Sage slammed into the soultaker closest to her before leaping onto the back of the second one, driving it to the ground. The werewolves traveling with her focused on the demon she left for them. Her wide jaws wrapped around the back of its ugly, bulbous head. She bit down with inhuman strength and got a good grip. With a muffled snarl, Sage wrenched her own head up, the weight of her shifted form keeping the demon on the ground. She tore the soultaker’s head off with preternatural strength, the demon’s body going limp beneath her own.
Werecreatures could rip a soultaker limb from limb—Patrick had seen it happen before—they just had to be mindful of their souls. Nadine must have passed that warning along while he’d been in the Underworld.
With a disgusted growl, Sage flung the head aside. Some of the soultakers who’d been going after the nearest SOA agents started to regroup to deal with the werecreatures.
“That’s one way to kill them,” Nadine said.
“Remind me to never piss her off.”
They turned their backs on the fight Sage and the others had well in hand. Nadine and Patrick double-timed it to Lucien’s position, passing harmlessly through the wide shield wrapped around the BearCat.
Lucien didn’t stop reloading his M32 MGL grenade launcher as they approached, black eyes looking right at them. “You’re late.”
“I was in hell,” Patrick retorted.
“You think we aren’t?”
Patrick peered around the side of the BearCat at the sacrificial spellwork and the Dominion Sect magic users doing their damnedest to tear through Nadine’s shield. “Veil isn’t torn yet, so I’ll go with no.”
“Ethan is preparing to sacrifice your wolf, so maybe you’ll change your answer in a few minutes.”
Patrick’s gaze went unerringly to the hunched-over figure he could see kneeling in the center of that hellish circle some distance away. His heart skipped a painful beat in his chest. “Jono is alive?”
“For a given definition of alive,” Carmen said as she jumped off the roof of the BearCat. She carried an assault rifle and a machete, but both were her secondary weapons. Desire and mental persuasion were known to drive men and women mad on the battlefields when incubi and succubi deigned to fight.
Patrick just hoped Carmen pointed her powersawayfrom their side.
“I need to get to Jono.”
“Ethan’s circle is warded by Zachary’s blood magic.”
“That’s a bad habit they picked up during the Thirty-Day War.” Patrick braced his weapon against his chest and pulled his dagger free of its sheath. Countless silvery words floated up from the depths of the matte-black blade, the magic of gods warm and steady in his hands. “I’m sure I can help break it.”
“Maybe you should wait until we have more SOA agents to back us up. Your magic isn’t replenished, and my specialty is defense, remember?” Nadine said.
Carmen made a face. “You had to call in the feds.”
“My vampires will be leaving the field without being arrested when this over. If any of your people try to stop mine, they won’t live to see dawn,” Lucien said coolly as he hiked the grenade launcher onto one shoulder.
Patrick waved off the threat in his voice. “Sure, sure. I told them you were my CI, but I didn’t use your name. Try and keep your face covered, and make a run for it when the fight is over.”
“Your planning skills still leave plenty to be desired.”
Lucien walked right up to the edge of the shield and pressed the barrel of the grenade launcher through Nadine’s magic. The hole opened up from the inside, sealing around the weapon. Lucien took aim and fired, the spelled-ballistic cutting through the enemy when it exploded in the midst of a group of Dominion Sect witches attempting to join their magic together.
Their bolstered shield broke apart beneath the strike spell layered over the ordnance, the same way their bodies did in the explosion.
“I don’t think the City is going to appreciate your attempt at relandscaping,” Patrick said.
“Do your fucking job before I rip out your throat.”
Easier said than done, despite their last-minute planning. They had breakwaters set into ley lines, a shield powered by magic borrowed from gods around Manhattan island, and New York City’s finest waiting to play cavalry on the streets outside Central Park. All of that would be meaningless if Ethan succeeded in murdering Jono and stealing Zeus’ godhead.
“Cover me,” Patrick ordered.
Nadine twisted her fingers in the air, a violet mageglobe spinning into shape against her palm. “I’ll wrap you in stealth with a shield and get you as far as I can.”
Tendrils of magic flowed over Patrick’s body, wrapping him in a muffled cloud. As in the Hamptons, it would quiet sound and hide him from sight, but with other mages in the field that knew what to look for, it wouldn’t hold for long.
