Patrick took a breath, held it, then let it out to clear his mind. “Then let’s get the fuck below.”
He didn’t know which exit they needed to take, but with Áltsé Hashké confronting Santa Muerte, they had a five-second window to escape.
“This way,” Hermes said, sliding out of the shadows.
Santa Muerte screamed her fury behind them, but no one looked back.
Jono and Sage caught up to Patrick in their race through Grand Central for a side route off-limits to the general public. They bypassed an old elevator with an Out of Service sign on it, following Hermes to a nondescript door with a scan-card access. It should have been locked, but the fringe of the veil that Santa Muerte had called forth meant the electronics weren’t working right. The door opened onto a dark stairwell, every step covered in marigold petals.
“I am so sick of going underground,” Patrick said.
Hermes stepped aside, waving at the stairwell. “I’ll stay up here. Santa Muerte might listen to me if Áltsé Hashké can’t talk sense into her.”
“She strikes me as a goddess who doesn’t listen to anyone.”
“She listened to Tezcatlipoca.”
Patrick remembered the altar they’d put him on and shook his head. “She listened to the prayers, not to him.”
Patrick took point, with Jono right behind him, heading down into the bedrock of the city. A mageglobe formed against the palm of his free hand, the washed-out blue glow the only hint of light in the shadows they descended through.
Patrick kept track of the landings, the walls changing from cement to ancient Manhattan Schist in the last few stairwells. The door on the final landing was broken open; a man in an MTA uniform lay beyond the damaged metal barrier. His head was twisted at a sharp angle, the vertebrae in his neck broken from the attack.
Lying near the body, surrounded by marigold petals, was a black Santa Muerte idol.
“Tremaine is here,” Patrick said quietly, giving the idol a wide berth as he entered the M42 sub-basement.
Lucien and his Night Court advanced into the space, blurring into the shadows as they searched for their wayward rat. Patrick swore and followed them deeper into the sub-basement. It was brighter down here than up above, even with the shroud around them. The reason for that was the protective wards.
The machinery around them was from early in the last century. The old rotary convertors that once channeled electricity and magic were now solely used as the anchor points for the large-scale protective wards snaking through the New York City subway system. The solid-state convertors currently in use to power the trains were in a different section of the sub-basement.
Patrick turned his back on the area with modern machines, focusing on the ones that mattered. Magic seeped through the old iron, shining through the dark with a persistence that hadn’t dulled in over a hundred years.
On top of every single rotary convertor, tied to an anchor point, was a Santa Muerte idol.
“Oh, fuck me,” Patrick breathed.
He eyed the intricate protective wards that linked each anchor point together, the powerful base that connected some of the city’s oldest, most continuously running magic. The magic bowed around where the idols touched, the wards there changing color from the threat of multiple artifacts. Magic needed guidance, and the wards down here provided it for the entire subway system.
Tremaine, at the behest of Santa Muerte, was intent on ripping all of it away.
“We need to—”
Patrick broke off with a grunt as Sage slammed into him, knocking him over. His arm was caught in Jono’s mouth and Patrick was quickly dragged in between two of the rotary convertors. He looked back at where he’d stood, seeing Sage squaring off with empty air.
Then the shadows sloughed away, Santa Muerte’s shroud retreating to reveal her favored disciple. Tremaine stood in the walkway, one hand holding a golden globe that crackled with electric magic backed by a god.
“Command trigger,” Patrick yelled, yanking himself free of Jono’s teeth and scrambling to his feet, panic choking him. “Don’t let him drop it!”
Sage lunged forward, but it was too late.
Tremaine let the globe fall.
Patrick lashed out with his own magic, but it was useless. The globe easily deflected his attempt to erect a shield around it. When the globe hit the ground, the world exploded with magic powered by a god, driven by a strong, cold wind that should not have reached them underground.
Jono was lifted clean off his paws and slammed against the far wall. Patrick was thrown backward and skidded over the floor. Patrick grunted and hooked an elbow around the nearest railing that surrounded a rotary convertor.
Marigold petals swirled through the air, making it difficult to see. Patrick used the railing to haul himself to his feet beneath the force of the wind. His feet skidded a little on the floor, the world tinged in orange against the shadows. Patrick dug out the coin Hermes had given him and squinted at the idol situated on top of the massive anchor point.
