A Veiled & Hallowed Eve

by Hailey Turner

  “I promised you that I and mine would fight when called to war. You have yet to ask.”

  “It isn’t Samhain yet.”

  “The veil still tears, and I would see my promise fulfilled.”

  “Brilliant,” Jono muttered. “We’ll keep in touch.”

  He grabbed Patrick by the shoulder, hauling him toward the house. The mud was slippery underfoot, and Patrick could either get dragged along willingly or dig in his heels, and he’d never not go where Jono led.

  When he looked back over his shoulder again, Gwyn ap Nudd was gone.

  Probably for the best, considering the police sirens ringing through the air, coming ever closer. Nadine lowered her shields as they approached, then bent over to brace herself on her knees, breathing hard. Patrick hurried to her side, kneeling to get a look at her pale face, curling one hand over the back of her neck.

  “You with me?” he asked.

  “Fucking migraine,” she muttered, eyes squeezed shut as blood dripped from her nose. She reached up to pinch her nostrils shut, trying to stem the flow.

  “Let’s get inside.” Patrick looked up at everyone on the porch, skin crawling from their attention. “They should have some potions you can take.”

  Nadine’s mouth screwed up in a grimace. “I’ll eat a bottle of Tylenol if you let me.”

  She straightened up, and Patrick moved his hand to her hip as he guided her through the mud back to the house. No one had gone back inside yet, and Patrick pointed at the shattered glass doors he’d been knocked through.

  “Get inside,” he ordered as Nadine got a foot on the first step.

  For a wonder, everyone obeyed without arguing. Madelyn paused just past the shattered glass doors inside the home, one hand outstretched toward them. Magic sparkled at her fingertips before she made a fist.

  “Be welcome once again,” she said with a formality that was recognized by the threshold.

  Nadine gave a jerky nod before steeling herself to step inside. The threshold didn’t push her out, which was good because Patrick didn’t really want to have the upcoming conversation in the rain.

  Patrick and Jono were the last to make it inside, with Patrick kicking aside the broken glass so Jono didn’t tear open his bare feet and need to shift again.

  “I’ll get towels,” Madelyn said, pale-faced and already moving.

  Some of Patrick’s cousins huddled together around the table, staring at them as he guided Nadine to the couch. He kept a hand on her shoulder in a steadying gesture as she sat, catching Finley’s eye.

  “Do you have potions in the house? Anything for backlash by chance?” Patrick asked.

  “Yes, but what just happened?” Finley replied.

  “Potions, or I’ll go ransack the nearest medicine cabinet.”

  “I’ll get it. Gran keeps plenty in her workroom,” Easton said, hurrying out of the living area.

  He bypassed Madelyn as she came back from somewhere with clean towels in hand, which she passed to Jono, politely keeping her eyes above his waist. She offered one to Patrick, who took it and wrapped it around Nadine’s shoulders. Neither of them was too soaked due to her shield, but Nadine dried off the dampness anyway.

  “Cheers,” Jono said as he wrapped the towel around his waist. “I’ll go get my clothes.”

  “Stay put. The police are on their way, and I’m betting the SOA agents that were on guard duty are going to show up soon. You walk out like that and you’re liable to be held at gunpoint,” Patrick said.

  Jono rolled his eyes. “I’m not getting interrogated in a bloody towel.”

  Patrick dug out his cell phone from his back pocket, glad to see it had survived the fight mostly intact. The top right corner was cracked, but it still worked. “You’re not getting interrogated at all.”

  Jono huffed in irritation before digging his fingers into Patrick’s front pocket to snag the car keys. Then he tossed them to Brittany, who managed to catch them after a brief fumble. “There’s a duffel bag in the boot of the Mustang outside. Please go get it.”

  “It’s not safe for her to go outside,” Madelyn protested.

  “I’ll be fine, Mom,” Brittany said, already hurrying for the front door before anyone could hold her back.

