“Patrick,” Jono bit out, cutting into their argument. “Listen to Gerard. Don’t hand it over. You know Ethan won’t accept just the broken piece. He’ll want you as well, and you can’t give yourself over to him.”
The fear and anger in Jono’s voice made Patrick flinch. “I don’t plan on negotiating with him.”
“Yeah? Then who are you going to negotiate with?”
Patrick hesitated before steeling himself for his lover’s fury. “Hades.”
“Are you fuckingmad?” Jono snarled.
“Patrick, that’s the stupidest idea you’ve had in years. Don’t give me another goddamn heart attack,” Gerard said.
“Hades has only stayed with Ethan because of Macaria. He’s said before he’s not leaving his daughter. If I have a way to get her back, then he might go along with it,” Patrick argued.
“No he fuckingwon’t.”
“He will if Persephone can persuade him.” Patrick blew out a harsh breath. “I know none of you like this idea, and fuck knows neither do I, but this was never your debt to pay. I’m paying it the only way I know how.”
“Bollocks. Fuckingbollocks. We’re apack. You aren’t doing this alone,” Jono protested.
“I won’t be, because you’ll find me. You always do, and I need you to do that here.” Jono’s silence settled heavily over the line. Patrick kept driving. “Jono. You’ll find me.”
“I can’t leave New York City. I can’t leave Sage and everyone else to what’s coming through the veil. I have to hold the line for you here.”
The anguish in Jono’s voice cut right through Patrick, but he’d spent years flaying himself down to the bone for other people in order to keep moving forward. He couldn’t stop now. “Then stay. I’ll come back to you. I always do.”
“Patrick—”
A hideous electronic whine drowned out Jono’s voice before the call went dead, along with the car. Patrick braked hard and kept control of the wheel as all around him, other vehicles jolted to a stop. Lights in the buildings and streetlights all down the street went out. With the blanket of storm clouds overhead, the world was plunged into an eerie, almost twilight gloom.
“Fuck,” Patrick snarled, lifting his hips so he could shove his bricked phone into his back pocket.
He didn’t bother trying to start the engine again. He grabbed the iron box from the glove compartment, gripped it tight, and got out of the car. He ducked his head against the vicious wind and rain that slammed into his personal shields and started running.
The rain came down like a waterfall on his mad dash to the Brooklyn Bridge. More people were out in the storm now that the electrical grid was dead and Manhattan had gone dark. Cars clogged the streets, and those that weren’t tied to computers in order to function were boxed in and going nowhere fast. Patrick stuck to the sidewalks, shoving his way through throngs of people who didn’t know what was going on.
Patrick knew, and it kept him running.
When he finally turned onto the pedestrian pathway leading across the Brooklyn Bridge, heaving for air, the storm had gotten worse. As Patrick gained elevation, he paused for a moment to catch his breath and turned to look back at Manhattan.
The spinning heart of the reactionary storm spanned the length of the island now and was rapidly moving toward the outer boroughs. The weight of it pressed down on the air, blocking up his inner ear. The wind howled over the Brooklyn Bridge so loud Patrick could barely hear himself think.
It was a wonder, then, that he heard Ashanti at all or that she’d managed to find him in the midst of the burgeoning chaos. But gods were known to do the impossible, so he shouldn’t have been surprised.
“Look up.”
The words echoed in his ears, or maybe his mind, causing Patrick to turn and stare up at the first tower of the Brooklyn Bridge and the suspension wires that created a spiderweb effect around him. He squinted through the pouring rain, catching sight of a shadow drifting along the top of the tower against the glare of lightning.
Patrick headed up the path for the tower, the only one on the pedestrian portion of the bridge. He could see countless people in the lanes below hurrying between stalled cars, having left the safety of their vehicles.
The shadow became a blur that slid down one of the suspension wires before dropping to the ground in front of him. Ashanti’s clothes were waterlogged, her skirt clinging to her legs and bunching up around the ironshod curved bone hooks she stood on. Her bloodred hair was done up in Bantu knots this time around in deference to the weather.
Ashanti flashed her iron fangs at him, black eyes reflecting the lightning from above. “The veil is tearing.”
“I know,” Patrick said, raising his voice to be heard over the wind. “That’s why I’m here.”
Ashanti’s gaze flicked from his face to the iron box clenched in his hand and back again. “You come bearing a gift.”
Patrick tightened his grip around the iron box. “Not for you.”
