Riordan froze. Somehow he hadn’t been expecting that. Even knowing that Norris had left to go shopping for the pack, clearly taking a member of the security team for backup and probably grocery hauling, it hadn’t occurred to combine Norris and his stolid domesticity with the possibility of a cult attack. There was that feeling of great wrongness now that came with an attack on his home turf, even if the Sleeping Bear Pack wasn’t really his. It had been his base for now, and everything was going tits up fast.

“I gotta get going,” Mark said, hopping into the SUV, clearly awkward about what he was about to say, “I need to pick up the security team and get to Empire. Riordan…”

“I can’t come,” Riordan ground out when Mark trailed off. He nodded sharply, stepping away from the vehicle. “Understood. Go help them.”

Relief and worry washed over Mark’s face before the young man returned a nod of his own and started the SUV. He drove off a second later, leaving Riordan standing in front of the pack house, feeling alone and useless.

Daniel didn’t let Riordan wallow in that feeling for more than a second. The ghost peered after the SUV and then glanced back at the pack house, “We should go talk to Vera. She either knows less than us and needs an update or knows more and might need help.”

That gave Riordan a direction to move, his feet scuffing in the dirt sharply as he whirled about and marched back into the pack house. He hadn’t been to Vera’s office directly, but he thought he knew where it was in relation to the little office he’d used. Once he got closer, it became a moot point anyway as Vera’s voice rose loud enough to guide him the rest of the way to her door.

She glanced over at him when he knocked gently on her open door, but didn’t pause in her phone conversation nor wave for Riordan to leave. He took that as tacit if likely temporary permission to stay.

“That sounds chaotic. A brawl in the grocery store?” Vera winced at something and continued, “Ah yes, and a moose rampaging through the streets of your fair city? Has anyone--”

She cut off again, listening intently to whichever contact in Empire she was talking with. Riordan suspected that this contact wasn’t in the know about magic, or the bit about the moose would likely have come across differently. He knew Norris was a black bear, like Lucinda and Vera. Maudy was a moose though, he thought. And relatively young and inexperienced with serious conflict. He could see her shifting in the middle of a public grocery store if provoked badly enough. Norris, on the other hand, would downplay matters and try to draw the fight out of public view before he stopped holding back, to a degree determined by his enemies.

Riordan wondered how long it had been since Norris had been in a serious fight either. Likely it had been a while. He hoped the old man remembered to account for the new limitations of his elderly body. Daniel fidgetted, moving from Riordan’s side to next to Vera in order to eavesdrop better.

“They got away?” Vera breathed, her veneer of polite but uninvolved interest shredding more and more as the conversation progressed. “Yes, I know the county sheriff covers your policing needs and will investigate when an officer can get out there. Was anyone else involved in the brawl besides those out-of-towners? A few people at the grocery store? Do-- Well, yes, I imagine the moose suddenly storming through the store did make it hard to get details. Thank you, Margie. I better let you get back to dealing with it. Though, do you know what happened to the moose? Escaped into the woods? Ah, just as well.A moose can be far more dangerous to deal with than most people think.”

She hung up a moment later, setting down the cordless phone into its cradle with a pained sigh. Vera allowed herself a moment, rubbing her forehead and eyes and just thinking. Then she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and looked up at Riordan.

“Can I help you, Mr. Kincaid?” she asked.

Riordan met her gaze, unwilling to back down or feel awkward about being here right now. “I came to ask you the same thing, Pack Leader Hunt. Mark let me know that Norris and Maudy had sent out an arcane distress signal before he left to deal with it.”

“Mark’s already on it? Good. That’s good to know,” Vera didn’t seem fully relieved though and Riordan could hardly blame her. Just like him, she served her pack best by staying put here at the moment. She was their coordinator and their touchstone. If she was calm and apparently in control, the world could be burning around them and her pack would still trust her to get them through it.

It was a lot of pressure for one person, no matter how talented or long lived, but Vera bore it well, even with one loved one away dealing with a death magic issue and the other incommunicado after an attack. Riordan nodded, giving her what he could. “Mark got a call from Frankie and went to rendezvous with one of your security groups before heading to Empire. Frankie and Billy are on their way there as well, leaving Lucinda and the agents to finish cleaning up the magical mess at the border first before following after. It sounded like Maudy got out, even if that will need a bit of a PR clean-up, but no word on Norris yet?”

It was a sign of how many of her usual crisis teams were already out and busy that Vera nodded and confided in Riordan. “Yes, though she hasn’t called yet and that worries me. Norris might be lying low, but he’s also the sort to know I worry and will contact me when he can. All the pack bond is giving me right now is that they are both alive and in emotional distress.”

Riordan wondered about that. He didn’t know the limitations of the pack bond. He hadn’t been part of one in almost two decades and his current one was highly non-standard. And before that, his pack had been much smaller than this and they used the bond far differently. In a large pack like this, with mixed animal species and a strong pack leader with a mostly solitary creature, Riordan wasn’t sure what to expect as far as their capabilities and connection. Especially since most shifters didn’t learn to do much active magic, but Vera and Norris were both older and under Frankie’s influence.

“Is there anything I can help prepare to keep things running while you deal with this? Even if it’s just lunch?” Riordan asked.

