A Ferry of Bones & Gold (Soulbound Book 1) Read online

  Patrick had done the slow dying thing once before. He’d rather eat his gun than go through it again.

  His magic had easily recognized Leon’s true status, but recognition of Marek’s was slow to seep through his awareness. Patrick sensed a depth of power that reminded him of those blue holes in the ocean, the marine sinkholes that hid so much below the surface. Marek carried power in his soul, the likes of which Patrick knew he shouldn’t mess with.

  The Fates always got so fucking pissed when he broke their favored mouthpieces.

  “Close the door on your way out, Leon,” Marek said after a moment of tense silence.

  Leon never took his eyes off Patrick. “You sure?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I’ll be right outside.”

  “Don’t listen in,” Casale told him. “What we need to discuss is classified.”

  “No promises,” Leon sneered.

  He stepped out of the office and yanked the door shut. Casale looked over at Patrick. “Can you keep him from eavesdropping?”

  Patrick nodded. Rather than focus his magic through a mageglobe for a simple silence ward, he stepped closer to the wall at his back. Raising his hand, he sketched out a sigil on the glass wall. Magic followed his finger like ink. He pressed his hand over the softly glowing lines and forced his power outward. Static washed through the room, creating a barrier of magically created white noise that would keep anyone from listening in on their conversation.

  Marek pushed his office chair away from the desk and stood up. His outfit was casual, in keeping with the no formal dress code theme of the company, but Patrick had a feeling all of Marek’s clothes were brand-name. One of Patrick’s few friends had grown up in Paris and had tried to school him on fashion when she found out he was clueless. They’d had to find ways to pass the time in the field somehow, but Patrick hadn’t cared about civilian clothes when he was wearing a uniform.

  Marek came around the desk and didn’t offer anyone a seat on the handful of chairs or the leather couch taking up space in his office. He came to a stop a few feet from them, hands on his hips.

  “I saw our meeting for next week,” Marek said, staring at Casale.

  “I know, but something came up. We need to talk,” Casale replied.

  “I saw our meeting for next week,” Marek repeated slowly. “But I didn’t see you coming here today.”

  Casale stared at him in surprise. “You always see my visits.”

  Marek’s gaze slid away to pin Patrick like a bug in an entomologist’s collection. “Which means I didn’t see you.”

  Patrick kept his heartbeat steady from long practice. A good lie held up through a good story told with both voice and body. With a werecreature not present to smell truth from a lie, Patrick could keep his secrets safe—he hoped.

  “Or you didn’t see the problem that Casale came here to ask you about,” Patrick countered.

  Marek glanced at Casale before his attention returned to Patrick. “I’m assuming you mean the murders that have been in the news lately. I don’t need to be a seer to know which case requiring a chief’s attention in the field is the immediate problem. Besides, if I spent every waking hour looking into what people were doing, I’d be locked up in Bellevue.”

  “I’m not here about what you do in your free time,” Casale said.

  “No, you’re just here to buy the future.”

  “I’m prepared to pay whatever price you set for your vision.”

  “Is the City?” Marek asked caustically.

  “We got another body today, Marek. A good man died for no reason we can discern, just like all the others. I’ve got a brand-new missing person case with one of Wall Street’s premier hedge fund managers about to blow up in the news. Dealing with Malcolm Cirillo’s wife every day isn’t easy for me, you know that. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think you could help.”

  “And him?”

  Patrick raised an eyebrow at the finger Marek pointed at him before smiling lazily at the seer. “The latest person assigned to the case.”

  “You got a name?”

  “Why don’t you answer Casale’s question?”

  “Why don’t you answer mine?”

  Patrick shrugged and didn’t open his mouth.

  “Marek,” Casale said, trying to redirect the conversation. “Will you help?”

  Marek stared at Patrick for a few seconds longer before huffing out an irritated sigh. “I have a meeting in ten minutes. Make it quick. What do you want to know?”

  “Who or what is killing people in Manhattan and leaving astrological signs on the eyes of the dead?”

  Marek’s hazel eyes washed out to a silvery gray. His aura cracked wide open and magic—invisible, ancient, primordial magic—ran up hard against Patrick’s shields before rebounding right back at the seer. Marek let out a strangled cry, hunching over on shaky legs, the brightness of his aura dimming. Patrick caught one of his arms before he could face-plant on the floor and hauled him over to the nearest chair.

  Marek put his head between his legs and took in heaving breaths of air. His reaction told Patrick all he needed to know about this case—that it was, as always, complicated as fuck when Patrick was brought into the mix.

  While Casale checked Marek over, Patrick deactivated his silence ward. Between one breath and the next, Leon barreled into the office, a growl coming from deep in his throat.

  “Bad vision,” Patrick told him. “Don’t worry, we’re leaving.”

  Leon curled his lip at him, teeth far sharper than they had been earlier. “What did you ask him?”

  The way Leon put his body between them and Marek, the way he touched and scent-marked the other man in the way of pack, told Patrick they were more than just coworkers. Lovers, maybe; at the very least, friends.

  “I’m sorry this is the outcome, but you don’t have the clearance to know, Leon,” Casale said as he stepped aside to let Leon take his place. “He may need a hospital. I’ve never seen Marek react like this before.”

