Lucien shoved him off and sat up. “You’re a fucking idiot. A head-on rush was never going to work.”
Patrick could barely hear Lucien over the ringing in his ears. “I need to get Hannah’s baby.”
“Dying won’t help you with that.”
The people they’d crashed into had fallen like dominoes and weren’t moving. The spellwork they’d stood on grated against Patrick’s shield, the taint in it resonating in his soul. He leaned over and dragged the matte-black blade over the wide line, cutting through the magic there. Heavenly white fire corroded the area, smoke drifting up from the damage. A quick glance at Ethan showed his father hadn’t noticed.
Lucien dragged Patrick back to his feet with a bruising grip. “Find another way.”
Ethan had gone after gods to use as sacrifices before using this same sort of spell. Trying to drain a nexus through Patrick’s mother’s family, channeled through Hannah, had been the catalyst to extract Macaria’s godhead this time around. Blood called to blood, but Patrick knew souls were different.
“Taking the baby from Ethan is the only way,” Patrick said.
Lucien took aim at a hunter coming their way and blew out the man’s throat. The snap of negative light around the body indicated the demon opted to flee rather than fight. “You have a death wish.”
“I didn’t come this far to let Ethan get what he wants.”
“He’s within grasp of it.”
Patrick tracked where Fenrir and Jono faced off against Ethan, having taken down a row of acolytes and trampled their bodies. Ethan still clutched the baby tightly to him, but he had made no move to escape the fort. A twisted bit of magic still tying him to Hannah prevented that. Which meant the spell wasn’t finished.
“Quit whining and get the baby for me while I distract him.”
Lucien reloaded his weapon without even looking, black eyes locked on Jono, Fenrir, and Ethan. “You better not fuck this up.”
“If I do, you can punch me in the afterlife.”
Lucien shoved him toward the pentagram. “Don’t tempt me.”
Patrick ran, casting mageglobes at the ones coming his way. There were fewer of them, courtesy of Spencer and Nadine. Carmen had engaged the remaining hunters with a viciousness that left body parts on the ground, none of them hers.
The split-second assessment allowed Patrick to focus on his target, knowing that most of the other threats were handled. Lucien ran toward Ethan, a shadowy blur that let off bullets Ethan deflected with ease. Fenrir snarled as he and Lucien maneuvered Ethan between them.
Patrick kept his attention locked on his own target. The tangled tie of souls and a godhead that ran from Ethan to Hannah was getting thinner. The shine of it was brighter on Ethan’s end, the baby acting as a channel for what had resided in Hannah’s soul for so long.
Ethan was half turned away from Patrick, fighting Fenrir and Lucien to a draw with magic that looked similar to Hades’ hellfire. But even with a split attention, Ethan still knew when Patrick lunged for that shimmering connection and got his dagger into it. The matte-black blade sliced into the bright shine of a stretched-thin godhead, and the sound Ethan let out was loud enough to shake the branches of the world tree.
A blast of raw power hit Patrick in the side with enough force to send him flying. It drove all the air out of his lungs as he crashed to the ground near the center of the pentagram where Hannah lay. The protective charms on his leather jacket shattered from the blow, taking the brunt of an almost-god’s power. The crackle of broken magic seared his skin, and he opened his mouth on a scream that wouldn’t come.
Then a fist pounded on his chest with enough strength to almost crack a rib as one of Nadine’s shields slammed down around him. Fire exploded around it, but her magic held firm for now. Patrick’s chest expanded, air filling his lungs in a painful, heaving breath. He stared up at Lucien, eyes tracking over the raw, burned skin on the left side of the master vampire’s face and the ash drifting away from the ever-growing wound.
“Lucien,” Patrick croaked out.
“It’s not sunlight,” Lucien hissed out before dropping something tiny and too-bright onto his chest. “Here. Take your niece.”
Patrick’s arms automatically came up to cradle the infant, angling the dagger away from the baby’s small body. “You’re burning up.”
Lucien’s smile was a twisted thing. “I am my mother’s child.”
Maybe that heritage would be enough to survive what Ethan had hit him with, maybe not, but Patrick couldn’t let Lucien die here the way Ashanti had died in Cairo. There would be no bringing him back if Patrick let whatever Ethan had done to Lucien continue to burn. As much as he wanted to never see the asshole again some days, Patrick owed him too much for a permanent goodbye.
“The godhead belongs to me!” Ethan yelled, his voice echoing strangely with a depth that only gods would ever hold.
Patrick turned his head and watched Ethan stalk their way. The fire in his hands was the same color as the magic sustaining the spellwork beneath the feet of his followers, rancid and terrible.
Fenrir put himself between them, blocking Patrick’s view of Ethan’s approach. Ethan’s next attack was snapped out of the air by Fenrir, magic breaking apart between Jono’s teeth. “You deserve nothing.”
Patrick knew he couldn’t win a fight with a god, even with his dagger. What he could do was try to save Lucien while Fenrir and Jono held the line.
