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I waited until I thought Damian was too far to hear before clicking the radio on. "Tom? Where's Eddy?"

"Fred is almost in the building," he answered.

Good, then he was safe. "Damian is heading outside."

"Yes?" the badger's voice went from surprised to pleased, "And?" How could he know what I was contemplating? How could I even contemplate it, but with Eddy safe, Damian could be disposed of; Tom wouldn't mind.

"I have eyes on him, Brislow. He isn't even trying to hide."

This would be so easy. It would prevent more death. It was the right thing to do, right? I'd had no problem emptying a magazine in Donald's face when he'd implied they'd be raping Eddy. I knew for a fact Damian was going to cause more death. The high power bullets Tom's rifle had could go through armor, they'd go through whatever protection the tiger had marked himself with.

I wouldn't even be the one killing Damian.

No, I'd just be the man ordering someone else's death.

"Fuck." I swore.

"I'm going to take that as a stand-down order."

This was going to come back to haunt me. I just knew it. "What's the status of the battlefield."

"They're still frozen, so we've been handcuffing them, they aren't--Fuck."

"Tom?" I heard the badger fire. I ran out of the door, Zee and Jeroen in tow. "Tom, talk to me."

"They just woke up. They're putting up one hell of a resistance now."

"Eddy?"

"Inside. He's safe."

"Then provide support to the others," I said as the badger fired. "I'm heading out to help."

"Of course you are. We have hundreds of enraged, jacked-up, guys trying to kill anyone they see and your first instinct is to run into the fray." The expected comment about towers and tying me down didn't come, which told me how bad things were out there. "Jeroen, how much combat training do you have?"

"I got some from the badger and the Jaguar."

"Then I want you to stay inside. I don't want you to get hurt."

"I can help."

"You already have and taking on a bigger fight than you can handle is just being stupid. Not one fucking word Zikabar."

"Me? My dear Denton, I would never."

"That was seven words Zee."

"But not one of them pointed out your own level of stupidity."

I kicked the door out, grinding my teeth at the pain it caused. The sound of gunfire exploded into the corridor. The line was still drawn with the twins' men keeping our people from approaching the building. That put me behind them, with their focus in front.

I motioned for Zee to wait and snuck behind the closest. I hit him in the back of the neck and while he was fighting to keep standing took his gun, shooting the guys closest to us in the leg. When the gun clicked empty, I picked up someone else's gun.

Zee stepped out of the building firing precise shots in arms and shoulders. Five and he switched magazine. We'd attracted enough attention the rest of the men here turned their attention to us. I threw myself aside as one of them aimed at me, I felt the pain in my air as I hit the ground and rolled back to my feet in time to was the man's eyes roll back in his head and he crumbled to the ground. Those still standing joined him.

"Denton are you alright?" Zee asked.

I nodded.

"What happened?"

I had my suspicion, but-- "Tom? Did they all drop?"

"As far as I can tell, yeah. Are they dead?"

"Can't your killer senses tell you that?" I replied, checking the closest one. "Alive." I pulled the man's shirt until I found the bleeding marks. "And cut off from their power source."

"So the twins are well and dead?"

"I don't think this is because of them, they were killed before this."

"These are their men," Tom stated. "Unless you're implying Damian was actually in league with them after all?"

"No, he definitely wasn't. But the way he killed them, Zee says he absorbed their power, I'm thinking he took more than that. He did cause everyone to stop fighting for a time."

"The FBI deer is here?" Tom asked. "Is he with his husband?"

"Really? In the middle of all this you want to know if Marcus is here?"

"A man can multitask," Tom replied.

Zee shook his head.

"He isn't here. You can see about getting him to fuck you when we get back to Denver."

Zee snorted.

I sat down and stepped out of my body. The men on the ground weren't entirely faded yet, but the magic they'd been provided with was dissipating. I looked for the threads and they weren't there. Damian had cut his losses, or he'd never intended on keeping them. They seemed like the kind of men he'd have used the first time he came after me, but now? Damian wasn't acting like the spoiled brat I'd met. There was a sense of refinement about him that told me criminals weren't people he'd deal with willingly.

I stepped back in and stood. "Is any of the Orrs listening in?"

"We are," someone said. "It's Alex," he added.

"Your fathers are dead. Damian killed them. Damian created chaos after that and used it to cover his escape. He cut the men loose so we have a lot of unconscious men here. How do you want to handle them?"

"There isn't much we can do. Even if the interference is over, it's going to take time until we regain control of enough agencies to handle them."

I looked at Zee. "Would this fall under the FBI's jusrisdic--"

"No," Alex cut me off. "I don't have enough control over them. There's no way something like this would stay with the local office."

"Just offering options."

The pause was longer than I expected. "Okay. Sorry for snapping. Still getting used to working with other people. We'll deal with them. If it means they get to run free for a while that's fine. Arnold is having his men take pictures so we can track them down."

