Page 35 of Paris and the Reaper

“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 onthe 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.”

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