  Patrick ignored everyone as he automatically started dialing Setsuna’s number and then swore when he realized what he was doing, grief sticking in the back of his throat so suddenly he could practically taste it. Canceling the call with a stab of his thumb, he called General Reed instead.

  “Collins? What’s going on?” Reed grunted.

  “I’m in Salem. The Dominion Sect has Eloise Patterson. Loki was impersonating her for who the fuck knows how long. We got attacked by the Sluagh, but the Wild Hunt ran them off,” Patrick said, sparing no detail because there wasn’t any point in mincing words, and Reed believed in gods. The Patterson family had borne witness to the messy truth, and there was no hiding it anymore. “No casualties, but there’s no goddamn way you can hide the fight that just happened, sir.”

  The heavy silence that settled on the line lasted long enough that Patrick pulled the phone away from his ear to make sure he still had signal in the reactionary storm howling outside. It was long enough that Brittany returned, soaking wet, with the duffel bag in hand. Jono took it from her with a nod of thanks before ducking into the hall bathroom to get dressed.

  “I’ll inform the joint task force. Do you think Salem is Ethan’s focus and not New York City because of this?” Reed finally said.

  Patrick chewed the inside of his bottom lip for a couple of seconds before answering. “No. I think New York City is still where his spellcasting will happen, but they focused here because of the Pattersons.”

  “You’re sure they have Eloise? That she’s alive?”

  “I don’t know if she’s still alive. Ethan’s never been one to take hostages. He tends to murder everyone instead.”

  Someone made a choked-off sound, and Nadine huffed out an irritated sigh as she straightened up from her hunched-over position. “You’re still shit when it comes to dealing with people, Collins.”

  Patrick made a face at her, still talking to Reed. “I need to call Director Kohli.”

  “Keep me updated,” Reed ordered.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Patrick ended the call right as someone pounded on the front door. “SOA! Open up!”

  Nadine stood, letting the towel drop from her shoulders as she fumbled her badge out of her back pocket. “I’ll handle your fellow agents. Call your acting director.”

  Patrick watched as she headed down the hall, only pausing long enough to take the potion vial from Easton when he came down the stairs and down it in one swallow. Patrick dialed Priya’s personal cell phone rather than an office line since it was still the weekend. He knew she was probably working like all the rest of them, but there was no guarantee she’d be at her desk.

  “SOA Acting Director Kohli,” Priya said when she answered.

  “Ma’am, we have a problem,” Patrick said, pulling his badge from his pocket in preparation to prove his identity.

  He updated her as succinctly as possible, watching as SOA agents entered the home, weapons drawn and magic at their fingertips, to take stock of the situation. Patrick raised his badge for them to see, most of his attention on the conversation at hand. Police arrived minutes after Jono left the bathroom, fully dressed save for shoes, and the home was quickly becoming crowded.

  The only time Patrick broke away from the conversation with Priya was when one of the police officers tried to get Jono to leave to take his statement. He tilted the phone away from his mouth and said, “He’s not going with you.”

  The officer frowned at him. “We need—”

  “The SOA is taking lead. You don’t need to do anything except what we tell you.”

  The officer bristled, and Priya sighed in his ear. “That isn’t going to endear us to the local law enforcement, Collins.”

  “Ask me if I care.” Patr
ick glared at the officer. “Jono’s giving his report to the SOA, not you. So back off.”

  The officer turned his back on Patrick, irritation clear in the line of his shoulders, but Patrick put the man out of his mind and continued his conversation with Priya. By the end of the call, longer than the one with Reed, Patrick had his marching orders.

  “Are we staying or going?” Nadine asked.

  “The SOA is sending a team from the Rapid Response Division out of Boston. They’ll get here in less than an hour and take over. We need to stay and hold the scene until they arrive for the handoff, and then we’re free to go back to New York,” Patrick said as he put his phone away.

  “What about us? What about our mother?” Grant demanded from where he stood behind the couch, hands gripping the top of it so tightly his knuckles were white.

