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Arnold took me aside while Adam led the others into the building. Tom glared, as was becoming his norm, but I convinced him to stand out of hearing range.

"That guy is lying to you," Arnold hissed, leading me to a staircase. "He can't be my uncle."

"He is, I checked, he knows things only Damian knows, stuff that happened in ways that couldn't be overheard."

"I don't fucking care what he knows. My uncle's dead. The old men had his cock and balls in a jar in their office. They took it off right before killing him."

"I know."

Arnold gave me a suspicious look. "Then you know he can't get who he says."

"He was brought back to life."

That cut off whatever argument Arnold was planning.

"Can that even be done?"

I shrugged. "Apparently so, although Fred said the amount of power required is on the level of Denver being filled with an orgy and having all that energy directed on the phrase to bring back the person."

"Is that a joke?"

"No, it's a theory. Turns out there have been a few cases of men losing a loved son that sent them into a craze to bring him back. Out of that there we got research and experiments. Fred's confident the theory is sound, but one of those that that won't be proved by us mere mortals."

"I think I'd have heard about an orgy that size, or even anything trying to reach that size."

"He claims his god did it. Yeah, I know," I said in response to the incredulous expression he had. "I had a hard time believing that, but I saw a few things afterward that make me think his god does take direct involvement in his life."

"You say 'his god' like he somehow switched side."

I shrugged. "He did, and it can be done, I checked."

"Okay, that lion can't know that much, I don't care how smart he is."

I chuckled. "Fred never looked into that. I checked with other people. It's just a case of giving yourself entirely to another god. It can't be done with us, because He wants it kept within the families who make deals with him. Other gods don't seem to be that discerning."

Arnold cursed. "Like I don't have enough to deal with already. Now I'm going to be expected to make allocations for his god with my family. Why couldn't he just stay dead?"

"Gods have little respect for what we want."

We reached the top floor and Arnold swiped his phone against the lock before opening the door. The noise of a busy office erupted out of it.

"Welcome to Orr Corp," Arnold said with pride. "A corporation dedicated to the improvement of San Francisco and the country built on the belief that family is the bedrock a society is built on."

I pulled my gaze away from the people, men and women, talking on phones and discussing what seemed like important matters, to stare at Arnold. "Did you just claim family is important?"

He sighed. "If I'm going to get my brothers to toe that line, I might as well make it the company's tag line." He led me to the back, returning greetings like he had to remind himself the people here deserved to be acknowledged.

"Women too?" I asked, unable to hide my surprise.

"Normal families include them, so yes. Simon made a point of that one when I was coming up."

"Who's Simon?"

"A friend of mine."

I almost tripped on my surprise. "You said that without any sneering, or undertone the guy is an idiot."

Arnold stopped and glared at me. He opened his muzzle and closed it, looking around. I tried to keep my jaw from hitting the floor, the tiger was exercising self-control.

When he spoke it was in an even tone just above a whisper. "It was your idea, okay? So don't act like it's such a surprise."

"I don't remember telling you to make friends."

"You told me to find men to fill the gaps in my knowledge. Well, unless you're blind on top of being an idiot, you'll have noticed the social stuff isn't easy for me. I brought in Simon to help with that on top of running the investigative side of my company." He paused, "and we became friends."

I snapped my mouth shut because the only thing I could think of replying was snark, and the guy was actually working toward becoming a decent person. I was not going to undermine that.

Arnold smirked. "No smart ass responses?"

"Too busy trying to figure out if the world is about to implode."

He chuckled. "While you're doing that, come on in and meet the rest of the family, officially this time." He opened the door, and we entered a room more akin to a lounge than an office. When he tried to close it, Tom put a hand on it, glaring as he entered.

Couches lined two walls, with Adam and Kevin the only ones seated on them talking animatedly. The other two walls were floor to the ceiling windows, giving an impressive view of the city, all the way to the golden gate bridge. A large table was off center. Closer to the door with a circular bar, with a bartender, being closer to the window.

"Everyone's wearing pants," I commented. Fred was at the bar, reading a book. Frank nudged him and they waved at me.

"You have no idea how much work that took." Arnold pointed. "That's Aiden, Albert, Aaron, Alex, you remember Arthur--" the small tiger raised an eyebrow before glaring at Arnold-- "and you definitely remember Adam."

"Aren't we missing one?" I asked.

"Anakin is with the mothers."

"Where?"

Arnold glared at me. "Somewhere safe. And I'm not telling you where that is."

"Got it."

Arnold stood before the table. "Alex, how about you bring our guest up to speed?"

The other tiger stepped up to the opposite side of the table and tapped it. "As far as we can tell, the Dads got into the city two days ago."

"Were they sighted?" Tom asked.

The tiger shook his head. "That's when the communications within the city went dead. Aiden's slicers are working on it, but someone threw in a potent program that's keeping all internal phone to phone communications from connecting. The commercial stuff still worked, clearly they don't want the rest of the world to notice what's happening, but anyone in the city trying to make or receive a personal call it getting a message about services being disrupted."

"Where do they stand on fixing it?" I asked.

"Not well," Aiden answered. "Our fathers recruited talent I never heard of to accomplish that, but we're not entirely deaf." He put something twice as thick, and a little more than twice as long, as my phone on the table. "Welcome back to the age of CB communication. Emerald hacked us again, but this time it was to let us know radio broadcast communication still works. I found this antique in a pawn shop and confirmed it. I'm having as many of them as I can found so we'll be able to coordinate."

