Page 15 of Paris and the Reaper

When he glanced over his shoulder, he was directly in the giant’s line of sight, and as his gaze locked with the monster’s blue one, he realized it lacked the malice it had in the parking lot dream. When the giant looked at the vampire, he was hungry—for power. Paris recognized the look: it was the same hunger that had been ever-present in his father’s eyes.

Instinct drove Paris to move the opposite direction, away from the threat, but the now red-eyed giant stopped him in his tracks, invisible bindings digging into his thighs and arms, into his existing injuries. Pain and fear spiked, and Paris struggled to breathe.

Until Mac’s hand pressing gently at his back reminded him this was just a memory, a mental scouting mission like the real ones he used to go on with Jason. Turning fully around, he studied the giant, looking for anything he hadn’t already captured with his brush. Finding nothing at this scene, he took another deep breath and moved on to the next one, putting himself on the ground in the dark alley.

Only he arrived sooner than when he’d been there the last time, the vampire’s soul dragging him a few terrifying moments earlier. To when the monster leaned over him, so close Paris could smell rosewater, elderflower, and quinine on his breath and could see the scar beneath his beard. He’d been so out of itwith fear when he’d been on the altar himself, he’d missed those clues before. Like he’d also missed the gilded knife with its topaz stone that the giant used to slice into the vampire’s barely healed scars, the nick on the blade’s edge causing Paris to scream right along with him, remembering the way his own skin had torn and shredded, the awful, hopeless?—

A sharp tug at the center of his chest, his name repeated in calm, soothing tones, warm hands cupping his cheeks and soft fingers against his temples, drew him out of the alley and back to violet eyes. “There you are,” Mac said from right in front of him, continuing to gently stroke his temples. His breath smelled of earth and cheese and the wine they’d drunk with dinner; not the terrible cocktail of his nightmare. “Just breathe for me.”

“He took me back further,” Paris said between gulps, his eyes filling with tears, the unexpected terror overwhelming, the crash landing back to relief jarring. “How? What’s happening to me?”

Mac drew him into his arms, chin on his crown, holding him like he had yesterday, loose enough Paris didn’t feel trapped but solid enough to feel safe. “We need to talk to the witches,” he said. “But those knives you painted carving into your back, the voices in your head, I think whatever happened to you on that altar opened you up. He was channeling souls through you; he made you a medium.”

Forehead against Mac’s shoulder, Paris gasped for breath and tried to wrap his head around the most sensible explanation for the nonsensical. And worried who would come knocking next.

Next.

Two souls had already knocked, and he had new clues that could help them. He just had to pull himself together and share those with the detective standing right in front of him. Another deep breath, then he straightened and wiped the wetness from under his eyes. “He’s toying with them for the hunt,” he toldMac. “He captures them, then lets them go to chase them again. Lola’s face was bruised and beaten, and the vampire had barely healed scars the giant ripped open again. But they were different too. He hated Lola. I don’t know if it was personal or because she was a woman or because she was human, but there was malice there. With the vamp, he was after his power, plain and simple. He was hungry.”

“That’s good, Paris.” Mac kept a hand lightly cupped around the side of his neck. “Means we need to look for prior connections and earlier abductions. Was there anything else?”

“He had a knife, gilded with a topaz stone. I can paint it. And his breath smelled like an elderflower tonic. The kind with rosewater.”

“Only a few places to get that still.”

“And he had a scar.” He moved back in front of the monster’s picture, grabbed the straight razor from his palette, and dipped the tip of his brush into the paint. He carefully dabbed a little onto the side of the monster’s chin, swirled some to match the texture of the beard hair in that area, then, with the razor, thinned out the rest of the dab into a raised line, keeping it perfectly straight like the scar he’d seen. “Right there.”

Mac moved closer, snapping pictures with his phone. “Oral or jaw surgery wouldn’t leave a scar like that. Those surgeries are done inside the mouth. That scar is from an external injury, and with it being that straight, it was professionally treated. This is good, Paris,” he repeated. “Real good.”

“Assuming he’s not erased, like I am.”

Mac patted his shoulder on his way back to the kitchen table, opening his laptop and connecting his phone to various cables. “That’s why multiple leads are important. There may not be surgical records, but someone sold him that tonic. I’ll get the searches running.”

“How do you even get a signal out here?” Paris asked as he dabbed his brush into more paint to get started on the knife. A small generator behind the cabin provided enough electricity for hot water, plumbing, a fridge, and a few other appliances, but Paris found it hard to believe Mac’s computer transmitted with any reliability from these woods.

“Boosters and other tech.” He gestured at the various attachments connecting the devices. “Icarus’s sister is a hacker.”

Paris bobbled his brush, flinging paint farther afield than he intended. “Icarus has a sister?”

“Adopted. They were in the same foster home.”

“Huh, I knew he needed the Daylight to protect someone, but I never knew who.” He swept his paintbrush so as to hook the tip of the knife’s blade, then used his razor to shadow its peaks and valleys and create a nick in the straight edge. He winced, but shook off the thought before the remembered pain drowned him again. “Did my list of Daylight clients turn up anything? I didn’t know the vamp from my dream, but maybe someone else did. Sometimes who I sold to wasn’t the end user.”

“Nothing in the hard files, but I have searches running against the digital.” After a final flurry of keystrokes, he slumped back in his chair. “Why did you deal?”

Do deal, Paris almost corrected, but bit his tongue instead. He lifted his brush long enough to shrug, then after another swipe through the paint, continued to work on the knife’s handle. “Folks needed it. Folks like Icarus. They all had good reasons.”

“They could’ve been lying.”

“I’m sure some were. Everyone knows I’m gullible, but if I was able to help one person, then I did what I could.”

“While stealing from your father.”

He dipped his brush in the yellow paint, added the touch of purple that tinted all his dreams still, then filled the hole he’dleft for the stone in the middle of the handle. He used his razor again to clean up and define the edges, depicting a slight filigree to the border around the stone. “He promised to protect them, and he didn’t.” Paranormals would hire his father for protection, and the next thing the shifter or vampire or warlock knew, they were doing Vincent’s dirty work for him. He was human, yes, but a monster in his own terrifying way. It was a business model, a hoard of stolen power and riches that Paris wanted nothing to do with. “What does it mean to be his heir?”

“I don’t know yet. That’s what I sent Liam to find out. He’ll recon with Adam and Icarus and the rest of the team, then report back.”

Paris turned to ask who exactly was the rest of the team, but Mac’s mouth stretching wide in a silent yawn made him yawn too since he, unlike his father, wasn’t a sociopath. “When’s the last time you slept?” he asked the raven, who tipped back his head and laughed, a tired, resigned thing that Paris felt all the way to his bones. “Go to bed, Mac.”

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