The soulbond pulled tight between him and Jono. Patrick could sense the power in Fenrir’s cry for support from surrounding packs. What good they’d do against a goddess, Patrick didn’t know, but he’d take what help they could get right now.
“Your children will not be enough, cousin,” Santa Muerte said.
The goddess extended her arms, and a black scythe materialized in her hands. She curled her bony fingers around the long snaith, not looking as if she had the strength to wield such a large weapon, but wield it she did.
Santa Muerte lunged forward, bringing the scythe down in a slashing motion that could cleave a man in two. The hunters with guns opened fire around her, aiming for Patrick’s shields. His shields wouldn’t last long against spelled bullets and an immortal’s weapon.
Fenrir lunged forward, pushing through Patrick’s shields with enough force that his head throbbed. Patrick shifted the radius of his shields, shrinking it so Fenrir didn’t break them.
“A little warning would be nice!” Patrick snapped as he conjured up a couple more mageglobes.
Fenrir ignored him, intent on getting his teeth into Santa Muerte. Space was limited on the sidewalk, the burning hellfire nearby heating the air to the point Patrick’s cooling charms on his leather jacket were activated automatically.
The bullets stopped flying, but the spells replacing them hit like a freight train. Patrick stepped back from the physical blows against his shields, his focus wavering. He patched over the cracks and let his own mageglobes fly. His attack was hampered by Fenrir in Jono’s body fighting Santa Muerte directly in front of him.
Needing space to maneuver better, Patrick spun around and peeled his shields open on the back end. The reporters were frozen in place from fear, but they got moving when Patrick grabbed two by the arm and yanked them forward. He needed them out of the line of fire if he was going to survive this fight.
“Move,” he snapped, slamming the edge of his shield against the nearest building. “Up the stairs!”
He didn’t have a key to the apartment building, but he had a mageglobe, and it shattered the glass pane on the door easily enough. Thresholds existed around individual apartments, not the building’s very public entrance, which was why his magic wasn’t stopped. One of the reporters shoved her arm through the open space, frantically reaching for the lock to get the door open. The small group hurried inside the questionable safety of the building, but anything was better than the street right now.
Patrick took his eyes off them once they were inside, but that brief moment of distraction was all it took for one of Zachary’s mageglobes to slamthroughhis shield with enough force his vision went black at the edges.
He dived out of the way of the attack on instinct, head spinning, and ended up between the bumpers of two parked cars. Patrick coughed air out of his lungs, feeling as if he’d been punched in the gut hard enough to bruise. The mageglobe exploded some distance away, shattering windows.
Patrick struggled to his feet, reeling from the realization that Zachary’s magic had slipped past his defenses because it wasn’t just the fucker’s magic. Zachary was adept at blood magic, and what had been threaded through his spell was drops of Ethan’s blood.
“Fuck,” Patrick spat out, throwing himself into the street, heart practically in his throat. “Jono!”
He needed Jono with him, to know the other man wassafe. He couldn’t lose Jono the way he’d already lost Setsuna and possibly Eloise.
Patrick’s magic was caught between keeping up his multitude of shields and needing to cast spells to keep Zachary and the others at bay. His ability to defend was shit if Zachary could bypass his magic using Ethan’s blood.
Because blood would always call to blood, even if Ethan wasn’t standing right in front of him.
Hunters veered around the burning mass of hellfire still contained in Patrick’s increasingly shaky shields, weapons in hand and demons staring out of their eyes. He turned to face them, drawing more power from the ley line and channeling it into three mageglobes. The shockwave spells took shape, the command trigger resting on the tip of his tongue. He released the mageglobes at the same time the hunters opened fire.
The glittering wave of magic ripped through the air. The concussive force it carried rocked nearby cars on their wheels, blew out windows, and sent the bullets flying in all directions. The hunters were thrown back, landing hard on the asphalt. Patrick doubted any of them were truly incapacitated, but it bought him a few seconds’ reprieve.
Not that it was worth much.
Not having permanent shield anchors burned into his bones meant he had to consciously funnel some of his magic and concentration at all times to his shields. Patrick was stretched thin even with tapping a ley line, and Zachary had a way through his defenses that Patrick couldn’t wholly defend against.
The attack from the sidewalk shattered his personal shields, and Patrick went down on one knee to make a smaller target. Blinding pain from backlash cut through his skull, but he forced it aside because to give in was a good way to die.
Zachary strode toward him, hands shaping a mageglobe between them, tattooed palms dripping blood. “Your father wants you back.”
“Fuck you and fuck Ethan,” Patrick snarled, trying desperately to raise his personal shields again. His magic was brittle and barely holding shape. It was all he could do to keep the shields up around the hellfire still burning in the street.
Zachary hurtled the mageglobe at Patrick, malice in his eyes. Patrick raised his dagger as a last defense against magic designed to break through his own. Jono let out a howl, or maybe Fenrir did, the sound echoed by other werecreatures in the distance and racing closer. None of them would reach Patrick in time, but it didn’t matter.
PIA Special Agent Nadine Mulroney always had his six when he was trapped in a corner.
A violet-tinged shield slammed down between Patrick and Zachary’s attack, the mageglobe exploding harmlessly against a defense that would take more power than Zachary had at his disposal to break through. Patrick blinked at the shield before wrenching his head around, eyes going wide.
Nadine, flanked by Shiva and Áltsé Hashké in his coyote form, raced down the street toward them, the shimmer of the veil sealing up weakly behind them.
“Collins!” Nadine shouted, flinging a mageglobe forward in advance of her rush.
