Chapter 18

EIGHTEEN

Paris had just finished shading in some of the vine leaves he'd painted, adding yellow, brown, and red among the green, the valley of vineyards below awash with hues the likes of which he'd never seen in YB, when a voice came from behind him.

"How long have you been painting?"

He turned from the easel he'd set up under the pergola behind Mac's villa, as Adam called it, and found a new person approaching, someone he hadn't met since arriving at Monte Corvo. Not unusual—Liam was right, Mac's place really was a base of operations—but this was a person he'd remember. Dressed in ripped jeans, a faded black tee, and combat boots, the woman was pixie petite, with tan skin, hazel eyes, and a septum ring through her nose. Her long green hair was styled in barrel curls that bounced as she made her way along the edge of the reflecting pool between the house and pergola, tossing peanuts to the crows as she approached.

"All my life," he answered, once she stepped under the wooden trellis with him. "Even when I wasn't supposed to."

"No one should tell you not to do this," she said with a jut of her chin at his painting. "It's beautiful."

"It's beautiful here."

Smiling, she stepped to the end of the pergola and turned her face up to the sun. "It is, isn't it?"

"Did you grow up here? Are you part of Mac's family?" She was on the shorter side for a Kelley and lacked the dark eyes and straight noses they all seemed to have, but she shared his tan skin, a certain aesthetic in the dark clothing she wore, and the familiar signs of outward exhaustion, though with each second she stood in the sun, she seemed to brighten.

She lowered her face and turned back to him, hand extended. "I'm Mary, Icarus's sister."

"Oh!" The dyed hair and edgy aesthetic suddenly made sense. "I've heard a lot—" He slipped his hand into hers and lost his words, his eyes going wide and mouth rounding into an O . The energy that flowed from her, from her pure green aura, was blinding in its intensity. "What are you?"

"What do you think I am?"

Nature was on the tip of his tongue—he was sure of it—and on the heels of that realization, so many others fell into place. Mac and team fighting against Chaos, seemingly at the heart of Nature's cause, the sheer power of the magic around them, the way no one on the team referred to Mary by name or to what she so obviously was. "You're her ."

One corner of her mouth kicked up, her smirk reminiscent of her brother's, as were her words. "People have always underestimated you, haven't they? He said you were smart."

"Icarus is too kind," he replied, and Mary hummed as she strolled back to the edge of the pergola, taking in another shot of sunshine before she claimed one of the loungers. "In fairness," Paris added as he finished dotting in the road that snaked between the rows of vines, "I didn't always lead with my head."

"The world would be an awfully sad place if that's all anyone did."

Reminded of his other friend who typically led with his heart, Paris set aside his brush and sank into the chaise opposite her. "Do you know how Jason is doing?"

"Good," she told him. "He's taken well to the phoenix. Much better than others we've rescued. Having Kai bonded with him helps."

"When can I see him?"

"In the next day or so, I think. We have to be sure he has control of the fire."

"And Adam and Icarus, and the rest of the team? We didn't need the infirmary, so that's a good sign, right?" After the team had left yesterday, he'd helped Monte and Chaz ferry additional supplies down to the overflow barrel room beneath the villa according to Icarus's instructions. A nursing student before he was turned, and still acquainted with those skills after becoming human again, Icarus was the unofficial team medic, thankfully not overseeing an infirmary full of injured this morning.

"No major injuries, so yes, that's a good sign, but it's been a long month already," she said. "And we're only halfway through it." Exhaustion leaked into her voice again, but after a deep inhale, she seemed to shake it off, to settle back into her world. "There's still work to be done in YB. They'll come back as their jobs are done." She shifted her gaze and smirk back to him. "Ask about who you want, Paris."

He splayed a hand over his chest, over where he'd periodically tugged the past twenty-four hours and always received one in return. And done the same when he'd felt Mac tug from his end. The connection still vibrated there, warm and alive. "I know he's fine."

"Doesn't make you not worried." Her smirk smoothed into a gentle smile. "He's fine, but it may take him longer. He's working with the other reapers in the city."

"Was it bad there?"

"Not as bad as it could have been if your father had still been alive. Or if you hadn't given us that list of potential allies. It put us ahead, on a lot of fronts."

"I'm glad it was helpful."

"I have some other questions." She stood and withdrew her phone, gesturing with it. "If you don't mind taking a look?"

"Of course not." He patted the spot on the chaise next to him, and she sat close so he could see the screen.

"You told Mac your father had maps. Do you remember these locations or any discussion of them?" She spread her fingers on the screen, zooming in, then moving the map to show him each spot in YB that had been marked with a red X.

"That one," he said, when she got to the marked spot at the southern edge of YB, a fog-shrouded stick of land that jutted into the Bay. He'd been there once with his father and even just standing by the car while his father met with a suited man near the shore, he couldn't remember a time in his life when he'd been so cold. Wind-whipped and fog-dampened, he'd crawled back into the car before his dad had returned. "He called it a ‘transfer point.' I assumed he moved illegal goods through there. But I also didn't realize ‘fuel stations' meant phoenixes."

"You had no reason to."

"So what is this transfer point?"

"Possibly an altar."

