Patrick pinched the bridge of his nose, aggravation in every line of his body. Jono knew he was staring but didn’t care. Patrick intrigued him the way few people did these days.
“Marek, if you get eaten by a soultaker, your patrons better not blame me,” Patrick said.
“I’ll be fine,” Marek protested.
Patrick shook his head and waved a hand at Jono. “Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” Jono wanted to know.
“Back to the PCB. Marek? Go home.”
“We’re cleansing the bar first,” Marek replied, a hint of defiance in his voice.
Patrick just shook his head at that answer, already halfway to the door. Jono looked over his shoulder as he hurried after Patrick. “Be safe.”
Emma nodded, already tying up her thick black hair into a ponytail, ready to get to work. “We got this.”
Jono flashed back to the demon from last night and wasn’t so sure about that. Leaving the bar behind him, he made it to the car right as Patrick started the engine.
“Is it safe to leave Marek alone?” Jono asked as he buckled up.
“If the gods want his ass saved, they’ll tell me,” Patrick said cryptically.
Jono didn’t know what Patrick meant by that. “Did you find what you were looking for back there?”
Patrick pulled into the street, staring straight ahead. “No.”
Jono couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. The lack of scent was strange, forcing Jono to rely on his other senses. He dialed up his hearing and listened to Patrick’s heart beating just a touch off rhythm.
Liar, liar, Jono thought to himself.
Whatever answers Patrick had found in the bar, Jono wasn’t privy to them.
“You sure about that, mate?” Jono asked quietly.
Patrick stared straight ahead and didn’t speak, his heartbeat strong and even in Jono’s ears—except when it skipped a beat.
8
Patrick spenttwo hours at the PCB bringing himself up to speed on the case files, all the while trying not to think about what his magic had pried out of Tempest’s walls. The residual hellish taint that had been at the other crime scene was barely present in the bar, but his magic had still caught on what remained.
He’d still found where the soultaker had most likely stepped through the veil: at the rear of the bar, in the short hallway where the bathrooms were. Traces of a look-away ward had been buried beneath the taint, the remains too degraded for him to locate any magical signature. Patrick was certain the perpetrator hadn’t been in the bar at the time of the attack.
Patrick didn’t have time the other night to go over the crime scene with his magic, too worried about getting Marek somewhere safe. Knowing that the soultaker had ripped its way through the veil with outside help reinforced Setsuna’s silent implications during their phone call.
Third time’s the charm, Patrick thought grimly as he pressed a hand to his chest, T-shirt rubbing over his scars.
He reached for another case folder, flipping it open and sorting through the stack of reports and crime scene photographs. Patrick had taken over a small conference room since no desks were free out in the bull pen, utilizing every last bit of space on the table to sort through everything. For the most part, PCB officers left him alone, but there was no hiding from their chief.
“I got an angry phone call from the god pack alphas this morning,” was the first thing out of Casale’s mouth when he entered the conference room sometime later.
“I told them to stay out of the case,” Patrick said as he drew a silence ward on the table, pushing static through the room with his magic. “Maybe I should have them arrested since they’re incapable of listening.”
“That’s a media mess we don’t need right now.”
Patrick shrugged. “Wouldn’t be me dealing with them.”
“DCPI has enough problems killing media rumors about this case. Let’s not make their job harder,” Casale told him.
