Pain ripped through Patrick’s arm, fingertips going numb. Magic exploded away from their joined hands, the dagger impossible to see within the star-bright glow. Patrick knew he screamed, but he couldn’t hear his own voice over the scalding rush of raw power pouring through his soul. It cut deep, ripping through metaphysical scars, and Patrick was certain the only reason his soul wasn’t torn out of his body was due to Persephone’s wards set in his bones.
The scarred channels of his soul broke open as something else—someoneelse—filled the space. Patrick stared into Jono’s strangely calm eyes as the magic set in the dagger tied their souls together through blood.
Exactly how Ethan had bound Hannah to him.
Like father, like son.
That sickening realization had Patrick reeling backward, but he couldn’t escape what was happening. All he could do was live through it, the bright wash of awareness he hadn’t felt in years pouring through him by way of Jono. Through Jono’s soul, Patrick could sense the nexus—filled with wild magic—far beneath the earth.
He couldreachit.
Jono’s soul, bound to his, acted like a safety break for his magic. Patrick could feel how the connection between them could help him channel power without either of them burning out—Patrick because he was a mage with crippled magic and Jono because of a god’s favor.
Patrick fumbled for the dagger, weak fingers pulling it free. His mouth opened on a silent scream, pain lancing up his arm from the self-inflicted stab wound. Blood pooled in the wound it left behind before spilling between his fingers. Everything around him had taken on a new hue, and the colors spun sickeningly when Jono shoved him to the ground.
The shock-wave spell rolled over them but the leading edge of the attack broke against Jono’s shifting form, the magic between them dispelling it. He shouldn’t have been able to shift, not with aconite poisoning running through his veins, but Jono was a god pack alpha werewolf with ties to a god. He had reservoirs of strength few other werecreatures possessed.
Man changed to beast with a sickening crunch of bone and splitting of skin above Patrick’s body. One large paw the size of his head sank into the muddy ground near his ribs. Jono was so big in his wolf-form that he mostly blocked the rain from soaking Patrick’s body. That monstrous wolf head swung down toward him after the change, bright blue eyes meeting his.
Patrick lifted his bleeding hand and gently touched Jono’s cold snout. His shaking fingers slipped between sharp teeth. Magic crackled between them, the pull of the nexus impossible to resist through both their souls.
So Patrick didn’t.
He closed his eyes, reaching through Jono’s soul for something he hadn’t thought he’d ever touch again. Patrick’s soul stretched itself thin, but Jono’s kept him anchored as he sought to replenish his drained magic with the reservoir of power that lived beneath New York City.
It roiled far below the surface, destabilized by Ethan’s interference. Patrick could sense how the ley lines had been choked off from it, breakwaters initiated in those rivers of magic by SOA mages. The nexus itself was still viable, despite everything happening around them.
Patrick breathed in, and when he exhaled out, it was like being struck by lightning.
Magic poured through him—deep, wild magic that he bent to his will. Drawing on skills he’d left by the wayside when he never thought he’d have this again, Patrick manipulated the raw magic into something akin to a reverse lightning bolt. He opened his eyes and raised his other arm toward the sky, staring past the brightly burning dagger in his hand at the fury of hell twisting through the storm.
Patrick framed the spell in his mind, the same one he’d used in Cairo. He could see it forming in the world around him, the pattern crystal clear and sharp.
“Close.”
Magic exploded through them, guided by Patrick’s focused will. His spine arched, shoulders and heels pressing down into the mud as power crashed through the spellwork with devastating results. It raced through their souls and found release through the dagger, heaven’s fire guiding magic into the sky.
It hit the clouds, sinking into their black depths. The rain seemed to flow upward, into the sky, before falling back down to earth. The sonic boom of magic gone nova exploded in the sky, shining like the sun at high noon for one searing instant that momentarily blinded Patrick.
He blinked, colored spots dancing across his eyes before coalescing into stars in the night sky. A perfect circle had formed within the storm clouds above Central Park, the rain falling around them at the edges like a waterfall.
The veil had sealed shut, but what had come through while it was open would need to be dealt with in the future.
Patrick’s arm dropped to the ground, grip loosening on his now-quiescent dagger. His fingers slid free of Jono’s teeth as the werewolf collapsed to the empty ground beside him. The radial lines and circles of the sacrificial spellwork had shattered into a million glowing pieces that were fading away all around them.
At the head of the radial line once pointing true north, Zeus shook himself free of the magic that had bound him. His precisely tailored suit was ruined by the storm, graying hair wet and curling around a stern face. The king of the Greek gods looked unsettlingly human in that moment, which proved how close Ethan had come to succeeding this time around.
The god approached where Patrick and Jono lay with measured steps. Patrick watched him come—too numb, too cold, too drunk on magic to care about immortals and their games anymore.
Zeus knelt in the muck of an urban battlefield and touched a finger to Patrick’s forehead.
“Sleep,” Zeus said, his voice like the rumble of thunder in the storm high above.
Patrick closed his eyes and slept, but couldn’t escape his nightmares. They followed him relentlessly into his dreams.
20
Losingtime never stopped being disorienting.
