“You’ll figure it out,” Daniel reassured Riordan, placing an intangible hand on Riordan’s shoulder that sent a cold chill down his spine. “You’re smart and stubborn and no one should underestimate you. Even you.”

That startled a laugh from Riordan. “Fuck, I hope so. I hope we both figure it out.”

Daniel made a huge leap up onto the computer desk, bracing one ghostly foot on top of the monitor and raising a hand to the ceiling melodramatically. He spoke in a stage voice, projecting as if a whole theatre was listening and not just a single man in a tiny room. “Lo, for the future spreads vast before us. Mountains tremble at our footsteps and rivers weep. Our foes shall rend their clothes and gnash their teeth. They shall beg for mercy, but receive only justice.”

Clapping startled both of them. Riordan wasn’t sure how Quinn had managed to sneak up on them. Hell, he hadn’t even realized it had gotten that late, stuck in a windowless room as he was. Riordan found himself oddly embarrassed to be caught out like this, a blush dusting his dark cheeks, but Daniel just burst out laughing and gave a bow in Quinn’s direction.

“That’s quite the bold speech. I clearly have been spending my day with the wrong group,” Quinn said, moving to lean on the door frame, arms crossed over his chest and a lopsided smile on his face. “You are all set to send our enemies running to their graves here.”

Daniel jumped off the desk, pure theatrics since the ghost could float, landing in front of Quinn. “All set to try anyway. Productive day?”

“Fairly,” Quinn shrugged the shoulder not pressed against the door frame, “This stage of an investigation is dull legwork and drags on until, bam, suddenly everything is ready and happening all at once and you are wishing for more time to have done things right. Spoilers. You never get things fully right.”

“Truth,” Riordan agreed with a grunt, “Never seen a mission go entirely to plan. Every time it is running close to plan, I would get the heebie jeebies, just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Quinn gave a nod to that, his expression wry and understanding, and walked further into the room. He leaned over Riordan’s shoulder to stare at their current open file, the collated search results on the Daughters, invading Riordan’s personal space. The nearness made Riordan’s skin crawl, though not as badly as he would have expected for someone who was still essentially a stranger. He also noticed that he barely felt any radiant body heat from the skinny man. Indeed, the air was cooler around the death mage.

“Where’s Zeren and Ingrid?” Daniel asked, peering around Quinn.

Quinn’s hand rose to his collar, specifically to the green-and-red stone embedded there, and tapped it. Zeren appeared next to him a second later. Quinn waved both hands at Zeren like a magician. Or perhaps more like a boy at show and tell.

“Ghost gems,” Quinn explained, looking pleased. “It’s a trick I learned. Most ghosts don’t have a home on the spirit plane to retreat to, after all, and it can sometimes get stressful being haunted when you can’t get a break from each other. So the gems give them their own space to get away from me and I can send them to their rooms if needed.”

Zeren quirked an eyebrow up at that description, asking dryly, “Did you just summon me for a spectacle?”

“That and Daniel was asking after you,” Quinn smiled over at his friend.

Riordan realized that was a true word to describe their relationship, whatever else they also were. Being forced into proximity with another sentient creature like that meant they were going to form a relationship of some sort. Positive relationships were definitely the preferred result unless one person was a megalomaniacal death mage bent on enslaving ghosts. Quinn had Zeren and Ingrid’s help because he had freed them and they had chosen to stay. That loyalty meant he had the right to do things like pester them and that he never had to handle anything alone.

Would Daniel stay if Riordan asked? He didn’t want to know the answer. Both made him feel bad for different reasons.

“Oh,” Zeren turned to Daniel. “Did you need something?”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Daniel looked awkward, running a hand through his hair and laughing. “Not need, really. I just didn’t see you and was wondering what you were up to. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“No bother. Would you like to see my gem?” Zeren asked, just as expressionless and flat as always, even when making the surprising offer.

“What? Like, inside that stone?” Daniel pointed at Quinn’s collar. “I can do that?”

“Ghost gems are tuned to a ghost,” Zeren intoned. “That gem is tuned to me. I can bring any willing ghost into that space. They can leave at any time, but may not re-enter without my assistance. Ingrid helped me decorate.”

A look of morbid curiosity crossed Daniel’s face. “Decorate? Oh, this I have to see. I’m sure the two of you must have come up with something unique, especially if you are asking advice from the blind kid.”

Zeren tilted their head, as if not seeing what the humorous part of that would be, and then held out a hand to Daniel. “I can show you. You can give advice.”

Daniel glanced back at Riordan. “You still need me or am I good to go?”

Riordan waved Daniel off, feeling like a father sending their young child off to a sleepover for the first time. “Go have fun. Don’t get into trouble. Check in after a few hours or sooner. Otherwise, I’m going to have to fight Quinn for stealing you.”

