“Need me to pull over?” Sage asked.
Marek swallowed audibly. “No. I’ll be fine.”
Jono and Sage shared a disbelieving look, but neither called Marek out on the obvious lie. He never fared well for a few hours after he had a vision or channeled the Fates who owned him.
“You’re not driving home from Ginnungagap. I’ll text Emma and have her pick you up.”
Marek said nothing, which was an answer by itself. Jono faced forward again, keeping an eye on the traffic as they left Chelsea behind for SoHo. Both neighborhoods were thick with early Friday-night crowds, and their numbers would only increase. Jono tried not to think about how many people were using the subway tonight and what might happen if their plan didn’t work.
When Sage finally braked to a stop in front of the guarded door of the Crimson Diamond, she looked Jono directly in the eye and showed her throat. “I will keep the pack safe,” she promised.
Jono reached out and pressed his hand to her throat, scent-marking her. “Dire.”
The god strain of the werevirus didn’t run in her veins. Sage didn’t have his eyes, but she had the heart and fortitude any god pack would welcome. The rank he bestowed on her was only proper. The wide-eyed, pleased look she gave him was one he would always remember.
Jono got out of the car and helped Marek return to the front passenger seat before he closed the door. Then he headed for the entrance to the Crimson Diamond and didn’t look back.
Human servants guarded the door since sunset was still thirty minutes away. Neither stopped him when Jono reached for the door handle and let himself inside. A pair of human servant hostesses and two cartel members stood in front of the flower wall with its neon sign.
“Jonothon de Vere,” the blonde woman said. “Our lord is expecting you.”
Jono highly doubted Tremaine had Lucien’s ability to walk in daylight and was here to greet him. “Is he now?”
The taller cartel member cracked his knuckles in a cartoonish sort of threat Jono ignored. “This way,” the man ordered.
Unlike the hostess, the cartel members didn’t wear bite mark scars around their throats, but they carried pistols like an extension of their arms. Jono followed them deeper into the club, taking in the crowd. The main floor was full of well-dressed people getting drunk or high, placing bets for the fight, or getting off as they waited for the vampires to wake with sunset and the night’s entertainment to begin.
At the edge of the marble dance floor, a cluster of low tables and leather chaises were guarded by heavily armed cartel members. Some of the men and women faced outward, eyes on the club, while others kept watch over their charges. Jono drew in a deep breath, taking in the scents around him—chemical, sweat, metal, gunpowder, and the electric tang of gods coming together in a toxic mixture.
Tezcatlipoca greeted him with a smile and a raised glass of tequila. Dressed in a tan linen suit, wearing an overabundance of gold and obsidian jewelry, the god had his arm around the shoulders of an emaciated woman. Her bones pressed sharply against paper-thin skin, the black, off-the-shoulder evening dress she wore barely clinging to her arms. Even in the dim club lighting, Jono could make out the embroidery along the long skirt that covered her feet, a pattern of skulls and crossed scythes.
Shiny black hair was pulled up in an intricate braided updo studded with obsidian pins and a cluster of marigolds. Her face was more bone than flesh, the skin there painted in the style of a sugar skull—deathly white, with black and red detailing around her eyes and mouth. She looked at Jono with pitch-black eyes, no sclera showing at all, and the only scent he got off her was death.
“Tezcatlipoca,” Jono said, never taking his eyes off the deity. “Santa Muerte.”
“Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte,” one of the men who had led Jono to the table said. The tone in his voice was that of a believer as he knelt and crossed himself, head bowed in obeisance.
Santa Muerte extended her hand toward the man, and he crawled forward in order to kiss the obsidian ring sitting prominently on her middle finger.
“I assumed you would forfeit,” Tezcatlipoca said.
Jono took a seat on an empty chaise without being invited. He ignored the furious looks thrown his way by a handful of Tezcatlipoca’s faithful. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you stink of the mage who didn’t tithe properly.”
Jono’s lips peeled away from his teeth. “Patrick doesn’t belong to you.”
“I suppose you think he belongs to you?” Tezcatlipoca took a sip of his tequila, gaze hooded. “He is owned by Persephone.”
“You think that makes him fair game? Some toy for the gods to fight over and use?” Jono leaned forward and picked up the bottle of AsomBroso Reserva Del Porto and pulled out the glass stopper. “Patrick is part of my pack. You don’t get to touch him, you fucking twat.”
Jono took a swig of tequila straight from the expensive bottle. The taste was smooth on his tongue; top shelf for sure. When one of the cartel members tried to yank it out of his hand, Jono grabbed the man by the throat and squeezed hard enough to completely cut off his air. Jono tossed the man onto the dance floor, not bothering to watch where he landed.
“My challenge was to Tremaine. You want in on it?” Jono asked as he leaned back on the chaise and gestured at Tezcatlipoca with the bottle. “Then get in. Or are you too bloody scared?”
The quiet click of a gun’s safety being undone and the cold press of a muzzle against the back of Jono’s skull didn’t bother him at all. He just took another sip of tequila and kept his eyes on Tezcatlipoca.
He needed to keep Tremaine and the gods occupied so Patrick and the others could find their way inside and go unnoticed for as long as possible. If it meant antagonizing a god, well, he’d watched Patrick do it enough. Jono figured it couldn’t be that hard.
