Page 21 of Paris and the Reaper

“But he didn’t hunt you. What if . . .”

Paris gestured with a rolling hand for him to spit it out.

“What if you were a substitute? What if someone got away...”

“They’re still out there, then. And he’s still hunting them.”

“In YB, if you’re right.” Mac’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “We need to see who else has gone missing recently. Whoever it is, they haven’t hit my pile or my list yet.”

An arching flame in the hearth brought another question to mind. “If he catches them,” Paris said, “where would he take them? You said the altar I was on is gone. Are there other ones?”

“Rumored,” Mac said, as he opened another map on screen. “In other places where the veil is thin.”

Paris pointed at the one closest to the coast, not far from where they were now. “That one’s close by.”

Mac nodded. “Along the fault ridge between Portola and the ocean.”

“We need to go there. See if there’s any activity.”

Mac’s “Paris” reminded him of Kai’s reply to some of his and Jason’s more adventurous schemes. But in those cases, he and his friend were two humans getting into trouble way above their heads. This time, Paris had a well-connected raven at his side.

“Would I be in danger down there?” he said, pointing at that spot along the ridge. “Like I would be in YB?”

The dark-eyed glare cast his way was epic. “You’re asking to go to a giant’s altar.”

“Okay, dumb question,” Paris conceded. “Better one, how fast can you get someone from the team down here to go with us?”

The wry grin reappeared, and Paris decided that was the one he wanted to paint. “Liam, of course, and there’s a shifter on our team from around these parts. And if I know her girlfriend, she’ll come too.” He raised a hand, quelling Paris’s rising hope. “IfAdam can spare them.”

Fair enough. Bigger things and all that. “Deal.”

TWELVE

The next morning,Paris stood in the middle of a deserted parking lot, zero gravel left underfoot, just knotty roots and rambling weeds covering the small unmarked area at the edge of the woods. He strolled across the similarly deserted road to the vista overlook on the other side. He glanced right toward where the ocean should be in the distance, then left toward where Portola should be, and saw nothing in either direction but the soupy gray mist that had made their drive up this mountain a terror Paris had no desire to ever relive. “Is it always this foggy up here?” he asked Mac, who was unloading gear from the car. “This is as bad as the Canyon Lands.”

“Along the ridge here, yes,” Mac said, as he shut the trunk. “Especially this spot. When I was a kid, there were rumors these woods were haunted.” He crossed the road to stand beside Paris and pointed down the mountain toward Portola. “There’s a lake down there you can’t see for the fog, but before it was a lake, it was a bustling village. It flooded in one of the wars long before the Rift, when Chaos sent fire over the mountains and Nature countered it with waves. No one survived.”

“Is it actually haunted here?” Before Mac could answer, aKraasounded overhead, a raven soaring out of the fog and onto a nearby branch. “Liam?”

Mac nodded as more black-feathered birds filled the trees, theirKraas andCaws joining the chorus, until their song was drowned out by the roar of a motorcycle cresting the ridge, dislodging loose pavement from the edge of the road as it swung into the lot beside Mac’s car. Paris was so distracted by the stunning vintage bike—gas-powered, a rarity—that he didn’t think too hard about the familiar movements of the backseat rider as she dismounted. It wasn’t until she pulled off her helmet, dark hair falling around her tan face and delicate features, that Paris recognized her.

“Shit!” He turned to run and cursed again at the cliff blocking his escape. Which one was more likely to kill him—the fall or the mountain lion shifter?

Mac grabbed him by the back of the jacket, yanking him away from the edge. “It’s okay, Paris. They’re family.”

“She worked for my dad.” He kept an eye on the woman he knew as Gail and the second woman who dismounted the bike, another shifter, he guessed, given her golden eyes and the way she moved. Some sort of canine, the power in her actions more blunt, more restrained than Gail’s feline power and grace.

“No,” Mac said. “She works with us and is a big reason you’re still alive. She helped find you that night.”

Paris didn’t have to ask what night he was referring to.

“I was also on that list you gave him,” Gail said as she and the other shifter approached. “You must not think I’m all bad.”

“You didn’t seem to want to kill me on the daily like Roni.” The vampire who’d been his other keeper barely tolerated him, regularly threatening to rip his throat out with her fangs.

“She was terrible. She’s also dead.” Gail held out a hand to him. “Real name’s Abigail.”

Paris returned the shake. “Thank you for helping me.”

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