The patchwork ghost had apparently been waiting for just that order, moving forward in a flash and decisively severing the magical threads. As they snapped, the trailing ends sucked into the stone, pendant, and bottle, each doing the magical equivalent of slamming closed behind it. The last glop of combined energies and smoke sat in the air before Quinn and then he inhaled deeply, swallowing that remaining bit down.

Immediately, the death mage fell to his knees, choking and dry heaving. Riordan was off the bed and across the room before he fully realized he was moving. A quick assessment found that, as bad as it looked, Quinn was still able to breathe fully and wasn’t about to pass out or die. However, his sickly pallor had paled further and the oily darkness lurking in his body roiled in a way Riordan could only imagine was incredibly painful.

Asking if Quinn was alright seemed pointless. He clearly was not. After a second, Riordan settled on, “How can I help?”

“It’ll pass,” Quinn gasped out, simultaneously waving Riordan off and leaning forward to rest his forehead against Riordan’s body.

Seeing that Quinn was going to be no help in providing a real answer, Riordan looked to Zeren, raising an eyebrow. The patchwork ghost shrugged sadly. “He’s going to be sick for the next few hours while his body processes the foreign energy. Even taking in a small amount of ghost matter in such a manner is ill-advised, but he chooses to do it since the alternative is to leave a permanent stain on this space, one that will likely soak up negative emotions and act haunted as the impression of death and ghost combines with psychic energy to manifest according to the collective unconsciousness. The best you can do for him is get him somewhere safe to sleep and try to get him to drink water and take a few painkillers.”

“Right then,” Riordan nodded to the ghost and then reached out to pull Quinn closer to him, steadying the death mage to his chest. Quinn made a strange squeaking noise that made Riordan frown down at him, but he couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong aside from the general malaise and the pale man’s worryingly low body temperature. All the more reason to keep him close since Riordan tended to radiate body heat, which would help counteract that symptom. Looking back to the other members of their odd group, Riordan asked, “Other than cleaning up from his spell, are we good to go?”

No one spoke for a moment and then Maudy jumped a bit, as if just realizing that question was likely directed at her. “Everything else is packed up, yeah. We didn’t have too much here, even between all of us. Someone just needs to gather up the magic supplies and toss them in one of the vehicles and then we need to sort out who is going in which car and if we should travel together or separately.”

“Agent Morrish and I need to travel in the same vehicle,” Ahlgren stated firmly. His tone made it clear that demand was nonnegotiable.

“I would also like to travel with Quinn,” Riordan said. “I can watch his ghosts in case something goes wrong, either with him or them. Plus, having a shifter to help move him could be helpful.”

“I can walk,” Quinn objected to that last part, though Riordan noticed he made no move to escape from Riordan’s hold. In fact, the skinny man snuggled closer against him, likely seeking warmth.

Riordan shook his head. He understood stubbornness, but was determined to win this argument, even if he wasn’t entirely sure why it mattered much. Perhaps because he had been sitting aside while Quinn worked, pulling their asses out of the fire Riordan made with his recklessness again and again already, and doing so at a cost to himself that could not be repaid. Riordan felt unworthy, even if his worthiness had nothing to do with Quinn’s choices.

Perhaps that was the other part of it. He saw something of himself in Quinn. Defiant and flippant and isolated at times, but both of them had the same stupid self-sacrificing streak that had them throwing themselves at problems headlong. It wasn’t nearly as positive of a trait when viewed from the outside.

Mark hopped up from the other bed, tucking the increasingly full notepad away as he started to pack up the supplies on the bed. He pointed Lucinda towards the tarp. “Can you confirm if that is safe to move? And if not, make it so?”

Huffing a bit at taking orders from her junior apprentice, Lucinda moved to examine the tarp and the chalk and herbs upon it. She didn’t touch any of it for the first few seconds, frowning and staring intently as she searched for magical residue. She turned towards Quinn. “It looks like a standard linked filtering setup, once I’ve accounted for the specific elements to be filtered and your use of smoke as the binding agent. Now that the contained solution has been fully separated, there should be no harm in me breaking the circles, correct?”

“Correct,” Quinn croaked out, his voice muffled and tired where he was nestled up against Riordan. “That’s part of the reason I made sure to consume the residue. Didn’t want it getting out.”

“Ah, that’s what you did,” Lucinda nodded, sounding enlightened, “I imagine it’s no more pleasant with death energy as it is with spiritual energy. You should definitely avail yourself of Riordan’s offer of physical aid, not that you seem particularly opposed.”

