“This the spot?” Jono yelled over the sound of the wind.
“North enough,” Patrick yelled back.
The lightning-edged storm sparked blue and white in the cloud-heavy night sky, thunder a sound Patrick could feel in his bones. The earth itself seemed to vibrate from the sound. He slipped two of the four coins out of his front pocket and stared down at them. They glittered in the dark; tiny, rough-hewn circles of gold that burned with an amount of magic Patrick would have to be dead not to feel.
The coins weren’t from this world, but like the ruins in Greece that let their gods still be remembered, they were a pathway of sorts. A foothold. For Patrick, they would be nothing but a possibility for some breathing room.
Patrick drew his arm back and threw the coins into the water, putting all his strength into the motion. They spun through the air like tiny meteorites before crashing into the water below, sinking to muddy depths.
The water began to swirl around where the coins had sunk, drawing in like a whirlpool, its center a softly glowing twist of magic. They watched the light grow brighter before the whirlpool swallowed it up.
Somethingtrembled from deep below. Patrick felt it, on the very edge of his awareness, something powerful settling into place. He hoped the formation of the barrier ward wouldn’t catch Ethan’s attention, but he wasn’t going to hold his breath.
Patrick would pray if he thought it would do them any good, but he’d long since discovered that prayers were nothing more than wasted breath, and begging never helped anyone.
Jono bent his head so he could speak directly in Patrick’s ear. “Will it work?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did it work in Cairo? At the end?”
“We didn’t do this in Cairo.”
Their defenses had been different, tied to what the military could offer, spearheaded by the Mage Corps and its foreign allied equivalents, and all their worn-out magic users. In the end, Patrick’s team had been the only group to reach ground zero of the sacrificial spell. He had been the only one able to cross it, and that only by the grace of gods and his own misbegotten blood ties.
Jono grabbed his hand, pulling Patrick away from the water’s edge and back onto the muddy firmament of the island. “C’mon, mate. We’re done here.”
They stumbled back under the trees in the dark, Jono leading the way with preternatural sure-footedness. With the rain coming down relentlessly, Patrick would have to wait until they were back in the car to text the others of their success so his phone didn’t become waterlogged.
He never got the chance.
Patrick felt the burn of recognition like a knife sliding between his ribs. He choked on a cry, stumbling sideways into Jono, who immediately caught him before he face-planted in the mud. Bitterness filled his mouth, filled his lungs. Patrick got his feet under him and his hand on his dagger right as a hulking beast slid out of the veil in front of them.
Three pairs of coal-red eyes glowed through the dark, the smell of sulfur thick in the air. The deep, rumbling growls that ripped through the air didn’t sound like they belonged to any animal on Earth.
“Stay behind me,” Jono snarled, moving to get in front.
Patrick ripped his dagger out of its sheath, magic crawling across the black blade, as he stepped to the side to get clear line of sight. “I don’t fucking think so. They’re afteryou.”
The beast roared, its voice crashing through the air louder than thunder. Its charge forward made the earth shake, and Patrick couldn’t get out of the way in time. Something solid and powerful clipped him in the side, violently jarring his entire body. He was thrown by the force of the hit, crashing to the ground hard enough to punch the air from his lungs.
“Patrick!”
He spit mud out of his mouth, hand still clenched around the hilt of his dagger, heavenly magic twisting around his fingers. “Jono! Run!”
Somehow, he knew Jono wouldn’t listen.
Hellfire sparked into existence, burning bright, cradled in a human hand. It dripped from fingers unaffected by its heat, pooling on the muddy ground before bursting outward in a long snaking line that encircled the area they were in. Even the fury of the storm couldn’t snuff it out.
In the light the hellfire cast, Patrick could finally see the shape of the creature before him—the snakelike tail whipping back and forth over its three heads. Thick legs that ended in monstrous claws supported a barrel-chested body that shouldn’t have been capable of the agility it had. Blackened teeth dripped thick saliva in three wide mouths.
Cerberus was a nightmare made real.
“Fuck,” Patrick said as he scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain in his body. “Fuck.”
Cerberus’ three heads snapped at the air before it let out another howl. Patrick knew better than to take his eyes off the threat, but he wasn’t the target—Jono was. He looked away, catching sight of Jono and the rapid change the other man was going through.
Jono’s human body broke itself apart before reforming into a monstrous wolf, magic twisting through his DNA. Clothes ripped apart as his body expanded. Blood sprayed through the air, whipped away by the wind. Bones snapped, ripping through skin, as his limbs reshaped themselves in seconds. Muscles twisted and stretched into a new shape, fur sprouting in thick patches before flowing over newly formed skin.
