Chapter 26

TWENTY-SIX

Mac was surprised it took Paris until they were halfway down the hall to ask, "What is this place?" Between the corner unit's boarded-up windows, the steel back door they'd entered through, and the old barrels and stacked weapons crates that crowded the hallway, it was a confusing place for any uninitiated.

Mac chuckled. "Kai asked the same thing when he first came here. It used to be a distillery tasting room. We acquired it from the lender who was going to foreclose. It serves as our base of operations here in YB since?—"

"Since your father torched my house," Adam said, and Mac cut a glare his direction. He sat beside Jenn at the bar, Icarus behind it pouring vodka into shot glasses.

"No," Paris said, hand on his forearm. "That's fair. I'll make you whole," he said to Adam. "As soon as I get access to the necessary accounts."

"Don't do that," Icarus said. "Your father took a lot, from a lot of people. You'll be broke before you know it."

"Yes, but I betrayed you ," Paris said to him, voice earnest. "One of the few people who was good to me, so when this is done, let me help you."

The courtesan slid two shot glasses onto the bar for Adam and Jenn, then brought a third out from behind the bar and handed it to Paris. "He's loaded," he said with a head tilt toward Adam. "Being the Devil pays well. So you don't need to help us but thank you. And you were always good to me too." He pecked Paris's cheek, then flitted over to sit on the corner of the table where his sister worked on her laptop, oblivious to the mounting tension of her surroundings.

Most pointedly coming from the coyote across the room, one booted foot propped against the wall, his flannel-covered arms crossed over his broad chest. "Can we get down to business?" Robin said. "I want to know how much longer I have to be here."

"Atlas has outrun you this long," Icarus said. "How much longer are you going to keep chasing him?"

"Until I catch him."

"I told you," Mary said, not looking up from her laptop. "You'll get your turn."

"Clocks tickin', sweetheart."

Mac cleared his throat. "I don't believe you two have formally met. Robin, this is Paris. Paris, this is Robin."

Paris stepped to the center of the room, hand outstretched, and Robin, predictably, didn't move from his post on the wall. "Exactly how did you take control of your father's operation in less than twenty-four hours?"

Paris squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. "I made them an offer. I'd actually do for them what my father promised. Protection. And if they didn't want to take my offer, they could leave without retribution."

"Without even holding them? We could have questioned them."

Mac moved forward, sliding a hand into the groove of Paris's lower back, ready to intervene if he needed, but Paris seemed keen to spar with Robin.

"As I understand it from Mac," he said, "half of them were questioned already, and correct me if I'm wrong"—he split a glance between Mac and Adam—"but technically you have no authority to hold them. In fact," he leveled his gaze on Mac, "I haven't seen or heard you once mention going into the station or wherever it is you're supposed to work since you rescued me from that altar."

"They know to leave me alone this time of year."

"Sheriff's a pack member," Jenn added. "It's why he and Adam left the YB force to join the Talahalusi department."

Paris nodded, then cut a glance through all of them, eventually landing back on Robin. "I won't be my father. I won't have people working for me out of fear."

"We're all afraid right now," Robin admitted in a rare display of truth and vulnerability.

"And that's more than enough. They don't need to fear me too."

"Can we move on?" Adam said from his barstool.

"I want to know why he's after Atlas," Paris insisted, and Mac barely bit back his curse. They'd been so close to a break in hostilities, and then Paris had to go and throw a grenade into the mix.

"Because he killed my sister and brother-in-law." Robin nodded toward Adam. "His spouses."

Paris's response was immediate. "No, he didn't."

And so was Robin's, flying off the wall at him. Mac shot between them and flexed every bit of magic in him, every bit of growl in his own voice. "I love you like a brother, but if you lay a fucking paw on him, I will end you."

His eyes flashed gold, and for a second Mac feared he'd have to follow through on his promise, but then Robin thankfully backed off, his gaze sliding past Mac to Paris. "You're playing a game you don't understand, kid."

"I understand I can help," Paris said. "And that's what I intend to do."

"We have just over a week until Samhain," Mary said, reentering the conversation. She snapped shut her laptop and stood, rounding the table to prop herself next to Icarus. "The giants need to be our focus. They're the ones trying to bring through Chaos, not Atlas."

"So you say," Robin bit back.

"So I know."

"One day you're gonna spill."

"You'll be the first to know."

Robin huffed off to reclaim his spot on the wall, while brother and sister rolled their eyes. Mac almost laughed out loud. Behind him, Paris did, trying and failing to muffle it against the back of his shoulder. He didn't need to, the moment of levity easing some of the tension in the room, Mary smiling widest of all.

Mac directed Paris to the open chaise by the wall, the two of them sitting side by side, as Mary brought them up to speed. "We talked to Pati. Both giants, the one from the ridge and the one who chased you," she said to Paris, "chased her and Quinn through those tunnels."

"What about the other two giants?" Mac asked.

"No sign of them."

"I need to go to the Stick," Paris said. "If I can get one of the souls to talk, then maybe they can show me which giant was there."

"We have to be careful," Adam said. "Outside of the Canyon Lands, it's the only remaining altar site not under our control."

"And the one in La Purisima," Paris said, tossing another grenade. "I checked," he hurried on, peppering the playing field with landmines. "Dad wouldn't dare go down there himself, but he did make investments there. The only three people who can safely travel there are me and you two"—he gestured at Adam and Icarus, the only other two humans in the room—"but you both got the same look on your faces just now as Icarus's sister when I first brought it up, so I'm assuming that's a no. And I know he"—he jutted a thumb at Mac—"won't let me go, so let me send someone on Dad's—sorry, my team to check them out. "

"There's unlikely to be any Samhain activity there," Mac said. "The religious cultist won't allow it."

"Send your people," Adam said to Paris. "Assuming no activity there, then that leaves us two giants here to deal with. The one who took Paris, and one other, possibly responsible for the Stick massacre."

Paris leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees, fully engaged in the conversation, actively participating in the planning. "If we completely destroy the altar at the Stick, what happens?"

"They build a new one in its place," Adam replied. "If we don't also cleanse and secure the territory."

"And like you said, if we do that at the Stick, we'll control all of them in and around YB, other than the Canyon Lands, which I assume we'll never control?"

"Maybe the kid's not so useless," Robin said, straightening off the wall. "We could trap them."

Icarus scoffed. "Why would they be stupid enough to do that?"

"Because we have the one who got away," Robin said, his smirk bordering on feral. "The ultimate soul channeler. With Paris, they can rip the veil wide open."

"Exactly," Paris said, nodding. "I can do?—"

"Absolutely not," Mac dissented, at the same time Icarus and Mary likewise expressed their objections.

"We have a week," Adam said, stepping into the fray and cutting short the debate. "Let's continue to work the case. We've got two serial killers, access to their backer's records, and a crime scene with potential witnesses." He raised his brows in question at Paris.

"I can reach them," he confirmed with a nod.

"Then let's see how far we get."