“No,” Jono shot back. “He stays with us.”
Reed stared at him with narrowed eyes. “You don’t give the orders here, and we need his magic to hold off what’s coming up from below.”
“You sent him to my pack.”
“And now I’m reassigning him.”
“I think not,” Fenrir said, taking control of Jono’s mouth.
People jerked on their feet, weapons moving to train Jono’s way, but he couldn’t focus on them, not when Fenrir ran the show. Nadine hadn’t yet dropped her shield, so if anyone took a shot, he’d still be standing when they stopped shooting.
“Uh, guys?” Spencer said.
“Do you even know where Ethan is?” Reed demanded.
“No, but we will,” Ashanti said with all the derision of someone who was ancient compared to a dragon.
“We’re passing through. Our business is elsewhere,” Fenrir said.
“Guys,” Spencer said, sounding agitated.
His tone of voice made Jono want to tense, but Fenrir still had control.Let me go.
Fenrir’s answer was all teeth in his mind.Not yet.
“Spencer?” Nadine asked sharply.
Fenrir deigned to glance at Spencer, and the look on his face was a sort of carefully bitten-back horror that came out in his eyes.
“Those aren’t just any zombies.” A multitude of screams that Jono remembered from London tore through the air, followed by the desperate shouts of men and women trying not to panic. “They’re drekavacs.”
“Hold the line!” Reed roared in a voice that rumbled with a depth to it no human would have. Then he stabbed a finger at Jono. “If you don’t help us blockade Grand Central Station, they’ll have a clear shot into the streets.”
“They already do with the subway’s other stations,” Lucien sneered.
“Massing here enables them to cut off the lower half of Manhattan from the rest of the island. They’ll spread out along the parallel streets and create a wall of the dead like the Dominion Sect did in Cairo when they split our forces with demons.”
Lucien scowled, fangs gnashing together. “I remember. It still won’t stop them from spreading out across the lower half of Manhattan, if they aren’t already doing so.”
Reed bared his teeth, the points too sharp for any human as smoke trailed out of his nose. “Get your people into the field, Lucien.”
Jono wondered if those two had known each other at all before the Thirty-Day War or if Lucien was just that skilled at cultivating animosity with everyone he came in contact with.
Fenrir gave him back control, and Jono unclenched his teeth to speak. “Drekavacs move fast.”
“I know.” Reed’s attention shifted from Jono to Spencer. “Bailey, I want you up front. Buy us some time to get a foothold in this fight.”
Jono was gratified to see Spencer look at him for approval first. “Do what Reed says, but when I leave, you leave.”
Spencer nodded. “Understood.”
Jono stared at Reed. “You can give him orders for this fight, but some of those with me will help guard him.”
Emma planted herself by Spencer’s side without needing to be asked, her wolf ears flattening against her skull at the next wave of eerie screams that echoed through the stormy air. Takoma and two other vampires joined her on guard duty. Fatima tilted her small head back to look up at them all before letting out a yowl that was deeper than her tiny body should’ve been capable of producing.
“Yeah, I know,” Spencer muttered as he conjured up a dozen mageglobes. “Let’s go break some souls.”
Blackened streaks of magic crawled up the façade of Grand Central Station, a warning that had everyone rushing to their assigned position if they weren’t there already. Jono knew the zombies would come up on the street level first, which meant everyone who’d come with him up here had to get down there.
