All Souls Near & Nigh (Soulbound Book 2)

by Hailey Turner

  “Patrick,” Jono growled.

  “That is your murder voice,” Patrick said, eyeing him. “No murder allowed on the premises where cops can see.”

  “Aw, that’s a shame,” a gratingly familiar voice drawled. “Don’t shoot the messenger, Pattycakes.”

  Patrick reached for his tactical handgun anyway because greeting Hermes over the barrel of his pistol was pure fucking tradition at this point in his life.

  “Why aren’t you in Greece?” Patrick demanded as Hermes squeezed past Jono to enter the observation room, dragging the door shut behind him.

  “Because Zeus and Hera are having their usual fight over where he puts his dick and I want no part of it,” Hermes retorted. “I don’t consider that a vacation.”

  Patrick could grudgingly agree about that, but he’d never admit it. “What the hell are you wearing?”

  Hermes ran a hand over the same sort of DEA windbreaker the other immortal wore. “A uniform, what does it look like?”

  “And you talk about me murdering a bloke,” Jono said. “Put your gun away before someone sees, Pat.”

  “I saw it,” Wade piped up from the other side of the glass.

  “You don’t count,” Patrick said.

  Wade very pointedly waved his middle finger at them. If the teenager was bringing attitude, then he was probably feeling better. Patrick opted to ignore him for the moment. He’d cast a silence ward except he knew from experience that it wouldn’t stop a dragon from eavesdropping.

  Hermes reached out and tapped the muzzle of Patrick’s pistol. “You know these don’t kill us.”

  “I am well fucking aware of that fact, but filling your chest full of bullets would make me feel better.”

  “We didn’t come here to fight,” Juan said.

  “Of course you didn’t,” Patrick said, rolling his eyes. “Your kind usually makes me do the dirty work for you.”

  The immortal spread his hands and shrugged. “I have asked nothing of you.”

  “Yet.”

  That wide mouth quirked at the corners. “Yet.”

  Patrick shoved his pistol back into its holster. “Who are you? And why are you dressed up as a federal agent?”

  “You may call me Quetzalcoatl. As for the uniform, being a DEA agent is actually my job.”

  Patrick pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing when he forgot it was still tender from getting broken during his case last week. He’d never had any interaction with the Aztec pantheon before now, but it looked like that was about to change.

  “Are you here for Wade?”

  The question made sense in his head. Patrick was standing between an immortal feathered serpent and a dragon, both in human form, so it stood to reason they were linked somehow.

  Quetzalcoatl’s gaze darted over Patrick’s shoulder at where Wade was probably still standing and eavesdropping. “I am not here for the fledgling.”

  Or not.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I am hunting my brother.”

  “Your brother?” Jono asked, scowling. “Tall bloke, long hair, thick accent, has a shit slave business involving my kind? That brother?”

  “And he likes cats,” Hermes said with a smirk. “Big cats.”

  “Not a winning argument, mate.”

  Patrick ran both hands through his hair and linked them behind his skull so he didn’t punch someone. “Which brother is he?”

  Quetzalcoatl crossed his arms over his chest. “Tezcatlipoca.”

  The jaguars made sense now. Patrick remembered those animals had always been favored by that immortal. As a kid, Patrick had learned about the stories of gods how they were told in this day and age—written down as myths. But many of those myths were alive, having walked the Earth for thousands of years. Their power had waned through the millennia as their followers faded into history, driven by the rise of a more entrenched religion and the rediscovery of magic in the face of science.

  If Patrick never had to deal with an angel of any choir, he’d consider himself lucky.

  The day a god heard their name said for the last time was the day their immortality became a living grave. Gods needed to be remembered and worshipped in order to have power. He had a feeling Tezcatlipoca was gunning for a return of epic proportions.

  “Is it too much to hope he’s the one leaving us creepy-ass gifts?” Patrick asked.

  “I know what you speak of, but no, those are not his doing.”

  Patrick scowled, letting his arms drop back down to his sides. “Then we’re done here. And by the way? The case is mine.”

