is a word.”
“You come with the fae, dragging my pack’s co-leader after you like a slave. That isn’t peace, Jonothon,” Finley sneered.
“Way I see it, you haven’t had peace in years. Not since Cressida came down from the north.” Jono looked at Bryson, seeing the way the other man held himself so stiffly, the same way too many others in the pack did so. “You never questioned where she came from.”
“It’s not our way. You know that. Pack is who you are, not what you were.”
“Maybe it should be. Maybe you should’ve wondered why Cressida’s first act after joining your pack was to challenge Jessamine.”
“Jess—” Finley’s voice didn’t crack, but Jono knew it would’ve if the other man had spoken her full name. “—accepted the challenge. And she lost. Pack law gave her rank to Cressida, as tradition dictated.”
“And every year since, Cressida has run your people through the rank of dire, killing them off one by one. But only those she considered a problem or a threat, am I right? People loyal to Jessamine. Those who knew pack law and tried to use it against her. Anyone who would get in her way of breaking down the London god pack.”
On the Wings of War (Soulbound Book 5) Page 21