Vera met Riordan’s gaze, anger and worry and determination burning behind her eyes. Riordan met it calmly, knowing that she had to agree to support his mad cap ideas or the whole thing was doomed from the get go. He trusted himself to mess up the enemy’s plans and to buy time, but he couldn’t win this alone. Riordan needed backup. He needed Vera on his side and her pack behind him. He needed to not do this alone.
“Damn you,” Vera hissed, the stern woman tense, though she controlled that tightly coiled anger to prevent hurting Billy further. “How dare you imply I would do less than you for my own people. I live for them. That’s a damn sight harder than heroically dying for someone. Dying is easy. It leaves someone else to clean up your mess.”
She lapsed into momentary silence again. Riordan didn’t press her, practically seeing the thoughts whirling behind her intense eyes. Vera Hunt was a good pack leader, for all that she rejected Riordan. Hell, that was one of the things that made her good. She chose to distrust him but work with him, both for the good of her pack. She was fierce, but not violent or prone to being provoked. She was smart, but knew when to delegate to experts for something specific. She was kind, but did not compromise what was right just to be kind or liked.
Vera growled, the sound animalistic, revealing the bear flickering in partial shifts across her skin. She looked down at Billy, her guardsman locked in convulsions as he fought enemy magic, and then glanced to the faces in the windows and doors that were watching them.
She looked back at Riordan. “You may not die. You don’t have permission. You do this, and you have to save yourself too. I will accept nothing less.”
Gods, the woman was brutal. That commandment would bind Riordan into prioritizing himself in situations where he otherwise would have considered himself an acceptable loss. He couldn’t go courting death, just because he wasn’t convinced that his life was worth shit outside of the people his existence was currently protecting.
And wasn’t that a weird thought in itself. People were counting on Riordan. It had been many many years since that had been the case. He’d stabbed the last people who had counted on him in the back. It had been the right thing to do, but it had hurt like hell and had shattered his sense of self and honor at the altar of necessity.
There were other sacrifices one could make besides their life. So be it.
“I hate everything about your plan,” she said, “but I think that is because I hate the situation and not inherently that your plan has no merit. You are right that Billy risks himself for the greater good regularly and is probably screaming at me behind that damned spell. Logic demands that I sit on you both, get Quinn up here, and get Billy uncursed. Opportunity dictates that I set you free so that I can follow the fishing line back to our common foes.”
She paused. Riordan kept himself steady, trying to project competence and reliability and determination. That was made more difficult by the awkward situation and wrestling in the dirt, but he must have done something because Vera nodded and then backed away into the shadows of the pack house.
“Give them hell,” she ordered.
The rest was implied, perhaps because she wasn’t sure what her backing would look like, perhaps because of the indefinite parameters of the compulsion spell. Either way, Riordan snapped to it as soon as she gave him permission.
The mission was a go.
“Billy,” Riordan said, getting the man’s direct attention with his no-nonsense business voice. “I will go with you, as required. What other orders do you have?”
“You need to come with me,” the man repeated mechanically, but then continued with a bit of a stumble. Riordan suspected Billy was pushing the compulsion to let him speak the terms. It was possible to fight mental spells from the inside as long as you were capable of the mental gymnastics required to convince yourself and the spell that your actions were necessary for fulfilling the orders. Billy probably leaned into the idea that answering that question would get Riordan to come with him most efficiently.
“I must restrain and blindfold you prior to arrival. If you refuse to come with me, I am to kill myself. If you try to remove the spell on me, I am to kill myself. If you take me captive, I am to kill myself. If you try to phone anyone or otherwise actively report where you are going, I am to kill myself. If anyone tries to follow, I am to lose them by any means necessary. I am to follow orders from the caster of this spell,” Billy listed before lapsing into silence. After a beat, he tried to get up again and Riordan let him this time, standing to follow him.
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Riordan had felt a chill hearing that list. The “don’t allow reports” order had come damned close to being broken with his conversation with Vera. As had the refusal clause. Clearly there was enough wiggle room for him to take back a perceived refusal since Riordan had only restrained Billy temporarily and not actively refused to follow, though it also explained why Billy was able to lean into it enough to try to off himself for the greater good. Vera didn’t know where Riordan was going and if she did follow them, well, that wasn’t Riordan reporting it. Billy probably was going to ignore as much as possible when it came to forms of tracking or pursuit, though there were limits before he had to shake them off.