Vera breathed out slowly, clearly pulling her thoughts off just the crisis to look at the bigger picture. She tapped her fingers on her desk and muttered before nodding. “Yes, if you could handle getting lunch set up, that will help. Something simple that keeps well and is quick to grab, preferably. We might have people going in and out a lot. I have more calls to make, both to the pack to start handling different aspects of this and to my contacts for information and damage control.”

Riordan accepted this assignment, as menial and dismissive as it felt. He’d suggested it because he knew how much routine mattered in convincing everyone that things were under control. Even when they were the ones being dispatched to handle aspects of the crisis, having things seem normal on pack lands gave a sense of security that was important. If he’d felt a ghost of it when Norris had gotten attacked, the pack itself would be rocked by that feeling, unable to perform their best. It was important, even if it wasn’t what he wanted.

“On it,” Riordan told her, stepping out of her office. He paused, one hand on the door frame, looking back over his shoulder, “Keep me updated about Norris and Maudy?”

Vera waved him off, already dialing a new number on her cordless phone while checking something on her cell phone, but nodded, “When I can spare a moment.”

It wasn’t much, but Riordan would take it. He headed back down to the kitchen, leaving her to work in as much peace as she was likely to get. He’d have to remember to take her own lunch up to her later. It would give him a chance to ask for the updates at the same time.

Daniel followed along, looking upset, confused, and thoughtful in equal measures. “What do you think happened?”

Riordan ran a hand through his hair and growled in frustration. “I’m not sure. It depends on the magical capabilities that were brought to bear. It would be really odd for this to be anyone other than the cult given the timing. It’s not like this pack has enemies just lying around and most magic-users wouldn’t do a fight in public either. Normally I wouldn’t be so worried, but these death mages have access to the most random selection of advanced death magic I’ve ever heard of.”

“Ah, yeah, that’s bad,” Daniel muttered, lapsing back into silence.

Arriving in the kitchen and considering cooking without Norris made Riordan unsettled again. Probably just as well that he was doing this rather than someone closer to Norris. He checked the fridge to see if anything was marked for lunch for the day. A massive amount of pre-prepped stew ingredients seemed to be the main thing in the fridge itself. The freezer had four lasagnas marked for dinner. Given a good stew took a while and Riordan wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing, even with Daniel to bounce ideas off of, he got the stew started before searching further.

In the end, the stew, a salad, and platters of cut fruit, cheese, and vegetables made up the lunch buffet. If there was more earmarked for this meal, Riordan wasn’t sure. After the buffet was sorted, Riordan took the time to make some lunch grab bags, just in case. He substituted sandwiches for the stew in those, writing the sandwich type on the outside of the paper bags in sharpie. Checking the clock, Riordan realized that lunch was done a bit earlier than normal, given how Norris usually ran everything and Riordan’s own inexperience. That made sense, given Norris had still been out shopping.

Still, it wasn’t going to go bad that fast. He put covers over the platters and the salad and let the stew bubble on low heat on the stove. With the two big pots, it wouldn’t hurt the stew any, just making everything inside more tender. Or so Riordan hoped. It had tasted fine to him when he’d tried it, if probably under spiced and undercooked.

As Riordan started to put together a snack-style lunch for Vera, something she could take quick bites of between calls, the door into the dining room opened.

“Lunch is ready,” he called, attention busy with the different containers as he piled up the plate for Vera. “Help yourself.”

“What’s he doing here?” Daniel asked from beside Riordan, looking towards the door.

That wasn’t reassuring given the day they’d been having. Riordan spun around to face the dining room and spotted Billy Culver standing just inside the door, staring towards Riordan with a peculiar expression on his face. The man was shadowed by the open door behind him, summer sunlight streaming in brightly, but his stance was solid and unyielding.

“Billy?” Riordan asked, carefully putting down the bits of food he’d been holding, “What are you doing here? Last I’d heard, you were heading to Empire with Frankie.”

“You need to come with me,” Billy said flatly, offering no further explanation and not even acknowledging Riordan’s question.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on. You know why I’m not supposed to leave,” Riordan challenged. He slid a knife out of the chopping block next to him, not even trying to be subtle about it. He held the blade down by his side in a neutral combat stance. He could move from neutral to an attack in a split second, especially when he took half a step forward to have stronger footing. “Unless you’ve got a damn good reason. Where’s Frankie?”

“Frankie’s in Empire. You need to come with me,” Billy commanded again, his eyes just as flat as his voice. He didn’t outwardly react to Riordan’s display of aggression, still standing neutrally by the door.

“I don’t think so,” Riordan replied slowly, trying to figure out what was going on. The only magic he saw on Billy was the man’s natural shifter affinity, especially with the whole of the kitchen space between them, but whatever was going on wasn’t right. It didn’t match what little he knew of the man. “I’m fine right here, thanks.”

“If you don’t come with me now, people are going to start dying,” Billy said, unsheathing a combat knife from his belt. Riordan’s own blade came up in a guard and he took two quick steps to get more space to move or fight.

Then Billy did what Riordan least expected, putting the knife to his own throat, his expression and tone just as flat as he said, “Starting with me.”