  “You knew that person wasn’t her. How did you know that?” Madelyn asked.

  Patrick glanced at the Salem police officers and other SOA agents that were still within earshot. For all that he’d spilled his family’s secrets over the past few months, the public didn’t need to be privy to this conversation.

  “Want me to shield?” Nadine asked from her sprawled position on the couch, looking a little better.

  “I got this,” Patrick said.

  She’d done enough. Having magical defenses broken by a god’s weapon would take a lot out of anyone. He wanted her to rest up, so Patrick waved his aunt and uncles closer so he could cast a silence ward without anyone else getting caught up in it. The furniture in the living area acted as a decent barrier to keep everyone else at bay.

  “The SOA knows Eloise is missing. They’re putting out a BOLO that’s hitting every agency,” Patrick said.

  “You just said Ethan had her,” Finley said.

  “Yes, but we don’t know where Ethan is.”

  “What about the man who took her place? You called him Loki.”

  “He wasn’t a man. He was a god.”

  Grant didn’t look as if he believed Patrick. “Gods are just stories.”

  “You worship Persephone, unless your prayers are just lip service,” Jono retorted.

  Grant scowled, a flush coloring his cheeks. “My belief in our coven’s chosen deity isn’t at issue here.”

  “Pretty fucking sure it is.” Jono jerked his head in the direction of the backyard. “Loki’s been impersonating your mum since after our visit. That’s why we came back, because we got a warning and we needed to see if it was true.”

  Uncertainty flickered in Grant’s eyes, but the irritated anger didn’t leave his expression. Patrick wasn’t in the mood for it.

  “Do you want to know why I never let any of you know I was still alive?” Patrick asked, staring at his aunt and uncles and trying not to let the bitterness in the back of his throat turn into bile. “It wasn’t just because Setsuna wanted to keep me hidden and safe from Ethan. I’d be dead if it weren’t for Persephone, but the cost of her saving me from Ethan after he murdered my mom was a soul debt I still haven’t paid. Your chosen deity dictates my life, and there’s no way I’d ever join a coven that puts her on a pedestal like you do.”

  Madelyn went white in the face, while Finley and Grant appeared just as stunned. Patrick drew in a breath, antsy with the need to leave but knowing he couldn’t until the job here was finished.

  “Ethan’s planning to turn himself into a god. He already stole a godhead, but it got trapped in Hannah’s soul. That’s why he didn’t kill her,” Patrick continued.

  Not back then he hadn’t, but she’d crept toward death for so long that she was just flesh these days—breathing but no longer alive. Patrick shoved that thought aside, staring at what remained of his family.

  “That’s…” Finley’s voice trailed off, the horror in his tone recognizable.

  “Can you save her?” Madelyn asked, choking on the words.

  Patrick didn’t answer.

  “Ethan wants a trade, and it’s not a trade the government can make,” Nadine said into the tense quiet.

  Patrick grimaced. “The government doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. Ethan’s side gave their demand through Loki. There’s not going to be a ransom call for something like this, but I’ll do what I can to bring Eloise back to you.”

  He couldn’t promise alive because he knew what Ethan was capable of. Patrick had borne the scars of that truth since he was eight years old. Neither could he pass on the demand because the government didn’t know the Morrígan’s staff had been broken and he had kept a piece of it. If Setsuna had still been alive—

  Patrick cut that thought off, ignoring the stab of grief.

  “If there was a ransom request, is it something the government would even pay?” Finley asked.

  “No.”

  “Then our coven will,” Grant said.

  “Ethan doesn’t want money. You don’t have what he wants.”

  “It seems he thinks you do. Or that god did, at least.”

  Grant’s disbelief about Loki had faded some, but Patrick could still hear shades of it in his voice, as if his uncle didn’t think the gods his coven and others prayed to were actually real.

  Patrick sighed. “Technically, that’s classified.”

  “She’s our mother, and we love her, but that’s not the only reason why we need her back,” Madelyn said.

  “Maddie,” Grant warned.

