A loud explosion in the bar above cut him off, magic crashing against the wards embedded in Tempest’s walls. They flashed fire bright for a split second, nearly blinding Patrick. Before the glow faded, Patrick was on his feet and racing for the stairs, Jono right on his heels. The crowd of alphas peeled away from his headlong rush forward, giving them both space.
Patrick took the stairs two at a time up to the main level, seeing patrons pressed against the wall and away from the front of the bar. Someone was dragging the limp body of the bar’s doorman out of the line of fire. The smell of burning flesh hit his nose, and he hoped the bouncer was alive. He couldn’t stop and check because hellfire was burning across the entrance to the bar with all the ferocity of magical napalm.
The very expensive wards Marek had paid to keep the bar intact against all manner of attacks were holding. How much longer was anyone’s guess.
“Bloodyfuck,” Jono growled.
Patrick ripped his shields out from beneath his skin and expanded them to cover Jono. Together, they ran out of the bar, hellfire licking at his magic, the heat of it strong enough to make sweat form on his forehead even through his shields. Their feet hit the sidewalk in time to take another hellfire bomb head-on.
A man sat on a motorcycle, helmet on, a glass bottle held in one gloved hand, ugly hellfire burning in its depth. He threw it in their direction and didn’t wait to see it land before driving off, weaving through traffic. Patrick tapped a ley line through the soulbond, siphoning external magic through Jono’s soul and pouring it into a mageglobe already burning between his hands. He strengthened his shield, and the hellfire bomb exploded against that defensive barrier in a furious splatter of heat and magic.
Marek’s Maserati, parked out front of the bar, took the brunt of the attack this time. Paint and metal melted from the heat as Patrick manipulated his magic to entrap the hellfire bomb. It took most of his concentration, but he trusted Jono to watch his six for the handful of seconds he needed to initiate containment. Patrick’s mageglobe burned hot between his hands as he locked down the shield around the hellfire bomb.
“See if you can’t catch that asshole,” Patrick snarled.
Jono didn’t need to be told twice. He ran off like lightning, preternatural speed aiding him. Patrick focused on the hellfire, sweat sliding down his face as he reinforced his shields. He hoped someone with an affinity for defensive magic would come with the first responders.
“Cops have been called,” Sage said from behind him.
“Someone needs to take Wade home. He’s underage. Emma can’t afford to lose her liquor license.”
“You mean Jono can’t.”
Tempest provided Jono with a job, as was required for his green card status. Patrick was certain that if Tempest closed, Marek would hire Jono into PreterWorld, but the paperwork would be hell to clear him with a new visa. In the midst of a civil war, they couldn’t afford that kind of setback.
“Just make sure he’s safe.”
Sage nodded. “I’ll send him home with an escort.”
Wade didn’t protest Patrick’s order to get clear of the crime scene, although he looked like he wanted to. Sage stepped away while Patrick did his best to keep the hellfire contained, ugly smoke and sparking heat roiling against his magic. Shields weren’t his strong suit, but he’d done this sort of defensive work before when backed into a corner while with the Mage Corps. He’d done it last year when he first came to New York, and that memory left a knot in his gut.
Back then, the hellfire bomb in his car had been cast by Hades. Patrick knew it wasn’t Hades on that motorcycle, but whoever it had been had access to the same sort of power, which meant they had access to gods.
Patrick flexed his fingers, magic flickering at his fingertips as he sought to put out the hellfire bomb. Sirens screamed in the distance, the mixed sound that of the police and fire department. Patrick half turned, raising a shield between the building the bar was in and the hellfire licking at the structure. The second he shielded the hellfire stretched across the entrance, people started pouring out of Tempest, fleeing the scene.
“I sent Wade off with one of Emma’s pack members. They’ll take him to our apartment,” Sage said as she and Marek approached Patrick.
“That was my car,” Marek said, sounding equal parts pissed off and scared.
“That was mybar,” Emma growled as she popped up beside them.
Marek touched her elbow. “It’s still standing.”
A blur of motion down the street drew Patrick’s attention. The subtle tug in the soulbond told him it was Jono, who skidded to a halt in front of him an eye blink later. His clothes were torn in places, blood smeared across one forearm, but Patrick couldn’t see a wound. The furious expression on Jono’s face promised murder.
“Who was it?” Patrick asked.
Jono’s nostrils flared on an exhale, mouth twisting. “Nicholas. I got the bloody bastard off the motorcycle, but I couldn’t hold him. He had a demon in his soul.”
Patrick tried to ignore the way his heart beat faster. “It’s London all over again.”
Nicholas Kavanaugh was dire to the other god pack. Youssef didn’t have a trace of hell in his aura yesterday, but it seemed the same couldn’t be said for some of his pack members. It meant they’d have to counter demon-backed werewolves who weren’t shy about collateral damage. Patrick realized they’d reached the point where they wouldn’t be able to stay their hand any longer.
“We won’t let New York turn into that mess,” Jono said in a low, furious voice as the first police car turned the corner and sped down Avenue B.
4
The smellof hellfire hung heavy in the air, leaving a bitter aftertaste in the back of Jono’s throat where he sat inside the bar. The Crime Scene Unit out of the PCB was currently processing the front of the bar and the street outside. Patrick was working with the FDNY to put the hellfire out with the help of a witch with an affinity for water magic. Marek’s car was a complete and utter loss, but at least the bar had mostly withstood the attack.
