Jono would know something was wrong, but Patrick didn’t know if Nadine would be strong enough to get through the magic wrapped around Smithfield Market. He couldn’t worry about that right now, because they needed to get the staff. Retrieving it was going to be a difficult task to do while fighting off werecreatures, a Dullahan, and the banshee the records-keeping fae turned out to be.
The banshee’s face was nothing like the one she’d worn while greeting them at the entrance. It was grotesque, misshapen, with slate-gray eyes that had no pupils and a too-large mouth. She attacked the frightened aide holding the staff and sent the weapon skidding across the stage, intent on ripping free the steel gauntlets from the woman’s hands. From the way the woman screamed, it sounded as if the banshee had ripped off her hands with them.
Patrick surged forward, intent on retrieving the staff before anyone else could, but didn’t get far. The banshee threw back her head andscreamed, the preternatural sound high-pitched and agonizing.
Patrick jerked, his entire body vibrating from the wail that seemed to make the air shimmer around them. Then a dark blur slammed into Patrick with what could’ve been bone-breaking force if he didn’t expand his personal shields to keep claws from ripping into his skin. He hit the floor with a grunt, skidding a few feet before slamming into a pile of tipped-over chairs.
Wolf-bright blue eyes glared down at him as sharp fangs bit at his shields, causing sparks to ripple through the air. Patrick didn’t have much space to move, but it was more than enough to twist his right hand so his dagger pointed upward. He slammed it through his shield into the werewolf’s belly with a grunt. The blade cut deep, sinking into flesh with burning ease.
The werewolf howled at a pitch that rivaled the banshee’s wail before staggering off the dagger and away from Patrick. Blood gave shape to his personal shields for a second before he was on his feet again. Movement through the air forced Patrick to jump aside from the crashing hit of the Dullahan’s whip.
Kalid’s skull slammed into the spot where Patrick had stood, Rossiter’s magic keeping the bone intact. It had lost the eyes, and bits of brain were forced out of the eye sockets from the impact. Patrick ducked under the reverse whip strike, going to one knee and flinging a mageglobe at Rossiter. The Dullahan knocked his magic aside, the explosion of raw magic ripping through the air between them.
Patrick sought to use that brief respite to get to the stage but found his way blocked by Cressida, fingers dripping with blood he hoped didn’t belong to any of Lucien’s vampires. Patrick would never hear the end of it if that were the case.
“Spencer!” Patrick yelled, pointing his dagger at Cressida and thrusting his other hand with a mageglobe spinning at his fingertips toward Rossiter. “A little help here!”
“Not much without your pack, are you, Patrick?” Cressida growled. “I know it’s you beneath that face you’re wearing.”
“And I know you have a demon riding your soul.”
Cressida’s smile got wider, flashing her fangs, but the smug superiority vanished from her face when Fatima landed in between her and Patrick. The psychopomp yowled at her, a chill emanating from the ocelot-shaped spirit guide that made Patrick shiver.
“Watch my six,” Spencer demanded as he dodged around one of Lucien’s vampires to reach them. “This is going to take all my attention.”
Beyond Cressida, the banshee had quit wailing and was being protected from Lucien’s Night Court by several werecreatures. When Patrick tossed a mageglobe in their direction, a foreign one came out of nowhere to crash into his before it reached his target. Both exploded in midair, the sound deafening in the enclosed area.
Patrick’s head snapped around. Ilya stood within the protective circle of his followers, arms outstretched, ochre-colored magic glittering at his fingertips. Their eyes met across the fight-filled corridor, and Patrick gripped his dagger tighter.
The werecreatures got the banshee off the stage with preternatural speed under cover of magic and dragged her into the midst of the fighting all around them. Patrick’s attention drifted for only a second, but it was long enough for Ilya to disappear with the help of magic.
Patrick’s stomach twisted. If Ilya got to it first, they were fucked.
If the Dominion Sect representatives got to it first,everyonewas fucked.
The Morrígan’s staff was still in the banshee’s possession, and they needed to steal it back. The only problem was Patrick refused to leave Spencer to fend for himself in the middle of a life-or-death fight against a high-ranked demon from hell. The gods would probably denounce his decision, but Patrick wasn’t going to turn his back on one of the few people he considered a friend.
He’d lost enough over the years.
“Fucking shit,” Patrick snarled, standing shoulder to shoulder with Spencer as he turned his attention to Rossiter. “Someone get that goddamn staff!”
Rossiter cracked the bone whip again, a cackling laugh escaping his too-wide mouth. His severed neck kept spilling blood down his suit, staining the fabric in a macabre way, while his head swung back and forth in his hand like some horrific lantern.
Patrick expanded his shields to surround himself and Spencer, tapping the ley line through the soulbond to power it. Spencer’s dark green magic haloed his entire body, swirls of power that twisted between him and Fatima as he raised his hands toward Cressida, a single mageglobe burning between them.
“I cast you out from the mortal plane, demon,” Spencer said in the face of Cressida’s wordless, furious snarl as she lunged for them.
Patrick glanced over his shoulder in time to see Cressida caught in midair by brightly swirling lines of magic that twisted into the shape of a fiery pentagon. Her arms, legs, and head were wrenched toward each of the five points as three concentric circles expanded outward to contain her. The circles started to spin as Fatima got to all four paws, gray mist twisting around her.
Then a wave of power crashed through the area, and all Patrick could smell was sulfur as the demon in Cressida fought against Spencer’s magic with a strength that shook the ground.
“You have no power over me,” the demon raged, using Cressida’s mouth to speak.
Her body twisted in the binding spell Spencer held her in, skin bulging as if she were going to shift forms but couldn’t. Spencer squared his shoulders, and Patrick could sense how his soulopenedin a way that made Patrick not want to be near him.
Spencer felt like death—empty and cold—even as he channeled magic through his soul.
“I cast you out,” Spencer commanded. His words came out harsh and shredded, magic spinning around himself and where Cressida floated in the air with enough power Patrick’s hair stood on end.