  Quetzalcoatl opened his mouth to argue, but Patrick made a slashing motion with his hand. The space between them was suddenly filled by Jono. He shouldn’t have looked intimidating in his borrowed hospital scrubs, but he did.

  “Piss off,” Jono growled.

  “Persephone owns a soul debt that says I can’t,” Hermes said with a smirk.

  Jono eyed the messenger god with the contemplation of a predator figuring out which limb to tear off first. Hermes seemed amused, but Patrick thought he saw a surprising flash of wariness in those gold-brown eyes of his when the immortal looked at Jono.

  In a fight between Hermes and Fenrir, Patrick’s money was on the wolf.

  “We’re not done,” Quetzalcoatl said, staring at Patrick.

  “It’s after oh-one-hundred in the morning. Yeah we fucking are,” Patrick retorted.

  “Tezcatlipoca is in love with death,” Hermes told him. “We need you to break them up.”

  Patrick thought about the Santa Muerte idols the case had accrued in less than a week. They paled in number to the ones worshipped by cartel members and civilian devotees throughout Mexico and in Mexican American communities. The warning was impossible to ignore.

  If there was one thing death and the Aztec gods held sacred, it was human sacrifice.

  “You gods need to get with the modern times when it comes to dating. Dead bodies don’t make good gifts.”

  “My brother’s partnership with death is not one this world will survive,” Quetzalcoatl warned.

  Patrick shook his head. “You think way too highly of your kind.”

  “I have been trying to stop the spread of his new empire for years. The Omacatl Cartel should not have grown as large as it did.”

  “Your opposing viewpoints mean nothing in the face of addicts looking for their next high. And for the record? I’m still not giving up the case. You don’t like it, talk to my director.”

  Quetzalcoatl didn’t seem pleased with Patrick’s attitude or declaration, but Patrick didn’t care. He had enough problems on his plate as it was; he refused to give up the case he’d been assigned just because a god said so. Lucien wanted to kill Tremaine, who was doing business with a god that had no qualms about killing werecreatures for profit and love.

  One debt at a time, he told himself.

  Patrick made to walk out the observation room when Hermes grabbed him by the arm, fingers pressing down hard enough to bruise. Those gold-brown eyes slid his way, head tipped in his direction.

  “Tezcatlipoca and his Omacatl Cartel do business with your father. Ask yourself why the Dominion Sect would want a goddess of death at their disposal, hm?” Hermes said.

  Patrick wrenched his arm out of Hermes’ grip, getting free only because the immortal allowed it. “Fuck you.”

  If the two immortals wanted to play at being law enforcement, then he’d let them. Patrick would deal with the real DEA agents when they came around. Right now? He was done with their shit for tonight.

  I need a fucking drink, Patrick thought as he yanked open the door and left the observation room.

  He nearly ran face-first into Casale.

  “You don’t look happy,” Casale said.

  “The case is mine, which means it’s still yours,” Patrick bit out. “I’m leaving and taking Wade with me.”

  “You never told me what he was. If he’s a danger, he shouldn’t leave the premises.”
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  Patrick waved aside his worry as the others filed out of the observation room. “It’ll be fine. I’ve dealt with his kind before.”

  “What is he, Collins?”

  “Sorry, that’s classified.”

  “You know I hate that excuse.”

  “It’s the truth. Can’t change anything about that.”

  “I’m a werecreature,” Wade said when Patrick opened the door to Interview Room 1.

  “Keep telling yourself that. You’re coming with me.”

  Wade’s brown eyes looked past Patrick at where Jono stood behind him, the taller man’s body heat impossible to miss.

  “It’s fine, mate,” Jono said.

  Wade seemed reluctant to go with them but even more reluctant to stay. One hand lifted to his throat, touching the spot where the warded collar had been, keeping his true self locked away. He was about Patrick’s height, but way too thin, which made him look younger than his eighteen years of age. They needed to get some food in him.

  “I can keep you safe,” Patrick told him, trying not to squint. “I will keep you safe.”

