A Veiled & Hallowed Eve

by Hailey Turner

  He threw a mageglobe filled with raw magic directly at the man’s face. The explosion was small in terms of size but still devastating. Patrick’s personal shields kept him from feeling the heat, but his magic blew off the man’s face nearly to the back of his skull. As the body fell to the ground, black smoke filtered out of the skin instead of a flash of negative light, the demon dying with its host.

  Sage put herself between Patrick and a drekavac, savaging the fast-moving zombie with her powerful jaws. The second she brought one down, another took its place. Fenrir had taken Jono off to some other area of the fight, leaving Nadine to watch his six. Close quarters wasn’t his specialty, and it’d been years since Patrick had needed to fight like this, but he fell into a natural rhythm with Nadine that had them carving a bloody path forward step by brutal step.

  Their side was effectively surrounded, with a never-ending wave of zombies and demons pressing against their front line. Patrick knew they couldn’t hold the line for long; it was suicidal to try. Which meant they had to take out the source.

  “Anyone got eyes on Andras?” Patrick shouted over the noise of the fight.

  He rammed his elbow into a hunter’s throat and gutted her with his dagger. She grappled at him until her last breath, black smoke escaping her mouth as the demon burned inside her fading soul.

  “No,” Nadine grunted as she closed her fist over a mageglobe.

  The shield she’d encased three hunters in shrank in seconds, crushing the victims as if an entire building had fallen on them. She withdrew her magic, and when Patrick followed after her, his feet slid through the remains of the hunters. The pieces of their bodies were too small to come together and rise again, but all the rest were fair game save those killed by way of Patrick’s dagger.

  Wade spat dragon fire on the zombies rising behind them, trying to keep watch on their six. Dominion Sect spells were targeting him more and more though, and Patrick had half a mind to send Wade airborne to get him out of their reach. The teen was too hemmed in by buildings to maneuver easily, and sending flame down on the fight indiscriminately wasn’t an option.

  But the dead and demons kept coming, and they weren’t any closer to crossing the intersection than they had been at the beginning of this fight. The burn in his soul was from overuse of magic, even with having the soulbond channeling most of it from the ley line through Jono. The stretched-out twilight of time had exhausted them all, and it wasn’t helping their side.

  Which was probably what Ethan had been counting on all along. This was a war of attrition on steroids, but Patrick wasn’t willing to die on his knees.

  “Someone get eyes on Andras!” Patrick yelled.

  He’d give anything for working comms, something to coordinate the battle with. Everyone was too scattered for him to be sure his request was heard. He cast a shockwave spell, throwing the mageglobe ahead of them. When it exploded, magic rippled outward, leveling the demons and zombies in their immediate area. It gave him and Nadine breathing room for all of two seconds before he caught sight of the goddess marching toward them from the shoreline.

  Hel was ready for war, walking off the shores of Náströnd and leading an army of the dead onto the streets of Manhattan. Patrick’s stomach sank at the realization they were facing numbers his side couldn’t stand against, even with the few gods who’d followed them to the Battery in the mix.

  “We need to regroup,” Nadine said, a thread of panic creeping into her voice.

  Easier said than done, but Patrick could at least hopefully buy them some time.

  “Wade!” Patrick yelled, hoping the teenager heard him. “Get into the air and aim for Hel!”

  Wade immediately launched himself into the air with a roar. He spat fire at the spells aimed his way, gaining altitude. The valkyries on their pegasi flew toward Wade to form ranks around him. Taking Wade off their six was a loss, but they needed to cull the numbers on Ethan’s side if at all possible without losing too many of their own people.

  An explosion of light had Patrick blinking spots out of his eyes, desperately trying to keep a hunter at bay with limited vision. Jono snarled nearby, and the hunter was dragged to the ground and savaged by him.

  When Patrick could see clearly again, his gaze zeroed in on where Gerard was engaged in battle with Loki. Their two legendary spears clashed together again and again with a sound that made Patrick’s ears ring, magic flashing searingly bright with every connected hit.

