His blood.
Zachary came into view, standing at the edge of the grave. The red-black mageglobe hovering at his shoulder burned like a miniature sun, providing enough light to see his face by.
“The spellwork is holding,” Zachary called over his shoulder. “I don’t know why Ethan sent you. You’re needed in Manhattan.”
“The spellwork was disrupted when Hades removed the woman from it. I am here to ensure it remains intact and report back on my findings,” a familiar demonic voice said, sending fear snaking down Patrick’s spine.
“That disruption was not my fault.”
“Hades is lucky the trade was worthwhile. Ethan wasn’t pleased about the backlash that happened with the body swap.”
A second figure came to stand on the other side of the grave, Ilya Nazarov’s face illuminated by Zachary’s magic, though it was Andras, Grand Marquis of Hell, that spoke through the necromancer. They held in one iron-gauntleted hand the Morrígan’s staff, whole once more.
Patrick stared up at the demon through the rain, panic eating away at the edges of his thoughts. He’d been woken up by too many nightmares over the past weeks about being a prisoner in his own body, screaming into a void, lost in his own skin. Facing the cause of his nightmares again made him want to scream, but he couldn’t.
Patrick wondered if Ilya had willingly accepted the demon into his soul or if Ethan hadn’t given him a choice. The Morrígan’s staff couldn’t be wielded by mortals, not without a price. It stood to reason Andras’ presence in Ilya would help the necromancer command it.
What sentience existed in that weapon could really only be controlled by a god.
Patrick hoped Andras wasn’t up to the task.
Andras stared down at him, face cast in shadow, before he suddenly flung Ilya’s body off the edge of the gravesite. His feet sank into the mud on either side of Patrick’s hips, the malevolent presence of the Morrígan’s staff biting at Patrick’s soul, as if it remembered him.
If Patrick could’ve moved, he’d have run away from the damned thing.
Ilya’s body settled over his stomach, the weight of the man with a demon riding his soul forcing Patrick deeper into the mud. It slithered into his ears, muffling the roar of the reactionary storm above, even if it couldn’t drown out Andras’ voice.
Fingers wrapped in cold metal gripped his chin, tilting his head back, and Patrick moved where the demon wanted him to go. Mud squelched in his hair as rainwater trickled down his nose. He could barely get his throat to swallow it, the sensation like he was drowning.
“It’s a pity you won’t see the hell we’re building. We’ll bury you here, and no one will find your body,” Andras said.
His grip tightened past the point of bruising, the pressure against Patrick’s jaw so hard he thought Andras would dislocate it, when the sound of automatic fire rent the air. Andras wrenched Ilya’s hand free, the gauntlet scraping Patrick’s skin open. The demon jumped back up to solid ground with supernatural ease. Patrick remained in the position he’d been left in, sinking into mud and drowning beneath rainwater.
The spellwork lines flickered ominously, his heartbeat stuttering in response. His chest felt bruised already from the connection, and Patrick tried to breathe through the panic, but he could barely get any air in past the water running down his nose into his throat.
He heard voices shouting as if from a distance, the jagged sound of automatic fire cutting through words he couldn’t make out. All Patrick could see was the reactionary storm, rain falling like daggers into his eyes, lightning flashing in tandem to every pulse of magic that shook the ground.
Except it wasn’t just magic.
Skeletal hands pushed through the side of the grave, brittle, yellow bones grasping at open air. Thick globs of dirt slid down the side of the grave as the dead sought their freedom from their burial spot. Patrick couldn’t move, bound by the spellwork that was threatening him with a heart attack.
If he died by way of zombies, he was going to have words with whatever god met him in the afterlife.
A zombie dragged itself free of the side of the grave, its muddy skull tilting downward. Half its jaw was missing, and the glow in its eye sockets was all magical control from the Morrígan’s staff. It clacked its rotten teeth together, reaching toward Patrick with one arm. Its finger bones scraped against his chest, pulling at his T-shirt.
It reminded him too much of the soultaker when he was a child, and the rapid beat of his heart came from him this time, not someone else’s magic. Fear was difficult to tamp down, but he tried, even as the zombie crawled free of its grave and into Patrick’s.
The stink of death was foul in his nose, making him gag, but he couldn’t throw up because then he might choke on it. Patrick tried to move, but no part of his body obeyed him as the zombie crawled on top of him, skeletal hands reaching for his throat.
The bone was cold where it touched his skin, sliding through the mud he was sinking into. Its fingers scraped over the back of his neck as thumb bones settled against the front of his throat over his trachea, pressing down with a strength the dead should never have.
Patrick struggled to breathe, caught between the force of the spellwork and the brutal grip of the dead who held his life in its hands. Dark spots ate away at the edge of his vision, creeping inward as the pressure forced his tongue out between his lips, air a necessity not granted to him. The burn in his lungs was an ache he choked on and would’ve succumbed to if the body that dropped down into the grave hadn’t gotten in the way.
White-hot, heavenly fire burned through the skeleton, breaking through the control Andras had over it. The skeleton shuddered, its grip going lax around Patrick’s throat as it collapsed into pieces on top of him. Patrick blinked his eyes, trying to breathe but finding he couldn’t get his throat to work.
Then a warm hand gripped the collar of his jacket and hauled him free of the sucking mud, giving him a firm shake as Gerard’s face swam into focus. “Come on, Collins. I need you to fuckingbreathe.”
Patrick’s lungs unlocked, air wheezing past his teeth. It wasn’t enough, not when he was still tied up in the spellwork. The lines of the pentagram folded around him, keeping him anchored to the hideous magic that threatened to burn him up until nothing was left.
