“No,” she snapped, giving him a hard shake.
Patrick shoved the spell book against her chest, forcing her to make a grab for it. “Hold this and don’t lose it.”
“Patrick.”
She still took the book from him, and Patrick conjured up a dozen mageglobes, pouring his magic into them as the hellish taint got worse. It scraped against his magic, leaving an acidic taste in the back of his throat. He swallowed against it and turned to face the street and the greenery spread in front of the Capitol Building and the threat there.
A curl of red-black magic flashed between the trees, and Patrick gripped his dagger tighter. He raised a domed shield around where he and Sage stood, ignoring the way his head throbbed from the effort. Sage followed his gaze, lips peeling back from her teeth.
“Zachary,” she growled, nostrils flaring.
A soultaker screamed, the sound too close for comfort, and the weight of the demon that dropped onto the shield made Patrick flinch. He looked up into the gaping maw of the soultaker, watching as it bit into his magic and started sucking it down.
“Can you tap a ley line?” Sage asked.
“Jono isn’t here,” Patrick said.
“We’re closer than Chicago. Can you?”
Patrick hesitated before shaking his head. “I think we’re too far.”
The soulbond was drawn tight between them, but not as tight as when he’d been half a country away. That still wasn’t a distance he could easily overcome. The only magic he could rely on was his own, and the soultakers were currently feasting on it.
Another explosion of magic on the landing above ended with a body crashing into the street. Patrick’s breath caught in his throat, fear an icy grip on his voice, throttling it. But the figure who’d broken asphalt on his crash-landing wasn’t Gerard like he feared.
Ares lay in the street, theGáe Bulgprotruding from his midsection. The Greek god of war was immortal, but even he would have a difficult time shaking off a wound like that. A flash of movement out of the corner of his eye proved to be Gerard, the fury surrounding him an almost palpable thing. He was running toward Ares, but before he could make it to the other god, a shockwave spell rolled through the street in their direction.
Gerard dived for the ground, trying to find purchase. He couldn’t afford to stand still though, not with a soultaker chasing after him. Patrick aimed a mageglobe filled with raw power at the soultaker, hoping to distract it. The shock-wave spell hit his shield a second later, cracking it with the help of the soultaker still chewing its way through.
“I need to let it in,” Patrick said.
“That is aterribleplan,” Sage snapped.
“Trust me.”
She glared at him, holding the spell book so tight her fingernails cut into the old skin that made up the cover. “You’re why I’m getting gray hairs in my thirties.”
“It makes you look distinguished.”
“It makes me want to strangle you.”
Sage pressed her back against the barrier, out of the way of the soultaker doing its best to gnaw its way through Patrick’s shield and straight to his soul. He readjusted his grip on his dagger, positioned himself as far outside the soultaker’s head as he could get, and ripped the shield apart from the inside out.
The soultaker crashed to the ground, tongue lashing out, searching for a meal. Its clawed feet scraped at the cement as it jerked upward, trying to stand. Patrick didn’t hesitate to stab the dagger straight into the back of its head with all the force he could muster.
Heavenly white-hot fire burned its way along the edge of the blade through the soultaker’s dense skull as if it were made of paper. Thick, tarry fluid welled up around the matte-black blade as the soultaker convulsed against the ground, jackknifing so hard it nearly snapped its spine. The scream it let out was a death knell that shattered the nearby streetlamps, plunging their area into a darkness lit only by magic.
All the prayers in Patrick’s gods-given dagger burned the soultaker to ash, its body crumbling to nothing. Patrick checked the forward thrust of his dagger before it could scrape against the cement, the silvery words of countless prayers floating across the blade. Its power didn’t fade, the threat of its magic burning bright in the night like a beacon.
The reprieve lasted only a couple of seconds. Sage grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him out of range of the mageglobe streaking their way. Patrick sent a pair of his own to intercept it on instinct. The resulting explosion was so bright Patrick couldn’t see in the aftermath. He wrapped a shield around the two of them in time to prevent the third soultaker from overtaking their position.
“I am not dying here in DC when my wedding is next week,” Sage growled.
Patrick blinked rapidly, trying to get rid of the colored dots dancing across his vision. The dots were replaced by flares of magic that erupted from his shields as bullets ricocheted off it.
“They’re trying to box us in,” Patrick said.
Hunters in dark clothing had stepped free of the greenery in front of the Capitol Building and were advancing. Zachary’s magic was easy enough to make out, burning malevolently against the dark.