  Jono shouldered aside a pair of zombies, snapping at their legs and breaking bone. The dead fell to the ground, and Patrick stabbed them both before they could rise again. Spencer’s magic danced around the dead surrounding them, but it didn’t appear to be as strong as before. There was less of it, but at least Patrick knew his friend was still alive somewhere in the fight.

  Hinon flew overhead, calling down lightning and dodging spells. Thunder was a near-constant rumble through the air, white noise that Patrick barely noticed. The demons ahead of them went down under Sage’s teeth and claws. Jono lunged past her at the drekavac preparing to leap onto her back.

  What space Patrick had managed to buy them was quickly shrinking. All he could see were the grasping hands of the dead, the nightmarish faces of demons, and black-eyed hunters intent on murder. The dagger in his hand wasn’t enough against the sheer numbers battering at their limited defenses.

  Then a horn sounded across the battlefield, crystal clear as a bell. Patrick recognized the sound in an instant, and he spared a look back toward the way they’d come, hope a desperate taste in his mouth.

  The broken pieces of the Bifröst vibrated off the ground and into the air, rainbow-colored light glowing as bright as the hidden sun. The shards of solid light came together in a wave, the rainbow bridge reforming in seconds, the edge of it curving down to the ground rather than the horizon.

  Thundering over it came Odin, the Allfather seated astride the eight-legged horse Sleipnir. Riding in his wake was Órlaith at the head of a contingent of Seelie Court fae and Thor on a borrowed steed, Mjölnir held aloft. Winging above the riders were Muninn and Huginn, Odin’s ravens bearing witness to the battle.

  “To war!” Thor bellowed.

  His battle cry was echoed by the valkyries in the air and the fae. Órlaith and the fae split around Odin and Thor, charging into the fray with murderous intent on their faces.

  Thor called down a massive lightning bolt from the reactionary storm. It shook the ground when it hit. The dead in its vicinity exploded from the impact, sending body parts flying through the air to land amidst the fighting. Nadine slammed a shield down around them and shoved the base of it outward, forcing the dead back from their immediate location. She dropped it once they gained a little ground, and some of the charred bits of bodies fell down around them like bloody hail.

  “I never want to see another fucking zombie for the rest of my life after this,” Patrick said.

  Nadine just grunted and kicked a hunter in the balls, tipping him off-balance right into Sage’s mouth. Patrick looked behind him at the sound of hooves, coming face-to-face with Sleipnir as the horse clattered to a halt. Patrick looked up at Odin, staring into the Allfather’s heterochromatic eyes.

  “Heimdallr said you were dealing with the Fallen,” Patrick said, trying to catch his breath as Nadine raised another shield between them and the zombies.

  “There would have been far more demons to greet you if I had not dealt with many of them,” Odin said coolly.

  Patrick winced, thinking about that insurmountable number. “They’re going to keep coming if we don’t get the Morrígan’s staff out of Andras’ hands.”

  Odin said nothing, batting aside a cluster of spells that were aimed their way as if they were nothing more than irritating insects. “He stands with Hades at the monument.”

  Nadine conjured up some mageglobes, staring straight ahead and breathing heavily, both hands clutching at her carbine. “Then let’s get the fucker.”

  “Can you clear us a way?
” Patrick asked Odin.

  Odin didn’t answer in words, but the god urged Sleipnir forward. Nadine hastily lowered her shield, and the demons and zombies surrounding them surged closer. Sage roared and trampled a few zombies and a hunter, who Nadine put out of his misery by carving a line of bullets across his face. The demon fled its host but didn’t get far.

  Ashanti intercepted the incorporeal demon, drawing it into her mouth similar to how Fatima swallowed souls. Except Patrick knew for a fact that demon was never going anywhere ever again. Ashanti snapped her iron teeth together a few times while tearing through some zombies.

  “Odin,” Ashanti said, voice raspy.

  “Ashanti,” Odin replied.

  “There are soultakers between us and our prey.”

  “Leave those to me.”

  Patrick filled a mageglobe with a shockwave spell and sent it hurtling past Sage. The resulting explosion leveled hunters and demons ahead of them. Sleipnir trampled those already on the ground while Patrick’s group did the same, kicking a couple along the way to keep them down.

