A Ferry of Bones & Gold (Soulbound Book 1), page 20
He went through the door that led to a dirty alley with his shields up and a mageglobe in hand, the strike spell burning at his fingertips. The narrow space was filled with black plastic bags of garbage spilling out of a nearby dumpster. The mouth of the alley was empty, but the fire escape rattled from quick footsteps. Patrick looked up right as the door went flying off its hinges from Jono’s shove and crashed to the ground.
“You couldn’t bloody wait?” Jono snarled.
Patrick pointed at the fire escape, magic burning across his skin. “Hold that thought.”
He spun up a binding ward in his mageglobe and sent it careening upward through the gaps in the metal fire escape. The sorcerer tried to defend against it, but his magic dealt with illusions, and it couldn’t hold up against a military grade spell. It technically wasn’t legal to use against a civilian, but Patrick had told him to stop.
When Patrick’s mageglobe crashed against the man’s chest, bright ropes of magic wrapped around his body like webbing. He crashed down onto the stairs of the fire escape with a pained shout, down but not out.
“I need to get up there,” Patrick said.
Jono shook his head before making a looping turn in the small space. He ran at the wall, kicking one foot out to hit the side of the dirty building and propel himself upward with preternatural strength. Jono grabbed the railing of the first landing one full story above them and easily hauled himself over. It took him less than thirty seconds to extend the ladder down to the ground so Patrick could climb up.
They ascended the zigzagging staircases together, with Patrick taking point. Three landings later they reached the suspect. The man was sprawled against the fire escape steps, bleeding from a deep cut on his jaw where he’d hit his face on a sharp edge when he fell. The binding ward held his magic in check along with his body. Patrick could feel the sorcerer fighting it, and the struggle was giving him a headache.
Patrick grabbed the guy by the collar of his shirt and belt, hauling him off the stairs. “When I say stop, I mean fucking stop, asshole.”
“Fuck you!” the guy spit out.
“Want me to carry him down?” Jono asked.
“Nah, I got this.”
Patrick shoved the sorcerer up against the railing, letting him dangle halfway over, head pointed at the ground. He could see tattoos on both arms rippling across the man’s skin but unable to form any illusions.
“You want to explain what you were doing back there?” Patrick demanded.
The man was of Chinese descent, and while his full-sleeve tattoos were done in the traditional style, his accent was all New York. “Fuck you!”
“Not the answer I was looking for.”
With a bit of help from his magic, Patrick shoved the guy over the edge and let gravity do its thing. Jono, for all his quick reflexes, didn’t react fast enough, his hand coming down on empty air as the sorcerer fell with a high-pitched scream before being caught by Patrick’s magic halfway to the ground.
“Are you mental?” Jono yelled at him in disbelief.
Patrick shrugged. “I’m gonna plead the Fifth on that.”
Jono stared at him for a few more seconds before looking over the side of the railing at where the sorcerer hovered in the air, still screaming his fool head off.
“I want my lawyer, you crazy fuck!” the sorcerer yelled.
“I hate when they lawyer up.”
“Absolutely mental,” Jono decided before he started back down the fire escape.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Patrick called after him.
They made it back down to the ground, and Patrick gestured sharply with one hand, magic sparking at his fingertips as he called the sorcerer back down to earth. Patrick wrinkled his nose at the smell of urine coming off the guy; he’d pissed his pants sometime during the free fall. He was in the process of adjusting the binding ward so the guy could walk when two uniformed officers approached the mouth of the alley.
“You got him?” the policewoman asked.
“This crazy fucker dropped me off the roof!” the sorcerer yelled.
The officers ignored him, too busy snapping a pair of handcuffs on him, which Patrick used to tie his binding ward to. The metal acted as a decent anchor to hold the spell. The binding ward was still active, even if the physical manifestations of magic had faded from the sorcerer’s body. His tattoos and illusion-based magic had settled back into his skin, forced to dormancy by the binding ward.
The suspect protested loudly as he was hauled to the squad car parked in the middle of the street. The officers ignored the sorcerer’s continuous yelling about how Patrick was the one who should be arrested for attempted murder, not him.
Two more police cars—one unmarked—pulled up behind the squad car. Allison and Dwayne got out of their vehicle, hands hovering near their weapons. When they saw the problem had been contained, they approached Patrick and Jono rather than their fellow officers.
“Did you really drop him off the roof?” Dwayne asked.
“No,” Patrick said with a straight face. “It was only a couple of stories.”
“That’s an excessive use of force charge right there that will bite us in the ass,” Allison said. “Why did you chase him?”
“The taint from the crime scene was tied to him.”
They looked over at where the officers were shoving the loudly swearing sorcerer into the back of their squad car. “That’s a new development.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t make any sense.” Patrick stepped around them and approached the squad car holding the sorcerer. “He lawyered up already.”
“But you have the bloke. That’s good, right?” Jono asked.
“Only if the spell signatures match.”
“You said the taint was tied to him?”
Patrick ignored the question. He nodded at the uniformed policewoman speaking into her radio before hauling open the side door of the police car. He braced an arm against the roof of the car and leaned down to look at the scowling suspect still struggling against the binding ward.
