Ahlgren set that discussion about Gloria aside and continued with his report, his gaze sweeping around those gathered at this dining table council. Vera, Norris and Billy to represent the pack. Quinn and Ahlgren as the agents in charge. Riordan… Was he here just because he was tangled at the heart of this mess or because he was representing the shaman that night too?

“I’ve checked the missing person listings at all of the precincts from Traverse City out past Cadillac, particularly any that were male and reported missing during the time window of the ritual and a few months earlier,” Ahlgren reported factually, his tone flat in a way that spoke of professional distancing, “I found some of the known victims from Riordan’s report, but also a number of other people who fit the profile and the time frame. I’ll provide that information to add to our lists as potential victims, whether those unknown ghosts who didn’t join your pack or people used for some other spell.”

That harkened back to Riordan’s earlier realization that the death mages had to have more victims outside of the killing tree ritual. Ahlgren and Quinn must have seen this before. This was their job, to stop monsters like this. He wondered if it ever got easier. The mere thought that someone would be okay with killing someone, draining their power, and then hollowing out their traumatized ghost to make a proxy staggered Riordan.

The root of evil was a lack of empathy.

His horror reassured Riordan in a way. When he stopped feeling horrified at atrocities, that was when he had to worry. Because that was when he was hitting the limits of his empathy. When he stopped viewing some group of people as truly human. He wondered if that was how his team had felt at the end, reducing people down to targets or a mission.

“We also cased out the Daughters’ properties, though there’s more to do there,” Billy took over from Ahlgren, continuing, “They buy up cheap houses in rural locations, mostly in Benzie County but likely a few in the surrounding ones as well. Then those are set up for communal living for their members. They will pair up new members with older members in those houses, making them feel really welcomed and giving them a built-in social network so the members don’t need to look outside the cult for anything.”

Norris chipped in, speaking grimly from his years of experience. Everyone listened closely when he spoke. “I’ve seen cults before. They’ll often start by making the new members feel loved and special, overwhelming them with welcome until their guard is down, even as they are isolated from their previous life. Then they start using tactics that make the members paranoid of the outside and afraid to upset the inside.”

Quinn nodded, swallowing his mouthful of food before answering. Mostly. It would have worked better if he didn’t keep taking small bites throughout his answer. “That seems to be what is happening here. I couldn’t safely scout their main buildings, though I think we’ve found their main community center west of Thompsonville, but their member residences had enchanted items like Riordan reported before, spelled to make them more open to suggestion and to raise their feelings of trust towards the caster. They had daily reports with lists of what they did each day as well as any fears or concerns they had, which could be used to shame or threaten members. It’s like keeping a highly personal diary and then showing it to your parents nightly to judge and pick apart.”

Riordan listened, fascinated and horrified and not at Quinn’s eating habits. He’d heard about cults. Everyone had, on some level. They weren’t illegal, but it was really easy for them to secretly do illegal things, protected by their own culture of exclusion and secrecy. They were the story that got shared, about how there was a group of weirdos living in a compound in the deep woods, or about that one person who got out and shared scandalous details, or from several murder cases not unlike what they were seeing here.

All it took was a charismatic leader, a compelling message that people want to believe, and a chance to be heard. Riordan could only imagine how much worse it could get when the cult targeted vulnerable people in domestic abuse situations, offering them hope and surrounding them with love and safety. And if the message included a story of miracles and divinity, how much more compelling must it be when the leader could back up their claims with real magic?

The reason more mages didn’t do the same was a history of witch hunts and self-policing in the western world, combined with the fact that mages weren’t all powerful. There were areas of the world that actually did have mages in prominent public positions, though they named them different things. The mixing of real magic in with the fake was honestly the greatest protection they had from being discovered and commodified. Even in America, not every psychic or stage magician was a charlatan or performer, though honestly, Riordan valued some of the mundane skills of misdirection and mechanical trickery over cheap magic.

To have a cult that had a charismatic magical leader and a smart manager was problematic, to say the least. Riordan didn’t think it made it more difficult to stop them, since this was likely to become a magical battle and they had more forces and experience there, but the clean-up was going to get messier and messier as it went.

