“The police will have evidence whether it is alive or dead. The animals aren’t worth the trouble.”
“Get the fuck out of my way before I stab you and tell Lucien my hand slipped.”
Einar was unimpressed with Patrick’s attitude, but whatever he wanted to say was drowned out by the thrumming of a dozen heavy feet against the flooring. Screams—distant and garbled—echoed underneath the noise. Shadows blurred at the peripheral of Patrick’s vision as the vampires Lucien had stationed in the corridors behind them rallied to the only way out.
“Jaguars,” a vampire got out as he stumbled into view, hanging off the shoulders of his dark-haired partner while trying to keep his intestines inside his body. “They came from behind.”
Einar ducked through the doorway. “Get topside.”
The vampires moved quick, blurring out of Patrick’s sight. He swore, gesturing for Sage and Wade to go first. “I’ll cover your six.”
They went first, disappearing into the stairwell. Patrick had one foot on the stairs when the pack of jaguars raced around the corner. He sent three mageglobes filled with explosive raw magic at the extension of Tezcatlipoca’s power and set them off. Patrick kept his footing as the mageglobes exploded, shaking the walls around them.
From above, Wade shouted, “I thought you said don’t bring down the building? Is this some do as I say, not as I do bullshit?”
“Shut up and run!” Patrick yelled.
Fuckingteenagers.
Patrick dropped mageglobes on every landing, timed to explode every five seconds. His ears were ringing from the noise by the time he reached the last step, pitching himself into the room he remembered that used to house a vault.
The vault was gone now, pieces of it embedded in the walls, ceiling, and floor all around them. Sage had leaped over the shrapnel and through the doorway, the heavy steel door having already been torn off. Wade had run after her, his footsteps having melted the metal beneath them. That little detail was slightly more worrisome than the jaguars hunting them—but only slightly.
“Sage, I’m gonna need you in this fight,” Patrick yelled at her as he followed in Wade’s exact footsteps. “Put those two in a storage room, and I’ll ward the doors.”
Sage darted toward the broken open employees-only door at the end of the hallway that led into the club proper. Standing in human form between them and the fighting happening in the Crimson Diamond was Áltsé Hashké.
“I will safeguard them,” the god said. “Go.”
The binding ward that had kept the two werecreatures secured to Sage on their mad dash out of the tunnels broke by way of a single touch from the god. Pain spiked through Patrick’s head as his magic disintegrated. He’d be angry about the god’s lack of care, but the furious snarls coming from behind him overrode his thoughts.
One quick glance over his shoulder proved the jaguars had made it topside.
“Run!” Patrick yelled, racing for the club.
Áltsé Hashké pulled the werecreatures off Sage and carried them into the storage room. The door slammed shut and sealed with a burning light that made Patrick’s eyes water. Patrick, Sage, and Wade ran out of the back room and into the screaming mess of a fight between two Night Courts and the gods that oversaw it all.
20
Patrick tookin the fight with a sweeping gaze. Despite the screaming guests huddled behind what cover they could find, and the bullets flying through the air from both sides, what caught and held his attention was Jono.
Relief washed through Patrick like a head rush.Oh, good. He’s not dead.
The cage made out of magic on the dance floor was still intact. Inside, Tremaine and Jono were squaring off, and it looked like Tremaine was on the losing side of the fight. The master vampire’s clothes were torn in multiple areas, his pale skin peeled open from slashes given by Jono’s claws. Tremaine wasn’t close to true death, but not for Jono’s lack of trying.
Werecreatures, when they shifted into their animal form, never resembled the animals from nature. Bigger, more monstrous, no one would confuse a werecreature with their mundane counterpart. That went double for Jono, whose wolf form was significantly larger than other werecreatures, wolf-bright blue eyes of his god pack heritage prominent in his huge head.
Patrick grabbed Wade by the arm and hauled the teenager with him across the dance floor. He laid down a wide spray of suppressive fire at a pair of Omacatl Cartel members to keep them at bay. Sage threw herself into the fight with a roar, and Patrick didn’t try to stop her. Skidding to a stop by the cage, he yanked out his dagger and slammed it into the magic.
Tremaine’s eyes barely flickered Patrick’s way, too intent on the threat right in front of him. The master vampire’s face was twisted into something monstrous, fangs bared and slick with Jono’s blood.
“Hey, asshole,” Patrick said as the magic started to disintegrate, heavenly white fire burning around the dagger’s matte-black blade. “Lucien wants a word with you.”
Wade pressed himself against Patrick’s back, fingers shaking when he grabbed at Patrick’s arm. “I don’t feel good.”
Tremaine lunged toward them, a blur Patrick couldn’t track. Before the master vampire even reached them, Jono was there, knocking the fucker out of midair with a headbutt that sounded like it hurt. Tremaine went flying, no longer trapped by a god’s magic, and landed in the scrum happening around them.
Patrick looked over his shoulder at Wade, his aura blinding. It felt as if Patrick had taken another hit of shine. Squinting, he watched as iridescent red scales flowed over Wade’s face in waves, leaving behind scaly patches. Bits of gold seeped into his brown eyes, pupils more oval than round now.