  Nadine blocked a spell from hitting them by raising a shield, but the pair of soultakers that shoved through some zombies were Patrick’s immediate problem. Sage roared a challenge the demons screamed right back at her, whiplike tongues snapping through the air.

  Odin raised a hand and made a fist. The soultakers were lifted into the air, bodies flailing, held in the grip of a god’s power. As Patrick watched, their maws were stretched open, skin and bone breaking as Odin fed the demons their own bodies until all that remained were twisted, broken balls of flesh that fell to the ground.

  Patrick let Odin deal with the soultakers massed before them. Some slipped past the god though, hidden in the crush of zombies trying to stop them. Sage veered away from some other demons to guard the area on their right. Ashanti launched herself with brutal intent at one soultaker going after Nadine.

  “Behind you,” Ashanti warned.

  Patrick spun around to deal with the soultaker sneaking up on their six. He wasn’t up for losing any more magic than necessary, but baiting the damned thing was the only way he knew to get close enough without dying in order to stab it.

  Patrick filled a mageglobe with raw magic and sent it away from him at an angle. The soultaker tracked the magic despite having no eyes, its huge maw splitting wide as its tongue lashed out. The soultaker caught the mageglobe with its tongue before twisting its bulbous head back in Patrick’s direction.

  He gritted his teeth against the sensation of magic draining away from his soul and did his best to expand his personal shield. The soultaker was fast, snapping at his shoulder in a move that would’ve bitten his arm off if he wasn’t shielded. Patrick lunged around the demon with a grunt. Arm raised, dagger clenched tight in his hand, he rammed the blade into the soultaker’s gut, feeling its teeth bite into his shield with vicious pressure.

  It screamed, deafening him in one ear, but the heavenly prayers in his dagger incinerated it to ash that didn’t blow away because of the rain. Patrick found his footing again, straightening up in time to nearly take a metal bat to the face. Only Nadine’s shield saved him from having his skull caved in by a hunter.

  The zombies seemed to have multiplied, drawn from the Paris horde or Hel, it was impossible to know. Closing the distance between where they were and where Andras stood seemed almost insurmountable, even with Odin carving a brutal path in that direction. Maybe it would’ve stayed that way if Spencer wasn’t suddenly deposited on their six, swearing at Takoma as the master vampire unceremoniously dumped him to the ground.

  Spencer stumbled forward a few steps, working to stay upright, Fatima clinging to his shoulder. “Give me a fucking warning next time!”

  “Would you rather die or have me save your ass?” Takoma snapped before going after Ashanti and adding to the mess his mother was creating in the horde.

  “Can you drop every zombie between us and Andras?” Patrick asked.

  “They’ll rise again, so you’ll need to move fast,” Spencer warned.

  “What about Andras? Can you exorcise him?”

  Spencer grimaced, a tightness to his jaw that spoke of magical overreach, but there was no time for any of them to stop. “I can try. I’m not at my strongest, and I don’t know how much interference the Morrígan’s staff will cause.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Fatima yowled loudly and launched herself off Spencer to the ground. A chill filled the air, not unlike traveling through the veil, as Spencer focused his magic on the walking dead arrayed before them.

  The green of his magic danced over the zombies and drekavacs in a way reminiscent of the Northern Lights. The freed souls were drawn into the psychopomp’s mouth, guided to rest, the bones and bodies falling to the ground.

  Patrick and Nadine kept Spencer between them as they pushed ahead over the bodies, trying to reach Andras before the dead rose again. Sage and Jono ranged out on either side of them, watching their flanks. Traveling in Odin’s wake made it easier, but not by much. Odin was a target that everyone was aiming for, and even a god could come under duress.

  Wade managed to clear the sky directly overhead of incoming spells but some of the lower-aimed ones he missed. Patrick took those out with a couple of mageglobes, keeping one eye on the enemy around him. Jono stayed close, having chewed on so many bodies that strings of flesh dangled from his teeth.

  Patrick nearly tripped on the edge of the sidewalk, their small group having managed to finally cross the street with Odin’s help. That put them closer to Andras, but Patrick knew the Great Marquis of Hell wouldn’t go down easy.