The conversation had continued while Riordan was lost in thought, but he came back to it when he heard Norris asking, “You called them the Daughters of the Divine Feminine, but we’ve seen men in their employ. Do you know how that works with their philosophy and what their personnel resources look like?”

Ahlgren and Billy shared a look at that, probably some sort of law officer mind meld. Quinn, meanwhile, had begun to construct a fort of mashed potatoes, manning its heights with peas and setting up carrots to attack. Riordan considered that part of the hazards of having official talk over dinner. No one could manage to be fully serious when their dramatic speeches were punctuated with chewing. Quinn was just leaning into it. Ahlgren was the one to speak up, though he shot a look at Quinn that had nothing to do with law enforcement and everything to do with table manners. Quinn seemed unaffected.

Ahlgren’s eye twitched slightly as he answered, “There are at least two layers to that. There are male members of the cult and their roles depend on how they choose to embrace the cult’s philosophy. The ones who wish to be more feminine themselves are treated similar to regular members, but are small in number. The ones who wish to worship the feminine while being masculine are put into various servant positions. We aren’t sure of the extent of what they have those men do, but it could include the criminal aspects. There are more female members overall and they have an enforcement team, which we believe is headed by Helena, the second death mage.”

“That is definitely not good,” Vera mused, thoughtful and worried, “A death mage there would imply that they both use death magic to enforce cult rules and that their enforcement team may have magical support.”

Riordan added his own observations to that, thinking back to the encounter in Honor. “Helena was working with two non-mages and I didn’t see any active spells on them. Then again, they were just canvasing the town to ask questions and death mages don’t waste resources. It does mean that enhancements are not part of their standard fare, since I doubt hiding from other mages was a concern to them.”

“I really wish we knew what spells they had access to,” Ahlgren stated, tapping his fingers on the table and neatly stacking his empty dishes in front of him. Norris gathered them up and set them onto a third tray brought in for that purpose. “It would give us insight into both what we are up against and how they got started. They are way better educated than the usual death mage, but it has large gaps and they aren’t associated with any known underground magical organization. We don’t have any death mage networks operating in America that we know of. If this is the start of one…”

“Then we are in for some very bad times ahead,” Quinn finished Ahlgren’s incomplete sentence.

Riordan was reminded of Quinn and Zeren’s comments about a leak from the Department’s own records. Something larger was definitely going on, but this wasn’t the time or place to address that. Dinner wrapped up on that sobering thought, the members breaking out to their evening tasks with promises of more detailed reports to follow. Riordan took Ahlgren aside, Quinn following, to review the files that he and Daniel had put together that day.

Ahlgren was clearly surprised at the quality and organization of the documents, probably not expecting more than a simple transcription from Riordan. The agent had written Riordan off as a bit of an old-fashioned uneducated brute despite their interactions. Ahlgren’s mage prejudice towards studied casters clearly was dismissive of Riordan’s reckless and freeform approach to spells at his age and underestimated his intelligence as a result.

“These are well thought out,” Ahlgren offered a rare word of praise. Riordan chalked it up to surprise getting past his stern demeanor.

“I can’t take all the credit,” Riordan replied, “Daniel helped me sort it out. Between my experience with mission critical information and his with journalistic observations, we settled on this.”

Quinn was grinning behind them like a cat with a full dish of cream all over his whiskers. The death mage clearly enjoyed seeing his partner discomfited at the same time as a ghost was given due credit for once. Riordan knew Quinn’s partners were important to him. Since most people couldn’t see or hear the ghosts, it was hard for anyone else to take them seriously. It was amazing how much “out of sight, out of mind” still applied to professional adults.

“Well,” Ahlgren composed himself, pulling himself back to full stick-up-his-ass agent mode, “You and Daniel are assets to the investigation. I shall feel reassured to leave our new information with you to collate tomorrow.”

As much as Riordan hated being relegated to glorified secretary, he preferred that to being shut out of the investigation entirely. Between the truce he made with Vera and this task from Ahlgren, Riordan knew that they weren’t going to cut him out of the important stuff. Well, so long as Riordan behaved and didn’t do more reckless attempts to solve things himself.

Surely he could manage that, right?