Jono sighed deeply before shutting the car door and going around to the driver’s side. He got behind the wheel and started the engine, sitting there for a moment before saying, “Where to?”
He desperately wanted Patrick to sayhome. The answer he got was unsurprising.
“The PCB.”
Jono pulled into the street and headed for the corner. As he braked to a halt, movement flashed across the rearview mirror. His eyes cut to the reflection in the mirror, but nothing appeared.
“What is it?” Patrick asked.
“Thought I saw something.”
Patrick twisted around in his seat to peer out the rear window. “What did it look like?”
“Not sure, but it was running on four legs.”
A werecreature would be the obvious answer because the god pack wasn’t above spying on the people they were supposed to protect. Emma’s pack was no exception, and only the bought magic sunk into the threshold around their home or Patrick prevented werecreatures from listening in some days.
Somehow, Jono had a feeling what he thought he’d seen wasn’t a werecreature.
3
Patrick pushedthrough the front doors to the Preternatural Crimes Bureau with the Santa Muerte idol in hand and Jono at his back. He unearthed his badge from his back pocket and presented it to the desk sergeant on duty. The woman buzzed them through the security doors without comment.
Rather than head up to the fifth floor where Bureau Chief Giovanni Casale’s office was, they took the elevator down into the basement where the crime lab and morgue were located. The basement also housed the evidence lockup, which was always manned by a magic user.
The officer working third shift greeted them with a friendly enough smile. The badge pinned to her shirt showed her last name and was etched with a small pentacle beneath the letters, denoting her rank as a witch.
Submitting the Santa Muerte idol into evidence and tagging it with the correct case number took a few minutes and only one form. Patrick left the idol in the evidence lockup, contained inside a warded wooden box with Latin prayers carved on all sides.
“I need to see if Casale is in,” Patrick said, knuckling one eye as they waited for the elevator.
Jono nodded. “Want me to wait at the car?”
Patrick’s first instinct was to sayyes, but Jono had been with him for the second idol’s appearance and he had insight to the werecreature community Patrick didn’t have. Aside from that, Patrick just plain missed him after a week apart.
“No. Stay with me.”
Jono’s hand brushed the back of his as they stepped into the elevator, a silent signal of support that Patrick was still getting used to.
The bull pen was busy despite the late hour when they walked by it. Some of the offices on the floor were dark, but Casale’s had light streaming from beneath the closed door. His assistant, Paula, had left hours ago, so Patrick knocked on the door. The office was warded for silence, but the wards would let Casale know someone was outside waiting.
The door opened seconds later and Patrick came face-to-face with the PCB’s bureau chief. He hadn’t seen Giovanni Casale in weeks. Considering the backlog of cases cropping up since summer solstice, it wasn’t surprising.
“I’m back,” Patrick said in lieu of hello.
Casale opened the office door wider, gesturing for them to enter. “I wish you weren’t.”
“One of these days you’ll miss me.”
“When I’m dead, maybe.”
Patrick couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped his mouth. He respected Casale despite knowing the NYPD didn’t much care for when a federal agency came in to take over a case. But Casale would’ve been the one to reach out to the SOA asking for assistance in the first place. Henry had offered up Patrick out of the field office’s Rapid Response Division and Casale hadn’t said no.
“Did you receive the preliminary officer report on the subway homicide?” Patrick asked as Jono shut the door behind him.
“I was advised about the case when it hit dispatch. It’s why I sent the request to the SOA in the first place and stayed late,” Casale replied. “Heard you’d gone to talk to the god pack tonight. Thought that would’ve been Estelle and Youssef, not Jonothon.”
“They were busy,” Jono said with a careless shrug. He didn’t move to take a seat, and Patrick stayed by his side.
