Lucien slung his arm over Carmen’s shoulders and reeled her in close before curling his finger at Spencer. “Come here.”
Spencer went, because they had roles to play, but he didn’t seem to mind the possessive way Lucien touched him or the kiss the master vampire gave him. Patrick tried not to gag, then Fatima swatted at Lucien’s foot, forcing them to break apart.
Lucien stared down at the psychopomp before squeezing Spencer’s ass. “I don’t know why I indulge you that beast.”
Spencer laughed a little nervously but didn’t say anything, playing up his role just fine. The trio walked toward the main entrance of the Smithfield Market. Einar fell into step beside Patrick, several other vampires appearing around them. No other human servants were joining them tonight.
The three SUVs they’d traveled in drove off, clearing the street for the next arrival. The area of London they were in didn’t have any active nightlife, and the street they were on had only light traffic.
The magic wrapped around the long building of Smithfield Market scraped against Patrick’s shields, the strength in its making speaking of power he wasn’t sure he could break even if he tapped a ley line. The place closed early on Sundays, and he had little hope the security guards tasked with patrolling the area would make it out alive tonight.
Black market auctions were usually not held so out in the open, but considering the number of buyers involved, a larger space had to be acquired. The magic hiding the auction from prying eyes was proof of the auctioneer’s power, or at least his ability to pay for it. Considering the London god pack had been roped in as preternatural security told Patrick that Rossiter and Cressida were probably still just as friendly as they had been in the photograph he’d seen at Winfield House.
They reached the entrance to Smithfield Market where the metal gates were winched up. God pack werecreatures handled security while a fae with the look of the Unseelie Court took everyone’s invitation.
Patrick refused to be worried about the glamour they wore—it had been set by Brigid, a goddess who sat far above the fae standing at the entrance. If she couldn’t hide them against her own kind, then the world was worse off than he thought.
“Invitation?” the fae asked.
Lucien removed the invitation from his inner jacket pocket, handing it over. The fae took it with creepily long fingers, unfolding the magicked paper to read its contents.
“Lucien.” The fae looked up, taking them all in with a sweeping glance. “And your Night Court, I presume?”
“Where I go, they go,” Lucien said.
The fae studied him for a long moment before looking each of them in the eye for several seconds, her gaze lingering on everyone equally. Patrick tried not to hold his breath, keeping his heartbeat steady beneath the scrutiny.
“No weapons. No artifacts. No magic. No electronics. All hostilities will be held to a temporary truce.”
Carmen smiled widely. “Those are the rules.”
“Abide by them.”
“As required.”
Carmen could play word games with the fae well enough. She’d had a few centuries to try her hand at it. The fae couldn’t deny them entrance, and Smithfield Market wasn’t a home. Hospitality couldn’t be forced upon anyone who entered, as there was no threshold laid down around its foundation.
Fire sparked at the tips of the fae’s long fingers, catching at the invitation. It burned to ash in seconds, breaking the magic written across it. The remnants of the paper fell to the sidewalk, and the fae gestured toward the entrance.
“Enter freely,” she said.
Patrick noticed she said nothing about their options to leave.
Lucien led the way beneath the winched-up gates and into the foggy darkness stretched across the wide entrance. It reminded Patrick of the veil, even though he knew it was only someone’s magic they were passing through. The searching spell clawed its way down his body but found nothing, the dagger’s magic keeping it hidden.
When they stepped free of the magic, they found themselves in a brightly lit corridor with a high ceiling. The table to their left contained bagged electronics people forgot to leave behind or thought they could hide. To the right was a table almost overflowing with weapons that ranged from pistols to a sword and everything in between. Most held magic within them, small-scale artifacts that had been confiscated.
The werecreature who blocked their way forward held out his hand. “Your weapons.”
No one in their group moved to divest themselves of weapons. Fatima sat beside Spencer’s feet and calmly washed her face with one paw.
“We have none,” Lucien said disdainfully. “Get out of my way.”
Patrick very much doubted that, and the feeling must have been shared by the werecreature, who unsubtly sniffed at them. Whatever he was hoping to find, he didn’t. Scowling, the werecreature looked over at a teenager who sat on a folding chair off to the side, hands clasped in her lap, wavy hair falling over both her shoulders.
Recognition hummed through Patrick’s magic beneath his shields—the feel of a witch. Her gaze swept over them, eyes flickering with an inner light, before she nodded.
“No weapons,” she announced.
