Page 64 of Patron of Mercy

“Sorry for what?” he demanded.

“For bringing you here,” a man said. He stepped forward into the light, and Lach frowned. He had familiar hazel eyes. “For the sacrifice you will have to make to restore the Father.”

“I remember you. You’re Roger. You sold me those concert tickets,” Lach said.

“And put a bug on you, yes. Howdidyou manage to get off that boat?”

Everything snapped into place—how they’d found him, how Martina had tipped these people off about where he was going when he’d left New York and maybe even what he was after. They’d shot him. They’d sunk Mis.

“I’m going to kill you,” Lach said casually.

In response, the man grinned. “I’m not surprised you think so. It is nice to finally make your acquaintance, Glaucus. I’m Roger Paget.”

Paget. Like Martina Paget. Like Charles Paget.

Lach hadn’t thought about Charles in years. Eighty years ago, Lach had fallen into Charles’s circle. Charles had been taking a world tour after college. He’d had bright, hungry eyes and big ideas, and Lach had spilled his entire past to him. Why not? He was lonely, and Charles was the first person in an age who really listened. He’d seemed so interested, and Lach had been desperate enough for company to try and keep him on the hook.

And he was Martina’s father. Years of friendship, and she’d been playing him the whole time.

Lach finally looked at the man in a wheelchair beside Roger and saw behind the thin white hair and loose jowls that youthful man who’d wanted the world, so long as he could keep it for himself.

“You’re looking well, Charles.” The last time Lach had seen the man, he’d been young, hale, and determined to restore the world to what he thought it ought to be, with people who looked and thought like him making decisions for everyone. It’d taken Lach an embarrassing amount of time to realize that Charles was an enormous dick.

Didn’t hurt that he’d been pretty. But now, looking at him—at his son, who had the same frail handsomeness that money could buy—Lach realized that was nothing. Nothing to Thanatos’s gorgeous eyes, his soft amusement, his genuine care.

“Not as good as you,” Charles replied. His voice wavered and cracked, the effort a strain after nearly a century of aging.

Lach chewed his tongue. There were men all around him—some formidable, some who looked like they were on spring break from the Ivy League university their fathers’ checkbooks had gotten them into. But there were way, way too many for Lach to handle on his own.

Didn’t mean he had to roll over. He pulled his gun from his belt and leveled it at Roger Paget’s pretty face. There was a shuffle, and something crashed into his side as he pulled the trigger. Roger shouted—not dead, too bad—and Lach went tumbling into rocks. The man who tackled him slammed his hand into the ground, and he let the gun go. Another joined in dragging Lach to his feet.

Yards away, Roger was clutching the side of his face, bleeding through his fingers. Lach laughed.

“What thefuck?” Roger demanded.

Lach shrugged as well as he could with men gripping his arms. “Dunno. I had one shot, and I don’t like the way you look.”

A guy—one of those sorts who were so broad his arms didn’t touch his sides when they hung down—stalked toward him. He raised his fist, telegraphing every move, but all Lach could do was jerk in the grips of the men behind him, which did nothing to stop the blow from cracking against his jaw.

His teeth clacked together, he tasted blood, and his head swung toward Martina Paget.

“Martina, you really need to diversify your friend group.”

She flinched, barely, one second before another blow landed and Lach sagged. The men held him up. Muscle mountain in front of him cocked his fist one more time, but Roger’s droll voice stopped him. “Don’t ruin him yet.”

“That sounds promising,” Lach said. Well, he thought he said it, but his tongue was thick and his ears were ringing and he couldn’t be trusted to use his mouth for anything other than incomprehensible moaning.

“Tie his hands behind his back. Put him on that altar there,” Roger commanded.

Lach was manhandled over to a rock, his arms jerked behind his back and tied at the wrists. When they lay him down, his arms were trapped achingly behind the small of his back. He arched up.

“Hold him down,” Roger said.

Lach expected hands on his legs to keep him from squirming, not a small boulder lowered onto his thighs to pin him down. But if Palea Kameni had anything in abundance, it was rocks. He groaned, bracing his heels and trying to push off the massive weight. It didn’t budge.

Could’ve been worse though—they could’ve put the boulder on his chest. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He could think his way through this.

If he were a god, he wouldn’t have to. With a twitch of his little finger, he could throw the rock off, crush his enemies, see them driven before him, and hear the lamentations of their loved ones. Yet here he was, a long-lived human but nothing more, with an empty antique gun and a sharp tongue.

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