“Riordan,” Vera called his name. Riordan turned and she tossed something towards him, which he caught out of habit. A glance showed it to be a stone ring with an engraved bear on it. The magic on it was incredibly subtle and simple. It magically guided towards a matching ring. One that Riordan thought he’d seen on a certain cranky head shaman. This had to be Vera’s personal tracking device between her and her partner. She didn’t say anything further. Neither did Riordan. He just nodded and climbed into the back seat of the SUV that Billy was using.
It was one of the pack SUVs. Vera could probably track the vehicle in some manner too, if needed. Billy had to know that, but that wasn’t Riordan trying to report or a person actively following. They pulled away from the pack house, disappearing up the drive into the woods before popping out onto the sun-washed and potholed minor highway.
Billy wasn’t going to be good company under that spell. Riordan could tell that the man was following every traffic law to the letter, taking the trip as slowly and smoothly as possible. Buying time in his own way too. Riordan wasn’t alone in this.
Hell, he wasn’t even alone in the back seat, though Daniel’s terrified expression gave Riordan twinges of guilt. He wished he was good enough with the pack bond to manage the telepathy in human form, but he was the wrong kind of shifter for that to come naturally to him. He didn’t want to talk in front of Billy with those rules on him.
Still, nothing stopped Riordan from shifting. Billy already knew he was a shifter and probably what type even. A second later, he sat in the back seat of the SUV as a honey badger, barely suppressing the urge to tear the car seats apart to let out some of the suppressed anger. The true target wasn’t in the vehicle though. He banked the fire, saving it for the woman who had earned it.
I need you to stay at the pack house, Riordan told Daniel once he settled, his words just between the two of them.
“No way,” Daniel immediately objected, “I’m not letting you do this alone. You are gambling all of us on this, you know!”
Ah, Riordan huffed wryly, That’s true. I can’t expect you to trust me to be able to handle this. I know I’ve fucked up-
“Damn it, Rior, that’s not what I meant!” Daniel was incised and ranting, hands gesticulating wildly in the air between them. “I just mean that you aren’t allowed to shut me out! I’m not sitting back at base, biting my nails, while you risk your soul and mine and everything all at once. I want to help. I can help, I swear!”
Oh. That startled Riordan, though it really shouldn’t have. He’d been too lost in his own self-absorption to remember that Daniel would be feeling just as benched with the stay at home orders they had been under. Worse, in fact, since he couldn’t even do the research and data crunching he’d helped Riordan with on his own. And Daniel would have been damned good at that job. Still, Riordan rallied his thoughts and tried again. That wasn’t what I had meant either.
Daniel paused, his expression wary as if he wasn’t sure whether to keep pressing his point or if Riordan really got it. “What did you mean then?”
You proved it when you led Mark and Zeren to me in the spirit realm. You are my backup that can find me anywhere. If the rest of the tracking fails, then you and Quinn and Agent Ahlgren can put something together to relocate me, Riordan explained, pacing the back seat as a badger, making pinpoint turns in the confining space. It might mean you are jumping into a trap, but I know that you would jump anyway when this much is on the line, for the same reasons you are demanding to go with me now. If you could port to Quinn as easily as you pop in on me, I’d love to have you along, but you need to find Quinn on the physical plane the old fashioned way. You can find me later the easy way.
“That… makes sense,” Daniel reluctantly allowed. “Damn it. I still don’t like it. I don’t like leaving you alone with only a bespelled shifter as your support as he delivers you into the snake’s den.”
Riordan paused his pacing, going to where his friend floated and nudging his nose at the center of Daniel’s chest. He got a cold chill on his snout for his trouble that made him wrinkle his nose and huff, but he hoped that Daniel felt the pack bond there as strongly as Riordan did.
I’m not alone. You’ll come for me. Riordan thought at his friend, not letting Daniel look away from his own black gaze. Willing him to believe in himself the way Riordan did.
He must have managed to convey some measure of it because the fight left Daniel, even as the determination firmed up. It was a readiness to act instead of a tension that wound a person up too tight to move. That difference was the edge between life and death on more than one mission. Daniel looked away and then back, his eyes fierce and blazing in his grayscale translucent face.
“Damn straight. You don’t have my permission to die either.”
Understood, Riordan thought ruefully. He wasn’t used to being part of a team anymore, but somehow, here he was. He wasn’t going to take it for granted. See you on the flip side, Daniel.
The ghost hesitated for just a second more, but then Daniel nodded. “Yeah. See you soon, Rior.”
Then he stopped moving along with Riordan and the car passed right through his body, leaving Riordan alone in the back seat. He braced his front legs against the back of the seat and peered through the rear window, watching the gray ghost watch him right back until the SUV went around a curve and his friend disappeared out of sight behind the vibrant trees.