He should’ve remembered that.
Patrick re-layered his shields as best he could, fighting the faint pull in his soul that sought to undermine his magic. The aftershocks of the spell made his skin burn, the rain slipping through his damaged shields not enough to cool it.
“Patrick?” Wade yelled, sounding worried.
Wind blew fog over the cemetery headstones as Hannah Greene walked toward them, slipping through the veil in the way only gods could. She looked mostly how she had back in June—starved to a thinness that looked painful. Hannah wasn’t dressed for the weather. She was barefoot and wearing a silk nightgown the rain had plastered to her pale skin. Her long red hair was tangled around her body in wet waves.
Even from the distance between them, Hannah’s aura was cracked open like a dying star, shining with a burn to it that Patrick only ever saw in gods. Its power was muted though, twisted through with mortal ties that held in place. Patrick’s lungs locked up, panic making his heart beat so fast he could barely hear anything over the rushing sound of blood in his ears.
Because if Hannah was here, Ethan couldn’t be far behind.
“Shall I dig your grave?” Hannah asked, giving voice to Ethan’s wants. “There are plenty here to put you in.”
The cadence to her voice matched Marek’s when the Norns spoke through him, or Jono when Fenrir took control. It was the voice of a trapped goddess having shredded his sister’s throat over the years.
Patrick opened his mouth but couldn’t find any words, his thoughts tangled up in white noise in his head.
He froze, when he couldn’t afford to.
Wade, however, didn’t.
A large red clawed foot slammed to the ground in front of Patrick as a wing swept down, blocking out everything. A roar that shook the ground shook Patrick out of his stupor as dragon fire burned through the rain and blood magic Zachary was casting.
“No!” Zachary yelled over the noise.
Scared yips and howls from the werecreatures who had shown up were joined by the surprised shouts of first responders beyond the cemetery fence. It was enough to force Patrick’s fractured focus into something whole.
“I said don’t shift!” Patrick called out in a hoarse voice.
The red wing moved and a wedge head with black horns snaked downward on a long neck. The golden eye with its reptilian pupil blinked at him before snorting out a disdainful puff of smoke and fire that charred the brown grass in front of Patrick’s feet.
The fog started to dissipate beyond where Wade was crouched over Patrick. He tightened his shields and stepped around the dragon leg in his way, shoving his hand against Wade’s scaly head to get eyes on the enemy.
The cemetery was empty where they had been.
The absence of Hannah and Zachary left Patrick feeling sick to his stomach rather than relieved. His gaze swept the cemetery, seeing a multitude of wolf eyes reflecting back at him, none of which were the color of a god pack.
“All of you need to get out of here. I’ll make sure the police know none of you were present,” Patrick said, not bothering to raise his voice. The werecreatures could hear him just fine.
The werecreatures slinked off into the darkness as silently as they’d arrived. Patrick would figure out later what territory he and Wade had ended up in and apologize for ruining the pack’s Friday night.
“Wade, shift back to human.”
Patrick cast a look-away ward with cold fingers, aiming it toward the damaged cemetery fence. He couldn’t outright hide Wade since magic didn’t work on the teenager, but he could keep the first responders distracted while he dealt with the remaining Dominion Sect mercenaries.
He approached where the mercenaries were sprawled on the cold, wet ground. Two of them were burned beyond recognition, their magic not enough to withstand a fire dragon’s rage. The third one whose legs Patrick had partially blown off had already bled out, the lingering stain of Zachary’s blood magic seeping into the body.
Patrick knelt beside the dead and stared at the bodies for a long moment. Then he pulled out his cell phone with a shaking hand and called Jono. When the line picked up, he didn’t even wait for a hello.
“I need you in Chicago.”
11
“Usually it’s your other half who makes my life difficult,” Chief of the NYPD’s Preternatural Crimes Bureau Giovanni Casale said.
Jono eyed the folder Casale tossed onto the table in Interrogation Room One. “He’s a bit busy.”
Neither Jono nor Patrick had confirmed their relationship with Casale. They weren’t obligated to, but Jono knew their privacy was bound to be challenged sooner rather than later now that he was actively laying claim to New York City. He wasn’t surprised Casale had picked up on their relationship though. The man was a cop, after all.
Casale took a seat with a grunt. “I hear we have hunters in the city.”
“What makes you say that?”
Casale flipped open the folder, revealing a crime scene photo of a body that looked like it had been crunched into the sidewalk. Jono didn’t flinch away from the bloody, destroyed mess the man had been reduced to.
“I don’t like finding out about an active group of the Krossed Knights hunting in my city after the fact. A heads-up would’ve been nice,” Casale said, staring at him.
“I don’t know what you’re on about. Didn’t think hunters rated your direct interference,” Jono replied.
Casale raised a thick black eyebrow. “It’s not a serial killer like last summer, but these assholes tend to start wars between preternatural communities. Happened during my rookie year as a cop. It was a fucked-up time, and the homicide count made it into triple digits. Those deaths were the only ones we knew of, but there
