Defensive magic wasn’t his affinity, but he’d been in fights like this often enough to know how to dig in and hold on. He sank his awareness into the soulbond, reaching through Jono’s soul for the ley line snaking below the earth because he’d long since lost the ability to channel it through his own soul. He tapped the wild magic and poured external power into his mageglobes, setting them with strike spells.
The reporters screamed, running past where Jono and Patrick stood, looking for a way out, only to crash into his shields. They had nowhere to go, and their panic would be a problem.
Then the gas tanks on two nearby cars exploded, and their screams got louder.
The fierce heat melded with the hellfire, creating a fireball that blew toward the sky. Patrick extended his shields with a snarl, the pale blue glint of his magic reflecting the flames as he struggled to encase the explosion before spot fires took hold on the surrounding buildings.
Hellfire was like magical napalm, and the horrendous stuff burned through anything, even magic given enough time. If some of the hellfire made it onto the buildings, they’d have an even worse problem.
Not like they weren’t already in the midst of one.
Hellfire meant Hades, and Patrick wouldn’t mind shoving his dagger into that god’s back if the bastard showed up.
Concentrating on the explosion meant he didn’t see the mageglobe with the strike spell cutting through the smoke until it exploded against his shields, tearing into them. The world went strangely quiet beyond the ringing in his ears. Luckily, his eardrums didn’t rupture, even if the top layer of his shields did. Patrick threw up another layer to shore up his defenses, squinting through the smoke at the shadows coming their way, ignoring the ache blooming in the back of his head.
Sickly red-orange magic that Patrick thought was fire at first flickered in the air. Then the mageglobe became more prominent as Zachary Myers stepped through the veil, guided by an emaciated woman that made Patrick freeze where he stood.
Santa Muerte hadn’t changed much since the last time she’d stepped foot in New York City. She was like a walking skeleton, skin stretched tight over bone, the black dress she wore with its heavily embroidered skirt overwhelming her desiccated form. Her hair was braided into a crown, marigolds tucked amongst the sections like a flowery halo, the color starkly bright.
Her face was painted like a sugar skull, the black-and-red detailing around her eyes and mouth coming across like bruises in the light from the still-roiling explosion of hellfire and gasoline behind Patrick’s shaky shields. Her pitch-black eyes reminded him of Ashanti’s and Lucien’s, but that’s where any similarities ended.
Behind them came a dozen other men and women, some dressed like hunters, others obvious Dominion Sect magic users, spells sparking at their fingertips. The veil they’d slipped through with Santa Muerte’s help seemed ragged at the edges, threadbare and worn. The Dagda’s warning about how the veil was eroding from the other side day by day rang like a warning siren through Patrick’s mind.
Jono shifted with a crunch of bones and the wet sound of tearing flesh. The shift was quicker than any other werecreature could ever do, urged on by Fenrir. Patrick spared a glance at the massive werewolf now standing beside him, eyes burning white when they’d normally be bright blue.
“We have an audience,” Patrick hissed.
“I’ve summoned ones who can fix that,” Fenrir said, the words scraped out of a throat not meant to speak.
He hoped that meant backup. They could really use some.
Patrick yanked his dagger free and realigned his mageglobes. The matte-black blade burned with white heavenly fire, silvery prayers floating across the metal. “Zachary.”
Ethan’s favored acolyte spread his tattooed hands, summoning up more mageglobes. The spells didn’t contain any more hellfire bombs, but the magic users with Zachary might have some in reserve.
“I heard you went home. You’ll never be wanted by that blood,” Zachary sneered.
“I’m not wanted by Ethan.”
“You’ve always been wanted in some form or another.”
“Dead isn’t a good look on me.”
Zachary smiled, teeth flashing red in the light of his magic. “How was that visit with your grandmother? I’m sure she was far more polite to you than she was to me.”
Despite the heat coming off the hellfire, Patrick felt as if he’d been doused in ice water. “What?”
“Thresholds are meaningless when it comes to blood. I hear she welcomed you with open arms.”
It hurt to breathe, cold sweat breaking out down his spine at the implications of Zachary’s words. Somehow, Patrick didn’t think Zachary was talking about the visit he and Jono had done.
There was no time to process the threat, not when they were so clearly outnumbered with civilians to protect. Patrick gestured sharply with his left hand, and his mageglobes streaked forward through his shields, twisting through the air toward the enemy.
Zachary countered the ones aiming for him easily enough. Patrick’s strike spells broke on the other mage’s shield, the pale blue shine of his magic tearing itself apart. The other mageglobes were thrown back at him by Santa Muerte’s power, never finding their target.
Patrick rocked back on his heels as his mageglobes slammed into his shields. He absorbed the magic, bones aching as he sent the excess down into the earth through the soulbond to ground it. A ripple ran through the shield, and Patrick swore, tightening his grip around his dagger.
Fenrir snarled, the noise drowning out the screams of the reporters behind them. Then he threw back his head and howled, the sound echoing in the night air with enough magic in the call to make Patrick’s teeth ache.