"For souls," he surmised, and she nodded. "The veil is thin there?"

"There," she said, "and these other spots." She swiped a finger across the screen and a different map appeared, this one showing areas outside of YB too. He recognized the spot on the ridge where Abigail's pack had been decimated, the spot in YB's Canyon Lands where he'd been nearly sacrificed, but there was another marked spot on the north edge of the Bay. "This is technically in Talahalusi, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yes, that's the Huimen Enclave. The areas along the water are tribal lands, mostly undeveloped coastal woods, but the outer portions have been settled and commercialized. Do you remember something there?"

"I heard my father on the phone once talking about potential investments there. But I don't know exactly where or what for, I'm sorry."

"It's still a lead, Paris." She patted his knee. "Good job."

"Is there a thin spot in the east? The shellmound, maybe?" Two in YB, one at the edge of Talahalusi on the Bay, and one on the ridge near Portola. It stood to reason there would be more spots around the Bay.

She smiled wider. "Two, actually, relatively close together, similar to the Stick and the area where we found you. One is near the Huchiun Enclave in the middle of the Bay and the other near the shellmound in Encinal. We control those, not Chaos."

"And in the south?"

Pain flickered across her delicate features, pinching the corners of her eyes and mouth, drawing attention to the wrinkles there Paris hadn't noticed before. She was older than she looked; magic at work. "La Purisima," she said, the pain likewise reflected in her voice.

"All the way down there?" There went the circle picture in his head and any connection to his dad. "My father wouldn't dare go there." The religious cultist would burn them all at the stake for believing in the supernatural, even as they worshipped their own sort. And they were too pious to consort with the likes of Vincent Cirillo.

But even if his circle theory was a bust, another picture formed in his head. "There's still a pattern," he told her, and gestured for the device. She handed it to him, and with a few taps on the device, he drew a sort of zigzag line on the map, connecting the dots. A hunting range. "Maybe we can use it to predict where the giants will strike next?"

"Good work, Paris," she said with a smile. "He was right." She took the device back and stood. "I'm going to run these locations and any in the path against your father's assets. See if we find anything close by."

Paris rose beside her. "You think he might have been funding the giants?"

"We know he was. We connected transfers from one of Vincent's bank accounts to the ridge giant we identified."

He raked a hand through his hair and sighed. "So it's not over today, is it?"

She shook her head, the barrel curls bouncing. "We think they're working toward a Samhain sacrifice. An attempt to open the veil so Chaos can come through." Another couple clicks on her device, and she turned the screen back to him. Multiple dots were clustered around several of the locations they'd already identified. "Missing persons reports, in and around the areas where the thin spots are."

"How does no one notice?"

"Because the culprit is the cart guy at the grocery store, or a doctor killing his patients, or"—another couple taps, and a photo of the giant he'd painted appeared—"the mechanic who worked on a pack member's bike."

"How do we beat this?" It all seemed so heavy and endless, one evil after another.

She looped an arm around his waist and gave him a sideways hug, quieting some of his unrest. "We work together as a team."

"And you're part of that team now," came Kai's voice from the edge of the pergola.

"I'll leave you to it," Mary said, drawing back and smiling up at Paris, sending him another wave of green comfort. "It was lovely to meet you, Paris."

She clomped off, headed back to the villa, tossing peanuts in her wake, and Paris gladly accepted the hug Kai offered in her place. "How's Jason?" Paris asked.

"Recovering. He'll be fine, thanks to you." He drew back, and they lowered onto one of the chaises beside each other. "How are you? With all this?"

"It's a lot. I mean that was just"—he gestured the direction Mary had disappeared into the house—" her ."

"She's something else," Kai said with a chuckle. "Don't piss her off. She's more fiery than Icarus."

"I know they're not blood related, but the vibe is definitely siblings."

"Oh yeah, one hundred percent. Some folks are just on the same wavelength, you know? Connected, like they're destined to be in each other's lives."

Sounded familiar, especially about Paris's two best friends. He squeezed his friend's hand. "I'm so happy you and Jason are official now." Kai's cheeks heated, a shy smile turning up the corners of his lips. In all the ups and downs of the past two weeks, their happily ever after was a highlight. "I was getting tired of living in a constant state of would-you-two-just-kiss."

Kai laughed out loud, until he turned a mischievous, Jason-like smile on him. "Is that what you and Mac were doing before I showed up at the cabin?"

Paris's own cheeks heated. "We were just dancing." Close in each other's arms, the warmth of Mac's skin against his own, Mac's hand cupped around the side of his neck, the kiss that had almost happened then.

"But you want to be kissing?"

The kiss that had happened yesterday morning, that had lived rent-free in his head the past day and a half, replayed again, and Paris covered his face with his hands, groaning in frustration. "More than anything," he admitted, through his fingers. "But it's complicated. He's a reaper, and I'm just a human."

Kai rubbed a hand over his back. "You're not just anything, Paris."

He dropped his hands and spread one over his chest, over where his own heart beat for someone, truly, for the first time. But it wasn't the first time for Mac. "He's got a hole here, Kai, and I don't know if I or anyone can ever fill it."

"Maybe you're not supposed to. Maybe you're supposed to make your own place there."