1
Special Agent Patrick Collins wasn’t fond of Washington, DC. He had a feeling the people he’d been dealing with for the past three days weren’t fond of him either. Patrick hadn’t missed the heat, humidity, fake smiles, or the political maneuverings. There was a reason he’d been part of the Rapid Response Division of the Supernatural Operations Agency before being transferred to New York City for a permanent posting—it got him out of this goddamn city.
Patrick was a special agent and not a politician for a reason.
“I hate ties,” Patrick said, tugging at the one wrapped around his neck. “I hate suits. Why couldn’t I have done all of these meetings remotely?”
“Because you’ve done enough property damage earlier this year that it’s best to remind people you aren’t the enemy,” SOA Director Setsuna Abuku replied without looking at him as they continued down a corridor in the Pentagon. The military aide escorting them was doing a fine job of pretending not to hear a word they said.
“Chicago was not my fault.”
Setsuna finally deigned to look at him, arching one eyebrow. “The people of Chicago beg to differ.”
“It was months ago. They should be over it by now.”
Setsuna twisted her wrist so her cane smacked him in the shin, never breaking stride. “You know a city doesn’t easily recover from an attack like that.”
Patrick scowled, knowing she was right. Niflheim had nearly burst through the veil after Yggdrasil had taken root in Grant Park, drawn by Odin’s near sacrifice and Hel’s sinister power. The mess that had happened in Chicago hadn’t been easy to clean up and contain politically. Spring had seen a host of congressional hearings arguing over the threat the Dominion Sect was to the country. The political talking heads in the media had kept the story alive, much to Patrick’s annoyance.
As the head of a federal government agency, Setsuna had her finger on the pulse of politics targeting magic users and the preternatural communities across the country. She’d also spent considerable time and clout keeping Patrick in a job and out of the media spotlight over the past four years. Spring had seen her cashing in favors left and right to keep him from testifying in public, but he couldn’t get out of closed-door hearings. Patrick would probably be more grateful if it was anyone else looking out for him.
They had a history and they had their differences, two things which ensured Patrick would never completely trust her. The gods had tasked Setsuna with keeping him hidden since he was eight years old. That entailed an identity change, ten years spent at an Academy, and nearly a decade honing his skills as a combat mage with the Mage Corps after graduating from the Citadel. She’d shepherded him down the only road he was allowed to walk with all the gentleness of a drill sergeant under orders.
Setsuna had never been a mother figure to him; neither had she been a friend. She’d done her best, in her own way, to help keep him alive during the years she cleaned house in the SOA. Maybe someday Patrick would be grateful about that, but he carried a soul debt that dictated his life, and he would always feel, in some small way, that Setsuna was complicit in it.
At the moment, Setsuna was still cleaning house. Last summer’s betrayal by Rachel Andrita had proven that Setsuna’s efforts to remove the Dominion Sect’s hidden influence from the SOA hadn’t been enough. That failure was why this meeting with those in charge of the joint task force concerning the Morrígan’s staff was happening at the Pentagon, after hours, and not written down on anyone’s itinerary.
Patrick’s reason for returning to Washington, DC, was to meet with Setsuna and separately brief a select group of senators sitting on the Committee for Magical Enforcement, as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the president. SOA Deputy Director Priya Kohli had joined him in those meetings, helping to bring everyone up to speed on the threat the Dominion Sect posed to the United States.
Ethan Greene had been on everyone’s radar since it came to light he was the mastermind behind the Thirty-Day War. What most people didn’t know—or didn’t want to believe—was his true goal. Turning himself into a god was a lifelong mission of Ethan’s that had come with setbacks and successes over the years. He was getting closer to a reality none of them would survive if they didn’t stop him.
Despite magic being accessible to roughly a quarter of the world’s population, humanity living beside the preternatural community, and dealing with monsters and demons, believing in gods was a step too far for most people. Myths still existed as stories people read about. Those who worshipped the gods that had come before the ones currently staking claim to humanity’s cumulative hearts and souls weren’t nearly as numerous as they once were.
Religion, in all its varied forms, created blinders that many were happy to never remove. Politics aided that tunnel vision. Sometimes the ignorance of men was useful. Sometimes it was a fucking headache.
Patrick’s ties to Ethan were buried deep in sealed court records and a past that was as much a nightmare as it was his reality. Stopping his father meant fulfilling his soul debt to Persephone, but the cost of doing so left Patrick waking up from nightmares more and more these days.
The military aide escorting them through the Pentagon veered left, stopping in front of a door with wards etched in the center of it. He touched a finger to the middle of the concentric circles, waited for the flash of magic to subside, then pushed open the door.
“The SOA director, sir,” the aide said before waving them inside.
The layers of silence wards were a weight that pressed against Patrick’s shields as they entered the heavily protected conference room. The static of white noise buzzed in his ears for a few seconds before it faded to a background hum to his senses. The aide closed the door behind them, leaving them within the SCIF conference room.
“Gentlemen,” Setsuna said, giving a perfunctory nod to the two people seated at the long table.
“Director,” General Noah Reed rumbled. “Collins.”
The three-star Army general looked to be in his midfifties, though he was far, far older than that. A dragon hiding in human form who oversaw the US Department of the Preternatural, Reed had been the drive behind the formation of the joint task force. He was short and barrel-chested in appearance, salt-and-pepper hair cut to regulation length, and had a chain-smoking habit he used as a cover. Reed had no need for cigarettes and cigars when fire burned inside him. Patrick got a whiff of smoke coming off Reed as he pulled out a chair, the smell of sulfur impossible to miss in the small room.
Preternatural Intelligence Agency Director Cornell Franklin was in his late forties, a tall African American man with close-cropped hair going white at the temples. A sorcerer who had come up in the PIA ranks over the years, Franklin had a no-nonsense demeanor that rivaled Setsuna’s. It was a trait that should’ve united them, but as with all federal agencies these days, they were rivals first and allies second when it came to intelligence. The SOA’s track record with Dominion Sect interference meant every other agency treated them with inherent suspicion and high walls.
That wariness left the country vulnerable in a way no one liked. What had happened within the last year in New York City and Chicago was proof the status quo in the intelligence community could not continue. The Dominion Sect, and Ethan Greene’s desire for godhood, couldn’t be fought piecemeal anymore.