  “We know what to do for him when this happens. You don’t. Just get the hell out of here, Casale,” Leon growled.

  Casale didn’t try to press his case. Instead, he jerked his head at the door, and Patrick followed him out of the office to the elevator, excruciatingly aware of the dark looks the werecreatures in the workforce were sending their way. Patrick could feel eyes follow their every move, and the weight of all that attention didn’t lift until the elevator doors closed on PreterWorld’s headquarters.

  “That was a waste of time,” Patrick said, breaking the silence on the ride down.

  “Marek has never not seen the future before,” Casale said, a deep frown on his face.

  “First time for everything.”

  “Not for him.”

  “Whether his sight works for you or not, I don’t think his pack will like you coming around after this.” At Casale’s sharp look, Patrick rolled his eyes. “What? I may not see the future, but I’m not fucking blind.”

  “Outside,” Casale ordered tersely as the elevator doors opened on the lobby.

  They left the building, and Casale directed Patrick into his unmarked police car. Patrick slid into the front passenger seat and sighed in relief when Casale started the engine and turned on the air-conditioning.

  “Ward us,” Casale said.

  Patrick sketched out another silence ward on the dashboard, filling the car with static. “Talk.”

  The look Casale shot him came from a man who was used to giving orders, not obeying them. Patrick held Casale’s gaze, refusing to back down.

  “Marek’s status within the werecreature community isn’t common knowledge. How did you know Leon was a werecreature?” Casale asked.

  “I’m a mage. It’s a handy trick we get taught,” Patrick lied easily enough. “What’s Marek’s relationship with Leon?”

  “What Marek does with his personal life isn’t the government’s business, as he likes to remind me.”

  “
Do I look like I give a fuck? I’m not some xenophobic asshole, despite my job.”

  “Your agency doesn’t really inspire a lot of faith in most people, Collins.”

  “I’m aware of the problems in the SOA. But those problems aren’t this one. You’re the one who asked for help from my agency, and I’m what you’re getting. But I can’t do my job if you don’t share what information you have.”

  Casale studied him silently for a long minute before abruptly changing the subject. “You’re a mage. Why aren’t you working with the PIA?”

  The Preternatural Intelligence Agency was the traditional choice for most mages who left the Mage Corps when they declined to re-up with the military. That agency’s intelligence operations extended beyond combat zones, specializing in the collection and analysis of preternatural-sourced intelligence by way of aboveboard channels and clandestine endeavors. The PIA had all but begged Patrick to join them, but he’d chosen the SOA instead.

  It’d been a form of rebellion at the time that hadn’t really changed anything. Patrick was still weighed down by obligations he couldn’t escape.

  “I’ve seen enough of the world on the government’s say-so. I didn’t need to see any more of it. Figured I’d come back home to the States instead,” Patrick retorted. “Stop changing the subject.”

  “Marek is a seer. He can do what he likes.”

  “Leon wasn’t god pack. He didn’t have their eyes. Maybe he’s an employee for PreterWorld. I’ll give you that, but employees don’t normally look like they want to murder you for harming one of their coworkers. If Leon considers Marek pack, that gives them a status I’m sure the local god pack isn’t too happy about.”

  “You’re not wrong,” Casale grudgingly admitted.

  Patrick didn’t have a great track record with werecreatures, especially those of the god pack persuasion—mostly because he didn’t get on with their animal-god patrons.

  God packs were werecreatures infected with a super strain of the werevirus, called the god strain within scientific communities. A side effect permanently altered their eye color to that of a wolf’s bright, bright blue or near-metallic amber, making it impossible to hide in plain sight like Leon could. As visible scapegoats, god packs had formed to take the punches from a society that still, to this day, hated and feared their kind. Doing so allowed people infected with the lesser strain of the werevirus to keep leading seminormal lives.

  In the past, god packs had been named so for the mantle they carried in honor of their chosen animal-god patrons. These days it was rare to find a god pack that still had a connection to those immortals. But magical favor or not, their lot in life made them arrogant and difficult to work with.

  Kind of like Patrick, but he liked to pretend otherwise.

  “You didn’t get a chance to ask Marek about Malcolm Cirillo,” Patrick said. The missing person case was important, but he didn’t feel it took priority over the murders right now. That didn’t mean he could ignore it.

  “As much as I’d like to give Isadora Cirillo an update, we aren’t getting anything else out of Marek today.”

  “I can follow up with Marek at his home tonight. We need answers.”

  Patrick doubted they’d get any out of Marek, but he had to cover all his bases. They had ritualistic murders going on and a missing hedge fund manager, whose case wasn’t related except for how his wife insisted it was during her initial interview with the police. Apparently, when the husband of Manhattan’s most powerful high priestess witch of an old coven went missing, people paid attention. The case reading he’d done on the flight over made it obvious Isadora thought she had clout within the City, and maybe she did.

  Patrick would worry about that later.

  “Marek has the money to have a healer on call to take care of the migraine his sight gave him, which means he’ll probably be at his preferred bar tonight. Emma Zhang and Leon Hernandez own Tempest here in Manhattan. Local werecreature spot, but you didn’t hear that from me,” Casale said.

