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I reached back to mitigate the fall, only I was standing.

"What happened?" Zee asked, voice shrill. "Where's Damian and his brother?"

We were standing in an empty black space, me, Zee, and Jeroen.

"We need to go back! We have to stop him!"

"Calm down, Zee. What are you doing here?"

"We don't have time! You don't get it Dent, you've been tricked, Damian never cared about saving your son."

"I know, he wants to kill his brothers. I can't say I care at--"

"Not even that! He wants to steal their power! Didn't you notice the blood?"

I chuckled. "Hard not to." I put my hands on Zee shoulders. "Take a breath. We have time. Magic, remember? How long do we have?" I asked Jeroen.

"It depends on how urgent what Mister Malhotra wants to prevent is."

"Malhotra Bodenman," Zee corrected, and I knew that if the reflex was there, he wasn't too far gone into panicking. I hadn't seen him panic like that since the vid calls back in his early days at Quantico.

"A few minutes shouldn't be noticeable, just remember this still passes outside, so we can't don't have the time for an orgy."

Zee's breathing calmed, and he looked around. "Where are we?"

"Some sort of mindscape Jeroen creates; it's his ability, he calls it privacy. No one can listen in, and time's stretched so you can have full meeting with celebratory orgies crammed in a few seconds of real life." I grinned at the rat. "Be honest here. How many handshakes between you and friends are actually full-on fucks in here?"

Jeroen blushed.

"So you have the time to explain to me what's got you panicking."

"As I said, Damian tricked you, nothing he did was about making up for before, or building a friendship, of whatever he might have called what he's doing. It was always for his own self-centered needs. He killed the church cardinal in Denver, as well as two other in the Country we are sure of, now he has other people doing it for him."

"Fuck!" I knew his family hated the church, they'd kicked them out of San Francisco after all, I hadn't expected him to and kill them. "Alright, after this you're welcome to cuff him, but how do you go from him killing cardinals to him working against me?"

Zee put a hand in a pocket, didn't find what he was looking for and patted himself down. "Where's my phone? I have pictures I need to show you."

"It's in the real world," Jeroen said. "There isn't anything here, not really."

"I am dresses," Zee said, indicating the bright green suit with orange shirt and brown tie. "As are you and Denton."

"Mental representation. This isn't some subconscious thing. Your mind latches onto the last thing you put on, just like that last song you heard tends to stick in your ear. In here your image defaults to that. It takes a conscious effort to change it."

"So I could will myself nude? Could I will you nude as well?" Zee looked at the rat speculatively. "How about change the way I looked?"

"You could, but changing others isn't easy, it's easier to just ask them to undress."

"Out of curiosity, have you considered working as a personal aid for a very well respected FBI Special Agent in Charge? I could think of many occasions when this ability would come in handy."

I began protesting. I didn't want Zee bringing magic into the FBI, no matter how much it would help him with keeping certain meetings secret.

"Oh close your mouth, Denton. Marcus is very well aware of magic. I am simply thinking about how exciting it would be to have a quicky in the office without anyone knowing."

"I'd see it," Jeroen said. "The best I can do is turn my back. I need to be here for the connection to exist."

Zee smiled. "I expect you would do more than watch. Are you a top or bottom?"

"He's versatile," I said with a chuckle at Jeroen's surprised expression. "Everyone in the Society is, even if some have preferences one way or another. How about I promise to discuss lending Jeroen to you later, and we get back to the matter at hand? You aid Damian is trying to steal his brother's powers."

"Yes," Zee answered, pulling his gaze away from the rat. "You said you noticed the blood."

"It's everywhere at this point, so yeah."

"Did you notice the patterns in it?"

I shook my head. "I was busy not dying of strangulation for a while, then making my way to the door so I could pull Damian out if needed or direct reinforcement if needed. That's when you came in."

"The basement team was able to trace those the symbols-- oh close your mouth, I didn't reveal anything. They identified those fragments among the other bodies. They were able to piece enough of them into a symbol that they rang through a cult database, as well as historical and 'para-historical' ones. Don't ask, I expect the world knows more about you and they others than you want them to, even if the world doesn't realize it's what it knows. They said that the symbol shows up at ritual sacrifices across the world and history, and they managed to cobbled together enough texts they believe the ritual was used to steal power from one person into another. Considering Damian's history of trying to kill an entire family line to gain more power, it seems reasonable to believe they are correct."

I rubbed my face. Fuck. "The son of a bitch. I should have left him at his brother's mercy. I came across this room while taking Eddy out. I considered just continuing--"

"But you are not the kind of man who abandons allies," Zee said.

"Yeah, now I wish I was. They had him sucking their cocks. As best as I could tell they were using the Orr influence on him."

"Shouldn't that be impossible?" Jeroen asked. "If they're using another god's magic, they shouldn't be able to use what He provided them."

"So I've been told, but these two are weird. I took an out-of-body look before barging in and the magic in their body is stretched between them. There's this thick line of power taffy running between the two and the gold of our magic and read of this other god, Sahataan, Damian calls him, flows freely between them."

Jeroen looked as confused at my explanation as I'd felt seeing it.

"I expect Mister Odinga will love to explore what that means."

"Yeah, not that he's going to able to study anything directly. Daniel's already dead. Our magic seemed focused in him, while Sahataan's is in Donald. But before we get back, something doesn't add up. You said they're using the symbol on church cardinals, why? What can Damian get out of people following a made-up god?"

