“Fucking hell, we told you tolisten! Seven.”
“Six. Just go, Mulroney,” Patrick snapped. “Jono, don’t get in my fucking way.”
“I hope you’re ready to die,” Rachel spat out, the circle she stood within glowing brightly. Radial lines expanded outward, the structure of the spell not something a witch of her caliber could create.
Which meant someone else was casting through the veil.
Patrick ignored Rachel as Nadine split her shield between their two positions, keeping everyone safe. “Five.”
He could feel it in his soul, the heavy weight of hell pulling at him. The world seemed to waver for a second, as if the rain coming down harder had blurred it out. The acolytes still standing were throwing whatever offensive magic they could at them, but nothing was getting through Nadine’s shield.
At least, not yet.
“Four,” Patrick counted down, Jono’s voice joining in, the seconds pounding in his ears like drums. “Three.”
The circle beneath Rachel’s feet erupted in hellfire, but the witch didn’t burn.
“Two.”
Recognition screamed through Patrick’s magic with soul-searing intensity, the taste of hell hot and bitter on his tongue.
“One.”
The world seemed to tear around them, the veil ripping over the beach in the form of ragged fog given an eerie glow from the hellfire. It spilled over the sand, obscuring the immediate area.
It couldn’t hide what crossed over.
A horde of soultakers pulled free of the veil, led by a god that made Patrick freeze in his tracks, heart pounding a mile a minute in his chest.
“If you’d like to take the seer’s place on the sacrificial altar, then by all means, lie down and die, Patrick,” Hades said.
The god’s voice echoed in Patrick’s ears in a way human voices never did. Hades stood within the lines of the circle, hellfire licking at his feet, untouched by the fury of the storm. He could have passed for a Wall Street tycoon if one ignored the unearthly power he exuded. The immortal wasn’t charismatic so much as terrifying, despite the clean-cut image projected by the three-piece suit that was perfectly dry beneath the downpour. Hades was dark-haired, dark-eyed, and corpse-pale, all chilling malevolence in human disguise.
The Greek god of the Underworld still looked exactly the same as he had in that Salem basement all those years ago.
“Patrick,” Jono said, breaking through the fear clawing at Patrick’s mind. “Don’t listen to him.”
He drew in a shaky breath, readjusting his grip on his rifle. The hellfire bomb yesterday made sense now. Patrick should have remembered it was one of Hades’ favorite little parlor tricks.
Hades smiled, the expression coloring in old nightmares in ways Patrick could have done without. Those dark eyes looked behind him at where Jono stood with a covetousness Patrick didn’t appreciate at all.
“If not you, I’ll take the wolf. I’d rather not go to war with the Norse gods just yet, but needs must. Either way, I will take a soul with me to hell today,” Hades said.
The soultakers lunged forward, half the horde coming for Patrick while the rest went after the Tempest pack. Patrick repositioned his rifle against his shoulder and braced himself. He switched the M4A1 carbine over to fully automatic and held down the trigger. The loud release of bullets sounded like thunder in the air, echoed by Nadine’s weapon. Her shields glimmered with a faint violet hue every time a bullet passed through them on the way to the enemy.
They aimed for the acolytes, because the soultakers weren’t bothered at all by something as annoying as bullets. Three of the magic users were cut down, but none of them were Rachel.
Where’s a fucking tank when you need one?Patrick thought a little frantically.
“I can shift and better protect you,” Jono said, stepping up beside him.
“Don’t even think about it,” Patrick snarled.
Patrick might have been reckless with his own life, but like hell was he risking anyone under his protection.
“Would you stop being so bloody stubborn? I canhelpyou.”
“Youcan’t do anything against a god except die. I am actively trying to prevent that from happening right now!”