  She turned her head and gave him such a cold stare that he wilted beneath it. “I am head of this coven until our mother returns. I am well within my right to speak our secrets.”

  Oh, Patrick did not like the sound of that.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked.

  Madelyn sighed heavily. “If Ethan has your grandmother, then he has access to the nexus under Salem.”

  Patrick stared at her. “Why would Ethan have access to a nexus just because he has Eloise?”

  “The nexus under Salem is small. It’s an offshoot of the one beneath Boston. Our family has retained control of it since our ancestors arrived in this country.”

  Which was a polite way of saying they’d stolen it from the indigenous people who’d lived in the area first, but Patrick let that thought slide away. Any nexus and the ley lines leading to them were always monitored for activity. Only mages could access those rivers and lakes of power, but governments were usually the ones to oversee their protection.

  “Are you saying our family is the only one with the right to tap that nexus?” Patrick asked.

  Grant shook his head. “No. We’ve always allowed other mages access to it. But our family, our coven, is responsible for the protective wards that contain it, not the government. That was agreed to during the Salem Witch Trials.”

  “Who controls the anchor points of the protective wards?” Their silence was answer enough, and Patrick’s stomach twisted. “Fuck.”

  “The SOA, and all the agencies that came before it, have been aware of our claim on the nexus for generations,” Finley said.

  Patrick wondered if Priya even knew or if she was still so busy trying to get a handle on filling Setsuna’s spot that she hadn’t absorbed everything yet.

  “I didn’t know.”

  “You aren’t in charge of a federal agency.”

  “Setsuna was.”

  Grant snorted derisively. “Forgive us if we still don’t view her in a positive light for her actions in keeping you from us.”

  “Your mother was supposed to be the next high priestess of the Salem Coven. Clara would’ve excelled in that role. Ethan knew what she was going to have access to with that rank. I’ve always believed he loved power first and our sister second,” Madelyn said quietly.

  Patrick squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds before opening them again, trying not to think of a bloody basement. “You wouldn’t be wrong.”

  He’d known Ethan had taken Hannah to keep Macaria’s godhead alive and always thought his father had used Hannah’s magic the same way a parasite drained energy from a host
. It seemed Patrick hadn’t been far off the mark with that comparison, if what they were saying was true, if their family had the ability to tap the nexus beneath Salem with no one the wiser.

  The Pattersons had generational claim to a nexus, one the government hadn’t been able to pry out of their hands. No wonder his grandmother was always listened to whenever she went to Capitol Hill to chastise Congress about the Dominion Sect.

  No wonder Hannah had been able to support a godhead in her soul for as long as she had, if Ethan could draw from a nexus through her without anyone tracking his access, because blood would always let blood through. Patrick wondered how many times Ethan had taken Hannah back to Salem to support her soul until it no longer worked, until it took godly interference to keep her alive.

  He wondered if the breaking point was when she became pregnant.

  “This is information my superiors need to know. Most likely they’ll send mages out of the Boston field office to barricade the Salem and Boston nexuses like we did during the Thirty-Day War,” Patrick said.

  Barricading the ley lines and nexuses in the Northeast would take a level of coordination and power the government could probably deploy in time, but there was no guarantee. Bureaucracy was the government’s lifeblood at all levels, and not even war could make that move quickly. He hoped General Reed would be able to make something happen though.

  “Please find your grandmother. She never stopped looking for you and Hannah after we buried Clara,” Madelyn said in a quiet voice that broke a little on her sister’s name.

  “You all thought we were dead for years.”

  “We held out hope we’d get to bury you in our family’s cemetery. We wanted that closure.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  Madelyn wiped the tears from her eyes before stepping around the coffee table. Patrick tensed, not sure what she wanted and unprepared for what it ended up being.

  A hug.

  Madelyn wrapped her arms around him, hugging him as tight as she could. Patrick didn’t know what to do with his arms for a few seconds before he very carefully hugged her back, holding himself stiffly.