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"Show me interrogation room 1," I said for a greeting as I entered the company's security office.

A section of the wall came to life at the mink's typing. The room it showed was stark, only large enough for a metal table and two chairs on each side. Damian was seated in the chair I'd dumped him.

"Now show me the entrance." A new section came active with an almost as start view of the glass door leading in and out of the building and three-quarters of the floor. The door leading into the lobby wasn't visible.

"Go back to when Jeroen arrived."

"Who?" she asked.

"Rat, within the last half hour."

She typed and a car visible through the glass door disappeared. I thought I saw flickers of movement beyond the glass, then a flicker within the entryway and a rat backed up until he was entering. The image paused.

"Fast forward until the tiger shows up. Not as fast as before, I need to see if there anyone with him when he arrived." Jeroen entered and cars, as well as pedestrians, sped by. Thirty seconds later the image was still again. No, a car drove by, but at normal speed.

"Why did you slow it?" I asked.

"This is right now."

"How did Damian get to the door? Was it fast to see him?" I knew the answer, but I didn't want to think about how he'd manage to be invisible.

"Maybe he drove in? The stairwell's door isn't visible, it's on the left."

"Isn't there another camera showing it?"

"No."

"Okay, then show me inside the stairwell."

"No cameras there."

"How can there not be any cameras in the stairwell? That's an access point. Is there at least one showing that door from the parking?"

She brought up a new view. "There's one over the door, showing people walking up to it, but as you can see, if he came along the wall from either side. We can't see him."

"Can you at least find him among the cars?"

"There's only a dozen cameras for the entire parking. That's hundreds of blind spots without him having to hide behind carts."

"How can security in my company be this bad?" I asked, looking at her irritated.

She typed and a new section brought up a message title 'security concerns' it was short and pointed out there were a number of problems with the camera placement. It was dated three months ago.

"That's about the time I hired you, isn't it?" I saw starting to feel like this was my fault.

"On the day. It's the first thing I noticed going over the system."

I let out a breath. "Things were still a mess back then. It must have gotten lost in the shuffle. For future reference, if I don't get back to you on a message within a week, poke me." She eyed my side, and I stepped away. "I meant figuratively."

She resent the message.

I thought about it. "You know what, talk to Martin, I'm giving you authority to make any changes to the security systems you think need to be made. The way my week is shaping up, I'm just going to forget about this again."

"Sure thing." She opened a new section and made notes.

"Turn the camera off on the interrogation room. I don't want any recording." With a few taps that image disappeared.

Reluctantly I headed to the interrogation room.

"No," I told Tom, who waited for me by the door.

"It's traditional to have two interrogator. I can play good cop to your bad cop."

"It's still no."

"Dent, the guy tried to have you killed. You give me ten minutes and I will have the guy he hired tell me everything."

I looked at him. "How are you talking with that guy? He's been in jail since the attack."

Tom smiled, and I decided I didn't want to know. "Go talk to him then, just make sure the police doesn't have a reason to kick in the doors."

I entered the interrogation room to a smiling Damian.

"I see you're going back to your roots." He indicated his surroundings. "It's very police station. All you're missing is the one-way mirror with your captain standing behind it, ready to interrupt you with a development in the case."

"You watch too much television," I said, sitting.

"I notice the camera is turned off, isn't it required this be recorded? To ensure you don't do anything unbecoming of a police officer."

I looked at it, to confirm the indicator light was off. "This isn't a police station. I could put a bullet between your eyes and so long as I dispose of any evidence, no one would care."

"I would. I expect being shot hurts."

"Not for very long."

His smugness was making shooting him far too tempting.

"You might be surprised at how much it takes to kill me," He said. "I'm surprised you haven't done it yet."

"I need answers. After that I might get rid of you."

"Alright, what do you want to know? I'm an open book."

"I doubt that," I grumbled. Fuck why did it already feel like was the one in charge of this interrogation? "Why did you just walk up to the door?"