  Patrick wondered if Marek’s relationship with his employees was strictly work related or something deeper. “Sounds right up my alley.”

  “They won’t see it that way, but if you want to risk getting bitten, be my guest. Don’t come crying to me when it happens.”

  “I won’t be turning furry anytime soon. What’s the address?”

  Casale rattled it off before saying, “I’d like to keep my working relationship with Marek on the up and up, so remind him we’re still willing to pay.”

  Patrick waved off his request and reached for the door handle. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll tell him he’s owed a hundred grand. Not like the guy is hurting for money or anything.”

  “Keep me in the loop,” Casale told him as he got out of the car.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  He was a federal agent, and this was his case now. Patrick was within his rights to keep it within his jurisdiction, but he’d found over the last three years it was easier to rely on local law enforcement for support. Patrick didn’t have a partner—his damaged magic was too distracting, according to the few people he’d worked with in the beginning before running solo—and he needed to find backup where he could.

  Patrick closed the door and headed for his rental car, fingers itching to hold a cigarette. He really needed a smoke to help calm the stress he could feel starting to settle tight over his shoulders. But instead of hanging around in territory he knew he wasn’t welcome in, Patrick got behind the wheel and got back on the road.

  The SOA’s New York City field office was located in a Lower Manhattan high-rise building covered in protective wards. Patrick ignored the adjacent parking garage that was just as heavily warded in favor of pulling up right in front of the entrance and turning on his hazard lights.

  He had no intention of walking into the building and dealing with SAIC Rachel Andrita until he absolutely had to. Casale’s distrust of the woman was enough for Patrick to tread carefully. Patrick might work for the SOA, but he didn’t trust a lot of the agents in high positions.

  Patrick pulled out his phone and called Setsuna’s executive assistant in DC. “Hey, Brianna. It’s me. Can you patch me through to whoever handles transient employee housing in New York City? I’m in the middle of a case, and I don’t have time for a meeting.”

  “The boss won’t like that,” Brianna warned. He could hear her typing away on her side of the line.

  “I run my cases how I like. You know that.”

  “I know you do. I deal with your paperwork regarding damages the most. Transferring your call now.”

  Patrick ended up talking to a woman out of Human Resources here in New York City who was reluctant to hand over the keys to an apartment without him meeting with Rachel first. Patrick may or may not have used his working relationship with Setsuna to get the woman to override Rachel’s request and deliver the keys to him in person.

  “Thank you,” Patrick said as she passed the keys and a manila envelope with housing information to him through the open passenger-side window after checking his ID.

  “You were supposed to meet with the SAIC first. She won’t be happy that you didn’t,” the woman warned him.

  “Tell her to talk to the director.”

  “Oh, believe me. I will. I’d like to keep my job. Sign the form, please.”

  Patrick did as asked, scrawling his name where he needed to on the three-page form. He passed back the paperwork but kept the sheet describing the temporary residence assigned to him. The SOA had discounted rates with certain hotel chains, but they also held a small number of leases on apartments and houses in several major cities since it was sometimes cheaper to put up agents in housing rather than in hotels.

  Patrick had been given an apartment instead of a hotel this time around, making it a lot easier to ward. Hotels were public space, which meant good luck finding a viable threshold to lay down wards and lock out everything that went bump in the night. Patrick had a bad habit of bringing work home with
him. He’d learned over the years that demons had ingrained stalker tendencies and would never understand the concept of personal space.

  The newer-looking apartment building that was Patrick’s temporary home for this case was located in the Turtle Bay neighborhood, several blocks southwest of the Queensboro Bridge. Patrick didn’t sense anyone except mundane humans on any of the floors during his ride on the elevator. His borrowed fifth-floor, one-bedroom apartment had a view of the street and not much else. It came furnished though, and the highlight of the place was the queen-sized bed. Second place went to the central air running through the building.

  Patrick dumped his suitcase and messenger bag in the bedroom, grabbed a clean set of clothes and some toiletries, then headed to the bathroom. He wanted a shower to wash off the stink of travel and any lingering smell of death, even if it was only in his head.

  He stripped out of his clothes, the claw-mark scars on his chest pulling a little when he yanked off his T-shirt. He’d had the scars for so long the scar tissue had faded to a milky white instead of the vivid pink they’d been for the first few years of their existence. Patrick rubbed at his chest as he stepped into the shower, trying to ease some of the tightness there.

  Patrick got clean and got dressed, trying to sort out his thoughts on the case so far. He needed some time to absorb the details and wanted to get his hands on Casale’s case files. That likely wouldn’t happen today since he had somewhere else he needed to be.

  He grabbed his phone and googled the bar Casale had mentioned. Tempest looked to be a place serving up craft beers and cocktails instead of the swanky club lounge Patrick would’ve pegged Marek to prefer, though it did have a lower-level event room. Which meant the dark blue jeans and black T-shirt he wore would be passable attire. Patrick tossed his phone back on the bed and turned his attention to the bottle of Macallan 15 Year Old whiskey he’d packed for Maui.