  “Can you try exorcising the bastard now?” Patrick asked.

  Spencer sidestepped Fatima, guiding his magic through a particularly thick group of zombies. “We’ll be sitting targets if I do. You’ll need to keep moving.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone for that spell.”

  Spencer shot him an irritated look, face pale and drawn, dried blood flaking off under his nose. “We’re all dead if you don’t make it to Ethan.”

  “We aren’t leaving you behind,” Nadine shot back.

  Patrick craned his head around, getting eyes on Andras and seeing the demon staring back at them out of Ilya’s eyes. The quartz crystal inside the carved wooden knotwork of the Morrígan’s staff they held flashed brightly.

  Patrick’s eyes widened. “Nadine, shield!”

  She raised a shield as ordered, barely getting it up in time. The wave of magic Andras called forth through Ilya hit like a punch. Nadine went down on one knee, and Spencer didn’t even look when he reached for her, dragging her back upright. Fatima yowled loudly, her small furry head looking up with concern at Spencer.

  Around them, souls were fed back into the dead, the Morrígan’s staff commanding them to rise again. In the handful of seconds it took for them to reorient themselves, Ares appeared in front of Odin, blocking the Allfather’s passage.

  “Odin,” Ares said, standing tall and proud amidst demons. “You chose the wrong side. When we came to you in Chicago, you should have committed to a hell that would remember you.”

  “There is no memory of any of us that will survive what is birthed here. You misplaced your faith,” Odin said.

  “I misplaced nothing.”

  Odin slid off Sleipnir, no weapon in hand, because Loki still had possession of Gungnir. But the Allfather was head of a pantheon of gods, and Ares might be a god of war, but he wouldn’t outlast Odin in a fight. Then Ares looked up at the sky through the branches of Yggdrasil, and Patrick realized why Ares wasn’t worried.

  Breaking free of the storm clouds came thousands of demons falling to earth, the veil no longer a barrier to keep them out. Wade roared a warning, and Patrick desperately wanted to shout at him to fly away, to not face an army of hell on his own.

  None of them could.

  Odin looked over his shoulder at Patrick, the steel gray of his left eye shining with power. “Make your stand. I
will do the same.”

  Ashanti blurred to a stop beside Patrick, wrapping her clawed fingers around his arm in a bruising tight grip. “You cannot stop now.”

  Patrick nodded jerkily, and Ashanti let him go. Ares snarled wordlessly, but the attack the god leveled his way was turned aside by Odin. Spencer and Nadine stayed right by Patrick as they all followed Ashanti into the fray. Sage and Jono stuck closer, snapping at anything that tried to get in their way.

  Skeletal fingers and rotten hands grasped at Patrick’s legs as he ran, the dead slowing his passage. Jono lunged close, biting off a zombie’s head. They kept running, and it reminded him of Paris, only worse, because if they lost here, there would be nothing left to fight for. The torn veil would keep peeling open, breaking over the world as Ethan remade it into a hell.

  Hellfire exploded around them as they drew closer to the god and demon holding court over the dead. Nadine barely got another shield up in time, and the heat of the hellfire scorched Patrick’s skin for a few seconds. He skidded to a halt, breathing harshly. He tracked the hellfire as it slid down the curve of the shield, thick like napalm and sizzling against her magic. Nadine grunted, shaking her head and wiping at the fresh blood flowing from her nose.

  The hellfire slid to the ground, burning there like a sea of flame. Patrick stared across it at where Hades stood. He hadn’t seen the Greek god of the Underworld since being put in the grave. He doubted whatever stalemate they’d endured in Salem, brokered by Persephone, would reach here, but a stalemate was no way to win a war.

  “Drop your shield, Mulroney,” Patrick said.

  “Are you fucking crazy?” she hissed.

  “Just do it.”

  Nadine drew her shield in closer rather than drop it, letting it surround herself and Spencer. The heat from the hellfire washed over Patrick like a muggy wave, turning the rain to steam around them. The sulfuric smell made Patrick want to gag, but he didn’t.