“You’re getting cranky in your old age.”
Jono rolled his eyes. “I’m not even forty.”
“Give it a couple more years.” Wade grinned at him before latching onto Jono’s left arm. “Alright, stick close. We got a lot of cameras around, and I have no idea who will see us on a screen. It’s different from radar.”
Jono didn’t know how Wade’s ability to keep people from noticing him really worked, but it came in handy right then, allowing them to reach the front doors of the SOA building without anyone yelling at them to stop. The glass doors themselves were unlocked but smelled of active magic, even though the building was public space and couldn’t carry a threshold.
“Huh,” Wade said, squinting at the door. “Give me a second. I’m going to have to drag you through.”
“What?”
“Hold on!”
Wade’s grip on his arm became bruising, and then Jono found himself being yanked through the door Wade opened, only it felt as if he were moving through molasses. Every step took effort, pressure bearing down on him that somehow slid away after a heartbeat. Wade didn’t let up, using his supernatural strength that far outranked Jono’s to haul them both into the SOA building. They stumbled into the high-ceiling lobby, nearly falling to the ground as whatever had tried to block their way finally let them go.
“Do I want to know?” Jono asked as he straightened up, pulling free of Wade’s grip.
“The spell didn’t want to let you through. I had to make you like an extension of me.”
Jono wasn’t going to question it. “Alright. Let’s go find Patrick.”
Somewhere up above was his lover, and Jono wasn’t going home without him.
3
In the past,Patrick might have taken the risk to fight his way out of the situation at hand alone and hope for the best. These days—with no agency badge to stand behind, no gods-given dagger, and his hypervigilance long since treated and mostly put to rest—Patrick was willing to bide his time.
Sage would be proud of him.
The artifact Aaron held—an idol of some sort carved out of what looked like bone—reeked of blood magic, leaving a metallic tang in the back of Patrick’s throat when he breathed. The legal team hadn’t moved a centimeter since his arrival, bound by the magic crawling through their veins, magic which Aaron had tried to apply to Patrick and failed. The spell on the artifact hadn’t taken root because of Patrick’s personal shields and literal lifetime of knowing how to deflect that kind of magic.
“Listen, I’m worth more to you as a voice than sitting frozen in a seat,” Patrick had calmly stated, making no move to attack. “I have a direct line to the people who can get you what you want, whatever that is.”
Aaron had glared at him, ten years Patrick’s junior and full of a bravado that stemmed from desperation, because only the desperatewere this stupid. Patrick should know. He’d done enough stupid things in his past that had contributed to Jono’s collection of gray hairs.
“I want my wife,” Aaron had growled.
“Okay. So let’s talk.”
Calling up Casale had been the first order of business, and the city’s police commissioner had been about as thrilled as usual to take a call from Patrick in the midst of trouble. The conversation had gone as well as expected, with Aaron spouting off his demands and Patrick offering up his own observations as discreetly as he could. He knew Casale would pick up on what was and wasn’t being said but that Aaron wouldn’t.
Still, if there was anything Patrick had learned during his time fighting to save the world, it was how to stall.
“How did you meet her?” Patrick asked, still not having moved from the seat he’d been directed to, hands pressed flat to the table at Aaron’s order.
“Who?” Aaron muttered, pacing the length of the conference room.
“Your wife.” Patrick’s gaze slipped past the sorcerer, catching on the flutter of a blind moving in a window on the high-rise across the street. He doubted Aaron knew the police or SOA had stationed a sniper out there. He hoped Casale would heed his warning about the artifact. He didn’t know what would happen to the others at the table if he ripped the artifact from Aaron’s hands but hoped whoever they sent in could deal with it.
In what sometimes felt like another life, Patrick had been trained to fight against such magic, to hunt demons and the magic users who summoned them. He’d left the Mage Corps for the SOA before finally putting down his weapons after the Battle of Samhain, but that didn’t mean he was going down without a fight.
Patience was something he’d learned, but he’d learned it.
This was what his therapist called growth. It had only taken Patrick, oh, three and a half decades or so to learn it.
“Don’t you know how I met her? Aren’t you one of the people trying to put my family away?” Aaron snapped.
Patrick resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m not actually a lawyer. I was hired as an expert witness.”
