The psychopomp yowled before running off, trailing Spencer’s magic behind her, fog breaking in the air. Patrick reached out and grabbed Spencer by the back of his tactical vest, hauling the other mage with him as Nadine and the police corralled the civilians huddling around the obelisk and got them moving.
“Think Wade would share any more of his cookies?” Spencer muttered, not fighting Patrick’s pull as he was dragged between cars, just like old times.
“Yes,” Patrick said, lying through his teeth.
“Uh,no,” Wade protested.
Spencer kept conjuring, but his tone turned pleading. “I need a pick-me-up.”
“That sounds like a you problem and not a problem for my cookies.”
“Both of you, shut up. Spencer, focus on the zombies,” Patrick snapped.
Spencer snagged a mageglobe in one hand before throwing it toward the zombies coming from the bridge. “Iam.”
Even as he spoke, Spencer’s magic ripped through the zombies they could see, separating the souls that animated bones and flesh. Patrick could sense the tearing as Spencer pulled the souls free, sending them to rest with Fatima to guide them. The twisting fog they created moved swiftly toward the psychopomp, who swallowed them whole.
But the zombies kept coming.
Jono and Sage stayed within the square, not chasing the zombies into the park. The zombies on the bridge coming from the Left Bank were skeletons filled with souls, bones that hadn’t seen the light of day in centuries suddenly called back to life.
“Shit,” Spencer swore as he stumbled over someone’s discarded bag.
Patrick kept him on his feet, hauling the other man along toward the police barrier. “No luck?”
“They just keepcoming.”
He sounded aggravated. Hours of already breaking souls free nonstop were starting to catch up with him. Even with the ability to tap a ley line, mages weren’t inexhaustible. It still took concentration and power to do what Spencer did, and that wore on a person’s strength. Patrick knew Spencer needed a breather, so when they ushered everyone behind Nadine’s shield and the dragged-together cars in front of the building at the corner of the square, Patrick shoved Spencer down on the steps.
“Sit. Call Fatima back and take a break,” Patrick said.
Spencer scowled, nose scrunching up in distaste at that order. “I’m fine.”
“We need to stagger the use of your magic or you’ll be no good to us when we finally reach the Eiffel Tower. I have an idea that should get us across the bridge without needing to break souls this time around.”
“Is this one of your ideas that Gerard always said gave him a heart attack?”
“You think you’re funny, but you’re not.”
“So itisone of those ideas.”
Patrick ignored him. Nadine was talking in rapid French to several police officers, hopefully getting updates. Communication was still impossible with dead electronics across the city. Coordination was dangerously hit-or-miss.
Zombies broke through the tree line again, staggering toward them. Patrick’s mouth twisted as he took in their state—fresh bodies of the newly raised dead. The skeleton zombies and drekavacs Ilya had raised were hunting and killing Paris citizens for fresher bodies. Some of the souls animating the dead were from sacrifices, others from being killed, but the sheer number of zombies crawling out of the ground meant the Morrígan’s staff was more dangerous than any of them had thought.
“Jono!” Patrick yelled. “Sage! Fall back!”
Their snarls were confirmation they’d heard him, but they were in danger of being cut off in seconds as the zombies surged to cut them off. Patrick jumped onto the hood of a car, conjured up a mageglobe, and filled it with another shock-wave ward. He threw it at the zombies closest to their location, letting magic tear through the bodies.
The dead were blown backward, some bodies ripped apart from the force of the spell. It cleared a small area of the square, but Patrick could see more zombies moving in the park, the new group threatening to box in Jono and Sage.
“Jono!”
Patrick moved forward, calling up his magic even as he raised his rifle. Before he could pull the trigger, a multitude of howls ripped through the air. Patrick removed his finger from the trigger as a snarling group of werewolves raced around the far corner by the park. They hurtled themselves at the zombies, fangs and claws viciously tearing through bodies.
Jono and Sage took the opportunity to pull back, vaulting over parked cars to put distance between themselves and the zombies. Patrick waited until they had almost reached his position before flinging his mageglobes at the latest wave of zombies. The blast of raw magic erupted in the scrum, turning the bodies into miniscule pieces of bone and meat.
The other werecreatures retreated to their position at the building. As soon as they were close enough, Nadine expanded her shield over them, her magic giving the world a faintly violet cast to it. Patrick pulled back to the clear space behind the barrier of cars. Jono and Sage followed after him, along with a brown werewolf half the size of Jono. All three crouched nearby, but only Jono and the other werewolf shifted.
