Persephone let her hand fall away. “If angels are looking this way, you will need more protection than your pack can give you. I will reach out to my cousins.”
The thought of more gods coming around made Patrick want to bang his head against the wall. “Or you could not.”
“It is as much for your protection as ours.” Her bright gaze flickered over to Tiarnán. “Perhaps they can aid in searching for Cernunnos and ask the Horned One why he’s interfering with the cliff roses and the land over the nexus here.”
Tiarnán’s grip on his cane tightened ever so slightly. “What is happening to the greenery in New York City is not our doing.”
“It may not be yours specifically, but it is fae magic seeping into the earth and changing it. We left the cliff roses where they bloomed as a precaution against further magical interference of the nexus. They act as a shield, and someone is undermining it by killing them off.”
Persephone sounded displeased by that fact, but the warning in her words left a chill to the air in the apartment—a hint of the season that always drew her to the Underworld.
“If the Horned One is a prisoner of the Dominion Sect, then we must find him. That is why I am here,” Tiarnán said.
Patrick winced, not liking that possibility at all. “Not sure how much help we’ll be if the media is watching our every move. I don’t have the backing of the government right now, and I’m not supposed to investigate anything.”
“We are still allies. Your state of personal affairs will not negate that.”
“Then we’ll do what we can, but don’t get pissed at us if we’re handicapped by outside forces.”
What kind of help they could give, Patrick didn’t know. His hands were tied by the court, and that wasn’t something he could ignore. Not when his entire identity was being ripped apart to satisfy a nation’s curiosity. On top of that, they still had to deal with Estelle and her demon-infested god pack, and Patrick knew that problem wasn’t going to end in anything but bloodshed.
15
“A graveyard, huh?”Patrick asked, poking at the ham-and-cheese omelet on his plate. He wasn’t really hungry but knew he had to eat before his midday meeting with Danai and the assistant US attorneys.
She was scheduled to pick him up soon, which was why he was dressed in a suit and tie on a Monday. His dagger was sheathed at the small of his back rather than his right thigh, marring the line of his suit jacket, but he didn’t really care. He might not have his gun and badge anymore, but there was no way he was going anywhere without his dagger.
Across the dining table, Marek clutched his coffee mug with a white-knuckled grip. The seer had slept for twenty-four hours straight after his vision, waking Saturday morning with every shade of blue having faded to gray. Patrick and Jono had found him that morning standing at the windows overlooking Central Park on the first floor with Sage, staring at a sky whose color he could no longer see.
Being a seer was lucrative financially, but money couldn’t buy sanity or a cure for blindness. One day, Marek’s life spent as a vessel for the Norns was going to drive him insane and suicidal. He’d been spared nearly a year of no true visions simply because too many Fates were fighting over a future none of them could clearly see.
It appeared that had changed.
Guilt meant everything had tasted sour in Patrick’s mouth over the weekend as they waited out the crushing media attention on his case. His presence in Marek’s life was a curse he’d never be able to apologize for.
“Yes. I think Ethan was there,” Marek said tiredly.
“Anyone else?”
Marek shook his head.
“Can we trust this angel’s vision when all the other gods of fate have seen sod all?” Jono asked.
Wade snorted before shoveling a huge bite of sausage into his mouth. “It liquified our brains. I’m going with no.”
“It was a Throne,” Marek said, lifting one hand to rub at his forehead. “It was made up of wheels and eyes, and I think it cracked the inside of my skull with its voice.”
“You aren’t a prophet,” Patrick said.
Marek smiled wanly. “At this rate, I don’t think it matters. I’m a seer, and this is what I was born for, and it’s what I’ll die as. I saw a graveyard, which means there’s some kind of ending we’re now running toward.”
Patrick winced, knowing there was only one way to pay his soul debt, and this fight would only end with one or more of them dead. Ethan’s actions had created a rift between all the gods of the heavens and hells, and his story, his myth, wasn’t one Patrick could afford to be anything but a footnote in history.
“Bollocks,” Jono said. “It’s not going to end however you saw it.”
Marek shrugged, and Patrick knew believing in a future that might not be true was setting them all up for heartache, but he couldn’t help it. Part of him wanted to believe that he and Jono and their pack would come out of this mess together, so he didn’t try to argue that Jono was wrong.
“Are you heading back to the apartment?” Patrick asked, turning his head to look at Jono.
