“This was a shitty idea!” Patrick shouted.
Across the distance separating them, Lucien pulled the release on a flashbang grenade with his teeth and tossed it around the corner. “No one asked you.”
Patrick squeezed his eyes shut, his NVGs shoved up onto his hard helmet since Tremaine hadn’t yet cut the lights down where they were. The grenade blew—sound, light, and smoke exploding in the adjacent corridor. Patrick moved, using those few precious moments of distraction to shoot around the corner.
The recoil against his shoulder was easy to resist. Patrick went for maximum damage over clean shots, cutting through bodies before they could retaliate. His spelled bullets made a dent in the handful of vampires trying to hold them off, but the too-human members of the Omacatl Cartel suffered more.
Patrick didn’t care.
He pulled back, finger lifting off the trigger, and Lucien blurred into the fray, leaving Sergio to guard his old spot. Patrick looked over his shoulder at where Wade crouched behind him, Sage’s huge orange and black striped head hooked over the teen’s shoulder in a protective manner. She’d changed forms the second they’d crossed the vault door and had stuck close to Wade.
“How are you holding up?” Patrick asked.
Wade blinked at him, slow and measured. Dried blood that wasn’t his was spattered over one cheek, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I can’t believe you do this for a living.”
“Technically, I don’t do this anymore.”
“What? Mass murder?”
A meaty smack drew Patrick’s attention. He turned around, watching as a severed head bounced off the wall before rolling to a stop.
Patrick didn’t know how to tell Wade that there were things he thought he’d never have to do. That there were lines he thought he’d never have to cross. Patrick used to believe that once, but he learned the hard way—a long, long time ago—thatneverwas just another word foruntil.
“Off-the-record missions.” Patrick chanced a look around the corner, saw that it was clear, and ducked into the corridor, weapon raised. “We’re going to need some witnesses.”
Lucien dropped the head he’d twisted clean off a body. It landed with a dull thump by his feet. “I have no use for the garbage that bows to Tremaine.”
He licked blood off his fingers as the rest of the group moved into the narrow corridor. The tunnels that made up the Manhattan Night Court were more extensive than Patrick remembered. Wade knew the way and had been leading them to the underground stairwell Patrick knew would bring them directly to the club with unfailing accuracy.
Patrick looked over his shoulder at Wade. “How much farther?”
“Two more turns, then the main corridor,” Wade replied, keeping his eyes averted from Lucien. “The other groups should reach it soon.
The tunnels, while tightly packed, were spread out beneath the city block. They went as deep as the subways, if not deeper in some areas they bypassed. They’d posted sentries at those intersections, one or two vampires or cartel members at each post to keep watch. The fringe of the veil was a strange place without protective wards, and they needed a rearguard to watch their six.
“They’ll be waiting for us at the stairwell. It’s a chokehold there,” Carmen said.
Unlike Patrick, she wasn’t wearing a helmet and her horns were on full display. Her dark red pupils seemed to burn in the bright halogen lights lining the ceiling as she strode through the mess Lucien had made.
Patrick flexed his fingers against the grip of his weapon. “I’ve got a spell or two that will clear them out.”
They’d been at this for twenty minutes now, pushing forward into uncharted territory. Up until now, they’d gone for stealth over announcing their presence but it seemed Lucien was done with fucking around.
The smell of blood hung heavy and thick in the air as they advanced down the long corridor. Patrick’s boots squelched through blood and bits he opted not to think about. He didn’t have time to dwell on the dead or undead.
It was the living who mattered.
They made it to a cross-corridor intersection that branched off into four separate directions. Irena and Einar were already there, pinned down by suppressive fire that rang loudly in Patrick’s ears. He didn’t know if Tremaine’s people were getting desperate or finally figuring out they had a problem because their defense this time around was more like an offense.
Bullets bit off chunks of concrete at the corner, forcing them to remain farther back from the cross-section than they liked. Ricochets were a dangerous problem that Patrick dealt with by raising a shield between their position and the only way out.
“You need to stop teaching your children bad habits. They don’t need to grow up to be like you,” Patrick said to Lucien.
Lucien calmly reloaded his M4A1 carbine. “Get us a way through.”
Patrick conjured up a mageglobe, the washed-out blue sphere spinning in the air at shoulder level. He filled it with raw magic, going with brutal force over a targeted attack. Military grade spells weren’t supposed to be used in civilian areas, not to mention they had an entire building above them that Patrick didn’t want toppling down. He had no desire to be buried alive. That meant tailoring the blast to something less powerful but which would give them room to maneuver.
Patrick sent the mageglobe spinning around the corner. He counted to three before igniting it. The resulting explosion ripped through the air, followed by screams that rang in Patrick’s ears. Across the way, Irena and Einar blurred into the fight, followed by other vampires and cartel members. The screams ahead were loud, but it was the faint cry that came from the rear that had Wade grabbing onto Patrick’s arm with too-strong fingers.