Of course, having Lucinda point out his general debilitation was enough to make Quinn want to prove her wrong. He pushed off from Riordan and then pulled himself to his feet. Quinn looked pale and nauseous, but he’d stopped gagging and wasn’t wobbling. Reluctantly, Riordan let the man stand on his own. He understood pride and dignity.

Instead, Riordan hurried to help Lucinda fold up the tarp, careful to keep any of the leftover spell components from spilling onto the carpet. She accepted his aid with a nod and took the tarp when they finished, electing to hold it herself rather than place it into the supply bin. Maudy was just packing up the last of those items as it was.

Lucinda and Ahlgren conferred a moment before declaring that Ahlgren, Quinn, and Riordan would go with Maudy in her SUV while Lucinda and Mark took Lucinda’s van. By this point, it was the wee hours of the morning and traffic was almost nil. Given that most humans were diurnal and possessed poor night vision, moving at this time of night carried fewer risks of being followed. On the downside, they were all tired and grumpy.

Lucinda called Vera to let her know about their imminent arrival back at the pack house while Maudy returned the keys and checked them out of both rooms. Riordan supported Quinn out to the SUV, boosting the man into the back seat and joining him there while Ahlgren and Maudy took the front. The ghosts clustered together in the trunk, watching them. Riordan heard Daniel asking questions of Zeren and Ingrid, mostly about what it’s like being a ghost and what threats he needed to be wary of with the death mages, but he was too tired to pay much attention to the conversation. What focus he had left was used for keeping watch, his partially shifted eyes piercing into the shadows beyond the pools of the streetlights but seeing no one around.

Maudy returned from the front office a minute later and then they hit the road, both vehicles sticking together for safety.

It was a weary and motley crew of mages and ghosts that arrived at the pack house over an hour later. They took the scenic route, backtracking and even using some unmarked dirt two-rut roads that only the locals seemed to know. No one followed them that they could see, whether human, ghost, or spirit. Norris was waiting for them when they pulled in, along with a rough-looking muscular man. From the way Maudy reacted to him, he was clearly a higher ranked member of the security team. He introduced himself as Billy Culver and informed the agents that he would be at their disposal for the investigation since he worked as a volunteer firefighter and had contacts in a lot of the local emergency services.

Meanwhile, Norris fussed over the lot of them like an old wrinkly mother hen and just as fierce. He forced Billy and Ahlgren to talk on the move once Ahlgren made it clear that Quinn wasn’t getting out of his sight tonight, because Quinn needed a bed even more than Riordan. In fact, when Quinn stumbled over the threshold into the large rambling pack house, Riordan came up behind him and just scooped the man up into his arms. It wasn’t like the man weighed much normally and he was even lighter to a shifter. He made a few weak protests that Riordan ignored all the way to the hall of guest rooms.

Norris assigned a room with two twin beds to the agents. Riordan tucked Quinn into bed, a task made easier by the fact he was still wearing his fleece pajamas. When he tried to remove the uncomfortable-looking bracelets and collar though, Quinn stopped him, shaking his head. Riordan raised an eyebrow but respected the choice. Those accessories were clearly part of Quinn’s mage kit or perhaps enchanted items. Forgoing comfort for security made sense in the current situation at the very least. Given Quinn went from danger to danger, he was probably used to it.

Indeed, Quinn was asleep even before Riordan left the room, curling up in a tight ball in the middle of the bed and shivering. Norris saw the same thing Riordan did and fetched an electric heating pad even before Riordan asked. Quinn clutched to the source of warmth like his new favorite stuffed toy. Ahlgren set the rest of their belongings in the room, staging everything for easy access in case of further emergency and then dismissed them.

Riordan was feeling a bit wobbly himself by that point. Norris led him back down to the same room Riordan had been using already and quite sternly directed Riordan to sleep on the mattress and to actually sleep this time, no mucking about with spirit stuff. Even if Riordan had planned such adventures, Norris’ admonition brooked no argument. Riordan looked around for Daniel, relaxing slightly when he saw his friend hovering nearby.

“Go to sleep,” Daniel repeated to Riordan. “And I mean actual sleep. I’ll come looking for you if it doesn’t look like you’re sleeping soon.”

“Duane--” Riordan started, trying to get his tired brain to list off any remaining concerns.

“Duane has been briefed and frankly can come talk to me if he needs to know more,” Daniel countered and then continued, “No one is doing further investigation tonight. Your report is already recorded if they need the information. You don’t have enough spare energy to help anyone out. And you do dumb stuff when you are tired. Even more than normal. Go to sleep, Riordan.”

Grumbling half-heartedly, Riordan still smiled slightly as he crawled into the bed and fell asleep. He barely appeared in his stone circle before he performed the gateway-opening spell to allow his soul to exit the space and finally get some rest.