Jono ignored that taunt, turning instead to face Wade. “Stay here. If the sodding thing breaks free, sit on it.”
The demon scoffed even as the pentagram grew brighter. “I’ll eat the boy’s heart.”
Wade smiled, red scales pushing through the skin of his face as his eyes turned molten gold, pupils thinning to slits. Fire flickered behind his teeth, smoke drifting out of his nose. “Not if I eat you first. It’s almost time for breakfast, and you should know I’m always starving in the morning.”
The demon widened Keira’s eyes, the flicker of surprise there enough for Jono to think Wade was an unexpected complication they hadn’t been prepared for. Considering what had happened in Paris, Ethan should’ve known. If he wasn’t warning his supposed allies, then that spoke of a discord they could possibly exploit.
Angelina poured her magic into Roxie’s spell, taking it over. Then she nodded at the younger woman. “Go with him.”
Casale unholstered his pistol, mobile in his other hand, in no hurry to leave his wife’s side. “I’m calling in the PCB.”
“Don’t get in my way,” Jono warned.
“Keep some of them alive. You still need proof, remember?”
Jono waved off the suggestion as he took Roxie by the arm and left the flat with her at a speed that made the walls seem to bleed color beneath the hallway lights. She cast a shield right before he crashed them through the front door of the building, protecting her from the impact. They exited into a veritable bloodbath on a once quiet Brooklyn street. Jono left her on the porch to join the fray.
Roxie expanded her shield into a wall that kept the silver bullets aimed in their direction at bay. Jono was already changing form as he headed for the fight. The pain lit up his brain for a single second before it turned off, nerves rerouting the signals as his body twisted and broke. His clothes ripped, shoes peeling apart from the shift. Blood spattered the pavement as he shifted with brutal speed into his wolf form, the world spinning as his vision settled into something new.
Fenrir rose up from the depths of his soul, awake and furious and wanting to kill. Jono kept hold of his bodily autonomy despite the snarling demands of the god.
We give up your presence now, then we lose our only edge, Jono snapped as he picked up speed to escape thepop pop popof silver bullets aimed his way.
Roxie had shielded him from the sides, but she hadn’t been able to shield directly in front of him due to not knowing who was friendly and who wasn’t in the fight happening on the street.
Austin’s pack was getting outflanked and outgunned by Estelle’s demon-controlled god pack members and the Krossed Knights. Patrick wasn’t there to defend with his magic, and while they had Roxie, she wasn’t combat trained. She’d stay where she was and help as much as she could, but it wouldn’t be enough.
So Jono tossed back his head andhowled, pouring command into his voice the way he’d done with Ronaldo at the bar and others who’d needed help changing form over the last year. Only this time, he twisted the call for every werecreature beholden to his god pack within a five-mile radius tocome help.
He felt the answering call from dozens of werecreatures deep in his soul and in the clear, early morning air. The power of it reverberated through his bones—or that might’ve been the impact of crashing against Nicholas with lethal intent. Jono drove him to the ground, the both of them twisting and snarling, trying to get the upper hand. Nicholas smelled like sulfur, and his blood tasted like the bitterness of hell when Jono sank teeth into his side, ripping out a chunk of fur and flesh.
Nicholas snarled loudly, snapping his teeth at Jono’s face, but Jono jerked out of reach. Then Nicholas heaved them both off the ground, demon-backed strength paired with his own a force to be reckoned with. Jono leveraged himself away from the other werewolf in order to land on his feet rather than his side.
Nicholas growled at him, the bright amber of his eyes replaced with an inky blackness that looked wrong. The demon hissed a cackling laugh through a throat not meant to make that sound. Jono licked blood off his fangs and lunged for Nicholas’ throat. Nicholas met him halfway, the two of them tearing into each other’s skin with a viciousness that left the asphalt slippery with blood beneath their paws.
Pained howls followed the echoing sound of guns firing. Not all the bullets found their target, but enough did. Jono snarled in pain when one found its home in his back right leg. The searing pain of silver poisoning burned deep, scratching at his concentration. The wound wouldn’t heal, the bullet wouldn’t be pushed out, not with silver in the mix.
Nicholas took advantage of the tiny break in Jono’s focus to get in a lucky swipe near the wound. Jono let out a pained snarl as blood soaked his fur, the hot sting refusing to fade.
Jono slashed at Nicholas, who jerked back and kept moving, but Jono didn’t follow. He wasn’t about to get led to the slaughter, but staying in one spot was almost as bad. The Krossed Knights had them surrounded in the street, and Roxie’s shields weren’t enough of a defense. None of Austin’s pack were retreating back to the apartment building where too many innocents resided. Too many lives would be at risk if they searched for shelter inside, but they had to get the wounded out.
Sirens filled the air in the distance, coming closer at an ear-shattering pace. The sky above was nowhere near as dark as it had been when he and Wade had driven over from Manhattan. The sun was rising, which meant the Brooklyn Night Court wouldn’t come to aide them, treaty or no treaty. The vampires wouldn’t risk their undead lives in the onslaught of the coming daylight. Ashanti had been very clear about that. The only other alliance they had were the fae, but they were off hunting their missing god still, and Jono knew they couldn’t be counted on for a last-minute rescue.
A vicious warning howl suddenly rent the lightening sky, and Jono knew reinforcements were finally on the way. But they were all still stuck out in the open, trying to keep Estelle’s god pack between them and the hunters and the weapons pointed in their direction. Fenrir’s presence was a heavy weight ofwraththat Jono knew he couldn’t hold back for much longer, and honestly wasn’t sure he wanted to.
The decision was taken out of his hands when the heavy beating of war drums echoed in the air like thunder, the rhythm something Jono felt in his bones. The pulse-pounding beat was joined by a deep, sonorous sound of a conch shell being blown, bringing with it the crashing power of waves that crossed the oceans. Fog exploded on the Brooklyn street, carrying the salt scent of the ocean and the rot of death baked beneath a tropical sun into an urban jungle.
Everyone startled, the fight lurching to a sudden stalemate as they all attempted to orient themselves to a new threat. Jono didn’t know who or what was arriving, and he panted for breath, wondering if this fight was going to end in a loss after all.
Then Fenrir sank his teeth into Jono’s awareness, imparting an answer to a question that was only half-formed.Night Marchers. The ancestors of Pele’s children.
The ghostly line of warriors from the echo of a time gone by marched out of the veil beneath the flicker of torches and into the trailing edge of darkness retreating from the dawn lining the eastern horizon. The mainland wasn’t home to their memory, not the way the Hawaiian Islands were—pinpricks of land in the vast Pacific Ocean—but these shores would welcome them the same way they’d welcomed Fenrir and all the other gods over the centuries.
The torches grew brighter as the ghostly ranks of warriors got closer. A battle cry echoed through the fog, loud and fiercely powerful as the Night Marchers overtook a Brooklyn street to clear the way for a god who was more solidly real than they were and far, far more dangerous.
Ozone crackled through the air, overshadowing the smell of sulfur like a tsunami. Jono swallowed, tongue tingling from the taste as he watched the god march forward.
The vibrant red loincloth tied around the god’s hips was the length of a skirt and split along the sides, hitting to midthigh. The color stood out against rich brown skin tanned by a tropical sun. A feathered cloak layered with plumage plucked from tropical birds was a burst of color that couldn’t soften the scowl on the god’s wide mouth. The feathered helmet he wore was similarly adorned, while the wooden spear he clutched in one hand was lined with shark teeth.
