Riordan was both grateful and frustrated that Quinn took over retrieving Daniel’s body. He wasn’t in shape to shift and dig Daniel out, especially since that would involve digging a huge chunk of the hillside out or dragging a corpse out with his badger teeth, which was ill-advised on several levels. It was better to keep his issues vague in front of this group anyway, allowing for a general air of weakness to cover all his current ills.

Long fortitude kept Riordan’s eyes on the gruesome task before him. Even when the dirt had peeled itself back with a combined spell from De la Fuente and Ahlgren to reveal the still human form of Riordan’s friend, he did not look away. Nor when the summer-sweetened spell of old blood and rot hit them and Quinn became his spell to preserve the integrity of the body.

Nor when Mark turned away to puke his guts out on the sandy forest dirt.

Riordan had lived with death for a long time now, he realized. For such a long-lived creature, he had been dealing in mortality, and flirting with his own, from almost as soon as he could leave the den. He’d lived as a soldier, dealing death all too often. Risking his own death even more.

He was tired of the waste of it all.

And yet, as with his gaze on this scene, Riordan could not turn away so easily. There were some things in the world that needed doing by one mentally and emotionally equipped to fight. His temperament suited the task far better than the kindness of someone like Mark, so scarred and changed by his recent brush with human mortality, nor even the naivete of Maudy, who watched with a fierceness convinced the world would be just. And especially not the cold-hearted practicality of Heeren, who watched her fellow agents work without showing anything at all, her attention more on the living than the dead.

Riordan cared. That was his problem and his gift. That caring had led Riordan onto his current path. He had been unable to abandon the innocent and manipulated to the caprices of a murderer and therefore bore the burden of her dissolution, if not her death for once.

How strange his life must seem from the outside, all sound and fury as he thrashed against the bonds of reality, decrying the things that were as things that did not need to be. Or perhaps that was aggrandizing his actions too much. Riordan did not claim to be some sort of hero or saint, come to lay his life on the altar of martyrdom. No matter how much he seemed to love self-sacrifice.

Maybe he just didn’t think he deserved thanks for it.

None of Riordan’s musings served any true purpose, his mental ruts becoming well worn with repetition even as he fought to break free to new paths. The familiar drew him in, sheer inertia overcoming his desire to change like a cage of his own making. Bindings of the mind and spirit. Fear of the unknown. His experiences crushed Riordan, but he knew he could survive his current burden.

If he changed, would he be able to bear it? Would he become stronger, better, all the important things that fed his desire for change? Or would Riordan merely be crushed under the shifting pressures, change bringing new tensions to fatal weaknesses until he came crumbling down with the force of a building collapse?

Gods, he was in a morbid mood.

Quinn’s casting remained a masterpiece of efficiency, breathing death into Daniel’s corpse until rot peeled back and limp empty flesh restored. Still obviously a corpse, its mien no longer haunted them with their own mortality, with the knowledge that their meat, blood, and bones existed to one day feed the earth that had birthed them.

Body temporarily preserved, for Riordan could see the spell would only last until it burned through its allotment of magical energy before returning the body to the effects of natural decay, they retrieved a body bag which had been prepared for this task and loaded it inside. Mark rejoined them, his face tinged both deathly pale and sickly green with his reactions.

Riordan held out his hands for the body bag. “Let me carry him.”

“I can portal the body back to our storage room rather than haul it all through the woods,” Ahlgren said, frowning. “Dead bodies are far easier to transport than living ones.”

“No. He deserves better than that.” Riordan held firm to his stance, unwilling to accept a refusal.

Mark cut in, voice steady despite a slight roughness. “Besides, we told the local law enforcement we were here to retrieve a body. Walking out of the woods without one, only to bring it to a morgue later, would cause issues.”

Ahlgren blinked and then shook his head to clear it. “I’m sorry. You are correct.”

The body back weighed not enough. Riordan remembered Daniel’s weight when he lived and even shortly after he died. Even restored and preserved, the corpse remained dessicated and skeletal, leached of its fluids and gnawed by bugs. Riordan likened the loss in mass to the weight of a soul. The weight of a life lost and a ghost fled.

In the early 1900s, an experiment was done, weighing a body just before and after death. The slight difference, 21 grams, was postulated to be the weight of a soul. Despite being later disproven, the mental image remained steady. That there should be some physical evidence of such an essential spiritual transformation.

With his recent exposure to death and spirit magic, Riordan could say with absolute certainty that not all weight had to be physical to be real.

The trek back through the woods to the cabin passed quicker than the outward journey. Without the necessity of tracking his traces and with Ahlgren’s perfect spatial awareness, they quickly routed a more direct return path. Riordan lost himself in his own musings, though he kept an eye on both the agents to his back and Mark. The kid had transitioned from being overwhelmed to looking merely deep in thought. Riordan hoped the change was a good one.