Laughing, Daniel blew a kiss at Riordan in an exaggerated manner, all flirty, and winked. “I’ll be home soon, papa. No need to fight over me.”

While Riordan was still sputtering, Daniel took Zeren’s hand and both ghosts disappeared. Quinn was doubled over in hysterical laughter. Riordan gave the death mage a mock disapproving look, secretly pleased to see both Daniel and Quinn having fun in the midst of so much despair. He waggled a finger towards the still-laughing man, “You don’t get to keep him.”

“I would never,” Quinn managed to choke back his laughter enough to place his hand over his heart, affecting a solemn expression intermittently broken by little bubbling chuckles that broke past the facade. “What kind of monster do you take me to be? I couldn’t take your only friend.”

Despite the playful manner of their teasing, the truth of that last statement still made Riordan wince. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and looked away, letting his gaze go back to his reports just so he didn’t have to see Quinn’s reaction. He felt vulnerable and seen again. He didn’t hate the feeling, but it was decidedly uncomfortable. His habits wanted to treat the person causing that discomfort as an attacker, even though Riordan knew Quinn didn’t mean anything bad by it.

When Riordan didn’t reply to Quinn, the laughter died away entirely and the man carefully laid a hand on Riordan’s shoulder. He tensed at the contact before forcing himself to relax.

“Riordan?” Quinn said quietly. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. How about you show me what you were working on today?”

Gods, Riordan felt like such a fragile snowflake these days. He should be tougher than this. He shouldn’t shut down or lash out just because someone gets close or points out that he’s fucking lonely. And sure, he was under a lot of stress and everything was unstable. He got that. He knew his emotions were haywire and it didn’t take a lot to trigger a response from him, even for minor things, when he was this close to his limits. But still. Riordan hated feeling weak.

He managed to keep himself from thinking that he hated feeling anything at all, because that wasn’t true and was just another emotional overreaction. He could feel alright one moment and a wreck the next, just because he stumbled over something that tipped him over that edge he was sitting on. What sucked the most was that Riordan couldn’t tell what things would be the hardest to handle. He was tough enough to wade into absolute terror and horror, torture and blood and violence, and let it roll off with righteous anger and a few more nightmares.

But heaven help him if someone tried to get close. A friendly comment? Lash out. Good advice and joking around? Shut down. A hug? Hell, he’d bite almost anyone who tried. Daniel could do it. Norris and Mark and Quinn could possibly get away with it, so long as they didn’t mind Riordan freezing up. Frankie could do it just because he wouldn’t dare bite that bitch, especially since she’d bite right back. That was it.

It was sad when it surprised him that the number of people on the list of those who could get away with hugging him wasn’t zero.

Riordan swallowed hard and then cleared his throat, but his voice was still a bit tight and husky when he started showing Quinn the websites Daniel and he had found that day. “You might’ve found these already, but we went looking for the public presence of the Daughters.”

“Googling our enemies?” Quinn smiled gently, “How forward thinking. No, we hadn’t gotten to it yet, though you are right. We should have. It’s not often that our death mages have such a public presence. Find anything interesting.”

“They have classes all over the county, held at local community centers and libraries and parks and things. We think they are both to let domestic abuse victims have a neutral way to approach them to ask for help and as cult recruitment. Or cult positive publicity. All of the above.” Riordan waved a hand at the computer screen displaying the event list. “It’s going to hurt a lot of people when this case breaks open.”

Quinn groaned softly, rubbing a hand over his forehead, but nodded. “Another thing that isn’t typical with death mages. They are seldom a positive influence on their community, especially when this far gone. Usually when they work in groups, they are the creepy weirdos that everyone avoids, but the cult provides a buffer between the death mages and the community, hiding the rotten core of a sweet fruit.”

Riordan snorted. “That’s one way of putting it. Do you have an estimate for how many members the cult has?”

“Ugh. Too many. It’s hard to sort out who are clients they are helping, who are prospective recruits, and who is an actual member of the cult on some level. Either way, the minimalist view is at least a hundred members. Likely closer to two hundred, but that would include people who are associated but not actual members.” Quinn threw his hands up in the air and began pacing, his strange spiky boots thudding heavily as he stomped about the small space. Riordan was once again impressed that Quinn had snuck up on him earlier. “Of course, I have no idea how many of them are in the know or would respond if the death mages came under attack or investigation. We’re clearly going to need more support here.”

“Can you get that?” Riordan asked, genuinely curious. He stopped trying to follow Quinn’s path around the small room when he had to crane his neck far enough it hurt or literally spin in a circle. “I don’t know what sort of resources the Department of Magic has on call.”

“Not soon enough.”