"The targeted cardinals might not have been following a made-up god. Each one had marks on their body, nothing as extensive as the people who attacked you, but they were the same thing used. Seeing as I doubt your standard priest would bother with magic..."

"They were Gray Church." I let out a pissed off bark. "The son of bitches. They get all in our faces because we use magic and they do to? Oh I swear, I am going to rub that in Alice's face after this, let her deal with lies and betrayals from that direction and see how solid her soapbox of anger at me is."

"There might not be much of a Gray Church for you to bring to task," Zee said. "Damian's followers have been killing more and more cardinals. Eight bodies were found during my flight to San Francisco. Oh, Denton, dear, while I think about it. The next time you include my number among your block list, we will have serious words. I will not be sidelined if you or your family is in trouble again. Am I making myself clear, dear?"

I nodded. "Sorry. When word spread Eddy was taken every one and their fuck bodies started messaging me. Most of the Society hates me for my last name, but my son goes missing and all of a sudden they just have to find out what's going on. You shouldn't have been included. Sorry."

"Apology accepted. Now, why don't we go and stop Damian before he kills his brother?"

"How much time has passed?" I asked Jeroen.

"No more than two seconds, I'm guessing. I never checked the ratio, but you haven't been talking long."

"I'm pretty sure your entrance distracted Damian, so if we're lucky he's still in the middle of that. You have your gun, Zee?"

"Of course." He reached for his shoulder holster. "Well, I do outside of this place. This would be so less confusing if I were naked. I wouldn't expect to have those things on me."

"Way too distracting," I answered. "And without Marcus here, you wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Okay, I dropped mine when Donald grabbed me. It has half a magazine in, I think. You shoot Damian if needed to stop him. Use bullets, the stunner won't do anything." I tried to remember where my gun had fallen to. "After this, I swear I am going to form a team of people's whose abilities I can use and keep them around me at all times. Jeroen, we were falling, is that still true, did our body react to things while we were in here?"

"I don't know. I've never tested that either."

"Add it to the list of things we need to check when we get back. Okay. We fall, get untangled and I go for Damian, shoot him if you have to. We have to keep him to killing Donald. Take us back, Jeroen."

* * * * *

I hit the floor harder than expected, with Zee on top of me. Jeroen was rolling off, but my friend looked confused.

"Damian stop!" I called as I pulled myself out from under the deer. I found my gun, twenty feet away. I wasn't getting it before Damian finished. I ran at him. It was useless, but I still ran.

The tiger looked at Zee, Jeroen, and back at me. He smirked and shoved the knife in his brother's heart. I fought my desire to tackle him, to punch him until he admitted he'd done was wrong, and stopped. I couldn't take him. I was one guy without any offensive abilities, and he was a fully marked man who'd charged up.

"Why?" I demanded. "Fuck you, Damian, why?"

"You are under arrest, Damian Orr, for the murder of Daniel and Donald Orr as well as multiple church cardinals."

Damian looked at Zee, his lips quirking up, as if having a gun pointed at him was funny. He let go of his brother and whispered, "stop," before turning his gaze on me. "You can't be that angry at the death of the Gray Church's command structure. They've been a pain in all our sides. I just did what all of you should have done ages ago."

The earpiece clicked. "Brislow?" Tom asked. "What the fuck's going on in there. All the attackers out here just froze in place." Other people came in on the frequency to express their confusion. I pulled it out of my ear.

"That's bullshit. What about the power draining thing you've traced?" I indicated the floor. "This isn't about helping anyone other than you."

Damian's eyes flicked to Zee again and this time anger flashed in them. When they were back on me, he sighed. "I guess this part of our little game is over then. That's disappointing. I was enjoying myself."

"I fucking hope you enjoy being in a cell, because that's where you are going."

"I'm afraid not. Since I no longer have to maintain this charade, I have places to be, people to talk to, power to accumulate."

"Do not move," Zee said as Damian took a step toward the door.

"Denton, I would recommend you tell your attack deer to stand down, lest you want your son to be endangered."

"Don't you fucking dare threaten Eddy."

The tiger looked offended. "I'm not threatening him, but if you listen in to your colleagues, you'll find the fighting has stopped. Consider this my act of goodwill for the help you gave me, but it is my will that is holding him, should I be distracted by being shot, there's no telling if I'll be able to keep them from resuming the fighting."

I put the earpiece back in. "Tom, what's going on?"

"There you are, just what did--"

"Tom, fucking shut up and tell me what's going on."

"They all turned into statues, not one of them is moving."

"Fred's got Eddy, do you have eyes on them?"

"Yeah, the lion's making his way around the immobile men. Fuck."

"What?"

"One of them moved, he reached for Eddy, but he's frozen again."

I glared at Damian, who shrugged.

"My focus slipped," he said. Right, like this guy ever lost control of anything. "I'd suggest you resolve this now, Denton, before the strain becomes too much and the fighting starts again." He nodded to Zee.

I ground my teeth. "Zee, let him go."

"Denton, he will not stop."

"I know, but there's one gun among us, and I doubt bullets will even make him blink. The only thing we'll accomplish starting something now is put Eddy in danger and Damian will walk out of here, anyway."

The tiger nodded.

"Don't look so smug, Damian," I said. "I know what you're doing now. You're not going to get away with it. I'm going to bring you to justice."

"Oh, Denton, I do hope you try, you have no idea how much I look forward to seeing you attempt to measure up to me." He grinned, "it should be quite entertaining." He turned his back on us and walked out of the room.