  If Ethan, the Dominion Sect, and fucking gods aligned with the hells wanted a fledgling dragon, they’d have to go through Patrick first.

  “Let’s go,” Jono said.

  Quetzalcoatl and Hermes didn’t try to stop them, but Patrick knew he hadn’t seen the last of the gods. Casale looked like he wanted to argue, but the SOA had the case, and no one in the PCB was a mage. Patrick was the best person to keep Wade contained and safe.

  He couldn’t do anything about the teenager’s thieving ways though. Hoarding was ingrained down to a dragon’s soul after all.

  “Whoever’s badge you have in your pocket, I’d like it back now,” Patrick said once Wade had stepped out of Interview Room 1.

  Wade blinked, giving him a wide-eyed, innocent look Patrick didn’t believe for a second. “What badge?”

  Patrick held out his hand. “I’m too tired to play games. Badge. Now. And anything else you have in your pockets.”

  Wade side-eyed Casale and the immortals before reluctantly pulling out two RN hospital IDs, a detective’s badge, and someone’s watch.

  Casale frowned at the hoard a scowling Wade set into Patrick’s hands. “What the hell?”

  Patrick passed the items over. “Can you see that these get back to their rightful owners? Let’s skip the pressing-charges part.”

  “You know, his file said petty theft, but this is ridiculous.”

  Patrick gestured for Wade to walk ahead of him so he could try to keep an eye on the teen’s hands as they walked through the bull pen. “See you tomorrow.”

  No one tried to stop them on their way out, though both Jono and Wade earned themselves a couple of curious looks. Patrick was sure everyone at the PCB had seen stranger things walking through the corridors, so the three ignored the glances as they left the building.

  “Don’t even think about making a run for it,” Patrick warned Wade. “You try, and I’m sending Jono after you.”

  Wade honestly looked too tired to get very far, but Patrick knew looks could be deceiving. Patrick and Jono flanked the teen on the walk back to the car, both of them remaining on high alert.

  Jono hustled Wade into the back seat once they reached the Mustang. For once, they had no gift waiting for them in the car. Patrick didn’t know if that was because of the situation tonight or the fact the car was parked in the warded parking garage at the PCB.

  Patrick tossed the keys to Jono. “You drive. I have to make a phone call.”

  Jono nodded and got behind the wheel. Patrick let Jono worry about getting them home while he worried about how to get in touch with his former commanding officer, three-star Army General Noah Reed. General Reed still oversaw the US Department of the Preternatural, the military branch the Mage Corps was attached to, and was based out of the Pentagon.

  It had been three years since Patrick put on his uniform for the last time as an active-duty combat mage, but Reed had always insisted he would be available if Patrick ever needed him. The general had worked hard to shield Patrick in the aftermath of the Thirty-Day War, and Patrick had long held suspicions that Reed knew he was indebted to the gods.

  Dragons, Patrick had learned while serving in the Mage Corps, hoarded information like no one else.

  When Patrick had left the Hellraisers, his old team had continued on without him, gaining new members after burying those who had died on the front lines. Patrick still kept in touch with the survivors, but even a mage didn’t have the personal phone number of a three-star general.

  But he knew someone who did.

  Patrick called SOA Director Setsuna Abuku, his boss and the woman who’d distantly raised him for ten years after helping secure a new identity for him as a child. Despite being in her fifties, Setsuna wasn’t a stranger to late-night emergency phone calls, and she’d already fielded one from him tonight.

  “Yes?” Setsuna said, sounding wide-awake despite the hour. “What is it now?”

  “Line and location are not secure. I need to speak with General Reed. It’s an emergency. Can you reach out and have him call me?”

  “You haven’t requested communication with him in years. Why now?”

  When Patrick had called Setsuna earlier to update her on the case, he’d left out what Wade was until he figured out what to do. He really only had one option, and that meant reaching out to those who could get him what he needed. He might not trust Setsuna, but they weren’t above using each other to get the job done.

  “I found someone of interest to him. Just have him call me.”

