Jono howled a warning, but it was too late. The jaguar leaped toward the teenager, who had nowhere to go but onto the tracks right as the subway train entered the station. Jono moved without thinking, launching himself off the platform with a leap fueled by desperation. The train horn blasted a piercing warning note even as the train operator hit the brakes, the screech of metal melding with people’s screams from those still running for the exits on the platforms.
This level of the Canal Street Subway Station was built with four tracks between the two platforms, steel pylons interspersed between them. No other trains were coming through, and Jono hoped his luck would hold.
He slammed into the jaguar in midair and knocked the beast away from the sprawled teenager on the tracks. Jono twisted hard, his bulk making it difficult to land where he needed to—within reach of his dazed target. He carefully clamped his teeth around the teenager’s left shoulder, got as good a grip as he could, and leaped between two steel pylons for the closest set of empty tracks right as the train screeched past where they’d been lying.
The tip of Jono’s tail whipped against the side of the subway train, a chunk of fur getting torn off, before his front paws hit the ground.
Fuck, Jono thought with a giddy mental laugh, the roaring sound in his ears that of his heart beating and not Fenrir or the train that had finally come to an emergency stop.
Sage roared, the sound worried, and Jono snarled back a wordless answer, keeping one paw on the teenager’s chest to keep him from trying to escape. Hands grabbed at his fur, tearing at it as the teen struggled to get free of Jono’s weight, ignoring the bloody gouges in his shoulder.
“Let me go!” the teen gasped out, wide brown eyes so full of terror Jono didn’t think he even knew he’d been saved.
Jono hesitated before he started to shift, needing to lean his weight on the teenager throughout the process because he kept trying to wriggle free. Jono’s body broke itself down into human skin, blood spattering on the dirty tracks around them and the teenager. Jono gripped the teenager with human hands, using his strength to keep the youth in check.
The collar around the teen’s throat was made of silver, etched deep with wards that Jono couldn’t read. They glowed an ugly orange-red, and Jono made sure not to touch it. He leaned over the teen, blocking out as much of the world as he could.
“Oi! You’re safe!” Jono said loudly, trying to be heard over the panicked breaths the teen couldn’t control. “You’re safe.”
Kneeling naked on the subway tracks and covered in blood from the fight was probably not the best place to have a conversation. Jono glanced up, seeing the opposite platform was now empty. He knew the set of tracks they were on weren’t active at this hour, only during the weekday rush hour. The tracks by the opposite platform were definitely running trains though, and Jono didn’t want to risk fighting with the teen while another train barreled down on them again.
Jono tightened his grip on the teenager, hauling them both to their feet. He wrapped his arms around the teen, wincing as bare feet slammed into his legs from frantic kicks.
“I’m not going to hurt you—fuck!” Jono growled. “Would you get your sodding teeth out of my arm?”
The teenager didn’t seem to hear him, clawing desperately at Jono’s arms with blunt human fingers, keening around the flesh he was biting into. Jono had to let go with his other arm and grab at the teenager’s dirty brown hair, yanking his head up with a firm tug. The bite wound on his arm would heal in moments.
“Calm the fuck down,” Jono ordered, grimacing at the burn from silver against his chest as the collar rubbed against his skin.
Jono kept talking as he half carried, half dragged the teenager down the tracks, fighting him the entire way. The train hadn’t reached the end of the platform, and there was space to walk around the front. The train operator lowered her side window and stuck her head out, face pale despite the frantic anger in her voice.
“What the hell is going on?” she exclaimed.
“Federal agent!” Patrick’s shout carried loudly through the air. “I want everyone off the subway train.”
The train operator ducked back inside, slamming her window closed as Jono reached the front of the train, bare feet crunching over dirt and metal. He froze when he got eyes on the mess in the tracks that had once been a jaguar.
The train should’ve torn the body to bits, shredding flesh beneath its heavy steel wheels. Instead, what lay scattered in front of the train was broken bits of obsidian glinting between the rails. Resting on a wooden tie was a red Santa Muerte idol with a black scythe and golden globe carried in each hand, larger than the sort they’d discovered in the Mustang. Its black painted eyes seemed to stare right at them.
The teenager went rigid in his arms, breath coming so fast he couldn’t possibly get enough air in his lungs. Jono was afraid he’d pass out. “Patrick. I need you over here.”
Footsteps pounded their way and Patrick skidded into view on the platform, dagger in one hand and mageglobe in the other. He’d lost his baseball cap somewhere in his mad dash here, face a little flushed from his run.
Green eyes widened before narrowing, mouth twisting. “Motherfucker.Don’tmove.”
“Too right I’m not.”
Jono waited as Patrick shielded the evidence lying on the tracks, still fighting to keep hold of the teenager. The wards that stretched through the kilometers of subway tunnels appeared up on the platform walls and along the tracks.
“Wards don’t like what ran through here,” Patrick said.
“Can’t imagine why.”
“Okay.” Patrick shook sparks off his fingers. “You’re in the clear.”
Jono crossed the tracks and leaped back up onto the platform, carrying the teenager with him. Patrick conjured up a second mageglobe and tossed it into the air between them. The washed-out blue sphere of magic pulsed twice before a ribbon of magic snaked away from it.
“You can let him go now,” Patrick said once the binding ward had wrapped itself securely around the teenager’s body.