“You still want your lawyer?” Patrick asked.
“Fuck you,” the man spit out.
“Original.”
Patrick reached for the man, not caring that he ducked away. Patrick didn’t need to touch him to read his aura. Tapping his magic, Patrick worked to isolate the taint in the sorcerer’s soul. He was surprised at how easy it was to peel it out of the man’s aura, as if the magic had no ties to the soul it was riding in, more a tangle of foreign power.
Which meant it wasn’t his magic.
Patrick snuffed out the residual and moved back so he could close the door. “He’s not the murderer. Accessory to it maybe, but he’s not the one controlling the soultakers.”
“Are you sure?” Allison asked.
“The taint from the crime scene was transposed onto his aura. It’s not his, he’s just carrying it.”
“So why change tactics like this?” Dwayne wanted to know. “Why have someone remain at the scene? The person behind the murders has never broken their MO in six months. Why start now?”
“It’s a question we can ask him, but interrogation will take hours,” Patrick said slowly, mind shifting into overdrive.
Allison nodded. “We’ll need to bring him back to the PCB immediately to get the process started. We won’t even be able to talk to him without his lawyer present, and then we’ll need to send him to Central Booking.”
All that meant was they’d be holed up dealing with this new wrinkle in the case. They had a real live person to possibly get some answers from, but Patrick didn’t believe anything viable would pan out. This was a glaringly obvious new lead, and in Patrick’s experience, the obvious was merely a ploy.
Patrick craned his head around, catching Jono’s eye. “Where’s Marek? He said something last night about Sage’s birthday party going on today.”
Jono frowned and dug out his phone. “I’ll give him a ring.”
“I’m going to need you guys to handle his processing,” Patrick said to Dwayne and Allison, pointing at the sorcerer in the back of the squad car. “See if you can expedite it.”
“Marek isn’t picking up,” Jono said tersely a few seconds later.
“Try Leon. I’ll call Emma.”
Patrick’s phone just kept ringing before getting picked up by voicemail. He hung up without leaving a message. Jono didn’t seem to have much luck either in reaching Leon.
Patrick put his phone away. “Dwayne? Allison? I need your car.”
“Why?” Dwayne asked.
“Because mine got blown up, and I need to find Marek. Give me your keys.”
“Why do you think Marek is in danger?”
“He’s got a hefty amount of magic at his disposal, and a spell of this magnitude will need a large enough sacrifice at the end. Keys. Now.”
And because Marek, being a seer, had a direct tie to an immortal, which would give the spell an even bigger boost. Patrick didn’t want to think about how messy things would get if Marek died on his watch.
“What if he’s not home?” Allison said.
“We’ll try his work and the bar. Does he have any other places he frequents?” Patrick asked Jono.
“He owns a mansion in the Hamptons,” Jono said.
Patrick rounded on him. “Big enough to house a party?”
Jono nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
“Fuck. I am chaining him to his goddamn apartment after this.”
If Marek was in Long Island, the seer wouldn’t have to be worried about dying by way of a soultaker’s teeth and insatiable hunger. Patrick would kill the other man himself for not learning to stay fucking put.
Dwayne was on the phone to Casale about the latest situation they were all facing when an SUV braked to a halt behind their unmarked car. Patrick would’ve paid it no mind except the woman who got out from behind the steering wheel caught his attention like little else could.
Tall and lean, with her brown hair pulled back in a tight braid coiled at the base of her skull, the woman silently nodded at him. She wore black cargo pants tucked into combat boots, a fitted black T-shirt, and a tactical handgun holstered to her heavy-duty belt. Patrick could see nothing that would show any affiliation she might have with any agency. No badge, no name tag, no insignia—not that she needed any. After the missions they’d run together as combat mages in the Mage Corps, Patrick would know her face anywhere.
He’d ask what Special Agent Nadine Mulroney of the Preternatural Intelligence Agency was doing here in New York City, but he already knew the answer.
Nadine was Setsuna’s second call-in.
“Who’s that?” Allison asked.
“Backup,” Patrick said, already walking toward his ride. “Jono, you’re coming with me. Allison, I don’t need your car anymore, but I need you to send some of your people to Marek’s Manhattan addresses. Call me with news on if he’s there or not. Tell Casale I’ll return when I can.”
“Where are you going?”
“Long Island.”
“You’re gonna need an escort,” Dwayne said after he hung up. He cupped his hands around his mouth and raised his voice. “Lee! You and your partner are taking Special Agent Collins to Long Island. Lights and sirens all the way.”
The uniformed cop in question reached for his radio in anticipation of giving dispatch an update. “Location?”
Patrick called out the address along with instructions for Lee to “Turn your lights and sirens off three miles out from the destination. I don’t want to give away our position.”
“Understood,” Officer Lee replied.
“Collins,” Nadine said in greeting once Patrick made it to the SUV.
“Mulroney,” Patrick said. “Tell me you brought gear?”
“Back seat. Needs to be assembled.”