"I've yet to find a way to teleport." He grinned. "If I could I'd have materialized in the middle of the lobby and enjoyed the ensuing panic."

I sighed. "Did you just come here to screw with me? Your men didn't kill me so you decided to what, come laugh at me?"

"That wasn't me."

"Right, if it wasn't you, how did you know I was attacked? I made damned sure my name wasn't mentioned."

"It's nice to be able to pay off the media, isn't it?"

I glared at him. "I didn't squash the story."

"No, of course not, just the part of it you didn't want made public. Trust me, I know how that goes. My family has a long history of it. But I'm not an idiot. An unnamed cheetah is attacked in broad daylight, takes down both attackers, with the help of an unnamed associate, killing one in the process. All I had to do was ask the neighboring business to see their security footage and here I am. How is the otter doing? He looked shaken by what he had to do."

"So you're smart enough to make up a way you could have found out. It's still stupid to come up to me and after that."

"Denton, if I had been the one behind your attackers, you wouldn't be alive for us to talk."

"You didn't fare so well the last time you came after me."

He finally looked less than smug. "I wasn't at my best then. Not entirely sane either." He gave me a smile that somehow felt honest. "To be honest, I was still that power-hungry teenager I'd been when I went after your family. All those years in that not quite alive state didn't help me grow up." He rubbed his muzzle. "The recent months of isolation were like a balm over me. I promise you, I am no longer that careless."

"Really? Then maybe you shouldn't have marked the guys you sent after me."

Damian smiled. "So they were marked."

Damn it, had I just provided him with information? No way. He was behind it. "Don't act like you didn't know. You hired them, prepared them so they'd have a chance to kill me."

The tiger took off his jacket. "Denton, I have told you. You wouldn't be alive if I had wanted you dead." He unbuttoned his shirt, and immediately I could tell he was marked. Starting under the collar bone he had no fur left. I couldn't help staring in amazement as how much of his chest was covered with intricate marks. This was nothing like what had been on Carmichael, or the others he'd used in the spring. He turned and his back was covered with as intricate work.

"I can take off my pants, if you want to see the rest of it, or you can take my word for it that if I wanted you dead, nothing would stop me."

My blood turned cold. I didn't know that magic, but from the little Fred had managed to work out with the books Arnold's people had found the more marks someone had on them, the more powerful they were, but also the more blood was required to power all of that. Where were all the bodies he had to have killed?

He as buttoning the shirt when I found my voice. "You're insane."

"No, I'm not. This was carefully thought out to maximize what I could do. I put each mark there myself, so they are perfect."

"You can't have done your back."

"Haven't you heard of telekinesis? Even Hollywood knows about it. That was the third mark I put in myself. That and a mirror gave me my entire body as a canvas."

"You do all that to yourself, and you want me to believe you're sane?"

Damian ran his hands over the metal table. "Denton, these marks are a demonstration of my faith as much as all the sex you have is a demonstration of yours. Would you really have less of it, just because society thinks you're crazy for spending so much time doing it?"

"I don't have to kill people for my faith."

"Ah, yes, of course. You believe they matter. If it's any help, those who provide me with power deserved what they got. Actually, if I told you who they were you'd thank me for doing your society a service."

"I doubt that."

Damian shrugged. "Regardless. To address your other point. The one about the men who attacked you being marked. You do remember there are other people who have a beef with you capable of marking them."

I went through the magical enemies I'd made and couldn't come up with one who used that kind of magic. "No. You're the only one sick enough to do that to yourself."

"Hardly. I am not the only follower of my god, although I might be the most devoted." He smiled. "My brothers have given themselves over to him, you know."

"One of them, sure, but why would they want to hurt me? I haven't done anything to them. I didn't even get to transport them to the Church, which was my only part in what happened to them."

"It's my understanding you played another part. One that got led to their fall from power."

"If you're referring to the help I gave Arnold, that had nothing to do with that. I just helped him find his missing brother."

"Arthur, I know."

