“They keep the fighters on this level,” Wade said.
Carmen tilted her head to the side. “They’re getting rid of the evidence.”
Before Patrick could open his mouth and respond, Wade took off on fast feet. Sage twisted around to follow him. Patrick dropped his shield and scrambled after them. “Wait!”
Too late—Wade and Sage both disappeared around the far corner. Patrick swore and double-timed it down the corridor and past the sentries they’d posted. He veered right, seeing a flash of orange and black turn left at the next cross-section up ahead.
Patrick followed because he refused to lose track of either of them. Seconds later Sage’s snarl reached Patrick’s ears, the rage in it impossible to ignore.
Evidence, Patrick thought bleakly as he followed them to a room whose door had been shattered upon impact.
Inside was a gruesome scene, one which Patrick wouldn’t be able to scrub out of his mind anytime soon. His combat boots, even with their gripping tread, slipped on a floor coated in blood. He got his balance back in time to put two spelled bullets in the chest of the vampire that came at him. When that didn’t stop the creature, Patrick yanked his dagger free of its sheath and stabbed it into the vampire’s skull.
The vampire shuddered, going limp and hanging off his dagger for half a second before sliding free of the blade. Patrick stepped over the body, swallowing reflexively against the churning in his stomach.
His mind didn’t want to process what had happened in that room. Not right away.
Where Tremaine and Tezcatlipoca had sacrificed people to Santa Muerte on that altar through rape and exsanguination, the fights to the death had been the money draw. Now, they seemed to be cutting their losses by killing the werecreatures they had trafficked to entertain the rich.
Eight people were chained to the walls of the room by way of silver manacles. All but two were dead. One body’s head had been torn off completely, the skull crushed like a melon before getting tossed aside. Every corpse was naked and missing limbs, the amputated appendages sewn closed with barbed wire. Silver collars encircled their necks, ensuring they couldn’t change form. Their bodies were covered in bite wounds, chunks ripped out from a feeding frenzy that could have happened today or yesterday or a week ago.
The two who were still alive had a look in their eyes Patrick had seen in Kennedy’s—little sanity, and only enough awareness left to understand that dying would be better than living like this.
Patrick readjusted his grip on the dagger right as a vampire slammed him to the ground, its teeth biting down on his neck. Only his personal shields saved him from getting his throat torn out. Patrick grunted, sliding in the tacky blood on the floor, and drove his dagger into the vampire’s back.
The vampire screamed around his throat, the sound ear-piercing. Patrick winced as he shoved the twitching body off of him. Unlike conventional blades, his dagger provided a true death vampires couldn’t come back from. Tearing out their hearts and cutting off their heads weren’t required.
Patrick got to his feet in time to see Sage eviscerate a pair of vampires she’d backed into a corner. They would be hard-pressed to heal from those wounds before dawn, so Patrick put them out of their misery by cutting off their heads. The double-edged blade was sharp enough to saw through bone with little effort. The gods-forged weapon came in handy for situations like this.
Patrick wiped the blade clean on his pants, then shoved it back into its sheath. He approached where Wade had his arms wrapped around one of the survivors. The teenager was snarling in a way that made the hair on the back of Patrick’s neck stand on end. Small patches of iridescent red scales had broken out along his hairline and neck. Wade’s aura burned like a halo around his body, so bright Patrick had to cover his eyes.
“Pull yourself together, Wade. You can’t shift down here. You’ll bring everything down around us,” Patrick said.
Patrick peered through his fingers as he knelt between the two survivors. Wade seemed to get control over himself, the brightness of his aura fading, but not completely. The scales on his face and neck mostly faded, but Patrick could see the shadow of them. He didn’t have time to think about Wade’s tenuous control. They needed to get out of that hellhole and back to the main group.
Patrick used his dagger to cut through the collars that kept the werecreatures connected to the walls. The silver-coated collars, etched with a binding ward, broke apart beneath Patrick’s dagger. Beneath the metal were open wounds and burns on their necks. Suddenly being free didn’t snap the pair back to reality. Both victims remained where they were.
“Sage, get over here. You’ll have to carry them topside,” Patrick said.
There was no way either survivor could walk, even with the binding ward broken and their ability to change forms returned to them. The woman was missing a leg up to the knee, and both of the man’s feet had been chewed to ragged bits up to the ankles. The barbed wire dipped in aconite embedded in their skin to close up the wounds would need to be removed by a medical professional. Patrick hoped they survived long enough to reach a hospital.
They were werecreatures, capable of regenerating missing limbs and flesh, but he knew what gangrene looked and smelled like. Patrick wasn’t sure if either of them would ever fully recover from this torture.
Sage crouched beside him, nose twitching from her heightened sense of smell. Patrick and Wade carefully deposited the two survivors onto her back. Patrick cast a binding ward around them, ropes of magic securing the pair to Sage’s body.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Patrick said, taking point and heading for the door. Sighting down his rifle, half a dozen tiny mageglobes floating near his shoulders, Patrick eased into the corridor. “Clear.”
Sage carefully maneuvered through the door, with Wade following after her. They hadn’t gone more than a handful of steps when an animalistic roar echoed in the air. Patrick didn’t freeze—he started running.
“Sounds like Tezcatlipoca hit the field,” Patrick tossed over his shoulder. “Move.”
They moved, as quickly as they could, which wasn’t as fast as Patrick would’ve liked. Sage and Wade were both trying to make sure their charges weren’t hurt in the process but when they were all trying to outrun a pissed-off god, pain was unavoidable.
Patrick retraced their steps back to the main corridor. Lucien’s sentries were still alive, but most of the group had gone up the circular stairs that led aboveground. Einar stood by the entrance, weapon in hand and impatiently waiting for them.
“Áltsé Hashké cleared a path after you ran from your duty,” Einar said.
Patrick flipped him off. “Oh, fuck you. I wasn’t leaving anyone behind.”
