“Dibs on the guest bedroom,” Wade said.
“No,” Jono said. “You’re sleeping out here.”
“Dibs on the couch,” Spencer said swiftly.
Wade scowled. “I want the couch!”
Spencer very pointedly went to sit on the couch, the look on his face practically daring Wade to evict him. Patrick could’ve told his friend that Wade was a thief, and that Spencer’s claim on the couch wouldn’t last long, but he thought the fight might be entertaining, so he kept quiet.
Patrick waved at Jono to follow him, knowing the way to the guest bedroom even though he hadn’t been there in over a year and a half. It was small, but the bed was big enough for both of them. Patrick sat on it, sinking into its softness, and watched as Jono set about unpacking their things into the closet and dresser.
“Leave my suit out. I’ll need to change before heading over to the ministry,” Patrick said.
Jono nodded, leaving the garment bag on the bed for him instead of hanging it in the closet. Patrick would get dressed in thirty minutes. Right now, he wanted to rest. He wouldn’t get much time for that in the coming days.
When Jono finished, he came over and extended his hand to Patrick. “Come on. Let’s get back out there.”
Patrick allowed himself to be pulled off the bed with easy strength, tipping into Jono’s embrace. He took a moment to steal a kiss from Jono, enjoying being held close and safe. As pissed off as Patrick was about the near miss in London with the Morrígan’s staff, Jono calmed him in ways he never wanted to let go.
“I hear Wade complaining about being hungry,” Jono muttered against Patrick’s mouth.
“There’s a boulangerie a street over. I’ll give him some euros and he can go eat his weight in bread,” Patrick said.
“Careful, love. He might eat all the boulangeries out of baguettes, and the last time there was a bread shortage here, it started a revolution.”
“A starving Wade is worse.”
Jono chuckled, allowing himself to be pulled out of the room. Patrick didn’t let go of his hand as they retreated back to the living room where everyone else was lounging. Sage had pulled out her MacBook and was currently catching up on email. Wade had two Jaffa Cake boxes in his lap and was methodically eating his way through them. Patrick wasn’t looking forward to the day they got back to New York and Wade realized those weren’t available in any store in Manhattan.
Spencer was sprawled on the couch still with Fatima in his lap. The ocelot-shaped psychopomp had her nose tucked into his neck and sounded like she was snoring. Which was weird. Patrick didn’t think spirit guides needed to sleep.
Nadine had rustled up a tray of champagne glasses, a bottle of champagne, and a pitcher of orange juice. Patrick wasn’t a fan of mimosas, but he wasn’t about to say no to alcohol, not after the last couple of days. She cast a silence ward that muffled the noise of Paris beyond the open windows before putting together the drinks.
“Do you think the French will be willing to share intelligence on Ilya?” Spencer asked, scratching behind Fatima’s ears.
“We have a meeting soon. We’ll see what comes of it,” Nadine said.
International relations weren’t Patrick’s strong suit, for obvious reasons. It was Nadine and Spencer’s line of work more than his.
“Are you going to ask them about the Orthodox Church of the Dead?” Sage asked, eyes on her laptop.
“We’re going to have to, even if they won’t believe in Peklabog.” Patrick drew Jono over to the love seat that no one else had claimed, getting comfortable in it. “We have a necromancer who is in possession of the Morrígan’s staff and spends his time worshipping a god of the Slavic underworld. If they’re going to use it, they’ll use it here.”
“Why?” Wade asked around a mouthful of Jaffa Cake.
“Paris has a lot of dead.”
“You mean graveyards?”
Patrick nodded. “In a way.”
Jono sighed heavily, reaching up to rub his face in a tired motion, jostling Patrick a little. “Oh, bloody hell. The Catacombs.”
Spencer’s hand stilled on Fatima’s back as he turned his head to look at them, expression troubled. “A necromancer can animate bones, but you still need spirits to fill them. The new or recently dead would be easier to raise. There are, what? Six million dead in the Catacombs? Even a necromancer who is a mage can’t raise that many.”
“A god can,” Patrick said. “So can the staff.”
Spencer shook his head, looking defeated. “That’s going to be a goddamn nightmare.”
