Waking up the next morning was about as unpleasant as Riordan expected. Physically, he was fine. Any issues were fully squared away by his passive shifter regeneration. Yet he ached all over, feeling stiff and tense, especially in his rope-wrapped left arm. Spirit damage was a bitch, even if it too was healing.

“Sleep well?” Daniel asked, sounding far too awake and chipper for Riordan’s just-woke-up mood. Well, the ghost didn’t get tired, so he had an unfair advantage in that regard.

“Fuck no,” Riordan replied, draping one arm over his eyes to block out the sunlight filtering through the window curtains, “I sleep like the dead these days, it seems. Badly and only because I’m injured.”

Daniel snorted, the sound a bit closer to Riordan, which was the only indication that Daniel had approached. “Was that a joke? I think that was a joke. You really must be dying.”

“Mostly I just don’t want to get up and face today. What’s on the docket, do you think?”

Despite his words, Riordan peeled himself out of bed and wandered over to the small cluster of toiletries on the dresser. He fetched another one of the ill-suiting sets of long sleeved t-shirts and sweatpants out of the drawers too, wishing he’d thought to go shopping for some more clothing in his preferred styles. He didn’t hear anyone in the hall, though he thought he could hear the sound of someone breathing in the even cadences of sleep in the room assigned to the agents.

Daniel floated along beside Riordan, keeping him company. “Agent Grumpy has been talking with the security dude the pack assigned him, getting a list of local police stations and cross-referencing it against the victim names and missing person reports filed at each. They also tracked down Kimberlee’s address, which gives them a solid point of reference for further investigation. I keep expecting the agent to pull out a map and pins to mark territory like some movie, but he hasn’t so far. Vera and Lucinda have checked in with them occasionally. Quinn’s still asleep and I haven’t seen Mark yet this morning. I imagine he’s still recovering after yesterday’s endeavors.”

“Mark doesn’t seem like much of a morning person anyway,” Riordan commented, absorbing this new update. This time when he entered the shower stall, Daniel stayed out of it entirely.

“You should have seen him sleeping at the motel. The kid tosses and turns and hogs the whole bed in his sleep. I’m not surprised he wakes up feeling like he fought a war in the night,” Daniel’s words were joking, but his voice was a bit wistful. Riordan thought he knew why.

“You like him,” Riordan said. It came out as a statement of fact, even though he’d intended to be less direct. Fuck, he was out of practice at this discussing emotions with friends thing.

He couldn’t see Daniel’s reaction with the shower stall in the way, but the silence itself was telling. Riordan didn’t press the issue, taking the time to strip down and start the water heating to the perfect hot temperature. He needed something to take the edge off his aches this morning.

When Riordan was almost halfway done with his shower, Daniel finally spoke up again. “There’s no point in liking him. It’s not like I can do anything about it.”

“He kissed you,” Riordan pointed out, “That’s already more than we would have expected for a post-death romance. I can’t say if hoping for anything would be wise, but apparently just because you’re dead doesn’t mean your life is over. Mark seems like a good kid.”

“And that’s another thing!” Daniel said, actually waving a hand wide enough to pass through the shower stall as he expounded, “He is probably still in high school and that might be just a few years younger than me, but I feel like a bit of a perv, which, don’t get me wrong, I apparently am, since I keep going all voyeur on you and him and probably any other hot male to shake their delicious bodies near me.”

Riordan rolled his eyes at that particular fit of melodrama. It was almost a relief to have such a normal conversation about something besides the death mages for once. “And yet, here I am, naked and wet, and you aren’t peeking this time. You like him. Plus, he’s probably at least as old as you. Shifters age slowly, remember?”

“Ah, yes,” Daniel drolled, “I forget you are a smoking hot grandpa sometimes, looking all fit and young like you do. Granted, Norris is an actual hot grandpa, if you like them a bit wrinkly. How old do you think he is?”

“Probably between a hundred and fifty to two hundred years old,” Riordan replied honestly, even if the question was likely rhetorical and the observations somewhat ridiculous.

Daniel sputtered a bit and then laughed, long, hard, and somewhat hysterical. Riordan could tell that it wasn’t specifically about what he’d said, but it had at least triggered some release of emotion from that tight bottle of hurt Daniel masked under his humor. After about thirty seconds of the laughter fading off into giggles, with some stops and restarting involved, Daniel finally sighed and fell quiet again.

“How is this my world now?” Daniel whispered, speaking to himself, and then spoke again, louder and directed towards Riordan. “How about you? Ever been in love, or at least infatuated lust, with someone?”

The question surprised Riordan. It probably shouldn’t have, given they had been talking about Daniel’s poor romantic prospects and the ghost likely preferred to contemplate vicarious options, but Riordan really never considered himself a subject for romance of any sort. It was his turn for silence, though in his case, it was punctuated with little sounds as he tried to find the words for what was in his mind.

