Either way, Patrick could already feel the ghost of Lucien’s fangs on his throat.
“I’ll keep you updated with any new information the joint task force gives me,” Patrick promised.
“It’s the least you owe us,” Lucien said.
“Did I not just warn you about the Sluagh?”
“Bring better information next time. Preferably Ethan’s location. It shouldn’t be so difficult for you to find him. You’re his son, after all.”
“Fuck off,” Jono snapped.
Patrick looked at Ashanti, thinking about the book bound in human skin he’d smuggled out of the Library of Congress for her and the blood Cernunnos had stolen from him. “If you’re bringing your children here, is this where you think Ethan will show up and not Salem?”
That was his personal assumption, whether everyone agreed or not. Ashanti hummed as she turned to face them again, the sound something Patrick could feel in his bones beneath the bass beat of the music vibrating through the air. “Salem belongs to your mother’s family. New York City belongs to everyone.”
And all the gods they’d carried to this shore and the iron jungle of an altar built to worship them on.
Her words were a truth and a warning, one Patrick knew they couldn’t turn their backs on. “We’ll be ready.”
“Will you?”
Patrick stood, Ashanti’s gaze never leaving his face. “I never forgot what you taught me.”
That he was a weapon to be used, in whatever way he could wield himself.
She smiled. “Good.”
Jono got to his feet and wrapped his hand around Patrick’s elbow, pulling him toward the stairs. Wade stuck to them like a burr. “We’ll be in touch.”
They walked away from the master vampires and their goddess of a mother without losing a single drop of blood, leaving Ginnungagap behind in favor of the storm outside.
“We could do with less vampires,” Jono said on their hurried walk back to the Mustang.
“I could eat some for you,” Wade offered.
“Please don’t. You’ll whinge forever about the taste.”
“Could do with a vacation,” Patrick muttered.
Jono grabbed his hand, holding on tight. “After we win this fight, we’ll go on holiday. Somewhere warm.”
Patrick couldn’t bring himself to promise an unknown future, but he wanted to believe in it anyway.
6
The days leadingup to Wednesday when Patrick got to face his past were hectic, full of pack business, long meetings at the SOA, and keeping a critical eye on the weather coming up over the Atlantic Ocean. Being busy should have kept his mind off the day he reunited with his grandmother for the first time since he was eight years old, but the nightmares waking him in the middle of the night proved otherwise. At least he hadn’t woken to find himself trying to choke Jono again.
Early Wednesday morning, Jono took the keys from Patrick’s hand and said, “I’m driving.”
It was a four-hour drive to Salem, Massachusetts. They left Manhattan behind them around 0700, heading northeast along the coast on Interstate 95 before cutting inland through Connecticut on Interstate 91. Once they were past Hartford and on Interstate 84, the cities and towns became outnumbered by large swaths of trees changing color, red and orange overtaking green.
If asked, Patrick would say he didn’t remember most of the drive at all.
They veered north around Boston some hours later, bypassing that city completely in favor of less traffic. Boston was never a city Patrick had been allowed to take cases in over the years when he was part of the SOA’s Rapid Response Division. Too close to Salem, to his family, to his past, for Setsuna to allow it once she was in charge.
He felt like a stranger here.
“You don’t have to do this,” Jono said when they approached Salem’s city limits. “I can turn the car around right now, and we’ll be back in New York before evening rush hour starts.”