"Like we have anyone worth talking with," Aaron said. "This morning half my gangs just up and broke contacts on me. Two hours later I was dealing with localized gang wars. The lions confirmed that the marks some of the deserters had are magic stuff, so I'm trying to have them captured instead of executed, since he says they're being coerced, but they aren't making it easy."

"I also lost contact with a little more than half the precincts," Alex said. "No violence there yet, but the chaos it caused means it could erupt at any time."

"Possibly not," Fred joined us at the table. "The book I'm reading covers controlling people, and if I translated it correctly, it seems that they can't get anyone to act against their nature. The gangs are going to war because, well, it's what they do, but on the whole, police is about order, so with the occasional officer who likes violence, I don't think you'll see anything big happen."

"It still takes them out of play," Alex replied, "And we need everyone we can get. The Dads brought in a lot of men with them. We had an influx of people over the last week we thought were just out of season tourists, now we think it was in preparation for their arrival."

I looked at Arnold. "So we're left mainly with your people?"

He shook his head. "I had anyone not working a contract scouring the country for the old men. The office is down to the bare minimum. Ernest has been doing his best to contact the teams, but Royal has been specifically cut off from the rest of the world. I expect they'll come back once they notice they can't call in, but we're looking at days at a minimum."

"There's been a handful of attacks on the hospitals," Arthur said, "But either my fathers forgot, or more likely never bothered paying attention to how I made sure they always had good security there. The attackers were subdued with only minor casualties."

"Not that anyone cares," Albert said, "But the museums have been untouched."

"Seems like a strange thing to bring up," Tom said. Some of the tigers were glaring at Albert. I noticed Damian was watching the scene carefully. He grinned at me when he caught me watching him.

"It means the attacks aren't personal," Albert replied. "Those two know how much I love museums." He indicated the others. "These guys think their companies were targeted as an attack on them, but it's strategic. Communication, defenses, offenses, medical. We need those to survive and win. So they crippled them as much as they could. They left the art stuff alone because it doesn't matter in a war. Same like Arthur's labs. They weren't touches. Or Aiden's music company."

"Or maybe it's because they don't think you matter," Aaron replied snarkily.

"The reasons don't matter at the moment," Arnold interrupted Albert's response. "The situation is that we have barely anyone, and they have their full troupes, reinforced by the men they were able to coerce away from us. That means we are going to be under constant attack for however long it takes to find them."

"I might be able to speed that up," I said.

"How?" Fred asked, "Whatever magic they're using, they can still shield against scrying. I called Oscar, and even he can't find your son."

"Yes, but all he has is a bit of blood."

"Which is about as potent a link as you can get," Frank replied. He smiled. "Are you thinking of doing what you did with Luis? Getting his lifeforce to call to you instead of trying to punch through the shielding?"

"I can't. I don't have anything of Eddy. I'd expected babies to shed a lot more than he does. But that isn't what I'm thinking about. You're right that blood is among the most potent, but we're not looking for potent magic here. We're looking for a strong connection. I can't think of a stronger connection between a father and his son."

Silence fell around the table, and in it Fred's groan sounded surprisingly loud.

"You are going to do something stupid, again."

"Not if you write this properly," I replied, grinning.

"Dent, we can't contribute anything to this phrase, it's going to have to be all you, and it's going to have to be blood, because to have a chance of punching through that shield you want to go with the biggest mace you can make. You do remember how the ward, back at Steel Link, felt when it was destroyed, right? If this goes wrong, you're looking at taking the entire backlash."

"Why don't you just follow the threads back to the twins?" Frank asked. "It worked well enough when you found him." He indicated Damian.

"I didn't have any kind of shields up then," the tiger replied.

"So? If I get someone's cum, I can affect him through any shield."

"This isn't cum," the tiger replied. "It's power, and it's power of a kind you aren't accustomed to working with. This is pure blood magic they are using. I wasn't even using that from the Hearth in Belize. It can easily make their protections one way. Power can flow out, but nothing can flow in. It isn't like they need their subjects to talk to them."

Fred glared at Damian. "You just want him to get killed. I haven't forgotten what you did to Frank, if everyone else here seems to have. Whatever you told Dent, I know your agenda involved getting him killed."

"That couldn't be furthest from the truth," Damian said, "but now isn't the time to waste time trying to convince you. And even if I could. It isn't either of our decision. It is Denton's, and I don't expect anyone here can talk him out of it."

They both looked at me and I smiled. "How long to set the phrase up?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Fred replied, exasperated. "You're, again, asking me to come up with something I've never done on the fly. For once I'd like it if you could give me a few week's warning so I can make sure there aren't any mistakes that will get you killed."

"I'll make sure to let whatever crazy bad guy who tries to hurt me through my family know to schedule ahead of time."

"How much of a long shot is this?" Arnold asked.

Fred sighed. "Denton's right that the link between him and his son is strong, but the twins have to know that, so they'll take precautions. But it's impossible to sever that kind of link, at least among us. The power He gives us ensures we stay connected to our sons. So it's just a question of figuring out how they might have done it, which, of course, I have no way of knowing, and structure the phrase around that. So it's something of a long shot. But from what I heard, it still the best one we have."

"Okay, what do you need?"

"Space. A large room. I might have to go three dimensional with this one." He looked at Arthur. "You're a doctor?"

"Yes."

"I need you to draw his blood, as much of it as you can."

"I don't have the equipment needed to preserve it."

"Don't worry about that, get me the bags you'll use and I'll put a phrase on them to preserve it." He pointed at me. "You need to drink as much fluids as you can, and have sex. I'm not kidding when I say writing this is going to come as close to draining you dry. You die on me and I am going to be so fucking pissed."