He sent his magic down through those channels for the ley line that snaked deep beneath the ocean floor. When he connected, it was as if a live wire had shocked every last nerve in his body, and Jono’s soul was all that stood between him and severe electrocution. Patrick’s teeth tingled from the excess magic as he drew it out from the ley line and conjured up a dozen mageglobes. The spheres of magic erupted around him and Nerys, spinning like the rocky rings of an outer planet in the solar system.
Patrick cast a fusillade spell in every single mageglobe, the command trigger held tight in his mind, on his tongue. He let go of Nerys long enough to twist one wrist and splay his fingers wide in a command gesture. The mageglobes shot forward, streaking through the night sky like comets.
Smaller in formation by far than the nova spell the Dominion Sect had lobbed their way in the initial attack, Patrick’s spell was military grade and made for a sustained attack. The Sluagh, dead though they might be, were still susceptible to magic.
When Patrick snapped his fingers, mouthing the command word, the world lit up like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Raw magic poured through Jono’s soul and into his, straight through to the fusillade spell still exploding in the midst of the Sluagh.
As in August, when he’d fought Santa Muerte, the fusillade spell didn’t stop after the initial explosion. The sustained attack forced the Sluagh to scatter, sending some tumbling down to the waves below when they lost their orientation in the air, and the ocean swallowed them whole. Those that remained screamed their fury, the sound louder than the wind.
Down below amidst the black sea, pinpricks of light held steady against a solid darkness that didn’t move—the Skellig Islands.
Nerys wrapped the reins around her hands to shorten them and guided her horse back into the clouds, with the rest of the Wild Hunt following in her wake. The clouds swallowed them back up, blocking out the world, and Patrick’s spatial sense didn’t know what way was up. He swallowed back the nausea and focused on drawing more magic out of the ley line.
The plan was to do an aerial drop on Skellig Michael.
The plan was to not die.
The plan got thrown out of the goddamn proverbial window when something huge, dark, sinewy, and full ofteethcut through the clouds from below.
The creature slammed against Nadine’s shields, sending violet ripples through her defenses. But they held, because it’d take more than a sea monster out of some long-forgotten myth to make Nadine drop her shields.
Patrick caught a glimpse of an impossibly wide mouth full of layers of serrated teeth that disappeared down its throat, and large eyes the size of a semitruck tire before the sea creature gave in to gravity and crashed back to the sea.
“What thefuckwas that?” Patrick yelled.
“An annoyance,” Gerard shouted back, teeth bared in a hard smile.
Patrick rolled his eyes.I don’t get paid enough for this bullshit.
Nerys dug her heels into her horse’s side and pulled on the reins, guiding the Wild Hunt right. Patrick couldn’t see where they were going, but he could feel the route in his stomach. Nerys led them higher into the sky before her horse gave a mighty kick into a spinning dive that made Patrick dizzy and reminded him of flying dark into a war zone to land under threat of fire.
And the fire did come.
Spells shot through the sky like ballistic missiles, slamming against Nadine’s shields with enough force Patrick was momentarily blinded by flashes of violet light that curled back over the Wild Hunt.
Patrick gripped Nerys’ belt tight in his left hand before leaning around her far enough to extend his right hand toward the ground. He opened himself up to the soulbond and the ley line, letting a flood of wild, raw magic pour out of him and through the stabilizing mageglobe spinning against the palm of his hand.
The shock-wave spell ripped out of Patrick like a tsunami, the arc of magic tailored for the living and the dead, but not the earth below, cognizant of the ancient structures they didn’t want to destroy. His magic ripped through the spells coming their way, the air around them vibrating with power. Patrick made a fist, the mageglobe encasing his hand in burning pale blue light as he guided the spell.
Magic exploded over wet black stone, bathing Skellig Michael in bright light long enough for the Wild Hunt to shake off their passengers. Patrick launched himself off the ghostly horse and hit the ground hands-first. He rolled head over heels, getting his feet under him and pulling his dagger free of its sheath. The matte-black blade spat heavenly white fire, giving him light to see by but making him a prominent target on the storm-lashed rocky island.
The Wild Hunt launched back into the sky where the Sluagh was regrouping in the storm. Lightning exploded in the clouds, followed by the deafening sound of thunder and the screaming of the Sluagh. Automatic fire echoed in the air, the impact of bullets against Nadine’s shield like tiny electric flares around them.
A large shape leaped out of the darkness toward him, and the only reason Patrick didn’t go for the head was the soulbond. Jono landed beside him, a monstrous, hulking werewolf that looked ready to murder anyone or anything that got in his way.
Which was good, because the demon stalking toward them along the ancient stone wall below made Patrick freeze as recognition cut through his magic hot enough to make him forget about the cold. His mouth went dry, but that didn’t stop him from shouting a warning, using an amplifying charm to pitch his voice loud enough to be heard over the storm.
“Soultaker!” Patrick shouted.
The demon in question screamed, the sound like tearing metal. It jumped off the stone wall and came up the wet slope of land to their position at a quick pace. Its bipedal body traversed the muddy dirt easily enough.
Mottled, leathery gray skin was split over joints, black bones like shadow in the after-flash of lightning and the flare of magic in the sky. Razor-sharp claws extended from the stumps of its palms while its long, pointed tongue flicked in and out of its mouth with prehensile strength. Its head had no eyes, no nose, and was filled only with a wide mouth filled with rows of jagged teeth.
Soultakers fed on souls and magic, and Patrick had hoped he’d seen the last of hell’s version of a walking bottomless pit of hunger back in June.
“Everyone! Watch your six!” Gerard shouted.
The plan was for Patrick, Nadine, Gerard, Desmond, Jono, and Sage to pair up with the remaining Hellraisers, creating an even balance of preternatural, magical, and mundane human fighting teams. That would’ve worked before the soultakers hit the field. Now, the only ones with a chance at stopping the damned demons were Jono and Sage due to their enhanced strength, speed, and senses, and Patrick’s dagger.
