Patrick opened his mouth—and instead of words coming out, it was an ugly sound of pain. He swore, agony throbbing through his head from the magical hit that cracked the shield between them and the god pack. He looked over his shoulder, gaze landing unerringly on the mage who’d levied the attack.
Zachary splayed his tattooed hands against Patrick’s shield, a dozen mageglobes forming against pale blue magic. Arrayed around Zachary were snarling werewolves, bright amber eyes practically glowing in monstrous faces before inky blackness overtook the color. Interspaced between them were Krossed Knights, the hunters carrying guns. The smell of hell hung heavy in the summer air from the demons riding over a dozen souls beyond the shield in the street.
The odds weren’t good, but the Dominion Sect and their allies had made one glaring mistake—they’d attacked within a block of hallowed ground.
“Get to the cathedral!” Patrick yelled.
He pulled back his personal shields, giving his charges room to run. Danai raced forward while the driver veered left, looking for safety in the nearest store. Patrick swore but let him go, knowing panic was driving the man and there was no breaking through it.
Patrick shoved his fear down deep, reached through the soulbond connecting him to Jono for the ley lines that ran through the earth below, and tapped the closest one. External magic burned through the soulbond, powering Patrick’s defense so the shield didn’t break on Zachary’s second attack or even his third.
Patrick’s head throbbed with every hit that carved damage into the shield. The fourth shattered the shield, but by then, Patrick and Danai were past the Cartier store and St. Patrick’s Cathedral was within sight.
The flow of traffic meant the one-way street was clear of vehicles as he drew down his scattered magic, leaning hard on the soulbond. Distantly, he was aware of Jono’s fury through it, but Patrick couldn’t worry about him right now.
A multitude of howls had him spinning on his feet, dagger clutched in one hand and half a dozen mageglobes forming around him. He filled each one with a strike spell, despite the illegality of using it on domestic soil, in a major city, while surrounded by civilians. If he didn’t buy them time, they’d never survive.
He thrust his left arm forward, the pale blue spheres streaking toward the oncoming god pack. The mageglobes slammed to the ground and exploded like bombs, catching some of the werecreatures within the blast radius. Their howls cut off as the explosions shook the ground, crashing against the red-black magic that cut through Patrick’s. Zachary’s attempt at shielding meant most of the god pack members survived the attack, though some weren’t so lucky.
Patrick spied two werewolves ripped to shreds on the street from his attack, neither of them whole enough to shift back to human and save themselves. The demons riding their souls fled the now useless bodies in flashes of negative light.
A mageglobe arched through the air from Zachary’s position back near the intersection, malevolent magic capable of incinerating an entire building. Considering they were surrounded by skyscrapers, that would have a number of casualties Patrick refused to allow.
He threw a trio of larger mageglobes at Zachary’s, looking to contain rather than eradicate. Patrick wasn’t the best at defensive magic, but that was the only kind he could use here.
Zachary’s spell exploded within the confines of Patrick’s containment shield, shredding through the layers. The brunt of the blast was initially contained, and what broke through Patrick’s magic blew out windows on either side of the block rather than entire buildings. The god pack werecreatures surged forward with the hunters right behind them.
Patrick raised another shield, feeling the foundation of it waver as he turned and ran after Danai. He’d bought them seconds, but seconds weren’t enough. Patrick caught up with her at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and East Fifty-First Street, the terror on her face something he never wanted to see again.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral in all its gothic glory loomed against the summer sky, bracketed in the distance by the skyscrapers of Midtown Manhattan. Traffic was a mess, people panicking from the sound of explosions, and a fender bender had already happened on the cross-street. The iconic building was at risk of being damaged, and if he ruined Sage’s backdrop for her wedding photographs, she’d never forgive him.
Patrick pointed at the cathedral. “Get inside! The demons can’t follow you there.”
Danai clutched at her tote bag and didn’t argue, merely cut through stalled cars for the safety of the cathedral. Patrick stayed on her heels, trying to ignore the screams filling the air that couldn’t drown out the snarl of the god pack.
Danai stumbled on the steps leading to the cathedral, going to her knees. Patrick got both feet on the step beside her when magic exploded behind them with such intensity that heat roiled through the air. The only reason Zachary’s magic didn’t touch them wasn’t because of Patrick’s shields, but the priestly magic and holy prayers sunk into protective wards built into the foundation of the cathedral. That defensive magic was called forth in the face of a demonic attack with acrackthat made Patrick’s ears pop.
He spared a glance over his shoulder at the cathedral, licking at the sweat that beaded on his upper lip. Glittering lines of protective wards burned into existence against the gothic stone architecture, running up the walls to the flying buttresses and the two towers.
Patrick could honestly say he’d never cared for the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church when it came to magic, but it came in useful right then. The cathedral’s own shielding lay dormant except in the face of a direct threat to its infrastructure. The shields pulsed, nearly invisible in the air except for a faint shimmer of gold where Zachary’s magic had been brought to heel.
The werecreatures who’d attempted to flank them around Zachary’s attack ran through the dissipating magic, coming right for them. Then they abruptly jerked back away from the shielded concrete steps as if they’d been burned. Smoke drifted up from their paws where they’d come into contact with the holy ground that extended beyond the cathedral’s shield, the demons in their souls unable to stand before the prayers.
Patrick bared his teeth at them, still clutching his dagger in one hand. “Hallowed fucking ground, assholes.”
Breathing hard, Patrick pulled Danai to her feet and pushed her up the steps, never taking his eyes off the werecreatures and the hunters squaring off at the demarcation of the shield. He heard her footsteps fade as she fled for safety and didn’t move to follow her.
“You can’t outrun us,” Nicholas said, blood falling from his fingertips to the sidewalk below.
“Doing a pretty damn good job so far,” Patrick shot back.
Something slammed into the ground to his left, and Patrick jerked, a mageglobe sizzling into existence near his elbow. He snapped his head around, ready to fight, a silent command trigger cutting through his thoughts. Then he saw the gargoyle that had landed on the steps, cracking concrete, and stayed his hand.
Another gargoyle flung itself off the cathedral, landing by the first, and those weren’t the only ones. More gargoyles flung themselves off the cathedral, others crawling over building façades across the street as they answered some silent call. Apparently the city’s gargoyles were taking the attack against the cathedral as a personal affront.
Patrick pointed his dagger at Zachary. “Your assassination attempts need work.”
Zachary glared at him through the dissipating smoke and light of his magic, hunters backing him in the street, none of them willing to breach the cathedral’s shields.
