Paul looked back over at me. “He’s my bodyguard.” The sudden look of stunned realization that swept over his face was almost comical in its unabashed extreme. “Oh my god. He saved my life.”

I sat back on my heels and processed all he’d told me. According to Paul, neither of these two were arcane practitioners, though I knew he could easily be lying. Fortunately, I had a Mzatal-shaped lie detector, and as soon as he wasn’t otherwise occupied in major tissue and organ repair, I’d ask him to assess Paul and find out for sure.

But if Paul was telling the truth, and Thatcher wasn’t a summoner, then why on earth did Tracy have a bodyguard’s name in his journal? Maybe he’d planned on hiring one? Maybe Thatcher had actually worked for him at one point? Only the man bleeding on the floor could answer those questions.

I abruptly noticed that the blood on Paul wasn’t all Thatcher’s. “Your arm is bleeding,” I gently pointed out. Looked like the bullet had scored his left upper arm after exiting Thatcher’s chest.

Paul blinked and looked down at the shallow wound. I fully expected him to freak a bit at being shot, especially after being so upset about Thatcher, but to my surprise he simply gave a somewhat distracted frown. “Oh. Yeah. Guess it is.”

I took a closer look at him. Now I saw that his nose was slightly crooked, with a bump on one side that told me it had been broken. A thin scar ran along one cheekbone, and another one cut through an eyebrow. He’d taken damage before, I realized.

Falling silent, I continued to weave support while I wondered about this pair. Why did a computer nerd need a bodyguard? And how the hell had he used a computer to trace what he called a “wiggle” to this precise spot and time if he didn’t know about the arcane? Sure, Tracy—and obviously Tsuneo—had tracked it, but they were summoners. More questions to be answered.

“Enough,” Mzatal said after a while, voice drawn and lacking its usual resonance. He lifted his hands from Thatcher’s chest. Raw, angry tissue sealed the ugly wound, and though Thatcher’s skin still held a sickly pallor, he breathed slowly and with relative ease.

Blue-green potency flared on Mzatal’s hands as he burned the blood cleanly away. I felt his profound exhaustion, but there was no more I could do for him at this point except worry. I reached for his hand. He took it, gave it a soft squeeze, conveying reassurance, affection, and gratitude in the simple gesture.

“Is he going to be okay?” Paul asked, face twisted with concern.

Mzatal met the young man’s eyes, remained silent for several heartbeats before answering. “He will recover, Paul Ortiz,” he told him. “Now breathe.”

Paul drew in a ragged breath and gazed up at Mzatal in utter awe.

The side door creaked as Ryan entered. He swept his gaze around the warehouse, taking it all in. His eyes briefly met mine before moving on to rest on the corpse, and I watched the emotions crawl over his face as the implications hit home. Mzatal had killed a man, and now Ryan, a federal agent, was expected to help cover it up. Ryan had dealt with a lot of grey areas in the past year, including faking a story about the death of Tracy Gordon. But this crossed another line.

Yet when his eyes returned to mine, they offered reassurance. It reminded me of the old saw, “A friend will help you move. A best friend will help you move bodies.” This was a horrible scenario fraught with all sorts of issues, but at the end of the day I knew he’d help me clean up the mess we were in.

I stood, legs a little shaky from managing the support for so long. “We need to get these two back to the house,” I told Ryan with a nod toward Paul and Thatcher. “And take care of . . .” I gestured toward Tito.

He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Right. Zack gave me a summary in his text. I’m thinking.”

“Wait. House?” Paul scrambled to his feet to stare at me in horror. “What house? I can’t go!” Terror suddenly flooded his face for no reason I could pinpoint. “We can’t go,” he gasped, then fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his phone. “We can’t go! Oh, god. I need . . . I need to make a call!”

“No!” I lunged to grab his arm. “No. Paul, please, you have to trust me. Your friend needs more care.” I searched his face. Sweat dotted his upper lip, and his breath came in short panicked gasps. “And you’re somewhere you don’t want to be,” I said. I hadn’t forgotten what he’d said to Thatcher when he thought the man was dying: I can’t take it there without you! I can’t stay there without you. I can’t do it. I’ll die.

“Let us help you,” I urged.

All color drained from his face. “No. You don’t understand.” He shook his head and struggled to twist free of my grip. “Please,” he said, voice breaking. “I need to call.”

My skin prickled at the odd fervency in his voice. I glanced over at Mzatal to see him regarding the young man with narrow-eyed intensity. “Why?” I asked Paul. “Why do you need to call?”

“I j-just do,” he said. I felt a tremble go through him. “It’s where we need to be.”

I stared at him in confusion. “What will happen if you don’t call?”

He gulped and cast a panicked gaze around him. “They’ll be looking for us soon if we don’t call in. I can’t just go with you. I have to get back. To work.” Emotions warred on his face, and I didn’t need to be a mind reader to know there was some serious turmoil going on in there.

“Who will be looking for you?” I asked.

He made an unintelligible response and pulled against my grasp. His eyes darted this way and that like a cornered animal seeking any possible escape, even if it meant off a cliff.

What the hell was his deal? “Paul, it’s all right,” I said as calmly as possible. Whoever “they” were, he had some heavy duty fear associated with them, and Mzatal would get farther by reading him than I would by pushing the question. “You don’t have to answer me right now, but you do need to listen.” I kept a firm grip on his arm and turned him to face me more. “Thatcher is still in bad shape. If he doesn’t get more healing, he’ll die. He needs to stay with us to get that healing.” I let that sink in for a few seconds before continuing. “I won’t keep you against your will, but do you really want to leave your friend? Or allow him to die?” Yeah, I was playing horribly dirty, but I only felt a little guilty about it. Okay, shit, I felt a lot guilty about it since it was like telling a kid that the bogeyman would take him away forever if he didn’t eat his vegetables.

His mouth dropped open as a look of undisguised horror temporarily replaced the fear. “No. No! He can’t die!”

“Then come with us,” I said. “I promise you’ll be able to leave whenever you want.” Or rather, I’d let him leave after I found out why he wanted to go so badly.

He drew a breath and relaxed a bit, and for a shining moment I thought he’d accepted the pure genius of my argument. Yet in the next instant he yanked in wide-eyed desperation against my grip as the fear returned.

I bit back a curse. “Boss, I need some help here.”

Mzatal moved to us and, without any preliminaries, gripped Paul’s head between his hands. Paul’s face abruptly went slack, eyes glassy as he succumbed to Mzatal’s influence. I released Paul’s arm and rested my hand on Mzatal’s back as he worked, offering what support I could. The healing of Thatcher and the potency strike on Tito had drained him, and it showed in his pallor and the lines of tension on his face.

Mzatal’s eyes narrowed. “He carries a pervasive influence that is not a direct manipulation,” he said. “It is insidious, as though he has been steeped in an energy that has contaminated all parts. Very different from conscious manipulation and challenging to clear.”

“Who did it? A lord?”

Mzatal shifted his grip on Paul. “No. His fear is of Big Mack.”