“Then stay here behind the ward. Goes double for you, Wade.”
Jono yanked the front door open, glad to see the magic wasn’t stopping him from leaving—but someone else was. Jono drew himself up short, nearly crashing into Hermes where the messenger god stood in the foyer.
“Huh. I forgot about that coin,” Hermes said.
“Get out of my fucking way,” Jono growled.
Hermes’ gaze flicked up and down Jono before he shrugged. “I got you a ride. Let’s go.”
The tugging in Jono’s soul seemed to get worse the second he crossed the threshold. He didn’t need to be a magic user to know what that meant.
Patrick was in trouble.
Jono shouldered past Hermes and headed for the stairs instead of the elevator, careening down them to the ground floor. Hermes met him at the bottom landing, having moved through the veil as only a god could.
The tugging in Jono’s soul got sharper. A creeping, vicious unease poured adrenaline through his veins.
“What happened?” Jono snarled as he slammed through the entrance of the building, the door rattling on its hinges.
An SUV was parked on the street out front. Quetzalcoatl stood near a familiar motorcycle with two passengers that was parked alongside it. Both engines were running hot.
“I warned him not to go to the club,” Quetzalcoatl said, sounding irritated.
“It’s not your case,” Jono reminded him savagely. He would’ve said more, except his mobile started ringing and he yanked it out of his back pocket. Sage’s name flashed over the screen and he answered immediately. “Sage?”
“Patrick traded himself for Kennedy and us,” Sage said, sounding breathless and furious andscared. Beyond her voice, Jono could hear the sound of honking horns, squealing brakes, and the snarl of beasts he remembered from the subway. “He gave me his dagger and said he wouldn’t use his magic. He—”
She cut off, her voice overridden by the sound of metal crashing against metal. Jono balled his empty hand into a fist, blunt fingernails cutting into his skin as his heart skipped a beat. He could still hear Sage breathing, so he knew she was alive, that it wasn’t the Mustang that had been hit.
“Your brother is hunting them,” Hermes said, raising an eyebrow at Quetzalcoatl. “Will you deal with that problem, or shall I? The dagger can’t be lost to the hells. That is power we can’t let them have.”
“You are quicker,” Quetzalcoatl said.
Jono was furious that all the immortals seemed to care about was the fucking dagger Patrick carried and not the man himself. Hermes took a single step backward and disappeared. Sage’s surprised shout came through the line, and Jono had to remember not to break his mobile.
“Hermes is here,” she panted.
“Einar, return to Ginnungagap,” Lucien ordered, not bothering to raise his voice. As with werecreatures, vampires had enhanced hearing, and Jono had no doubt the other vampire was listening in.
“Ring Emma,” Jono said to Sage as he stalked past Quetzalcoatl for the driver’s seat. “Have her meet you at Ginnungagap to help with Kennedy.”
Quetzalcoatl gave Jono a bemused look as the car door slammed in his face. The immortal disappeared on the pavement like Hermes, only to reappear in the front passenger seat in the blink of an eye.
“You should know Santa Muerte is awake,” Quetzalcoatl said as he reached up to the roof and flipped a switch. “The Omacatl Cartel has worshipped her into existence over the course of decades, along with every soul who prays to her on these two continents.”
The red and blue lights secured to the dash and hidden in the SUV’s front grill switched on, flashing in the dark. Jono ignored the immortal in favor of undoing the emergency brake and slamming his foot down on the gas pedal.
The pull at Jono’s soul got tighter. He didn’t have magic, couldn’t manipulate his soul the way a mage could, but what tied him to Patrick was still a connection he could feel.
One he could follow.
“You got sirens in this thing?” Jono snapped.
Quetzalcoatl wordlessly switched them on, the high-pitched sound nearly bursting Jono’s eardrums until he dialed down his hearing. Following what pulled at his soul was far harder than following a neatly plotted GPS map. At least the sirens cleared them a way quicker than a borrowed car from Emma’s pack would have.
Driving while following the soulbond meant Jono didn’t pay any attention to typical street laws, and neither did Lucien, who kept right on his tail. Speeding down Fifth Avenue with his heart in his throat and Fenrir waking up meant he didn’t have time for conversation.
Quetzalcoatl didn’t care.