"How do you know all that? I doubt they'd talk to you."

"They haven't, but they spoke in my father's presence. Aaron loves to brag about how they are smarter than he is. That young man is a little too full of himself. If you remember, I can drop in on my father. I've been listening to all that bragging. Quite informative."

"I thought that was because of the power at the Hearth."

"It helped, but it's a blood thing. And as you might have my connection with blood is much stronger now than it id for you under your god. Mine hasn't diluted his influence, with what really shouldn't be his."

"So you expect me to believe Arnold's fathers want me dead because I helped rescue Arthur? I don't buy it. Even if they wanted to take San Francisco back. My death won't help, and it isn't like Arnold is going to come running if I'm in trouble."

"No, I doubt their plan is that simplistic. Those two love playing the buffoons, but they are smarter than they let on. If they are targeting you, they have an agenda. Do you have anything they might want? Something your death would make easier to acquire?"

"I have nothing they want. I told you, I have no link with Arnold other than we now keep each other in the loop as to what's going on in each other's city, like every family Elder does. No, I think you're in league with them, you're a diver--"

"No!" Damian regained his composure. "I promise you, there is nothing, absolutely nothing those two could offer me that would make me work with them. Not after what they did to me, what they took from me. Denton, I want them dead. You cannot imagine the ways in which I wish to hurt and destroy them. I wish to ally myself with you because it makes finding them easier. That they are targeting you means they will eventually tip their hands and they will be mine."

"You think I'm going to let you kill them?"

The smile the tiger gave me was a scary thing. "You will not want to stand in my way when that day comes Denton, because we are not friends. I will not hesitate to remove you from my way if you try to stop me."

The buzzing from my phone stopped me from even having to try to come up with a response to that threat.

'Brislow, we need to talk now,' Tom sent. Really? He knew what I was in the middle of.

"If it's important, you can deal with it. I'm not going anywhere."

I opened my mouth to give him snark.

"Denton, you saw my body. No one here can stop me if I decide to leave. Go deal with this, I'll wait."

If he tried, we're find out if he was as strong as he thought he was. He couldn't kill anyone here so it would just be a question of forcing him to drain his reserves.

Tom was waiting for me on the other side of the door. "I need to know how long you were with the tiger when you talked in the park."

"Why?" what did this have to--

"Brislow, just answer the question. I know you left the building with him at four eight, the guard logged you going out. You came back at four-thirty. Was he with you for that entire time?"

"Most of it. We walked to the park, that's a couple of blocks away. When he left, I took a few minutes to calm down and went right back. So maybe the last five minutes I was alone."

"Fuck. The guy finally cracked. Don't worry, there's no traces of what I did that the cops will be able to find. He was hired over the phone. I had Longer slice through his phone's security. The call was from four twelve to four twenty-two. The bank transfer matches that, the kangaroo is working on trying to find who owns that account, but he isn't hopeful."

"So they were hired while I was talking to Damian. Are you insinuating he can't be behind it because of that?"

"Of course not. I'm just saying it's a rather precise coincidence."

"Which would support that he's in league with whoever hired them. He claims it's Arnold's fathers." I looked at the door.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure. He hates them. I mean really hates them. Whatever he endured while they had him prisoner he isn't forgiving them for."

"So he's behind it and just wants to use those two as a distraction."

I rubbed my face. "Except he made a very good case for me being dead if he wanted it. Something's not adding up here." Now I wished I'd recorded the interrogation. Tom might see something I'd missed. For all the experience I had dealing with criminals, he had an intimate knowledge of being one.

I wish I could see what Damian was doing now. Was he smirking, confident he had me where he wanted me? Fuck I wanted to shove a tracker up his ass so he couldn't sneak around like he had and surprise me at my very own doorstep.

Wait.

"Brislow, are you listening to me?"

"Give me a minute, I need to make a call."

"Denton, we need to--"

I had the name up and it was connecting by the time I had it to my ear. "Oscar, how quickly can you be in Denver?"