“Jono, take the front.” Patrick opened the side passenger door but paused before getting in. He raised an eyebrow at Nadine. “Weren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”
“I was.” She slid back behind the wheel and pulled her door shut. “Technically, I’m not even on loan.”
Which meant Nadine was AWOL in the worst way possible and they couldn’t rely on any backup from either of their agencies while in the field.
“Feels like old times,” Patrick said before getting into the back seat and buckling up.
“Gods, I hope not,” Nadine said as she put the SUV into reverse. “But this is you we’re talking about, so I’m guessing we’re all just fucked.”
Patrick rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t really argue with the truth.
13
“These have the serial numbers filed off. Did you get them from Lucien?”
Nadine took her eyes off the cop car clearing them a way through New York City streets to glance at Patrick in the rearview mirror. “Rifles aren’t acceptable carry-on items for any airline, so what do you think?”
Patrick finished sliding home the magazine filled with spelled bullets for the M4A1 carbine he had assembled in the back seat. “I hate carbines. You think he’d pick a better rifle to sell.”
“You’re still fucking picky about what you carry even three years out of the Corps.”
“Like you aren’t,” Patrick retorted. “Lucien said he was waiting for more shipments to arrive. I’m assuming they did if he’s handing out weapons?”
“He still has a few more coming. These were appropriated from what he had on hand when he crossed the southern border on such short notice.”
“What was he doing on this continent? Did the Middle East stop being lucrative or something?”
“You’d have to ask him.”
“I’d rather not.”
Patrick tucked the first carbine back into its transport case and put it on the seat beside him. He grabbed the second transport case and started to assemble the next weapon in less than a minute. The motions were practically muscle memory for him, so it was easy to do. He split up the extra magazine cartridges containing military grade spelled bullets between both weapons.
Nadine’s borrowed gear was limited, but all of it was in excellent condition. Lucien’s business might be exceptionally illegal, but no one ever complained about the products he sold on the black market. Those that did usually ended up dead.
She hadn’t brought a uniform, but the Kevlar-lined tactical vest was similar to the kind they’d both worn in the military. Patrick had strapped on the set she’d brought for him over his clothes already, the weight of the gear familiar.
Patrick leaned back in his seat and scratched at his cheek. “Where were you when Setsuna pulled you this time?”
“Visiting my parents in Nice. I got the plane ticket back to the States under an alias. For all intents and purposes, I am still in Nice.”
France was Nadine’s home away from home. She’d been born in the United States but had largely grown up in Paris. Both her parents had worked for the State Department out of the Paris embassy for the majority of her childhood and teenage years. In some ways, she was culturally more French than American.
She’d joined the Mage Corps when she was nearly twenty-two after earning a degree in political science at the Paris Institute of Political Studies in three years. She was a few years older than Patrick but had earned the same sort of honorable discharge he had after the Thirty-Day War. Instead of transitioning into civilian life, Nadine had joined the PIA and opted to return to her adoptive country. She was based out of Paris now, working counterintelligence cases in Europe.
Patrick missed her. Nadine hadn’t been part of his team back then, but they’d worked with her on and off for certain missions. She was a friend, and he didn’t have very many of those these days.
“I need a sitrep,” Nadine said.
Her hands in their fingerless gloves slid along the steering wheel as she took the long, curving exit off FDR Drive onto the Brooklyn Bridge at a fast speed. She was following their escort and the directions to the address Jono had plugged into his phone’s GPS.
“What did Setsuna tell you?” Patrick asked.
“That you needed backup.”
“What else did she tell you?”
Nadine sped up to make sure the asshole in the next lane over didn’t try to cut her off. “That we have the Dominion Sect breathing down our necks again.”
Patrick glared out the windshield at the cop car ahead of them. “Yeah.”
“Should I be hearing this?” Jono asked from the front seat.
Nadine tilted her head in Jono’s direction and didn’t take her eyes off the road. “What’s with the wolf?”
Patrick made a face. “The seer we’re tracking down ordered Jono to stay with me.”
“Immortals? Again?”
“When is it ever not immortals? Remember Cairo?”
“As if I could forget that battle.”
“That’s what we’re up against, only they’ve fixed their mistakes.”
The amount of swearing Nadine spit out in no less than three different languages was expected. “I should’ve taken the grenade launcher.”
Before Patrick could ask why she hadn’t, his phone rang. He saw Casale’s name on the screen and answered it.
“Collins. Line and location are secure,” Patrick said.
“I got a suspect on his way to the PCB, and you’re not on-site. What the hell is going on?” Casale demanded.
“He’s a distraction. MO doesn’t fit and the magic at the crime scene doesn’t belong to him. I’m tracking down Marek in case the Dominion Sect is targeting him right now.”
“You still think he’s who they ultimately want?”
“He’s what will power their ultimate goal. A spell like the one they’re killing for needs a large sacrifice at the end to anchor it. Marek technically has more magic than a mage, even though his power only translates into visions of the future.”
“I was afraid you’d say that. I have officers going to his known locations here in Manhattan. I’ll let you know if he’s at any one of them or not. Where are you?”
“On I-278 about to hit I-495 on our way to the Hamptons.”