He shut the water off and stood there dripping while he marshalled his thoughts. “I don’t seem to do lust. People talk about instant attraction or a desire for sex and it just confuses me. I’ve had crushes before, at least what I think are crushes, but never felt driven to act on it. Part of it was always just that I was married to my job when I was younger, so I wasn’t looking. My closest bonds were with my old pack. If I ever was in love, it would have been with one of them.”

“Really?” Daniel sounded surprised but thoughtful. “Are you ace? Or demi?”

Riordan snorted, amused and confused in equal parts. “I don’t know what you are asking.”

Before Daniel could explain further, the door to the large bathroom opened. Riordan could hear the new arrival yawning and shuffling into one of the toilet stalls with a sleepy “Good morning,” directed to Daniel. Quinn was awake. Or at least, Quinn was up and moving. Riordan quickly dried off and dressed, wanting to check on how the man was doing after some rest.

He intercepted Quinn by the sinks. The mage blinked at Riordan blearily for two seconds and then recognition sunk in past his muzziness and he smiled. “Good morning, Riordan.”

“How are you feeling?” Riordan asked, setting his bundle of toiletries and dirty clothing down on the counter beside the sinks.

“Mmm,” Quinn tilted his head, attention turned inward briefly as he assessed himself, “Hungover. Or something very similar anyway. Headache, nausea, dehydration, and I keep having this one muscle near my left eye insist on twitching randomly.”

Riordan frowned at this list, but before he could express his concern more than that, Quinn continued, “It’s not an uncommon consequence for that sort of death magic and an apt analogy. I consider death corruption to be the indigestible pieces of energy imprinted with the essence of another’s life and, much like lactose intolerance, it makes me ill to consume.”

“Lactose intolerance doesn’t kill you though,” Riordan blurted out, angry at the flippant approach to Quinn’s condition and then immediately contrite for his outburst. “Sorry.”

Quinn’s humor faded into a considered contemplation of Riordan and Daniel, the death mage taking in both of them. His thin hands fiddled with one of his many bangles and with the thick leather bracelet that held a moonstone. “Death corruption doesn’t kill directly,” Quinn reminded Riordan gently, “Except for the death of self or morality. Even in my case, I suspect that my methods will force me to vent the corruption into my soul before I absorb a truly lethal amount into my body. At which point, I shall go from being an asset to a threat and the Department will respond accordingly.”

Daniel piped in. “Is that why your partner is such a dick?”

Laughing, Quinn nodded. “Quite so. It’s his job to watch me for signs of me turning evil and to kill me if needed. Adam works hard to both know me well as a partner and to hate me enough to kill me without hesitation. I don’t envy him that task.”

Riordan felt cold to hear Quinn’s inevitable fate stated so bluntly. He growled softly, unsure why he cared so much already about this strange man. “Why do you let them use you like that?”

Quinn’s smile grew ironic and a bit wistful. “Because I was young, naive, and desperate when they first asked and then I was too invested in making it all worth it by the time I got wise enough. What I do matters. I might not have chosen this path, but my life isn’t a huge price to pay for the good I do. Besides,” he laughed, leaning back against the counter, his body language relaxed and open, “it’s the safer option. Whether I meant it or not, I’m a death mage. I manage my addiction well, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m addicted to magic. If they left me alone, the urge to be part of the greater mysteries of the world would overpower my common sense and I’d slip down the same slope as any other death mage. At least this way I have provisions in place for the end and good I can do with my addiction along the way, judged by more than my own occasionally clouded opinions.”

Riordan wanted to object to this morbid logic, yet he found he could not. Hadn’t he made a similar mortal equation when he chose to work as a soldier or mercenary, wagering his life for the greater good? Quinn’s bargain was no less valid, if perhaps more inevitable in its conclusion. And then there was the matter of magic.

“You were normal then?” Riordan asked, “Before becoming a death mage?”

Quinn began to sort through Riordan toiletries as he nodded, apparently content to waylay Riordan’s toothbrush and toothpaste for his own use. It was a strangely intimate thing, but then, so were the questions Riordan was asking. He let the temporary theft stand.

“I was very ordinary once,” Quinn replied. “I was a college student, studying mechanical engineering at the University of Washington. My introduction to magic was about as strange, sudden, and violent as your recent experience, with even less understanding. A death mage in the area needed a sacrifice and selected me. I fought back. I won. I got the magic of his death as a consolation, which was quite a surprise, let me tell you. The Department had been tracking the mage and arrived shortly thereafter. They offered me the options of life of constant surveillance, unable to use the magic now coursing through my veins, or a job as a magician, with a death sentence at some unknown future date.”

He put some toothpaste on the brush, not looking at Riordan yet, apparently lost in the memory. Quinn smiled though, adding on last comment before resolutely beginning to brush his teeth.

“The choice was easier then, when I felt young and immortal and awed, but I doubt I could have turned down magic regardless.”