  Patrick ended the call, gripping his phone as he stared straight ahead. Jono braked for a red light and looked at him. “Thought the SOA was a civilian agency?”

  “It is, but everyone that high up in the alphabet soup agencies are in each other’s pockets, including the military.”

  “And Setsuna can demand an audience with a general just like that?”

  Patrick leaned his head against the window, eyes darting along the street for any new threat. “He was my CO at the top when I was in the Mage Corps.”

  “Ah.”

  “You were military?” Wade asked from the back seat. “Are you kidnapping me into the military? Let me outta this car, man.”

  Patrick scowled at the heavy hit against the back of his seat. “You put your foot through any piece of my car and you’ll regret it.”

  “How? Gonna sell me off to the government? Fuck you!”

  “No one is selling anyone to anything,” Jono said loudly as the light turned green and he hit the gas pedal. “Calm the fuck down, Wade.”

  Patrick’s phone rang loudly from an unknown number, the person’s identity blocked. He answered it anyway. “Special Agent Patrick Collins. Line and location are not secure.”

  “I suggest you rectify that, Collins,” General Noah Reed rumbled from the other side of the line, sounding more than a little irritated.

  The raspy voice in his ear made Patrick think he could almost smell the cigarette smoke the general used to cover the scent of fire that always lingered around him. Patrick unconsciously straightened his shoulders.

  “Sorry, sir. Habitual statement. I’m in a car with a god pack alpha werewolf and a fledgling.”

  A heavy silence filled the line for a moment before Reed’s voice came back. “A fledgling?”

  “I’m a werecreature,” Wade snapped. “I just can’t shift, is all.”

  Patrick rolled his eyes. “Yes, sir. It’s been an interesting night.”

  “You always did have shitty luck when it mattered, Collins. Report.”

  Strange how the brusque order made him feel calmer in the face of his current clusterfuck of a case. Patrick rapidly explained what had gone down at the Crimson Diamond, only leaving out Lucien’s name from the verbal report, knowing that Reed wouldn’t demand he give up the identity of his criminal informant.

  “You need to see the fledgling, sir,” Pat
rick said when he finished. “The kid doesn’t have any control, and I don’t think he’s ever shifted mass before.”

  “I’m not a kid,” Wade spat out.

  “Shut it,” Jono growled as he took a left turn.

  “He can’t shift mass in New York City, sir. He’s liable to bring down a building or level an entire city block,” Patrick added.

  Wade shifting mass into his dragon form—something the teenager had apparently never done before and wouldn’t know how to control—was a disaster waiting to happen. Patrick had ruined enough of Manhattan real estate already this summer. He really didn’t need to wreck any more of the city.

  “Where is his family?” Reed asked.

  “Mother is dead. Father left a few months after he was born, according to his records. He ran away from his foster care group home in San Diego when he was fourteen and was eventually listed as a missing child.”

  “Hey!” Wade said angrily. “Are you spying on me?”

  “Federal agent,” Patrick snapped over his shoulder.

  “He has a temper,” Reed mused, sounding fond.

  If Wade ended up being a fire dragon, Patrick didn’t know what he would do. Maybe take that vacation to Maui after all and make a detour to the Big Island to throw Wade into a volcano. Pele might take him in.

  Or eat him.

  New plan, Patrick reluctantly thought before saying, “I’m well aware of that fact, sir. I’m taking him home, but I can’t keep him there.”

  Because dragons were immune to nearly all magic to a deep degree, even if they weren’t immune to most modern weaponry. Bullets they could withstand, but missiles and grenades were a different story entirely. As for magic? Patrick could lay down however many thresholds he liked on the apartment, wrap however many defensive shields he could around it—Wade would walk through it all as if it didn’t exist.

  The collar Wade had worn in that fight ring shouldn’t have kept him contained in his skin as it had, but Patrick had a feeling Tezcatlipoca was the one who had created it. Dragons could shrug off human magic as easily as they breathed, but the primordial power gifted to immortals was something else entirely.