"Can we help with anything?"

"Go home, Brislow," Arnold said. "You have your son, take him and just go home."

"Arnold, I can--"

The tiger sighed. "We don't need any more help. What we need is to not have you and your men underfoot while we deal with this. Adam had a few cars ready to take those still alive to the airport. He also let your pilots know you're on your way."

"I'm sorry this mess ended up in your city," I said, indicating for Zee and Jeroen to follow me.

"The old men were always going to come back here." Another long pause. "At least this way you were here to help." And another one. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." I was wondering who Arnold had back there pointing a gun at his head to be polite. He'd mentioned a Simon, but also that he was out of the city. I couldn't see any of his brothers doing it, and I had a difficult time imagining Arnold forcing himself to be polite.

Well, if he wanted us out of the city, that was the thing to do.

* * * * *

I held Eddy close to the glass. "Look, that's your city down there. Our city. Technically it's Max's, Uncle Max to you, but we're the ones who keep it safe. It's still a work in progress, but I'm getting there."

The jet shuddered, and I fought the panic.

"I'm going to make sure you fly, Eddy, that way you won't freak out anytime this thing does something weird."

"Sex to distract you." Colby said.

I covered Eddy's ear and lowered my voice. "No talk of sex around the baby. What's wrong with you?"

The naked armadillo rolled his eyes.

"And we're going to land in fifteen minutes or so, get dressed, unless you intend on parading your naked self in the airport?"

Colby looked like he was considering it.

"You are not parading in the airport. Put your pants on." The armadillo smirked and grabbed clothing off the floor. "And that's Uncle Colby. I'm thinking I'm going to keep him away from you until you're eighteen, I don't want him dirtying your mind with all the sex. I'm sure you'll find out about that on your own quickly enough. I might have to keep you off the internet until you're eighteen too."

Martin dropped in the seat across us. "He's Society, he's going to find out about it a lot sooner than that."

"And that's Uncle Martin, you know him already since you've been staying at his place. Have you thanked him yet? It's because of him and Max you're here. Those two are even more stubborn than your daddy."

Martin chuckled. "I'm serious Dent, you need to accept--"

"No, I don't. You guys have your way of doing things, that doesn't mean it's some god imposed one."

"It is, Dent, it's how He dictated things be done."

"I'm proof that isn't true."

"You're the exceptions that confirms the rule. You're a special case."

"How do you know? It isn't like anyone's tried stuff that goes against how you've been doing since the start of time. You guys are set in your ways."

"Are you really willing to risk Edward's not being accepted by Him, just because of your own prejudices?"

"If He doesn't want me son just because he isn't some sex-obsessed kid, I'll be happy to keep the two of them apart."

Martin sighed and shook his head. "At least we have time to get you to understand that it's for the best. Other than that, how are you?"

I looked around at the cabin. Too many people hadn't made it back for it to be cramped. Fortunately, my friends had. None of them showed physical signs of the fighting anymore, but I could see it in their eyes, the wariness. Being my friends had cost them.

"I should be the one asking you. You've only known me a year and how many times has it been now that I've dragged you into some sort of fighting for your life?"

"You didn't drag me into anything. And I'm fine. We all are."

I looked at the people again. No, they weren't. Maybe I should let them go? Damian wasn't done with me, and whatever he was planning wouldn't be pretty. If my friends got caught in the--

"You can stop thinking about whatever you are right now. I can tell you we're not going anywhere, not one of us."

I tilted an ear. "Are you channeling Max and reading my mind?"

"It isn't the first time you've gotten that look recently."

"What look is that?"

"The 'maybe I should spare everyone and shoulder all this trouble alone' look. We're your friends and we will stick by you through what's coming."

"That's what I'm worried about, Martin. Damian is--"

"On man. We'll deal with him when he shows up again. Don't worry about it."

My phone buzzed, it was Steel Link. "Jacob, how are--"

"It's Leopold, Doctor Merlin," the hyena sounded annoyed. "I'd like to make sure you understand that when I agreed to be on call, it was to deal with emergencies. At my age I need more of my beauty sleep than you kids."

"So they're fine?"

"Fine? They're unchanged. I'm not sure why you thought I needed to rush here to look over your prisoners, but their conditions is just like it was when you did the magic thing to them. I thought that was the point of it, so they wouldn't go and do anything."

"How about the marks? Is the bleeding bad?"

"Mister Brislow, please listen to me. Their conditions are unchanged. That means those marks still looked the same, I'm not sure why you thought there would be bleeding now, after this time, but there is not."

"Okay, thanks for looking them over." I disconnected in the middle of the hyena's grumbling. If they weren't bleeding, that meant Damian hadn't cut their threads. That meant I could find him.

"I don't like that look either."

"The 'I'm about to do something clever' look?"

"No," Martin said. "The 'I'm about to do something stupid and no one can stop me' look."

My grin broadened.