Emerging from the woods near the cabin once more, Agent Creighton and the local sheriff both greeted them. A vehicle for body transport waited at the close end of the dirt drive. Riordan flicked a brow upwards, having not expected that. In retrospect, it made sense. The agents operated within the existing human systems far more than Riordan, or even shifters in general.

Heeren watched Riordan like a hawk as the medical technicians or whatever they were came to take the body bag from Riordan.

“Oh gosh,” one of the medical transporters muttered, “are they seriously just carrying a body like a sack of potatoes?”

“At least this body looks more solid than some of the remains they retrieved from around here,” the other replied.

Nonetheless, they brought out a stretcher to lay the body on and waited for Riordan to lay it down. At this juncture, Riordan found himself reluctant to relinquish it, his subconscious spinning theories of meaning about the act of laying down this burden, even though it was far too literal and a corpse became an empty shell without a soul, resonant with a ghost but no longer supporting or being supported in the manner of life.

“Mr. Kincaid,” Heeren’s voice sliced the summer air coldly. “Please set the body there.”

Riordan’s temper flared, eliciting a deep growl that made the poor human technicians step away. Quinn held up a placating hand to a subtly wroth Heeren and approached.

Leaning close to Riordan, Quinn whispered, “She’s worried that you want the body for death magic reasons, Riordan. You aren’t actually planning on creating a zombie or some sort of death talisman to influence Daniel, were you?”

Riordan blanched. Not because he cared what the agents thought of him, past them not having a solid cause to haul him off. No, it was because he now imagined that happening to Daniel’s body and it sickened him. Which was strangely reassuring as to the state of his soul, at least.

“Oh hell, no,” Riordan whispered back. “I’m just--”

He cut off and shook his head, unprepared to put his mourning into words. Instead, Riordan lay Daniel’s body down and stepped away. The technicians scurried forward and collected it, stretcher and all, before departing in haste.

It was done.

Riordan shook himself all over, as if shaking water from his invisible fur. “I’m done here.” He cast his gaze over the gathered law enforcement, local and magical alike, eyes hard. “You know how to contact me if you have further questions.”

In truth, Riordan hoped that Frankie would field any future interactions with them, but he doubted it would be that simple. Fuck politics.

He glanced over at Mark and Maudy. Mark frowned, abstracted and distracted, after the transport vehicle and its corpsely burden. Riordan wondered what images and twisty thoughts whirled through the apprentice’s mind now? He was getting a crash course in the practicalities of the darker side of the world. With luck, Mark would emerge from this trial as steel forged in a fire rather than as wood burned down to ash.

Sadly, Riordan knew the world was seldom that kind.

Heeren cut in before Riordan took more than a single step towards his vehicle. “We have more questions about your involvement in this investigation,” she said, “There are some gaps in the testimonies so far that I believe you might be able to shed light on. We are dedicated to bringing a resolution to this event, assuring that all victims are acknowledged and all guilty are appropriately punished so that there are no lingering threats.”

She spoke vaguely given their mortal witness, but the implications were poor enough that the sheriff studied Riordan with new suspicion. Riordan stiffened and looked back over his shoulder at her.

“What are you implying, Agent Heeren?”

The woman held up her hands in a fake surrender, her smile equally as false. “Nothing, Mr. Kincaid. You have been most helpful today. I trust you won’t leave town soon.”

He snorted at that phrasing. Like he could leave, even if he wanted to. Without the pack’s protection, the department would snatch Riordan up quicker than a snake strike. Riordan lacked personal power. Only his borrowed political power kept him safe, a shield which could be retracted at any moment if Riordan acted wrongly.

“You know where I’m staying. You can talk to my bosses if you need anything else. Have a good day, agents.”

Riordan spared a nod of thanks to Quinn and Ahlgren and left, his steps sedate despite the urge to flee the hungry gazes on his back. He might not like these games, but hell if they would see him flinch.

Once back at the pack compound, Riordan thanked his guards. “Thank you for helping me with this.”

Maudy sketched a sloppy salute and smiled a more subdued version of her usual grin. “You’re welcome. It was a kind thing you did there, if a bit gross.”

“Death is seldom pretty,” Riordan agreed, though his attention settled on Mark at those words, catching the apprentice’s flinch.

The young man seemed lost in his head. Riordan could only guess what sort of thoughts and images haunted him now. He hoped Mark remembered what Riordan had told him before. He also hoped that Mark would seek out his pack mates for comfort. Shamanistic pride wasn’t worth bottling up those traumas.

As much as Riordan might feel obligated to help Mark, he just couldn’t currently. His own emotions roiled numbly, leaving him drained and distracted. His mind turned towards Daniel and telling the ghost that this much was done at least.

“I’ll let Vera know we’re back,” Maudy said, pulling both Riordan and Mark back to the present.

Then the three of them split up, each walking their own paths into the long afternoon.