Patrick sat, the cross-guards of his gods-given dagger pressing into the soft cushion. He wasn’t wearing a suit, despite being desk-bound since returning from Paris in early July. Henry had yet to remark on his break from business casual.
The reason Patrick’s caseload had lightened considerably was due to the focus of the media into his actions in London and Paris. He and his pack had followed intelligence leads to London, where the Morrígan’s staff had been up for sale at the Auction of Curiosities and Exceptional Items. Lucien had been the one to go undercover at the request of the federal government and help retrieve the staff. In exchange, the master vampire had received a century of what basically constituted diplomatic immunity while within the United States.
The trouble Lucien could cause in one hundred years made Patrick want to drink, but ultimately, it wasn’t his problem. He wasn’t the one who had signed off on the agreement, and he’d most likely be dead by the time Lucien’s future actions—whatever they might be—required intervention.
But Lucien had gotten them into the auction, even if the master vampire hadn’t retrieved the Morrígan’s staff. It had subsequently been stolen in a fight where most of the auction attendees had ended up dead and then become the walking dead due to necromancy.
Ilya Nazarov, a necromancer who was the Patriarch of Souls for the Orthodox Church of the Dead, had run off with it. Patrick and the others had followed Ilya to Paris, where the necromancer had forsaken his position in the end, sacrificing the god he’d worshipped to the Morrígan’s staff’s hunger in order to raise millions of Parisian dead. Patrick still wasn’t sure if Peklabog’s godhead had managed to escape the sacrifice, even if his body had not, or if his worshippers would be enough to undo what Ilya had wrought.
Again, not his problem.
Ilya had ultimately emptied the Paris Catacombs and sent the walking dead to attack the City of Lights. Fighting zombies on summer solstice had been a nightmare, and only the blessing of a goddess of fate enabled them to stop Ilya.
They’d won the fight but not the war, coming away with a broken-off piece of the Morrígan’s staff while Ilya got away with the rest of it and half an army of the undead. Ilya and his zombies had disappeared through the veil, carried away by the weapon’s magic to some allied hell most likely. His loyalty no longer resided with the god the Orthodox Church of the Dead had worshipped, but with the Dominion Sect and Patrick’s father, Ethan Greene.
It was an alliance no government was happy about.
Patrick clenched his left hand into a fist, remembering how Srecha’s blessing had burned him, though it didn’t compare to the way the Morrígan’s staff had hungered for his soul. Her blessing had turned into a prayer, one the Morrígan’s staff had answered with the resurrection of the mother of all vampires.
The carved raven Patrick had broken off from it was currently hidden away in his nightstand drawer, along with the last Greek coin from the ones Hermes had given him last summer as payment for the dead. It wasn’t the best hiding spot by far, but both artifacts remained quiescent.
Patrick hadn’t told anyone at the SOA the Morrígan’s staff was broken, nor that he’d kept a piece of it. Even with Setsuna in a position of power, Patrick didn’t trust the government to do right by what was, in all honesty, a weapon of mass destruction. He’d reported that breaking up Ilya’s spellcasting and magical support had been enough to put a stop to the zombie invasion.
Putting into his report that he’d had help from the gods wouldn’t have been believed by the people handling the fallout. Gods might walk the earth, but their worshippers weren’t the ones in power these days. Patrick’s case report had been as detailed as he could afford it to be, but there were obvious gaps people were still arguing over in three countries.
Setsuna had done her best to keep Patrick out of the political line of fire. On her orders, Henry had restricted Patrick to mostly desk duty since his return to the States last month. Desk duty was abhorrently boring, and Patrick was itching for work outside the walls of his office.
“I know Setsuna wants you to remain within New York City and keep a low profile, but Casale asked for you specifically on the phone call I just got off of,” Henry said.
Giovanni Casale, Chief of the NYPD Preternatural Crimes Bureau, was someone Patrick had worked closely with on several cases in the past. As far as relationships with local police went, he hadn’t yet burned that bridge.
Patrick tried not to look eager about finally getting to leave the office. “What did he want?”
“He’s currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Apparently there was a break-in over the weekend, but the museum director didn’t see fit to call the police until today.”
“Why is Casale’s department involved if it’s a case about stolen art?”
“Because the item in question was an artifact.”
Patrick bit the inside of his cheek and swallowed a groan. He could’ve done without another missing magical item to track down. The Morrígan’s staff was enough of a headache.
“What kind?”
Henry shrugged. “Casale described it as part of a traveling exhibition but wouldn’t say more than that. If it didn’t have any magical properties, the case would’ve gone to the FBI. Since itisof a magical nature, he’s requesting some federal help. You, specifically. I told him you’d be there in thirty minutes. Someone will be waiting for you at the museum’s main entrance.”
Patrick tried not to wince. Despite the low profile he’d been forced to take due to the zombie invasion in Paris, he hadn’t been able to stay out of Casale’s way when it came to pack politics.
While in London, they’d confirmed demons were working with hunters to take over god packs and break their power. Without stable god packs to fight for the rights of werecreatures, the packs who looked to them for guidance would lose protection, opening them up to discrimination and quite possibly outright murder.
Hunters allied with werecreatures was anathema, but werecreatures sharing their souls with demons was worse. It was a problem that had been growing in New York City since February when Estelle Walker and Youssef Khan, alphas of the rival god pack, had contracted with the Krossed Knights. Patrick had been in Chicago when the bounty on Jonothon de Vere was activated. Since then, they’d been fighting guerilla-style battles in all five boroughs as the civil war in the werecreature community spilled out of the shadows. The PCB wasn’t thrilled with any of that.
Alliances with the fae and the Night Courts helped guard their territory borders, but Patrick knew they couldn’t rely on that support forever. Their god pack held half the city now, territory twisted like gerrymandered districts through Estelle and Youssef’s. Casale had warned Patrick last month rumors were reaching the police about his personal involvement.
He doubted those rumors had died down.
They’d played off Jono’s involvement in Europe as being one of Patrick’s criminal informants. The story was thin, but they were sticking to it. They all knew that wouldn’t be believed forever, especially if some enterprising reporter dug up their lease information.
“I’ll leave now,” Patrick said, realizing he wouldn’t get a lunch.
