People from the event room below were scrambling away from the stairs in the back, racing around the dome of magic Patrick had the soultaker temporarily trapped inside. While Leon and Emma frantically tried to herd their people out of the bar, Patrick’s attention remained locked on the demon.
He could see the tears in his magic as the soultaker greedily chomped its way through the ward. A sharp ache cut through his middle from the inside out. The pain was all the warning Patrick got before the second shield collapsed, eaten away by the soultaker.
The demon charged at him, mouth open, its tongue snapping through the air with a strength that could break bone. Patrick was only distantly aware of people yelling behind him as he stood his ground. The mageglobe he flung between them was a distraction that got swallowed whole. Another spike of pain snaked its way through Patrick’s body as he dragged his shields back up, but he ignored it, meeting the demon’s charge halfway.
It wasn’t the best idea to get drawn into close quarters with a demon without tactical body armor and no backup—he could practically hear his old captain screaming in his head about thestupid fucking stuntshe pulled—but Patrick didn’t care.
Couldn’t care.
Patrickcould notlet the soultaker out of the bar to feast on innocent bystanders.
He knew what would happen if he did.
He flung his last two mageglobes at the demon, the combined explosion sending it reeling backward. Patrick dodged underneath the demon’s arms and twisted around behind it as quick as he could, trailing raw magic from his fingertips as an enticement. The soultaker went after him instead of the last few people racing out the bar door, following the taste of magic on the air, in Patrick’s soul.
Patrick poured his magic into another mageglobe, exploding it at the demon’s back. The soultaker crashed to the floor, its body unharmed from the attack. Even as Patrick watched, shreds of his magic were sucked into the demon’s snapping mouth, blue wisps disappearing between sharp teeth. The soultaker would keep coming after him until it ate every last bit of magic he had—then it would move on to his soul.
Losing pieces of his soul always fuckinghurt.
Here goes nothing, Patrick thought right before he threw himself on top of the demon before it got back on its feet.
While his magic couldn’t stop the soultaker, he carried something else that could. What Patrick didn’t have until the waning days of the Thirty-Day War, but which he had now, was the dagger in his hand.
Between one heartbeat and the next, ghostly, silvery words rose up from the depths of the black blade. All the languages spoken by the immortals who’d prayed over its making to imbue it with sparks of their power flowed across the gods-forged steel. The temporary magical strength of a multitude of gods was a crutch Patrick was more than happy to use when the situation called for it.
The black blade cut through the dense bone of the demon’s rib cage like butter, searching for a heart it didn’t have. Thick, tarry fluid flowed out of the wound as the soultaker tried to pull itself off the dagger, screaming in what might have been agony if it were capable of feeling pain.
Bright, shining light burst around the dagger in a flash more reminiscent of lightning than fire. The soultaker’s maw stretched wide on a death scream that made Patrick want to plug his ears as white-hot, heavenly magic seared it from the inside out until the only thing that remained of it was ashes. The dagger point scraped across the cement floor, the silvery prayers fading once again into the void. The matte black of the blade lost its internal shine, the magic it carried within going dormant once more.
Patrick lifted the dagger away from the ashes scattered on the floor. The ugly stench of sulfur hit his nose, making him cough. Patrick turned his face into his shoulder so he wouldn’t blow ashes everywhere.
The ache behind his ribs still lingered, a physical reminder of the magic and shreds of his soul he’d lost to the soultaker. It wasn’t critical damage by any means, but Patrick had limited reach with his magic these days, and waiting for it to replenish took time. Any loss, no matter how small, put him at a disadvantage, and his job was one where disadvantages could get a guy killed.
Like it almost had tonight.
Getting to his feet, Patrick took a wide step out of the soultaker’s ashes, wincing as he did so. His bones ached, a reminder that his personal shields had held up. The anchor points of the shield ward had been magically carved into his bones by a goddess who had done so out of purely selfish reasons. They weren’t easy to carry, but they were useful.
Patrick looked down at the dagger in his hand, inspecting it with a critical eye. No nicks on the blade from the fight—not that any ever showed up—and the soultaker’s blood had sloughed off like water. He slid it back into its sheath, not bothering to activate the look-away ward again.
The nerve behind his right eye throbbed, the tightness from his earlier tension headache threatening to return. Patrick knuckled his eye hard enough that bright spots exploded across his vision. Shaking his head, Patrick opened his eyes and stared at the empty, damaged bar.
He was about to head downstairs to make sure everyone had made it out alive when a sound from behind him had Patrick reacting instantly. He spun around, magic twisting through a mageglobe in his hand, ready to fight, but managed to restrain hiskill first, ask questions laterinstincts when he saw who stood there.
“You’re alive,” Marek said, staring at Patrick in surprise.
Jono stood behind Marek in the doorway, his wolf-bright blue eyes locked on Patrick. He stayed close to Marek, acting almost like a bodyguard, exactly how Leon had done at PreterWorld earlier in the day. The protectiveness wasn’t lost on Patrick.
Patrick clenched his fingers into a fist, extinguishing the mageglobe. “I’d be terrible at my job if I wasn’t.”
Marek glared at him, but the anger quickly faded. “You never said you were a mage. I thought you were a cop.”
“You thought wrong,” Patrick replied. “Special Agent Patrick Collins, at your service, though I wish I wasn’t. I’m with the SOA and was assigned to the latest case the PCB is handling. I flew in this afternoon.”
Marek tried to step closer but was held back by Jono’s firm grip on his shoulder. Marek’s gaze was riveted on the ashes spread across the bar floor, his lips pressed into a hard white line. When he finally raised his eyes to meet Patrick’s gaze, a hint of otherworldly light flashed across them.
“We need to talk,” Marek said.
In the distance, Patrick could hear sirens growing louder as the police drew closer. Patrick knew his night wouldn’t be over for hours after this mess, and all he wanted to do was go back to his borrowed apartment and drown himself in his bottle of whiskey. Instead, he took out his phone to send a message to Setsuna.
